The Man Who Ate the 747

by Ben Sherwood

  Boing. Boing. Boing.

  He hated to smash their illusions. The blunt truth hurt. He opened the window and leaned out.

  “I’m up to 234 jumps,” a boy with buckteeth called out.

  “You’ve got a long way to go,” J.J. shouted back. “A man named Gary Stewart set the pogo stick record with 177,737 jumps in 24 hours.”

  The kids kept bouncing.

  “That’s 7,405 jumps an hour,” J.J. yelled, “123 a minute, more than 2 every second. All day and all night.”

  Almost at once the parking lot went silent.

  “There are plenty of other records you can try,” J.J. said.

  The kids stood still for a moment, then took off down the street. They were heading straight for the public library. They always did. They would search for another record to break, then they would be back.

  He unpacked his suitcase. He had brought along one week’s worth of clothes, nothing too spiffy except for the blazer. He put on a T-shirt, khakis, and sneakers. He stuffed a notepad in his back pocket, locked the room behind him, and went to the front desk.

  “How’s your room, Mr. Smith?” the receptionist asked. “Comfortable enough? You’ve got 52 channels of cable in there.”

  “It’s perfect,” he said.

  “How can I help you?” she asked.

  “Ms.—”

  “Nutting. I’m Meg Nutting. What do you need?” Her face was dainty with a small pointy nose, and her pale thin neck looked ready to snap under the weight of a giant beehive of brown hair.

  J.J. said, “I’m looking for information about the man eating the 747.”

  “Oooh, I see,” Mrs. Nutting said. “Well, Wally pretty much sticks to himself. Let’s see, his best friend is Mr. Schoof at the high school. Teaches science and math. Only other person who might help is Willa Wyatt at the newspaper.”

  “Willa Wyatt,” he repeated, making a note on his pad.

  Mrs. Nutting hesitated, then whispered, “Don’t be put off. That’s Willa.”

  The first call came within minutes of the stranger’s arrival at the Hereford Inn. A man in a Taurus with Omaha plates, asking questions about the 747. Then another phone call. In no time all three lines were blinking in the newsroom.

  Willa Wyatt leaned back in her chair. She knew it was bound to happen. Sooner or later someone would come snooping around. The story would break, and even though newspaper ink ran in her veins, she didn’t like it one bit.

  She closed her eyes and pushed her fingers through her sandy blond hair, braided it quickly, tying it off with an old rubber band. She took a deep breath, savoring the smell of the presses. Some of her friends preferred the scent of flowers, others the aroma of baking, but Willa loved the smell of newsprint. She kicked her legs up on the desk, where she sat as a girl, watching her father put out The Express. He wrote the articles, developed the pictures, pasted up the pages, operated the presses, and delivered the papers.

  It was the world made fresh once a week, brought right to people’s doorsteps. A noble calling, her father used to say. Even though there were bigger dailies out there beyond Nuckolls County, they couldn’t compete on what mattered most. If you got too big, he said, you lost touch with your readers.

  Willa studied the picture of her father on the desk. Behind the wire-rimmed glasses, his features were sharp. Square chin, black hair, brown eyes. He was sitting on the tailgate of a green 1967 Ford, bundles of newspapers behind him. It was the same truck she still used to run the papers around town. No point getting a new one, her father said.

  A few years back her father decided it was time to retire. It was earlier than for most men his age, but he wanted to take a whack at his memoirs, maybe even learn to paint, and, best of all, spend more time with his wife, Mae. It was hard, but he finally handed over the keys to the Superior Publishing Company. Now he spent most days listening to the Royals on the radio, scribbling on his legal pads, or going on country adventures with Mae. Once in a while, at dinner, he would say something about the layout or the coverage. All in all, she knew he liked what she had done with The Express.

