GHOST OF THE RUPTURED DUCK
“Win, when does your Christmas break start?”
“The nineteenth is my last day of class,” Winfield answered, wondering why Brooks bothered to call instead of waiting for their two o’clock meeting.
“Going anywhere?”
“The MLA Convention is in Chicago the first week of January,” Winfield said, tapping his MITI desk calendar. “Other than that I will be in town. I’ve got some writing to do.”
Some writing. There were three chapters of his seemingly never-to-be-completed Critical Thinking for Cultural Diversity: A Workbook to write. The publisher’s deadline had passed. His story about a sudden appointment to a governor’s task force on minority student retention had been convincing enough for his editor to grant a sixty-day extension. But even with extra time, it would be tight. He had two hundred pages to grind out.
“I’m open,” he found himself saying.
“Feel like a fast trip to Texas?”
Winfield leaned forward, brushing aside a stack of freshman themes. A summons from Brooks was usually lucrative. Income from textbooks, business seminars, and his unsigned club reviews in Midwest Exotic Dancer paled before consulting jobs with Frederick Douglass Savings and Loan.
“What have you got?” Winfield asked, his money hunger mounting like junk bond fever.
“I just got off the phone with Bill Reynolds down at Lone Star Savings. Those cowboys are having problems. One default after another. We’re going to clean up. They’re selling off foreclosed assets for twenty-five cents on the dollar. And Win, you wouldn’t believe what they’ve seized!”
Brooks seemed abnormally excited. “I thought you said we were overinvested in Texas,” Winfield reminded him.
“Sure, sure. Who needs another fifty foreclosed ranch houses? There’s an office tower outside Houston I want. But the main thing. . . and this is just unreal. . . The main thing is that Lone Star foreclosed the Barr estate. Remember George Barr?”
“The movie actor? The cowboy who made all those spaghetti Westerns?”
“Right. He made a ton of dough in real estate during the bubble. Well, he went bust in 2008 and had to float his empire on loans. He died three years ago, and his son-in-law tried to keep things going. Last week he had to throw in the towel, and Lone Star foreclosed. They grabbed all kinds of property and movie stuff. You will never believe what’s on the block. And nobody knows about it yet. Just us. They have a B-25 mothballed in a hangar outside Houston.”
“A B-25? You mean a bomber?”
“B series. The same model used in the Doolittle raid. It’s mint. Completely restored for a movie project that fell through.”
“An airplane?” Win asked again, still not sure he was following Brooks.
“Sure. Do you know what a collector would pay for something like that? The Lone Star guy had me drooling. The ship probably just needs a good overhaul and an FAA check. Once we get the papers and insurance in order, we can fly her home.”
“A B-25? You mean like the plane on display at Mitchell Field?”
“Sure. Just a different model. The thing is this, can you fly down Friday and check it out? I’ll be stuck in town until the fifteenth. Besides, it’s a chiclet run. Reynolds sounds as prejudiced as hell. You’ll probably run into the son-in-law. He’s still tight with Lone Star. George Barr was a right wing nut. I don’t imagine the family would want to see one of their toys sold to a black guy. Bijan has his multi-engine license, but they probably won’t cotton to an Iranian either. I’d appreciate it if you could go down and check the plane out and make an offer.”
“How much?”
“Lone Star wants cash. If we can offer 150 G’s, they might just take it. That’s what the army paid for those birds back in ‘42. Just by the inflation factor, the plane’s worth a million and a half. Maybe more. How many B-25’s can there be left?”
“What are you going to do a bomber?”
“Fly it! Air shows. Fourth of July celebrations. Think of the publicity! It will get us in tight with veterans, the kinds of folks who’d never think of doing business with a black outfit. Besides, it’s a public service. This is a piece of history.”
Brooks’ enthusiasm was infectious. Pushing forty, having avoided Iraq, Haiti, Bosnia, and Afghanistan, Win harbored a non-combatant’s guilt about his secret fascination with WWII. Browsing in Barnes & Noble, he was inevitably lured to the oversized discount editions of Planes of the Third Reich or Destination Normandy. His pacifist heart began to beat like a tom-tom.
“When can you get over here?”
“My last class ends at one.”
“Great. I’ll send Lionel to get some books from the library. See you then, boyo.”
