Chapter 26: Flying High

Sunday November 6
After brunch with my family, I drove to the airport to take my first flying lesson. On Friday I’d passed my written exam. All I had to do now was to pass the practical portion of the training to get my license. I was excited to get started.

When I entered the flight school, it was empty, it being a Sunday afternoon. I found Roy Tyro, the owner, in his office drinking coffee and doing something on his computer.

“You ready to get started?”

“Yes, sir.”

He grabbed a clipboard, and we stepped through the preflight checklist. I think Roy saw I was nervous.

“Let me tell you a secret. Flying is quite easy if you learn two things: mechanical skills and procedures. For every situation, there’s a procedure. If you learn the procedures and learn them right, you’ll do just fine.”

Today’s flight was more of a watch-and-learn experience as Roy took us up and reviewed once again what all the instruments did. I was glad I’d spent time in the flight simulator because they matched up precisely with what I was seeing in the cockpit. When we reached altitude, Roy turned the airplane over to me.

“I want you to just focus on flying straight and at a constant altitude.”

Easy, right? Not so much. I would find that the plane would either float higher or lower on me due to a variety of factors. I took us on more than one roller-coaster ride as I got used to the controls. The whole time, Roy never once raised his voice. He was steady, and his voice calm, which made it all bearable.

“I think you’re ready to turn the plane. Make an easy bank right and watch your altitude,” Roy advised.

“Frick! It’s much easier in the simulator,” I complained.

Roy just smiled at me and shook his head.

“No simulator is like the real thing.”

I started to get frustrated, but Roy kept talking me through it.

“You’re doing fine. You can ease your grip on the stick,” he suggested.

I looked down and saw how tightly I was holding it. I took a deep breath and let it out to help calm myself. Then I heard Roy chuckle.

“You’re like an old man driving a car. You point the plane wherever you look.”

I snapped my eyes up and found I was slowly losing altitude. That was when the humor of it all hit me.

“I need to quit overthinking this,” I said.

From that point on, it was better. I wasn’t perfect by any stretch, but I didn’t do anything horrifyingly wrong, either. It seemed like we’d only been in the air for minutes when Roy pointed me back toward the airport. He took over and landed the plane, all the while explaining what he was doing and why.

Once we were on the ground, he let me taxi the plane to its parking spot, and I helped him tie it down. Then we talked about the flight, and Roy gave me advice. I confirmed that I wanted lessons the next two days after football practice. I couldn’t wait to get my license so I could fly on my own.

When I arrived home, Dad found me.

“Do you have time to meet?”

“Meet who?” I asked.

“Caryn and the gang. We need to update you on a couple of things.”

“Sure,” I said and looked around. I didn’t see my hound. “Where’s Duke?”

“Your grandmother picked him up. He’s doing a campaign event with Governor Higgins.”

It seemed my Lab was a mover and shaker in the political world. I’d almost forgotten that the elections were this week. This would be the first time I could vote, and if it hadn’t been for Duke and the governor and senate races, I probably would have skipped it. The guy running for president had a weird comb-over that made him seem fake. The woman gave off an untrustworthy vibe. By all accounts, she had the election in the bag, so Brook didn’t have a shot at becoming the first female president.

Dad drove me to our office in the strip mall. We were the first to arrive, so Dad unlocked it and turned on the lights. I put on coffee. It was chilly out, and I needed something to warm me up. Caryn, Megan, and Scarlet showed up with little Carol. I took my daughter so that Scarlet could get organized for the meeting.

“What’s up, Princess?” I asked.

What was up was she needed her diaper changed. I manned up and took care of that. When everything was copacetic, we came back for the meeting. Carol wanted down, so I gave her my car keys to keep her occupied. They went straight into her mouth because she was teething. I’d seen babies put way worse in there, so I didn’t even flinch. What mattered was she was occupied and seemed happy for the moment. I was sure I wouldn’t win Father of the Year anytime soon.

