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Here is one unstoppable force: every morning the sun ticks up over the Mojave range with the all-or-nothing suddenness of a switch flipped. And with it, the heat kicks back in like it never left, and every scrub jay starts screaming like the light made them remember their voices.
A good dozen of them seem to live right outside Bradley’s window. He cracks his eyes open to the noise, squints against the slant of sun. It's not late, but he’ll be the last one up. Mav will be in the hangar already, and Penny has commandeered the sunporch for her morning yoga sessions. Amelia used to outsleep him, but she got shipped to her father’s last week. Bradley ought to ship himself off too – Amelia’s departure means he’s officially third wheeling this, but Penny hasn’t given him any sign she wants him out, and she sure seems like the kind of woman who would make herself clear if she did.
Mav –
Mav at the very least wants to want Bradley around. Bradley is learning maybe that’s the best he’s going to get. Following Bradley’s arrival in the desert, Mav taught him to pilot the Mustang. Neither of them had any expectation that Bradley was going to be able to Fly the thing, but Mav was pleased with how he piloted it, proud of how quickly Bradley picked up the controls. And every few days they use a grocery run as an excuse to shoot up I-15 on two of Mav’s bikes. He’s gotten to watch Mav charm a waitress at just about every diner between here and Barstow into free pie. Mav seemed delighted; truly, honestly delighted when the man at the gas station told him, “you and your son have a good day.” Bradley hadn’t corrected him, but in hindsight, kind of wishes he had. Mav’s voice is giddy when he takes Bradley and Penny around to see the local sights. He points out particularly dramatic ridges and arroyos like he was the one that built the place. Bradley has considered before that Mav thinks of himself as a god, so maybe that made him and the god who made the desert coworkers.
But the truth of it is that when he’s not in motion, Mav can be real bad company. He leaves for hours without a word to either Bradley or Penny, and it’s always a mystery when he’ll turn back up, or where he’ll call from after whatever he’s riding has broken down. When he is home, Bradley’s tried to get him to talk, get him to open up – because isn’t that what this visit was supposed to be about? About them becoming family? But Mav has a way of going distant when the conversation gets serious, even when he’s still in the room. There’s not a conversation he can’t duck out of by screaming away on his Ninja, and topics that have spurred these exits include: his first tour at Top Gun, his own family, why he held back Bradley’s career, the man he knew as Goose and who Bradley doesn’t know at all.
The first few times it happened, Penny came up to him after Mav had taken off. Her eyes on the receding dust cloud that marked his exit, she’d say, “he’s always been a lot to handle,” in that particularly gentle voice women use when they’re apologizing for someone they love.
He always comes back smiling, claps Bradley’s shoulder, and says again how thrilled he is to have Bradley here.
Of the three of them, Bradley had thought he was the one with the least to lose. But Penny also says, “I knew what I was getting into.” It’s a phrase she’s used more than once with him, usually in a tone that implies Bradley did not. And Maverick, despite the fact that he’d seemed almost desperate to get Bradley out here – he’d insisted Bradley come out to the desert so they could spend their post-mission liberty together; he’d all but packed Bradley’s rucksack himself, the whole time talking nonstop about how much catching up they needed to do, about finally having a chance to do things right , whatever that meant – remains as unknowable as the day Bradley first faced him down as an adult.
And Bradley is not, it turns out, immune to Mav’s charms. Maverick has a way of listening like you’re the most important person in the world. Everything he does looks effortless, and he makes Bradley feel cool by association. But trying to get him to talk about something he doesn’t want to is like trying to pin down light. He just glides straight through. Goes off again about what Skunkworks has got in development, what the next version of the Darkstar might look like, the next milestone, the next flight. As though now that he’s brought his sonhome, he doesn’t really know what to do with him. And isn’t that just like a pilot, Bradley thinks: all chase, and no idea what to do when the objective is caught.
Over the last couple of weeks, Bradley has decided to thrown in the towel and jet at least a dozen times. He’s made up his mind more times than he can count that he’s too old now to sit around and wait for this guy to figure out how to play father. But he hasn’t left yet. And it’s not just that Mav has a way of getting people to say yes to him.
He knew Bradley’s father. Knew him in a way Bradley’s mom never did, knew him as an aviator, knew him in the air, and Bradley wants to know that man. Wants to know what he was like. Although maybe at this point, he should probably start trying to get over the fact that that’s never going to happen.
Bradley finally rolls out of bed. He pours himself a cup of coffee from what’s left in the pot and walks outside, crossing the dirt yard that divides the house from the hangar. He waves at Penny as he goes past, who from standing pigeon lifts a hand to return the gesture.
He finds Maverick in the garage, entirely absorbed in the exposed wiring in the Mustang’s side, where he’s removed a panel. A voice on the radio is reading out a traffic report. A cup of long cold coffee rests on the bench behind to him. Brady calls out, “morning.”
There’s no response. Bradley walks around him to turn down the radio. “You guys have fun last night?” Mav and Penny had gone out last night to stargaze, and Bradley had known better than to accept Mav’s invitation to join them.
There is still no response. “I think the house is on fire,” Bradley tries. He waits. He sips his coffee. “I think maybe I should take off.”
Mav glances over his shoulder at Bradley, frowning. “Take off to where?”
“Back to Virginia.” Even Bradley’s not sure if means it.
Mav grabs for his own coffee, then grimaces at either the temperature or the taste. “Why?”
Maverick, Bradley is learning, has a way of only remembering the parts he wants to. He considers his answer. He could say, because they’re both too old for this. He could say, because Mav certainly isn’t interested in letting Bradley know him, not really. Because every time Bradley’s father gets mentioned, Mav goes supersonic in his need to leave. Because Bradley’s tired of not talking about it. “I just think it’s time.”
“That’s bullshit,” Mav says. Which in fairness, it is.
Bradley swallows back his frustration. “Fine – then I think you wanted me to come out here so we could all be friends again, and you’d get to play dad, and maybe feel a little less guilty about a few things. But I think you like the idea of me staying with you better than me actually being here. I don’t think you actually want me out here.”