The subzero afternoon was blinding. The sun blazed in a cloudless arctic blue sky. Glazed in snow and ice, the neo-classic S&L shimmered like a frosted wedding cake. In the brilliant domed lobby, the commanding oil portrait of Frederick Douglass seemed less grim in the snow-reflected light. There was even a hint of a smile in the old boy.
Brooks and Lionel were circling the conference table when Winfield arrived.
“Win! Great to see you. Check out the books Lionel picked up. Here’s a diagram. The B-25. One of the greatest planes of World War II. Twin Wright engines. Seventeen-hundred horsepower. Two-hundred-and-eighty-five miles an hour max speed. That’s power! We could make the East Coast in four hours. God, we have to get this.”
Winfield flipped through the books spread across the oak table. Exploded diagrams showed details of the cockpit, machine gun turret, and bomb bay. War movies came back to him. Spencer Tracy lifting off the deck of the Hornet in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.
“Isn’t she grand?” Brooks asked. “One of the best planes they ever built. Look at that tail configuration. First class. Here’s the thing, Win. We’ve got to be sharp. I want you to check out an office building as a ruse. Spend a lot of time and ask a lot of questions. Take notes and shoot some videos. Keep them talking and make a lot of calls to us. Just chat with Joyce or Lionel. We have to make them think we want to make an offer on the building. Then, mention the plane. Say you know some retired Air Force colonel who might make an offer if the price is right. Act like it’s a favor, your own deal on the side. Say you’re willing to put down a few thousand just to hold it. Check out the plane and take pictures. Make sure to get shots of the engines. I’ll go over the plans with you and make a list of things to look for.”
“Who’s going to pay for this?”
“We’ll use discretionary funds. I’ll finance it myself if I have to. My old man will kick something in, too. He’ll be thrilled. He flew a two-engine prop in Nigeria in the Eighties. I’ll pay you five thousand plus expenses if you can nail this down.” He slapped Win on the back, “Isn’t this wild?”
The following day, Winfield gave his composition classes an unannounced in-class writing so he could concentrate on memorizing specifications of the B-25. As he studied diagrams of wings, cowlings, and wheel assemblies, his anticipation mounted. After class, he drove to the Burlington Coat Factory and bought an official replica bomber jacket made in Taiwan.
The executives of Lone Star Savings and Loan greeted Winfield at the Houston airport like an arriving sheik. He could see the hunger in their eyes. Taken to lunch by Chris Bellows, a vice-president, Winfield noted his relief when he refused a drink offer and ordered the house salad.
Munching the special-of-the-day tuna melt, Bellows tapped Winfield’s business card. “Frederick Douglass,” he drawled. “I heard of a Frederick Douglass back in school. Was he that. . .”
“He invented the linotype machine,” Win answered, self-consciously smoothing his blond hair.
“Oh.”
As instructed, Winfield spent most of the day walking through an empty office tower, making notes and asking questions about square footage, sprinkler and alarm systems, signage, insurance premiums, and taxes. From time to time he made phone calls, holding enthusiastic conversations with his voicemail. As they drove to the savings and loan, Winfield ventured, “Chris, going over your list of assets, I noticed you have the Barr estate. There’s some sort of plane for sale?” he asked offhandedly.
“The army plane? Yep, that’s been stored in a private hangar.”
“I suppose it’s just scrap now,” Win mused, gazing out the window.
“Oh, no, it’s all sealed up in plastic. Barr was real particular about it. His uncle flew one in the war. Shot down over Italy, I think.”
“You know,” Win hinted, hoping to not to sound too interested, “There’s a guy I know in the Shamrock Club who’s into old planes. Retired Air Force colonel. He still flies. Goes to all the air shows. He might be interested if the price isn’t too steep.”
“Well, it’s not just a matter of price, but of time. We have to move on this property. We have an audit coming up, and we need cash.”
“I could put down a deposit, just until I talk to the guy. If I know him, he’ll pay cash. He hates loans. He sold his tavern last year, so he should be good for it. But, I’ll have to talk him. . .”
“What could you put down?”
“Five thousand.”
“Deal.” Chris Bellows nodded. Dollar signs danced in his eyes. Smiling, he pulled into a Taco Bell and even offered to buy Win a burrito supreme. “I’ll talk to Bill as soon as we get to the office. Jack Hughes, that’s Barr’s son-in-law, would be glad to tell you about the plane. He’s trying to sell his Cessna.”
