Duxford Airfield (the band)

My reply was met with silence.

"Sorry, ladies" I suddenly recanted.

"We'll be at the steakhouse in a few minutes, Tim, and we'll all feel better" Helen answered, as if she were speaking to a seven year old child in the back seat.

...A few minutes later Helen zipped the car into the parking lot of an impressive structure with a large lighted sign that read "Cattle Company." Parking the car, the ladies and I entered the foyer, arm in arm with Andrea in the middle.

It had been a long time since I had eaten at such a high-end establishment, it was formal, but by pressing my right arm against my side I was able to hide the tear in my suit coat when we walked into the building, although it still riled me to think about the ruined coat. Maybe I was just being childish and looking for something to complain about because I didn't like L.A. or maybe I just needed to eat a good meal and focus my attention on something positive. I certainly couldn't complain about the the caliber of my current company, my beautiful bride and Helen Lunsford. No, not bad company at all I thought to myself with a nod as I glanced at both ladies again.

We were soon greeted by an attractive hostess that quickly led us to a nice quiet booth.

The interior of the restaurant was adorned with a Hollywood style cowboy memorabilia, which in all honesty was just a bit tacky and a person still felt like they were in mad hustle of Los Angeles and not a lazy ranch somewhere in the middle of Colorado. However the food we soon discovered, was mind blowing which somehow made me want to forgive the restaurant's interior decorator and view his transgressions with a little softer light than I had a few minutes earlier.

Whoever had decorated this place had probably never been to an actual ranch I thought to myself as I looked around me at all the modern artwork depicting cowboys and horses. However there was one piece that I did like, a large photo plaque which depicted Blondie and Tuco riding horses together from the film "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly." Ricky and I always made it a point to sit down together and watch that movie once a year.

With this thought, I suddenly remembered the text message which I had received from Ricky, earlier today, and sighed with a slight frustration washing over me. Removing my suit coat and sliding into the booth next to Andrea now, I decided to shelve any thoughts of my little brother for the moment - he was a grown man that could handle himself in any situation and I needn't worry about him, yet I sometimes did.

...The ladies and I ate a delicious meal and made small talk. We lingered over our delicious food and didn't talk about funerals or people that had passed on, we talked about love and living life to the fullest. An invitation to stay with Andrea and me at The Gingerbread Ranch had already been extended to Helen with a firm promise in return from her that she would in fact pay us a visit in the relative near future. I liked the girl, and was saddened that she had experienced such a devastating break-up within the last few months.

I also knew that whenever push came to shove, Helen Lunsford could have her selection of men. As my elder friend Hans would say "They'll be lined-up around the block, once word gets out that she's up for grabs again." In this case, Hans would most certainly be correct. Helen was a class-act and she wouldn't be down for long, the guy that had previously left her would regret walking away from her, of that I was certain.

"...What is that?" I suddenly asked Andrea, indicating her purse or more specifically, the manila envelope which Wendy Weeds had given her earlier. The three of us were now eating dessert.

"I don't know, lets find out" Andrea said, flopping the manila envelope on the table, in front of me.

Without any hesitation I opened the large envelope and upturned it. A large skeleton key, about eight inches long, suddenly fell onto the table clothe with a slight clanking sound. The key looked like something one would see in an old Mother Goose story book or some other artwork related to children's bed time stories. The key was obviously very old and it was physically heavy to pick up. The key was quite rusted and had "MASTER" forged into the steel shank on each side. Looking into the envelope again, I also saw a business card which I shook out onto the table along with three $100.00 poker chips for the Dunes casino. There was nothing else inside the envelope.

"Oh my God, the Dunes!" Andrea suddenly gasped, looking at the poker chips and then picking one up to examine it.

"What did Wendy say about all this stuff, Andrea?" Helen asked, looking at the business card and then eyeing the key and poker chips on the table.

"Just that Danny left this envelope for you and I, Helen, that's all she knew" Andrea replied, setting down the poker chip and picking up the key.

Both ladies, their desserts temporarily forgotten, now had a very quizzical look on their faces, as if lost in distant recollections from another time of their lives. My gut instinct suddenly seemed to tell me that I was somehow out of the loop and not privy to some portion of back story that probably dated back decades concerning Andrea Millhouse, Helen Lunsford, Danny Wickersham, Duxford Airfield and the Dunes casino in Las Vegas.