Maverick stares at him, looking wounded. “Of course I actually want you out here.” There’s a rawness to his words that makes Bradley feel like an asshole, because Mav believes himself, he really does.
But that doesn’t make it true. “You want us to be family. But, Mav, there’s more to being a father figure than ripping around on motorcycles and going on joy rides in planes. I don’t know you. You don’t talk about yourself. You won’t talk about my dad, and I want to know that stuff. I came out here because I wanted to know you. And him.”
Mav is looking at the Ninja, and Bradley can see it in him – the urge to bolt rising to the surface. He watches Maverick brace himself and resettle. “Sorry,” he says after a moment. “I guess I’ve never been too good at explaining myself.”
His voice is flat. He’s either entirely checked out of the situation, or every fiber of him is working to hold something back, and the fact that Bradley doesn’t know him well enough to know which it is makes him want to start shouting. He waits for more, frustration building up under his skin with each added silent second. Nothing else comes.
Bradley’s spent a lot of his life mad, with no one to be mad at. But being mad has never changed the reality of his situation. Not once. He shuts his eyes for a moment, lets out a long breath. “So yeah. It seems like I should leave.” He turns on his heel, feeling more like a teenager in this dramatic exit than he’d like.
“Rooster, wait.” Mav jogs to catch up with him. “I don’t know about me, but – ” Each word is coming out individually, like they’re all being forced from his throat one by one. “But your dad was a special guy. I’d want to know about him too.”
Bradley works not to roll his eyes. “Mav, since I was four, every guy in a uniform I ever met has told me how special my dad was. You’re going to have to do better than that.”
Maverick looks shocked, and for a moment, Bradley almost feels bad. But what’s the point of having a traumatic childhood if you can’t occasionally spring it on people for conversational sport? Mav recovers readily enough. “Okay, that’s fair,” he says. He clears his throat. “But he was. Special. He’s still the only person I ever really liked Flying with.”
Bradley can feel heat rising in his cheeks again. If this is all he gets –
Mav is walking away, walking back into the garage. But he’s holding up a hand for Bradley to wait. He heads for his work bench and digs something out of one of the drawers. It looks like a book. When Mav comes back, he tosses it to Bradley. “He kept a journal. That’s something about him, anyway.”
Bradley looks down at what’s in his hands. It does appear to be a journal with a water-stained canvas cover, and rather battered about the edges.
“He used to give it to me to hold on to when he went home on leave. Probably so your mom wouldn’t find it.” Mav sounds almost giddy, this secret revealed making him bounce on the balls of his feet.
Bradley turns it over in his hands, feeling very much like he’s been handed some sort of relic he ought to be suspicious of. His mind sputters, and it neither his first question, nor his most pressing, but what escapes his mouth is, “what’s in here that he didn’t want her to know about?”
Mav shrugs. “I don’t know. I never read it.”
Bradley looks up sharply. “You held on to this for thirty years and you never read it?”
Mav nods. He’s on the move again, already distracted. His ability to withstand the urge to run having given way, he heads towards one of his bikes. “That’s why he gave it to me,” he tosses over his shoulder. “Because he knew I wouldn’t read it.” The engine revving under his hands precludes any other questions. He lifts a hand as the bike heads out toward to the open road.
Bradley knows he won’t be back until late.
Fuck it. Bradley opens the journal. He reads.
There is inside a letter that starts, “Dear Son…” which throws Bradley for a loop, until he sees his grandfather’s name signed at the bottom. There is an abundance of carefully transcribed Leonard Cohen lyrics. Grocery lists tucked between pages that never fail to include Dr. Pepper. Acronyms to help memorize radio codes. Exercise logs. A thousand tiny pieces of a life. Inside, Bradley learns that his father counted down the days until he saw Carole in the top corner of each page. That he made blobs of ink into misshapen cartoon figures. Bradley finds halfway-decent caricatures of somebody in an admiral’s uniform. He finds that his father wrote, I’m so scared. I’ve never been so fucking scared on June 25, 1984. Two days before Bradley was born.
“Thanks for this,” he tells Mav that night. Which is all he can say, and likely, all Mav wants him to say.
Mav came back long after Penny had gone to bed, another evening of the two of them making careful conversation around each other’s land mines. Bradley had stayed in the kitchen to read, and maybe the fact that Mav didn’t let the light left on deter him from coming into the room is a good sign. Mav pulls a beer from the fridge, studies it for moment, then puts it back before moving to fill a glass with water from the tap. “You find out what he was like?”
Bradley considers. “Yeah. Some.”
Maverick turns. He leans back against the sink and drinks. He drains the whole glass before he looks at Bradley, a line creasing his forehead like he wants to say something but can’t quite figure out how. Bradley wonders what he’s trying to say that he clearly doesn’t think Bradley will understand.
“Your dad could – ” Maverick starts and stops. And maybe it’s not that he thinks Bradley won’t understand, maybe it’s just something that there isn’t words for at all. Maverick shrugs, as though preemptively disappointed with the words he has found. “He didn’t get between me and the plane.”
September 1, 1982
First time up with The Mitchell kid – who is still doing his damnedest to get people to call him Maverick and not ‘The Mitchell kid’ – without much luck. When I got my pilot assignment at the morning briefing, my first thought was that I might as well call Carole and tell her to start packing (again), because the Mitchell kid has been on the edge of washing out ever since he got here. We’ve only been off the simulators and in real planes for three days and the Air Boss already hates him. At yesterday’s training flight he threw in an extra loop and the Commander just about had steam coming out his ears. I remember thinking: one more flight like that and he’s done for sure. And as luck would have it, that one more flight was going to be with me.
I was pretty sure they’d go ahead and throw me out along with him, because lord knows I haven’t exactly distinguished myself. I got the “you’re not ever gonna Fly, but you’ll make a hell of a RIO” talk a few days back which makes me pretty expendable in the eyes of the US Navy. So, I figured I’d wash out (again), have to tell Carole (again), and have to pick up and try to figure out what the fuck is next (again).
