C H A P T E R    T W O
 
 
 
 

        We get one life. Then there is one after. Or many. Or not.
We are all alone; there is only one of us apiece in our bodies. But
we can mate, and be two. Well, Kit was thinking, he had had
enough of one. It was then or not for him. Finding his soul-sharer
was just as important to him then as his plan. He just wasn't sure
whom she was. But he knew he wanted to see Jess. Of course, it
was Spring. And he had no doubt that she had been his driving
desire for ten years and he wondered if she actually had waited
for him. He leveled off, got his course, turned on Otto and asked
Pute for the update on Jessy.
        "Still searching/down to NKentuckyU," Puter reported.
        "Thats IT?!," Kit typed back, "what were U DOING?!,"
definitely in a tight bundle from not having a bead on her.
        "Hay.byte me," his computer replied. But they kidded like
that; they were the best of pards. Putester filled him in on the
other computer searches and progress had been made. And they
"conversed" a while. But Kit's mind was on HER, and he was
getting thoughts that she was way seriously out of town or even
already married. He didn't like thinking that, though; he cancelled
those thoughts and thought if Pute had no luck he would try that
bar at the bottom of her old street where he had first met Ginny
and ask around. If that was still there.
        Two and a half hours to Cincy, he figured, and almost a
half hour gone. The sky was starting to cloud up, so he decided
to go back down to 3,ooo feet to stay under the coming overcast
and dodged some showers going up the Ohio River some miles
out of Cairo after crossing the Big Muddy, South of Saint Lou,
remembering that his dad had been at Cairo, taking the old cruiser
down the river to New Orleans, when Kit was born. He was
staying legal on the rules, but at times was getting close to visibility
or cloud clearance limits. He had plugged Puterboy into the
weather channel and the screen showed the digital picture of the
front up ahead. The ride was getting bumpier, so he slowed the
plane up a little and flew by Evansville after crossing the Wabash,
then dodged a storm, taking him closer to Louisville.
        Thoughts of what he might say to Jess - IF he found her -
competed with how to get through the weather plus his
"background radiation" - the constant review of his plan and things.
Then there were thoughts of getting together with "Kit Junior", and
then all kinds of memories and stuff loaded his brain and he "woke
up" realizing he was thinking about how the Earth is so far from
other solar systems and the atomic character of Space and what
kind of propulsion can get us to multi-C and all. Funny how brains
work, huh?
        Then he realized he should call mother too. Dang cellular rule,
he complained silently. Then he realized he was hungry and wished
he would have grabbed something back at Boone County - like
Elaine, for instance. He didn't even have hydrogen and oxygen
(water). What is it, he ruminated, about the correlative thought
between mothers and food?
        The flying was keeping him busier. He was in steady rain 3o
miles out of Cincinnati. Viz was just above the minimum three miles,
he hoped. He dialed in the Automatic Terminal Information Service
and listened to "Information Indigo" - the 9th version of the day's
briefing for Lunken. Barometric pressure was 29 point 29. One
scrog of a low. Made him think, too, of the old family business
phone number back in the 195o's. Cherry 2929. Twilight zone
again.
        The airport was still calling it VFR - Visual Flight Rules (non-
instrument landings allowed) - but Kit was sure it was barely. He
was down to about 1,5oo feet, trying to stay 1,ooo feet above the
ground, another rule over highly populated areas, and pushing the
5oo-foot clearance limit below the overcast besides dodging the
"scud" - the steam clouds flying around between the ground and
the overcast.
        Kit had a "grandfathered" commercial pilot license from the
'6o's, one without the instrument rating, so he couldn't go on
instrument flight rules. He could do it, just not legally. He might
be allowed "special" VFR rules (sounds like for "Jerry's Kids",
huh?) if the viz got below 3 miles or the ceiling dropped any more.
Then, up ahead, it looked like the front was directly over Lunken!
and Pute was confirming that actuality on screen. "Good timing,
rockhead," he scolded himself out loud.
        He switched on the landing lights, dialed in Tower and called
them up about 15 miles West for initial contact and intent, then
put the gear down after slowing down, which stabilized the plane
some in the turbulence. Then it was the fuel pump and other stuff.
Soon he was on a long base leg for zero-two right, number three
to land. He finally saw the airport after flying past downtown over
Northern Kentucky, Jessy's stomping grounds. He was getting
lower in the sky as he went, staying under the clouds or going
around them.
        Lunken is the original municipal airport from the 19-teens
into the 4o's, nestled in the valley of the Little Miami River before
its Ohio River confluence between 5oo-foot hills East and West,
and South in Kentucky that rose right up from the Ohio banks. Kit
remembered Eshelby Lunken, one of his grade school chums, and
Esh's folks' big ol' mansion. The airport must had been family
land, he thought, though unfortunately then right under a very bad
front.
        He opened the cowl flaps, added the first wing flaps and
called Tower to inform he was turning final (the runway line-up,
not his fate, he hoped) and got informed he was number two
behind a Procter and Gamble Gulfstream Jet.
        The big four VASI approach lights showed up well enough
through the heavy rain when he rolled out from the turn. The
winds were rough, causing a lot of turbulence. Viz must have
been below three miles, but they weren't calling it that tight,
apparently. He added another ten degrees of flaps and decided to
leave them there to have more speed for the controls in the
turbulence and wind. No speed brakes either. There was fast
traffic behind him too.
        Then, just when he pushed in the prop control, coming
over the Kentucky hills, his airspeed plummeted, along with his
altitude! He jumped on the throttle, pushing it all in fast, his fear