"Who's this guy on the business card?" I asked, looking down.

"I think that was Danny's attorney" Helen answered.

...

I continued sitting on the floor of Helen's guest room and just listened to the rain from outside the darkened window. Andrea and I had made love earlier and now I just needed time to think as I leaned my back against the bed, it was just after eleven thirty P.M. I noticed glancing up at the digital clock....I'd always liked being inside a nice dark cozy house with a raging storm outside during the night.

"Cuddle Time" as Andrea would say...

My mind began to drift with the storm outside the window now as I stared at the pink dolphin night-light across from me on the other wall of the bedroom.

Right now my head was full of serious thoughts and also those that just came randomly. I was focusing on the random thoughts right now...the easy ones.

(***sigh***)...Maybe I was running from myself again.

My mind suddenly played the passage "Be still and know that I am God."

I thought of my beautiful mother's unshakable faith and wished that I possessed that same degree of faith.

A tear went down my cheek at the thought of her as I mentally ran away from my serious thoughts again in an act of self preservation.

Focus on the easy thoughts, I told myself sternly while nodding my head in agreement...

...Cute night-light, it looks just like something a pretty girl like Andrea Millhouse or Helen Lunsford would have inside their house I pondered, looking at the opposite wall again.

...Danny Wickersham could sure saw a mean Celtic fiddle I suddenly remembered. I couldn't remember the name of that particular Duxford Airfield song but it had been a Country Rock piece similar to something Charlie Daniels would have done.

...Apparently the two men had known and admired each other, I guess.

Mom used to play that Duxford Airfield song a lot on the HiFi, and loud too!

"Celtic Warrior" music, she had called it.

...What the hell was the name of that piece? I asked myself, shaking my head slightly and closing my eyes.

"You're still awake?" Andrea asked quietly as she rolled out of bed and sat down beside me on the floor now.

"Lot of thinking to do" I replied with no emotion.

"Ricky?" Andrea asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yeah" I answered.

"Brenda texted me, what does she mean by - Ricky's with his mistress now?" Andrea asked looking at me.

" (***sigh***)...Ricky's 'mistress' is riding the steel rails like a hobo, Andrea. He's done this a few times before, like when he was rejected by the Military - Mom said that he just hopped a freight train one day and rode it to where ever the hell it went to. Several days later she had to send him a plane ticket to come home, he was all the way down in Gallup New Mexico." I answered incredulously, shaking my head at the recollection.

"Isn't hopping freight trains illegal and also dangerous?" Andrea asked.

"Extremely, on both counts" I answered.

"Why does he do it then?" Andrea asked after a long silence.

"I think its a form of meditation for him, his little time away from the rest of the world" I answered honestly.

"Oh" Andrea answered, trying to understand.

"See, there are hobos, there are tramps and there are bums. Hobos work for a living and travel exclusively by freight train. Tramps usually work for a living and travel by freight trains too but they're also known for hitch hiking and whatever else gets them to where they want to go. Bums also ride the rails but they're just bums that try to live off other people's sweat, like all bums do. Ricky's a hobo and most of the hobos usually have monikers like Slim Jim, Bozo Texino and Shoestring...they write their names on box cars and bridges - stuff like, Slim Jim was here.

Some say that the name 'Hobo' came from Civil War Veterans riding the rails and returning home after the war - they were 'Homeward Boys', or Ho-bos. Others claim that the term originated from the Great Depression when flocks of men carrying hoes would ride the rails looking for crop work - they were Hoe -Boys, thus the name Hobos." I explained as I reached for my phone.

I opened the phone to the selfie that Ricky had taken of himself earlier that day and then sent to me.

"Here, see he's sitting on the end grate of a double barrel grainer -or grain car. It's called a double barrel because there are two open man hole ports on each end of the car that a man can crawl into and get out of the weather, these are actually inspection holes" I explained, pointing to the photo.

"Where is he going, do you have any idea?" Andrea asked, looking at the photo in wonderment.

"He's headed for Seattle, I think, - which is home in his mind....Not many hobos left any more..." I said as my sentence trailed off.

"So this,...this is his time-out, when life gets to be too much?" Andrea asked.

"Yes" I answered, recalling the similar feeling for my own self while riding in Helen's Buick earlier that evening.

