Going to Chicago (2 page)

Before the war Dad and Eddie worked together at the Columbus Buggy Co., building race cars, and when Eddie went to work for the Mason Automobile Co. in Des Moines, Dad went with him. Eddie became the top race car driver in the country, setting a land speed record of 134 miles per hour. Dad was his top mechanic. When the Wild Teuton, as Eddie was known on the race circuit, went to France to offer his services as a dogfighter, Dad went with him. They earned their wings after just seventeen days of training. By the end of the war Dad and Eddie had collectively sent twenty-nine German Fokkers and Albatrosses spinning into the vineyards. Eddie twenty-six and Dad three. That's how I got the name Ace. In honor of the dogfighting aces of World War I. Not just a nickname either, but my legal name. I was born Lawrence Gilbert but when my father came home from France, he immediately had it changed to Ace. Glad he did.

I planned to do the name proud. Just as Jesus was destined to grow up and be Jesus, I'd grow up to become a famous ace and add mightily to the list of Gilbert air victories, just as soon as a new war broke out. That's why I was wearing an aviator's cap and goggles that morning, and why my old Model T was fitted with wings and a propeller and had the famous red, white, and blue Hat in the Ring emblem painted on the door.

My T was something to see. I called it a Gilbert SXIII, after the Spad SXIIIs Dad and Eddie flew. My wings weren't full length of course—you couldn't drive on narrow country roads with twenty-six feet of wing sticking out—but they did extend a good three feet on either side; double biplane wings, wood and varnished canvas just like real ones, connected with struts and brace wires. When I drove fast, which was all the time, those stubby wings picked up enough air to lift the chassis high on its springs, and keep my wheels tickling the gravel.

I carved the propeller from an old two-by-six; it was full size, the blades tapered just like real ones. I mounted it in front of the radiator, so when the wind hit those tapered blades, that propeller spun like crazy. Looking out through that whirling blur, bouncing and twisting sideways from the wind up under those wings, goddamn if I wasn't at sixty-five hundred feet looking for Huns over the vineyards of France. Sonofabitch it was fun.

Neither my folks nor Mrs. Randall were crazy about us driving to Chicago and back in the Gilbert SXIII—Will figured it was 284 miles one way—but my dad needed his Plymouth for the daily drive to Akron and Mrs. Randall couldn't go a week without the tow truck. So, if we were going, and there was no way to stop us now, it would be in the Gilbert SXIII.

You can't imagine how much fun driving a Model T was. Even the Ts without wings and propellers were fun. Mine was a 1923 touring car. A boxy two-seater. Dad paid $265 for it new and drove it right up until the year we moved to Stony Hill Road and he took his big job at Goodrich. It waited patiently under a tarp in the barn until I turned fourteen, then proudly allowed itself to be transformed by my imagination into an airplane.

I hopped on the running board, waved one last time to my mother, and reached for the spark advance under the steering wheel. Then I ran to the front, and pretending I was giving the propeller a yank, I gave the hand crank my expert twist. The Gilbert SXIII purred like a bushel of cats.

I jumped in and lowered my goggles. The lenses turned the world yellow. Ts didn't have a clutch and gearshift like others cars. There was one foot pedal on the left to go forward, one in the center to send you jerking in reverse, and one on the right to stop you in your tracks. A lever by your left knee let you choose between high speed or low. I taxied down the front yard in low, and then with my tongue hanging out over my teeth, rammed her into high and gave her as much gas as she could swallow without choking.

Away I flew for Bennett's Corners.

“
The best position in aerial combat is that where one can shoot at the enemy from close range without him being able to reply
.”

T
HE
D
ICTA
B
OELCKE

Two/White Dust

I flew the Gilbert SXIII straight up Stony Hill Road, painting the cornfields with white dust. I was probably going no faster than twenty-five, but with the wind up under my stubby wings and my hard rubber tires sliding in the gravel, it seemed like I was going three hundred. It was a few minutes past one and the sun was beginning to tilt west. Babcock Road was just ahead. I cut the throttle but stayed in high. I leaned left until I saw the world sideways, just like when you bank an airplane. I waited until I was on top of the intersection, then drove the steering wheel hard. Gravel rattled through the trees. Dust soaked into my tongue and gums and coated my goggles. My right wheels left the road. Then they sat down hard, sending the entire chassis into a frenzy. I was on Babcock now, flying straight west.