Winfield hid his smile by crunching into a cardboard taco.
The next morning Winfield met Jack Hughes in the flickering neon lobby of the Rialto Cinema.
“I’ve been able to hang onto the theaters,” Hughes said. “We’re one of the last independent chains around. We’ve got sixteen screens in Texas and New Mexico,” he said, gesturing with smooth white hands. He was cowboy lean and muscular but pale. A modern Texan, he kept in shape by pumping iron in air-conditioned spas, swimming in indoor pools, and avoiding the carcinogenic sunshine. Pushing through a revolving door, he paused to don a cap and dark glasses before heading outside. Guiding Win to his BMW, he turned to point to the marquee. “The old man used to show his flicks here for his cronies. Served shrimp in popcorn boxes and Jack Daniels in Dixie cups. Quite a character. Drunk, he was a sonofabitch. Sober, he had real class. I hear you wanna see the Ruptured Duck?”
“The what?”
“The old army crate, the B-25. Don’t know why anyone would want that. Expensive as hell to maintain. And the ride. Christ, it’s like a dump truck on a dirt road. It’s not pressurized. You bake on the runway and freeze at eight thousand feet. The Cessna’s a better deal. Padded seats, bar, computers, DVD player. I’ll let it go for one-twenty. Engines have less than three hundred hours.”
“Well, I don’t fly. But I have a friend who just might want the bomber. Retired Air Force.”
“Well, that’s Bill Reynold’s problem, not mine. I’m no dummy. The stuff I wanted didn’t get tagged for collateral. The old man had a ‘37 Packard and a ‘41 Caddy. Cherry. I’m keeping the Caddy. The Packard and the Cessna will be enough to bail me out and pay my kid’s tuition. I might even ditch the theaters if I get a chance. I never liked running movie houses. The ushers steal you blind. But the old man loved them. They were his last link to Hollywood. Gave him a reason to call the studios once a month and act like a player. Hell, I’d rather go back to teaching fifth grade. Spend my summers in France. But, I’ll show you the plane. Chris has the keys to the padlocks. He should be there by the time we arrive. Promise me, though, let me take you up in the Cessna. Just a test flight. Your Air Force pal might have a friend.”
“Oh sure, love to,” Win promised.
Unlocking the hangar, Chris Bellows snapped on the lights.
“Wow!” Winfield exclaimed, immediately cursing himself for dropping out of character.
“Yeah, right out of Citizen Kane. Old man Barr sure loved to collect stuff and could never throw anything away. Movie props. Boats. Cars. Airplane engines. The front porch off a cowboy saloon. Saddles. The plane’s in back.”
Draped in plastic, the bomber resembled a giant cocooned insect.
“It’s pretty dirty. You might want to change. We have overalls in the office.”
“Good idea,” Winfield said in a bored tone. “I don’t want to ruin a good suit on the off chance some washed up pilot might buy a surplus crate.”
While Win changed, Jack Hughes and Chris Bellows pulled back the plastic sheathing gone opaque with dust.
“There’s a story to this plane,” Hughes said. “It never left the States. After the Doolittle Raid, the army painted up some ships for a bond tour. It was loaned out to a movie studio. In ‘46 it went to an Air National Guard unit. Then the old man bought it for hunting trips. He had it fully restored in ‘93. Spent half a million hoping to nail down a movie deal. He bought a script about a bunch of WWII vets who fix up a bomber for a war movie then use the plane to smuggle pot in from Mexico. He had Ernest Borgnine and Bob Stack in mind for the leads. But the drug angle scared off his producers, so the idea was scrapped. Listen, Chris and I have to get back to town. Suppose we pick you up in a couple of hours?”
“Sure. Take your time.”
Alone with the Ruptured Duck, Winfield opened the forward hatch and climbed the small ladder. The interior smelled of dust and metal. Trying to stand, he bumped his head. The pilots’ compartment was smaller than the front seat of his Mustang. Having pored over online diagrams and coffee-stained army air corps manuals, he knew what to look for. He crawled into the greenhouse of the nose then slid down the narrow tunnel over the bomb bay leading to the gun turret and tail. His initial curiosity satisfied, he clambered out and set to work. He rigged up some work lights and started taking videos.
Leaning forward in his executive chair, Brooks Adams gripped the Naugahide armrests with nervous excitement as he watched his laptop.