“First, I wanted to tell you that Zander has accepted a deal from the DA. He’ll plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of assault; agree to a restraining order regarding you, Halle, Brook, and Rita; do 100 hours of community service; and serve two years of probation. The restraining order will prevent Zander or his agents from harming you. It also prevents him and his agents from coming within 100 yards of any of you. And that’s even if you show up for an event, like the Oscars, after he’s already there. Zander can’t drink or do drugs while on probation and must submit to random drug and alcohol testing. The agreement includes stipulations that he can’t leave the state without court permission, and must report to his probation officer twice a month,” Caryn shared.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I complained. “A misdemeanor?”

“In fact, Ms. Dixon is happy he pled guilty. She said that it helps with the civil suit she wants to file tomorrow,” Dad explained.

“Tell her to go ahead. I’m not normally one who wants to fight it out in court. But after what I’ve gone through over the last several weeks, I want him to suffer a consequence that’s more than a misdemeanor charge with no time served. Just please, at least, make sure the restraining order is permanent and that his record won’t be wiped clean if he makes it through probation.”

“Ms. Dixon wanted to float something to get your take on it,” Scarlet said. “Tom Dole suggested that Cal Bell take the lead on a civil suit against Zander. He has a California license, and frankly, the last group of California attorneys we used on this was anything but stellar. Cal is also someone who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty and go for the jugular, from what I’ve heard.”

I think my dad and Caryn had called ‘not it’ on that one; they each kept their face neutral. Megan gave me a half smile. I wanted to instantly reject their idea out of hand. Cal was one of my least favorite people—who just happened to be Pam’s dad and Coby’s granddad.

“Will I have to deal with him?” I asked.

“We’ll try to keep it to a minimum,” Dad assured me.

That meant ‘yes.’

“I want to say ‘no,’ but you wouldn’t have asked me if you didn’t think this had merit. If you’re all on board, then I’ll go along with it, but I’m more than a little reluctant to do this. Just be warned that I reserve the right to cause Cal pain if he is rude or smarts off about Pam or Coby. I also want Ms. Dixon to watch over him and what he’s doing like a hawk.”

“You might have to wait for your mother to finish with him if he does anything to hurt any of us,” Dad warned me.

He was right. Mom had wanted to pound both him and Mr. Fox during the whole fiasco around Pam’s pregnancy and the rape charges. Cal’s threat to ship her grandson off for adoption was more than Mom could handle. I just prayed that his evil side would serve us well when he took on Zander. I hoped I’d also communicated that I would not forget who’d recommended this if it went south.

“Moving on,” Caryn said to change the subject. “The German government has offered to buy the software we got from the Ukrainian con artist, as long as they get exclusive rights to it.”

“That’s the stuff on the thumb drive?” I asked.

Peggy had been conned by a man who’d tried to break into my parents’ home-office computer. Fritz had ‘confiscated’ the software and shared it with people he used to work with to determine what we had.

Caryn pushed a sheet of paper over to me, and I wasn’t sure if I should be happy or not. It seemed like a lot of money. Then I had another thought.

“Why are they paying us this much?”

“They don’t want us to sell it to others,” Caryn said.

“This is sort of ‘found’ money. What did you propose to do with it?” I asked.

Scarlet lit up.

“My father always says you don’t get paid what you’re worth, you get paid what you negotiate. I have some ideas.”

“Do they include me buying a company plane?” I asked.

I thought I was the owner of this company. How could everyone ignore my perfectly reasonable request?

“I think you need to set up trusts for all your kids,” Scarlet suggested. “They could use it for their college funds or something else later.”

I could tell I wasn’t going to get a plane when Megan handed out a sheet that showed how it would all work. To be fair, I’d told them to run with it. I might have to clarify that in the future, all windfalls of cash should be run by me.

“Before you get started on that, what happened to the Ukrainian guy?” I asked.

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement came and took him. They’re deporting him and have contacted the appropriate authorities overseas. He was here using a forged passport. Since he didn’t manage to drain your bank accounts, they didn’t have much to hold him on, according to the local police,” Dad told us.

