Chapter 1

“So...” My new boss was talking. “You graduated last week from high school and landed this job?” It was Monday, just three days after graduation, and I was thrilled to be done with school while I worked to save some money for education later. “That is pretty good work if you ask me. Most of the men the company sends me are either failures at other jobs or think they are too good to do the work. You seem to want to work, so let’s give it a try.”

“What do I call you, by the way? Did your parents give you a name other than Calvin Edward Goodwin?”

I offered him my hand to shake. “I’m just plain Cal. I really HATE being called Calvin. It makes me sound like a cartoon character.” He shrugged like he thought that was an impossibility. In the fifteen minutes, since I reported for my first day of work as a glorified janitor, cleaning the planes belonging to a fortune five-hundred company that hangared at the airport, I had already learned several things.

“You lucked out, kid. My last cleanup boy got a good job at the big plant on Route Nine. He had to leave so suddenly that I didn’t even get a chance to ask personnel to place an ad. They sent me your application the same morning Chuck left us. I figured it was God’s way of not making me do two men’s jobs until we hired a replacement.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t even read your application. Once they sent it to me, I knew they’d already checked it out, so you had to be acceptable. ‘Send me the new guy,’ was what I said when I called down to confirm you as a new hire.”

He looked at me critically then, “You’re awfully skinny, kid. Don’t your parents feed you?”

His comment unintentionally hurt me. My childhood was one long, painful series of loneliness and hunger. My mother wasted much of her strength screaming into my five-year-old face, “We didn’t want you. We couldn’t afford you, and if I could have scraped the money together, I would have aborted you.” I was just a hair over six feet tall and less than one hundred and forty pounds. Skinny was the perfect description for me. Far too often, people commented that I disappeared when I turned sideways or that they could grab me and use my body as a whip.

My new boss, Tom Muir was one of those hard-working, wise guys who always missed out on good promotions because of his big mouth and lack of tact. By the time he showed me where to hang my jacket and who to see to get the cleaning supplies I needed for the day, he had bad-mouthed everyone from the receptionist to the Flight Operations General Manager. No shrinking violet, Tom was brash, cynical, and completely certain that the world conspired to keep him down, all of which he hastened to share with me during my first minutes of employment.

Eventually, we started to wash and wax a helicopter that had flown extensively the day before. Tom was nothing if not thorough. and though we talked as we worked, we worked hard, fast, and efficiently. He had a tradesman’s eye for detail and warned me whenever I missed or was in danger of missing. a spot, while covering his half of the chopper in half the time it took me.

“You’ll do fine,” he declared as we washed out our cleaning cloths and neatened up the area around the chopper where we worked. “Just keep close attention to every inch of the fuselage, and when you think you’re done, step back and look carefully over the entire area. You’ll soon find any spots you’ve missed before the peanut gallery calls it to your attention ... and everyone else’s within earshot.” He was off and running, complaining about the gossipers, tattletales, frustrated English teachers who thought it was their divine right to correct every word we said and general fussbudgets that simply lived to make us miserable.

We worked steadily, but not too hard for the remainder of the morning, breaking for lunch at exactly noon. Tom walked out with me and said, “Be back at one. We will have an easy afternoon and maybe get to knock off early. We will see how things go.”

Lunch was the least expensive, old-fashioned hero sandwich from a mom-and-pop deli right down the street, and a bottle of Snapple to wash it down. The executives must have been too busy to fly around that day because we finished everything waiting to be cleaned before three-thirty. “See you tomorrow at eight, sharp. I like it when people are on time, and you were early today. Keep it up and we’ll get along fine,” were Tom’s parting words as we headed out to our cars.

Just before we got to our cars, parked in the last row of employee parking, I saw a young woman walking towards the hangar with a man and an older woman. They might have been her parents as similar as the girl was to the woman. The two were slightly overweight, but the weight made their curves more attractive. Other than the twenty-something years that separated them, they could have been sisters, so I decided that they have been mother and daughter.

Tom saw where my eyes went, and he laughed a bitter laugh. “You keep your eyes off of that girl,” he spoke softly, but the warning was clear. “That’s the big honcho’s wife and daughter. They don’t breathe the same air as we mortals. I had to fire a clean-up boy for just staring at them like you are doing now.”

It seemed unfair to get fired for looking, but if he was the founder, then they were gazillion-aires, and we really didn’t breathe the same air. It was good advice, and I averted my gaze before I got caught. It didn’t really matter as I wasn’t smitten, just curious. It was my first time seeing a for-real billionaire in person and I couldn’t help but look.

