Duxford Airfield (the band) Pt. 04

Andrea's charade made it sound as if she were someone that read the smut papers religiously and believed everything they had ever printed.

I stopped in my tracks with Andrea's one-sided litany and doubled over with uncontrollable laughter, still holding her hand. Now I was the one with tears in my eyes.

Regaining some semblance of self-control, I jerked Andrea close to me and kissed her again.

"Andrea; shut the fuck up! Ya know what I'm sayin'?" I asked teasingly as I looked her in the eyes.

I kissed her once more and then began leading her down the street again at a fast pace before she could respond.

...The weight of dead seriousness and resentment which I had been burdened with during the last few days suddenly dissipated within a few minutes, simply by laughter. I realized that I no longer cared what other people thought, I had Andrea to walk through this life with me and that was more than I'd ever need.

Walking down the sidewalk now, hand in hand, my phone abruptly rang. Answering the phone, I discovered that it was my old and dear friend, Andy Andrew. Andy and I talked on the phone for several minutes as my wife and I walked together. With a genuine laugh, I inevitably told Andy, that if he wanted to see what I looked like now, and also the woman whom I'd recently married, then he should pick up a recent copy of The International Monitor.

I briefly explained to Andy that my wife had been a lifelong friend of Danny Wickersham as well as the rest of the band, Duxford Airfield - I told Andy that he'd understand, once he picked up a copy of the smutty newspaper. Andy replied that he was a huge fan of the band and had every single one of their albums. I quickly responded to this proudly by suggesting that Andy should look very carefully at the girl on the last page of Duxford Airfield's "Angel's" album jacket and then call me back tomorrow.

"Oh, you mean "The Mystery Girl?" Andy asked.

"Yup," I said affirmatively with pride.

"Stone cold fox, that one, Tim," Andy said.

"You better take another close look at her, Andy," I said.

"I don't need to, Tim, I can see her clearly in my mind right now as we speak,...you don't know her, personally now, do you?" Andy asked incredulously.

I handed the phone to Andrea "His name is Andy" I whispered to Andrea.

I began listening to Andrea's one-sided conversation now between her and Andy.

"Hi Andy, I'm Andrea, Tim's mistress," she said, followed by laughter.

"...For the moment, yes. I guess I'll keep him around until I get tired of his crap, then I'll boot his ass out to the curb" Andrea said into the phone, rolling her eyes at me and laughing again.

"...Yes, it's me, Duxford Airfield's Mystery Girl...

...It was a long time ago, Andy. All that was Danny's idea, back in the day...

...Oh I know, it just breaks my heart. Danny was such a good guy, too...

...No we're actually here in Texas with a friend at the moment, we live in Arizona now...

...We just saw Wendy Weeds, she's in her mid-seventies now and stoned out of her head about ninety percent of the time now,...yes it is, really...

Andrea and I talked with Andy for several more minutes and then said goodbye, promising to talk again the following day. It was so good to talk with my old friend again.

...

Helen continued reading, "...and according to sources at The International Monitor, the alleged love triangle between Kathryn Dalloway, A.J West, and Danny Wickersham had been kept secret from Duxford Airfield's other band members for over twenty-five years. Sources also say that-"

" - Helen,...HELEN!...please stop," I said abruptly as I sat on the edge of the opposite bed and held my forehead in my palms.

My feelings of frustration and resentment at the article, which I'd experienced earlier at the bus stop a few minutes before, now suddenly pounced on me once more and I was starting to get angry again.

"Awww, Tim, but this is such an adorable article though and I LOVE our photo! Abe chose the perfect photo and he was so considerate to use my alias, Kathryn Dalloway, as well as Andrea's, with A.J. West. Good ol' Honest Abe!" Helen said smiling widely and looking at our photo, which was splattered all over the front page of the bullshit newspaper."

"You,...you mean that you actually know the loser that wrote all that horseshit?" I asked Helen incredulously.

"I used to be his boss, when I worked at The International Monitor, Tim," Helen said a little sternly.

I now sat with my mouth agape and just stared at Helen.

"Don't worry, Tim, The International Monitor isn't translated to any other foreign languages, like some of the other gossip tabloids are. The International Monitor only prints around thirty million copies each month, for English-speaking countries. Canada and Australia of course, get this publication as do..., Tim, are you alright?" Helen suddenly asked, looking at me.