While they worked out the details, Carol found her way between my feet and was in the process of untying and gnawing on my shoelaces. I wondered where my keys had gone. I sure hoped she hadn’t swallowed them. If it had been Coby, I could imagine him figuring out how to get them off the keyring and doing just that.

Carol was a good baby. She mostly entertained herself, which was a blessing. That didn’t mean she wasn’t my little princess. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was a good idea to set up trusts for the kids. My parents always teased Greg and me that they planned to spend it all before we ever saw an inheritance.

I didn’t want to worry about them and hoped that my success would give them a leg up. What I didn’t want to happen was to have my little ones turn into trust-fund kids like some Wesleyan students seemed to be. I said as much to the assembled group.

All the details started to give me a headache. I was sure this was something they didn’t need me for. I picked up Carol and found my keys.

“We’re going to go get something to eat,” I announced.

Dad nodded, and I left them to it.

Granny’s West was packed when we walked in. Someone had gotten smart and advertised that the week’s leftovers would be sold at a reduced price. We usually had a busy breakfast and lunch crowd, but things tapered off for dinner on Sundays. They’d solved that problem.

I spotted Mary talking to some customers. She waved me over, and I said hello to the couple. They were part of the Booster Club, which made them VIPs, as far as I was concerned. When we were done, Mary led me to the kitchen.

“I’m putting you upstairs tonight. We’ve decided to open Our House for the overflow,” she explained.

“Thanks for the recipes for last night. Everyone loved the steaks. I vote you get the equipment that’ll let us add sous vide as a featured item.”

“Already in the works. Dad’s steakhouse uses them, and they were consistently voted the best steaks in Indianapolis. What I like about it is that you can train anyone to make a perfect steak every time.”

Carol and I rode up the back elevator and found the staff had pulled tables together, which told me my whole family was coming to dinner. Given how busy it was downstairs, it made sense to seat us all upstairs. It didn’t take long for everyone to show up. I noticed that they were also seating other customers there. I realized Sunday night might turn out to be one of our busiest as the upstairs restaurant began to fill up.

My grandma and Duke came in. At first, I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to have a dog in the restaurant. But I soon figured out that Grandma Dawson was taking him around to each table for the campaign. One of Duke’s favorite tricks was ‘shake.’ We had him sit and then ask him to shake, and he would lift his paw up to shake hands.

Duke proved what a pro he was at campaigning when he got to our table, stood up on Carol’s high chair, and licked her face. All politicians needed to kiss babies. It might be better with a little less tongue.

“How did he do on the campaign trail?” I asked.

“Kurt said he didn’t ever want to run against Duke. Everyone wanted to meet the dog running for mayor, and the governor was an afterthought. Kurt said that Duke is his Beyoncé.”

“That would make you Jay Z,” I speculated.

“Whoever that is,” Grandma Dawson said. “How did flying go?”

Grandmas know how to make their grandchildren happy. I spent the next twenty minutes telling her all about my adventure today.

Tuesday November 8
Today was the big day. Brook and I found ourselves outside the VFW hall where our voter registration cards said we were to vote.

I’d decided to skip the national election for president because it had ventured into the realm of the ridiculous. No one could be as bad as they tried to make each other out to be. One side went so far as to say the other candidate was mentally ill while the other said their opponent was a crook. I could understand the crook angle, being from Illinois. Our governors seemed to spend a lot of time in the big house. Plus, Chicago was known for corruption. Their motto was vote early and vote often, or so the rumor had it. And then, of course, there was our recently removed mayor.

The whole atmosphere of the national election had turned me off. People were absolutely losing their minds over it. Tami was right: if I ever ran for federal office, I would be vilified. What amazed me was some of the crap the press was spouting was said with a straight face. Dad told me that when he was younger, reporting was more balanced. Nowadays, it seemed they all had an agenda to push.

I shook my head as I decided that thinking about it was a waste of energy. Rather than dwell on it, I walked in and cast my votes for local offices, and then for the governor and Senator Dixon. I smiled when I saw Duke as the lone non-felonious candidate for mayor. I knew he would at least get one vote.

Outside waiting for us were Jeff and his cameraman.

