Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly

by Conrad Wesselhoeft

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Epilogue

  Sample Chapter from ADIOS, NIRVANA

  Buy the Book

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2014 by Conrad Wesselhoeft

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.hmhco.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Wesselhoeft, Conrad, 1953–

  Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly / by Conrad Wesselhoeft.

  p. cm.

  Summary: “Seventeen year-old dirt-bike-riding daredevil Arlo Santiago catches the eye of the U.S. military with his first-place ranking on a video game featuring drone warfare, and must reconcile the work they want him to do with the emotional scars he has suffered following a violent death in his family.”

  —Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-544-23269-3

  [1. Video games—Fiction. 2. Trail bikes—Fiction. 3. Drone aircraft—Fiction. 4. Special forces (Military science)—Fiction. 5. Death—Fiction. 6. Single-parent families—Fiction. 7. Family life—New Mexico—Fiction. 8. New Mexico—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.W5166Dro 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013034542

  eISBN 978-0-544-28965-9

  v1.0414

  Remembering LWW

  “The future was calling.”

  Chapter 1

  KENYA MAN EXPLODES out of my phone:

  L.A. . . . L.A. . . . L.A.

  Gonna get my junk in play

  At the corner of Sunset and La Brea.

  I jerk out of REM sleep, level nine. Scramble and find my phone wedged under El Guapo’s ass, punch in.

  “Dude,” I rasp, “be right out.”

  But instead of Cam or Lobo on the other end, it’s some space cowboy.

  “Hello, is this Arlo Santiago?”

  Everything about the voice sounds like a jail door clanging shut.

  “Am I speaking with Arlo Spencer Santiago?”

  “Uhhhhhhhmm . . .”

  El Guapo—“The Handsome One”—arches his back and starts to hump me, his way of saying good morning. I shove him, and he tumbles ass-over-floppy-ears onto the floor. Then he pops up and grins at me.

  He’s always grinning. Humping and grinning. He’s the grinningest, humpingest dog in the world. Probably the only standard poodle in all northeast New Mexico.

  “Guess so,” I say.

  “Good morning, Arlo. I’m Major Keith Anderson, United States Air Force. How are you today?”

  I glance at the clock—6:55 a.m. Damn, just what I need, a recruiter calling me at this hour. Messing with my routine.

  I’ve polished my mornings to perfection. On the one hand, I give myself Maximum Sleep (MS)—sleep to the very last millisecond. On the other hand, once Kenya Man starts rapping, I’m up, moving fast. In five seconds, I’ve accelerated to Maximum Efficiency (ME). Not to say I’m totally awake; I’m not. But my body knows all the moves, how to cut the corners.

  On a blackboard, you can write it this way:

  MS + ME = success

  . . . with success being getting to school before the 7:29 a.m. bell.

  I have exactly two minutes and twenty-seven seconds to piss, slap water on my face, get dressed, and eat breakfast.

  But first I’ve got to deal with this tool.

  “It’s an honor to speak with a world champion,” the man says.

  I rub sleep off my face. “Hey, who is this again?”

  “Nice job yesterday on Drone Pilot,” he says. “You finally beat him.”

  “Beat who?”

  “SergeiTashkent, of course.’”

  Now he has my attention.

  “What are you,” I ask, “the CIA or something?”

  The jail door laughs. “No, Arlo. Merely the United States Air Force.”

  “Listen, dude . . . Major . . . whoever you are . . .” I roll out of bed and whip a T-shirt off the floor. “I’m running late for school.”

  “Sure, I’ll get to the point. We want you to fly with us.”

  “No thanks. I’m only seventeen. Call me in a year.”

  El Guapo leaps onto the bed and thrusts his shaggy hips at me. Hump and grin, hump and grin—only God knows the mind of a high desert poodle.

  “Arlo, we’ve been following you on the leaderboards for some time,” the man says. “Last night, we watched you knock Sergei out of the number one position on Drone Pilot. Sergei’s a superb UAV pilot, technically the best we’ve ever seen. And you beat him. That was extremely smart flying.”

  I clamp my hand on El Guapo’s snout. He freezes mid-hump.

  “Look,” I say, glancing around for my jeans. “I don’t want to join the air force.”

  “Arlo, I’m not a recruiter.”

  “Well, who are you, man?”

  “I’d like to invite you to join us for war games this Saturday at White Sands.”

  “War games?”

  I glance at the clock—6:57 a.m. Damn!

  “You’ll get to test your skills against real pilots—some of our very best.”

  “Hold up! If you mean fly real planes, uh-uh, no way. I have no idea how to fly a plane.”

  “Not a plane, Arlo, a drone. You definitely know how to fly one of those. We know that very well. It’s just like your game Drone Pilot. The difference is, we make it real.”

  “Dude,” I say, “this is way too much information. And I’m late for school.”

  “Sure, Arlo, I’ll check in later. Start thinking about Saturday.”

  Click!

  “Yeah,” I say, tossing my phone. “Peace to you too.”

  Then it hits me—it’s Lobo’s Uncle Sal again—our local joker and genius entrepreneur. Owner of the best coffee shop in town, and my sky-diving instructor for the past three years.