God but I wanted to be a dogfighter like my dad and Eddie Rickenbacker, hunting down Huns, sending Fokkers and Albatrosses spinning into the vineyards. Not that I had anything against Germans. Eddie Rickenbacker was a German by blood, after all. My own mother was the daughter of one-quarter Germans, making me one-sixteenth German myself. No, I was only against the Germans who flew airplanes over France.

One of the most famous Germans who flew airplanes over France was an Argentina-born asthmatic named Oswald Boelcke. Dad and Eddie Rickenbacker revered him even though he was on the other side. Boelcke was one of the first true aces of the war. Recorded forty victories, way more than Dad and Eddie. It was the studious Herr Boelcke who first set down the rules for the new art of aerial combat. The Dicta Boelcke, it was called. Dogfighters on both sides followed it. Dad taught me all ten rules. I planned to use them when World War II broke out, but the U.S. Army Air Force wouldn't let me fly. Wouldn't even put me on a bomber crew. They sent me to cooking school.

As I flew along Babcock Road that morning I saw a wobbling dot on the hill ahead of me. No doubt who that wobbling dot was. It was that turtle-faced Marty Boyle on his red bicycle. The ten rules of the Dicta Boelcke went crazy inside my head.

Rule One:
The best position in aerial combat is that where you can shoot at the enemy from close range without him being able to reply
. Easy enough. Marty didn't even know I was behind him. I'd be on him before he could fart or pray.

Rule Two:
Climb before the attack and dive from the rear. Altitude imparts speed in the dive
. Perfect. If I cut my speed a bit, I'd arrive at the top of that hill just as he was reaching the valley on the other side.

Rule Three:
Use natural cover. Clouds and the glare of the sun
. The sun would be in both our faces, but with the cloud of dust I was coughing up, Marty would look over his shoulder and think I was just some friendly Chevrolet.

Rule Four:
Attack when the enemy is unsuspecting and preoccupied with other tasks
. Had him again. There were lots of ruts and puddle holes at the bottom of that hill. His eyes and mind would be on those.

Rule Five:
Do not fire until the enemy is within range and squarely in your sights
. I crawled up the hill just as Marty disappeared into the valley. I dropped into low speed and edged the Gilbert SXIII's nose over the top. There he was, head down, elbows out, ass high, enjoying the long coast, flat pancake ball glove swinging on his handlebar. I slapped her into high, throttled up and dove for the kill.

Rule Six:
The best offensive maneuver is to turn more tightly than one's opponent, thus eventually coming into a position on his tail
. Marty heard my four cylinders banging and swung to the right to let me pass. But I stayed right with him.

Rule Seven:
Never turn your back and run from the enemy. Turn and face the enemy with your guns
. Marty should have known that rule. When he finally peeked over his shoulder and saw it was me, wings and propeller protruding from a cloud of white dust, his eyes went as round as cereal bowls. He started pedaling for his life.

Rule Eight:
To parry an attack from ahead, turn directly towards the opponent and present as small and fast a target as possible
. Obviously that rule didn't apply here since Marty was already in full retreat, ass and elbows even higher than before.

Rule Nine:
To parry an attack from behind, enter and maintain as tight a turn as possible to make it as difficult as possible for the enemy to stay on your tail
. Marty actually tried this one. He went left and right across the road, bouncing over ruts and stones, trying to shake me. But this was Ace Gilbert he was dogfighting. I wasn't about to shake. I went straight for the reflector on his back fender.

Marty panicked. He pulled the ball glove off his handlebar and flung it at me. It hit my propeller and shot right back at him. Hit him right in the head. Marty, his bike, and that old pancake ball glove went flying into the ditch. I finished him off with my imaginary machine gun.
Enk-enk-enk-enk-enk—enk-enk-enk-enk-enk
.

Rule Ten:
Foolish acts of bravery are fatal
.

