the night before christmas

i flick on the taxi light and release the parking brake with light pressure on the rudder pedal tops.  the mechanic off my left gives a thumbs up, and i ease the power levers forward of disc to flight idle. the 42,000 lb. sleigh creeps forward, her dual-wheel nose gear perfectly straddling the smooth thick yellow lead-in lines painted onto the ramp by the air-ops best-in-show monkeys.

the hott-sounding female ground controller tells us to monitor tower and have a nice flight.  i call for the taxi and before takeoff checklists.  we are supposed to only do checklists when stopped with the parking brake set, but only one pilot out of the 26 here conforms to that rule.  the way i see it, we're not going to be the only jackasses clogging up taxiways at busy airports just to follow a stupid procedure that our desk-bound management elites have come up with halfway around the world.

plus, i can picture the hot girl in the tower talking to the other controllers:  "look at the fucking clown show out on juliet.  those guys can't walk and chew gum at the same time."

and the kicker, broadcast for everyone on frequency to hear: "dynamic three four, do you require assistance?"

require assistance? well, maybe.  but not for that.

there are standard operating procedures and then there is reality.  i prefer to get the job done.  i give my takeoff brief, which basically consists of "let's try not to hit the mountains on departure, what song do you want to listen to?"

at the end of my speech, demonstrating good cockpit resource management, i always ask the dude in the other seat if he has any questions.

"yeah, is the go-pro set up?  i want to get this departure on film," he responds.

"tape's rolling."

tower clears us for takeoff: "climb and maintain 6,500', left turn on course, traffic is a king air at 7,500' 6 miles northwest inbound."

we blast off, climbing in the turn.  bill gets the king in sight and tells tower, who releases us to departure, who clears us to continue climbing to flight level two two zero.  i spin the altitude selector, which beeps and illuminates an amber bulb to get my attention, as if asking "do you really want to do that dave?"

soon we're out of the milk bowl. it's a good day for flying.  fresh coat of snow on the peaks and not a cloud.

i stole my buddy z.'s slr camera to document the day, and me and bill are busy snapping away, leaning over each other like giddy schoolgirls.  "ooh! get that peak!"

of course i'm an idiot and know nothing about the polarization adjustments on the lenses, but in the end, the effect turns out kind of cool.

we entertain each other with jokes and stories.  take turns watching the autopilot and eating box lunches. listen to ipods and read. take a few hero shots.  the usual.


******


when i get back to the office, a couple of boxes are waiting for me.  inside i find tea, christmas lights, dark chocolate, cut-out magazine pictures of mostly-naked girls, fake plastic insects and spiders (those should be a hit), batteries, and a couple books.

i head back to the 8-bedroom hooch i share with 7 other dudes.  and by 'share,' i mean the forced sharing of farts, stinky feet, and skype conversations with wives through thin walls.  now that i mention it, i feel like i'm getting to know their wives quite well, at least from the one-sided snippets of jabbering verbal intercourse that are impossible to ignore.

looks like z. and s. are both gone.  must be flying still.  that, i decide, is highly convenient.  i pull out one plastic camel spider, and one plastic scorpion.  strategically place them on beds to work their magic.  each looks real from a few feet away.  both should be rousing successes in the poorly-lit rooms.

make some green tea.  pull out the mandolin and do some chicken pickin' while i have the hut to myself. later we will string up the christmas lights, all 8 of us.  get into our bullshitters circle to chair fly and rehash the day's war stories, heroes all.  have some laughs. compose a few limericks and haikus for the community plywood wall:

although not a cloud
forecast is for light rime ice
i guess we can't fly

or

site lead says to me
"why don't you take out the trash?"
mike d is a tool

or

another read file 
crushes my will to go on
beer can save me yet

not a bad christmas eve, though it would have been better with eggnog and jameson.

i retire for the night, waiting patiently for my own little christmas miracles: still biding their time on bedsheets until z. and s. are done brushing their teeth and sexting their women.

through frigid alpine air, a little-girl scream will surely soon be heard echoing throughout the mountains.