Flights Of Fancy

By Paul Berge

John Locke had been airport manager long enough to know not to ask the city for a new windsock.

Budget cuts, they’d say. Patch the old one.

So he did. Over and over until he wondered if any of the original sock remained.

He stared up at the old rag snapping in the wind as though it boasted, “Still on the job.” John saluted, climbed into his yellow airport truck and pressed two dangling wires together to start it.

The truck bumped through the weeds past a coyote digging for gophers. John turned down a taxiway toward the hangars where George Theseus sat working on an old homebuilt biplane the color of a hangover sunrise.

George rarely flew and, when he did, it was usually just long enough to break something.

“What’d you replace now?” John asked while climbing from the truck.

George answered without looking, “Tailwheel. Found a new used one online.” He snipped a safety wire braid.

“Even came with some paperwork, 'cept I don’t read much Spanish.” And he tossed the wire twisters onto a bench. “Might be Italian.”

“Is there any part of this airplane that’s original?” John asked.

“Data plate,” George replied. “FAA fella once told me it’s the airplane’s soul; everything else is just parts.” George frowned. “’Course he ain’t never been back.”

Then, he turned to John with, “You wanna’ go fly with me?”

John shook his head, no, but helped move the airplane outside. It felt like pushing a carload of clowns on stage.

Nothing on the biplane matched. All four wings were red but none the same shade. The green-checked fuselage sagged in the belly, although George claimed it taxied straight “if you stayed on the rudder.”

The engine came from what had once been Yugoslavia, and the landing gear was for a much larger airplane. The propeller definitely looked amateur-built but spun easily when George pressed the starter button, which came off a ‘47 Dodge.

John admired the homebuilders on the field but had secretly vowed he’d never fly with them. Most were good pilots, but George wasn’t like most.

Unfortunately, the time George spent rebuilding his airplane left little time to fly, thus making him a thoroughly awful pilot. Not bad in the air, but it was getting back down again that accounted for the never-ending repairs.

So, later, watching George swerve off the runway and hit the windsock as though blaming it for the crosswind, John decided to save him. By the time John reached the wreckage George was untangling the windsock from the shattered propeller.

John stared at his windsock, shredded beyond repair. Then, he reached into the rear cockpit and with a penknife removed the data plate.

“You can’t do that,” George protested, but John waved the data plate. “You get this back after you learn to fly and buy me a new windsock.”

He slipped the data plate into his pocket and added with a sulfurous airport manager’s laugh, “Until then, I own your soul.”