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Me, an Old Pilot, and a Three-Legged Dog
A Novel
By Rocky Morrisette, Scott Loethen iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2013 Rocky Morrisette
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-7958-9
CHAPTER 1
Abandon All Hope
I was traveling alone—and since I was only fifteen, I was considered an unaccompanied minor and had to be escorted. I'd been handed off from gate agent to flight attendant and back to gate agent again. It was really quite embarrassing. I was put in a "secure" waiting room at the Seattle–Tacoma airport. I would rather have been in the USO lounge. The room was filled with games and activities for little kids. About the time I found an old teen magazine, I was led to the underground tram that would take me the south terminal, where there was no possibility of escape.
Like a lot of other incorrigible military brats, I was being sent to live with an older relative. Unfortunately, my grandfather lives in Alaska. I really didn't want to go to Alaska. I felt like I was going to prison.
As we waited for the next tram, I thought above the gates of hell: "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." An automated voice announced the next tram was about to arrive. When the doors opened, we stepped on like shackled prisoners boarding the boat to Alcatraz. I was doomed to spend the rest of my summer in Alaska. As the automatic doors closed, I had the most awful feeling of a prison door closing.
Two minutes later the tram doors opened again, and we were below the remote terminal. We stepped onto the escalator and I thought about condemned prisoners climbing the stairs to the gallows. Dead man walking.
I was preboarded almost immediately and shown to my preassigned seat—21F. About halfway through the boarding process, another girl showed up; she was assigned to 21D. She was beautiful and wearing a very ... let's say summery top. When she reached up to put her carry-on in the overhead compartment, several men seated near us really enjoyed the view. She settled in, looked over at me, and smiled. I smiled back.
I guess it's a primal thing that makes women size each other up. She had an athletic body but I was better built, if you know what I mean. She looked about five feet, two inches. That meant I was six inches taller than her. On the other hand, I have the dental braces thing working against me.
Our preflight safety briefing started, but it was unlike any I had ever seen. The cabin attendant announced we had two very special passengers with us. "They are the two oldest residents of the Alaska Pioneer's Home and are returning from a wild week in Seattle." Everyone laughed and applauded.
Then the two old ladies stood up and faced us. One was up front and the other one was about halfway back, nearer to us. They were so short I could barely see the one up front. They did all of the arm waving and pointing that would normally be done by the flight attendants. Actually, the taller flight attendants were standing behind the older ladies, doing what they would normally do. The passengers roared with laughter.
Then they showed us how to fasten and unfasten our seat belts and demonstrated how to put on our masks in the unlikely event of cabin pressure loss.
When it came time to demonstrate how to use our life preservers (because we would be flying over water), the old lady nearest us got all tangled up. Throwing hers down, she turned toward the steward behind her and wrapped her arms around him in a comic, romantic hug. Pursing her lips, she started smooching the air, begging for a kiss. She even reached up and tried loosening his tie. The steward could barely finish the briefing because he was laughing so hard. The lady would not let go of him until he bent down and gave her a proper kiss right on the lips. Everyone cheered. Finally letting go and fanning herself, she was brought back to her seat. Then the steward properly demonstrated the life vest thing, and we were off.
I enjoyed sitting behind the wing because I could see the control surfaces at work. As we took the runway, I watched the flaps being lowered and could associate some of those pump sounds with what was going on. It was fascinating to watch the flaps retract and the landing gear come up.
As land disappeared from view, I watched the ailerons and spoilers work as the pilot made several turns before climbing up out of the Seattle area.
About a half hour into the flight, I spotted a ship traveling between some islands off the coast of Canada and said, "Oh, look, a cruise ship!"
The girl in the aisle seat asked if she could look out my window and I invited her over. I have always been considered pretty, but I felt as plain as a mud fence next to her. She looked Latina and reminded me of a young version of a movie star whose name I couldn't remember. Her face was close to mine as she peered out the window. Looking at her mouth, I realized boys would do just about anything to kiss those lips, and I wished I had lips like hers. And that hair! It was just like a movie star's—long and full-bodied. It was a two-tone copper and caramel color.
Jessica Alba! That's it. She looks like a younger version of Jessica Alba.
A man in the row behind us said, "That's not a cruise ship, that's the M/V Columbia."
The girl sort of stood up and turned around to speak to the man. "I have ridden on the Columbia."
I looked up at her and could see her rock-hard abs—her abs ... and a lot more—under her short top. I was definitely better endowed.
I asked, "So what's the Columbia?"
Turning to me, she said, " The M/V Columbia is one of the larger ferries on the Alaska Marine Highway. It is a super deluxe ferry with staterooms sort of like a cruise ship, just not as fancy."
"You mean like a car ferry?"
Sitting down in the center seat, she said, "Yes. There are only a couple of ways to get cars up to Alaska. You can drive them up the Alcan Highway or have them shipped up on a barge or put them on the ferry. The time I rode on the Columbia, Dad had just bought his Jaguar from a dealer in Seattle. We flew down to get it and came back up on the ferry.
