Hollywood is an All Volunteer Army (36 page)

The mention of Disneyland was the code word Hamo had given her. Hamo's sense of humor. We did not reply, there was no need to. The code word was just an assurance that she had talked to her children that morning, knew they were safe. It was an up to the moment assurance that she was committed to work for me from now on.

Suddenly there was an incredible roar to our right. We looked. Two vintage warbirds were coming at us, very low. One was a Messerschmitt 109. One was a Spitfire. Side by side they flew at us. Lydia screamed and ducked, but the planes passed overhead with plenty of space to spare. It just didn't seem that way with the intense roar rattling the car and wiping out all other sound for a second. Sheila did not flinch and slowed the car only to make a left turn onto a road that led to the airfield. Once we cleared some trees, we could see the field ahead of us, and the two planes rise up, make barrel rows, and fly off again.

“That was a greeting from Sara Hutton and Max James.”

Lydia rose herself up. “A simple wave would have been fine.”

“They're excellent flyers. We were never in any danger.”

“Still, not very prudent,” Pinsker said with some disapproval.

“They both have a lust for life, that's for sure,” Sheila said.

“Listen, I know lust and I know life,” Lydia said. “What just happened had very little of the attributes of either.”

“Here we are.”

Sheila pulled up outside of a new building matching the style of the Visitor's Center. The signage was large and grand gunmetal bolted over the white stucco entrance way: San Simeon Air Museum. There were tour buses stopping, letting off people clutching their tickets to go in. A third Ranger came up to the car. Hatless, very blond, muscular, he opened the door for us.

“Sara Hutton suggested I take you through the museum, then outside for the show.”

“Fine,” I said as we got out of the car, Roee and I still clutching onto our briefcases.

“You can leave those here if you want. Sheila will watch them.”

“No thank you,” I said.

“Okay. You'll just have to drag them along with you.”

“That's quite all right,” I said. “I feel naked without it.”

“Really,” the third Ranger said in a dry voice with no cracks in it. “I only feel naked without clothes—but then I'm the simple sort.” He turned and marched toward the museum entrance. We quickly followed.

The museum was quite impressive, quite a contrast from the Chino Air Museum that relied on donations and volunteers and housed itself in a corrugated metal hanger. This building had a vast three story high interior with antique airplanes hanging in midair at various heights, as well as the many planes on display on the ground floor. Second and third floor mezzanines ringed the inside of the building allowing you to view the hanging planes up close. There was an elevator-stairway area up against the left wall; and the right wall was all glass at the second and third levels, beyond which was a snack bar on the second floor and a restaurant on the third. Directly ahead was the wide space of open hangar doors and the field beyond.

A quick glance established the extent of the collection. There was a World War I F26 Bristol Bi-plane fighter hanging just overhead, painted a shiny olive green and orange; while the Heinkel He 162A Salamander, a German Jet fighter stood right in front of us. One of the very first jet fighters, produced in 1945, a bit too late to help Herr Hitler out, it stunned you with its look, its engine weirdly on its back, a big hump right behind the canopy. Weird, but “Cool,” as the young kid in you wanted to say. There were French WWI Bi-plane fighters as well, and Boeing pre-WWII pursuit planes, still bi-winged, but also the Boeing “Peashooter,” the first U.S. Army Air Corp “Monoplane,” quite an innovation for its time, 1933. The “Peashooter” was rather garishly painted in red, white, and blue, with yellow added on the wings. Also up overhead hung a Horten IV German Flying Wing. There's the essence of flight. Just a wing.

“This must have cost the State quite a bit,” I said.

“Not a penny,” the hatless Ranger said. “Max paid for everything. The building, the restaurants. The planes he already owned. He maintains everything at his cost. For the use of the land, the State gets a fat percentage of the ticket sales, the gift shop and the food service. It's a good deal for them.”

“It's interesting that all you Rangers are here at the airfield,” Pinsker added. “I mean I can understand you being up at the Castle, but—”

“We're only here during the air shows. For crowd control. It's an off-duty assignment. We believe in the spirit of volunteerism.” He said it in a way that left no room for argument. “You can look around here, or join the others in the VIP seats outside,” he then informed us.

Lydia, already bored standing among the hard realities of a boy's fantasies, said, “Let's go outside. It's a beautiful day to sit with other VIPs.”

More planes on display on the tarmac. Fighters; transports; bombers; another flying wing, this one the famous Northrop painted in a bright yellow-orange. And beyond the tarmac, on a flat grassy plain was a recreation of a World War Two RAF airfield, complete with the simple brick and corrugated metal roof buildings, a bright yellow wind sock dancing on the end of a pole, and various chairs haphazardly placed about in front of the HQ for the nonchalant pilots to lazily while away the time in-between the battles that could very well take their lives. There were three Spitfires on the grassy field, two grouped together and one quite a distance apart from them, and one Spitfire landing. The one that buzzed us I assumed. When it came to a stop, the pilot jumped out, flight-suited and leather-helmeted. It was impossible with that and the distance to tell if this was Sara or Maxwellton James. The pilot went into one of the brick buildings and my attention was taken by sound and movement overhead.

The sky was filled with planes. Four WW I biplanes flying in formation and, at a higher altitude, four Grumman “Cats”: The F4F Wildcat; the F6F-5 Hellcat; the F7F-3N Tigercat; the F8F-2 Bearcat—or so the very loud public address system blared out with love, pride, and adoration over the constant hot-engine roar that filled the air.

“So many letters, so many numbers,” Lydia said, unhappy about it. “Why don't they just call them John, Paul, George and Ringo?”