“You can see the interior has been completely restored to the original specifications. Even the fire extinguishers are authentic,” Winfield explained. “I found the machine guns and some empty ammo cans.”
“OK, OK, I don’t have to see anymore. He took the deposit, right? Call Bellows back. You talk to him, I’m too excited.”
An hour later, Winfield told Brooks to check his email.
“Did we get it?”
“Take a look. He went for the hundred and fifty grand less the deposit. I told them the check’s on the way.”
“I’m sending Larry Gates down this weekend. He’s the best aviation mechanic I know. He works on his uncle’s DC-3. He’ll check out the engines and tell us what we need to get her airworthy. God, Win, this spring we can fly her to the Coast!”
Christmas was always a special time for Winfield. After the rush of final exams and the first blasts of Wisconsin’s blizzards, he flew home to the comparative warmth of New Jersey. Pushing forty and single, he could bask in the extended adolescence of being an only child home from college. Christmas vacation meant Broadway shows, dinners at Sardi’s, nights in Atlantic City, the candlelit service on Christmas Eve, presents, visits from relatives, shopping sprees, and boozy rendezvous with ex-girlfriends now divorced and restless. In his old room, Winfield pored over his high school yearbook and called his very first girlfriend, recently separated from her third husband. She was eager to talk. She was writing a book in hopes of making an appearance on The View and wanted advice. She had four chapters written and a prospective title—Sex in My City.
Just after Christmas each year, the Modern Language Association convenes for a three-day convention. English professors, grammarians, Italian linguists, Marxist critics, Shakespearean scholars, feminist rhetoricians, gay poets, e-novelists, film makers, tenured entrepreneurs, editors, jobless PhD’s, failed playwrights, rising essayists, deconstructionist hacks, Melville biographers, Kerouac bloggers, haiku Tweeters, and wanna-be Angelous converge in hotel lobbies, crowding the bars and lounges between seminars. Hundreds come to present papers. Thousands come to find jobs, hawk books, get published, or get laid. The event is part Super Bowl, part slave market, part fashion show. An ego carnival. A place to be seen and quoted. Attendees wear preppie tweeds and khaki slacks, Armani silks, Greenpeace plaid, Castro fatigues, and Sears interview suits. Women either shroud themselves in earth-toned ponchos or squeeze into leather skirts so taut they can’t sit down. Leaning against pillars for support, they debate doctrinal points with tattooed lesbians.
In the arena of oppressed-women-of-color-resisting-cultural-genocide, white males are not marketable commodities. Seeking refuge among the oppressed, Winfield Payton took heart in his Irish roots and put an IRA button on his lapel just as the plane touched down at O’Hare. Anything to escape the generic white man stigma. No WASP he. BRITS OUT!
The convention air was electric with the power of ten thousand horny egos revving at fever pitch. Every statement casually tossed out in a crowded Hyatt elevator had been rehearsed to be memorable. Everyone in his or her own mind was a star, a celebrity, the next Susan Sontag, the next John Simon. And like the defense contractors and stockbrokers they despised, they were driven by money. In seventy-two hours, millions of dollars in salaries, publishing contracts, lecture fees, and research grants would be awarded over vegetarian brunches.
Normally, teaching in a two-year vocational school would earn Winfield the credibility of a disbarred chiropractor crashing an AMA banquet. But the fact that MITI served nine thousand African-American students gave him a platform. White liberals and black conservatives attended his presentation on Black English. It was a carefully crafted paper—designed to offend no one and justify his expense account. He gave his talk, answered questions for fifteen minutes, then excused himself to get where the real action was.
The exhibition hall was jammed. Two hundred publishers displayed books and solicited manuscripts. It was a literary stock market open three short days a year. Walking onto the killing floor, Winfield went into his trader mode. Fueling himself on coffee, Diet Coke, and Ballygowan, he button-holed acquisition editors from McGraw Hill, Prentice-Hall, and Weidenfield & Nicholson. Thinking fast, he made up book proposals on the spot—multicultural anthologies, Islamic readers, politically correct and politically challenging work books. Christian rhetorics. Cold war novels. Third World novels. A rain forest novel. A novel about the Bay of Pigs invasion, half in Spanish. A cycle of poems based on the latest LA riots. A stream-of-consciousness first person novel about a Hispanic transsexual called Between Worlds. A Yeats biography. A Brendan Behan bibliography. Spitting out ideas faster than he could remember them, he bugged himself with his voice recorder and scribbled hieroglyphic notes the back of ATM slips. He collected business cards, dispensed business cards, gulped Jameson from a Boku box, and pressed on like a Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman facing eviction.