"By the way, I'm Esperanza."
"Hey, my name is Summer Rose."
She smiled. "That's pretty. Is Rose your last name?"
"No, my last name is Watson. Rose is my middle name, but everybody always calls me Summer Rose—like a double first name. I really like your name too. Doesn't esperanza mean butterfly?"
"No, I think butterfly is mariposa. I don't speak Spanish, but I do know esperanza means hope."
"I've had a couple of semesters of Spanish classes, but I don't really speak Spanish either," I said with a shrug.
"Where do you go to school?" she asked.
"Salt Lake City, Central. I'm going to be a senior this year."
"Oh, I thought you lived in Alaska. You visiting somebody?"
"Yeah, sort of. I'm being forced to spend the rest of the summer at my grandpa's cabin in a town called Palmer. It has a lake, and there's a giant mountain behind it. But there's no cable TV, and Stephen Nephi says my cell phone won't work there. I don't even know if he has a computer or anything. I've been to it a couple of times for short visits, but I was younger then."
"Man, that sort of sounds like a prison."
Yeah! That's what I've been saying.
"Who's Stephen Nephi?"
I reached down, got my wallet out of my purse, and unfolded my pictures. "He's my brother," I said, pointing to a photo. "He left for his church mission in South America last fall. I really miss him a lot."
"He's cute. Is Nephi an Hispanic name?"
I kind of laughed. "No, it's actually an ancient Israelite name. So you live in Alaska?"
"Yeah, I live in Peter's Creek. That's, like, only twenty miles from Palmer. I've been outside for two weeks."
"Outside?"
"Outside is how Alaskans describe everyplace but Alaska," she replied. "I've been in Denver—one of my cousins got married. That's kind of a problem Alaskans have. Hardly anyone has extended family up here. We always have to fly out for things like weddings and funerals and graduations and stuff. I flew down with my parents, but I stayed for an extra week, so I'm traveling back alone."
She raised her arms like a cheerleader and said, "This is the first time I've traveled as an adult," using her fingers to put quotation marks around "adult."
She showed me a picture of her parents. "They adopted me when I was a baby, and they're a lot older than most of my friends' parents, but they're pretty cool. Our last name is Harris."
Her mother looked black and her father white, but I tried not to looked shocked or anything. Back in Utah we don't see many interracial couples.
I looked at the house in the background. It was huge and made of logs and had a big stone wall that I guessed was the backside of a fireplace. It also had huge picture windows. "Is that your house?"
"Yeah, it's pretty cool, huh? We're kinda rich."
She was very casual about the "rich" thing and didn't appear to be bragging.
"We can see Mount Susitna from the living room windows, and on a clear day we can even see Mount Spurr from the deck. It's really cool when there's steam coming out of it."
"You mean like volcanoes?"
"Yeah."
She said it so matter-of-factly, like everybody can see volcanoes from their front porch.
"There's also a really awesome canyon just behind our house, with a really sick waterfall called Thunderbird Falls. I think it's in a state park or something."
Flipping through her pictures, I saw one of Esperanza standing next to a hunk. "Wow! Who is that?"
Looking over, she said, "Oh, he's so 'last semester.' His name is Bruce. He's cute, but a real jerk. He's a running back for our high school football team and really thinks a lot of himself. He has rushin' hands and roamin' fingers." She pulled the picture out of its sleeve and tore it up.
The flight attendant and little old lady got to our row with the beverage cart. We each took a diet drink from the little old lady. She was such a crackup.
Esperanza got quiet as she looked through more of my pictures. "What's your dog's name?"
I looked over and said, "Oh, that's Ammo. He's Grandpa Gus's dog. His full name is Ammo Mark Two Mod One."
"Ammo what?" Esperanza asked, with a puzzled half-smile.
"He's named Ammo after his sire, Ammo Mark One Mod Zero. Grandpa got the first Ammo from the bomb dump at Galena Air Force Base."
She said, "I know Galena; it's on the Iditarod Trail."
"Cool. Anyway, Mark Two Mod One is the military way of saying version two point one."
"Okay, I understand why he's Mark Two, but why is he Mod One?" Then she shrieked, "He only has three legs; how freaky!"
I guess she's never seen a three-legged dog before.
I started explaining. "When Ammo Mark Two Mod Zero was a puppy, he got kicked by a moose. His right front leg was torn up so badly the vet had to take it off. He also took out Ammo's shoulder. When Ammo healed, it looked like he'd never had a right front leg. There was no stump or lump or anything—just the smooth curve of his ribs. His hair eventually covered up the scars, and now it looks like he was born with three legs, and that's why he's a Mod One."
Esperanza had repositioned herself to get a better look at me, and I felt a little self-conscious looking into her eyes. She showed me pictures of her dogs. They were gorgeous. I'd never seen such expressive faces and beautiful markings. One of the dogs had bright blue eyes, and the other had one blue eye and one brown eye. "Are they malamutes?"