“Here we are,” Hatless pointed to a set of plush, theater-like seats arranged in four ascending bleacher rows of six seats each. The whole affair was up against a hanger and rested on a raised platform reached by a carpeted set of steps, and was covered with a canvas awning to provide shade. Next to it was a roped off area where a chef was preparing food and a bartender prepared drinks. Four other Rangers were positioned at equidistant spots to the sides and in front of this VIP section.

“More volunteers,” Roee whispered to me.

“I'm almost moved to tears,” I replied.

There were five people in the seats, four men and one woman, all very attractive. If not by the dint of their raw physical appearance, like models in magazines, then by the way they were dressed, groomed and self-appraised. They all sat close together and they all had binoculars which they were all looking through. Oddly enough the binoculars were not trained up at the sky looking at either the biplanes or the “Cats.” They were, instead, trained parallel to the ground. They may have been trying to get a detailed view of the various planes standing there, but by the way they were whispering to each other, giggling, and even snorting out short, snotty laughs, I had a feeling they were actually picking out and examining individual members of the hundreds of paying public that had come to the show and were now, still and video cameras at the ready, milling all around the tarmac getting good views of the planes, possibly thinking how they would fare as the pilots thereof.

It was an interesting cross section of the population. As you would expect, there were older men, veterans of the Second World War, or of the times at least, most in plaid or striped short sleeved shirts, not always ones of the right size, and baseball caps, some of which announced the military units they had been in. Was this trip necessary for nostalgia for the “Good War” when America was a solid monoculture, true blue (not to mention red and white) kind of country? When the loudspeaker announcer was not blaring, you could hear Glen Miller music mix with the rapid piston banging of the engines flying above. Glen Miller music always took you back, even, for some, back before they were born. Ah, the Good War! It had resonance. These men seemed to come in pairs, buddies remembering the Big One together, or paired with their wives, gray-haired women not always enthusiastically trailing their husbands. They seemed to amuse the group of five, especially when the old warriors might sit down in the middle of the tarmac on folding chairs they had carried with them, catching a breath, looking up to watch something roar overhead.

There were younger people too. Families with kids, mainly boys (two, three generations who missed the Good War), who really wanted to see the neat planes, the kind they made models of. There were young t-shirted guys—just boys again among the planes—who were into fast racing cars as well; you could tell by the jackets and hats and attitudes they wore. There were young women out to prove to their boyfriends that they could share a manly passion, so go ahead, let me into that part of you.

They gawked well, all of these people, at the romance of flight.

The crowd came in all shapes and sizes, but rounder shapes and larger sizes seemed to be the norm of the tarmac. Often those shapes and sizes were covered in unfortunate choices of clothes. Shorts stopping short of covering thighs like massive institutional bread dough, just kneaded. T-shirts tenting out over the bow of bellies, letting the breeze in underneath. I had a suspicion the five found this amusing as well, like kids in school.

It has never seemed anything but apt to me that school rhymes with cruel.

“These are Sara's other guests,” Hatless announced, then left us, leaving us to the introductions.

The five, in a unified move, brought their binoculars away from their faces, turned their heads our way, then looked down at us. All five, including the woman I believe, immediately registered a small twinkle in their eyes when they landed on Lydia, possibly nestling comfortably in her cleavage. I couldn't say I blamed them. Lydia's cleavage was very 1950's, especially in this dress, especially at the angle the five were viewing it from.

“Hello!” Lydia said cheerfully as the five stood up. “I'm Lydia Corfu, these boys are my lawyers, Henderson and Pinsker. You can ignore them.”

“Hi,” one of the men said. “Sara said you would be joining us. Come on up.”

We marched up the little stairs that led to the platform. When we got there, face to face with the five, the man who had spoke said, “I'm Thad Darrow, this is—” He pointed to each one in turn. “Brooke Bloom, Nick Paulsen, Brett Korner, and Abbie White.”

Thad was an eager young man, with wispy, light brown hair over a sharp, focused face accented by the small, round lenses of his frameless glasses. He was about five foot six.

Brooke was a tall woman, maybe twenty-eight, skinny in an elegant way, with long, straight ash blond hair, clear skin, bright eyes and a mouth that closed into a line that was scary.

Nick had very close-cropped dark hair that in a short matter of years would be gone altogether. His face was perfectly proportioned, there wasn't a thing you would change, thus he had a naturally confident look. He wasn't handsome as much as he was just—right.

Brett was handsome. Wide grinned, joyfully so. Tall, well built, happy to be him, with a commanding head of dark gold hair combed in a chaos of swirls that, nonetheless, seemed to have a pattern.

Abbie was an intense, lanky, black haired man with big teeth, a big nose, big hands, and—by the look of his shoes—big feet. To trip, to stumble, and to stutter seemed his immediate destiny. Yet when he moved, bending down from the third highest row of chairs, to shake our hands, he was nothing but control and grace as he said in a deep, well modulated voice, “It's a pleasure to meet you.”

Thad pointed to some seats and we sat as Lydia said, “So, who's winning?”

They all laughed a knowing laugh.

“Actually, it's quite interesting,” Thad said, “all these historical planes.”

“Yeah, kind of neat,” Brett said.

“They had a wing walker a moment ago,” Brooke said. “About as stupid a thing to do as I can imagine. Standing up there, holding an American flag, flapping in the wind. Whoopee, I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy. You should have seen the crowd point and
Oooo!
and
Ahhh!
”

“It's all part of the invite,” Abbie said. “‘You don't get the evening without the day.' That's what Don Gulden told me.”

“How is he, by the way?” Brooke wanted to know. “Is he still in the coma?”

“Yeah, that's what I heard,” Brett said.

 
“I'm glad I didn't go to that party,” Thad added.

“You know, there's rumors that it was a hit,” Brett said.

“Excuse me?” Brooke raised her eyebrows.