He flew away, dwindling, back toward the Jersey shore. We watched his slow, lazy turn, glittering for a heartbeat as the sun touched the taut cloth of the wings. Then, low over the water and straight at us he came, growing again but this time dropping, descending, the propeller a shimmering circle. Lower . . . lower still . . . then faster than a blink, a wind puff yanked up the left wings, dipping the other side to nearly touch the low waves. Instantly Coffyn did something to simultaneously level the plane and touch the river, a sudden jittering white scuff appearing at the front of the long boatlike hull, the plane sagging back into ungainliness. Then on she came, a clumsy boat now, bucking the wavelets, and I stood watching, badly scared. Scared for Frank and the passenger I could see now, and scared for myself, in the sharp understanding that this plane, that all these crude early planes, like Roy Knabenshue’s strange balloon, could abruptly kill you.
On she bobbled and bounced, straight for the big anchored float, about to hit it; then Frank cut the motor, swinging the rudder, and—wings passing right over the raft—brought the body of his plane alongside the raft, and his passenger, a woman, I saw now, stepped expertly out onto the raft, a rope in hand. She tied it to a metal ring, Frank watching her, and in that moment I took this. Then he turned to toss out an anchor to hold the other end steady, and I stood staring, shocked at the flimsiness of this contraption. The thing sitting out there on the water wasn’t much more than a kite! A pasteup of wood and stretched cloth. Only those flimsy wings to support that great big heavy-looking circular motor mounted there right out in the open. This motorized kite looked like something you could put together in your garage. In about fifteen minutes. Go up in that? Sitting out there high in the air over New York City?
The passenger standing on the raft—Frank stepping over to join her now—was a woman in a long blue skirt and a middy blouse with a big square sailor’s collar at the back. She looked nice standing there smiling at Frank, who stood grinning over at the crowd on shore.
Then they rowed in, Frank tied up the boat, and he and the lady stood on the pier in a little circle of reporters with notebooks; I recognized a couple of them from Roy Knabenshue’s tent. “Did you enjoy your aerial sightseeing, Mrs. Coffyn?” one of them called out, and she turned, smiling. Oh yes, it was thrilling! Watching her face, I saw that she meant it: she may have done this before to drum up business, probably had, but she meant it. Everyone should fly over the city, she added, and Frank said, “Everyone with five dollars,” and they all laughed. Frank turned for a moment to look out into the bay at an incoming ship. A reporter asked if this wasn’t his second flight of the day. Yes, it was. Was he going up again? Yes, he thought so. Again he turned to look out at the distant ship, and I did too. Still far off, but now I could make out two threads of black smoke lining out behind its stacks. “Gentlemen,” Frank said to the reporters, “on my first flight today, I saw that ship just entering the Narrows, and flew out to take a look. I flew over the vessel at a height of about four hundred feet, and saw the passengers at her prow gathering, as I supposed, for the first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.”
“Did they see you?”
“Oh yes indeed, greeting me with considerable enthusiasm.” And waving their hats, I thought to myself. “The ship’s horn hooted at me, and I then flew down alongside her just over the water to read her name, the St. Louis, as I learned. I then attempted to hover over her stern, but she traveled too slowly for me. Even flying at my minimum speed, I could not help but fly ahead of her. So I gave up the St. Louis as a poor competitor, left the vessel, returned to the Battery, and, as you are aware, have had time for even a second flight, and the St. Louis not yet here. I firmly believe that the traveler’s future,” and he pointed upward, “lies there.” Then, nodding toward the ship: “And no longer there.” Propagandizing for the cause, I thought. Still, I felt a swift little thrill hearing him, he was so spectacularly right. Did he really believe it? Glancing over at the kite out there by the raft, it was hard to think so.
Now he gave reporters and crowd a friendly nod, a gesture with the chin, took his wife’s arm and walked on, and this 1912 crowd, including the reporters, all respected their retreat to privacy. No one followed with a last question, and it didn’t seem to occur to anyone to hold out something to be autographed.
They walked on toward a smiling young woman waiting for them a dozen yards from the pier; then Frank glanced over and saw me. He grinned immediately, beckoning, and the four of us came together in a group, the young woman taking both of Mrs. Coffyn’s hands as they spoke and brushed cheeks. I took off my hat as Frank introduced me to his wife, who looked at me with lively, cheerful interest in a new person. Then she introduced me to the very good-looking Harriet Quimby, “who is an aviatrix!”
“And will soon be the first woman to fly the English Channel,” Frank said.
“Soon will be trying,” she said, then to me, “Meanwhile I am occupied much more mundanely as a dramatic critic. For Leslie’s Weekly,” and I almost popped out that I worked for Leslie’s too! Instead, I managed to say, “Oh? Will you be seeing The Greyhound?” and we talked about that for a moment or so.
I liked her, this Harriet Quimby, was impressed, and long after, back again in a time at the other end of this new century, I sat in the reference room of the New York Public Library leafing through the pages of Who Was Who, not really expecting to find Harriet Quimby, because I had never otherwise heard of her. But her name is there. Harriet Quimby did fly the English Channel. Alone. The first woman to do it. On April 16, 1912. But the entry also included the date of her death a few months later. In a flying accident. But not now, not yet, not this day.
“You two off then?” Frank said, and Mrs. Coffyn said, “Yes, but if you’re taking Mr. Morley up now, we’ll stay a few minutes to watch.” She smiled at me charmingly, and everyone turned and began walking toward the pier. And in the presence of a young and lovely “aviatrix” who planned to climb into one of these crazy kites and fly out alone over the English Channel . . . and in the presence of another woman, who’d just stepped out of the awful thing waiting out there beside the raft . . . I walked along too, the condemned man helpless to do anything but join the procession leaving from his open cell door. Over the grass to the pier and the rowboat, out there on the Styx. Then toward the raft and—oh Lord—that evil construction of cloth and sticks sitting there waiting for me.
On the float I stood on the rough wood planking beside the plane while Frank knelt down to tie up the boat. I said, “Frank, this is more than just sightseeing. I want to fly down the length of Manhattan to look for a building. A building, I guess, that’s shaped like a boat. Has a prow anyway. Like the Mauretania.”
He thought about it, then shook his head. “I don’t remember anything like that. But if it’s there we’ll find it.”
“And I want to pay you a lot more than five dollars.”
“All right. We’ll see how long it takes. Shouldn’t be too costly.” He stood up, the raft bobbling a little in a way I didn’t like; should I grab my stomach and say I was seasick? The thing had two little bucket seats, one behind the other down in the flimsy fuselage. Frank walked around the front of the plane; I stood watching, then stepped as he did, onto the pontoon first, then swinging up and down into that terrible little seat, Frank behind me. There was a leather strap, the kind you’d find in an electric chair, and I cinched it tight around my waist. Frank leaned forward to pass me a pair of goggles, and I made my cheek muscles imitate what little they could remember of smiling, and put them on. Clear glass, not tinted.