Playing Tyler (8 page)

God, I want to, even though I hate that movie. His emails started to get like this a few days ago, still short, but personal. Odd, considering that I only ever spent an hour or two with him, but the turn these emails have been taking touch me, somehow. He sounds almost as lonely as I've always been.

I Google ADHD. I read a lot of things about inability to sit still and difficulty focusing. But sadly, they don't list “hot” and “may incite normally reasonable girls to think way too much about certain boys who suffer from it” as common qualifiers.

Professor Jimenez clears his throat and reads the poem out loud for the third time.

After glancing up to make sure that he's not looking my way, I lean forward and send Julie a quick email.

Hey Julie, it's me. What's going on? How's class? So far I'm not loving Spanish Literature. Are you taking Spanish at all? Love you, –Ani

This is the third email I've sent her in as many days. She's my sister and my best friend, and yet she never writes back. Never texts, even. She calls sometimes, though. Mostly when she's stuck on her Geometry or Chem homework, but still. That counts, right?

OK, Ani, time to get serious. You need a B average over all of your classes or that scholarship will disappear, so you better get into Gongora.

Typing notes on my laptop, analyzing love poetry somehow does very little to keep my mind from drifting to Tyler. What's his problem? I mean, he's really cute; I have a hard time believing that he wouldn't be able to get any girl at his school if he put his mind to it. Probably does have another girl at school, actually. Maybe he's just a player and wants to get a Yalie, or a gamer girl or whatever under his belt. Dammit.

I open a window with Tyler's latest message. Doesn't seem like much of a player, though, does he?

 

“Dad?” It's hard to hear with the mad rush of people around me at the change of classes. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, honey. What's up? How's the Ivy League treating my baby girl?” His voice is distant. I can't tell if it's the connection or not. Sounds so different than the man that would take me to the park to feed the ducks.

“It's OK. Classes are good, I guess,” I say. My eyes stray to all the smiling faces around me. It's hard to know what to talk about now that he's in jail. “How are things for you?”

“The counselor says things are coming along. There's a whole group of us vets in here, so I'm not alone.”

“Mom come visit yet?” I have to know. Mom used to write him every day while he was deployed, saying that he had to know that we were still here and that we loved him. She was so superstitious, said that if he didn't feel like he had something to come home to that he'd get killed. I would try and tell her that it's the luck of the draw, but she'd never listen. Then when he came home, when he wasn't right, she basically tossed him out. They're still married, though, and I know she loves him. Well, I hope she still loves him.

“Oh, honey, you know your mother.”

So that would be a no, then. “Do they think that you'll be paroled anytime soon?” My voice wobbles a little. “I mean, they have to know that this isn't fair.”

“Don't you worry about me, baby. I'm going to be just fine. Tell me all about school.”

“I don't know if I like it all that much, honestly.”

“Making any new friends?”

I think of Tyler. Damn. “No, not all that many.”

“Give it time, baby, it's still early. You've got four years ahead of you and you've only been there a month. Friendships don't happen overnight, right?”

“Julie had tons of friends in her first month at UCLA.”

“Now, honey. Julie is… well, Julie. You choose your friends more carefully, so in the end you may not have as many, but they'll be good ones. Julie loses as many friends as she makes, you know that.”

I open my email, staring at Tyler's latest message. “Dad, do you think that I should be OK with my boss telling me who I can and can't talk to?”

 

CHAPTER 11

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5

TYLER

Rick's waiting at the field. The airstrip. Borrowed Mom's car to get out here, she's working from home today. Should probably text her and let her know I have the car. Does she even know that I finally got my license? I filled out the form to add myself to her insurance, but she probably didn't notice. She just signs stuff when I put it in front of her. I set up all the bills for the house so they come out of her account automatically. Learned to do that when they cut off our electric. It's not that she doesn't have the money, it's just that she forgets to pay. I shoot her a quick text and walk over to where Rick's waiting.