There was a long silence between Andrea and me as the wind and rain pelted the darkened window of the bedroom.

"Don't you worry about him when he does this?" Andrea asked, handing me back my phone.

"Yes" I answered.

"What, what's Ricky's hobo moniker?" Andrea asked, trying to understand it all.

"Blitzkrieg" I answered.

"I've heard that before, German obviously, what does that actually mean, Tim?" Andrea asked, looking at me again and trying to understand.

"Lightning War" I responded.

"How did he get that moniker?" Andrea asked.

"( sigh ) Andrea, do you remember that large knife that Ricky carries in the leather sheath on his belt, the one with the embossed letters that say 'GRATH?" I asked.

"Yes" she replied.

"Apparently three guys jumped Ricky in some hobo camp one time and he quickly made short work of all three of them, that knife and sheath are the trophy which he liberated from one of those gents - probably their money too. After that little incident, the rest of the hobos respectfully gave Ricky the moniker of Blitzkrieg. If you ever see 'Blitzkrieg' scrawled on a bridge or railcar, then Ricky was there." I explained.

"Ricky took that knife away from the bad guys?" Andrea asked.

"Yes, Ricky once told me that 'If Mister Grath and his friends ever want the knife back, then I'll be happy to return it - if they can take it away from me" I answered Andrea.

"Do you think Ricky's ever killed anyone out there?" Andrea asked.

Andrea then quickly covered her face and recanted her question with "Sorry, Tim."

"It's alright honey, I honestly don't know, I don't think so. If he has killed someone on the tracks or in any of the camps then it would have been unintentional, it would also have been because someone was trying to hurt him first. Ricky is passive until provoked, that much I do know. He's a guy that doesn't like confrontation but if he's pushed into it by someone, then in that case, Ricky can be very comfortable and at home there" I answered with firsthand knowledge.

"Why doesn't he just buy a ticket and fly to Seattle, I don't understand why he would do any of this" Andrea exclaimed.

"Because for Ricky there is a freedom and exhilaration in riding the rails, it gives him time to think. He's just recently, within the last year, gotten married and moved away from the only place he's ever known as home - Seattle. I also believe in my heart that he's still subconsciously looking for Mom, even though he knows she's gone. Somehow I think I can understand that." I said.

"So can I" Andrea answered.

"...Grandfather Oley rode the rails some, looking for work, as a young man during The Depression, there were lots of hobos back then" I said quietly in reflection of family folklore I'd heard throughout the years.

Andrea made no verbal reply and there were several more long minutes of silence between us as we sat in the dark together and listened to the night's storm outside the window.

"...What is it? What are you thinking?" she finally asked, studying me closely.

" ( sigh )...Andrea, do you remember when we were at the Texaco and Ricky took the little orange cement mixer back to the rental place that day?" I asked.

"Yes, of course, on the day that Mister Hanes came to see us about the movie, Belle of Autumn, what about it?" Andrea replied, looking at me again.

"...The physicians have a medical term for Ricky's condition but it's a long word that I can never remember, essentially Ricky is fine except he doesn't understand hours and minutes. The fever which struck him as an infant did something to that part of his brain and Ricky just doesn't understand small increments of time, he never will. When he took that little cement mixer back to the rental I thought, you know, maybe he's finally getting better after all these years. I thought maybe his periodic misunderstanding of time is mostly an act of defiance, - which it is sometimes, like when he's pissed at Brenda. But then he'll do something like he did today and then I'll realize, once again, that he'll always be the Ricky that he's always been. It's almost like there's part of him that I'll never know or be able to reach. Brenda took him to Natwomar for paint and shelving this afternoon and then Ricky just vanished,...he hopped a freight train" I said, looking at the selfie of Ricky on my phone.

Andrea squeezed my arm in reassurance.

A tear went down my cheek. "I wish to God I could help him, honey" I said as I covered my face with my hand.

"He just needs some time to think and sort everything out in his mind is all, Tim, he'll be fine" Andrea responded gently.

"He'll be fine" I echoed Andrea and wiping away the tear.

Andrea leaned closer to comfort me and there was more silence between my wife and I as the storm raged outside.

"...We'll be heading to Texas with Helen on Monday, Tim, back to Odessa where we flew the bomber. Apparently that's where this lawyer fellow of Danny's lives. That OK with you?" Andrea asked, rolling her eyes up at me.

