Taking Flight (15 page)

And just like that my memories of that day stop. I don’t remember leaving the lunch, I don’t remember saying goodbye to Pam or Danny. Maybe that’s why sometimes I feel like I’m still living that day on a constant loop, because I’m hoping for a revelation of memory, some new detail I can relish in to take me back to when it was okay to walk out on a group of people without looking rude.

Pam and her kids have become our Missouri family now. We are able to visit them at least twice a year, thanks to cheap flights on Southwest airlines. During each visit we go out for a night of Long Island soaked karaoke fun. Inevitably a moment in the night comes along when we talk about you. Unlike the family we let go of, it is always okay to tell stories about the past with Pam, Angi and Danny. There are lots of stories to share, impressions you made on a young boy who had an absent father that will last forever. “David was one cool dude, man,” Danny will say, shaking his head with a sad smile and lifting a glass with his heavily tattooed arm. “To David. One of the good ones.” And I will lean in for a hug from someone who is just like me, who all these years later can’t believe you are still gone.

I was rummaging through the kitchen for a snack when Dad called out to me from the living room. “Sarah! Perfect timing. Come watch this movie with me.”

“No more History Channel, Dad.”

“It’s not. It’s a movie and you’d really like it.” He turned around so he was facing me. “Give it ten minutes and then I’ll quit bugging you.”

I shrugged and gave in, figuring I’d be back up in my room by the first commercial break. “What is this great movie that I just have to watch called?”

“The Memphis Belle. It’s about -”  “Oh, let me guess,” I interrupted. “It’s about a plane!”

“I don’t just watch movies about airplanes.”

“Really? Then what’s this one about?”

Dad sighed. “An airplane.”

I slapped my hands against the couch. “I knew it! I totally knew it!”

The movie started, and I was surprised when several commercials passed without me feeling the need to fall asleep or leave the room. The Memphis Belle was an airplane that fought in World War II. The Belle had made twenty-four successful missions over the skies of Europe. One more mission and the crew, none of whom were much older than me, could all return home.

The night before their final mission, one of the crew read a poem from his journal. As a girl with notebooks and diaries filled with poetry I felt a connection to these characters, more than I ever thought I would have felt to people in one of Dad’s airplane movies. I had no idea if they were going to live or die. I was completely sucked in, much to Dad’s delight.

During commercial breaks, Dad and I started to talk about World War II.

“Did you know that Grandpa was drafted for the War?” Dad asked me.

I didn’t.

“Remember that tattoo on his arm? He got that before he went into the army. Said he didn’t trust dog tags to get him home if he died, so he had his name and address tattooed on his forearm.”

“Where did he fight at?” I asked, shocked at the idea of my Grandpa going off to war.

Dad laughed. “He didn’t. The way he told it, he was on the train headed to boot camp when the War ended. He got sent home.”

The Belle made it to her final target, but due to smoke obstruction the crew couldn’t confidently release the bombs. The crew made the decision to circle back, low on fuel and surrounded by enemy fire. I watched their companion planes get shot and fall from the sky, burning and screaming to the ground. The Belle made it to the target, dropped the bombs, and somehow made it home.

When the movie was over I was forced to admit to Dad that he was right, a painful endeavor for any teenager. I should have kept my mouth shut of my approval of his airplane movie because after that night, The Memphis Belle became another staple in our airplane obsessed household.

I never considered that maybe Dad’s fixation with The Belle had less to do with the airplane and more to do with the fact that we had shared the film together.

Dad began to ask all of my friends if they had seen The Memphis Belle. If they answered no, he would try his hardest to make us watch it at some point during their visit. I began coaching my friends on what to say when the interrogation began.

“Have you seen ‘The Memphis Belle?’ ” my intimidating father would ask, raising his dark eyebrows and locking eyes
with
my friend.

“I have and it is a great movie,” my friend would reply robotically.

“I see,” Dad would say, shaking his head at me. “And what’s your favorite part?”

“There are too many to remember,” the new friend would answer, glancing at me to see if they’d gotten their lines right. Dad would call me a brat, roll his eyes and hand over the television remote.

Before the days of Google and Amazon and Netflix instant view, if you wanted to find a movie you had to go shopping at real stores and hope for the best. If they didn’t have what you were looking for you had to track down a manager who would then call several other stores to try and locate the movie you were convinced no one sold. 

I know this because Mom and I spent years trying to buy a VHS copy of The Memphis Belle. The film had several actors who would go on to make some very famous movies, but at the time it wasn’t a readily available film. We called video stores and asked how much to buy their rental copy, which was likely sitting on a shelf collecting dust. No one wanted to sell. We called Targets and Wal-Marts but it seemed no chain stores carried it. We scoured garage sales and tent sales in the parking lot of Blockbusters. It seemed as though we would never own a copy of Dad’s favorite movie.

Just like looking for Dead Guy music, the Hunt for The Belle became another family tradition that kept us on the edge of our seat, kept us wondering if today would be the day we would track down our prize. If there had been Amazon in the late 90’s we could have the movie delivered to our door by the next day. While that certainly would have been easier, I don’t think it would have been nearly as fun.

A video store an hour away from our house came through with a brand new copy of The Memphis Belle a year into our search. Mom and I snuck off to buy it, fully intending to wait until Christmas for the big reveal. But when we returned home we were both obnoxiously giddy and our energy tipped Dad off.

From that day forward, The Memphis Belle was in reach of the VCR. Whenever Dad watched it, I stopped what I was doing to join him
, always the co-pilot by his side
. 