I stopped by the hangar before the pre-flight briefing, because I wanted to know what the forecast was looking like, vis a vis career suicide. That’s the Mitchell kid’s hangout – you can’t get him out of the hangar. When I walked over, he had his hand up on the plane, like he was petting a dog or something. Which I thought was, you know: weird. But he was so out of it, he didn’t hear me come up – and I mean literally did not see me in front of him or register that I was there. And I remember thinking: holy shit, he hasn’t been piloting these F-14s around these last few flights. He’s been Flying.
After a minute, he smiled at me, said, ‘Hey, Goose’, like I had just walked up, and hadn’t been standing there fucking staring for like five full minutes. And I thought: there’s no way. There’s no fucking way. This was Day Fucking Four, and not even the same plane he’d been up in yesterday. We’d logged maybe 10 flight hours so far. There was no fucking way.
But when I asked him, “Can you Fly it already?”
He said, “I can Fly any of them.”
I’m writing this down because I want to remember what I thought, and what I thought was: this guy is full of shit, and he is absolutely going to get me fired.
Back when I was still in Texas, I backseated for CDR Rathman a couple times – back before he got bumped upstairs. And if anybody could Fly – that guy could Fly. I know what it’s like to be up there with someone who’s not just piloting a bird around. So, I figured I’d be able to call the Mitchell kid out on his bullshit pretty quick.
But when we got up there, I swear to god: that man was fucking Flying. Once I got over the fact that one or both of us was probably crazy, I did what worked best when I’d flown with Rathman. Rath never needed me to tell him any of the plane’s metrics, or to check that he’d noticed an alert. So, I just kind of went with it, prayed I wasn’t about to get both of us killed, waited for long, straight stretches to call out the radio signal, and in general stayed the fuck out of his way.
We hit 10/10 targets, had 0 radar pings, and came back running 12 seconds ahead of the target pace. It was the best performance anybody had put in yet by a mile. The Air Boss looked like he was going to swallow his own tongue when he had to say ‘nice work’. The Vice Admiral himself said, “Of course it turns out to be Mother Goose who can get our prodigal son back on track.”
So, the upside is, I don’t think I’m going to wash out any time soon. The bad news is that I’m pretty sure ‘Mother Goose’ is going to stick.
Bradley closes the journal, keeping a finger between the pages to mark his place. Bradley had worked for over a year to be able to Fly his first assigned Hornet. He memorized the manual backwards and forwards. He listened to the induction frequencies on headphones for hours at stretch, eyes closed, willing himself to slip into the awareness of the plane. Willing himself to stop being a man in the cockpit, and be the cockpit. To stop piloting the plane, and Fly. He had failed over and over again; each flight ended the same way: him still in his own head, in his own body, only ever a terrestrial creature, temporarily given the power of aerodynamic lift.
But he’d been prepared for that. It wasn’t supposed to be easy. The last line of every lecture in Flight School had always been something to the effect of: it’s the work of a career to be able to Fly consistently . Which was the Navy’s nice way of saying: you’re going to be shit at this for a long, long time. Even the best of the best took weeks to get in tune with an individual plane, and everybody knew the fastest way to piss a pilot off was to change his ride. Naval aviation history was just as much about the battles between brass who brought in new aircraft, and the pilots who bitched about having to start all over from the group up, as it was a history of battles that involved bombing runs over the gulf of wherever.
But Goose, who Bradley still doesn’t really know, but maybe likes, seems to be saying that Maverick can’t just Fly. But can Fly any plane. From the start. From his first time sitting in the cockpit. Which according to everything Bradley’s learned, both in the classroom and in the grittiest of bitching sessions on the most storm-tossed of carriers, is impossible. Even for the most talented pilot.
It's an annoying fact of Bradley’s life that when he wants to know what the most talented among them can do, he has to call Hangman. “What’s the fastest you ever Flew something?”
Hangman answers without missing a beat. “Mach 1.8. One thousand, one hundred, ninety-two miles per hour. We hit 1,193 on the air speed indicator, but it didn’t register on the flight recorder. So, technically, 1,192.”
Bradley rolls his eyes. “No. I mean, how soon after you met a plane have you Flown it?”
“Oh. I tooled around in plenty of strange birds, but for real Flying?” Hangman is quiet for a moment. “The soonest I ever Flew something was on a carrier a few years back. Our squadron leader broke his arm a week out from the hop and I was first reserve. It was going to be a tricky set of maneuvers to get to the drop zone, so everybody from the Admiral on down wanted me to be able to Fly it. I slept in that plane. I beat off in that plane. I pissed in a jar so I wouldn’t have to leave the plane. They kept the thing running overnight so I could dream the rhythms. We must have burned a million dollars’ worth of jet fuel. Damn near asphyxiated myself living in the hangar. That was the fastest. And even after all that, I wasn’t sure we’d Fly until after I was in the air. I hadn’t doubled that whole time – you know when you – ” He stopped in the same way Mav did. His sentence trailing off in that particular way that meant it wasn’t going to be finished.
Bradley prods him along. “How’d you make it work?”
“I launched off the carrier blind. Closed my eyes and leapt. The plane caught me.”
“Jesus.” The act makes Bradley’s stomach turn just thinking about it.
“Yeah,” Hangman agrees. Although nothing in his voice really seems to indicate the act’s strangeness has registered with him. And maybe if you throw yourself off enough cliffs, even that obtains a certain kind of normalcy. “How’s Maverick?” he asks. “You guys playing catch in the yard and exchanging Father’s Day cards, or what?”
“Not exactly,” Bradley says. “I’ll catch you up later.”
That night, while Mav and Penny are out, Bradley wanders over to the Mustang. He puts his hand on the body, runs his fingers down its side, willing himself to ease into it. To feel his consciousness expanding. But there’s nothing. He feels only the coolness of the metal, the bump of rivets, and smooth paint. He laughs at himself. Flight never had come easy for him, and it wouldn’t make any sense for it to start now. He came close to giving up a dozen times over in Flight School – and he knows himself well enough to know it was only because a younger and angrier version of himself had based his entire personality around getting here, getting into this place, that he hadn’t.
