Flight Risk

by Jennifer Fenn

  The Cirrus SR22, its nose tipped in sea-green paint, wasn’t what he’d flown before, but it seemed close enough. The ignition looked just as simple to jimmy with his screwdriver.

  Robert jumped into the pilot’s seat and cranked the ignition, the grooves of the screwdriver’s handle twisting between his fingers. The engine roared. He taxied out and stopped just short of the runway.

  A goose lazily flexed its wings in the middle of the tarmac. It stretched its curved neck and cocked its head at him, blinked one black eye.

  “Shoo,” he said. “C’mon.”

  He rolled a few feet forward, and the goose didn’t budge, turning to examine its own wing like it was performing a preflight inspection. It nibbled at a feather.

  Robert leaned toward the windshield. Why wasn’t it flying away? Was it hurt? Had its flock abandoned it?

  “Dammit. Move.”

  He tapped the gas and inched closer. Would he have to get out and scare it off?

  He wouldn’t run it over, leaving it bloodied and bent on the runway.

  “Freeze! Don’t move!”

  Three cops rushed from the trees, crouching low. Robert’s vision seemed to expand to take in everything: the heavy black vests that weren’t worn by any cop he’d ever seen on Yannatok, the weighty holsters, the shiny boots. Faces beneath plastic shields.

  And there must be more, because a burst of static had punctuated the command to halt, and none of these guys had a megaphone.

  Because they all held guns.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Robert stayed still, but his heart stampeded and his hands trembled. He touched the screwdriver, realized the plane’s engine was still rumbling. Its shuddering jolted his every cell. His eyes vibrated.

  One of the cops stepped closer. The black point of the gun’s muzzle blotted out everything else, like a solar eclipse.

  The goose flapped its wings and disappeared into the sky.

  “Slowly raise your hands over your head!”

  Six feet by eight feet. He’d walked around a jail cell before. Six steps. Eight steps. A window without a view, just a hole in the bricks. A ceiling, blank as a movie screen before showtime, where he could rewind every mistake he’d ever made. If Deb hadn’t come to bail him out, Robert wouldn’t have lasted the night.

  His dad had outrun them.

  The. End.

  Robert stomped on the pedal.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the officers dive for cover, as though he might mow them down. But he was blazing past them in one direction only.

  Up.

  He bounced down the runway, like he was hitting the tarmac’s every divot. He heaved the throttle. His knees rattled. The meters’ needles veered.

  Popping like fireworks on his left.

  Were they shooting? Were they trying to kill him?

  Had they missed?

  Or were these warning shots, like those fired at geese to hurry them off the runway?

  “Go! Go!” He shouted at the plane, at the runway that flashed past.

  And then that subtle snapping, that lift, as he left the ground. He stole just a glance out the window and saw the cops shrink as he pulled back on the yoke.

  He panted. Wheezed. His ears popped. He clutched the controls so tightly his palms ached.

  No way Holt had been there. Because if the sheriff had been in charge, they wouldn’t have shot at him.

  And now he wasn’t paying enough attention. He hadn’t even entered a destination into the GPS.

  Was there a way to make the plane fly faster?

  He freed his hands just long enough to plug Vancouver into the GPS, clicking on the map and zooming in on a clear patch of Canadian land.

  Forty-five minutes. In forty-five minutes he’d ditch this plane and run. The race would be over. He just had to stay in the air until then.

  He would not think about what could be waiting for him on the ground.

  He was going to land this one. He was going to leave it whole, on this, his last chance. He would only think about that. He willed his fidgety brain to cooperate and it submitted as he scanned the GPS, checked the view through the windshield, turned his attention to the meters. GPS, windshield, meters. GPS, windshield, meters, until his heart slowed. He told himself this was just a simulation, that if he looked to his right, he wouldn’t see the black night sky, but the trailer’s television and his mother watching Law & Order.

