by Phoebe Stone
Mama meets me at the bottom of the stairs. “Going to church with me and Granddaddy and Melinda?” she says. “Better hurry, we’re all ready.”
I rub my forehead. “Graduation dance gave me a headache, I got to lie down.”
“Sure wish you’d go with us, Jessie Lou,” says Granddaddy, making sign language at me while Mama’s not looking. He winks and nods his head and then he says, “Everybody should go to church this morning and pray, ’cause this is a dark day as far as I can tell.”
“With your sense of drama, Mr. Ferguson, you should have gone into the acting field. You missed your calling,” says Mama, giving Granddaddy a big kiss on his cheek. “Well, I suppose it’s too late now, nobody would want to look at an old geezer like you onstage. Better get your reading glasses or you’ll be bugging me through the whole service. ‘Which Psalm are we on? What page are we on?’”
“Well, I’ll tell you something,” says Granddaddy. “Every time that minister tells us what Psalm we’re on or what song we’re gonna sing, he mumbles. Throws the whole vestry into a complete tailspin. And I hope we have a full house today. I hope all those fools that call themselves Christians aren’t over at that shopping mall celebration.”
“The world is changing and growing, Granddaddy. You better get with the beat. Wake up and smell the coffee,” says Mama.
“I’m sniffing,” says Granddaddy, “and all I smell is skunk.”
Granddaddy opens the door and moves aside. Melinda and Mama go out and down the steps toward the garage, carrying matching white patent-leather purses.
As soon as they’re gone, I click into action, get on my sweater, get my sneakers tied. In a matter of seconds I’m in the yard and flying like a low hovercraft two or three inches above the grass, speeding along, pulling my red wagon behind me.
When I get down on the path I hear voices in the air and I turn around. Lo and behold, as Mama says, Conrad and Quentin are running along the path making jokes just like old times.
“Thought you’d be up at Buttonwood’s being Clark,” I say.
“Nah,” says Conrad. “It would be impossible for me to play Clark. I’m Lewis. I’m Lewis down to my bones.” He smiles. And that’s all we say about it. And I have no idea how Brice Buttonwood’s Lewis-and-Clark skit will go without a Clark, and I guess I don’t even care.
We can hear fireworks now going off in the distance. Boom. Boom. Boom. A thunderstorm? A war? No, just Big Box Home and Hardware taking over. Oh, what a beautiful morning, oh, what a beautiful day. Boom. Boom.
“By the way, you took your sweet time getting here, Jessie Lou,” says Quentin. “And I have to tell you, boy, you two looked like a pair of donkeys dancing in the gym last night. Tried to say I didn’t know you. Anyhow I can dance better than you, Conrad. I can do the real waltz. I could have danced with you, Jessie Lou, better than he does. No offense, but Conrad, you’re rusty. You’re out of practice.”
Conrad smiles.
“I’m sorry I was slow getting here, but I had to wait till Mama went to church. My granddaddy wanted me to hush about all this,” I say.
“You have my deepest sympathy,” says Conrad, nudging Quentin. Then the two of them start laughing and they take off down the old logging road through the pine woods to the secret hidden field.
It is quiet down in the woods. The ground beneath us is thick with a soft bed of pine needles muffling our steps. Sun makes lacy patterns on the ferns, lacy patterns on our faces when we walk under an open shaft in the trees above. Then you can look up and see the blue sky. You can catch glimpses of the air show. Right now a big plane is flying across the sky dragging a banner that says, SHOP BIG BOX HOME AND HARDWARE. WE’VE GOT EVERYTHING YOU NEED.
We get to a larger clearing and we sit on a rock, the three of us. Looking up at the sky again, we see a helicopter working its way over us, and then we can see a little black dot dropping through the air.
“This is a big day for my daddy,” says Quentin. “He’s supervising an exhibition over there. You know a stuntman from L.A. is going to jump out of a helicopter and land in one of the pools from Pool World. That might be him right now. Hope he makes it. If he doesn’t, my daddy will lose his job for sure.”
We can hear more music now and more fireworks.
“What a waste, setting off fireworks in the middle of the day,” says Quentin.
