Chapter 7

The trip back to Knoxville was, by far, less friendly than the trip up to WillowRun. This time I had to do all the work. Crawling around a twin engined aircraft while the instructor hollers out the instructions read from a placard is not my idea of a good time. Especially when said pilot is lounging on a chair.

“One hundred feet doesn’t sound like much ... but you should see what 100 feet looks like to a watermelon,” Joe Pilot said.

So ... in the irregular course of events (My life lately.) a sheet of lexan was placed over a shallow crate. A GoPro camera was placed in the box. A second camera was attached to a ladder. The box was placed next to a ten story building and a reasonably good sized watermelon was dropped from the roof. (Not necessarily in that order.)

SPLAT

Viewed from a computer screen in slow-motion, the fall was pretty spectacular. A millisecond before the melon touched, the shadow was HUGE. The point of impact compressed the watermelon rind until the volume of water exceeded the ability of the rind to sustain the pressure. The picture from the second camera illustrated the split of the rind.

Watermelon everywhere.

“That’s just one hundred feet. The FAA requires a minimum altitude of ten times that. If it breaks up there... ?”

The instruction continued ... I was much more interested.

Now that I knew that the half-circle grab-bar wasn’t a secure place to grab ... and the futility of grabbing it ... I settled down and flew. Joe Pilot realized that, take off, I could; fly straight and level, I could; landing was his job ... and would be ... if I continued with lessons.

There was no one waiting at Downtown. I caged a ride with a bus and stepped in my door 10 days after I had left. The wife was sitting at the computer ... in the same place she was sitting when I left.

“We need to talk,” I said. I started...

When I was through she said, “I can’t leave my mother. She fell and broke her back.”

“Where is she?” I asked.

“In Oak Ridge.”

“Why aren’t you there?”

“You know I don’t drive,” she said.

“When did she fall?”

“Eight days ago,” she said.

“You’ve been sitting here?”

“I slept ... most nights,” she said.

“Have you called her?”

“She’s not answering her phone,” she said.

“When was the first time she didn’t answer?”

“Seven days ago,” she said.

“Didn’t you get worried?”

“The only thing ... she hasn’t come to take me out for shopping,” she said.

“Have you tried the neighbors?”

“You know they hate me,” she said. “Why would they take me to Oak Ridge?”

“I mean your mothers neighbors.”

“The phone is too far away,” she said. “By the time I put my legs down and call I’m worn out. But I did design a bunch of clothes ... sold some too.”

“Your mother could be dead ... and you sold imaginary clothes for imaginary people?” I asked.

“Well, yeah.”

“Come on,” I got up.

“Where are we going?”

“Oak Ridge,” I said.

“I need a shower,” she said. “Find me a bra ... and some socks ... and panties.”

I was rumbling through her clothes hangers in the hall looking when she said, “Come wash my back ... but first move the hanging clothes from the tub. And ... and ... and.”

“You ready?”

“For the past hour,” I said. “Get in the truck.”

“I have to pee.”

I hate to drive in the dark.