While I was burying you my friends were going to 4th of July parties and making out on blankets under warm, colorful skies. I knew that when I came back from Missouri certain, obvious things had changed but I never anticipated losing my friendships. The bonds of friendship are ironclad at sixteen; we would die for each other. If we didn’t hang out every Saturday we felt like the world has stopped spinning.

You liked my friends. They were good kids. I can promise you that in the time I spent with them we never drank or did drugs. To my knowledge, none of us that had coupled up had sex. We were content to play trivia on Wednesday nights at our local coffee shop, go sledding in the winter and swimming in the summer, and watch tapes of old Saturday Night Live skits while eating popcorn and overdosing on Mt. Dew. When the immediate crisis of your death had passed I expected to fall right back into place with them.

The first time we all hung out after the funeral they told me we could do whatever I wanted. It was a gorgeous summer day, perfect for going to the lake, but instead I asked them to watch The Memphis Belle. For all the years you had teased us about your favorite movie none of them had actually seen it. I knew I was going to have to watch it sooner or later, and I had gone through so much alone. I wanted to get The Belle out of the way surrounded by people to protect me from the pain I was risking.

We closed the shades to block the sun from the television screen. I carefully took the movie from the cardboard box and hit play. I was wearing one of your flannel shirts and jean shorts, resting my bare legs across my boyfriend’s lap. As the movie played I watched my friends’ reactions, waited for their laughter, relieved when they didn’t seem to be bored.

But then it was over. And they were ready to move on.

I got stuck on pause for a long, long time.

Sometimes you can’t go back. Sometimes you have to be alone to learn how to live and breathe in a world where everything has changed. Those friendships that I never thought I would lose faltered, then broke apart all together.

But not before they saw The Belle.

I made sure of that.

I have to be honest with you: as a child, I dreaded our summer trip to the Oshkosh Air Show. I liked flying when it was the two of us, but Oshkosh was overwhelming. The grounds at Oshkosh stretched on endlessly, taunting you with miles and miles of airplanes. You insisted on taking pictures of every single one (they all looked the same to me). Then you had a million questions for the pilot. Just when I thought you were ready to move on you would make me stand in front of the plane for a picture. I would smile because you told me to, but on the inside I was trying not to scream.

I was so grateful when you and Mom started to send me for my summer visit to Missouri during Oshkosh week. Of course, karmic punishment would dictate that the last trip you would make to Oshkosh would be the one I would have actually enjoyed.

The captain of the real Memphis Belle came to Oshkosh. You brought me home an autographed t-shirt and photo of you next to captain. I am still so jealous of you – and it serves me right for being such a brat about going to Oshkosh.

I rarely come across people who know about The Belle, unless I’m the one who tells them, or force them to watch the movie. But life is full of surprises and when I least expect it, The Belle comes up in conversation and I find someone else who is a fan. Most recently it was a co-worker. Naturally I told him about your meet and greet with the captain. Always the proud daughter I brought in the faded photo. I’ve learned there will always opportunities to be reminded of you, just when I think I’m beginning to forget.

The day I saw The Belle on Netflix I put it in my queue (not that you know what that means). Of course I have it on DVD (not that you  know what that means, either) but I feel better just knowing it’s close by. I try to watch it at least once a year. But sometimes I can’t finish the whole thing. It’s funny; I can go to your grave and my eyes stay bone dry, but watching those boys waiting to take off makes my heart break.

You told me that I had to go to college so I wouldn’t feel like a fraud in life. “I work with people who have their diplomas framed in their office. They deserve to have their jobs. But me, I don’t have that piece of paper. I shouldn’t have what they have,” you would say, berating yourself in a way that I am all too familiar with.

I always knew I would go to college because I was one of the kids who liked school. But I knew immediately following my senior year was not the right time for me to go. I’d held it together through too many changes and I was exhausted. I wanted a year off to rest. I’d get a job and save some money and then go to school. But Mom wouldn’t have it. She held tightly to your wishes that I get a college education. Had she been in a better frame of mind she would have let me take the break I so desperately needed. But her fear of me not going to school, of the both of us letting you down in any way, forced me out the door in the fall of 2002.

I went to Augsburg, a small private college in Minneapolis. Augsburg was close enough to home that Mom and I could see each other as often as we needed but far enough away that I would live on campus and get a taste of independence.

Your straight-A daughter (well, except for those pesky math courses) was failing out by October. I couldn’t study, I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t handle all the people. I didn’t know how to socialize. I didn’t want to drive away potential friends by telling them the truth about why, unlike them, I didn’t have any photographs of my high school friends on my walls. I didn’t want to be in a position to tell them about your plane crash because if I did I feared that I would become the odd person out, just as I had in high school.

I moved out of my dorm before the first semester ended. I was humiliated as I loaded boxes into Mom’s car. I felt like a quitter and I didn’t need Mom to remind me that had failed you. But even worse than failing you was feeling like I had failed myself, the person I should have been. That girl would have graduated in four years, with honors. Any time I had to drive by Augsburg I felt a burning shame in my stomach, the brick building became a mirror that forced me to see the truth of my shortcomings.

I began taking photography classes at Hennepin Technical College in January 2003. I had taken photography in high school to fulfill a requirement but, as it turned out, photography and grief go hand in hand. I would shoot a roll of film and escape
for
hours in the photo lab developing my own prints. It was pitch black in the dark room, allowing me to let my guard down. I came away from class smelling like chemicals, just like you used to when you were building your plane. I picked up on the class quickly and became quite good. I was even accepted into a special class that was held after school let out. For four hours
a day
I had my own station in the darkroom to work on whatever projects I wanted.