“Hap, you want to go fishing?”
“Yeah, hold on and I’ll let Rocco know I’m leaving.”
“Don’t you want to know where?”
“Okay, where?”
“Atlanta, Georgia.”
“Alright, let me tell Rocco.”
“Not yet. I need to ask my two neighbors at the Rainbow Towers to take care of Bear and the horses.”
“Those two neighbors the ones who are a little light in the loafers, Gary Hasse, and Tom Winterberg?”
“Yes, and quit calling them that.”
“You have to remind them to stop feeding Bear whatever it is they are feeding him. It’s giving him gas and makes him stink; do they know your friend, Horace Greenberg?”
“I don’t know, why do you ask?”
“I overheard them talking about the Castaways, that gay bar down by the Dick Dock on Lake Michigan where all of those guys like to hang out.”
“The Dick Dock?”
“That’s what it’s called. It’s a night trysting place for gay men. I heard it’s actually a queer’s mating ritual to meet there to consummate their relationship.”
“Anyway, I thought they might be able to help each other out, that’s all,” Hap began to whistle as he walked into the back cooler.
I shook my head. Hap is a real piece of work. I watched him return carrying a case of long necks and load the ice tray. He picked up the phone and dialed Sam Galbraith’s number and handed it to me.
It took a while before a sleepy Sam Galbraith picked up the phone.
“Hullo?”
“ I thought we would fly to Atlanta if that pile of nuts and bolts of yours still flies.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Max. Do you know what time it is?”
“Are you calling to ask me what time it is?”
“Naw. I need your plane.”
“Take it. The keys are in it. Just have it back by next week. I have to fly some wax people from SC Johnson Company down in Racine to Kansas City for some cleaning convention.”
“You know I don’t know how to fly. I need you to fly the thing.”
“Atlanta, huh? Okay, I haven’t been there for awhile. Does this have anything to do with Hap?”
“Yup, he wants to fish.”
“I knew fish had to be in there some place. When do you want to leave?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“Okay. I’ll have my baby fueled and ready to go by 8:00 a.m. Thursday.”
Sam Galbraith purchased a Model 17 Staggerwing biplane a few years ago and talked some of us into investing in his fledgling company, Galbraith and Associates, Transport and Charter Express. It turned out to be very successful and Sam ended up buying us out, one of the few times I actually made money on an investment. Now it is just Sam and Hap flying goods and girls around the upper midwest and points south. He said that he can fly 785 miles on a tank of fuel in that thing. I checked, the shortest distance by air from Milwaukee to Atlanta is 669 miles’ so we’ll have a few miles to spare. The way Sam flies, we will need it.
Sam flew P-40B Warhawks off the USS Enterprise in the South Pacific during World War II, or as those of us fighting in the Pacific knew it as, Hirohito’s War. The Enterprise, known as the Big E, participated in more major battles against Japan than any other US ship and Sam was flying off her deck in every one of them.
He was and still is fearless. He and a fellow flyboy named, George Welch, are credited with seven kills between the two of them. Sam’s friends like to rib him and say that he set more P-40B’s in the water than on the deck of the carrier and that he holds