Normally I would feel a little bad coming out here since I've been blowing off all the Civil Air Patrol meetings. But it's sunny and warm and the trees add bright shocks of red and yellows and oranges to the green of the field and well, I have a hard time feeling guilty on such a nice day, I guess. Rick saunters up to me with that smile. I like that smile. Lately he's been looking like he'd only be happy if leaping from a helicopter fully armed, but today he looks tired, old. But nice.

“Glad you could make it.” He puts his hand on my shoulder, firmly, intently, then turns his eyes up to the cloudless sky. “Wanna go up?”

“Hell yeah,” I say without thinking. Rick has a plane. A small propeller plane that he probably bought way back in the Nineties, but it still flies like a dream. We used to go up a lot, when I first started going to the Civil Air Patrol meetings. Usually, mentors are randomly paired, but Rick came to a bunch of meetings, watched us at the controls, studied our files. Creeped me out at first, this guy in uniform who was sort of part of the meetings and sort of not. Then like two years ago he told me that he was going to be my mentor. Most of the other kids already had them, usually a bunch of middle-aged guys who flew a lot of model planes or who liked to play soldier. Rick couldn't be more different than those guys. He totally sold me on the whole mentoring thing the second he handed me the controls of his plane. It was like he could see right inside of me and just knew. We stopped hanging out with the group, have been doing our own thing ever since.

He's a hero, Rick. A real American hero, not some rock star or some politician or shit, someone who actually put his life on the line and just keeps on doing it. He was in the Air Force, has these great stories. And even though he pretty much is Haranco, he never makes me feel like he'd rather be doing something else when we hang out. The first time B went missing and Mom freaked out, Rick was the one who was there. He drove me to hundreds of different shelters all over the state, called police stations and hospitals, held me up when I wanted to turn off the way Mom did. The mornings I didn't want to move, didn't want to get out of bed. Some days I felt like the world was just too loud and I would shut myself away, cover my head and scream to try and make everything stop hurting. Rick was there, always, pulling me up. Getting me out of the house, taking me for epic trail runs or even just out for a coffee. Mostly we talked. I talked. When I could.

He smiles, small wrinkles spreading out on his tanned face as we walk over to the prop. The day smells like burning leaves and hamburgers from the airport grill, and sounds from small engines flying somewhere overhead all blend together to make music in my head. Love it here. Now that B's back, though, getting better, maybe I can start getting out here more, getting my life back together again.

The leather bucket seats feel so good, so sleek as we slip into them and put on the headsets, the real headsets, not the fake ones like in a game. It's so different. In the game the fields look sort of gray, life through a lens. Here, with the windows of the plane open and the real, full tremble of the steering wheel in your hand, the hum becoming a roar as you barrel down the runway, the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as you lift into the air, the wind nipping at your hair and the smell of fuel, this is nothing like the sim. Nothing at all. This is real. This is a thing of glory.

Rick looks like a kid. I mean, not a real kid, but he gets this loopy grin when he flies. Always. Like a pervert at a porn convention. This is why we get along, Rick and I, because there is nothing either of us would rather do than this. Than fly.

The fields stretch out wide beneath us, and the rhythm of the engine buzzes up along my spine, like I can feel it in my soul.

Rick gets all nostalgic when he's airborne. “If you think flying these things is cool, Tyler, wait till you get to fly a Warthog, man. Those things just go, dropping cluster bombs everywhere. When you see the surface of the earth rise up in a cloud of dust behind you, man, it's just the best.” Rick smiles. “You know what the peaks of the Hindu Kush look like in the morning sun? Mountains set on fire by the sun as you fly over, it's just amazing. You'll see.”

“I hope so,” I say. Rick has this thing for speed. The A-10s he used to fly have a lot more power than this old thing does, I'm sure.

