“I’m worried,” he said. He picked at a tooth. “Start something on the side with Biddy here.”
Biddy shifted his weight in the chair, wondering where Mickey could possibly be. He said he’d see what was keeping him, and got out of the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time.
Mickey was rummaging through his toy box.
“Are you coming out?” Biddy said.
“I don’t feel like it.” He didn’t look up.
“Why not?”
“I don’t feel like it.” He looked at him. “Who asked you to come over anyway? Why don’t you go home or move away or something?” Biddy stood flatfooted, stunned. Mickey threw another toy in the box. “Jerk.”
Page 279 of The Lore of Flight, “Flying a Small Aircraft”:
In these days of swing-wing supersonics, jumbo jets and airline passengers by the millions, it is not generally realized that the great majority of aircraft are small and simple machines. For example, there are over 100,000 privately owned small aeroplanes in the United States, where they outnumber airliners about a hundred to one.
He was taken back to the day he and Louis were caught by the yellow jeep near the runway: they had crept to the very edge of the reeds, lying on their bellies, the crushed straw warmer than the ground underneath, and had watched the private planes turn and wait for clearance, running the engines up, before accelerating down the tarmac away from them and lifting free into the air in the distance.
They watched five aircraft go off like that in succession, plane after plane revving, vibrating, gathering power, it seemed, before the final release. Each one in succession turning to show its colors, broad stripes of red and blue and green, each one spellbinding him in turn, seducing him further from the reeds, blinding him until too late to the approach of the yellow security jeep in the periphery of his vision.
He compared The Lore of Flight to an old Cessna manual Mr. Carver had given him after the flight to East Hampton. He reread “Flying a Small Aircraft,” comprehending bit by bit throttles, rudder bars, angles of attack, trim, and drag. He read about the tendency to yaw, and about stalling. He studied the Cessna specifications and the preflight checklist, reproduced in full. At the end of the chapter, in a red Magic Marker box, he outlined and highlighted:
Most of the time, the task of flying a light aeroplane is easier than driving a car, less strenuous than riding a horse, and requires less skill than fishing for trout.
And a final sentence, next to which he soberly drew a thick, double line:
It does, however, require constant alertness, and any lapses of concentration can be serious.
He sat alone watching Louis and some other members of the team horse around in the wide, empty practice field. He’d come to watch the practice and had stayed despite learning it had been canceled, unhappy with the idea of returning so soon after arriving. He had come on the bus, and had sat next to a black couple who had argued all the way out. The woman had been holding the man’s cassette deck while he tucked in his shirt, and he’d said, “Shit, you ain’t nothing but a nickel-diving bitch anyway,” and she’d hit him so hard with the cassette deck that the batteries had fallen out. The image and sudden violence had stayed in his head and he considered it from his perch on the dark green bleachers.
While most of the team had left, some had stayed around, waiting for rides and making fun of each other’s girlfriends. They started a pickup game of touch out of boredom and moved away from where he was sitting, but he didn’t follow, content to watch from where he was. An odd boy about his age, his hair sticking out at spiky angles, came up and sat near him.
In the game across the field, Louis tumbled backward over a pileup with his legs spread, someone else landing on top of him. When he got up, something shook between his legs and Biddy leaned forward.
“That kid’s pecker is hangin’ out,” the boy next to him said.
Louis had split his pants up the leg and was wearing nothing underneath.
No one he was playing with told him. The game continued. Whenever he ran it hung out, jiggling around. Tacklers made an elaborate display of getting out of the way.
Finally, with everyone stricken with laughter, someone pointed it out to Louis, who looked down and clapped both hands over his crotch, causing the laughter to intensify. They followed him to the bleachers and sat below Biddy.
“Nice secret weapon, Louis,” one of them said.
“Here I’m tackling the guy and I’m face to face with his nine-inch worm.”
Biddy reddened, Cindy’s phrase defining itself. Louis was smiling sheepishly.
“He’s tryin’ to distract you out there, Moretti.”
“He’s gotta do better than that.”
“Why? Not your size?”
“It’s your mother’s size.”
They kept after each other, everyone pitching in except Louis, who grinned and kept both hands on his crotch. The talk turned to girlfriends.
“Nice chick, Moretti. What an operator. He gets her drunk and she throws up in the back of his car.”
“Your mother threw up in the back of my car.”
“And then he gets so pissed he leaves her there and comes back to the party. Class act.”
“Maybe you oughta give up girls.”
“Or find somebody younger.”
“What was this one, junior high?”
“Maybe you should give up girls,” Louis said, rocking forward into the conversation.
“Shut up, Louis,” Moretti said. “You can’t even keep your dick in your pants.”
Louis sat back and his grin disappeared. When they left, he stayed and Biddy went down and sat next to him.
The field was deserted now except for the boy with the spiky hair, running patterns for an imaginary pass. Biddy put his hand on Louis’s back. “He wasn’t that mad,” he said. “He was just ranking you.”
Louis looked at his hands on his crotch.
“I don’t think he expected you to make fun of him.”
“I shouldn’t’ve said anything,” Louis said. The spiky kid loped into the end zone, hands cradling an invisible ball. “I make everybody do that.”
“No you don’t.”
“C’mon.” Louis got up. “Let’s go home.”
All the way home Biddy tried to cheer him up, talking about odd, unrelated subjects in bursts and giving up and surrendering to the silence for ten to fifteen minutes at a time before trying again.
When they reached his house, Louis turned and said he’d see him later and disappeared, leaving Biddy to walk the last few blocks alone and unhappy with everything.
Up in his room he opened all the drawers of his desk for no reason and stood before them, gazing at the mess.
His father came softly up the stairs and stood behind him. “What’re you doing?” he said.
“Nothing,” Biddy said.
“Where’d you go?”
“To watch Louis practice.”
His father crossed to the window and shut it. “That’s nice. It’s November and you got the windows open. When your mother sees the oil bill she’ll scream.”
Biddy stood in front of the open desk, unenthusiastic about doing anything else.
“Why’s Mickey mad at you? Dom says he pretty much threw you out of the house the other day.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I wouldn’t let it bother you. He’s a little off the wall for extra bases, that kid.”
Biddy took his jacket off.
“What’s on the agenda now? A little dice baseball?”
He shrugged and his father came over to the desk alongside him. “Get a load of this.” He reached into the drawer and pulled out a sheaf of box scores. “How many games do you play? Baltimore-Oakland, Baltimore-Oakland, Baltimore-New York … What is this, a whole season?”