The Minotaur (3 page)

“Right,” Jake said, eyeing the youngster at the table.

“Let’s see. You have a knife, and the man at the store—Mr.
Swoze, right?—recommended you buy these pins to hold the parts
in place while you glue them. This is a good glue, cyanoacrylate.
You’re all set, except for a board to spread the diagram on and pin
the parts to, and a drill.”

“What kind of board?”

“Oh, I’ll loan you one. I’ve built three airplanes on mine- You
spread the diagram on it and position the parts over the diagram,
then pin them right to the board. And I’ll loan you my drill if you
don’t have one.” Jake nodded. The youngster continued, his fingers
still moving restlessly through the parts, “The most important as-
pect of assembling this aircraft is getting the same dihedral and
washout on the right and left wing components, both inner and
outer panels. Be very careful and work slowly.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll run home and get my board and drill. You won’t need the
drill for several days, but I might as well bring it over.” He bolted
out the door, leaving Jake to refill his coffee cup and stare at the
actual-size diagram.

The house was quiet, with only the background murmur of the
surf on the beach and the occasional burble of a passing car to
break the solitude. The task assumed a life of its own; breaking the
pieces out of the balsa boards, assembling them on the diagram,
occasionally sanding or trimming with the razor-sharp nobby’knife
before pinning them into place. As he worked he occasionally
glanced at the picture on the box, visualizing how the airplane
would look soaring back and forth above the sand, trying to imag-
ine how it would feel to fly it. This would be real flying, he knew.
Even though his feet would not leave the ground, the plane would
be flying free. and since he would be flying it, so would he. He
carefully glued the rudder and vertical stabilizer parts together and
began assembling the horizontal stabilizer.

The knock on the door startled him- He had been so intent on
his task he had paid no attention to the sound of the car driving up.
“Yeah. Come on in.”

He heard the door open. “Captain Grafton.”

“Yep.” Jake looked up.

The man standing there was in his late twenties, slightly above
medium height, with short brown hair. ‘Toad Tarkington! Come
on in! What a surprise!”

The man’s face split in a wide grin and he crossed the room and
pumped Jake’s hand. “It’s great to see you again, CAG. I thought
for a while there you were dead.”

Grafton nodded and studied Lieutenant Toad Tarkiagton. today
clad in jeans and rugby shirt and windbreaker. He looked . . .
just the same as he did the morning they went after Colonel Qazi in
an F-14 five months ago. Last September. And here he was with
that grin . . . quick, energetic, nervous. He was ready to laugh or
fly, ready for a prank in the ready room or a night cat shot, fully
alive. That’s what Toad Tarkington projected—vibrant, energetic,
enthusiastic life.

“I’m not a CAG now. Toad. I’m just a plain ol’ sick-leave cap-
tain.” CAG was the title bestowed on an air wing commander, and
was pronounced to rhyme with “rag.”

Toad grabbed his hand and held it, that grin splitting his face.
“Have we got a lot to talk about! I tried to call you, sir, but your
phone wasn’t listed.”

“Yeah. Had to have the number changed. The reporters were
driving me nuts.”

Toad pulled one of the kitchen chairs around and sat down. “I
was pretty damn happy last fall when I heard you were alive. What
happened to you anyway, after we rammed that transport?”

“Some Greek fishermen pulled me out of the water. I don’t re-
member a thing. Had a concussion. Lucky for me the life vests
inflate automatically nowadays. Anyway, they pulled me out and I
made it.”

“How come they didn’t radio someone or head for port?”

“Their radio was broken and they were there to fish,” Jake
looked away from Toad. He was back among the ordinary, every-
day things, for a moment there . . . but he was here, at the beach
house. “They thought I was gonna die on them any minute and
they needed the fish. I was in a coma.” His shoulders moved up
and down. “Too damned many Gs. Messed up my eyes. That’s
why I wear these glasses now.”

Jake removed the glasses and examined the lenses, as if seeing
them for the first time. “It’s 20/100 now. It was 20/500. The Gs
almost ripped my eyeballs out.” He placed the glasses back on the
bridge of his nose and stared at the pieces of balsa on the kitchen
table. “I don’t remember much about it. The docs say some blood
vessels popped in the front part of my brain and I had some mem-
ory loss.”