It's not easy to spend your entire life being told how special your dad was. How great this guy was, that you’re never going to get to meet.
That fire had kept him going long enough for the first time to finally happen. He’d gotten lost, distracted from tracking his position by the sun going down. The whole horizon had been an electric, blazing pink. The hue was so bright and from this angle it seemed to stretch on forever and forever, like the whole universe had changed color. At first, he’d felt the glory of the sky more than anything, and the joyful sense that he could stretch his arms and wrap them around the sun itself. He hadn’t realized until after, when his radio broke in and called for him to correct, that he’d felt the air burn along his sides, and when he recalled the memory, it wasn’t with the swampy heat of the cockpit, but of icy cold, that he’d stretched himself out, and sent himself, like a dagger, into the sun.
April 16, 1986
Rumor has it that Cougar and Merlin are officially a lock for Top Gun.
I’ve been trying to talk myself into believing that they deserve it. If consistency were the end-all-be-all, then they’re the best we’ve got. But I’m selfish, and Mav and me have turned in some incredible runs. We’ve also been grounded more than anyone else, including (again) today. So, I guess in someone’s mind those two things cancel out. Three guesses as to which one of us is responsible for those groundings and the first two don’t count. I’m so fucking mad at him. I’m so fucking mad. I’m hiding in the mess because I know he’s looking for me. I know he wants to apologize. But if I see his face right now, I’m going to scream.
Sometimes I can’t take that everything I’m trying to accomplish – for myself, for Carole and B – depends on Mav waking up in the right mood. Especially when more often than not, he doesn’t. He’ll say all the right things, nod in all the right places, and then the second we’re in the air, he won’t remember to give a shit about anything or anyone else besides himself.
Honestly, what’s really surprising is that I’m not this mad at him all the time. It would be simple enough to find reason. Everythingis so fucking easy for him. Not only is he the center of his own universe, it’s never once occurred to him that he shouldn’t be. Or that everyone else doesn’t experience the world like he does. That everyone can’t waltz up to any plane ever built and Fly so easy it would be more work for him not to. That everyone can’t win their way out of trouble with a smile and some smooth talk. That unlike him, everyone else won’t get their pick of missions, of planes, of girls, ofeverything, for the rest of their life.
But being mad at Mav is stupid. Being mad at Mav makes exactly as much sense as being mad at water for being wet, or the sun for shining. I can’t stay mad at him any more than anyone else can. Maybe it would be different if I didn’t have Carole. I mean, I know it would be different if I didn’t have Carole because everything would be different. I wouldn’t trade what we have for anything in world. And Mav might be able to take any girl he wants home with him, and he sure likes chasing them, I can’t ever see him settling down. I can’t ever see him getting married. I’ve watched him go head over heels about a girl over and over again, and every time I have to pretend to believe him when he says this one is The One, because if I don’t immediately buy in, I’m the asshole. Mav’s never once stayed in love with anything that didn’t keep moving. I’m pretty sure he can’t even really love anyone. Not if love means opening up and being ready to sacrifice everything for somebody.
What he really loves is speed. He loves going a thousand miles an hour. He loves the chase. He loves Flying – or, I don’t even think it’s quite right to say Mav loves Flying. He is Flying. He’s at home when he’s in the air. And I can’t ever stay mad at him, because that makes me sad – knowing there’s nothing and nobody on the ground that can ever make up for the loss of not being in the sky.
It’s easier now, to see Mav’s hunger to be elsewhere, to be airborne, as something Bradley shouldn’t take personal. But easier doesn’t mean easy. Especially when there’s just the three of them, and nothing but the lonely stretch of desert for miles around.
Three days after handing Bradley the journal, Mav interrupts their daily rhythm by announcing, as soon as Bradley walks into the kitchen, while he’s still bee-lining for the coffee, that he’s been called into the base for a few hours. “Want to come?” Mav offers. “I’ll give you both the grand tour.”
Penny is seated at the kitchen table, both of her hands wrapped around a mug. Her smile looks worn. “Thanks, but I’ve seen my share of Naval bases.”
Without missing a beat, Mav turns and points his grin at Bradley. “Then you and me can take a couple bikes in. It’ll be fun. We can hit up Pat’s Diner on the way home.”
Bradley is an easier sell. “Sure,” he says.
But he’s not particularly surprised when Mav pawns him off on Hondo, not five minutes after setting foot on base. “This is really the best guy to show you around,” he announces, the flat of his hand landing on Hondo’s shoulder with an authoritative slap. “He knows every inch of this place. Every plane, every lane, every bottle of scotch tucked into every office drawer.”
Hondo snorts at that. “You’re full of shit,” he says, “but I’d be happy to show Rooster around.”
Maverick is already walking away.
Hondo throws a little wave after his retreating back. “Don’t worry about him. We’ll pick him up from the hangar on the way out.”
Hondo shows him around, and finishes his tour in the hangar. As promised, Maverick is there, staring at a jet, his hand flat against the metal. He calls over to Hondo, “there’s too much stress on the rudder.” Maverick cocks his head. “Left side.”
Hondo just shakes his head. “Why do you think it’s in the maintenance bay? Will you let me do my job?”
“Soon,” Mav tells the plane, before moving on to another. He moves from one to the next like he’s got all the time in the world, for once in his life, in no hurry to leave this one-sided conversation. Bradley supposes that makes sense – the plane can’t prod or pry. Can’t demand anything Maverick’s not willing to give. Or maybe it’s more than that. Understanding is a two-way street, after all. Maverick hears the planes. Maybe the planes are the only ones that can really hear him.
Bradley shakes his head, laughing at himself. Either the desert is getting to him or he’s spending too much time with Maverick if he’s starting to think of planes as something with the ability to listen.
Hondo squints over at him. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” Maverick has wandered far enough that he can’t hear them unless Bradley raises his voice, but he’s still not sure he wants to be overheard speculating about Mav’s sanity. Hondo’s speculative look doesn’t go away, so Bradley adds, “just thinking if Mav wanted to be around planes all day, he should live closer to the base.”