I stood up and put my palms on my temples with total disbelief now and closed my eyes. "Helen, -Andrea, -and -I -love -you, -but -sometimes -you're -just too much!" I said, struggling to say the words without exploding and unsure again if I was going to vomit or not.

I suddenly felt overheated and I was physically shaking again.

Andrea began to say something to me when I quickly darted past her and into the motel suit's bathroom and watched as my Subway sandwich suddenly reappeared into the toilet bowl before me. Andrea was soon standing beside me with concern in her eyes and a hand on my back.

All four walls were closing in on me now and I was suddenly very, very angry.

"Andrea, we're getting on the fucking plane tonight! FUCK all this Danny Wickersham bullshit! Fuck L.A., fuck Texas, fuck Duxford Airfield, fuck The International Monitor and fuck Alan Astrachan. We're getting on the fucking plane tonight, I don't care what it fucking costs but we're getting out of this fucking mess TONIGHT! THIS ISN'T OUR MESS!" I said forcibly with an echo while resting my forehead on the toilet bowl.

...The nice cold toilet bowl seemed to be the only true friend that I had left in this world right now...

I suddenly heaved again and splattered the nice turquoise-colored toilet bowl, as well as the front of my shirt now with vomit.

"...Oh, my God," I said in total misery, just thinking of all my friends and co-workers who were now reading the dumpy newspaper this very minute and laughing at me.

"My whole life's integrity is now, quite literally, down the toilet." I moaned.

"...Tim, we'll get through this, honey. If you want to get on the plane tonight, we will. Can we sleep on it first though, please? I understand that you're upset and you have every right to be but I'd rather get a good night's sleep in a motel bed than spend all night sitting up in an airport, waiting for a couple of cancellation seats on an airplane. Can we sleep on it tonight, babe? I promise, that if you want to leave in the morning, then we will. We'll rent a car, if we have to" Andrea said quietly, rubbing my back.

As was often the case, my wife's logic made more sense than mine did.

I was silent for several long minutes before answering.

"One night, one night only," I said finally, answering with a monotone.

"One night" she replied quietly.

"...Honest Abe, I'd like to knock that slimy little bastard on his ass," I said bitterly as I raised up onto my knees and closed my eyes.

"We'll get through this, Tim," Andrea repeated.

"...Oh, my God," I said in anguish again.

Andrea helped me out of my defiled shirt and threw it into the turquoise-colored bathtub. She then moistened a washrag with soap and water and cleaned the front of my chest. Andrea also turned on the bathroom's ventilation fan which reverberated with the annoying noise of worn bushings, probably brass, I thought offhandedly.

I slowly stood up and then sat down on the edge of the bathtub, just holding my head, with closed eyes. The whole bathroom stunk of vomit now and the morning maid would probably think that one of us was a heavy drinker and had puked sometime during the night. There's probably a seventy-five-dollar surcharge just to get the rotten stench out of the bathroom, I reasoned to myself with incredulous irritability.

"Danny must have been such a total loser. He probably considered morons like 'Honest stupid Abe' as one of his friends," I said more or less to myself with a defiant snort.

"We'll get through this too, honey, "Andrea said yet again as she sat down on the edge of the bathtub beside me and rubbed my leg reassuringly.

After a few more minutes we got up and walked back into the motel room, I was shirtless now, and holding a large white towel, - just in case, I got the urge again.

I sat down on the bed, facing Helen on the opposite bed, and closed my eyes.

"Tim, this isn't as big a deal as it seems, I've been through this before and so has Andrea. As long as we don't openly flaunt ourselves in public, or all three of us, wear the exact same clothing that's in the photo, then the public won't even recognize us, honey. Next month, when the paper's new publication comes out, someone else will be on the front page and no one will even remember Kathryn Dalloway, A.J. West, or the so-called bodyguard, as they described you. We're; all three, also wearing sunglasses in this photo, which helps disguise us a lot. The International Monitor used a very flattering photograph of us, - and it is. Believe me, we were painted in a very positive light in this article." Helen said gently to me.

"Now you fully understand why famous people always have an alias, Tim," Andrea explained, sitting beside me on the bed.

"You've managed to make the smut papers, Tim, now you know you're finally a somebody," Helen said sarcastically, flopping the paper onto the other bed.