“How does it feel to vote for the first time?” he asked.

“Great. I would encourage everyone to get out and do just that.”

“How do you think Duke will do today?”

“Fingers crossed,” I said as I held up my hand with my fingers crossed. “I think he’s exactly what we need in a mayor. At least you know he won’t be causing any harm to us while he’s in office.”

“No. I can’t imagine him embezzling funds. I’ll get suspicious if I see him with a backyard full of tennis balls,” Jeff joked.

“No worries there. Duke has a favorite tennis ball and could never be bribed to play with any other. He’s a one-tennis-ball kind of guy,” I assured him.

“I think we better end it there. Thanks for sharing with us,” Jeff said, and they stopped filming.

“You’re gold, as always. I need to get this in so we can get it on the air. See you at practice and then at Our House tonight,” Jeff said, and then hurried off.

We’d promised to take everyone who had helped gather signatures for Duke’s petition to be on the ballot out to dinner. We’d also decided to combine that with an election party at Our House. Mom said it would be free advertising for the restaurant. Personally, I wondered how we would get everyone in there before the fire marshal shut us down. I figured that if Duke was mayor, he might be able to pull a few strings.

We’d learned yesterday that our first playoff game was against Waterloo, located about two hours southwest of us. They were the school that had eliminated us at Sectionals in baseball last year. For the first state playoff game, they usually tried to make sure the teams didn’t have far to travel since it was a school night. It seemed we’d drawn the short straw and were forced to make the long drive tomorrow.

The people in charge promised us we would be at home for the remainder of the playoffs after tomorrow’s game, assuming we continued. It seemed a fair compromise for forcing us to travel so far for our first game.

Coach Hope had decided that we would use the same logistics we’d employed for the Broadview Academy game and leave right after lunch. This time the band wasn’t going, but the Booster Club had put together a tour package for our fans. The deal got you tickets to the game, dinner, and bus ride to and from the game, all for a nominal price. Those buses would leave a couple of hours after us.

The playoff field was mostly made up of the usual suspects. That included teams we’d played last year, such as Beverly, Central, and Unity, who we’d beaten in the championship game. There was one newcomer I wanted to play with a white-hot passion: Wesleyan.

Teddy Wesleyan had been true to his word in finding Coach Ryan players. Mike and Damion had become a lethal combination as the season wore on. They’d lost two games early but had run the table once they figured things out. Basically, you threw the football to Damion—a lot. And why wouldn’t you? Damion was six-six, ran like the wind, and had learned to catch the ball. If he were on my team, I would just tell him to go deep and let him use his size against smaller defenders. That was exactly what Wesleyan had done, to great success.

What irritated me, besides not having Damion on my team, was that it made Mike look like he was one of the best quarterbacks in the state. Michigan had offered him, and he’d verbally accepted. That was the one factor that made me hesitate about going there. His older brother was a dick, but Mike was far worse.

Mike was a good-looking guy and could date anyone he wanted, but Mike only seemed interested in going after women who were dating someone else. That predilection had led to his transferring last year. It was that, or Jim would have killed him. I might have held Mike down, but Jim was the one who wanted payback. When a guy Jim’s size decides to kill you, it’s time to go.

Tami admitted that Mike had hit on her after he started at Wesleyan. When she didn’t fall for his charms, he’d set his sights on Harper, my ex-girlfriend. I was sure he did it as a way of saying ‘f you’ to me. I almost felt sorry for Harper but felt confident that Tami had warned her. The other girls I knew at Wesleyan had heeded Tami’s warning.

The one whom I was surprised had followed Tami’s advice was Jenny Wesleyan. She’d confirmed my belief that she had terrible taste in men when she’d dated my nemesis, Mark from Eastside.

From all reports, Harper was happy. I knew that it was only a matter of time before Mike broke her heart by cheating on her. I didn’t think Mike could help himself. Someday he would do that, and someone would seriously hurt him.

