Thank God for 9/11, he thought. The last thing I need right now is an uninvited guest crashing the party up here while I'm setting navigation. And here I thought nothing good would come of that day, just like nothing good can ever come from today.
He began aligning the inertial navigation systems and entering data into the flight management computers. Normally he'd be talking to the tower as well right about now, but he knew that wasn't going to happen. The radio was dead quiet. It gave him chills just to think about it. In all the years he'd sat behind the controls of an airplane, that had never happened. Not once. He'd be basically flying blind once he got off the ground with no way of knowing when another flying object might suddenly veer into his path at six hundred miles an hour. He wasn't all that worried about the take-off and landing so much as he was about the actual flight itself. Normally that was the easiest part. All he had to do was get above the clouds and level off. But today nothing was going to be easy and he knew it.
Knowing something and accepting something are two very different things, he reminded himself.
He ran through the checklist in his head as he fired up the engines and backed the plane out. He cut across the runway – breaking protocol – and set himself up for take-off.
“Last flight out of Hell-eh,” he said before giving the bird some throttle and launching himself up and over the ocean. The plane had been serviced and refueled the night before. He had enough gas in the tank to make it to London with ease, but he was headed in the opposite direction instead. He might be able to make Sydney if he felt like it, but he figured Waikiki would be far enough to be free of this mess. Once he got closer he hoped he'd be able to pick up someone on the radio.
“Free at last!”
He let out a whistle as the endless expanse of the bright blue Pacific Ocean rose up before him. It was a textbook take off, one for the record books. Most planes leaving Tom Bradley Airport in Los Angeles, also known as LAX, shoot out over the water before turning back to find their flight path across the United States. The exceptions were San Francisco, Seattle, and Hawaii. Today he was hoping to make it to paradise in one piece.
“The worst is behind me now,” he said trying to calm his nerves. “Five short hours of calm skies is all I ask and then I'm gonna need a big-ass tropical drink with a tiny little umbrella parked in a chunk of rum soaked fruit.”
He leveled the plane off at thirty thousand feet and checked his instrumentation. It was perfect. Everything had gone according to plan, you know, if you factored in surviving the end of the world as part of the equation. He looked down to see his filth-covered hand shaking uncontrollably, the veins bulging beneath the skin, writhing like living snakes.
It's just nerves, he told himself. That's all. You made it, man. You're safe now.
He exhaled and felt the stitch in his chest relax just a notch. There was still a hardness in his stomach that he couldn't shake – like any moment his guts might seize up into a charley horse. He let out a forced chuckle, hoping it would bring with it the joy and jubilation he thought he was supposed to feel. Instead, the creeping feeling of dread lingered with him. He couldn't shake it and he didn't know why. He'd survived the worst living nightmare imaginable, in one piece no less. He should have felt better about it.
You just need to stick to your routine, he thought. It will all come back to me. Give it a moment.
He took the microphone in hand to address the empty 747. He pressed down on the switch and heard the familiar bing.
“Good morning ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of what's left of the human fucking race, I'd like to welcome you to Undead Air,” he droned in his usual tone, fighting back a snicker. “I'm your pilot today, Edgar Reynolds. Unfortunately none of you made it out of Los Angeles with a pulse. We apologize for the inconvenience. This will be the last flight from the West Coast of the United States for the foreseeable future. We appreciate your understanding. It has been a pleasure to serve you. On behalf of everyone here at Undead Air we invite you to sit back and relax and enjoy some free in-flight entertainment. Simply look out your windows to see the worst shit imaginable as we pull away from the mouth of hell. The flight time to Hawaii should be about five hours, but I'm going to push this bitch hard so be prepared to experience some higher than normal turbulence. Praying here that the island is still inhabited by actual living human beings at this point and not...”
He let the word die in his throat...zombies. It wasn't possible. It just wasn't. He must have been dreaming.