We head on down now farther into the woods, birds fluttering across the path, chipmunks racing up trees, spiderwebs so complicated and perfect hanging half in shadows. We get to the edge of the field and we look out into the bright sunlight.
The beautiful little old barnstormer plane is sitting in the middle of the field. It is all cleaned up and the wings are on it again. It just takes my breath away. It’s so shiny and silver. The last time we saw those enormous wide, stretching wings they were up in the rafters in the barn. Even then, their size was frightening. Now they are awe-inspiring, stretching out like arms big enough to hold the whole world. It moves my heart to see it, makes my heart fly just to look at it.
Soon enough we see Fred and Frank Bailey coming out of the opposite woods. Both of them are wearing old-fashioned flying goggles and old close-fitting canvas flying hats with chin straps that remind me of swimming pool caps. They both have on worn-out leather pilot jackets and they look exactly alike. There’s no way I could tell you Fred from Frank.
As soon as we see them, we all blast out into the field with the boxes of red T-shirts, everything all windblown and full of sunlight. We come rushing up real close and stand with them next to the plane outside the little cockpit.
“We haven’t done an air show in years,” says the one I think is Fred, putting on his dog-eared flying gloves and then rubbing his hands together. “Used to be able to turn a baby like this upside down at low altitude.”
“Yes, sir, you tell your mama thank you,” says Frank, pulling the shirts out of the boxes. “We’ll stuff them on the floor here. Boxes are too bulky to take with us. Can I ask you to put them on the porch for us up at my aunt’s old place on your way home?”
“Whose old place?” I say.
“My old aunt Vera Bailey. It’s her house and this was her plane. Always kept it in the barn.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Well, she was one of the Ninety-Nines,” Fred says. “First group of women pilots in our country. There were ninety-nine of them.”
“Oh,” I say again.
“Something to be proud of. They couldn’t keep her out of the sky. She just had to be up there. Didn’t she, Frank?”
“Uh-huh,” says Frank. “Guess we’re a flying family.”
“We like racing too,” says Fred, raising his eyebrows. “Stand way back now when we take off and keep your fingers crossed. And if you like tulips, stop over at the store when you get a chance. They’re one of our specialties.”
Then Fred and Frank Bailey look up at the sky both at the same time, and they button up the straps to their flying caps at the same time, and pull down their goggles at the same time. Then, even though they’re in their eighties, they look like a couple of twin babies sitting in their baby buggy, matching exactly.
Conrad and Quentin and I run to the edge of the field and stand there. I think Frank’s the pilot but I’m not sure. According to Mama, he’s the speed demon. Mama says, “That one throws care to the wind.”
Frank Bailey gets comfortable behind the little steering wheel and his brother works himself into the seat behind him. Frank gives me a big cheerful wave and he turns on the engine and we hear the deafening roar. There are long white plumes of smoke coming out of the back, a smoky white peacock plume, a snow goose displaying its feathers. Then Vera Bailey’s plane starts to move and it begins circling the field on its wheels. Around the field the plane bumps. Around and around. Bigger and bigger circles. And suddenly in a great roar, the plane rushes forward and it starts to lift up, up, up, off the ground. Up, up, up above the field. A little higher. Above the trees. A little higher. Arou
nd and around above the hill. Its thunder filling the air. Into the sky. Into the sky. Little old 1930s plane has made it. It’s up in the sky.
Then it circles away over by the shopping mall celebration. It makes a turn over the crowd, and we see the T-shirts like so many little red flowers falling out of the sky, all of them saying, BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE TULIPS. BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE TULIPS. BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE TULIPS.
Seeing those T-shirts, we run out into the field, calling out, “Hurrah!! Good luck to you. Good luck to you.” We are running and running and then I drop to my back and lie there in the tall grass, looking up at the sky at the little barnstormer working its way around the air show and the Big Box Home and Hardware celebration.
Quentin and Conrad throw themselves down next to me. They are still screaming and shouting, “Good luck to you! Good luck and godspeed!” and then they roll over toward me and Conrad kisses my cheek and Quentin kisses my forehead.