"Anything is fine, Andrea. ( sigh )...Here, I need to get something off my chest" I said, swiping my phone again and pulling up a message which I had copied and texted to myself earlier.

I handed the phone to Andrea with the message that read:

I haven't stopped thinking about you since we saw each other in the restaurant last year. I know now what a terrible mistake I made and I'm so sorry I hurt you. I'm so sorry for all the mistakes I made and all the grief I must have caused you. Leave her now and I'll meet you any where, any time. Its you that I want in my life and not Irwin. Leave her now and together we can make it work and I know now that I can be a good wife and make you happy. I never stopped caring about you, I was just confused and didn't know what a gem you really are: Please call.

"Susan?" Andrea asked after having read the text.

"Yes, the reason I didn't tell you right away is because I ran all of it past Duffy first. I have now blocked Susan and made sure that you didn't get her phone number, Andrea. Susan isn't a bad person, she's just a sick person and you needn't worry about her stealing me away, that'll never happen. - In translation, her text really says that Susan's spent a shit load of Irwin's money and he's probably about to boot her ass out" I said bluntly.

"Can I delete this?" Andrea asked, obviously disinterested in the my translation of the text message.

"Please do" I said, relief flooding over me with Andrea's calm demeanor.

"You've blocked her?" Andrea demanded as she deleted the text.

"Yes and as I've mentioned, I ran all of this past Duffy and the three of us can sit down and hash it all out during our next counseling session together" I explained.

"You've always been honest with me, Tim" Andrea acknowledged.

"...Are we, good, honey?" I asked.

"Yes, we're good, it took courage to show me that text, Tim. I'm not worried about Susan and I won't stir up a bunch of shit with her if we ever do see her by chance again, I'll be civil to her - for you, babe." Andrea confessed leaning against me.

"I'm in love with you and only you, Andrea" I said quietly.

"I know, Tim"

"What are we going to do tomorrow?" I asked.

"It's going to be stormy weather all day tomorrow so I was hoping we could just stay here and sleep all day since there's no place in L.A. that you'd be interested in going to anyway. Helen doesn't plan to go anywhere tomorrow, she's been through the emotional wringer these last few weeks so I would imagine that she'll probably sleep all day herself. We have to be at the airport with her on Monday evening, so I think we should try and enjoy the time that we can sleep-in, you and I may not have any privacy for a while once we get to Odessa." Andrea said.

"I know she's had a rough go" I replied quietly.

I think Helen is doing a lot better now, just knowing that there are friends in her house, and a day of rest would do her a world of good. Once she gets banging away on her keyboard with this new book, she'll start firing on all twelve cylinders again and be fine. Then it'll be time for us to just get out of her way because once Helen starts a new project she gets wound up and becomes a real dynamo, Tim." Andrea explained.

"Works for me" I replied, setting my phone back onto the charging pad.

Andrea and I listened to the storm outside for a few minutes without saying anything further. Horse feathers suddenly bumped open the door and walked into our bedroom. Andrea picked up the cat and held him in her arms as we both began petting him.

"What happened back then, in Vegas, at the Dunes?" I asked abruptly, remembering the vibes that I had detected between Andrea and Helen at the restaurant earlier that evening.

" (sigh)...This afternoon at the service, you heard Father Thomas say that Danny was always pulling some kind of shenanigan or another didn't you, Tim?" Andrea asked as she kissed Horse Feathers on the head.

"Yes, and I picked up on the U-Haul analogy" I replied smiling slightly.

"That was Danny, he was always doing something outrageous for a lark. He probably thought-up the U-Haul gag years ago and had it written in his last will and testament or something. Looking back now, I remember that when the Angels album went gold, all the networks wanted an exclusive interview with Duxford Airfield and Danny Wickersham. Talk show hosts used to get so frustrated with Danny whenever they'd interview him because he'd start telling wild bullshit stories that he was really an F.B.I. Agent or C.I.A. Operative or some other nonsense....I don't think Danny ever reviled who he really was to anyone - even to Helen or me which is strange, as close as the three of us were. It was almost as if Danny were somehow ashamed of his past and intentionally avoiding it in some way by telling wild stories, at least that's what Wendy's always believed. Andrea explained.