“By God, sir, I sure as hell can fill you in.” Toad leaned forward
and seized his arm. Jake refocused on that excited, expressive face,
“The Gs were something else and I couldn’t get to the ejection
handles, and I guess you couldn’t either. Man, our bacon was well
and truly fried when she broke up and spit us out. The left wing
was gone and I figure most of the left vertical stab, because we
were getting pushed around screwy. I—” He continued his tale, his
hands automatically moving to show the plane’s position in space.
Jake stopped listening to the voice and watched the hands, those
practiced, expressive hands.

Tarkington—he was the past turned into a living, breathing per-
son. He was every youngster Jake had shared a ready room with
for the past twenty years, all those guys now middle-aged … or
dead.

Toad was still talking when Jake turned back to the pile of balsa
on the table. When he eventually paused for air, Jake said mildly.

“So what we you up to these days?” as he used the X-acto knife to
trim a protruding sliver from a balsa rib piece.

“My squadron tour was up,” Toad said slowly. “And when you
get a Silver Star you can pretty well call your next set of orders. So
I talked it over with the detailer.” He looked around the room,
then swiveled back to Jake. “And I told him I wanted to go where
you were going.”

Jake laid the knife down and scooted his chair back. “I’m still on
convalescent leave.”

“Yessir. I heard. And I hear you’re going to the Pentagon as a
division director or something. So I’m reporting there this coming
Monday. I’ll be working for you.”

Jake smiled again. “I seem to recall you had had enough of this
warrior shit”

“Yeah. Well, what the hell! I decided to stay around for another
set of orders. I can always pull the plug. And I’ve got nothing
better to do right now anyway.”

Jake snorted and nibbed his fingertips together. The glue had
coated his fingertips and wouldn’t come off. “I don’t either. So
we’ll go shuffle paper for a while, eh?”

“Yessir,” Toad said, and stood. “Maybe we won’t get underway,
but we’ll still be in the navy. That’s something, isn’t it?” He stuck
out his hand again, like a cowboy drawing a pistol. “I’ll be seeing
you in the office, when you get there,” he said as Jake pumped the
outstretched hand. “Say hello to Mrs, Grafton for me.”

Jake accompanied Toad to the door, then out onto the porch.
There was a young woman in the car, and she looked at him curi-
ously. He nodded at her, then put a hand on Toad’s shoulder and
squared around to face him. “Take care of yourself, y’hear?”

“Sure, CAG. Sure.”

“Thanks for coming by.”

As Toad drove away Jake waved, then went back into the house.
The place was depressing. It was as if Tarkington brought all the
life and energy with him, then took it away when he left. But he
was of Jake’s past. Everything was past. The flying, the ready
rooms, the sun on the sea as you manned up to fly, all of it was
over, gone, finished.

It was after four o’clock. He had forgotten to eat lunch. Oh well,
Callie wasn’t going to get here until nine o’clock or so. The Chesa-
peake Bay Bridge shouldn’t be crowded on Friday evenings this
time of year. He could get some more of this plane assembled, then
fix a sandwich or something. Maybe run over to Burger King.

He scratched at the glue caked on his fingertips. The stuff came
off in flakes tf you peeled it right. This plane—it was going to be a
nice one. It was going to be good to fly it. When flying was all you
knew and all you had been, you needed a plane around.

Oh, shit! As he looked at the pieces he felt like a fool. A fucking
toy plane! He threw himself on the couch and lay there staring at
the ceiling.

Toad Tarkington was silent as he drove from stoplight to stoplight
on the main highway through Rehoboth Beach. The woman beside
him finally asked, “So how is he?”

“He’s changed,” Toad said. “The official report said he was in a
coma for two weeks. It was a week before that Greek fishing boat
even made port. It’s a miracle he didn’t die on the boat. He said the
fidiermen expected him to and kept fishing.”

“I would have liked to meet him.”

“Well, I was going to mention you were in the car, but he was
busy working on a model airplane and he was . . . Anyway, you
can always meet him later.”

The woman reached for the knob to turn the stereo on, then
thought better of it. “This new assignment—asking for it just be-
cause you like him . . .”