“Get out of here,” I say to both of them, swatting the air, and they take off, the two of them, laughing and calling and waving their arms toward the plane.
I can’t see Vera Bailey’s plane for a moment ’cause it dipped behind a cloud, but I can still feel Conrad’s kiss on my cheek. I am lying in the field in the green Virginia grass, the sky a soft, breathing blue. Here I am a sheep-shorn scrawny somebody’s little sister, and Conrad Parker Smith kissed me. He kissed me and the whole world is sweet and warm and full of soft Virginia wind. Conrad’s kiss feels like a little butterfly fluttering against my cheek and then that little butterfly seems to spread its wings and move across my face and before you know it, I can feel Conrad’s kiss all the way to the ends of my toes. And beyond that, I can feel the earth under me. I spread my arms out and I can almost follow the curve of it. I’m not on the outside anymore. I’m a part of Conrad, a part of Quentin, a part of the world. Yes I am. I’m a part of the world, lying here in the long green grass in this windy field, watching those old eighty-two-year-old brothers flying their aunt’s airplane, pulling that banner back and forth across the sky, a banner that says BAILEY BROTHERS’ HARDWARE, THERE WILL NEVER EVER BE BETTER.
About a week later Quentin Duster and I are walking along the road toward the old house. I’m heading over there with the little wounded bird in the shoebox. Grand daddy says to take it back where it was when we found it, now that it’s time to let her go. Conrad isn’t with us this afternoon because he has to help his mama get ready for a craft show over in Roanoke. If they sell two hundred fifty clothespin angels, Conrad’s gonna get to spend the night at the Route 81 Howard Johnson’s and he’s gonna spend the whole time there lying in the swimming pool.
Quentin has found a tin can on the ground and he’s kicking it along, keeping it on the road.
“Jessie Lou,” he says, “what did you go to that stupid dance with Conrad for? He’s just an old smelly sock, as far as I can see.”
“He asked me, Quentin. I went ’cause he invited me,” I say.
“Would you have gone with me, if I’d been in the sixth grade and I asked you?” he says, giving up on the tin can and knocking it away into the ferns.
“’Course I would have, Quentin Duster. I wouldn’t have let a little old feller like yourself be lonesome with nobody to dance with. I would have danced the night away with you.”
“Good,” says Quentin, “’cause I wouldn’t give you two cents for that old smelly sock you went with.”
“Quentin, I thought you liked Conrad,” I say. “Thought you got his autograph.”
“I did, but then when you went to the dance with him, I sold his autograph to Moon n’ Stars’s little sister for two dollars. Couldn’t stand the sight of it after that. Whole reason I came up to be friends with Conrad in the first place was ’cause I was afraid he’d take you away from me. I’ve liked you since third grade.”
I look over at Quentin standing there all quivery and nervous and proud of himself at the same time. And I feel kind of warm inside and surprised too, like someone just gave me a little wrapped-up present that I didn’t expect. “You know what we are, Quentin Duster, you and me and Conrad?” I say.
“What?” says Quentin.
“We’re deep down friends, and as far as I’m concerned that’s about better than anything.”
“Oh,” says Quentin, getting a nice little smile on his face.
“On the other hand,” I say, breaking into a run, “if you want my autograph, it’s gonna cost you five dollars.”
I keep on running till I get to the top of the hill. I look back and see I’m way ahead of Quentin. Finally he gives up and I can see him back there on the road fiddling with his cousin’s Discman, putting on headphones and singing along to himself.
I walk into Vera Bailey’s yard. The grass is tall and deep green. Her silvery wooden house looks sorrowful and all alone in an ocean of waving grass. I sit on the porch in an old broken chair rocking back and forth. I hold the box with the little bird on my lap. My granddaddy did a nice job getting this bird all better. It is in there fluttering inside the box. I pull back the cloth cover ever so slightly and I take a peek. I’ve been helping to feed her for almost a week, and I think by the way that bird is moving around that she might be ready to go.