Tom saw my reaction and tried to soften the blow. “I know ... She’s a beauty, but I hear she’s engaged to another mega fortune, so don’t torture yourself. We little people don’t exist as far as those types know. We’re just tools they use to make their lives easier and hassle-free. The rule around here is Don’t look. Don’t speak to them unless spoken to. Oh, and they only speak to us when they want something and think we might be almost smart enough to fetch it for them.” Tom shook his head at his own words and mumbled something unkind under his breath as we parted.

Except for the dreams, which seemed to increase in frequency, the rest of my first month as a former high school student, suddenly employed full-time as the lowliest member of the Corporate Flight Operations, went similarly. I arrived before eight AM, worked hard, but not too hard, picked up my pay, and went home.

As I drove away from the airport, my mind drifted off to my own life. Everything I knew about my life felt like it happened to someone else. I couldn’t really feel myself in my memories. I just sort of had them. Crazy, I know, but it was how I felt about the life that I was living. The dreams made everything in my life seem sort of temporary. It was as if my subconscious was telling me that some great change was coming that would explain it all and make my life worthwhile.

My social life was pretty thin and having had parents that wished they hadn’t had me, my home life had been non-existent. It took me a few paychecks to supplement the money I saved just so I could leave home and forget that I ever lived there, but I found a one-room, garage/studio apartment that I could afford. It was very near the airport and the local community college I attended two nights a week, at the state-subsidized rate of twenty-three dollars a credit hour. One-hundred and thirty-eight dollars just about bankrupted me, but the company reimbursed educational expenses provided I managed to maintain a “C” average. Making such an easy grade was about as hard as falling off a bench and hitting the ground. The tiny, windowless room and my dependable, old and ugly beater of a car, made up my entire worldly fortune.

When I announced my intention to move out my mother snorted, and my father laughed. Neither bothered to wish me luck. I didn’t bother to tell them goodbye, either so...

There was never enough left from my paycheck for any type of fun. My life consisted of working to pay bills. I had picked up a pretty good bicycle at a garage sale. The old folks were downsizing and selling off everything they didn’t use anymore. The bicycle had been their son’s and he had moved out years before without taking it. I got it for twelve dollars, which was all the cash I had in my wallet at the time. On weekends I would ride my bicycle for exercise on the trails at the company country club. Now and then I treated myself to a pizza and Pepsi at a local pizza joint, but that was the extent of my life. Falling back on the family was not an option, so I was emphatic about making it on my own.

At night I dreamed.

The most common dream had some other ‘me’ lying in a hospital bed, terribly injured, shot and beat up, trying to survive but not knowing who I was, or where I belonged. The rush of fear that accompanied the amnesia, tended to scare me awake long before I found out any of my personal details.

Some nights I’d awaken so shaken that sleep was not going to be possible. On those nights I often rode my bicycle out to a nearby lake and sat on the rocks watching the moon dance on the water. The solitude gave me enough peace to shake off the night terrors from the dreams and head home for a little more sleep.

On other nights, my dreams were bright and colorful, full of adventure, women, and excitement. They haunted and pleasured me in equal amounts. With nothing to fall back on, I was tempted to think that everybody had weird dreams just like mine, but something was a bit too far off for me to buy into that line.

At times, the dreams seemed more real than my life. The stark reality of the dreams seduced me throughout the day. By ten at night, I almost couldn’t wait to lie down and sleep, looking forward to the escape into those exotic and exciting places. Those nights were full of adventure, romance, and daring, cliff-hanger-type challenges...

During the day I worked.

My days were full of cleaning solutions, soft, white, rags, and polish. I worked hard, and overtime opportunities came up often enough that my job was self-sustaining. It might not have been exciting, but it was dependable.

The flight ops crew eventually accepted me and started to talk to me about their jobs as mechanics, engineers, flight instructors, and pilots. I was often pulled off cleaning jobs to drive pilots to other airports where one, or another of the company jets, or choppers were waiting for a new pilot due to the current pilot having flown too many hours. When that happened, I spent a few hours cleaning up the aircraft in question and then headed back to the airport. Sometimes I was working inside a jet when the mechanics needed to take it up and test something they were working on. When that happened, I was told to belt myself in and sit quietly so they could do their work.

The allure of flight had always fascinated me. That was a big part of why I was so glad to land a job working around airplanes, even if I was just a glorified janitor. Over time, one of the pilots in charge of advanced and continued training started to talk with me about taking flying lessons. He gave me an old set of Ground School books and I devoured them in my off hours, learning all I could. From time to time Joe Mason would quiz me using questions from the Ground School exams. It was enormously interesting, even though I knew that I’d never be able to afford flying lessons.

Tom and I worked well together, and as his annual September vacation neared, he started to prepare me to work alone in his absence. We spent hours going over rules, procedures, limitations, and potential wild cards that might come up while he was gone.

