The Middle of Somewhere (23 page)

What
was
I hoping for? I'd met my short-term goals, except for organizing better. With Gee around, chaos trumped organization every time. But there seemed to be more to it than just meeting goals. Maybe I'd been wind-prospecting like Pop, chasing something that couldn't be caught. Trying to wrap it up for Mama, all I could say was, “Ask me in a week.”

Lyddie had to go home that day to see her granddaughter's dance recital, and Mama's knee was crying for its old home on the couch. I kind of assumed that when they left for Missouri, Gee and I would be in the back seat of Lyddie's Buick. But later that morning, when the Coachman had returned and Mama told Gee to get his stuff out of it, Pop asked, “What for?”

“Well, to go home,” Mama said, looking puzzled.

“They're not going home until tomorrow. I'll bring them.” Everybody in the room stopped what they were doing to look at him. “Well, Gee hasn't seen Cannonball Paul do his shoot yet. That's not until one, so—”

Gee yelled and threw himself at Pop, which wasn't the way to get on the man's good side, but Gee's a slow learner. Mama hobbled up on her crutches, eyes gleaming. “Oh, Dad.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze, which wasn't easy with all that aluminum between them. “Can we see Rock City?” I asked. “It's this field of
huge round boulders that look kind of like big balls of twine, out in the middle of—”

“Maybe,” he said, and to Mama he added, “I'll bring 'em back sometime tomorrow.”

As she nodded, sniffling, a knock on the door startled us all.

I answered it.

There was a guy in jeans and a T-shirt standing on the sidewalk, looking kind of familiar, and kind of nervous. As he shifted light as a dancer from one foot to the other, I recognized him in a gulp: Cannonball Paul! With his blond hair down in his face instead of combed back, he looked a lot younger. And, frankly, kind of ordinary.

“Hi,” he said, then stepped back and motioned me to follow. “Look, I don't have much time. It took a while to find you, and I've got to get back soon. I just wanted to say, I'm sorry for yesterday. What I said. Thinking it over, I don't blame you for anything.” I just gaped at him. “So. To make it up, I wanted to invite you all to the shoot today.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of those blue passes.

I started making thank-you noises, which he waved away. “One more thing. Tonight, I plan on renting a little Cessna two-seater—airplane, that is—to fly up during the fireworks. Tim doesn't want to go because he signed up for a weight-lifting competition. So I was thinking—if the boy wants to fly, I'll take him.”

My thank-you noises changed to this-is-going-too-fast-for-me noises. “What—when—?”

He took another step back. “You guys talk it over and
tell me after the shoot what you decided. One o'clock, in the arena. Catch you then.” With another wave, he bounded off the curb and into his white truck, burning a little rubber when he backed away. It all happened so fast I could barely believe he'd been there, except for the blue passes in my hand.

“Who was that?” Lyddie asked when I went back inside.

My news raised an uproar, with Gee begging and whining, Mom doubting she'd ever let her little boy go up in a tin can with a stranger, and Lyddie saying, “But it's the chance of a lifetime!”

Exactly
, I thought. If it was me, I'd be all over it, but nobody asked me. Gee was the squeaky wheel who got the grease in this family. Biting my lip, I glanced at Pop, who looked back but didn't say anything.

Finally, Mama said, “Since I won't be here, I'll leave it to you, Dad. I'm probably better off not knowing till it's over anyway.”

No matter how hard Gee pressed him, Pop wouldn't commit to yes or no, and he still hadn't said when the ladies left at eleven. After hugs all around, like we weren't going to see each other the very next day, Lyddie extended an invitation: “If you get back by dinnertime tomorrow, Jack, come on over. I'll throw some steaks on the grill.” It was an eye-rolling moment, but I restrained myself.

With everything else that had happened, the actual Cannonball shoot—Paul blasting straight as an arrow from the mouth of the big white gun, sailing over the tower, and
landing dead center in the net—was almost an anticlimax. Though Gee yelled loud enough to be a whole cheering section by himself.

For myself, I'll admit to feeling a little resentful. Whatever Pop decided about Paul's invitation, it bothered me how much life still revolved around Gee—what he needed, what he did, what he caused. This trip had turned out to be all about
him
. Don't get me wrong: my brother's appearance on the top of the tower the night before was the biggest relief of my life.

But doesn't that kind of prove my point?

After the crowd in the arena had thinned out, we went down for a demo. Tim showed us the cannon and explained a little of its operation (without giving away the secret, of course) and told us why he had to be inside to pull the trigger that shot Paul. The barrel of the gun didn't look big enough for one man, let alone two.

At the first long pause, Pop said, “About your invitation. I appreciate it, but I don't see any point in rewarding Gee for worrying the daylights out of all of us.”

Gee gulped, as though gearing up for a monster-whine, but he stood down when Pop looked warningly at him.

“However,” my grandfather went on, “if you're still willing to take somebody, I suggest you take Ronnie.”

How did he know? How, in the whirl of our post-Gee-stress disorder, had he noticed that if anybody should go on an evening airplane ride through the fireworks, it was me?

Paul didn't have any problem with it. Gee did, at first, but a couple of rides on the Scrambler made him see reason—funny that scrambling his brain turns out to be the best thing for it, sometimes. The rest of that afternoon was the classic Day Out with Grandpa that Mama had hoped for: cotton candy, corn dogs, and midway rides, with Pop footing the bill and only refusing about half of Gee's requests.