A tiny hummingbird is buzzing around a stand of newly opened peonies along the porch. I wonder if Vera Bailey planted those peonies. I think about her getting up in the morning and going out to her little barnstormer and taking an early morning ride over the fields here. I wonder what it feels like to see your house and your town and your school from the sky. It must give you a whole new way of thinking about things. I know Vera Bailey, being one of the Ninety- Nines, trained a lot of pilots. And I also know from looking up stuff on the computer that she was dropping supplies overseas for some troops during the war when her plane disappeared. She never came back, or at least she hasn’t yet, and this little old house and her little 1930s barnstormer must have been sitting here waiting for her all these years.
I don’t know if I would ever want to fly a plane myself, but I guess sometimes writing a poem feels something like flying. I sit here watching the hummingbird darting around Vera Bailey’s flowers. I can see Quentin up on the road in the distance singing to himself. I guess the time has come. I can feel it all through me.
I look around at the grass and the sky and the sun. Then I open the screened top of the box and the little bird jumps to the edge of it, not realizing she’s no longer captive. She sits there twittering for a moment and then suddenly she takes off into the air with a loud chirp and she flies across the yard and then circles around and heads over the field. Watching her, I can almost hear a country song playing in my head about a bird with a broken wing getting healed. I can hear Granddaddy making jokes about it, calling it cornball country, but I think I might write it down anyway. I might write the words to the song, the lyrics, and they might go something like this:
That bird was gonna fly higher and higher
And nobody was going to stop her anymore
Not now, not tomorrow, not ever again.
Things went along more or less at a normal pace after that. We had the sixth-grade graduation outdoors in the softball field behind the school. The fold-up chairs for the ceremony were supplied by Discount Beverage where Mama works. It threatened to rain all morning as we sat there listening to the principal’s speech and then by the end of the ceremony, the sun was shining and Mrs. Duster was shining ’cause she made the right call. (The big question being, was it going to rain? Should the ceremony be held in the gym or on the softball field?)
When Mrs. Duster got up to hand out the diplomas, she gave a little talk about our future and how it lay before us like a great undiscovered wilderness and how we would each be like Lewis and Clark finding our own way. Then Quentin Duster, wearing a nice little suit and necktie, came up and presented Mrs. Duster with a bouquet of gladiolas from our whole class. Quentin had gotten the position by way of votes, which goes to show how things change aroun
d here.
Granddaddy and Mama sat up in the front row, and I just about died of embarrassment ’cause Granddaddy had tears rolling down his cheeks through the whole thing. We were wearing graduating gowns, which a lot of schools don’t use at the sixth-grade level, but our school board pushed for it and we got them.
Each one of us had to walk up onstage and receive our sixth-grade diploma. When Conrad’s name was called, he made his way up there smooth and easy, walking a perfect straight line. The crowd just went crazy clapping and calling out his name. And I felt glad for him, glad in my heart, because popularity suited Conrad and yet it seemed to roll off him like water, as if he knew what it was all about. When it was my turn to go up there, people cheered a little bit for me too, but I think it was ninety percent Grand daddy. I could hear his voice loud and clear, and I felt proud and tearful and full of joy knowing he was cheering me on.
Even though Conrad and I and Quentin had been down in the field with the Bailey brothers’ plane and not at the Big Box Home and Hardware celebration at the shopping mall, we heard that during the ceremony the Big Box Home and Hardware balloon truck, as it floated in the sky above, had popped and fizzled just at the height of one of the executive’s speeches. It popped, making a lot of noise, and then it simply sailed down into the field nearby and landed there, looking like a great big washed-up rag.
The police came around to my house later that week asking a lot of questions about the destruction of the Big Box balloon truck. They asked if we had any idea who might have done it. “Quite frankly, somebody must have damaged that balloon before it even got up in the sky, like they did it on purpose. You know we found footprints on the side of that balloon that were bigger than seems humanly possible,” said the policeman, taking off his hat and scratching the top of his head. “I mean, it was spooky.” They walked through the kitchen asking Granddaddy all kinds of questions. (Mama was at work by then.) Granddaddy didn’t really have any answers for them. All he could say was he was at church where everybody was supposed to be on a Sunday morning when all that nonsense went on.
