Chapter 7: Digital Dreams

The inert wheels of the Cessna 152 chirped only slightly as the touch-down moved them from zero to about fifty miles-an-hour in an instant. Tony had a chest full of steering yoke as he did his third landing at Middle Georgia Regional Airport. This one was to be a full stop. The previous two had been touch-and-goes as Barry, his flight instructor, had tried to drill into him the finer points of stalling out the little aircraft only a few inches above the runway.

"That's almost perfect!" Barry said. You were a little yawed to the right there. You felt that bite to the left on touchdown right?"

"Yeah, I was so worried about flaring at the right height I missed that," Tony replied.

"Normal," Barry said, "but not good OK? You always have to think in three dimensions. Can you get us to the FBO?"

Tony chuckled, thinking of his last flying lesson. After successfully landing the little plane he realized he had no idea how to navigate the airport. It was a humiliating lesson and one he had no doubt that Barry intended. "Yeah, believe me I studied the layout this time." He had studied the layout, but he also had the airport schematic on the kneeboard strapped to his left thigh just to make sure.

Of course actually getting to his destination had its own challenges. It never occurred to him before his first actual flying lesson that a plane would be harder to steer on the ground than in the air. Using nothing but throttle and the individual brake pedals to put the little thing where you wanted was so far outside his experience that he was still fairly shaky at it. Eventually, on his second attempt, he got the Cessna in the indicated tie-down spot and began his shutdown checklist.

"You sure you're OK with this?" Tony asked minutes later.

"I'm fine Tony, go see your little friend. I'll just hang out in the pilot's lounge."

"OK, thanks Barry, I'll make sure I'm back in a couple of hours at the most."

Tony took the fixed base operator's (FBO) courtesy car and headed into Macon. Directions from the front desk of the Shriners hospital led him to the sixth floor and the room of Edna Warren. He poked his head around the door only to find little Edna fast asleep. "Well," Tony muttered quietly. "I guess there are times when she doesn't talk."

He realized this was his chance to escape. It was a cowardly thought. Edna would most likely see her twenty-fifth birthday after all. Then again she might not see her tenth. He was setting himself up for something he wasn't sure he could handle if things went bad. Damn me and my promises! he thought.

A quiet chuckle came from the other side of the room. The curtain between the two beds was drawn half-way and it hadn't registered to Tony that the far one was occupied. "Is it OK to come over?" he asked.

"Sure, everything's decent over here," came the reply.

Tony rounded the curtain to find a blond girl who was probably Tina and Rebecca's age, she was quite pretty. "Hi," he said. "I'm Tony." He held out his hand to the girl who took it.

"I'm Susan. Are you here to see Edie?"

"Edie? Yeah, I guess so, I never knew she was called that. We mostly share letters back and forth, I only met her once in the parade in Savannah. I just called her Edna."

"Oh! That Tony! She talks about you quite a bit. She says you built all the wheelchairs."

Tony laughed. "Well I wouldn't go quite that far. I work with the charity that does that."

"Well to hear her talk you're in charge of the whole thing."

"Well I work at it with my sister and my girlfriend. Just how much 'in charge' do you think I'm really allowed to be?" Tony said with a smile.

Susan laughed at that, loud enough that it woke Edna.

"Susie," she said groggily, "who are you talking to?"

"Wake up Edie, a friend of yours is here!"

Edna opened her eyes and focused on Tony. "Tony? Tony! You came!"

"Of course I did silly girl. I told you I'd visit when I could, didn't I?" Tony moved to the side of her bed and gathered the nine-year-old into a hug. "How are you?"

"Pretty good I guess, I wish they'd let me out of here more. How did you get here? Did you drive all the way?"

"Nope, I flew up in a little plane. I'm taking lessons so we're doing our lesson around here today so I could stop in and see you."

"Cool! You can fly?"

Tony laughed. Edna had gone from fully asleep into chatterbox overdrive in fifteen seconds. "Actually the plane flies, I'm just learning to steer it and not run into things."

"Tony! That's what I meant. Will you take me flying? I've never been in a plane before."

