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Ninety Days Inside The Empire: A Novel by William Appleman Williams

Flying Home to Church

Page 22

-- Ah, that's my man.

"You will be warmed on the runway in thirty minutes. I want Run-Run. The weather may be dicey. How is Lieutenant Reis?"

-- Hell, this is just a drill. Tryin' to catch us out. Maybe - well, maybe not. What the hell is goin' on here?

"How is he?"

"He'll need some of that thirty minutes. Not used to all that rich food and dancin' jazz and fancy ladies givin' him landin' clearance. But he'll be right. We'll call operations from the runway."

Mitch thought of Jack's remarks and was uneasy. "Maybe you ought to fly it...."

"No, sir. No way. This is his leg and he does it."

"I'll be here. Roger and out."

When Cat returned upstairs the door was still open and steam was rolling into the hall. He cupped his hands into a bugle and began to play "Navy Blue and Gold." Nathan Reis was a lean and hard six feet and one inch. He stepped out of the shower dripping water across the floor. "Stop that, you silly ass. I heard the eager Marine. So we're goin' home early. Is this a drill for the next war?"

"Damned if I know but I guess I don't think so. Least not that kind of war. We got twenty-six minutes to get wheels up."

"Fuel and weather?"

"Done. Time to see another Indian, wife."

"Tell me more I need to know."

"Weather's most sure goin' to get messy and the best I can figure it we're goin' back to hear The Reverend preach a sermon about building sewer, gettin' bus service to Five Corners, and more Negroes on the flight line."

"Like you said, time to see another Indian."

They laughed, did a bit of truckin' and before the steam had blown away were in the jeep on the way to the line. It was a ten-minute jounce. The road was good, built back sometime by Huey Long (with sly help to and from Negroes); but a jeep could put wrinkles in plate glass and ripples in stainless steel. On cement you got harmonic bounces. Made no difference to Cat. He could nod off anyplace for fifteen seconds or fifteen hours and awake clear-eyed and headed to do nothing or everything with his very best. Run-Run slept a chronometer eight hours and then did the job no matter what it was or how long it took. So Cat was asleep and Run-Run was remembering the Indian.

-- That was a moment. Where was that little railroad town someplace around an Indian reservation? Some of the details get lost in bein' shot at with intent to kill. But that was a moment. And the nights before were wild. You go anyplace with this guy. Even to church.

Lieutenant Reis was the son of a perhaps wealthy and certainly rich Jewish family in Philadephia. His natural father was not a nice man, and had beaten his beautiful and loving wife into a divorce. Out of all that Nathan in his early teens had turned his back on business to think of nothing but Annapolis. Maybe wish time. Maybe dream time. Maybe the sailboat he had loved. Certainly some strange connection between anger and shame and love and duty and honor. In any event, Annapolis it was. He had stopped worrying about that part of it a long time ago. He was Navy Blue and Gold.

Then his step-father came to watch him play soccer. Even his mother, let alone his grandparents, did not think that a good Jewish boy ought to play soccer. Ideally the piano. Perhaps tennis, or just maybe basketball - certainly not soccer! But his step-father was also a Jew and he made time from banking lots of money to become a knowing and keen student of the ebb and flow of that demanding field. He also treated Nathan's mother the way people should cherish each other. She had found her home. Nathan also loved him.