Wildside

by Steven Gould

  “We haven’t the faintest idea where these birds came from and we very much want to find out. I’ll take questions now.”

  The phone rang.

  I stared at it, irritated by the interruption, then remembered Joey. I turned down the volume on the TV and picked up the receiver.

  It was the police.

  “Thank God there wasn’t anybody else involved,” said Luis, “or we’d be facing liability claims out the wazoo.”

  Rick, Clara, Marie, and I were in Luis’s office. Rick was pacing back and forth, unable to sit still. Marie was perched on the edge of her seat. Clara sat back in her chair and I leaned against the wall, my arms folded.

  Joey was in the hospital for observation. He had stitches in his left arm and a slight concussion. If not for the bump on his head, he’d be in jail. Technically, he was under arrest right where he was.

  “This is a second offense DWI and Joey’s over eighteen now. He won’t get any breaks from the court. The only thing going for him is that it was a single-car accident—that he hurt only himself.”

  “What about my car?” said Rick, angrily. “What about my insurance rates?” Rick’s car was totaled when Joey ran off the Highway 6 east bypass into a ditch, rolling the car three times before it slammed into the concrete frame of a drainage tunnel running under the road.

  Flying lessons must’ve been good for him. Drunk as he was, he was wearing his seat belt.

  “We’ll take care of your car,” I said. “I’m sorry about it, but it’s just a ‘thing.’ It’s replaceable.” I turned back to Luis. “What can we do about Joey?”

  Luis spread his hands. “Depends. If Joey will go immediately into an alcohol treatment program and AA, he may get off with losing his license, community service, and probation. Otherwise, he’s probably looking at six months in jail.”

  “Well, he’s got to,” Marie said. “Faced with jail, it’s really no choice, right?”

  “Hopefully,” said Luis. “His father is a little hard to deal with. He wants to fight it, which is just plain stupid. Joey’s blood alcohol level was .21 over an hour after the accident. There were empty and full beer cans in the front seat. Not only would Joey be sure to do jail time, it wouldn’t do him any good. He’s obviously got a problem.” He looked at me, his eyes narrowed.

  “Yes. He has a problem,” I said. “I was wrong the other day when I said he’d be all right. And it’s our problem, too.”

  Luis nodded, satisfied. “Luckily, Joey’s parents can’t afford legal help to try and fight it, so they’re stuck with me or a court-appointed public defender. Besides—thanks to Charlie’s call, I got there first and Joey named me as his attorney before his father could go to work on him.”

  “Is that going to be a problem? What if his dad talks him into somebody else?”

  “Won’t happen. I had a long talk with his mother. She understands exactly what will happen if they try to fight it. She’s far more concerned about Joey than the family reputation.”

  “What did you mean it’s our problem, Charlie?” asked Clara.

  “It’s our problem because—” I looked at Marie…at her haunted eyes. “Well, because Joey’s one of us.”

  I didn’t say, because if he talks about the tunnel, we lose it.

  But I wanted to.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “YOU WALK QUIET, BUT YOUR FACE—WELL YOUR FACE STOMPS AROUND LIKE AN ELEPHANT.”

  We shut down operations for two days, while the crisis sorted itself out. Well, to be perfectly honest, while Luis brilliantly managed the situation.

  Once Joey was released from the hospital, he was taken to the county jail, in Bryan, and processed. At Luis’s suggestion, we let him sit there for six hours before Wildside Investments went bail. Luis and I drove him from there to his parents’ house.

  “Why did we come here?” he asked. “Why aren’t we going to the ranch?”

  Luis said, “We have to talk about your legal position.”

  All of Joey’s family were inside, including his father, who looked more nervous and upset than I’d ever seen him. Marie was there, too, with Mr. Santos from the Greenbriar Substance Abuse Center. Mr. Santos was an “interventionist,” and his job was helping families convince a substance-abusing member to get into treatment.

  It was painful.

  Luis presented the legal consequences of not going into treatment. I presented the job-related consequences. “You keep drinking and you’ll never fly again. The FAA could pull your ticket right now.” Mr. Santos presented the physiological consequences of alcohol abuse. Then Joey’s family and Marie presented him with examples of his drinking—acts that had hurt them that were direct consequences of his alcohol abuse.

  I hadn’t realized there were so many. Apparently, in school, with his wrestling team buddies, he’d been more prone to drink than he had while in flight training or working with us. There were two minor auto wrecks that hadn’t been reported, the family paying for the damages directly. He’d been fired from the previous summer’s construction job for drinking-related insubordination.

  Joey got more and more still, his eyes reddened, and he seemed on the verge of tears.

  His father was inarticulate, talking about Joey’s behavior in a strange manner, essentially trying to justify it. Mr. Santos interrupted him. “Your father is not quite ready to deal with his own drinking problem, Joey. I’m afraid he feels that he can’t talk about your alcohol abuse without accusing himself.”

  Mr. Maloney started to say something, but his wife put her hand on his arm and he subsided.

  Finally he said, “You’re our kid and we love you. We want what’s best for you.”

  At the end of this, Mr. Santos presented Joey with the treatment option.

