Up In The Air – One Last Time

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Flying through the Memory Warehouse.
25k words
19.9k
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11

Part 3 of the 3 part series

Updated 09/22/2022
Created 04/12/2008
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All storms pass -- eventually. Life goes on, if but for a brief time, and often tentatively at best, like storm ravaged limbs falling down into rushing streams before tumbling onward, and one day, perhaps, out to sea. The sun returns for a time, and with upturned faces bright eyes seek it's warmth. Spirits of wounded souls reach for the solace of sky; words of distant passion take wing on earth-borne breezes and drift inside the ancient rhythm of memory -- seeking release again and again.

__________________________________

The man sat in the doctor's office, beside his wife.

Two weeks before, when a routine mammogram had found a lump in her left breast, their world had changed forever, the journey they had suddenly found themselves on had taken a hard turn away from normalcy and predictability -- and now they were well and truly on a road less traveled.

Now there were trips to foreign lands, quiet visits to strange places with names like Oncology, and Radiotherapy. A mammogram gave way to a fifty minute session in the MRI, and now a radiologist had his two cents to throw into the maelstrom of confusion. Surgeons recommended one course of action, oncologists another, but first things first, they all said.

'We have to go in and find out exactly what we're dealing with.'

And last Friday, they had done just that.

Now they were in an oncologists cheery office, waiting for his sure to be cheerful news. A print of Klimt's 'The Kiss' hung on one wall, while Klimt's 'Danaë' hung behind the physician's desk, and the man thought that image particularly ironic, indeed, almost obscene -- given the circumstances of their visit today.

The physician, a short, trim man with almost no hair on his head save for a severely trimmed beard, came into the office with a file folder in his hand. He came in silence. He came deep in thought, reading and re-reading surgical and pathology reports in the folder, then he looked up at Peggy Overton, and at her husband, Paul. He sighed, collected his thoughts again, then took off his glasses and put them on a polished rosewood desk.

"There's no easy way to talk about this, so let's just dive in," the physician began.

"First, the lump. Well, lumps. The first, the one we found in the original mammogram, is malignant, and aggressively so. Dr Karstens also palpated another lump in your right breast, as you'll recall, as it was too high for the mammogram to catch. It too is malignant. Your MRI revealed some involvement of the lymph nodes in your left axial, uh, armpit, and these were biopsied. Dr Karstens decided, when he saw the nodes on your left side, to go ahead and sample three on your right side, while you were under.

"We expected to find a few, perhaps five nodes on your left side to be involved. We found fifteen. Of course, Karstens had no expectations for those sampled on the right, but all three rapid biopsies of those showed involvement, and so he went in and dissected those as well.

"The overall staging, at this point Mrs Overton, is four, and I'm not going to lie to you, or try to somehow make this sound less serious than it is, but the bottom line is..."

And there it was.

Thirty four years of marriage, reduced to a single word.

'Terminal.'

Paul Overton had wrapped his arms protectively around his wife, he had held PeggySue while seismic waves of grief ground through their souls, and then, after the impact of the physician's words had crushed through his own meager defenses, he fell under the weight of his own reflexive grief, fell into the grip of his own emotional death.

________________________________

Heavy rain fell on the 747 as it pushed back from the gate. The airliner looked dark and almost perversely sinister in the evening light, like some kind of displaced prehistoric beast wallowing on the pavement, incongruously trapped in garish yellow light that bathed the crowded ramp. Open window shades along the side of the dripping beast dappled the tops of the wings with little amber shadows; when sharp knives of wind tore across the ramp, water collecting on the wings eddied and ran down to the safe embrace of the earth below.

An anonymous figure in an orange rain-suit walked under the nose of the aircraft, hooked-up an umbilical inside a little recessed compartment, then looked at all the activity winding down on the ramp.

"Clear to start two," the person below the aircraft said.

"Starting two," Paul Overton said from his seat some twenty five feet above the ramp. He reached over and pushed buttons, turned dials, then watched pressures build on the screens in front of him while he advanced a throttle lever to the start position.

"Pressure good," Denise Evans said. Evans was Overton's first officer on this flight, and her voice was full of a gravelly West Texas twang. "EGT good. EGP check."