rising up with his adrenalin! He got the power! Juliet came
through! And he pulled back on the yoke to clear the tops of the
last trees on the hilltop! It was a dam microburst from a storm
cell somewhere near behind him, giving him tremendous tailwind
and downdraft. It died off in a few more seconds and he chopped
the power completely and added the speedbrakes for a few
seconds to get back on glidepath, then came back in with normal
approach power, keeping his speed a little faster than usual.
        He called Tower to advise of the burst and a few more
moments got him across the river, then over the approach lights
and onto the runway good and firmly amid the wild gusts and
downpour. He coasted onto the taxiway and told himself and
God that he didn't want to have to ever go through that again,
contacted Ground and got his directions to the municipal ramp,
rolling to a stop at the terminal (thanking the Lord that that
was not his condition). After a couple deep breaths, he shut Jule
down, patting her "dashboard".
        Tower had changed the ATIS to "Information Juliet" to
include the microburst warning - one of those funny, ha ha,
serendipities - but he had turned the radio off. He got the cell
phone out and dialed up his son at work, the rain pounding the
windscreen and Jule's skin outside, while he thought it could
have been worse - it could have hailed. He heard his hito's
"hello...."
        "Josh!"
        "Dad?!"
        "How are you, Son?"
        "Super. How 'bout you?"
        "Well, other than bein' the wrong sex and age, pretty super.
Hay, I just got in town and want to see you, but I'll be headed
out later today or early tonight."
        "O...well, that's a lot of window there..." and snickered,
"well, tell me where and when..."
        Yep. It was good. Talking with the heir in the plane in the
rain. And just beaten death, he thought, but didn't want to alarm
the kid. "When is when your work is done? What, 4? 5?..."
        "About there."
        "I'll call you back before. Good excuse to off work, huh?
- the old man's in town for a few hours. So it's what, 2 now?
Talk to you soon, A?"
        "That's a deal, Pop."
        "OK, Son. Luego."
        "What?"
        "Later."
        "Oh. Yeah, later, Dad."
        And that was that. Kit looked at the rain outside and dialed
up mum. Thought of food. And you know how mother-son
conversations go. Well, this wasn't the mother of them. Just
simple stuff. Just checking in. Everyone was fine in the family,
well, except for Jim then. And she was OK. He wanted her to
know that he cared about her. She wanted to know if he was
ever going to get married again and if he was talking with his son
and being good and all. She was in her mid-8o's, Godssakes.
Doing well to be in the health she was. And widowed. Kit missed
the old man.
        So, he had been born to good parents. That luck thing. One
of the fortunate. Another big Catholic family kid, 7th of 8. He had
been distant over the years since his divorce, but at least had stayed
in touch with mother. Surface stuff, though. He didn't tell her either
that he had almost been dead. But made her happy with the news
that he was visiting Josh and, oh yeah, had a plane again. They said
goodbys and he gave Pute the modem, telling him to find Jessy.
"NOW." Kit closed the curtains, put the sun reflector up in the
windshield so no one could look in and got all set to go.
        The Pute found her! "Jess at NKyU..." and gave Kit her class
schedule, which showed she would still be there - if - though not for
long. He wrote down the building and room, called for a taxi,
packed Puter, put a few things he pulled out of his flightcase into his
pockets, scooted out, locked the door quickly in the rain and jogged
around the puddles to the terminal.
        He gave refueling instructions to the pretty young girl at the
desk inside - "you can definitely wait until the rain stops" among the
details - and walked through the old Art Deco terminal, the big tile
mural reliefs, done in the 193o's, on the walls. (Sure they were
moved to the Greater Cincinnati Airport, but so what.) He waited
only a few minutes in the doorway for the Yellow Cab, then was on
his way to Kentucky.
        The drive brought back memories of his childhood and a lot of
his adult life - the good, the bad, the ugly. He talked with Ralph, the
older brown-skinned musician-driver, as they took the parkway along
the river, then expressway through downtown, then Brent Spence
Bridge (Kit never had found out who that guy was) and through
downtown Northern Kentuck and on Southward on I-75. Memories
kept flooding in, but he stayed conversant with Ralph, noticing the
things that had changed and the things that had not, asking Ralph
about some. Reliving some.
        At the university, they found the building fairly quickly and Kit
paid Ralph the fair and a $1oo tip (Kit had driven a taxi a little while
himself in Cincy during his "ostracization period"). He jumped out and
trotted into the building, but it was pretty much peopleless. His heart
was sinking fast as he walked through the corridors, feeling he was too
late.
        He came to the room she was scheduled to be in, looked in and
no one was there. He felt anguish. He felt a rise of fluid in his eyes.
He felt lost, angry at himself, alone in the world. Then he heard music
down the hall and walked toward it. It was a guitar being played, then
a woman's voice - a beautiful voice. And a lovelost song.
        "When it's time to go/it hurts awhile..." her country blues song
was going. Her voice was giving Kit chills up and down his spine. It
seemed familiar. He got to the door marked "Sound Studio" and
looked in. A flash of fire went through him when he saw her.
        "When he finds someone else/you know it's time to go/cuz he
wasn't your man/no, he wasn't your man..." she sang and played. Her
eyes were closed. He looked at her and could not believe her beauty as
his mind was coming to grips with the truth. It was HER. IT WAS
HER! It was Parousia! Epiphany! Thee Holy Grail of his life! His
"raison d'etre!" His Rapture! Epiphania de rapto! He had FOUND
her! He was WITH HER!!
        She stopped playing to write down the part of the song she had
just done, then stared out the window at the rainy day and brushed
tears from her eyes. Kit nearly whispered, "Jessica?"

Next Page