"welcome back, captain. she was beautiful!"
"yes she was."
we begin talking about beautiful women, be they american, congolese, or french-canadian. it is one of our greatest talents and favorite pastimes. it is something all men share: the ability to appreciate and discuss a passing beauty. even if we have a girlfriend or wife, we are still sometimes stopped cold in wonder. this is regardless of whether or not we would ever act. men are the same everywhere.
a pilot is a confused soul who talks about women when he's flying and about flying when he's with a woman.
shadrack asks me why i'm not married. yes, why is this, echoes papi. a smirk spreads across my face, betraying what my sunglasses try to hide. there i am, looking dumb and wondering where to begin. in an attempt to avoid answering, i fire back, once again awkwardly revealing my western ignorance: "why do congolese girls marry and have kids so young?"
shadrack smiles. the response is sobering.
"life in africa is short."
his intense eyes level me; they are full of happiness, but matter-of-fact seriousness at the same time. they are the eyes of someone who has known a hard life, but isn't bitter. shadrack is a happy and thankful person, no matter how tough things get. he continues:
"how many people in their 50s do you see walking around?"
hardly any, i think without saying.
imagine, a full third of your life, gone in an instant.
what would you do differently if you wouldn't live past 50?
what parts of your life would you cut out or re-do?
what would you give up?
what would be missing?
shadrack doesn't let me avoid his question of marriage so easily. i feel like a politician, weaving and dodging and finally stammering something about how i think i'd like to have a wife at some point, but probably not kids.
"but it's better to have kids than a wife," he responds. papi and kita nod in unanimous agreement.
the interrogation continues: "you americans, you europeans, you get divorced so easily and so often, why is this?"
i don't know. why is this.
they have been fueling airplanes for 9 years, just as long as i have been flying. each man makes $200 a month for working 6 days a week, 10 hours a day. that's right, $0.83 an hour.
what would these guys say if i could take them into a super walmart, strolling down a fluorescent-lit aisle with that skippy happy canned music playing softly, pushing those ridiculously-oversized carts? they would be assaulted by more choices in an instant than they've had in 30 years of life in congo. and that's just in brands of toothpaste.
what would these guys do in america with a choice that mattered, with a choice that we would most likely take for granted?
they tell me how, above all, they would love to give their sons a chance in life more than what they had. it would be a dream, working a blue-collar job in america. they are fluent in swahili, french, and english, and would be an asset to any aviation company or fbo. the guys would be happy, humbly pumping jet fuel into a millionaires' private aircraft before he speeds away to one of his vacation homes in hawaii or aruba or vail.
one man spends more in jet fuel for a single leisure trip than another man could dream about making in a lifetime of hard work.
******
i am 8 years old. i am sitting in the passenger seat of my dad's blue ranger as we drive through denver. he has just picked me up from school, and we are on our way to stapleton airport. my dad's red cassette tape keeper is halfway opened on the seat beside me, and bruce hornsby and the range are singing about things i don't understand yet. he is cracking sunflower seeds and spitting the shells out his window, which is rolled all the way down. his left hand is on the wheel, guiding the 5-speed through traffic and stoplights. his right hand is playing piano on my left knee, in time with the song. occasionally it moves to the gear shift, but always quickly back as if the music would stop without him. i sit, in awe of my father. he makes double-clutching look like an intimate mechanical ballet. i want to be that smooth and have such a familiar, personal knowledge of machinery. i try to crack and spit shells the way he does. with no hands. i want to learn to play piano. i want to be like him.
the airplanes are flying lower and lower, as i stare out the windows. trees and houses speed by, blurred; and the thundering of aircraft engines vibrates in my bones. the air is thick with the smell of spent jet fuel. i know we are getting close. soon, my dad pulls over and stops the truck at the end of the runway. we get out. he puts the tailgate down and opens a coke for me. we sit and watch airplanes.
i don't know what he thinks about.
i dream about flying them someday.
******
over the past few years, shadrack has saved enough money for a plane ticket to the united states. but getting a visa is next to impossible without an american work sponsor. all he wants is the chance to work fueling airplanes for $8 an hour. that, he says, would enable him to save enough money so his three sons can go to high school and college and have a chance at a better life.
shadrack is about my age. my dad had me when he was my age. i still cannot comprehend the possibility of being a father.
i think my old man knew what i was dreaming about on that sunny day. we sat together, watching the magic of an aircraft passing a hundred feet over our heads. i didn't say anything. it was enough, the deafening roar of those turbines and not wanting to plug my ears. the oily-sweet kerosene smell of thrust. and the white-hot flash of light tracing the aircraft's metal curves, at the one second she passes through the perfect angle between me and the sunshine.
2 comments:
wow.
Good one:)
-Hilary
Post a Comment