"There's no business, like show business," Andrea said whimsically in reflection of her modeling career.

"Helen, we love you, but please give Andrea and me our privacy now," I said, still with my eyes closed and head drooped.

"Tim's right, we do love you, Helen. We'll all feel better tomorrow, honey, so let's get some sleep now" Andrea said reassuringly to Helen, as the two ladies stood and hugged.

"I love both of you, too," Helen said quietly to us as she slipped into her own room and closed the adjoining door softly behind her.

I was suddenly extremely exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally drained to the point where I just no longer gave a damn about the article anymore....I never would have even made it through a cab ride to the airport tonight before conking out, I now reasoned with myself.

How did you ever get me into this mess, Andrea Millhouse? I asked myself wearily and quickly glanced at her....Yet even now, during this dark moment of confusion, I still found myself drawn to her with an undeniable attraction. It wasn't just her physical beauty that intrigued me, but also her spiritual make-up.

Andrea was undeniably, on my side.

...Something my little brother, Ricky, had once said to me now ran through my mind with abundant clarity. "If you're going to be with a woman, for life, then she needs to be your soulmate and she better be the best damn looking woman there is; Tim; because life isn't always going to be pie and ice cream."

...I believed now, that I understood Ricky's logic. Ricky's rationalization simply meant that if a man was going to wake up and look at the same woman, every day, then he better look forward to it...

I silently slid out of my clothes and just let them fall where I stood and slowly crawled into bed. I then smiled slightly at some of Doc Feldman's ironic humor, from decades ago when I'd been an adolescent. Doc had once philosophized that "God created earth and man, and then rested. Then God created woman, and neither God nor man has rested since."

The International Monitor must be owned by a woman, I now reasoned sarcastically to myself.

Doc had been a lifelong family friend whom we had all loved. He'd been in his eighties when he'd quipped that particular little quote to me and he'd only been expressing his Irish humor. Doc had been a ladies' man to the core and had never once, during the decades that I'd known him, ever said a derogatory thing about any woman....He could sure as hell tell some lewd, yet humorous stories about the ladies, to us boys though. Doc had been a frontline surgeon during the Great War and he'd seen it all. What an incredibly strong and wonderful man he'd been... What would he have thought of Andrea Millhouse? I now wondered.

"Aye, you need to keep that one, you do, lad!" Doc would have undoubtedly said...

I now broke the silence inside our motel room. "Well, now we're stuck in another fine mess that you've gotten us into, Andrea Millhouse," I said, teasingly without looking at her.

"Since you like being the center star of The International Monitor so much now, Tim, then you'll love the encore that I have planned for us," she said slipping out of her clothes and turning out the light as she slid under the covers, beside me.

"Uhh," I mumbled.

"Want to fly a Spitfire tonight?" she asked, running her hands all over me.

"I want snuggle!" I said selfishly and abruptly, on the verge of exhausted sleep.

I didn't blame Andrea or Helen, in any way, for the article in the smut magazine. Like everyone else, I'd stared at the covers of smut magazines from within the grocery store check-out line for years and never believed anything they'd ever published. Then again, I didn't believe anything that the major news networks said anymore either. Someone had once told me that the primary objective of a newspaperman, was to sell newspapers, not tell the truth.

Some people claimed that I was a cynic, and maybe I was, but I didn't believe we were being told the truth any longer. In my opinion, we'd been lied to, starting with Vietnam and we were still being lied to.

Now my wife and I, along with Helen Lunsford, were splattered all over the front page of a lousy gossip column that spewed more lies.

Somehow, I'd just never imagined myself on the front cover of The International Monitor. Helen was right though, it really was a good photo of us. The guy with sunglasses, in the suit and tie and walking with a beautiful woman on each arm, looked like he really had things going on and under control. My God, I was so very glad that all three of us were wearing sunglasses in the photo.

In a way, I could suddenly empathize with certain famous actors and actresses who were often viewed by the public as snobs. Many of them were probably snobs because they'd simply gotten tired of the endless lies written about them in publications like The International Monitor.

I also knew that, since the time of Ceasar, politicians had understood the power of swaying the press, often destroying their political opponent with nothing more than unfounded lies. Lies and politics seemed to be synonymous since the birth of time, it seemed...