  She, too, was proud of the little paper. It was only 16 pages most weeks, sometimes down to eight if there weren’t enough ads, but it had won some regional awards. She tapped the computer keyboard to scroll through the wires, scanning the international datelines. There was never really any question that she would take over for her father, but what would have happened if she’d gone to work for the Omaha World-Herald or the St. Louis Post-Dispatch? She would have ended up living overseas as a foreign correspondent, with an expense account, great clothes, exotic food, and worldly men. She envied the cool and stylish women on TV who covered war and famine without messing up their hair. Maybe some day … Then again, maybe not.

  “No news is not good news,” her father liked to say. On this day, there wasn’t much to write about at all. The Grasshoppers—the Little League team she coached three nights a week—were going to the state championships, but if she wrote another column inch about their exploits, there would surely be an uprising.

  The farmers were in the fields, planting soybeans and corn for the fall. The county weed superintendent had found severe infestations of musk thistle, one of six weeds officially declared “noxious” by the State of Nebraska. A perennial favorite on page one.

  There was only one small scandal worth exploring. The town mortician, Burl Grimes, had just been elected chairman of the hospital board. A few old folks were grumbling it was a conflict of interest, running the hospital and the funeral home at the same time. “Out one door, in the other,” someone had said.

  Willa reached for the phone. She would ask old Burl a few tough questions, piss him off, maybe even lose his business for the paper.

  So be it.

  The intercom buzzed. Willa turned down the farm news coming over the radio. She heard Iola’s mischievous voice: “There’s a guy out here to see you.”

  “Who is it?” she said.

  “Fella from The Book of Records. Wants to visit with you.” Then she whispered: “He’s kinda cute.”

  “Send him back,” Willa said.

  She knew the type. A stranger, just passing through. There were plenty of salesmen and hucksters on the back roads, looking for an angle. They told stories of the world beyond. They promised a way out. Once, long ago, she fell for a sweet-talking man who sold leather-bound books. He knew the difference between Yeats and Keats, recited lines from The Iliad in Greek, had traveled to faraway places. She gave away her beating heart. Then one day Mr. Odysseus went off to deliver an order of books and never came back.

  She was younger then, just back from the University of Nebraska. It took about two years to come to her senses. She was fine now, all healed, stronger than ever. That is to say, she was never going to forget.

  A knock interrupted her thoughts. The stranger stood in the doorway. He was nice looking with a full head of brown hair and gentle blue eyes that benefited from their association with his blazer. She took her legs off the desktop one at a time.

  “You can toss all those papers on the floor if you want a chair,” she said.

  He moved the pile, sat down, leaned forward, and handed her a business card.

  “Sure is hot,” he said.

  “Air conditioning’s out again.” She bent down under her desk, unplugged the radio, and connected the table fan. She aimed the little blower right at the stranger. “That ought to help.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’m burning up.”

  She noticed the sheen on his remarkably straight nose. Then she saw the gilded crest on his coat pocket. Pretty slick.

  “We’re a little busy today, Mr. Keeper of the Records,” she said, reading from his card. “Got a paper to close, and I’m short on time. What do you need?”

  She reached across the desk for her water bottle. She could feel his eyes on her and wished her hands weren’t stained with ink, that her nails were polished like women in the city. She pulled the rubber b
and from her braid and shook out her hair.

  “I’ll get to the point,” he said. “I heard you might be able to help me with the man eating the plane.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “A man never reveals his sources.”

  “A woman never reveals her information,” she said.

  They both laughed. A standoff. Then she saw him glancing down at her blue cotton dress.

  “I met Wally Chubb this morning,” he said, “and he wasn’t very helpful. In fact, no one seems very helpful. Thought since you’re with the press, maybe you’d—”

  “What kind of world record is this, anyway?”

  “Personal aviation. We’ve got a whole section on people and planes. Eating a 747 would go right next to the category we call ‘plane pulling.’ A few years ago, a guy named David Huxley in Australia pulled a 747—all by himself—298 feet 6 inches in 1 minute 27.7 seconds.”

  His face was alive with his statistics. She liked his voice, rich and deep, probably a baritone.

  “The team record,” he continued, “was set by 60 people in London who pulled a 747 a distance of 328 feet in 59.13 seconds.”

  “You think that’s impressive, don’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “No. Rattling off all those statistics.”