  “You do this, and you’ll still have a job,” I said. “Our insurance company will cover most of the costs. Wildside Investments will cover the rest.”

  He didn’t really argue at all. “When?” was all he said, his voice quiet, hoarse, his eyes red.

  Marie brought a suitcase out from the hallway that she’d packed at the ranch that morning. Mr. Santos said, “Now. They’re ready for you at the center. You’ll go through two days of detox and four to six weeks of the program.”

  “What about the legal stuff? The DWI charges?”

  Luis spoke up. “I obtained a two-month postponement of the initial hearing this morning, contingent on your entering treatment.”

  Before Joey drove away with his father and Mr. Santos, I managed one moment with him alone.

  “We need you, Joey. We need you alive and sober, but we need you.” I dropped my voice slightly. “If the tunnel is still ours, you’ll have your place back—and a full share of the profits…and work.” He started to cry, and I finished lamely, “So come back.”

  Rick and I left in dawn’s pregray, when we could just make out the end of the runway. Three and a half hours later we landed on the border between Texas and New Mexico, or where that border would be on the tame side. Here, it was a meaningless and invisible line dividing identical sections of high plain.

  The Llano Estacado, the staked plain, was what Coronado named this part of the country.

  Buffalo grass stood so high, and stretched so far, that there were no landmarks. His expedition resorted to pounding staves into the ground to mark their path and to give identifiable features to this sea of grass.

  Our fifth and latest fuel dump was in the middle of a recent prairie fire burn, a black scar of soot and stubble shot through with the tiny green sprouts of returning life. It stretched several miles, fanning out in a pointed oval shape from the original lightning strike. The surrounding grass was still chest high and, though a landing would’ve been possible, taking off in it would’ve been very difficult. The fuel store was in the very middle of the burn and we didn’t have to worry about predators approaching undercover.

  This fuel dump was the first site that required refueling to reach and return. The Maule, at its most economical
cruising speed of 160 mph, has a range of 930 miles. This was in still air, of course, and didn’t count winds, head or tail. We were 450 miles from Wildside Base, just a bit too far to do it round trip on onboard fuel. We were also out of range on our VHF aviation radios, so we’d purchased a shortwave base station for the tower and a powerful portable shortwave for the plane.

  The sky was immense. Well, okay, the sky is always immense, but there were no hills, or trees, or buildings to obstruct it. There was just the grass and the sky. It made me feel tiny, stuck to a surface that looked down into an immense depth as if the airplane flew us up to this place and if we weren’t careful, we’d fall off into the sky.

  We hurried the off-loading—there was a danger of not having enough daylight if we dawdled.

  Sweating, and a little out of breath, I used the shortwave to check with base before flying back.

  “We’re at Stateline, Clara, and unloaded. Can you read us?”

  “Loud and clear, which is a miracle, considering.”

  “Considering what?”

  “A front just blew through here with a lot of thunder and lightning. The barometer began dropping about an hour after you left. I tried to reach you on the VHF, but you were out of range. The barometer is still dropping and we have gusts to forty-five knots.”

  “Which way is it headed?”

  “The wind is all over the map just now, but it seemed to move in from the east.”

  “Oh.” I looked around the horizon. The wind was slightly from the south and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. “I guess we’ll fly back to Scurry. If it’s still clear there, we’ll try for Comanche. Then we’ll refuel and check in with you.”

  “Okay. You run into any IFR conditions, you do a 180 and go back to the last clear base.”

  “In your ear.”

  She laughed. “I didn’t quite hear that, Charlie.”

  “I said, ‘Will do, dear.’ You want to talk to Rick?”

  Her voice changed. “Uh, not necessary. Check in when you can.”

  “Uh, right. Out.”

  “Out,” she said.

  I turned to Rick. “What’s that about?”

  He shrugged. “Um. Nothing, really.” He looked down at his feet.

  “Nothing?” I started the walk around, checking the leading edge of the wings, then the prop.

  “Didn’t sound like ‘nothing.’”

  Rick popped the catches on the engine compartment and began a visual inspection. “We had a fight.”

  I was surprised. Joey and Marie fought. Rick and Clara were more easygoing. They had arguments but they were usually humorous—exchanges of one-liners and wisecracks. “What about?”

  He left the engine cover open for me to double-check and ducked under the plane to check the air pressure in the main landing gear tires. He mumbled something that I didn’t hear.

  The engine seemed fine. No loose wires, no unexplained oil, no broken mechanical linkages. I secured the cover and joined him in looking over the tail section. “What did you say the fight was about?”

  He frowned.

  “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s cool. I didn’t mean to pry.” I flicked a dead bug off the leading edge of the tail. “I guess I do need to know if it will affect the project though.”

  He stood up after checking the air pressure in the tail wheel, an odd look on his face. “I guess I do want to talk about it. Let’s get airborne first.”

  We bumped across the stubble, raising a cloud of black dust before the weight came off the wheels. We turned to the southeast, set the ADF for the next fuel depot beacon, and climbed to altitude.