"No, they're Siberian huskies. They're really good dogs. We've had them since I was about twelve. The one with one brown eye is Denali, and the other one is Kenai." I asked about their blue eyes. She said, "Most Huskies have two blue eyes, but some are mixed, like Denali's."
Esperanza was flipping through more of my photos when she saw a picture of me standing next to a Cessna 152. "What's this picture all about?"
"That's the airplane I got my flight training in. It was taken on the day of my first solo flight."
She looked at me oddly, like she was waiting for me to tell her I was joking.
I finally said, "Really, that picture was taken on the day I became a pilot."
"No way."
"Really, I am a pilot."
"Do you have a pilot's license?"
"No, I had a mishap in May, and my doctor grounded me so I haven't finished all my requirements. Besides, I have to wait until I turn sixteen to get my license."
"Sixteen? I thought you're going to be a senior next year."
"Yeah, I know. I skipped second grade when we lived in Illinois. During my fifth-grade year we moved to Ft. Rucker, Alabama. The state of Alabama rates, like, second to last in U.S. educational standards, and I tested so high they just put me in sixth grade. Because of that, I've always had a hard time fitting in with my peer group. Or maybe it's that I couldn't figure out which peer group I belonged to. In school I hang out with my classmates, but at church I'm forced to be in classes with kids my own age."
Then there is the problem of how tall and developed I am. Most people think I am much older than I am.
"Wow, even though I'm homeschooled, I've always gotten to spend time with kids my own age. I turned eighteen in March."
Esperanza looked at the picture again, and I could tell she wanted to know more about my being a pilot.
"My father has a pilot's license, and I learned to fly before I learned to drive. I can totally fly the airplane alone, but I have to be supervised by an instructor pilot on the ground, so I can get solo time. I can't take passengers up yet, but once I turn sixteen and finish up a few last requirements I'll have my license. But get this! Back home, we have a stepped system for getting a driver's license. That means I have to have an adult with me when I drive to the airport, where I can get in an airplane alone and fly anywhere in the United States! I can fly anytime, night or day, and I can even have passengers. I don't think that's made me mad yet, but I'll bet it will once I get my license."
Esperanza gave me a big grin and said, "No, duh. So what did you mean when you said you had a mishap—you mean, like a crash?"
"Yeah, but we never say 'crash.'"
"Did you get, like, hurt and stuff?"
I told her the whole story and realized several people around us were listening too.
"You broke your ribs! Really?"
I discretely lifted my shirt and showed her my scar.
"Word! Is that the reason you're coming to Alaska?"
"No, that's a different story."
Sensing something juicy, she leaned a little closer and almost whispered, "What could be worse than a plane crash?"
I told her about my little rebellion after Dad deployed. Then I lowered my voice and said, "I just stopped going to church and had missed so much school I had to take a makeup chemistry lab. I met this Goth kid in summer school and started hanging out with him. My mom had no idea about him.
"One night I snuck out and met him. He drove us up into the canyon to a place where you can see all of Salt Lake City. It was kind of cool at first. We sat on the hood of his car, but then he tried to get me into the backseat.
"I refused and got into the front seat and told him I wanted to go home. He got behind the wheel and lit up a joint and tried to get me to chill out with him. He kept pushing it toward my face, so I got back out of the car. He totally freaked out and left me standing there alone.
"I started walking back down the canyon road without even a flashlight. I kept hoping he would come back and get me. About fifteen minutes later I saw headlights coming up the road. I thought it was him but it ended up being a police car.
"I didn't get arrested even though I'm sure they smelled the pot on my hair and clothes. When they found out how old I was, they took me to the police station. When we got there, Mom was waiting for me—I'd never seen her so upset. I tried to explain nothing happened but I guess she'd had enough of my rebellion."
Esperanza said, "That blows, but you make Alaska sound like a prison. Is your grandfather mean or something?"
"No, he's really cool; he's the one who's paying for my flight training. I don't know, I guess just the idea of having to live out in the woods. You know? No malls or theaters, and I won't be able to go to the Lagoon."
"What's the Lagoon?"
"It's a water theme park near Salt Lake City."
"Girl, we've got malls and theaters and really anything you want. You know what? We should get together this summer! I have my own car, and we don't live that far apart. We don't have a Lagoon, but I live a couple of miles from Mirror Lake. My friends and I hang out there a lot—there's a bike path all of the way out there, and we've got extra bikes.
"I'll bet you've read the book called Williwaw, right?"
"Yeah," I said. "By Tom Bodett."
"And I'll bet you think all of Alaska is like the part of Alaska that Ivan and September lived in, don't you?"
"Well, I've never really studied it, but I guess in general I do."
She held out her wallet and said, "Here are some pictures from a party we had at Mirror Lake last summer."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Me, an Old Pilot, and a Three-Legged Dog by Rocky Morrisette, Scott Loethen. Copyright © 2013 Rocky Morrisette. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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