  “Bring around the beverage cart. What’s for dinner tonight? Lobster or steak?” He had no idea what pilots ate on planes that weren’t stolen, but he tried to joke, turning to address an imaginary smiling stewardess with bright red hair and straight white teeth like Mira Wohl. His voice shook like a frightened puppy. He made himself smile despite the pain in his neck. Then he called to the invisible passengers, comfy in their gray leather seats. “And you buckle up. We could see some more turbulence ahead.”

  He forced himself to write his own headline. “Lollipop Kid Steals Third Plane, Is Never Seen Again, Leaves Cops and Islanders Baffled. Gets Away with It.”

  And then there was a flash, so quick he wasn’t sure he’d seen it at all, but for the blue afterimage that danced before his eyes. Then a cloud to his left lit up again, flickering and then fading. A lightning bolt. The cloud cover thickened from stretched-out cotton balls to denser, bulkier thunderheads. The flashes came faster, thunder rumbling in their wake. The plane jerked to one side. Robert overcorrected and wrenched back the opposite way. The bumps jolted him in his seat. He’d jinxed himself by joking about turbulence.

  The plane plunged. Robert felt the roller-coaster drop in his stomach.

  He hadn’t buckled up.

  He jerked the throttle and the plane’s nose held steady, then climbed, recovering. Another flash illuminated the ashen clouds. Could lightning strike the plane? If lightning struck the plane, would it strike him?

  His focus was shot. Could he go under the storm? Above it? Around it? How?

  He wasn’t going to reach Vancouver. That plan had been destined to fail. He couldn’t make it to Seattle. What made him think he could flee to a different country?

  Because just for a little while, he’d believed he was the damn Lollipop Kid.

  He pounded his fist against his knee. He was still so close to Tomkins he could see Yannatok’s beach, but he couldn’t turn around. The cops’ shots still rang in his ears.

  He banked to the right, away from the darkest clouds, tilting the ailerons. The storm shook the plane so hard he bounced in his seat. Robert slid his sweaty fingers over the screwdriver, making sure it was secure. What would happen if the damn thing fell out?

  Another flare, so close it temporarily blinded him.

  The beach, the same beach he’d crashed onto on his second flight.

  Should he try to land here, where he knew he had a chance at fleeing into the woods?

  All he’d needed was forty-five minutes. The trip was a sprint, an errand, a commute. But now he was a giant moving target, a bull’s-eye with wings.

  His dad had made it on foot, ditching that cruiser.

  Robert would have to ditch the plane, but he would try to land it. His A+, his honor roll report card, his diploma. Even if he was the only one who knew he’d earned it.

  But his indecision had cost him precious yards of sand. He threw down the landing gear and lifted the nose. Nudged it higher, higher, trying to break his speed. He raised the elevator. Still he was coming in too fast.

  He clattered onto the shore, bouncing down the beach before heaving and wobbling to a complete stop.

  For half a second, he thought he’d done it. The landing had been bumpy and clumsy, for sure, but the plane was in one piece.

  Then Robert heard a whoosh and suddenly all was white. The plane’s air bags had ballooned into his chest and chin.

  Gasoline burned his lungs. The fuel tank must have ruptured. Another pop, this one so much louder than the cops’ guns, and then only the air bag kept his face from igniting with the tank
. He couldn’t see the flames, but he felt them, the scorching reddening his cheeks, his arms.

  Like the snowy plane crash in Hatchet, the smoke billowed into the cockpit, deadly and thick as an avalanche.

  What did you think when you realized you were an idiot? What did you think when you realized you were going to die?

  The Lollipop Kid was going to kill Robert.

  He coughed, choking, as heat rose before him.

  Had Mr. Drew ever talked about how not to burn yourself alive?

  The smoke jammed its sooty fist down his throat, snatched his breath. His eyes teared, stung, burned.

  He gagged and fumbled for the door handle. Flames crackled and hissed. His throat burned. He kicked at the air bag, white and solid as an unmarked tombstone. Something dripped down his forehead and he couldn’t tell if it was sweat or blood or his own melting face.

  He’d always heard that before you died, you saw some light. You were supposed to move toward it, up to heaven or whatever. But all Robert could see was thick gray. He felt for the door handle, the metal hot, searing his hand. He pushed, he jammed his shoulder against it, he strained against the window, the glass that wouldn’t break and set him free, and suddenly he remembered pushing open the window the last time he had seen his father.