Hondo’s eyebrow goes up slowly, and he fixes Bradley with a look that might be calling him slow on the uptake. “My guess would be Mav lives so far away precisely so he can’t hear the planes. They want to Fly too.”
Bradley stares at him. Everyone’s buying into the madness. But for just a moment, the hangar feels loud. Bradley thinks of the space around them filled with clamoring, chattering children, the whole hangar an echoey cacophony.
Mav has reached the end of the row. He calls out, “this one’s just hungry.”
“Yeah, that one’s just waiting for transport orders to come through,” Hondo calls back. Like it’s normal. Like it’s nothing. Like Maverick rewriting the rules of what is possible happens all the time.
Maybe it does, but it’s one thing to read his father’s recollections. It’s quite another to watch Hondo accept it as unremarkable fact. “How the fuck can he do that?”
Hondo chuckles. “I have no fucking idea. But he’s the only person I know who could ever Fly on the ground.”
Bradley shakes his head. “That’s not possible.”
Hondo’s chuckle rounds out to a real laugh and he claps Bradley’s shoulder. “Why do you think the Navy has put up with him for thirty years?”
Bradley ends up driving back by himself. He left Mav among the rows of planes when it became clear Mav wasn’t leaving until he’d given individual attention to everything in the hangar. And Bradley is all for watching miracles, but it gets a lot less awe-inspiring when your stomach is growling and you’re being fully ignored in the process.
He arrives back at Maverick’s place just as the light is getting long and the sun is settling towards the west. There’s a light on in the kitchen. Bradley parks the bike, and waits a moment for the dust to settle, before heading in. Inside, Penny is packing, using the table to stack and fold her clothes before tucking them into a suitcase that rests on one of the chairs. Bradley feels surprise, although he’s not sure whether he’s surprised she’s leaving, or just surprised she hadn’t already left.
He stops in the doorway. Penny looks up, but she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t seem surprised to see he’s come back alone. The light in the kitchen gives everything a yellowish cast, so it’s hard to tell if there’s any red in her eyes, but she doesn’t look upset. She seems steady and quiet, and Bradley wonders how a person gets to that point. How many times do you have to be left before it doesn’t hurt anymore? He watches her hands smooth and press the fabric into a neat square before she moves on to the next item.
Bradley says, “I’m sorry you’re leaving.” There’s probably something better to say, but in the moment, he doesn’t know what it is.
Her hands still. She rises from the table and crosses to the window to take down a suncatcher that Bradley hadn’t realized was hers. She holds it up for him, letting it catch the kitchen light before tossing it into her bag. “Sometimes you have to do a thing, just to remember why you shouldn’t.” She moves to Bradley, and Bradley lets himself be pulled down into a hug. Her embrace is tight. She straightens his shirt after, then looks him in the eye. “I don’t hold it against him, and neither should you.”
Bradley looks down at her. “Did you tell him you’re going?”
Penny nods. “This morning. Before you were up.”
Bradley thinks about the offer to go to the naval base, wonders if that was Mav getting Bradley out of her hair. Giving her space. Wonders further, after a moment, if Mav had really been called in to the base at all. For someone who can’t love, he does, very much, seem to care. “My dad wrote in his journal that he didn’t think Maverick could really love anyone,” Bradley tells her. “But I think you’re the closest.”
Penny gives him a brilliant smile, and pats his cheek. “You’re sweet.” Her tone implies he might also be simple. “I know exactly what I am to Pete.” She turns from him and zips her bag closed. The table, Bradley notices, is now bare. Penny taps the bag. “Carry this for me?”
He follows her out to her car. She opens the trunk for him, tosses her handbag into the passenger seat and stands by the driver’s side door. She looks back at him. “Your dad was wrong, you know. He loved Iceman.”
Bradley freezes midway through the act of shutting the trunk and frowns. “Admiral Kazansky?”
She nods. “You know why Iceman gave up Flying and moved up the ranks?”
Bradley would have guessed it was the man’s blistering ambition. That had been his reputation, anyway. But he shakes his head. “No.”
“Mav did something silly.” Penny smiles at the memory. “Pissed off somebody important. It wasn’t the first time they threatened to throw him out, but it was the first time we thought it might really happen. Iceman was pulling every string he could find to keep him in, but he was still just a Captain back then. He came to me, to ask me to talk to my dad.” She laughs. “I told him he had a lot of nerve asking me. And then I told him at the rate Maverick was going, Ice was going to need to run the whole fucking Navy if he wanted to keep them from kicking Mav out.”
There is love in her expression that from a certain angle, looks like sadness. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Bradley might live to be a hundred, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever be quite sure which is it.
“So he did.” She opens the door of the car and climbs inside. “Goodbye, Bradley,” she says. “You take care of yourself.”
May 13, 1986
I should be writing more. I want to remember this, every second of this. But we’re busy from 0500 till 2300, and I’ve been passing out the second my head hits the pillow. I have never been expected to learn so much so quick. I knew Top Gun was going to be TOP GUN, but I hadn’t figured on what it would be like to spend every second of every day with a dozen of the most competitive motherfuckers alive. This crew could make a contest out of breathing. Out of breakfast. Out of anything.
Mav, of course, is thriving – although I can already tell he’s going to get out of hand at some point. He never does anything halfway. He’s already declared we need to not just be the best in the class – but the best by a mile. That’s he’s not just going to spend this assignment at Top Gun, but he’s going to spend the rest of his career here. And he’s not just already met a girl, but declared that he’s head over heels in love.
Charlie is something special, that’s for sure. I almost feel bad for Mav – she’s going places. Mav wouldn’t have fallen so hard if she wasn’t. But anybody who knows Mav knows there’s going to come a moment when it comes down to her dreams or his – and I’ve never once seen him turn his eyes away from the sky when push comes to shove.
But Charlie’s not the only one keeping Mav on his toes here. I mean, you know someone is going to be an asshole when they introduce themselves as “Iceman. I assume my reputation precedes me.” The annoying part is, he’s right.