Oswald Boelcke, by the way, died during an attack on a squadron of British DH 25s, in October 1916, a year and a half before Dad and Eddie Rickenbacker ever got into the war. Flying a tight formation, he clipped the wing of a fellow Hun and plummeted into the vineyards. I'm sure he must have spent his last seconds on earth embarrassed as hell.

As I sped up Babcock Road I took a piece of chalk from my shirt pocket and marked another little
X
on the side of the door. There were already dozens of little
Xs
there. About half courtesy of turtle-faced Marty Boyle.

I took a right on Townline Road and flew straight to Bennett's Corners. In the morning we'd be killing the road to Chicago. Me and Will Randall, the best friend I ever had. Maybe Clyde was coming along, too.

“
Only a hundred years ago Chicago was a huddle of huts, hewn of logs, clinging to the shadows of Fort Dearborn for safety from the Indians, and four years after its incorporation as a village, in 1833, its population, conquering patches of dreary swamp, had reached 4,000. Today it is nearly 4,000,000—3,376,438 for the sake of accuracy, by the census of 1930—and growing at a rate of 70,000 a year
.”

O
FFICIAL
G
UIDE
B
OOK OF THE
W
ORLD
'
S
F
AIR

Three/Long Burn

Bennett's Corners is not a real place. By that I mean it's not an official town. No legal boundaries. No mayor. Not on any map. It's just a place where six roads come together like slices of a pie. A place where a few people decided to settle in and practice life. Don't ask me who Bennett was. Probably one of the first settlers to buy land there after the Indians were chased out. Just as Sherman's Corners to the south was named after some forgotten pioneer named Sherman and Goodman's Corners to the west after somebody named Goodman. By the time Will and I came along, the Shermans and Goodmans and Bennetts were long gone.

Today Bennett's Corners is like any other lump of suburban vomit: housing developments, strip malls full of hairdressers and dry cleaners and Chinese takeouts; and a few precious pieces of open land with plywood signs heralding the coming of more housing developments and more strip malls. As I speak they're installing not one, but two traffic lights, so all the new people who think they've actually moved to the country can safely maneuver through those six roads coming together, and get to their jobs in Cleveland, twenty-five miles away, alive and on time.

In 1934 Bennett's Corners was still a wonderful place to live, protected from the outside world by miles of cow pastures and cornfields. There were two churches, the shabby Free-Will Baptist Church and the handsome United Methodist Church. There was a barber shop just big enough for a chair and spittoon. There was the community ballfield and a cemetery surrounded by a fine black iron fence paid for by the Ladies' Aid Society. There were a handful of white clapboard houses and a couple old sway-back barns. There was Ruby & Rudy's General Store, a strong, two-story frame building that would years later become my first place of business, the R&R Luncheonette. And there was Randall's Shell Garage, a low, flat-roofed brick building with one bay for repairs and a long portico that stuck out over the pumps.

Both Randall's garage—which from the fifties on was a beer joint—and Ruby & Rudy's fine building—in its last incarnation Poppie's Pizza—have just been torn down so Townline Road can be widened to four lanes. Bennett's Corners, Ohio, like thousands of such unofficial places across the country, is being butchered on the sacrificial alter of
country living
.

So, on that late August day I was flying north on Townline Road toward the Corners. I passed the Warner farm—the Ruby half of Ruby & Rudy's General Store was a Warner before she married Rudy Zuduski and became a Polack storekeeper—and I passed the Loomis place and the Hyler place and the cemetery and the barber shop. I started my descent in front of the ballfield, skidded past Ruby & Rudy's, landed safe and sound in front of Randall's garage.

Will was outside leaning against the kerosene pump, reading his
Official Guide Book of the World's Fair
. I yanked off my cap and goggles and hopped to the ground. I just had to laugh every time I saw Will. We both wore our hair straight back in the fashionable pompadour style of the day. Will's pompadour, however, never stayed pomped. It was fine when he first slicked it back in the morning with water and Brylcreem, but as the day progressed it kept rising up. By noon he looked like a porcupine. His drooping nose, timid chin, and high puffed cheeks didn't help. Neither did his eyes. They were shy and blinky, hiding the fact that he was probably one of the smartest and most stubborn souls to ever walk the earth. “Where you been?” Will said. He carefully folded the guidebook before sticking it in his back pocket.