Temperatures were hitting the high thirties when I drove to the station earlier in the afternoon, leaving Angie sprawled out in a cool bath with the baby, a glass of red wine with an ice cube floating in it sitting on the edge of tub. Other than the heat, everything else about my day has been normal the way normal should be, routine leading me through another shift lost in small individual tasks — weather briefings, setting up voice switches, organizing flight management systems — the kind of duties you’ve forgotten before they’ve even been accomplished, the mind see-sawing away on that silky edge of boredom. Time has a strange way of unfolding in a dark room of blue monitors and blinking lights, a roomful of dead-eyed drones watching the sky on screens, the fickleness of clouds, the unpredictability of wind and electricity. Weather data is transfigured into notifications disseminated back into the sky, anything pertinent to an airman’s safe traveclass="underline" turbulence, icing, lines of thunderstorms, wind shear, funnel clouds, fireworks displays, mine blasts, avalanche artillery. Information endlessly reviewed.
On winter days when storms keep the planes grounded, we pass the time between weather updates reading, doing crosswords, arguing current events that seem worlds away. No cellphones, no laptops or electronic distractions of any kind allowed on the Floor. It’s the idleness that gets me agitated and picking at my thumb cuticles while others around here delight in the boredom, tilt their chairs back, kick their feet up and brush the potato chip crumbs off their shirts, enjoying the blur around the margins of their lives. It’s no exaggeration to say I work with some lazy slugs. John breathes through his mouth for Christ’s sake, like a sick person. When I pack my bag for the day I don’t stuff it with car magazines or fishing tackle catalogues or porn. (I’ve seen John with the porn.) I’m not about to let my brain go to mush, all that brilliant fatty matter oozing out of my ears onto this glowing console. When I pack my bag I throw in some Chaucer, I stuff it with some Kant or Thoreau or some dry history shit from my student days, the thick annals of lives lived, the stuff Thom and I used to deliberate sitting under autumn maples on the frigid stone walls of the university campus. I let all that language rattle around in there while I wait on the glowing buttons and flickering screens of shifting stats that — if you allow them — get abstract real quick. I let the words percolate and it makes me feel good. It makes me feel better, at least.
“They could switch it up, put in something new,” John says, coming back from the row of vending machines.
“I don’t know, John. I don’t eat that shit.”
John plops down on his chair and wheels himself over to my desk as I issue squawk codes that transform into flashing dots as the radar sweeps past. Today is the last of a five-day run of graveyard shifts and I’ve lost track of time. John forces us to keep the heavy grey blinds drawn because of his “migraines” and the only hint of early evening is the bright sliver of light fighting through the edge of the window. I feel tired in a way I don’t trust, as though the lack of sleep has split my mind from its body; I’ve abandoned ship to watch over my physical self like watching over an irresponsible sibling.
“Something healthy.” John says as he paws through a bag of potato chips like he’s searching for a carrot stick in there. “Like popcorn.”
The hawk is an exercise of sorts, a meditation — something I’ve been trying more and more frequently — to take me out of this creaky swivel chair and away from the stuffy control room. My supervisor walks past in a polo shirt and black slacks cinched tight with a belt below the bulge of his waistline. I nod hello. I think about heart attacks. Their suddenness. The thump, whir of the struggling air conditioner. Back to the hawk. Sleep deprivation has a way of making you think in circles. John keeps distracting me by brushing crumbs off his belly, and I have to refocus — wingspan, hooked beak, talons — before he finds another scattering somewhere on his body and I have to start all over again. Sometimes I have the urge to pound John on the chest, right in the left quadrant, see what’ll happen, get a little colour into those cheeks. The truth is, at the moment when the hawk takes flight into the grey sky, gliding down the mountain above the treetops, I realize that I’ve never seen anything quite like this bird’s trajectory, and what a damn shame that is, and how nice it is to see something like this alone and from a great height.
And it’s at this exact moment the call comes in from the water bomber.
“Golf Foxtrot Victor Bravo. Mayday, mayday, mayday.”
I’m aware of the pause — a mere second and a half — even as I’m responding to the mayday. The lapse is a weakness I didn’t realize I had in me. Static fills my head as my heart starts to pump faster.
“Golf Foxtrot Victor Bravo.” I say, “Pacific Radio received mayday, state the nature of your emergency.”
John slides the binder with our emergency protocol across the desk toward me and I begin flipping through the pages. Suddenly I feel wide awake, my heart a stopwatch tick-tocking and the air rushing through my chest. Voice procedure shrinks the Floor to an airless box: language reduced until there is no room for interpretation. There are very specific things I need to say and do written in clear detail on the pages of this binder. All I need to do is follow them in a straight line, top of the page to bottom.
“We’re losing fuel fast.” The pilot’s words escape between short gasps of breath. “We need to land now.”
“Can you give me your position?” Beside me John is mobilizing everyone: ambulance, RCMP, JRCC. I watch him move across the room to let the supervisor know I have an emergency.
I’ve spoken to this pilot once already today, earlier in my shift. The recollection comes back all at once: The pilot reporting an engine indication, a small leak in the gas tank he attributed to a possible rupture after picking up his load. He told me he planned to drop the water before heading back to the airport. I wished him safe travels, stepped away from procedure and let my voice drop like a newscaster from the fifties. It was a small indulgence. A lapse caused by boredom.
“We are… We are currently fifteen kilometres west of Fintry Park.” The pilot’s voice has changed since the first call. When I spoke to him earlier he sounded confident. Now his voice is whittled to a thin edge. “We need crash and fire rescue.”
“Roger.” My finger scans lines in the binder. “What are your intentions?” I know the question is meant to shift the pilot’s state of mind. It’s one of the most important lines we learn during voice procedure training. It’s like hitting a reset button — it reminds the pilot he’s the only one in control of the aircraft.
“My intentions?” I can hear the strain in his voice as he tries to handle the plane.
“Crash and fire are on their way.”
“There’s nothing but trees out here. I need a beach, a highway, something.” His voice splits, comes unravelled like the end of a frayed rope. “We’re dropping. Jesus Christ.”
At the back of my mind, beyond the static, the hawk is still soaring, nothing but wings and air — the quietest descent. The radio goes dark.
“Golf Foxtrot Victor Bravo, this is Pacific Radio. Do you copy?”
A heavy blanket of electricity is filling the room, storm clouds piling. All the slugs are coming to life — animating — no longer slumped over their consoles staring into middle space. John is watching me carefully, but I won’t look over at him.
“Golf Foxtrot Victor Bravo, this is Pacific Radio. Do you copy?”
There are several more moments of silence before the high pitched tone of the emergency transmitter comes whining through the 121.5.