...None of it mattered now, tomorrow Andrea and I would get on a plane and go home, perhaps with Helen Lunsford in tow, or not.

Andrea and I slept.

...

"What's yours say, Andrea?" Helen asked; as we stood within the cramped wooden cubical of the Federal Bank's safe deposit box vault.

Andrea silently shook her head and simply handed Helen the note.

"It's all a stupid game, something Danny Wickersham thought up as one final lark," Andrea said with a tone of disgusted finality in her voice.

"The key to my heart unlocks all doors" Helen read aloud, looking at the slip of paper that Andrea had just handed her.

"Helen, let's take a quick look at Danny's piece of real estate, I think Tim and I can still get on a plane at three o'clock this afternoon and head home then, please join us," Andrea said earnestly.

Helen ignored Andrea's statement and reread her own note from Danny.

"...The Dutchess sees all, watch her back and she will reveal her secrets to you.' - What does any of this mean and why would Danny misspell Duchess with a 'T'? Danny was an English Major and he had tremendous respect for the English language, why would he misspell something as simple as Duchess?" Helen asked.

"Helen, let's get out of here and go! All of this is obviously some horseshit orchestrated by a now-deceased lunatic, let's go!" I suddenly said impatiently.

I then quickly held up my palm and closed my eyes "Sorry" I said quietly with a resigned sigh of frustration.

"...Yeah, you're right, Tim. Let's go look at that piece of property now, I think we're done here in Texas," Helen said with a not-so-sure look on her face.

Who the hell rents a safe deposit box for two lousy slips of worthless paper? I now asked myself incredulously. Danny Wickersham hadn't left either of the ladies squat, what a moron. I was about ready to give Andrea a piece of my mind with both barrels. We'd been away from home for a whole week now, dealing with all of this meaningless Danny Wickersham crap. "Did you marry me or Danny Wickersham, Andrea?" I wanted to scream, at her in exasperation.

The cheap bastard hadn't even left Andrea or Helen a plane ticket home.

...Just hold your tongue a little longer, I told myself with gritted teeth and closed eyes as the three of us walked out of the bank and toward the rental car. We'll be home soon, just hold your tongue a little longer...

Andrea seemed to sense that I was getting close to the end of my rope now as she walked beside me and proudly took my arm.

"We'll take a quick look at this piece of dirt and then get ready to head home, Tim. Maybe we can convince Helen to come and stay with us while she finishes her book," she said, looking at the other girl.

"I think I'd like that and I want to meet Wolfie and Pippi, too" Helen replied smiling.

...An hour later Andrea cursed in frustration and then slung her phone onto the dashboard of the rental car as she closed her eyes and held her forehead.

"Alan's secretary doesn't know squat, all she said was that we have the address that Alan gave to her, and Alan won't be back for three weeks. She doesn't know when she'll even talk to him again." Andrea said.

Currently, we were having trouble locating Danny Wickersham's piece of property. The GPS kept wanting us to drive through the front gate of a massive oilfield, which was heavily guarded property. We'd been driving around in circles for an hour and the GPS was lying to us, telling us to go directly into the oilfield.

"This is the same place where we flew the B-17 bomber, Tim. We're right back at the same oilfield where we flew Alice Mae, that time." Andrea said angrily as she began methodically retyping the address into the GPS for the third time within the last half an hour.

I now watched Andrea slowly and carefully retype the correct address into the GPS, using the slip of paper as a reference.

"That's the address Alan gave us?" Helen asked from the back seat.

"YES!" Andrea said irritably.

Helen and I quickly made eye contact with each other and shrugged. Even Andrea was now getting tired of Danny's posthumous charade, the same as Helen and I was.

"...There! See what I mean? The GPS claims that the piece of property is right through the gate and into the fricken oilfield, for God's sake." Andrea said tiredly as she threw up her hands and pointed toward the GPS in exasperation; as if Helen and I needed proof.

"Sometimes the GPS can get confused, this has probably happened before, I'm going to go in and ask them if they know where Danny's lot is, it has to be somewhere very close to where we are right now," I reasoned as I slowly pulled back into the oilfield's office parking lot and put the car in park.

I shut off the car's engine.

"- I've been watching you for the last half hour now, you folks looking for something in particular? - Sorry, didn't mean to startle you, son" A security guard now said, leaning down toward my open window, with a very serious look on his face.