by Rachel Kane
But when a guy did it, it was different. It left me feeling off-balance.
That doesn’t mean anything. He’s just a city guy. He’s probably not even checking you out, he’s probably standing there judging you because you don’t have good hair like his, or nice clothes, and your truck is twenty years old.
It made me feel aggressive, like I needed to establish who was the boss around here. Which was ridiculous. I was flying this man up the mountain, then coming home; it wasn’t like I was going to spend real time with him. Him and that ridiculously well-groomed stubble on his chin. So careful to look careless.
“You don’t…” began the guy. “Are you the one I talked to when I set this up?”
I shook my head. “You were talking to my dad. I’m Jacob.”
“Oh!” Suddenly a smile broke out over his face. “That explains it. Your dad apparently knew my uncle. My uncle has—had—a cabin up there in the mountains.”
He introduced himself, Eli, and his sister Amanda. Amanda still looked concerned. “Are you sure you’ll be okay up there?” she asked Eli.
“I’ll be fine, it’s just a little camping trip. People do it all the time. Right Jacob?”
I looked at his pack, which was brand-new. His hands smooth, without rough calluses. His face was unlined.
I’d give anything to be like that, came the unwelcome, envious thought. Like a blank sheet of paper. This guy has never had a worry in his life.
But I nodded. “All the time,” I said.
“And the plane…it’s safe?” she asked.
“I can show you the service records,” I said. I didn’t say I’ve been working on that plane since I was old enough to hold a wrench, but that was true too.
She gave one more fearful look to Eli, then reached out and hugged him. “You come back safe.”
Eli looked embarrassed at this sudden show of affection, and for the first time I felt a little sympathy for him. “Of course I will. And when I come back, I’ll have Ron’s magnum opus with me.”
“I’m going to give Mom and Dad hell while you’re gone, if that’s okay.”
We watched her drive off, Eli waving to her. “Shall we?” he said to me.
I looked down at his pack again. “You need all that for an overnight trip?”
He looked down at his feet and blushed. “I don’t know. I just got whatever the guy at the camping store said I might need.”
City folks. I shook my head. “Well, come on.”
“So how long have you been flying?” he asked, as I checked inside the cowling.
I grimaced at him. “Can you save your questions until after I finish the inspection?”
“Why, is there something wrong?”
I could practically hear Marcia’s voice in my head, You be nice to him. Don’t bite his head off.
“It’s just what you do,” I said. “Every flight, you check things out.” On my phone, I thumbed the checkbox marked Cowl.
“You’ve got an app for it?”
He really wasn’t going to stop talking, was he?
“Yeah, an app.”
“But like, don’t you know what you’re looking for, if you’ve been flying all your life?”
I realized he wasn’t going to leave me alone until he got his answer. I also realized that there was no use getting pissed off at him. By tonight, he’d be a memory.
“Some people keep their checklist in their heads,” I said. “But a few years ago I was flying a surgeon up the mountain, and we got to talking about lists. He said his surgical department is big on checklists—real ones, physical ones—because they cut down on errors. He said you can keep it all in your head, but it’s easy for stuff to fall out of your head if you get distracted…then you miss a step, and you really, really don’t want to miss a step, whether you’re in the air, or doing brain surgery.”
Eli blinked. “I guess that makes me a distraction. I’m sorry.”
Around his sister, Eli had had an easy confidence, but I could tell things were different now that she was gone. He was bashful around me.
I almost got the sense that he was still looking at me.
He’s just curious what you’re up to. Nosy, like city people usually are.
Except he wasn’t so much looking at me checking the plane…as he was just looking at me. Little glances, secretive ones. Again I had that sense that I was being checked out.
It made me mad. Confused-mad. That feeling you get when you like something, but you know you’re not supposed to like it, so you have to hate it, and you start to resent whoever made you feel that way.
I had to shake it off. There were more important things than feelings.
After all, I’d already managed to wreck my last relationship because of stuff like this.
I needed to get my head together.
“All right,” I said finally. “Get in.”
3
Eli
The interior of the plane wasn’t going to win any awards for comfort. It reminded me of Amanda’s first car, that ancient Horizon that always smelled like burning oil. No burning-oil smell here, though. Just the scents of machinery and masculinity.
“Don’t touch anything,” said Jacob.
“I wasn’t going to,” I said…then realized I had reached out to the control panel with all its little knobs and dials. It was so old-fashioned, it was kind of fascinating, especially when contrasted with a few electronic displays that seemed to have been bolted on long afterward. When he looked away, I touched my index finger to one of the dials. Just one.
I should write a book about pilots, I thought. Save up the memory of all these switches in case they come in handy. A dashing bush pilot, taking a handsome hunter into the depths of the jungle…
“So how did you—”
“No talking during take-off,” he said.
I scowled. “You’ve got a lot of rules about being quiet. It’s a little like kindergarten.”