Paul had told us to be at the airport no later than eight, so he could take off by eight-thirty To me it felt like ages since we'd been in the Coachman, Gee nodding in the dinette seat and me in my luxury swivel chair on the passenger side. But of course, it was only a little over twenty-four hours. My head was full of things to say as we drove toward the lowering sun, but they all felt too heavy for the moment. Except for, “Thanks, Pop.”

“Hmmm?” He seemed kind of preoccupied.

“Thanks for speaking up for me about the plane ride. I know it's some trouble, hauling me out here, but—”

“Minor trouble, comparatively.”

He probably meant, compared to everything else he'd
been through on this trip. “Well, anyway … I'm sorry you lost all this time on the job and—”

“I'll make it up.” Without you kids, he might have added, but didn't.

“Mama seems to think you've made up for a lot. Probably enough to stay away for the next two years.”

I didn't mean to sound sarcastic, but it might have come out that way. After a minute, he sighed. “Ronnie.”

“Yes, sir?”

“I should've been coming around to see y'all more often. Your mother's right—Gee needs a firm hand and I can help with that. And you—” I held my breath, wondering what I needed. “You've got an interesting life ahead. I'd like to be around for more of it.”

Breathing again, I asked, “So you're moving to Partly?”

He just snorted at that. Then he smiled. “If I did, there's a lady in Muleshoe, Texas, who'd really miss me…”

Paul's white truck was in the airport lot when we arrived, and shortly after, Paul came out of the small white building with a clipboard in hand. He waved at us but kept on walking out to the airfield, where a dozen or so small planes were waiting in a row.

He stopped at the smallest, a sporty yellow-and-white job with wings across the top. As we walked up, he was checking the propeller and wheels and a lot of other parts I couldn't name, while consulting the laminated list on his clipboard. Gee yelled, “Hi, Paul!”

Not one to carry a grudge, Paul looked up and smiled. “Hi, guys. I'll be ready in about fifteen minutes.”

There wasn't much to do while he inspected the cockpit. Pop asked a few questions, and kept Gee from asking more questions, but I just stood aside and let the evening kind of soak in. After last night's heavy rain, the day had been steamy, but a fresh breeze was blowing busily out of the west, carrying a scent of cut grass and damp soil. The haze in the air turned gold, smudging the sunset to a deep yellow. Lights twinkled on the plains that stretched out all around us, and I imagined that once in the sky, I could see till Sunday.

Paul stepped down from the cockpit doorway, where he'd been checking the fuel gauge on the wing. “That's it. Climb aboard—what was your name again?”

“Veronica,” I said, before anyone could say different.

“That's pretty. Climb on board, Veronica, and I'll get your grandfather to move the chocks out from under the wheels.”

Inside, the plane seemed no bigger than a tin can, as my mother had said, with very thin walls. I shivered, in spite of myself.

Paul hoisted himself up beside me, and the whole plane rocked with his weight. The cockpit was so small I could have puked in his lap. “Ever flown before?” he asked me.

“No.”

“Once we get started, it'll be pretty noisy, so speak now if you're having second thoughts.”

“No way!”

“That's the spirit.” He buckled his seat belt and started
throwing little switches on the dashboard—if that's what you call it on a plane. “My first time was a little scary.”

“Even compared to getting shot out of a cannon?”

“Oh, that? Nothing to it.
This
is a kick. Expensive, though. Someday I'll get my own plane, close to where I live.” He snapped a pair of headphones over his ears, picked up the microphone by his knee, and told Hays Traffic that he was about to depart.

“Where do you live?” I'd had the idea he was as footloose as Pop, with no address more permanent than a trailer park.

“Just bought a place last year.” Paul opened his window, shouted, “Clear props!” and closed it again. “Nice little acreage, a few miles outside of a little town called Partly, Missouri.”

My jaw dropped, and the propeller roared. We taxied toward the end of the runway. When I found my voice, I yelled, “Don't tell Gee!”

“WHAT?” he yelled back. I just waved a hand, indicating I'd tell him later. Talk about surprises! If Gee knew, we'd never hear the end of it. Come to think of it, if Paul knew, he might be tempted to move. Better it be my own little secret for now.

Heading down the runway, I surprised myself by having second thoughts. The plane rattled like a tray of silverware in an earthquake, and everything in it was rattling right along, including my stomach. Paul tilted the steering-wheel thingy, and like Howard on the interstate ramp, I clenched my teeth and held on as we picked up speed. The plane shook harder and harder, until it suddenly
gave a little hop and I felt the wheels leave the ground. The rattling cut by half as we angled into the sky. “Wow!” I shouted.

Paul looked over and grinned. We circled the field, wagging our wings, and there was a tiny Pop, waving, while a tiny Gee spun himself in circles with his arms spread wide. Beyond the airfield, big round bales of hay in the fields looked like buttons, and the lights of Hays blazed like a Christmas pageant. We buzzed the highway, looped around the courthouse, and headed for the fairgrounds as the last glow of sunset faded from the sky.

I was staring at the festival of neon and the bright bangle of the Ferris wheel when Paul pointed off to my right. A silvery streak gleamed against the dark, then exploded in a shower of green and blue. Paul shouted something, and I just nodded, smiling so hard my cheeks hurt—
let's go!

This is what I came for
, I thought.
This is what I'm taking back with me, and it's something I couldn't have expected or planned
. Who'd have thought I could experience this, out in the middle of—

But wait a minute. There is no
nowhere
. Every place you are is the middle of somewhere.

Swooping in a glorious curve that tilted us to the right, Paul steadied the wings just as another canister exploded. And we flew straight for its golden, blooming, billowing heart.