  “It’s my business,” he said, fiddling with the pen in his hand.

  “Don’t mean to be rude,” she said. “But I’m not impressed. Don’t think anyone around here is looking for your kind of attention.”

  She saw his gentle eyes sadden. Did she really have to be so harsh? This guy with a nice nose and good voice was just doing his job. Still, after Mr. Odysseus, it had become an involuntary reflex. She had to be on guard. For the town. And, yes, for herself.

  “Tell me one thing,” he said. “Why is Wally eating the plane?”

  “Did I say anyone was eating a plane?”

  “Look, Miss …” He blinked at her.

  “Willa,” she said. A peace offering.

  He smiled, a fine dimple on his left cheek. “Willa, I saw what he’s eaten of the plane. I know what’s happening out there in that field. Seems like a pretty big story.”

  “Not really,” she said.

  “A man eating a 747 isn’t news around here?”

  “No, in these parts that’s not news.”

  “Seems more important than what I read this morning in your paper about Mrs. Bodkin going to see Mrs. Toppin for coffee Sunday afternoon.”

  “Spare me the journalism lesson,” she said, standing up from behind her desk. “I’m sure you can find the door.”

  He stumbled out into the sun and, for an instant, thought he might fall over.

  She was a vision, that Willa Wyatt, with her wild blond hair, caramel eyes, and long tanned legs. From the moment he walked through the door and saw her leaning back in the chair, he felt the surge of dopamine in his veins. The table fan only accelerated the buzz, shooting pheromones through the air between them right into his hypothalamus.

  He could barely stay on target during their meeting. He needed information about Wally Chubb, but all he really wanted was to know more about this woman, this Willa, this editor of a two-bit newspaper in south-central Nebraska.

  He knew it was wrong. He knew it would lead to disappointment. And yet, when he thought of this woman kicking him out of her office, the feeling inside him was clear and inescapable.

  He knew then and there, in a town with only one stoplight, that he was about to get hopelessly, irretrievably lost.

  No doubt about it, Superior had once known glory. The streets and sidewalks were wide. Pioneers with big dreams had made them this way. J.J. loped down East Fourth Street toward the center of town. He could not have been farther from East Fourth in Manhattan. The air smelled of earth and crops. He could see the great twin towers of the grain elevator poking up beyond the rail yard. He passed the sturdy red brick post office. A sign said it closed at noon.

  It was quaint, all right, maybe even pretty, but J.J. couldn’t imagine why Willa would stick around here. Didn’t she realize it was a losing proposition? This place was just a wide spot in the road. Like so many towns on the plains, all the young people would gradually move away, leaving only the old folks behind. It was death by slow strangulation, life sucked out breath by breath.

  A few beat-up trucks were parked in front of the Git-A-Bite Café. J.J. pushed open the screen door and walked inside. Lunchtime. The place was packed and hot, an ancient ceiling fan simply overwhelmed. A man in a plaid shirt with a baseball cap pulled down over his ears left a tip on a small table with a red-checked plastic cover. J.J. sat down. He ordered a cup of coffee from a waitress who had a pretty face gone flat with resignation.

  “Special’s on the board,” she said, banging down the cup.

  Nearby, an old woman and a middle-age man were eating. “Can we use that flyswatter over here?” the woman asked the man at the cash register.

  “Go right ahead.”

  “Jimmy, you go, boy. Get the swatter.”

  “Okay, Ma.”

  The man stood up, shuffled over to the counter, reached for the swatter, and returned.

  “Go ahead, Jimmy. Kill ’em.”

  The man whacked the table.

  “Did you get it?”

  “Yeah, Ma.”

  “Good boy, Jimmy. They sure come in lately. You don’t even have to hold the door open.”

  J.J. wondered if he still had the appetite for lunch.

  “Hey, stranger,” a voice said. “Don’t mind Jimmy and his ma. Harmless as flies.”

  A tall man in overalls standing over the table guffawed. “Mind if I have a chair?”

  “Not at all,” J.J. said.