"Clear to start three," the voice below called through rain and wind.

"Starting three," Overton repeated. He began the same sequence and watched the screens again, then moved a practiced eye to the latitude and longitude readouts on the tiny screen by his right knee to see that the aircraft's movement was still registering on the navigation display. "Good inertial lock," he said when he saw the numbers were unchanged.

The push-back truck slowed to a stop, and felt it disconnecting from the nose-wheel.

Another voice called, Kennedy Ground Control, and it burst into the cockpit from the overhead speaker: "United Two Three Heavy, clear to taxi on alpha foxtrot for runway two five left."

"Two Three Heavy to two five left," Overton replied to the ground traffic controller huddled somewhere far away in warmth and darkness. He saw the red panel light wink out indicating the push back truck was disconnected, then heard the voice below calling through the storm that they were now clear to taxi. Overton waited until the orange suited figure walked into view and turned to face him, then, when the figure below held out a glowing orange wand pointing to his left, Overton advanced the throttles for two and three with his right hand while turning the nose-wheel paddle with his left. The old girl hesitated, then began to move ever so slowly; he decreased the turn radius and backed off the throttles as her speed picked up.

"EGT on three is a little high," Evans, the first officer, said.

"Okay, keep an eye on it. Give me flaps seven and set V-ref for one two seven and rotate for one four three."

"Flaps seven, V-ref to one two seven and V-r to one four three."

Overton straightened out the nose gear and goosed the throttle again for just a moment, and the old girl steadied out at just under fifteen miles per and rumbled along the old concrete. "What's the EGP now," he asked.

"Forty five percent and holding. Temp looks good."

"Fine. Go ahead and give me lights and some wiper, would you?" The taxiway ahead lit up as Evans hit a switch on the overhead panel, then the windshield wipers burst into action and cleared the glass.

The two pilots settled into calling out the remainder of the takeoff checklist while Overton wove through the various taxiways, and about halfway out to the runway he and Evans started the two outboard engines and watched their readouts as they spooled up.

"United Two Three Heavy, winds two four three at eighteen, gusts to two five. Taxi to position echo and hold."

"Two three heavy," Evans said as Overton reached for the intercom. "Lot's of traffic," she added.

"Yup. 'Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff'," Overton said as he armed slides and doors. He caught a flicker of lightning in the clouds and flipped the weather radar from standby to active and watched a line of deep red cells form-up on the screen.

"Ooh, that's nice," Evans said. "Going to be a messy out tonight."

She looked at Overton, took in his stoic silence, wondered how long he'd last before he cracked.

________________________________

PeggySue and her oncologist settled on chemotherapy. There would be no cure, the physician told her, but perhaps they could fight their way to an uneasy truce, perhaps gain a year, maybe more -- if they were lucky.

Paul Overton sat with his wife in a room the size of a basketball court, a room filled with men and women sitting back in recliners, men and women covered by little homemade quilts, sitting quietly, stoically, while one liter bags of death seeped into their veins. Every Friday morning for two months they sat. Every Friday morning for two months he sat and watched death flow into the port below her left collar bone. He watched some people improve, and he watched as more than a few stopped showing up for treatments, and he came to see cancer as a predator.

He came in their bathroom one night, to the shower, running towards cries of sorrow and tears, and he had found her sitting in the shower, naked, naked with warm water running down her ravaged breast, holding clumps of hair in her hand, looking at him, willing him to wake her from this nightmare.

He lifted her into his arms, into his embrace, and she had clung to him, held on to him so fiercely her fingernails had torn through his flesh, and he watched his blood mingle with the water and spiral down into the darkness. She asked him, then begged him through tear streaked eyes to take a razor and strip all the hair from her head. He had soaped her head, pulled withering clumps of her precious red hair from her scalp, run the blade over her skin until it was smooth, and then he had held her, pulled her as close as one mortal being could another, while her tears joined his blood on their journey into the night.

________________________________

The two peered ahead into the darkness and watched as a sheet of lightning filled the sky ahead of a sudden burst of heavy rain. Overton groaned when a couple of pea-sized hail stones bounced off the windshield.

"Ah, United Two Three Heavy, wind now one nine zero at thirty five, gusting to forty plus."