The other person who had gone to Wesleyan was Alan. He’d talked his way into helping the coaching staff. Now there was someone I wanted to get payback on. With him and Mike on the team, I said a little prayer that we meet in the playoffs. For that to happen, it would have to be in the championship game since they were on the other side of the bracket. Maybe the football gods owed us for having to travel to Waterloo and would grant me my wish.

During football practice, we took time to practice onside kicks.

“Last week, we used what’s called the drag-and-dribble technique to success because they weren’t expecting it. Once Broadview knew we were going to onside-kick and got the right players on the field, we didn’t recover any others,” Coach Stevens reminded us.

“To be honest, that form of the onside kick has the lowest recovery percentage because it requires a gentle touch and a lot of luck,” he continued.

“I liked our luck then,” Ed said.

We all agreed.

“This week I want to try a new kick,” Coach Stevens said. “It’s called the pop-up kick. This is the one you’ll see being done at higher levels of football almost exclusively. Derek will sweep his foot through the very top of the ball, making contact right around the stripe. This causes the top point to smack the ground, causing the ball to pop up.

“The receiving team is taught to focus on the ball and ignore the defenders to make the recovery. Derek, I want you to kick the ball right at the outside upman if you can. His teammates will naturally try not to rush him so he can focus on recovering the ball.”

That made sense, because like in baseball, you wanted one person to call the ball to catch it. What was terrible was when two players ran into each other and neither caught it. I assumed the same applied to onside kicks.

“We’ll line up seven players on the side we plan to kick to. Five of you will be designated to block their upmen; two will go after the ball,” Coach Stevens told us as he drew up the play.

Our goal was to outnumber our opponents; if they were tied up with a block, then it left us free to recover the ball. Coach positioned me next to the kicker, and I was assigned to chase after the football. He placed Ed so he was lined up directly across from the upman we would kick toward. Coach utilized Wolf and Don as blockers because of their size and speed as receivers. He also pressed Tim, Yuri, and Kelly into duty because they were our best linebackers and able to deliver some punishment.

What I liked about his plan was that it put a lot of pressure on the upman the ball was being kicked toward. He had every advantage because he was able to charge the ball inside the ten yards. We had to wait until he either touched it or the ball traveled the requisite distance.

“One other point,” Coach Stevens said. “When you recover the football, always hand it to the referee. With the mass of bodies, they may not see who recovered the ball if you just drop it after the play.”

When we began to practice the play, I quickly saw how Coach planned to negate the upman’s advantage. The ball popped high in the air, which caused the upman to have to jump to catch the ball. Once his feet were off the ground, it made the catch much harder. Especially if you had someone hitting you after they’d had ten yards to gather their speed.

“Why doesn’t he just fair-catch it?” I asked.

Punt returners did that to prevent injury if the kicking team had them surrounded.

“The ball has already hit the ground. Once it touches the ground, you can’t call a fair catch,” Coach Stevens explained.

I couldn’t wait until Wednesday, because this was going to be fun.

Right after practice, we rushed off to get our flying in. My company was picking up the cost of Cassidy’s flying lessons, so she was with Brook and me. I think we made the flight school’s month when the three of us wanted to get in as much flying as possible. I wanted to have my license by the time I left for LA. To accomplish that, I had to complete forty hours of flight time, with an instructor along for thirty of them. The other ten hours would be solo flights. Brook had been taking things slower and was about to wrap up her required training. Today she would put in an hour of solo flying.

We walked into the training facility to find our instructors waiting. Roy had insisted that he train me personally. I wasn’t sure if he thought I was the problem child or if he wanted to draw on my celebrity. Either way, I was learning from the owner of the flight school. I figured that had to count for something.

“You ready?” Roy asked.

“Yes, sir.”

That seemed to be our usual greeting.

“What are we doing today?” I asked.

“We’re going to turn the plane around a point of reference. This will be one of the things you’ll be asked to execute during your test. The point you fly around needs to be something easily viewable from the air, and there must be a place nearby to land in case of trouble. We’re lucky that farms aren’t too far from here. We can use the intersection of two county roads as a practice point.”

“What will they be testing me on?” I asked.

