Thursday, May 15, 2008
The ex-president glided past clouds, and memories of his youth, while approaching a throng of media and friends ready to welcome him with a rousing cheer. All he had to do was land.
Jun 16, 2004 | The plane was pleasantly cacophonous. The noise was incredible, crowding out all thought and order. J. Junior Inferior Sr. loved it. He was sitting in the plane, on the floor, knees up as if in a toboggan. Behind him was Tripp Montana, distant cousin of Joe and Inferior Senior's three-time sky-diving partner.
Inferior Senior had not wanted to jump in tandem -- attached to a sky-diving expert, one parachute for the both of them, as opposed to jumping alone, as he'd done in WWII -- but on this point he couldn't find anyone willing to collude with him. No one, no plane, no outfitters, would allow him to jump alone at his age, so he'd conceded the point. He lamented that jumping from a plane at 75, at 80, at 81, was a great deal less dramatic and stunning and prop garnering if done while attached to another, younger man. He'd seen pictures of himself from the last few times, and attached to the belly of Tripp Montana, he looked a bit like an oversize infant in a mother's Baby Bjorn, or like one of those children's backpacks in the shape of a teddy bear or --
Whatever. He couldn't quibble and now he couldn't turn back. As the plane climbed to 14,000 feet, he could only picture the adulation awaiting him, from the world's media and their constituencies, in only a few minutes, when he would land in the parking lot of the Manchester Marriot, seconds before the GOP debate would begin. His heart burned with pride at the thought of it, and when he imagined his wife's reaction -- oh lord, finally dear Bunny would be sure that she married the right man. Finally and forever she would be certain that Morey Amsterdam, whom Bunny had dated in the '50s and whom she had spoken to occasionally over the decades, was -- even with his great wit and nice suits and famously prodigious endowment -- nothing next to J. Junior Inferior Sr. She would be sure that she'd made the right choice when she'd chosen Inferior over all others. While J. Junior Inferior Sr. soared through the sky and descended from the heavens, where was Morey Amsterdam? Dead, that's where. Ha! Dead for a good long while, to be exact.
It was always so quick, the ascent of these tiny planes. Could it be that they were already ready? So soon? Montana, with his calm eyes and full beard, was now nudging Inferior, tapping his shoulder in their agreed-upon way, pointing him toward the plane's open door.
Inferior inched his way to the exit, and Montana hooked up their carabiners and ran through a series of safety checks. The sky through the open door, at just before 6 p.m., was a rusty pink, the color of a sunburn, and the clouds swam past like the faces of a carnival shooting gallery. Inferior's heart seemed to be all at once in his shoes, in his throat, bursting through his sternum.
And now Montana was nudging them the last few feet, and they were at the door, and, though he had not planned it -- and hadn't gotten this sensation on his previous two jumps -- Inferior suddenly felt 22 again. He was soaked in memories of his G.I. days, the men-children he knew, the clean-scrubbed faces of his fellow pilots, the briefing tent near Dover, and oh god, the way McCallister used to listen without blinking, taking notes without even glancing at the paper! And then, unhappily, into Inferior's mind leaked the sight of McCallister's plane exploding over Draguignan in one quick gasp --
And now they were in the sky. Knowing they had to jump immediately to have any hope of hitting their target, Montana had pushed Inferior at the last moment, and now they were free-falling. The sky was cold and dotted with dirty gray clouds, but it was a magnificent night. Inferior drew a deep breath of the wind coming toward him, finding himself shaking his head at the beauty everywhere. The lights of Manchester were orange and seemed to pulse like actual flames, shrinking and growing, twinkling like underwater lanterns.
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