“It will be, you just have to visualize it, hold it tight in your mind, and you'll get there.” Rick swallows. “The ex-wife, she had no concept of what could be, no vision. You believe it and you'll find a way to make it happen.” It took a year or so before he even mentioned his ex-wife. He had a son, too. Ex-wife took the son to some party while Rick was gone. His son fell into the pool and drowned. Three years old. He had to fly back from wherever he was stationed to go to the funeral. When he got home from his deployment for good, she was gone. Took everything from him. I know it still hurts him every time he thinks of his son, of her. Just like it hurts every time I think about Dad. About Brandon.

I press my lips tight.

“Here, keep her steady.” Rick lets go of the wheel, and I check the stats, hold her up, hold her even, feeling like my arms are just another piece of machinery.

“Is the flight pattern registered?” I ask.

“This is so easy for you, isn't it?”

“What?” I ask, eyes on the gas gauge, the elevation, the azimuth, the window, the ground below.

“You know, when they asked me to be a mentor, they tried to steer me away from you. They told me that you lost your father, your brother was going off to college, and that you had ADHD so bad that it would probably keep you from going anywhere,” he says, all matter of fact. “Told me I should pick somebody else.”

“They said that?” Azimuth good. Turbulence, though. I bring her up a little. Kinda pissed that the Civil Air Patrol people would say that about me.

“Yup.” He smiles, leaning back in his chair. He reaches into the cooler and grabs a beer. I've never seen Rick drink when he flies. “But look at you, Tyler. No medication, look how easy it is for you to do this, to control everything at once, to focus on everything, everything around you with precision, to execute good decisions even when you are focused on five other things.”

The turbulence eases up. New altitude steady. “Yeah, well, tell that to my Social Studies teacher.” Former Social Studies teacher. Have to remember that. Have to sign up for that GED.

“No. See, that's their problem, Tyler. They're teaching to the past. Trying to force kids to conform to a system that's already dead. You're at an advantage. It's the human body taking the next step, changing to meet the needs of the future.” He takes a sip of beer.

I hold the plane, pressure from its resistance firm beneath my fingers. “What?”

“Evolution, Tyler. Your gift, you're an asset, not a liability. You know that, too. Somewhere, deep down, you knew when they told you to take those drugs, to make you fit into their archaic, dying system, you knew. You didn't take the drugs, you knew they'd make you weak. I like that. A man who recognizes strength for what it is.”

“Yeah,” I say. He's wrong. Not taking the drugs has nothing to do with that. Just every time I filled the script B would take all the pills. Sell them, take them himself, whatever. I could never squeeze in more than one or two days' worth before the pills were gone. Just didn't seem like it was worth it. So I stopped. Been fine. Mostly fine. Nice that he thinks it makes me strong, though.

He leans over, “I could see then, even, your potential.”

I look at him, smiling at me, and my chest feels big all of a sudden, good. “You think I'm gonna score high enough on the sim to get into that flight school? Cause I really want to do this, fly for real and all.”

He leans back, sipping his beer. “I don't know, the world is changing, Tyler. Moving away from all this.” He motions to the open sky around us. “But there might be alternatives.”

“Like what?”

He sips his beer and looks out the window.

 

Why is he drinking so much? Been back from the airstrip for hours now and it just won't let me rest. Whatever it is that Rick does for a living, that's what I want to do. Except if that's what's making him drink so much. Have to try and talk to him about that. Find out what's making him drink. Find out if it could be something going on with his job. Then talk. Help him out like he helped me.

I look up Haranco, see if there are any press releases about mergers or something that would piss him off.

Tick tick tick… what's ticking? Right. Set the clock on my phone to tick. Thought it would be fun. I change it a lot. Slam it off, keep searching.

Wait, what's this? I stop at a document on some French wiki site that features a list of Tidewater subsidiary companies. I look at the sim, check the stats on my drones on the big screens as I hit the link on my laptop that I put to my right. Nothing going on with the drones today anyway. Quiet. Boring.