Sandra, he thought. There was a bitter taste in his mouth at the thought of her, like acid on his tongue. She said that little pill was an Ambien, but she must have given me LSD on accident.
Even as he thought it he knew it was far-fetched. He wanted to believe it but everything was so surreal now. He looked out in the distance and saw the Catalina Islands floating on the Pacific like a green ball rising above the surface of the churning tides.
“Think, man,” he shouted at himself, trying to put it all back together. There were blood smears and ugly streaks of some dirty brown liquid still covering his hands and body, desecrating his pilot's uniform.
His job as a pilot had always meant that he lived a less than routine lifestyle. He'd been trained by the Navy – graduated Top Gun – and joined up to pilot commercial planes the minute he left the military. The first year he'd logged over two hundred thousand miles, and it had only gone up since then. Over the last twelve years he'd made the strangest collection of friends imaginable flying 747's and 777's from Los Angeles to Tokyo, Sydney, and even Shanghai. In the end he'd been cut down to only five jumps per month, no matter how hard he tried to find a way around it. A local carrier might do as many as forty runs a month, taking one of those tiny planes from John Wayne or Bob Hope to Vegas and back three or four times a day. He knew a guy named Lee who only flew from Seattle to San Francisco to Los Angeles. He'd been doing the West Coast boogie for nearly five years and didn't mind at all, but that wasn't exactly his cup of tea, if you'll forgive the expression. For Edgar, it wasn't an actual flight until he was up for at least four hours. That's when the real skill came in to play. That's when experience proved invaluable.
Some pilots treat it like a big-ass school bus, he thought, but not me. Never. It was always a thrill to know I had over four hundred or more lives in my hands, way up in the air. It felt like playing God.
He thought back to the way he usually got ready for a flight. It was a whole lot different than what he had pulled today, cutting across the runway and ignoring all safety protocol. The FAA would have his license if he tried that in the real world. He'd catch flack for sure from his least favorite tin pusher, an air traffic controller by the name of Oscar, who'd earned the nickname Oscar the Grouch. Once when LAX had been stacked up with a lot of commercial aircraft waiting for approach, he'd lost his cool. They were already over an hour late. Edgar knew the WX was good, but somehow there was still a traffic bottleneck keeping them in the air. He hadn't slept well the night before. He'd been trying to keep himself on Pacific Standard Time to cut the jet lag down when he was home. He wasn't the only one angry either. Other pilots and crew were on the box expressing different forms of frustration at the holdup as well. Finally one let out a string of expletives in a high-pitched voice that ended in a screeching FUCK!
“Aircraft making last transmission,” Oscar snarled, “identify yourself immediately!”
“Approach Delta 54, negative on the F – U – C – K word.”
“Approach US Air 1107, also negative on fuck.”
“Approach NW 313, negative on dropped F bomb.”
Each denial only seemed to drive the Grouch more insane. When he finally responded to Edgar's millionth request to touch down, his voice was dripping with venom.
“All aircraft holding. Expect additional fifteen minute delay.”
“You do understand that it costs us two thousand dollars to make a one-eighty in this airplane?”
“Roger,” Oscar quick
ly replied. “In that case mark me down for about four thousand dollars' worth of turns to start and we'll see where we go from there.”
Edgar was used to landing big planes and dealing with attitude problems of the arrogant geniuses running the tower. Air traffic controllers were notorious assholes who liked to play God. They were Type A personalities on steroids. Still the high stress of the job and long hours spent under insane pressure meant most of them burned out in as little as ten years or less. Over the years though, the Grouch had hung on. It was strange not to hear his voice on the radio.
“Poor old Grouch is probably one of those mindless things now,” Edgar said to himself. “Can't say I'm gonna miss him though. That fucker really was a pain in the ass.”