Even though I knew it was pointless, I noticed each time the Washburn family arrived or departed. Rosemary’s sandy brown hair shone in the sunlight as she walked from their Rolls to the plane taking them far away to somewhere exciting. Even though she was not what anyone would call stunning, or gorgeous, there was a clean and simple beauty about her that seemed to say that she was a nice person. At least that was how I imagined her during those times the Washburn family arrived or departed.

My dream life eventually included Rosemary. We were always meeting by happenstance, and the sparks flew between us. In my dreams, we fell hopelessly in love and lived happily ever after.

But only in my dreams.

Tom would catch me looking and shake his finger at my folly. “Your eyes are going to get your ass fired one day if you’re not careful, Cal.” He would smile to take the sting out of his words, but I knew he was right. When I looked around my tiny, airless room, I knew that no rich girl would even notice that I was alive, and the girls that I might have dated never got a chance because I worked all day and attended night school. The two evenings a week at the local community college ate up all the extra money I might have used to go on an occasional date. Those two commitments took up my entire week. Studying and working were the only things on the agenda for me.

I did enjoy going to church. It was a bit of an escape from my humdrum life. There was a huge church about five minutes from the airport. They had several Sunday services, and I tried them all, finally settling for the eleven AM Sunday service. The pastor and most of the staff never noticed me. I was truly invisible to everyone. I guess with all the rich people that attended, it was obvious that I was never going to be one of their special donors, so it made no sense to speak to me, or even pretend to greet me, as I entered through the front doors every week.

Their lack of interest in me never damaged my enthusiasm for the service. The church had a full choir, and large orchestra and the place was filled with the happiest spirit. It made me feel good just to sit there and enjoy the ambiance. The plethora of pretty women and girls that came with their fathers and husbands didn’t hurt either.

One day, shortly after I had begun showing up each Sunday, the choir director stopped me on the way out and asked me to come to choir practice on the coming Wednesday evening. “Hi. I’m Mike Jones. It has been my pleasure to direct the choir for many years here, and one of my spies heard you singing the hymns last Sunday and said you have a pretty clear voice. We need more men, and I would really appreciate you at least giving it a try. You have nothing to lose, and you’ll get to meet a bunch of really fine folks.

“Please give us a chance.” He seemed so sincere I thought there wasn’t much of a risk, especially since it wasn’t a school night. If I sucked at singing, he would discover it soon enough and kick me out of the choir.

So, I took the risk.

Wednesday came right on schedule and instead of my airless, lifeless room, I drove my beater of a car to church and discovered the choir room way in the back. There was a smattering of people, mostly much older than me, wandering about, picking through music and setting up folders to hold the song sheets.

A nice, old guy latched on to me, and said, “Hi. Mike said he had a new guy coming tonight. I’m glad to meet you. My name is Bob Simpson, and this is my wife, Marie.” He said indicating the smiling, octogenarian beside him.

“I’m Cal,” I said, offering my hand to shake. They both took a hand and used them to steer me to a chair in the male section of the choir, offering particularly useless information about the choir members, their current and past professions, and other commentary I immediately forgot.

Mike took his place at the music stand and saved me from certain cross-examination, as he called the rehearsal to order. For a group of senior citizens, this choir clearly knew what they were doing. Their rehearsal was serious and focused. As a newbie, I was understandably lost. Bob tried to keep me on the right page, showing me with his stubby finger where we were whenever I gave up and stopped singing.

Over the course of a few months, Mike worked with me, teaching me how to read the music, understand the hieroglyphics on the music staff that told when to sing loud and when to shut up, among other important directions, and how to use my voice to make an impression through the songs.

It was on a Sunday morning in August, while sitting in my usual seat in the choir, that I saw Rosemary stroll in with her parents like arriving royalty. The ushers fawned over all three of them, and they were escorted to an obviously reserved pew near the front and center.

The Washburn family never so much entered, as they arrived.

Father Washburn founded the company on a big idea and a generous helping of guts. His inventions came along at a time when the Department of Defense was desperate for exactly that type of help. He sold the technology but held the patents, which made him as rich as an oil baron and powerful beyond belief. He was tall and thin, very serious looking and quite erect at all times. I wondered if he slept fully dressed and at attention. He seemed so remote and stiff.

According to Tom, Maeve Washburn ascended to her throne by default. Her wardrobe was considered epic, as was her jewelry collection. Their taste in fine art was displayed in their many sundry mansions scattered around the world. Maeve came from old money, but she married gigantic money, making her the winner among her social set. For all the pomp and excess, she appeared to act like a normal person, instead of one of the glittering, beautiful people.