  His whole life didn’t flash before his eyes: just a few choice scenes. His dad drumming on Robert’s windowsill, chuckling about how he was sticking it to the sheriff. The grin before he took off into the woods. That sour drunk smell.

  Robert Senior had never been to Iraq, never flown a plane, never saved anyone. Never dodged gunfire.

  Blisters rose on Robert’s fingers, at the tip of his nose.

  His father hadn’t outrun anybody. He hadn’t hit a deer.

  The truth threw sparks. Robert burned with it, like the engine fire had blazed a path through his memory banks, his blood.

  Robert Jackson Kelley Senior had killed someone that night. And then he’d decided to cruise by and brag to his boy. He’d decided to tell his son a different story.

  And Robert knew now how it could happen. How a risk could go wrong and end in a body.

  How eventually, everyone got caught in their own traps.

  His lungs seized, his chest straitjacket tight.

  Robert flashed back to the sleeping couple whose house he had broken into. Standing there in that house, about to be caught, he’d probably never looked more like his dad. Like he’d been in a fight—and in a way he had been: with the planes, with the island, with the sea and the sky. With the truth.

  His mother hadn’t been lying to him. He’d been lying to himself.

  He had to tell her, to say he was sorry, that he finally got it, before he lost his chance to one more miscalculation, one more gamble.

  Robert threw himself at the door, his whole body ramming against the metal as the smoke shrank the cockpit. Pain ricocheted up his arm and through his neck.

  And then he tumbled onto the sand, cool as a bedsheet. His eyes teared and ran, and he wanted to close his heavy lids and just lie there. Let the ocean chill him on one side and the fire warm him on the other.

  He decided then that he wouldn’t take the chance of dying in a flaming bird, or drowning in a steel winged cage in the icy Pacific. But still, before he blacked out, he couldn’t help but think:

  I know I could do it.

  I could land one of these planes.

  If I tried one more time.

  ACT IV

  FLIGHT RISK

  From The Beginning Pilot’s Flight Guide (p. 114):

  The obvious and best response to any electrical, weather, or fuel-related emergency is to land the plane as soon as possible. Any delay in getting the plane back on the ground can have grave consequences.

  FEBRUARY 14, 2010

  He jolted awake, pain a siren blaring through him.

  His head swam when he tried to sit up, but the plane might explode, and the cops were probably on their way, and so Robert stood slowly, bone by bone.

  He trudged in what he thought was the trailer’s direction, relying on his internal GPS, trying to propel himself faster despite his seared lungs. He stopped and doubled over every few minutes. He might have been coughing broken glass. For long stretches of road he nearly crawled.

  He wouldn’t make it tonight; his pace was too slow. He’d have to spend the rest of the night in the woods, so he burrowed as deeply into the thicket as he could. He’d lost his bag, the one his mom had packed for him. Probably reduced to ash by now. Robert pulled on his gray-smeared hood. He tried to let the night air soothe his throat. The storm he’d flown through finally broke, though the canopy over him was so dense only stray drops splashed his face, carved grimy paths down his cheeks.

  His mother would be mad that he had come back, no doubt, but once he apologized, he knew she’d forgive him.

  At first light, then.

  And when he’d settled things with his mom, he’d hit the road, conscience clear.

  This time, he was heading south. Los Angeles. Mexico. Canada kept repelling him, tossing him back toward the island. And they’d be looking for him at the Canadian border, but not at the country’s southern line. At the trailer maybe he’d take the time to shave his head. He could pick a new name for himself. He might go with Brian, like the kid from Hatchet. Not sharing a name with his dad would make him kind of sad, but the time was right. He was ready.

  He would go with Brian. Brian Kelley.

  Transcribed from Yannatok County Dispatch Center tapes, February 14, 2010

  Operator:

  911. What is your emergency?

  Caller:

  Yeah, I’m parked out by Dunes Road and I just saw a plane crash.