  Rick trimmed the plane at fifty-five hundred feet and switched on the autopilot. Even after the plane was flying smooth and steady, he looked over the instruments and at the horizon, frowning.

  I waited.

  After a while he began talking.

  “The last week, since Joey went into the treatment center, Clara stayed home with Marie. To keep her company—to comfort her. I stuck this out the first two nights but I got bored, so two nights ago I went out. By myself.”

  “So Clara got mad about this?”

  “Hell, no. She practically pushed me out the door. I went and hung out on Northgate.”

  Northgate was a line of bars and restaurants on the north side of the university campus.

  “What happened, did you go back to their place too late?” A terrible thought came to me. “Or did you go back to their place drunk?”

  He shook his head. “No. The problem was that I didn’t go back at all.”

  I blinked. “Uh, you didn’t come back to the ranch that night, either.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Jesus, Rick. What are you trying to do?”

  He winced. “I’m not trying to do anything. It just happened.”

  My mind raced, trying to figure out what this meant to the mission. Joey was a bad enough security risk without Rick sleeping around.

  “Was it a one-night thing?” I asked.

  He glared at me. “Give me some credit.”

  “Well, actually I was hoping it was just a one-night thing.”

  “Well it wasn’t. It was an old relationship.”

  “Anybody I know?”

  “Maybe. Chris Valencia, last year’s graduating class.”

  I was nipping mentally through the girls of last year’s senior class when it hit me. “Christopher Valencia? Chris is a boy!”

  “Hey, he’s older than me. Wouldn’t you call that a man?”

  I was stunned silent.

  Rick shrugged. “Surprise.” He glanced sideways at me, a wary look on his face—like a dog who expects to be kicked.

  “I didn’t know,” I finally said.

  “You weren’t supposed to. Except for a few gay friends, only Clara knew. But that gets really old, Charlie. You helped me in school. You brought me into the project. You’re my friend and you should know—whatever the result.”

  “What result? Did you think I’d fire you?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. I hope not, but we’ve never talked about it. It’s hard to tell about anybody until they’re confronted with it. I’ve seen too many people come out and lose their friends and family.”

  I felt my ears get hot and was thankful for the headset. My thoughts were confused. I’d made up my mind on this issue long before, but I’d never been confronted with it—not personally. “I guess I’ll have to think about it. But you’re crazy if you think I’d kick you off the project. Or push you out of my life.”

  He blinked and looked away, then nodded to himself.

  “Does your mom know?”

  He shook his head.

  “What about you and Clara?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  I was silent for a moment. “Uh, what do you mean? Give me a clue.”

  “I love her. She’s understood things about me and made me feel good about them. But I felt more alive with Chris than I have in a year. I tried to tell myself that I was more bisexual than gay—that it was the person that mattered. I know people like that. Mostly hetero with the occasional gay fling. I told myself that I could be as excited about a woman as I could be about a man.”

  The corners of his mouth pulled down. “I was lying to myself.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

  The front was visible, a wall on the far horizon, when we passed Scurry, so rather than risk traveling on to Comanche, we landed. We spent the time until the storm hit screwing tie-down stakes two feet into the soil and securing the plane as best we could. We even had time to refuel, so we did, figuring any extra weight in the plane would make it more stable. When the first fat drops hit the wing, we climbed back inside.

  The rain made so much noise that conversation was difficult. There was so much lightning that I questioned the wisdom of staying in the plane, but decided, on the whole, that I’d rather be out of the rain. The wind wasn’t as bad as I feared. We w
ere partially sheltered by a low hummock.

  After two hours the weather settled to a soft, steady rain. This lasted until after sunset, and we were stuck there for the night.

  Fortunately, there was room to stretch out in the rear of the plane since the rear seats had been removed for cargo space. Rick and I took turns, one sitting guard while the other slept.

  In the morning we had high scattered overcast and Clara reported clear skies over Wildside Base. Our field was damp, but not too soft to take off. We checked the plane out, recovered the mooring stakes, and lifted off.

  It was eleven-thirty when we touched down at Wildside Base. Marie was in the tower and she came down to help us service the aircraft and push it into the hangar.

  “Where’s Clara?” Rick asked, his voice casual. He looked around.

  Marie gave him a dark look. “She just left.”

  “Oh. Isn’t it her turn to do maintenance?” He sounded relieved.

  “Give her a break, Rick.” Marie looked angry. “She spent all night in the tower, listening on the shortwave in case you needed anything.” She turned away, clenching her jaw.

  I put my hand on her shoulder. “How are you? Did you get enough rest?”

  She shrugged and her face relaxed a bit. “I’ve been better. They won’t let Joey have visitors until next weekend.” She looked up. There were shadows under her eyes and I could tell her thoughts were far away, with Joey.

  We closed the hangar doors and went through to the tame side.

  Rick paused in the sunlight, basking for a moment in warm sunshine. He paused by his rent-a-car and looked it over. “Mind if I grab the first shower?” he asked.

  “Go for it.”

  I went in and fixed myself some eggs and toast. Marie sat at the table and accepted some tea, but she just held the cup between her hands and stared out the kitchen window.