He pressed his lips together and nodded. Normally my type of guy wasn’t the strong, silent type. Taciturn men might be good to look at, but you want to talk, you know? But I was in his space, and he was doing me a favor, so I shut off my questions and just looked around. Which was hard, because he looked so knowledgeable clicking switches and saying things into the radio, I just wanted to know all about it.
That’s the problem with being a writer, I guess. Always wanting to know more, putting it all in storage because maybe it’ll be useful for a story someday.
But not, I repeat not, a story about gay robots. No more of those for me. The poor reception of my last book had cured me of wanting to explore my feelings through science fiction.
I glanced at Jacob. Did he read? What did guys like that do for fun? From the looks of him, he mostly did chin-ups and triathlons. You need to stop staring, I told myself. Even if he weren’t just your chauffeur up to Uncle Ron’s cabin, he’s completely out of your league.
That was true. The guys I usually went out with didn’t look like Jacob. They didn’t have big forearms and that air of easy mastery of things. Jacob looked like the kind of guy who would always be fixing your toaster or changing your oil, just because he knew how.
That’s not a bad thing. Competence is sexy, isn’t it? Besides, look at his jawline. Look at his eyes. This is the kind of guy who could do your heart some serious damage.
Yeah, but that wasn’t going to happen. I’d never have a guy like that.
On the one hand, it felt like Jacob was going to take ten years to finish testing out the plane; on the other, before I knew it, we were rolling down the runway.
I know a lot of people are afraid of flying, but I’d always loved it. That first moment when you lift off the ground, it’s almost religious, isn’t it? That sense that you are about to be carried up in the air by pure physics, the very laws of nature supporting you in your climb.
But it’s a lot easier to feel that way in a big jet, it turns out, because on a tiny plane you hear everything, every sound of
the engine, ever tick and whir of the wing flaps. Suddenly it’s not just science lifting you into the air, it’s a clanky old machine, like your grandpa’s alarm clock suddenly leaped into the air. I looked down to see that I was grabbing onto my knees, my knuckles very tight. I had to consciously loosen my grip on myself. I looked over at Jacob, and was surprised.
He looked happy. I realized that in the brief time I’d known him, I’d seen him look annoyed, look intense, look thoughtful, but when his face lit up, his eyes playing back and forth between the windshield and his dials, I had a sudden urge to reach out and grab him. God, his face was so bright.
Of course then he saw that I was looking, and that smile quickly faded.
Damn, dude.
So instead I looked out the window. We were climbing slowly, and I watched the tops of the pine trees slip by underneath us. We’re on our way, I thought. I wondered how long the trip would be. I wondered how high we were.
This not-talking business is stupid. But after a few minutes of climbing, we leveled off, and he said, “Okay, I can see you want to say something.”
“Is it okay? I don’t want to break any more of your rules.”
“Accidents happen when pilots are distracted.”
I rolled my eyes dramatically and said, “All right, Dad.”
Damn. I was hoping he would take that as a joke I was making at my own expense…but he bristled instead, turning back to his instruments and leaving me with the cold shoulder.
Why was he so damn prickly?
Maybe asking him about himself would smooth things over. Guys loved talking about themselves.
“So do you come up to the mountains often? Do you go camping?”
He kept his eyes off me and shook his head. “Not as often as I’d like. My job keeps me grounded.”
“Your job? As a wilderness guide?”
A soft chuckle, but no smile. “No, that’s just my pop. He can afford to take people up.”
What is your problem with me? I couldn’t ask him that, of course. But I swear. It’s not like I’m the world’s most beautiful social butterfly, but for the most part, people seem to like talking to me. I have normal conversations with people. This guy, it was like his mouth was hermetically sealed shut.
But then he said, “Look.” And I thought he was about to make a point, but no, he actually meant look. We were flying over a lake, a small one in the middle of a clearing in the forest. The morning sun was hitting it at an angle that made it positively glow, an arc of light that seemed to follow us as we moved over the water. It was beautiful and bright…and for the first time I saw something like joy in Jacob’s eyes.
I could see it from his point of view. He wanted to just enjoy the world from this high vantage, without the intrusion of words and opinions and questions.
Also, holy crap, he is hot with that look in his eyes. Just thought I’d mention that.
Thanks, brain. I realized that already. I’d keep that to myself, same as all my little questions about the dials and lights and rules of flying and…well, everything.
Time to sit back and enjoy the flight, as we made our way to my uncle’s cabin. I felt a sudden rush of nostalgia, thinking of Uncle Ron visiting when I was little. He’d read to us, his voice like an actor’s, putting you into the story so that you could close your eyes and see what was happening. And now I was going to return the favor, by being able to tell his story.
And Uncle Ron, if only you could see this guy I’m with!
Yeah, I was filled with the sense that this had been the right decision. Amanda didn’t understand. This wasn’t running away. This was embracing the next stage in my life. Embracing being able to do something for Uncle Ron, in his memory, to repay the man who had set me on the path of becoming a writer.
What a glorious day to do it, too. Now we passed an outcropping of rocks—
The bang inside our engine stopped every other thought in my head.