  Operator:

  A plane crash?

  Caller:

  Yeah, a plane just, like, crashed right out of the sky, and tipped over on the beach. Part of it’s on fire.

  Operator:

  Goddamn. Goddamn.

  Caller:

  Hello?

  Operator:

  I’m here. Where is the pilot? Is he hurt?

  Caller:

  What’s weird is that I don’t think anyone is here.

  Operator:

  Thank God. He’s one lucky son of a bitch.

  Caller:

  Huh?

  Operator:

  Can you repeat your location? We’ll be sending someone out there. Lucky son of a bitch.

  Transcribed from the Steve and Mac in the Morning Show, KRAW, February 14, 2010

  Steve:

  So it’s 6:15 in the a.m., bright and early here on beautiful Yannatok Island, and you’re here with Steve and Mac on KRAW 91.3. It’s a foggy one out there, getting up to around 48 this afternoon. And how’s the traffic, Mac?

  Mac:

  Backed up on the Yannatok Bridge toward Seattle, free and clear everywhere else.

  Steve:

  Everybody headin’ to the city. And I can tell you one more person probably looking for a way off this island this fine morning, and that’s Robert Jackson Kelley.

  Mac:

  Always three names with these guys.

  Steve:

  Well, someone in Yannatok is waking up to find themselves short one airplane, after our very own Robert Jackson Kelley’s latest misadventure, which ended in him crashing not his first, not his second, but his third stolen puddle-jumper sometime last night.

  Mac:

  And of course, they haven’t caught him yet. Did he at least leave the owner some candy?

  Steve:

  You bet they haven’t caught him yet. And word is he did leave another Dum Dum for the Sheriff’s Department to suck on. I’ll admit it, I’m sort of rooting for him.

  Mac:

  Rooting for him? What are you, twelve? What middle school do you go to?

  Steve:

  I mean, the kid’s got some balls, you know. Lots of kids are just sitting around, playing video games.

  Mac:

  This kid’
s out becoming a felon. What’s not to love?

  Steve:

  I know. Easy for me to say. It’s not my plane that’s getting crashed. But there’s something kind of cool about it.

  Mac:

  Well, Steve, the whole reason I allowed you to sully our program’s fine name by mentioning Mr. Kelley is because unfortunately you’re not alone in your foolish thinking. A little tune by local band Gull Trouble has dropped into my hands, called “Ballad of the Lollipop Kid.” We’re gonna take a listen to their homage to Robert Jackson Kelley, then we’re gonna take some calls.

  FEBRUARY 14, 2010

  At first light he roused from a sleep deep as hibernation. He coughed and spat gray phlegm. He lifted his sodden, filthy sweatshirt and saw a patchwork of bruises, his skin mottled and tender as bad fruit. Clear fluid seeped from his nose. A scab crusted over his bottom lip. His fingertips had ballooned, raw and swollen. Dirt and pine needles caked his knees. Sand and soot clogged his ears, and over the birdsong and twigs snapped by eager squirrels, a dull roar that grew and then faded, grew and faded. An engine, revving. Surf lapping a Mexican beach. The part of him that refused to die.

  You weren’t lying, he’d say.

  I know what the truth is, he’d say.

  I love you, he’d say.

  Robert Jackson Kelley started for home.

  Interview with Mira Wohl, Willamette University cafeteria, October 2, 2010

  From Flight Risk: The Robert Jackson Kelley Story

  “The Olympics were, like, what, fifty miles away? So some of these guys who’d been on border patrol were sent down here to try to catch Robert. They set up a checkpoint at the bridge and they’re looking in every car, thinking someone’s going to smuggle Robert across. I’m grocery shopping with my mom and there’s a dude in fatigues, peering in the window of Shipley’s. I took his picture, posted it on Facebook. Everybody smart stopped partying, especially on the beach, since Homeland Security was, like, hiding in the trees. They were supposedly listening to our phone calls, too, so we’d say stuff like, ‘Hey, did you see Robert down at school? He’s talking about stealing a school bus!’ Just to see if, like, a Black Hawk would land on the roof.