"Hold on, hold on! Did I mention I was just learning right now? They definitely don't let me take anyone else in the plane with me yet except my flying teacher. Maybe in a couple of months I'll have my license and I can take you if the doctors say it's OK. Oh and your parents too, I am still only seventeen. That might, you know, kind of freak them out a little."

"You can get a license to fly when you're seventeen?" Susan interjected.

"Yeah, you have to be seventeen, but you can do it then."

"Cool!" Both girls said in unison.

"So," Tony said. "I brought you some stuff." Tony had a shopping sack with him and he reached in and pulled out a tissue-wrapped object about twice the size of his hand and handed it to Edna.

She quickly tore into it to reveal a porcelain figurine of a horse and a rider in English costume. Edna had been utterly captivated by the horses in the parade.

"It's beautiful Tony! Oh I so want to ride one someday!"

"No promises," Tony said. "I'll see what can be done, but don't get your hopes up. Here, I have something else." He went back to the bag and pulled out a Sony Walkman and handed it to her. Then he produced a ninety minute audio cassette. "Gwen made you a tape of our band."

"Ahh! The band, you told me about it, but I never saw it. This is your music?"

"Yep, and you did see the band, we were just working on wheelchairs at the time. You remember Tina and Rebecca right?"

"Yeah, Rebecca is your girlfriend and Tina is your little sister. They're both very nice."

"Well that's half the band right there, I did introduce you to Dewayne and Jerry and Kyle."

"Hmm yeah, I remember, Jerry has long hair, Kyle's really tall. Dewayne was the black guy right? He brought me a sandwich and a Coke and talked with me while you were giving the trophies out. His girlfriend was with him."

"Yep that's them. Here, look, do you ever read these?" Tony produced a copy of the July issue of Teen Beat.

"Oh, yeah I've seen them once or twice."

"Page twenty-three." Tony said.

Edna quickly flipped through the pages until she found the right one. Her eyes grew wide. "You're famous!"

Tony laughed. "Maybe, a little bit. We haven't even recorded a record yet though. We're working on that now, but we're not really happy with the normal record companies. I think we are just going to start our own."

"You should bring the whole band to play for us!"

"Haha, look at that picture again! Can you imagine us bringing all that stuff in here? I tell you what, next time I'll bring my guitar OK? I think I can fit that on the plane."

"OK, I guess I can see that. It would be cool though. So how long can you stay?"

Tony looked at his watch and said, "Only about another thirty minutes. My instructor is waiting on me back at the airport."

"Ah, that's not fair."

"I'm sorry Edie, we have to get back Savannah pretty soon. I have a show tonight."

"I wish I could go!"

"Me too!" Susan said.

"Not likely. We're playing a nightclub in Savannah. Neither of you could get in even if you could go. I guess they don't let you guys get out of here too often."

"They let me go some places for a day or so," Edna said. "Like to Savannah. I even go home for a few days now and then but I always seem to end up back here."

"Look Edie, if you let me leave a little early I'll ask what I can do OK? Do you like boats?"

"I've never been on a boat either."

"Oh boy! I've got the coolest boat. We sailed it all the way to New Jersey this summer."

"Yeah, you told me about it in one of your letters. It would be cool to see that."

"What about you Susan? Do you like boats?"

"Sure, but I'm just here for a few days. I have to do dialysis. I got an infection. I'm only Edie's temporary roommate."

"Well make sure Edie can contact you then."

There had been recording offers, four of them in the last month. The band eventually became aware of the tape made by the Ziggurat crew at the New Jersey concert. It was apparently making its way around various studios. They realized that they had some very big supporters in one of the nation's most popular rock bands.

The offers themselves, however, were simply unacceptable. Not only would the band only make pennies on the dollar for whatever recorded music they sold, the other stipulations were impossible as well. After negotiations the most reasonable of them required twenty-five touring dates a year; something that would require the band to give up school in favor of tutors. It also gave almost total creative control to the studio. No one thought taking musical control out of Tina's hands or sound production out of the hands of Gwen and Chrissie was an acceptable idea. That was pretty much what got them out of the basement, quite literally, in the first place.