Lone Rock

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Cash dove into the Officers' Club pool and began a lazy backstroke focused on the infinity of the azure sky above. One after the other each arm stretched out pulling as much water in his wake as possible. Lying back, he let the rhythm of each stroke progress through his system spitting out thoughts left and right. Meeting Carmen, that was pleasant. Bravo-19 and Commander Stellar Airmanship, what a nightmare. Rolling into a crawl, his mind drifted back, swimming for the championship; it was Florida State against the Naval Academy. He began attacking the water, stroke after stroke, lap after lap. Reaching for the edge to turn into the last lap, someone tapped his wrist.


Swim meet over, treading water, he dabbed his eyes and squinted up through desert sun rays bouncing off the water. The sharp nose and round sunglass eyes of an owl came into focus. A tuft of hair overhung each ear. The owl clutched a clipboard and dug for a pencil in the shoulder pocket of his flight suit.


"Hi - Milt Jameson - schedules officer. Ops asked me to put you on the schedule for a nineteen-thirty take-off."


Cash scrambled up the pool ladder, grabbed his towel, twisted his head to the left and whacked his right temple attempting to drive the water from his clogged ear. "Night bombing?"


"Oh no, just bore some holes in the air and brush up on squadron procedures." He pushed the bridge of the sunglasses up with his index finger. "Have you met Perkins?"


"Unh-uh."


"You'll fly with Perkins McGee, squadron weapons officer. He's been on leave and needs to dust off the cobwebs before getting back on the range tomorrow."


"I know how that goes, I was flailing in my own mess of cobwebs this morning." Cash's feet danced on the sun baked concrete making a dash for the shade of the pergola.


Milt glanced down at his flight boots. "Hey, don't worry, we've all been there. Harry said Roger was on your ass the whole flight, fussing like he always does, a biddy hen with a bunch of chicks."


"Harry?"


"Warner, number three in your flight this morning, the safety officer."


"Right." Cash's eyebrows came together forming ridges and valleys between. "Say, what can you tell me about Earl Shaeffer flying into the water?"


"About anything there is to know. We shared a stateroom on the ship. He was a strange one."


"Strange?"


The owl head nodded like a bobble head in slow motion. "Tight lipped, almost antisocial. I packed up his stuff to send home: no pictures, no letters, not even a notebook. Almost like he didn't really exist."


"What about the wreckage?"


"Nothing, just a single external fuel tank floating in the fog. Everything else buried under ten thousand feet of ocean."


Cash retrieved his aviator sun glasses and the pocket version of "Wind, Sand and Stars" from a nearby wicker chair, steadying himself to slip into the blue foam flip flops.


"Perkins will meet you in the O-club bar," Milt said as he turned to head back to the flight line. "He's going to grab a burger about five o-clock. You won't miss him. He'll be the only tall negro in a flight suit."

* * *

Cool, dim and basic, the O-club bar emitted smoke, loud voices and louder laughter. Tensions relaxed and boasts competed with outlandish claims. Cash and Perkins drank Coke to wash down cardboard pizza and sat in a booth across from the three songs for a dime jukebox. A fighter pilot from Stroll's squadron studied the listings, mostly country and western. Little rainbows of light from the music machine played around the room.


"Cash, why do they call you Cash?" Perkins' voice evoked thoughts of a slow moving rusty hinge.


"In college. . .a friend wanted to write a check to cover his poker losses. So I said 'make it to cash.' He said, 'okay Cash' and it stuck. How about you?"


Perkins looked up from his drink. “What do you mean?”


“Your name, how’d you get it?”


“Oh! A man named Harvey Perkins died leaving a twenty-acre farm to my grandfather. My parents and grandparents had sharecropped on it for forty years. When I was born, I got his name.”


“That’s cool.”


“Yeah, my dad sold the farm when I was twelve; we moved to Lawrence, Kansas. He wanted all his kids to go to college. So he became a gardener at the University and put all five of us through school while we lived at home.


"Were you NROTC?"


"Nope, Navy reserves. Dark skin doesn't flow easily into flight training."


The fighter pilot studying the jukebox at last put a dime in the slot, pushed some buttons, slapped the side of the machine and ambled back to the group demonstrating air to air combat with their hands. A heavy guitar riff preceded the forceful vocal assertion, "I can't get no. . . satisfaction."Cash raised his voice, "Difficult?" Never seen a black aviator before.


"Not compared to Jesse Brown."


"Who's he?"


"First African-American naval aviator, nineteen forty-nine, one year after Truman declared the military was integrated."


Cash shrugged. "Guess he didn't make admiral."


"Shot down in Korea a year later."


The voice from the jukebox bellowed, "Cause I try and I try and I try and I try."


Perkins reached for the last slice of pizza. "I heard you dazzled them in the RAG."


"Shouldn't have tried to get through so fast."


"Why?"


"More time to be a better pilot."


The song drummed away. "I can't get no, oh no no no."


Perkins leaned forward. "Aren't you the best pilot in the Navy?"


Cash choked; some of the carbonated bubbles went to his sinuses. "Well . . ."


"In this business you have to think that. Live it, act it, think it. No one else will give a shit if you don't."


"Hey hey hey, that's what I say." The heavy guitar riff pounded.


Perkins grabbed his kneeboard, slid out of the booth and stood facing Cash. "Two two four's a damn fine squadron. You're going to fit right in; let's brief on the way to the flight line."


The last "no satisfaction" faded as they walked out of the bar.


Cash turned to look at a portrait of Lieutenant Commander Bruce Van Voorhis in Navy dress blues keeping solemn watch over the O-club lobby. "The airfield's named after him," Perkins said. "He single handedly wiped out an entire island of Japanese in the Western Pacific." Cash read the inscription under the ornate gold frame. "Medal of honor recipient. He gallantly gave his life for his country."