  Uncle Sal has a gift for faking voices. For some reason, I’m one of his favorite targets. Last time, he wanted me to enter a Rocky Mountain oyster eating contest sponsored
by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

  Lobo would’ve told him about my win yesterday. About seriously kicking SergeiTashkent’s butt, knocking him to number two on the Drone Pilot leaderboard, which I’ve been trying to do all year.

  I am now the number one drone combat pilot in the world—the virtual world, that is—until somebody kicks my butt.

  In video games, when you reach number one, your butt is out there, cheeks flapping in the wind, for anybody to kick—SergeiTashkent, ToshiOshi, IpanemaGirl, anybody.

  There are seven billion anybodies in the world.

  Just the thought of Uncle Sal . . . I start to laugh. In fact, I laugh so hard I trip putting on my jeans. Damn, I’m late.

  Dad walks in, all frayed, scratching, and barely employed. He taps his watch.

  “Ass in gear, Arlo.”

  “Can I have five bucks for lunch?”

  He winces, opens his wallet—puffy with poverty—and holds out three faded ones. Says his daily mantra: “Spend it wisely.”

  “Always do,” I say, and snatch the money.

  “Don’t forget,” he says. “Snack Shack tomorrow night.”

  Dad runs the concession stand at Rio Loco Field. It’s a huge comedown after running a newspaper, but, hey, it pays a few bills.

  “Who we playing?” I ask.

  “Jeopardy,” he says.

  “Yeah!” I say, and smack a fist into my palm.

  Jeopardy is one of the highlights of the football season. The halftime show is ten times better than the game itself.

  I dig two unmatched socks from under my bed and sniff them. It’s been five months since I’ve found clean, folded, matching socks in my top drawer. That’s one little difference in not having a mom anymore.

  There are many—many!—little differences.

  “And I want to get up to Burro Mesa again,” Dad says.

  “Not me,” I say. “You know where I stand on that, philosophically and spiritually and all.”

  “Overruled,” Dad says.

  I jam on my Old Gringos. Stomp ’em in place. Great boots, like great art, get better with time.

  “She wouldn’t’ve wanted a damn tombstone anyway.”

  “Not a tombstone, Arlo. A monument. Get your nomenclature right.”

  Five months ago—on May fifteenth, at two-fifty in the afternoon—Mom walked into the EZ Stop on South Main to buy a bottle of grape Gatorade and never walked out.

  Siouxsie, waiting in the car, heard the shots and saw the holdup guy run.

  Siouxsie’s thirst for grape Gatorade—and Mom’s swinging through that door to buy a bottle—changed day to night.

  No sunset, twilight, or dusk in between.

  Just—whomp!—night.

  Dad and I have a standing disagreement over whether to build a “monument” to Mom on Burro Mesa. He’s already sketched it out, bought the sand. Ordered a chunk of Bandelier stone “yay high by yay wide.” Written the epitaph, or inscription, or whatever you call it, a hundred times.

  It gets longer and longer.

  Then shorter and shorter.

  He’s never satisfied.

  Dad was a journalist for eighteen years, but he can’t seem to write that damn epitaph. It’s beyond all his powers of creation. How can he ever expect to finish a novel if he can’t write a frickin’ epitaph?

  Me? I believe the sky is Mom’s monument, and the grass and wind her epitaph. Burro Mesa is perfect the way it is, untouched by manmade shit. To the north, you can see deep into Colorado, all the way to Pike’s Peak. Look south, and you can see halfway to Mexico. Up there, it’s all space, space, space. Green, blue, and forever. The air just shines.

  Last summer, we spread Mom’s ashes along the rim rocks, mixed them in with the lilies, Indian paintbrush, and shooting stars. I ride up there sometimes with El Guapo. Watch him run amok and hump the herd while I sit and ponder. A monument would desecrate everything—like building a McDonald’s at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

  Kenya Man raps out of my phone.

  L.A . . . L.A. . . . L.A.

  Me, I live in C.A . . . C.A. . . . C.A.—Clay Allison, New Mexico, located just south of Butt Crack, Nowhere, at the intersection of mesa dust and tractor rust.

  This time it’s Cam. “Dude! What the—?”

  “Be out in a minute,” I say. “Kick it for me.”

  I grab a sausage off the stove, bite it, toss the rest to El Guapo, and shoulder my backpack.

  “Mornin’, Texas Slim.”

  Siouxsie—my twelve-year-old sister—sits at the kitchen table. Her hearing aids look like tiny fortune cookies beside her cereal bowl.

  “Put those in your ears,” I say.

  She doesn’t move. Maybe she doesn’t hear me. Maybe she does. I’m never exactly sure.

  I raise my voice. “And don’t forget to feed the mares. Remember, one and a half quarts of oats, not two. Always feed Big Z first. She’s the alpha.”

  Siouxsie rolls her eyes. “Have faith, Texas Slim. I won’t forget.”

  “Yeah, right,” I say. “You can’t hear a damn word I’m saying.”

  “You said feed ’em five and a half gallons.”

  “ONE AND A HALF QUARTS!”

  She stirs me away with her spoon.