"Two Three Heavy received," Evans replied. She turned to Overton: "That's getting pretty close to the line." Even the huge 747 had a crosswind limit of forty five knots on takeoff at this weight, but so heavily loaded even forty would be pushing it.

Overton slowed the aircraft as they came to the end of the taxiway; he squinted through the wipers and saw the landing lights of an American 757 on final. The wings of the 757 rocked and dipped as a gust tore across Jamaica Bay; the pilot corrected and the jet slid over the threshold with barely a whisper, but the right wingtip seemed just inches above the runway. Overton looked at the 757, willing the wingtip up, then he sighed as the 757 flew above the runway as if hesitating, then heard it power up and climb back up into the clouds.

"Shit," the two pilots said.

"United Two Three Heavy, American 757 reporting severe crosswinds; we're still showing three five knots from one ninety."

Overton spoke to the controller in the tower this time: "Ah, Two Three Heavy, we saw him. We're a little heavier, so we'll give it a go."

Evans cast him a sidelong glance, shook her head.

"United Two Three Heavy, roger, and you're clear for takeoff. Contact departure at one two seven decimal three. Good night."

"Two Three Heavy," Overton said as he advanced the throttles a little. Turning onto the runway he straightened out along the centerline and pushed the throttles all the way to the takeoff indent while moving his hand to the nose-wheel paddle. He pushed his left foot down on the rudder pedal as he felt the first gust bite into old girl, then he brought his left hand up from the nose gear paddle to the yoke. Another gust hit and he rolled in a little left aileron. He looked at the speed momentarily, then focused on the runway and the crosswind . . .

"V-one," Evans called out a moment later, then: "Rotate!"

Overton pulled back on the stick and the nose lifted; a savage gust tore into the old girl but he corrected easily, smoothly, and he looked at the rate of climb indicator. "Okay, positive rate of climb; gear up."

Evans reached up to the front panel and pulled the gear lever out and up, then waited for the annunciator lights to indicate green before stating: "gears up and locked." She reached to the overhead panel and turned off the landing lights, then switched to the departure control frequency and called in: "United Two Three Heavy out of 500."

"Roger, Two Three Heavy, turn left to one five zero, and you're cleared to flight level two-two zero."

"Two Three Heavy to one five zero and angels twenty two," Evans said as the 747 leapt from one strata of cloud to the next.

Overton began a gentle standard rate turn just south of The Battery; he looked down and could just make out The Statue of Liberty through a tiny break in the storm below. Everywhere he looked the carpet of dappled cloud below was rimmed with pale light from an endless sea of city lights down there in the rain, and as strobes on the wingtips pulsed the sensation of speed between layers of cloud was startling.

"Two Three Heavy, turn left to zero eight zero, squawk 2400, and check Mode C please."

"Two Three Heavy to zero eight zero, 2400 and Mode C confirmed."

Overton set the heading bug on the flight director then flipped on the autopilot; another onboard computer continuously calculated the most fuel efficient throttle setting and maintained this calculated speed to climb ratio, and would all the up to their final cruise altitude.

The cabin intercom chimed and Evans answered, then New York Center came on:

"United Two Three Heavy, now clear to flight level three one. Turn left to zero three zero and contact Boston Center on one three-three decimal seven."

"Two Three Heavy to three six on zero three zero," Overton replied while Evans fiddled with a cabin temperature setting on her overhead panel. "What's up back there?"

"Too hot back in cattle-class. Giving them some air conditioning for a minute, then I'll try to even it out."

"Okay," he said as he peered down at the Connecticut coastline beneath the clouds.

________________________________

He started taking time off, giving them more time together, and when the weather warmed they would get on 95 and head north to Mystic, to the marina in Noank.

To the PeggySue.

She was an older boat, but at forty eight feet on deck she was big for two people, sometimes too big, but the room came in handy now, and the weight of a larger boat made the motion gentler, more comfortable, and while Peggy had always loved it out on the water she was fragile now, and less tolerant of such things.

They didn't sail much now, however. She came down to the boat to lie in the sun, to feel cool breezes on the bare skin of her face and scalp. To lean against him, to hold his hand.

They talked about their life together, about the things they'd done together, the friends that had come and gone. Memorable parties, weddings they'd been to decades before, the surprising divorces they'd watch unfold, the not so surprising human train wrecks they'd witnessed along the way.