I don’t think anybody with pilot wings hasn’t heard about Iceman’s exploits, and I’ll be damned if he doesn’t live up to the hype. He gets answers faster than Mav, can design a solution faster than Mav – and that drives him up the wall. I’ve never seen Maverick get so mad so fast at somebody’s very existence, which since Mav is usually the one driving people insane, I have to say: it’s pretty fucking funny to watch.
Personally, I think he should give Ice a chance – he looks at the planes the same way Mav does, like it’s gonna kill him if he doesn’t get in there. That’s got to mean something, right? Plus, and maybe I’ll regret writing this down – but I think in his own very fucked up way, Iceman is trying to be nice to Mav. Not like, regular person nice. But Pilot nice. Every time the crew goes out, he makes a point of making sure Mav knows he’s invited. Whenever the pilots circle up during a mock pre-flight, he won’t let anyone start until Mav’s there. Which is hilarious, because Maverick has never met a pre-flight briefing he didn’t want to skip. He’s always seen the pilot’s huddle as useless. He’s not wrong. I mean, what’s anyone going to tell him about how to Fly?
But it is funny to see Ice try, and what makes it funnier is that Mav, of course, doesn’t see it as anything but Ice trying to boss him around. And maybe I would have thought that was all it was, too. But today Ice came up to me and said, “Mav should be spending his time with the pilots. Not out with you.”
Mav and I had gone out last night, but so did everybody. So I told him that, and that there was no need to ride my ass about it.
Ice said, “No, I don’t care that he was out. I care that he was out with you. He should be out with us. With the pilots.” Iceman, I’m already learning, has a way of looking at you that lets you know exactly how much of an idiot he thinks you are. He said, “he should be spending his time around people who can Fly. With people who understand what that’s like.”
Which made me feel like shit, so naturally I told him to fuck off. But I’ve spent a lot of time today wondering if maybe Mav does stick too close to me. I always thought that was normal. But then that also makes me think about the time we don’t talk about.
Mav has come back from missions twitchy before. We’ve had things go a bit sideways and he’s come back jittery and wild-eyed and only half in his body. But the stuff that happened after the time we don’t talk about only happened the once. But thanks to Ice, I’m thinking about it again, about how he kept throwing himself into the tiled shower wall, like his body was some immovable object he was trying to escape, and when I grabbed him, how he clung to me like a fucking barnacle and came on my leg. It was fucking godawful for a bit after. I never want to re-live the terror/panic/humiliation of him non-stop apologizing and me trying to figure out if that counted as infidelity, and both of us fucking sobbing. Once we finally calmed down, I remember trying to play it off, joking about how everybody’s heard the rumors of what pilots get up to post-Flight. Not any of my RIO self’s business, but probably best he keep it amongst the Flyers. How I won’t be offended if he needs to leave me to my own devices post-Flight.
He said, “No. I mean – it won’t happen again. I’m sorry. But I definitely don’t need to be around the other pilots post flight.”
And I was like, what’s the matter, you break somebody’s heart? Do something you regret?
“It’s more that I didn’t get a say in what got done to me.”
He’s always stuck close to me, and I’ve never asked him to do any different. It’s not always easy to be Maverick’s friend. But damn if the highs aren’t high. I know he cares about me, and I’ve always wanted to do right by him. None of us get out of this life undamaged, but what I’ve always admired about Maverick is how he always gets back up off the mat. And I guess I was so busy watching him perform miracles that it never occurred to me that he was scared, too. I never thought anything about how we work together was weird until today, when I had Iceman frowning at me like I’d neglected some responsibility. Hadn’t provided proper care and feeding or something. I half expected him to launch into a version of the lecture Carole’s been giving me, about how we need to shell out for day care because it’s important for B’s socialization.
God, I miss them.
I don’t want to fuck this up.
Bradley calls Hangman again from the shade of the porch. It’s still early, but the sun’s already strong. The light advances ever so slowly on his shade.
Now that Penny’s gone, the porch has been returned to its previous state – the cheap card table and folding chairs that are half rust have been restored to the center of the room. Bradley drops into one and it screeches under his weight. When the line connects, Bradley opens with, “this place is fucking with my head.”
Hangman fires back, “being on the ground is fucking with your head. Also, hello, Bradshaw. How’s summer camp with Insta-Dad going?”
“Fuck off,” Bradley says, but his heart’s not in it.
“Just add water,” Hangman runs right over the interruption, “and boom – instant family!”
Bradley looks out at the bone-dry stretch of scrub in front of him and laughs. Not much water out here. Not much family, either.
“Oh good. I was afraid you were calling me because you were depressed, Rooster. And I can’t have you killing my vibe.”
“I’m fine – being out here is mostly alright. But also weird.”
“Sounds like family.”
Bradley thinks for a moment. “I guess so. I mean I came out here in part because I wanted to get to know Maverick better. But the longer I’m out here the more I think I’m never going to know him.”
Hangman sighs. And if he were standing in front of Bradley, Bradley knows his expression would be one of derision. “Now that is some talk,” Hangman says. “You need to get your ass back in a plane.”
That sounds like something Maverick would say, like something Maverick would think – that being on the ground too long was a thing that could drive a person crazy. And maybe Hangman, annoyingly, is as similar to Mav as anyone Bradley was ever going to meet. If Bradley’s never going to get a straight answer out of Mav, maybe asking Hangman is next best option. Bradley swallows. “What’s it feel like to you? Flight, I mean. What’s it feel like?”
There’s no immediate quip this time. And there is a maybe-too-long beat of silence. “That’s a very personal question.”
He’s right. There are lines around these things. “Sorry.”
Hangman clears his throat. “What are you looking for, embarrassing stories about me creaming my pants, or – ”
“No,” Bradley interrupts. “Definitely not that. Never mind. I’m sorry for asking.”
There is another pause, a certain caution in the silence. “You do… Fly, right?”