  “And do NOT bring any of those barn kittens into the house again,” I say. “Guapo’ll catch fleas.”

  She clamps her hands over her ears. “Can’t hear a damn word you’re sayin’, Texas Slim.”

  Siouxsie’s got Mom’s go-your-own-way gene and nickel-hard stubbornness. Plus, she’s got another gene—some trait that’s popped up in Chromosome 4.

  At first, the doctors didn’t know what to call it. They hemmed and hawed, scratched and twitched, then gave it a name: Huntington’s disease. Basically, HD creeps like a glacier, neuro-degeneratively crushing a few cells at a time. Siouxsie’s main symptoms, so far, are stiffness, some loss of coordination, and some hearing loss.

  Dad doesn’t open the medical bills anymore. Just stuffs them in the drawer beneath the microwave.

  I grab my helmet and bang outside.

  Cam and Lobo are out by the barn. Cam’s revving my bike—my green Yamaha 250 four-stroke. Super-strong frame, which I’ve tricked out with heavy-duty shocks.

  I bought my Yam 250 in Santa Fe using my chunk of the life insurance money. It’s a little banged up and scarred, but a great bike. Mega-fast acceleration. Profound off-road and scramble capability. Able to handle all my abuse. Never wiped out or spilled any tools.

  Not yet, anyway.

  I mount up, pull on my helmet. Adjust my shades. Grind the throttle. Listen like a doctor to the thump-thump-thump of the engine. Dirt bikes congest the way people do—they wake up coughing and hacking. Grinding acts like a decongestant, but the best decongestant is the open road.

  Two of the mares—Queen Zenobia and Blue Dancer—stare at me from the corral. When I rev again, they flatten back their ears. They disapprove of my grinding Yamaha, and they disapprove of Lobo and Cam.

  Cam throws a leg over his Kawasaki KLX.

  Lobo, decked out in his “Ride Naked” T-shirt, is saddled on his Bandit 350.

  “Top of the mornin’,” he says over the throbbing engines.

  “Hey, I just talked to your Uncle Sal,” I say. “He wants me to join the air force. The dude is crazy.”

  Lobo nods. “All us Focazios are batshit.”

  The screen door slaps. “Good morning, Homo sapiens!” Siouxsie shouts from the porch.

  She wraps an arm around the post. Without her hearing aids, she probably can’t hear us talking, but she can definitely hear us revving—even the dead can hear us revving.

  Lobo lifts his voice. “Hey, how’s the prettiest girl in all Orphan County today?”

  “Hey, Lobo,” Siouxsie says. “Ride careful—and take care of Texas Slim.”

  “Oh, yeah, we always do,” Lobo says. “Don’t we, Texas Slim?”

  El Guapo barks, and we’re gone.

  Chap
ter 2

  WE ARE THREE BIKES SPINNING dust.

  My favorite time of day.

  A time of grinding engines and drone silence.

  Dew, dust, and desert grit.

  Grease smoke and sage.

  Pure testosterone perfume.

  Now I’m really waking up, New Mexico–style. The northern plain stretches purple to Eagle Tail Mesa, then all the way to Raton Pass and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains—the Blood of Christ, always dying for our sins.

  New Mexico paints this for you—the Land of Enchantment is more enchanting in the morning. The colors washed, torn, and bled, the slow-burning fuse of a sky. The thousand dusty shadows. I was born here, in Clay Allison, New Mexico, a scabby dog of a town that sleeps on the high plateau, snug up against Colorado’s mountainous ass.

  Cam, Lobo, and I cut across the back acres. Slip down into an arroyo and shoot up—sailing over the toppled fence—onto Lew Lopez’s property. We pass Lew’s squatting doublewide, his rusted pickup, weed-shrouded tractor, and unpruned pomegranate orchard.

  I glance to make sure the light’s on in his kitchen—it is. Lew’s somewhere in his nineties. A World War II vet—Iwo Jima wounded and decorated. He’s half Mexican, half Navajo, half Irish, half everything, which means he’s all New Mexican. And he’s all alone since Inez died a few years ago. A gnarled, shriveled man in red suspenders, turquoise bolo, thick glasses, and a veteran’s cap.

  “Arlo,” he tells me whenever I see him, “you boys sound like a swarm of bees a-comin’. Slow down or you’ll break your necks.”

  We swerve onto Lew’s access road and slow at the intersection of gravel and highway. Wait, as always, for Lobo to catch up. Then we open the throttles. The engines scream as we buck and rocket up the blacktop.

  This morning, the highway is perfect and dry. At Gobblers Knob, the grade eases downhill. There’s a semi ahead. Cam pulls alongside me and gives me the finger—his way of challenging me. I give him a thumbs up.

  We close in on the semi at about eighty miles per hour. Then we crank it. I glance at the speedometer. The needle jumps to ninety, which is as far as the speedometer goes on my bike. But speedometers are paper walls. You can break through them easily. You just have to know the road, the texture of the air that touches it, and how to ride the grade. A thousand little factors come into play, but you can’t analyze them. Analyzing weakens you. Too much thinking weakens you. The secret is to feel, sense, and react. Simultaneously. To trust your instincts.