  “Name’s Righty Plowden,” the man said. “I farm a quarter or two around here.”

  “J.J. Smith.”

  Righty’s handshake was strong, his palm and fingers cracked and rough. He was easily in his 60s, with a gray beard, and white creases radiating from the corners of green eyes. He wore a stained work shirt, jeans, and boots.

  “Hope you’re not one of those vegetative types,” he said. “Not much to eat here at the Git-A-Life that isn’t deep-fried or cut off a cow.”

  The waitress materialized, and Righty ordered a cheeseburger and fries. “What kind of cheese?” she asked. “White or yellow?”

  “I’ll take yellow.”

  “Same here,” J.J said.

  As the waitress walked away, Righty leaned closer and whispered, “She vacuums in the nude.”

  “No!” J.J. said.

  “By golly she does. Or so I’ve been told.” Righty tightened the bottle top on the ketchup. “We’ve got the same number of sickos and perverts that you do in the big city. We just know who they are and we keep an eye on ’em.”

  Righty laughed and went on. “So, you’re here about the plane.”

  “I am.”

  “You gonna put it in your Book?”

  “If I can verify it.”

  “Where do you want to start?”

  “For one thing, is he really eating it?”

  Righty stroked his beard. “Can’t say for sure. Never seen for myself.”

  “You know anyone who has?”

  “Nah, Wally don’t like people coming on his farm. We hear the grinding every day. It’s been going on for years, ever since that plane came down in his field. Far as I know, he could be preparing for Armageddon. Stockpiling for when the UN takes over the world.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  Righty leaned back in his chair and picked his teeth with a matchstick. “You on an expense account?”

  “I am,” J.J. said.

  Righty ordered another cheeseburger and milkshake.

  “Wally’s a good kid,” he said. “Fact is, no one’s sure why he’s doing it. Doc thinks it’s a disease called pica or something. Kids eat dirt. Wally eats a plane. Could also be a brain tumor making him do it. My wife, Sally, says it’s psychological. O
bsessive repulsive something or other.”

  Righty lowered his voice. “Churchgoing folks swear he’s possessed by the devil.”

  “So?” J.J. said. “What’s your opinion?”

  Righty leaned back and stretched. “It’s pretty simple, really. Wally’s crazy in love. Simple as that. Always has been, always will be.”

  “Come on,” J.J. said.

  “I’m not putting you on a pound. Best I reckon, it started in fifth grade. Wally fell in love with a local girl and never stopped loving her. He’s spent his whole life trying to prove it to her. Heck, he’d even give three fingers off his shooting hand to win her heart.”

  J.J. scrawled in his notebook. A man eating a plane for love? This record attempt was getting better and better. He could definitely sell it to headquarters and the world. He was back on track and in control. The Willa euphoria in his brain had subsided.

  “No one pays much attention to Wally anymore,” Righty was saying. “Nothing we can do about it. He’ll be that way forever. And we just have to live with it.”

  Whack. The sound of the flyswatter at the next table.

  “Good boy, Jimmy,” the old woman said to her son. “You got another one.”

  The door to the café opened. A woman wearing a nurse’s uniform entered first. Then came Willa, the bright sunlight catching her dress for a moment. J.J. could see all of her in silhouette.

  “Thought you were just passing through,” she said as she walked by J.J.’s table.

  “Behave!” Righty told her. “Our friend here is all right.”

  “Oh, sure,” she said. “Meet my friend Rose. This is Mr. Smith from New York.”

  Rose had dark eyes with round cheeks and a smattering of freckles. Her hair, long and straight, reached the middle of her back. Her white nurse’s uniform was neatly pressed, and she wore a yellow button on her lapel with a simple smiley face.

  “Nice to meet you,” Rose said.

  “Pleasure,” J.J. said.

  Willa pulled on Rose’s arm. “Have a nice day, Mr. Smith. And don’t believe a word Righty tells you. He’s a crazy old fool.”

  J.J. watched her walk to the back of the café and sit down. Why didn’t he ask her to join them? Why did he freeze?