As if maybe Bradley had been able to bluff his way through all this time. Or somehow lost the ability since they last met. “Yes, he says, trying to get the eyeroll across with his tone. “But it’s not — easy. And it’s not – whatever I do, it’s not what it is to Maverick. I want to understand what it’s like for him, and you’re the closest I can get.”
The silence is longer this time. Through the line, Bradley can hear the slap of a screen door closing, and the sound of gravel crunching underfoot. When he stops walking, Hangman says, “like falling and being caught. Like a rush of heat. Like popping your shoulder back into socket. Up there, everything stretches – time goes like molasses, like I’m faster than time, and like the whole fucking sky is mine.” Hangman breathes into the phone. “And when you’re done— it’s like breaking in half. That catchwire rips through my chest every time, and it hurts.” His voice sounds hoarse now. “Sometimes after Flying, I’m not sure where my hands are. I’m not sure if I can even stand. But sometimes I feel like every fucking cell in my body singing about how lucky we are to be alive.”
“Thank you,” Bradley says, after a moment.
Hangman coughs. His voice is still rough. “Yeah. Honestly, I’d really like to get off the phone now. And Rooster? Let’s not talk about this again.
“Sure,” Bradley answers him, but the call’s already dropped.
The house feels smaller after Penny leaves. The way he and Maverick trip past each other, interrupting each other’s rhythms, becomes more obvious. Bradley cedes the hangar to Mav, and begins keeping to the porch, reading with his chair tipped back and his feet propped. Or simply resting Goose’s journal on his chest while he watches the high drift of the sun across the sky, and the obediently opposing crawl of shadows across the ground. He keeps a hand on the journal. It’s nice to have his dad with him in this. Nice to know he’s not the first Bradshaw to have to grapple with what it means to live in such close proximity to someone who experiences things he’ll never really understand. Goose sounds more good-natured about it than Bradley can quite bring himself to be, but Goose, after all, had a leg up. He met Maverick before he was a legend. Bradley likes the space that Goose fills through his presence in the journal’s pages. Bradley already knew he would have loved him, if he’s lived, but it’s nice to know he would have liked him, too.
Although even Goose’s limited presence does leave Bradley more uncertain what Maverick is supposed to be in his life. He’s not the father-figure he seems to imagine himself to be, and he certainly doesn’t have the steadiness of the mentor Bradley had hoped for. But from Goose’s vantage, he did seem like he could be a pretty good friend. Not the most reliable, certainly, but brilliant in his own way. And from this slightly more generous viewpoint, Bradley considers that just because Maverick can’t be what either of them hoped he would be to Bradley, doesn’t mean he hasn’t been trying.
And as long as Mav is trying, Bradley decides, he can too. Once again, he rises, pushes himself out of the chair and heads for the hangar.
Maverick is on his back. The plane’s landing gear is exposed, disassembled panels and screws lying in a neat arrangement around him. He doesn’t acknowledge Bradley’s approach except to hold out his hand and say, “pass me the pliers?”
Bradley fetches the pliers from the workbench and places them in Maverick’s waiting hand. He drops down to a knee to study what Maverick is working on. “Didn’t you just rebuild this last week?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t do it right.”
He hasn’t even been up in it yet. It’s not the kind of thing you can tell without testing it. Or at least, not for most people. “How do you know?”
“Doesn’t feel right.” The answer is short, and delivered curtly. It doesn’t exactly invite further engagement.
Bradley presses anyway. “What’s that mean?”
Maverick doesn’t answer this time, and Bradley feels a tide of frustration rising under his skin. The urge to turn on his heel, walk out of the hangar, and keep walking until Maverick is long out of sight, is strong. But Bradley stays. He studies the figure on the ground, looking for the person Goose clearly felt such affection for. The person who was worth all the frustration. If Goose thought he was worth putting up with, then he can’t be through and through an asshole. Goose saw him as a person who cared, who could feel tremendous affection, and joy – and fear.
And being afraid, Bradley considers, can’t make anyone seem like an asshole. Anyone who’s swatted a bee out of the air knows that. He wonders how many people have left when they realized Maverick couldn’t explain himself. Goose himself is the outlier, the journal makes that clear. How many others took off when they realized they wouldn’t ever be on the inside, not really?
Bradley clears his throat. “I know – maybe you can’t explain. Or that I won’t get it, but I want you to think I’m important enough to try.”
Maverick’s hands still. “Of course you’re important enough.” His voice is tight, and his eyes avoid Bradley’s, and that more than anything, makes Bradley believe him. Maverick hesitates, removes his hands from the plane and rubs them together, as though nervous without the contact. “I’ve never been able to explain it. Not in a way that satisfies anybody. It’s not something I do. It’s just the way I am.” He looks over at Bradley quickly, before looking away. “What’d your dad have to say about it?”
Bradley considers. His dad said a lot of things, but right now, in this moment, Bradley thinks Goose would have only repeated one of them. “He said it was a miracle.”
Mav shakes his head. “Yeah. Well. He always was an optimist.” His hand creeps back to the plane, and the contact seem to steady him. “I grew up around the planes, so I always knew.”
He pauses, and it’s unclear whether he’s going to explain what he knew, but Bradley doesn’t interrupt. Mav’s shoulders lift in a shrug. “It took me longer to realize that other people didn’t – couldn’t – feel what I was feeling.” He swallows. “Except my dad could. I remember that about him.”
Bradley watches him walk his fingers along a line of rivets. “I’ve been Flying since I can remember, but I had to wait to Fly jets.” He casts a sidelong look at Bradley. “They don’t let ten-year-olds pilot fighter jets. Even if they are Navy brats.”
Bradley smiles at him. “What was your first time up in a Tomcat like?”
Maverick grins. All of a sudden, he looks a million miles away. “Like coming home. Like the world finally made sense.” He shakes his head. “It was incredible. But I didn’t realize what it would feel like to know that and have to come back. I used to feel like I was screaming to get out of my body. Like I was losing my balance and falling over with every step. And everyone around me was acting like it was normal to be walking around on the ground. I used to put myself to sleep counting the minutes until I got to Fly again. And it always felt like coming home.