4
Eli
I don’t know why accidents in the movies always happen in slow motion. The whole problem with disaster is that it’s fast. You’re not allowed to catch your breath, it hits, and suddenly your life has changed.
Yet there is no other way to tell what happened. To tell you everything, I have to slow it down. I have to unspool it slowly so that it makes sense.
Bang. Like a giant had come down on the engine with a great hammer.
Fear seized my chest. I knew you didn’t want to hear a sound like that while you were in the air. “What the fuck was that?” I asked Jacob.
But he was already reacting. Rather than his eyes being wide with surprise, he was scowling at the instruments. “Piston!” he said. “You buckled in?”
“Yeah!”
I didn’t know what a piston was at the time, but given the grim look on his face, I knew that whatever it was, it had caused us real trouble.
I thought about that lake just now, the clearing in the trees. Could he steer us back to that, set down somewhere soft and safe? Maybe we were closer to the airfield on the mountain than I realized, and could land relatively normally. We’d slap each other on the back, congratulating ourselves for our close call.
That’s when I realized how fast we were dropping…and realized there was going to be no time for fancy maneuvering.
We were headed straight for the trees.
I didn’t understand what Jacob was doing, but I realized he was our only hope for survival. His body seemed welded to the plane, his arms tense and shoulders tight, every move he made reflected in how the plane moved.
We couldn’t climb our way out of this; he was leveling us off, keeping our descent as smooth as possible.
It couldn’t stay smooth, not with the tops of those trees so close I felt like I could reach down and brush them with my fingers.
How did it feel, knowing we were about to crash?
I wish I knew.
I think maybe my mind shut off when the first tree hit us. Or maybe that was when I hit my head. If things were happening quickly before, they were only brief flickers now, happening so fast I couldn’t understand what I was seeing:
The wing no longer flat, but twisted up against my window.
Being upside down, Jacob’s arm slamming into me.
Branches punching into the windshield.
Blackness.
* * *
ARE ROBOTS OUR FUTURE?
The big red letters were as even as I could make them, the posterboard curling, threatening to fall over my science project display.
The robot of our future was made out of one of my mom’s shoe boxes, taped with duct tape for a sleek, silver look. I’d put in two Christmas bulbs for eyes, and an old speaker cone gave him a surprised O of a mouth.
My serious, careful handwriting outlined the many jobs which robots would do for us, including making our sandwiches, driving our cars, and walking our dogs.
I stepped back and took in the whole view, my heart swelling with pride. Now people would have to listen to me when I talked about how important robots were. Now they’d understand.
“Is that your little robot boyfriend, faggot?”
I froze. My hands found themselves balled into fists. If you ignore them, they’ll go away. Wise words from my father. The kind of wise parental words that never made sense and never came true.
Benjamin was the tallest boy in our class, and the meanest boy in the entire school. Those of us he tormented had many theories on why he was so evil. Personally I thought that there was a malformation of his brain, a problem with his prefrontal cortex that caused his brow to jut like a Neanderthal’s. I could imagine that thick skull being as hard as his fists.
“What do you say, Eel-Eye? You build this piece of shit to be your boyfriend?”
It would’ve been one thing if he’d said this in private. His grisly threats uttered in the boy’s room were terrifying, but at least no one else could hear them. But here, in the gym, among all the other students setting up their proje
cts for the science fair? Everyone could hear him, and you could see heads turning. People love a fight.
All right, Dad, how am I supposed to ignore this so it goes away?
I tried. I swear to god I tried to do the right thing, to brush it off, to ignore Benjamin. The corner of my poster was curling down again, and I reached out to push it back up.
He grabbed my wrist and spun me around.
“I asked you a question, Eel-Eye.”
“Leave me alone, Benjamin.”
“Ooh, leave meee aloooone, you poor baby. You gonna whine to your mommy that I was mean to you? You gonna tell the teacher?”
“I mean it, Benjamin. Go bug somebody else.”
I’d like to think I said it bravely. That would be a nice memory, wouldn’t it? Standing defiantly, chest out, shoulders back, barking a command at the bully who tried to torment you.
But no. My voice quavered like I was singing the saddest aria in the world.
I was scared.
In the future, robots will fight our bullies for us. In the future, robots will defend the weak.
“Benjamin Park, you leave my brother alone!”
I hadn’t even seen Amanda approach. Her own science project (”Will Potatoes Power Our Homes?”) was near the front of the room, far from mine. But she’d scented trouble, and come to my defense.
Now she stood defiantly, glaring at Benjamin. Her hands were on her hips, the way she stood when she bossed me around. I’d never felt so relieved to see my sister.
Relieved, but embarrassed. It was bad enough to be bullied, but to have to have your sister come to your aid? I’d never live this down.
“I wasn’t doing nothing,” said Benjamin. “Just messing with your little faggot brother.”
“You watch your mouth!” said Amanda.
“Oh yeah, you gonna make me?”
“Everybody knows you’re just mad because your dad can’t find a job!”