“It’s not that I like him,” Toad said. “I respect him. He’s . . .
different. There aren’t many men like him left in this day and age.
If Congress hadn’t jumped into that incident with both feet and
voted him the Medal of Honor, he would probably have been
forced to retire. Maybe even a court-martial.” Toad smacked the
steering wheel with his hand. “He’s a national hero and he doesn’t
give a damn. I’ve never met anyone like him before.” He thought
about it “Maybe there aren’t any more like him.”

The woman reached for the knob again and turned the stereo on.

She had known Toad Tarkington for three weeks and she was still
trying to figure him out. He was the first military man she had
dated and he was modestly famous after the attack last fall on
United States. Her friends thought it was so exciting. Still, he was a
little weird. Ah well, he made a decent salary and bathed and
shaved and looked marvelous at parties. And he was a fine lover. A
girl could do a lot worse.

“Where do you want to eat tonight?” she asked.

It was dark and spattering rain when Jake heard Callie’s car pull
in. He had completed assembly of the vertical and horizontal stabi-
lizers, the rudder, and the wings, and had placed them on top of
the bookcase and credenza to cure and was cleaning up the mess
on the kitchen table. He raked the rest of it into the box the air-
plane had come in and slid the box up on top of the kitchen cabi-
nets, then went outside to meet her. She was opening the trunk of
her car.

“Hey, good-looking. Welcome home.” He pecked her cheek and
lifted her overnight bag out of the trunk.

“Hello.” She followed him into the house, hugging herself
against the evening chill. He closed the door behind her and
climbed the stairs toward the bedrooms. “What’s this?” Callie
called.

“I’m building an airplane,” he boomed as he dropped the bag on
the bed. When he reached the foot of the stairs she was examining
the wing structure without touching it “It’s dry enough to pick up.
How about coffee?”

“Sure.” Callie walked slowly around the living/dining area, her
purse still over her shoulder, looking. She opened the door to the
screened-in porch and was shivering in the wind, looking at the
wicker furniture, when he handed her the coffee cup. “This stuff
needs to be painted again.” She slid the door closed and leaned
back against it as she sipped the hot liquid.

“What kind of week did you have?”

“So-so.” She was halfway through her first semester as a lan-
guage instructor at Georgetown University. “They asked me to
teach this summer.”

“What did you say?”

‘That I’d think about it.” She had been planning on spending
the summer here at the beach. Kicking her pumps off, she sat on
the sofa with her legs under her. “It all depends.”

Jake poured himself coffee and sat down at the kitchen table
where he could face her.

“I went to see Dr. Arnold this afternoon.”

“Uh-huh.” Jake had refused to go back to the psychologist

“He says if you don’t get your act together I should leave you.”

“Just what does the soul slicer think my act is?”

“Oh, cut the crap, Jake.” She averted her face. She finished her
coffee in silence, then rinsed the cup in the sink. Retrieving her
shoes, she went upstairs.

The sound of water running in the shower was audible all over
the downstairs. Jake spread the airplane diagram on the table and
opened the instruction manual. Finally he threw the manual down
in disgust.

He needed a drink. The doctors had told him not to, but fuck
them. He rummaged under the sink and found that old bottle of
bourbon with several inches of liquid remaining. He poured some
in a glass and added ice.

The problem was that he didn’t want to do anything. He didn’t
want to retire and sit here and vegetate or find a civilian job. He
didn’t want to go to the Pentagon and immerse himself in the
bureaucracy. The Pentagon job had been the only one offered
when he was finally ready to be discharged from Bethesda Naval
Hospital. The politicians had made him a hero and checkmated the
naval establishment but the powers that be had still been smarting
from the way the official investigation had been derailed. Luckily
he had been damn near comatose in the hospital and everyone in
uniform knew he had nothing to do with the political maneuvering.
So he was still in the navy. But his shot at flag rank had vaporized
like a drop of water on a hot stove. Not that he really ever hoped to
make admiral or even cared.

He lay down on the couch and sipped at the drink. Maybe the
whole problem was that he just didn’t care about any of it any-
more. Let the other guys do the sweating- Let them dance on the
tifhtrope. Let someone else pick up the bodies of those who fell.
pe put the glass on the floor and rolled over on his side. Maybe he
-was depressed—that soul doctor , . . Yes, depression, that was
probably . . .