Back at his hotel, fueled on hot coffee and ice-cold Diet Coke, he pounded his laptop, generating impressive, though admittedly sketchy, book proposals, trying desperately to remember the ideas that stormed through his mind while chatting up editors. Fearful his emails would be deleted unread, he raced to Kinko’s and printed copies to be casually delivered the next morning, “Hi, remember we talked yesterday about a book, well, I just put together a few ideas.” Like a cheating lover, he tried to convey the impression he was courting a single editor.
On the second day Barbie called. Win grabbed his smart phone. Twinges of carpal tunnel were shooting through his strained wrists. Laptop keyboards were always a pain to work on.
“We’re visiting my sister-in-law in Winnetka,” she whispered. “I can get away for two hours. I’ll meet you at the Palmer House for a drink. Seven sharp.”
Unlike the shivering tourists from LA and Miami who bundled into cabs for a two-block trip, Barbie and Winfield leisurely strolled the subzero streets. Michigan Avenue was ablaze with holiday decorations. Passing the Christmas wreaths, shimmering electric candles, and smiling Santas, Winfield felt a lonely tug of nostalgia, a wistful remorse for lost innocence and lost love. Gripping Barbie’s arm, he escorted her through the Hyatt lobby into the glass elevator that whisked them high above the boozy conventioneers reeling from a cash bar sponsored by the Virginia Woolf Society.
Once inside his room, Barbie slipped off her leather trench coat. She seemed so young, so soft, so desirable in her white turtleneck and black ski slacks. A rosy cheeked sophomore gliding off the slopes for hot chocolate. Winfield reached into his pocket and handed her a small box.
“Just a little something for Christmas.”
Lifting the gold chain from the red felt-lined case, she pursed her lips, “This is not necessary.”
“It’s just a gift,” Winfield said, moving forward to kiss her.
Pulling back, Barbie raised a warning finger. “Look, we don’t have that kind of relationship. I don’t cheat on my husband, OK? That’s not what this is about. You know that. What we have, well, it’s different. It’s not personal.”
“Well, I just thought a little something for Christmas,” Winfield explained, his memories of college ski dates and hot chocolate fading.
“Look, I have only an hour,” Barbie said matter-of-factly. She peeled off her clothes like someone diving into a river to save a drowning child. Clad in black bra and garter belt, she reached into the pockets of her trench coat and pulled out a pair of leather cuffs and a short strap.
“This is all I could bring. Do you have anything?”
Winfield sadly shook his head.
Pouting, Barbie opened the closet and removed Winfield’s spare belt. She tested it against her bare thigh. “OK,” she muttered, “this will have to do.”
She motioned Winfield to follow her into the bathroom. Facing the bathtub, she reached up to grip the shower rod. “I’m ready,” she whispered, guiding Winfield’s hand to her tight, waiting buttocks.
Back at home, Winfield kept busy with committee work, plans for the spring semester, and the ninth draft of a screenplay his agent patiently reminded him had been rejected twenty-seven times. Brooks kept in touch, calling from Texas and emailing pictures.
“We’ve rented a hangar. Larry’s running compression tests. We need new tires. New plugs. I’m writing checks like crazy. We’ll test the right engine next week. I’m going to do a little bargain-hunting while Larry works on the plane. We found a guy living at the VA who used to work on B-25’s. He’s a Section Eight, but he knows planes.”
Winfield was revising a syllabus when Brooks called from Houston.
“Win, we’ve got our FAA papers in shape and the insurance nailed down. It’s going to cost an arm and a leg. But the Duck is ready to fly. Get down here by Tuesday, and you can make our first long-run flight.”
“What do you think?” Brooks asked a week later as a small tractor pulled the B-25 from the hangar.
“I feel like a Hollywood extra,” Winfield said, no longer self-conscious in his scarf and bomber jacket.
Its wartime markings blazing against the olive drab fuselage, the Ruptured Duck stood poised on the concrete apron, full of deadly power. New aluminum props gleamed in the Texas sun.
“Wait till you get inside. We spent a week dusting and scrubbing. Larry brought everything up to spec.”