Generally there were two extra pilots on board and he would fly relief. That meant on long flights he would come in tired and bunk it first, then when the other pilots were starting to fade Edgar would take control and bring them on in. He loved making the wide banks around Heathrow, dashing in and out of the clouds as they circled in a holding pattern while dozens of people in the control tower worked hard to land incoming travelers from all over the world. One minute he'd be climbing up into a soft whirl of puffy white cotton balls, effortlessly floating like a child's idea of the kingdom of Heaven; the next minute he'd be swooping over the vivid green pastures and English farmland country crisscrossed by stone walls and shrubbery, dotted with cracker box toy houses. It was one of the reasons he preferred being a relief pilot and landing planes as opposed to doing take off. He loved the feeling of coming out of the sky and touching down, the way the plane lurched when the wheels hit, and the sound of the chirp as the rubber connected with the landing strip. The other reason was that it meant he could sleep the first leg of the trip.
Usually I'm out by the time the pilot comes on, he thought. Unless the turbulence is strong.
Last night was no different than any other flight. He was the last pilot to fly the stretch between London and Los Angeles. He brought the bird in and touched down before getting the news that he would be flying first the next day, September 21st.
It was unusual, he thought, because it meant that today, right now, would be my sixth flight.
The airlines had received a tidal wave of last minute passengers desperate to get out of Los Angeles. It was a decision made by the board of the airlines to add a couple more flights. The OT would be more than covered by the last minute booking fees. It was in the interests of the stockholders, he was told. The Board always made the final call – that is unless the FAA had something to say about it. The Pilots Union, on the other hand, wasn't consulted on these decisions.
“Pricks in the towers get more love than we do,” Edgar grumbled. “The last time anyone even listened to us was when Sully landed that bird in the Hudson.”
Edgar hadn't minded so much. There was something depressing about coming out of the bright California sunshine and gentle cumulus clouds to descend into a veil of choking brown smog upon hitting the City of Angels. He was more than happy to head back out to wherever they sent him.
Now I know why there were so many last minute flights out of town, he thought grimly. Even if I grew up here I'd want to get as far away from this place as possible.
He started in on his routine immediately upon hearing the news that he was heading back to work the next day, which meant running down the old mental checklist. He'd set aside a fresh uniform. He had four in rotation but was down to his last clean one due to all the extra flying. He knew there wouldn't be time to hit the dry cleaner. He'd barely have time to eat and get to the hotel before he needed to hit the sheets. He nervously drank his second bottle of water. Hydration was always an issue. It had become a habit of his to polish off several bottles of water the moment he left the plane. He'd walk through the 'Crew Only' line and past customs drinking bottle two. By bottle three, he'd be moving quickly through the airlines hallways, safely shielded from the public. He'd be ready to piss some out by the time he reached the company bathrooms.
Sticking to my routine keeps me out of trouble, he thought. Usually.
He ate at the McDonalds out in the terminal, then fought his way down past the baggage claim and out to the curb, narrowly avoiding becoming entangled in a bait ball of paparazzi. They were swarming around a famous rapper, taunting him with petty jabs about his personal life in the hopes of getting a reaction out of him. One of the more sleazy looking guys began making lewd comments about the rapper's reality television girlfriend, alluding to rumors of a leaked sex tape that had been going viral on the Internet.
“She definitely looked like she was enjoying it, man,” the opportunist bellowed, holding up his camera and capturing video of the stars reaction. “Only that ain't you in the clip, brother. That's her ex-boyfriend, Joshua Ramirez, with his hands around her neck while she's cumming her brains out. She ever ask you to get rough like that with her, Stud?”
The rapper had been ignoring them while walking toward a shiny, white Rolls-Royce Phantom the color of uncut cocaine. His hand was on the handle of the suicide door that opened toward the back seat when he froze – he was a ghetto kid from the streets of Bed-Stuy, and had been in and out of prison his whole life because of his bad temper. The rest of the paparazzi pulled away from their loudmouthed colleague as he turned around to fix a glare at him. In seconds he was on the man, who squealed and begged for mercy while the temperamental musician delivered a series of blows to his face and neck.