He looks back at Bradley. “I had a lot of good people in my life who made what I do possible. Without your dad, I would have – ” He breaks off, stares at the line of mountains on the horizon, working to find the words. “When my head was so loud, your dad was so quiet. So patient while I bounced off walls. I had to learn how to Fly without him, but I still miss him every time I go up. And Ice, Ice used to…” He trails off again.
Bradley watches him shake himself, pull his attention back to the present. “There were a lot of people who were thrilled to have somebody who could Fly anything, and weren’t too particular about whether the pilot came back alive. Your dad kept me sane. Ice kept me whole.” He looks over at Bradley and flashes a bright grin. “Mostly anyway. On both counts.”
Now that Bradley’s looking, even that flash of that grin can’t cover up how tired his eyes are. Bradley can see the exhaustion of not being able to make himself understood, and the worry that what he was able to offer wasn’t good enough. Bradley nods. “I get it.”
He drags one of the folding chairs stored in the corner over next to where Maverick is working, and gestures at the plane. “You keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll be here.”
Maverick watches him with clear suspicion. “Really?” He looks at the plane, then quickly back at Bradley, like he might disappear.
Bradley kicks his feet up on the stepstool. He pats Goose’s journal. “I’ve got more reading to do. Unless you’d rather chat about the weather?”
Mav snorts.
Bradley, his eyes on the page, eventually hears the clank of a wrench being returned to work, and the silence eases.
May 21, 1986
Last night I dreamed I was home. I was walking down a street near our base, and I realized our street was just one turn away. I could have gone home anytime I wanted. I walked up our porch steps, and I could hear Carole talking to B. I could hear him talking back. I could just see her through the screen door, but a wind kept moving the curtain and hiding her face. I was just about to go inside when instead I woke up.
Waking up from a dream like that always feels like I’ve been punched in the gut. Mornings like this, I think I know what Mav means when he says he feels like he’s being torn in half whenever he leaves the sky. On the ground he’s mourning the distance between him and the sun just as much as I’m mourning the distance between me and Carol.
And if the pain of that loss of momentum, that disconnect hurts one tenth as bad as how much I miss her, then I feel for him. Because the Navy can take me away from home, but I know I can always find my way back to her and B, that I’ll always have them to look forward to seeing. What must it be like to be so fully at the mercy of this machine that chews up so many men and spits them out? To live his whole life in a body that’s trapped and earthbound by default? Mav can’t be stopped, but what about when the immovable object is his own existence in a body not the right size or shape or speed that it should be?
Mav isn’t like me. And for all the fireworks around Charlie, that’s not ever going to last. Mav’s not like anyone I’ve met, and I think I could meet the whole world and that would still be true. And I know that I could be in the Navy for a hundred more years, and I’d never see anyone Fly like him. He’s less human than he is a little piece of a comet that somehow got chipped off and exiled in the form of a man. I forget how incredible he is sometimes. Most of the time. Until someone like Charlie comes along. Or Ice. And their awe when they see it lays it all out fresh in front of me.
But the hard thing about Mav is that he’s never going to stop pursing that speed. I try to love him like you would any comet going across the sky, but I’m just one person, and I worry because it’s hard to find people who will put up with the way he leaves, who are willing to stick around after they’re spurned over and over again, knowing he won’t ever stop. That likely, he won’t ever even notice the wonder in their eyes.
But the way I love Carole and B, that’s the kind of love that lasts, that builds on knowing and the hundred thousand tiny little ways I’ve let myself fail in front of her and the hundred thousand ways she’s picked me up. The love I have for her smile and the trust. It’s not about the chase; it’s having her next to me. When I think about how he won’t ever have that, I feel sad for him.
And I feel lucky. Who else gets to ride a comet like this? See the fire up close. The lightning from the inside. I don’t pray but I do send up a wish every now again that he stays in the air as long as possible. That he lives to be a hundred and flies every day. And if I can do any small part to keep that going, I will. Because it’s magic. It’s magic just to see it.
When he gets his orders, Bradley folds a note into a paper airplane, and leaves it for Mav on his toolbox. The note doesn’t say much – it doesn’t need to. Mav will know what it means, and will know just because Bradley’s left, doesn’t mean he’s not coming back. That’s what most people don’t get about a thing in motion: you give it long enough, odds are good it’ll come back around. And Bradley has what he needs now to hop back and forth over the chasm between them. Neither one of them can stay still, but both of them are always happy for the visit, and when they see each other next, they’ll fall right back into place. Some things are as unchangeable as the tides. Some people too. With as powerful a sweep. But power doesn’t mean invulnerability.
He sees it in Hangman now, too. They have a new mission. New carrier. New planes. But the problems they’re being sent into the air to solve are always the same. Bradley is awash once again in the smells of jet fuel and salt air and metal. And Hangman is bright-eyed, full of the same ballsy bluster that keeps everyone at arm’s length. I see you, Bradley doesn’t say. He sees the gleam of desperation under Hangman’s smile that says he’d do anything – anything – to be Flying again. He sees the longing masked as impatience. The distraction hidden by arrogance.
On the day they’re introduced to their new planes, Bradley calls the crew chief over, engaging him in a long discussion of weight ratios that’s mostly designed to keep him out of Hangman’s space. He shoos the maintenance staff away while Hangman sits in the cockpit, putting an arm out, when necessary to keep them from getting too close.
It doesn’t go unnoticed. When he hops back down to the hangar floor, Hangman gives him a long, assessing look. Bradley grins. “Hope you have a good Flight.”
Hangman stares, his face closed off and cautious. But he gives Bradley a small nod, which might be as close as Hangman gets to saying thanks.
Bradley peels off to track down his own bird. He lays his hand on the metal body of the plane, waiting to see if some magic spark had transferred to him. But no, the feeling is the same as it always is: blank, cold metal. Bradley pats the surface. “That’s okay. We’ll get to know each other in our own time.” He’s fine piloting until them, because while some people are touched by Flight itself, somebody else has to have their back.