Winfield gazed up at the plane, remembering the first time he hefted the .45 his uncle brought back from Viet Nam. Raw masculinity was facing his student-deferment soul. He had grown up in the shadow of weapons and the men who handled them. Sherman tanks. PT boats. Hellcats and P-38’s. Subs and destroyers. M-1’s and satchel charges. Moving closer, he studied the daffy, cross-eyed duck painted on the nose. Men in his grandfather’s generation had died in planes like this. America, at the height of her power, carpet bombed the cities of the world with planes like this. For Winfield this was a moment of socio-political epiphany.
“Ready for takeoff? Larry’s going to be our co-pilot and navigator. You can be the observer,” Brooks said, like a coach assigning outfield positions. “Take the bombardier’s slot. You ought to get some great shots from the nose. Well, let’s move.” Brooks drew Larry and Winfield together in a huddle and shook their hands as if making a solemn pact. Reaching up, they patted the fuselage for luck then climbed aboard.
Brooks belted himself in the pilot’s seat, donned headphones, and tugged his silk scarf, “I feel just like Van Johnson.” He shrugged, then smiled, “Well, maybe Denzel Washington. OK, strap yourself in, guys. And wherever you go, put on a headset so we can communicate. We’ll never be able to talk above the engines. OK, ready on the right?”
“Check,” Larry said, studying the instruments.
The engine pinged, coughed, then like some monstrous lawn mower, rumbled to life, shaking the plane with a deafening roar. Peering out the navigator’s window, Win watched the blades flash silver before becoming a translucent disc.
“Ready on the left?”
“Check.”
Both engines thundering, the throbbing bomber pulled forward, the nose wheel bouncing.
Win clutched his seat with trembling arms. The plane taxied, paused for clearance, then rolled forward, engines drumming. Win felt the plane bounce once, then peel upward. Swallowing hard, he unbuckled his seat belt and carefully crawled to the nose.
Seeing the trees sweeping beneath him, Winfield’s stomach clenched. Roads, cars, a stretch of freeway, ranch houses, and strip malls raced under him. Brooks broke left, the plane veering on a forty-five-degree angle. Remembering the headphones, Win scrambled to put them on. He picked up the interphone and shouted, “Brooks, where are we going?”
“Over the Gulf. I want to try some low-level stuff.”
Watching the Texas scrubland rush under the nose, Win leaned against the throbbing metal shell, savoring the moment. How many men had experienced this, the long flight into harm’s way? The dry land beneath them could have been North Africa, war-torn Italy, Iraq. How naked crewmen must have felt in this bay window facing a sky full of fighters. How many men had died in this spot, ripped apart in a shower of machine gun bullets and shattered Plexiglas?
“Getting some good shots?” Brooks’ voice crackled in the headphones.
“Yes,” Winfield answered, fumbling with the interphone.
“See that refinery just ahead? Focus on that. We’re going to make a bombing run.”
The Ruptured Duck veered to the right then dove hard, engines screaming. The ground raced up, the trees mushrooming upward. Win gasped, pulling back from the nose as if the thin metal hull would protect him in a crash. He aimed his phone, trying to steady himself in a yoga position. As the plane tore across the Texas scrubland at 300 mph, Brooks’ voice came over the headphones, singing, “I don’t want to set the wo-orld on fi-uh, just To-ke-o!”
The plane leveled off at five hundred feet, the refinery tanks sweeping into view.
“Bomb bay doors open.”
Win heard the whine of a small motor as he tightened his legs around the bombsight.
“We should have brought water balloons!”
The refinery shot past and the plane rose, streaking toward the clouds.
“Win,” Brooks’ voice crackled in the headphones, “crawl back to the turret and take some shots of the tail.”
“Roger.”
Win made his way through the narrow tunnel, feeling the throbbing motors vibrate throughout his body.
In the turret, he plugged in his headphones and aimed his smart phone at the tail, watching the twin rudders turn in lazy unison. He switched the turret on and rotated, the machine guns swiveling against the wind.
Swooping over the shoreline, the B-25 raced over the Gulf, low enough for Win to look up and see the masts of sailboats flash by. Brooks shouted through the interphone, “This is great! Flat out at forty feet! Win, you have got to get your multi-engine license.”
“Watch it Brooks,” Larry warned. “Those props need clearance. One high wave and we’ll be swimming home.”
“OK, gang,” Brook