“You’ll maneuver the airplane while compensating for drift during turns, while you orient the flight path with the ground as a reference. They’ll want to see you divide your attention, so you’ll be monitoring both the inside and the outside of the airplane. You’ll make sure you don’t bank the plane over forty-five degrees while you turn. We want to keep the altitude within a hundred-foot range and airspeed within ten knots.”

“What would cause me to fail?” I asked.

“Failure to pick a suitably clear area; picking a reference point that’s hard to see; problems with banking the plane; forgetting to recognize wind drift; and a variety of other things. I’ll point out failure points when we’re in the air,” Roy assured me.

When we got into the air, we found a county road intersection that didn’t have any trees or power lines nearby. Roy had me run through the procedure checklist. I was at an altitude of a thousand feet and approached the intersection downwind.

One fun thing was when you turned from downwind to crosswind. I learned that it could cause the plane to skid, much like I’d put a car into a power slide. Who knew that flying in circles could be such an adventure?

“Keep your procedures in mind,” Roy said. “Let’s try it again.”

We spent a full hour just on that. By the end of the hour, I had gotten the hang of it. I also had a fuller appreciation of the procedures Roy kept hammering into me. They provided guidelines that, if followed, made flying easier. I still needed to use good judgment, but this system gave me a foundation to execute the turns.

The only time Roy let his calm slip was when a wind gust caused me to overcompensate, and suddenly we were at an almost ninety-degree angle. He grabbed his stick and corrected us before I put us into a barrel roll. Most days I would have been all for that, but today it scared the shit out of me. I was glad he was in the cockpit with me.

That brought back memories of my wingboard adventure. I still had nightmares of spinning out of control on Devin Range’s death trap when he conned me into testing it for him. I honestly didn’t want to repeat that today.

When we were done, I met Cassidy and Brook in the lobby. Cassidy looked shaken-up.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I about died,” she shared. Brook and I stared at her until she gave us details. After all, turnabout was fair play. “The first time I executed the turn, I put us into a death spiral.”

I could envision that if you took too tight of a turn and lost altitude, it could be scary.

“Cool. I almost put us into a barrel roll,” I said to share my misadventure.

“Yeah, I did that when I started,” Brook admitted.

“You mean I wasn’t the only one to put my instructor in danger?” Cassidy asked.

“Wait until you learn to land. That can be exciting,” Brook assured Cassidy.

“Come on, let’s go eat,” I suggested.

My stomach growled its agreement.

Paul dropped us off at Our House for the election night party. The place was already packed. Most of the tables had been pulled out, and they had put in a standup bar where one of the cooks would make you a sandwich. Then there was a small buffet that had side dishes and garnishes.

My family had claimed a couple of tables on the upper level. Brook and I worked our way through the crowd, thanking them for their help as we did so. Cassidy waved at us to let us know she’d gotten us plates of food. I guess I would let Fritz’s decision not to fire her stand. He’d told her she should have protected me from Brook’s attempt on my family jewels. I wasn’t sure whether she would go against Brook if it ever happened again. I decided not to test my theory by pissing off my girlfriend enough that she felt it necessary.

We went to eat; I planned to work the crowd again after I had food in me. Little David wanted to be held, so I took him as I sat down to have my sandwich. He was eating solid food and was interested in my dinner.

“It looks good,” I told him, giving him a piece of the meat.

Cassidy had gotten me an Italian sub with different meats on it. I figured ham was safe. Everything was okay until Little David got a taste of the spicy mustard. He gave me a look like, ‘Dad, what are you doing to me, Man?’

“Sorry, Buddy. Let me get you another piece.”

I didn’t blame him when he was cautious with it. Once he was sure it was good, he was back to wolfing it down.

Grandma Dawson came in with Duke when I was about done eating. He was happy to see everyone. That was until Little David gave him the ham with spicy mustard on it. You could see Duke didn’t like it, but that didn’t stop him from eating it. Oh, the joys of having children and pets. All I could really say was that neither had killed the other so far.

“The polls close in a few minutes,” Grandma Dawson reminded us.

“Any idea how we’re doing?” Dad asked.