They talked about the children they'd tried to have, and hadn't -- or couldn't. The dogs they did have, too. That marvelously clumsy Gordon Setter she'd named Ralph -- because she couldn't think of a sillier name for a dog than that. How he'd tried to get Ralph to play 'fetch' -- and how the poor boy had taken off and run headlong into a tree. The little West Highland Terrier that had worked it's way into their hearts, and then died when only a few years old. That had been it, no more heartbreak. That was when they had decided to get the boat, and they'd never regretted the decision.

She would walk up onto the foredeck, then back to the swim platform off the stern, and she'd climb down the little steps there and dangle her feet in the water. She would sit there by herself some days and peer down into the darkness, like she was looking into the future.

________________________________

He heard her tell him about the heat back in coach. "Okay, fine," he said as he changed the heading bug on the flight director. The jet banked gently to the left, and he scowled before adding: "Shoot, just tell 'em to open a window if they get too hot."

Evans laughed, then her eye shot to the EGT readout for engine three again. She reached over and changed screens to focus on just that engine.

"I see it," Overton said. He reached over and retarded the throttle lever for number three until the fluctuation stabilized again. "Looks like an oil filter, or maybe that pump again. Probably be okay at seventy percent."

Evans fiddled with the flight director to dial in compensation. "Think it could be ice?"

"Nope. Remember, it was acting up on the ground?"

"Right."

"Switch over to Boston, would you?"

Evans switched comm units and called Boston Center: "Boston, this is United Two Three Heavy climbing through eighteen for three six."

"Good evening Two Three Heavy. You are clear to three six. Only traffic at this time is at your ten o'clock descending from twenty right now, about one five miles. You're following Speedbird Zero Zero Three, four five miles ahead at flight level two five. You are clear for St John, contact Bangor on one three four decimal one, and good night."

"Roger Boston. Contact Bangor one three four one."

"Shit," Overton said, rubbing his eyes, "this is going to be one long night. I hope they gave us something other than rubber chicken this time. Man, I got the shits something fierce last time I had one of those things. Death bombs. They ought to know better by now."

"You hungry already?"

"Might as well get it over with, Denise," Overton said.

Evans looked at him again, didn't like the tone in his voice, but she ran her seat back on it's motorized track and opened the little crew mess kit strapped to one of the jump seats. With the new post 9/11 cockpit access restrictions in place, flight attendants could no longer bring food and drink up to the flight deck; now a refrigerated tote bag loaded with soda and sandwiches was all they had access to for the next seven plus hours.

"Dr Pepper, I assume?"

"Am I that predictable?"

You have no idea, she wanted to say. "Looks like . . . uh, tuna salad, chicken salad or roast beef tonight. A couple of pasta salads and some blueberry yoghurt."

"So. White barf, yellow barf, or gray barf. How 'bout the roast beef? Is it green tonight, or kinda gray?"

Evens took out a sandwich, fiddled with the plastic wrap and took a tentative sniff, then peeled back the bread and held the thing up to a ceiling light. "Looks kinda gray to me, with mayo, salt and pepper. Still cool though, and smells alright, I guess."

"Shit. I should have had something on the way in."

"You want it?"

"Unless you do."

"No, I think I'll stick with tuna."

Evans fiddled in the tote and took out another sandwich out of the case, grabbed a can of club soda for herself before zipping the bag shut; she motored back up to the panel and handed Overton his Dr Pepper, then his sandwich. She looked out to her left, toward the coast, and could just make out Portland, Maine through a break in the cloud and about thirty miles away. She looked off to her right, out into the black pit of the Atlantic, and she could just make out a couple of fishing boats flickering in the darkness below. "Must be rough down there tonight," she said to herself, as she unwrapped her sandwich and took a bite; she immediately wrapped it back up and tossed it into a little metal trash bin, spit the muck in her mouth into a napkin and tossed that away too.

"Pretty bad, huh?" Overton said.

"Tastes like a goddamned maxi-pad," she said, and she was gratified to hear Overton gag as he spewed Dr Pepper out his nose.

"I take it," Overton finally said, "you're not speaking from experience?"