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Bob doesn’t like being on the ground.
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Bob flips a switch, presses a button.
His pilot says, “Good hit.”
A swell of pride.
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Bob flinches every Saturday at noon after that day in May.
The only consolation - he’s not the only one taking surreptitious glances at the sky.
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Bob looks at his checklist, talks with the ordie. He inspects and nods and the ordie walks off; Bob checks in with his pilot, ready to go.
He doesn’t like being on the ground.
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There are clouds rolling in and Bob ducks into the Hard Deck, sticks a pouch in and grabs a plastic cup from Penny.
He finds a chair and a wall to put his back to, next to the pool table and the dartboard and he focuses on spitting in his cup, on the conversations ebbing and flowing around him and ignores all that’s going on outside.
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There’s a freight train goin’ over his house, but no tracks in sight.
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Bob’s pilot glares at him, not understanding the hurry.
Bob sighs and looks at the clouds and aches to be above them.
They’re on a carrier and they’re surrounded by water and, while that counts for something - after all, the swells of the ocean are not the waving grasses of the plains, and the spout of a whale is not the wide branches of a cottonwood - there’s still something to said about the shadow of a passing thunderhead.
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Bob’s home on leave and he’s got his hands over his ears.
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Phoenix hands him the pool cue and Bob wonders how long he’ll last with her.
He wonders if she knows.
Pilots talk.
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There’s a freight train goin’ over his house, but no tracks in sight.
Mama’s screamin’ as he wraps himself around her - he holds her face to his chest with one hand to the back of her head, uses the other to cling to the mattress so it wouldn’t fly off with the walls - but then a tree comes down and--
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Bob grits his teeth, aches to get above the clouds.
Neither his pilot nor the ordie notice a thing at all, not even the bead of sweat running down his temple in the cool ocean breeze.
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There’s smoke in his nose and laughter in his ears, but there’s also clouds on the horizon.
Phoenix pushes her shoulder into his and asks, “Where were you? Just now?”
Bob jerks and looks at her - pushes back against the sound of a freight train and screamin’ in his ears - and says, “Sorry, just got lost in thought.”
And, in the gentlest voice, she says, “Bob, you’re sweating.”
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There’s a freight train goin’ over his house, but no tracks in sight.
Mama’s screamin’ as he wraps himself around her, but then a tree--
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Bob fucking hates being on the ground.
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“Bob, you’re sweating.”
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It takes three of them to carry her to where the ambulance can reach because Bob’s right arm is useless and his brother’s left leg still has a branch in it.
Bob’s shirt is blood-sticky and then there’s a camera in his face.
Bob looks up at clearing skies.
There’s a rainbow and somebody, off in the distance, wails.
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First: Phoenix hands him the pool cue and Bob wonders how long he’ll last with her.
Then: “Bob, you’re sweating.”
Now: “I fucking hate being on the ground.”
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Bob puts a pouch in and grabs a plastic cup from Penny; he puts his back to a wall and lets the conversations surround him as he ignores what’s happening out the windows.
He tells himself, for the umpteenth time, that southern California can hardly produce a decent thunderstorm; he tells himself that he’s fine; he tells himself, as he spits into his cup, that they don’t make tornadoes here like the ones at home, should one ever even drop at all.
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Bob grits his teeth as he talks with the ordie.
He glances at the sky, hears the wind picking up.
He fucking hates--
--Phoenix puts her shoulder against his.
She doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t even meet his eyes - she’s simply leaning against him as she goes through her own pre-checks.
And, for the moment, the freight train’s a little more distant.
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End.