The last thing Edgar saw as he boarded his hotel shuttle was the photographer on the ground with his arms raised in fear as the rap star raised the expensive camera over his head. Despite the pap’s heart wrenching pleas his attacker hurled the camera onto the asphalt, using both hands to maximize the damage, while the semi-circle of paparazzi surrounding him drowned them in an explosion of flash bulbs. He smiled as the doors closed and the driver began pulling into the constant stream of airport traffic.
He'd gotten used to staying just off campus at the Airport Radisson. It was cheap and they treated him well enough. He wasn't looking for any kind of luxury, but for what he paid he thought he got a pretty good deal. They usually gave him a room with a view of Century Boulevard, but since it was late when he got in, the only room they had available was one that faced the parking lot in back.
“I'll take it,” he said to the slightly overweight blonde girl with the perky attitude at the front counter. “I just need to lie down now.”
“One key or two?” He wasn't sure what she meant. Was her eyebrow arching an invitation to something more intimate? The idea made him want to laugh. He'd already passed up the chance to have sex with a beautiful woman earlier and was starting to regret it. He held up his ring finger to show off his wedding band as if that was some universal sign of fidelity. He'd started cheating on his wife three years into the marriage when they'd discovered she was unable to have kids, and if he wanted them they would have to adopt or hire a surrogate. He'd gone as far as suggesting they ask her sister before giving up. A week later he slept with his first flight attendant in a cheap hotel in Tokyo. He'd felt guilty about it for months, but it didn't stop him from doing it again and again. Now he didn't feel anything at all except fatigue and the urge to lie down and never get up again.
“Just the one key,” he said with a smirk.
The girl flushed as she finished his paperwork and sent him on his way. The first thing he did when he got in the room was strip naked. He hated the restrictive feeling of clothes, especially after a long flight. Next he ran a hot shower, and used the bathroom once more. He shaved before he showered. He plugged in his iPod. He laid out his uniform for the next day. He set up everything so he could rise and get moving quickly. Keys went on the end of the counter along with his watch, with the alarm set. He no longer trusted the digital clocks in the hotels. He couldn't afford to be late or to oversleep. He was expected to report to operations an hour and a half before departure so he could meet the other pilots and review the fligh
t plans, even though he didn't make a dime until the wheels came off the tarmac. They'd also check the maintenance history and go over the weather forecasts for the day.
He arranged the complimentary coffee packet and his liquid vitamin shot next to the one-cup brewer at the hotel. The last thing he did was set his pilot's license, airline identification, and security badge on top of his uniform where he couldn't miss it.
You don't want to be the guy who ends up sleeping in the terminal or in the crew room, he thought, because you forgot your passport.
He held up the tiny pill Sandra had given him to help him sleep. He thought about her out there just off the end of runway 25L, sleeping with the rest of the pilots in their recreational vehicles in their employee parking lot. After putting in grueling shifts – often working more than several days in a row – these poor souls would recover and decompress before the long flight back to their homes and families in places like New Jersey, Texas, and Florida.
LAX Ghetto, Edgar thought to himself, that's what the papers called it.
Since 2005 the quiet community had grown to include mechanics and flight attendants like Sandra. Her husband back in Waco had insisted that she get the used RV to sleep off long hauls overseas before hitching a ride on a competitor’s airline back home to him and her three kids. What he hadn't anticipated at the time was that Sandra would use it as a crash pad to hook up with the lonely pilots she harbored crushes on, guys like Edgar who had long since given up on working out their dysfunctional marriages and were resolved to simply let the state of their emotional lives atrophy until they were beyond repair. Edgar had shared more than one sleepless night in that tiny, cramped RV listening to Kenny Rogers on cassette and trying on different condoms until he found one that didn't completely kill all the feeling. They'd go until they both passed out, generally for two or three hours depending on how drunk Sandra was or when his caffeine buzz would burn out.
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