Will you make sure the tower lights are on when I approach? Over.”
“Sure thing, buddy. I’ll be here when you arrive. Out.”
For the next hour Jake endured a ride like Disney’s Space Mountain, except that he was actually controlling the collective and cyclic on the bird, while his feet kept moving the pedals, constantly adjusted course with the tail rotor, toward home. It was exhausting, but adrenalin kicked in, and the pain went away.
At base, BJ answered the phone in the Tower. “Oh. Hello, Mr. Sharp.” He listened. “Yes, we still have one bird out, 978 Echo.” another pause. “Jake Ramsey, sir.” Pause, “Yes sir, Jake’s the best, he’ll be in in less than an hour.” Pause, “Yes, sir, it’s good Jake took the old bird today. He’s never lost one yet.”
The call ended. Rain drove sideways, pummeling the glass as the afternoon looked like midnight under the thick dark clouds. The helicopters were all chained down, and all he could do was sit, waiting for 0978E.
The radio startled him. “BJ, are you there?”
“Hey, Jake. Yep I’m here.”
“Good, I’m starting my descent blind. Do you have the lights on?”
“Yeah, Jake. Everything’s lit up.”
“Okay, look. I think I’m coming in from the Southwest. No poles or towers that way. I’m gonna turn on my landing lights, which will be blinding in this crap, so you’ll need to be my spotter.”
“Okay, Jake. I’m here.” He worried, looking into the torrent of black rivulets across the tower glass. There were no lights in the sky.
“Jake, I don’t see anything!”
“It’s okay, pal. Keep looking. I’ve got some GPS blanking cuz of the buffeting, but I think I’m close.”
BJ turned off the inside lights that were reflecting off of the glass and saw a small dot intermittently coming in his direction. “Jake. Jake, I’ve got you in sight about a quarter mile out. Looks like about fifty feet AGL (Above Ground Level).”
“Okay, BJ, I’ve got you in sight.”
Jake slowed forward speed as he approached the buildings. He couldn’t see them, but the prismatic light flicking through the blackness created a familiar pattern. The helicopter oscillated violently as the swirling air tossed it about. He flew over the Ops Center at about one hundred feet. BJ couldn’t see anything, but heard Jake pass overhead. Jake couldn’t see anything but vague shadows of buildings reflected in the landing lights. He flew past the helipad and circled to approach from the opposite side coming in over the runway with no obstacles in the way. Under normal conditions, he would hover down.
On final approach, his senses piqued as the winds changed radically near the ground, circulating through the buildings and bouncing from the deck below. It was treacherous with poor visibility and severe buffeting. At the final moment, he set the bird down without flaring to avoid exposing the underside to the wind gusts, which could topple the helicopter once the rotor was neutralized. The landing was hard, but there was no damage to the helicopter. He left the controls in neutral positions with a slight down force while BJ secured the tie-down chains. They both felt relief when the fuel shut off to the engine and all electrical was switched off.
That night, after securing the helicopter, Jake and BJ agreed to have a drink together some time in the future. Both wanted to be home this night. When he got there, Jake felt the pain of fighting the storm in his shoulders and arms. He took four Advil and went to bed, missing his normal evening binge.
In the morning, the weather was still overcast and rainy, but the vicious winds had subsided. He was stiff and was massaging his shoulder muscles when the phone rang. “Hello.”
“Hey, Jake, it’s BJ.”
“Oh, hi, BJ. I must have overslept.”
“No problem. How are you feeling?”
“Stiff and sore, but otherwise good to go.”
“Okay, look. The management wants to compliment you on your flying yesterday. They were all expecting you to spend a few days out there.”
“Yeah. That’s me. Always thinking about the company and keeping their birds on the ramp for more revenue.”
“Well. Here’s the deal. Since you brought 978E back undamaged, they want you to spend the rest of your rotation (three more days on flight status) on paid vacation. Compliments of the owners.”
“Huh, what will I do with the time off?”
“I don’t know. Go paint something or mow your neighbor’s lawn. Just relax.”
“Well, I guess I will.”
“Take care, buddy.”
Jake never planned ahead more than two days in a row. For all the years since retiring from the Army, his routine was the same. He either went to work and spent his evenings getting drunk, or he worked around his house and yard, then got drunk. It was a simple routine.
He lived in a modest tract home build in the sixties when the oil industry was strong in Louisiana. Most of the houses were around a thousand square feet with three bedrooms and one bath. The yards were unfenced, so kids and dogs ran freely through his property. As a single person, with no children, he sometimes enjoyed the activity, but most of the time, he stayed to himself and didn’t socialize. It was a stable community with very little turnover. He bought the house when he retired from the Army and had just paid off the mortgage. Over the years most of his neighbors had remained distant without much in common. He was happy being left alone.
His quarter-acre lot had some tree and shrub plantings, but was mostly Saint Augustine grass, thick and tough. With a couple days off, he decided to do some work on his truck and mow the lawn. The lawn grew almost six inches per week in the summer. He worked until noon then spent the rest of the day indoors, avoiding the oppressive southern heat.
Around sundown, he remembered to get the mail. His Army retirement check was due. He’d been drinking heavily, and his hand slipped off the door knob then he jerked it open with enough force to dent the inside wall. He lost his footing when stepping out onto the front stoop, misgauging the distance below the door threshold. His neighbor across the street, T.W. Boudreaux, was sitting on a folding chair on his front stoop drinking a beer, watching the comic act, as Jake stumbled across the grass toward his mailbox. He’d seen this act before. “Hey, Jake. Wanna beer?” Jake smiled to himself thinking...another beer T.W.?
Jake drank frequently with T.W., but he felt too woozy to cross the street. “Naw, T.W., thanks. I’m tryin’ to cut down.” He stumbled and fell, grasping his mailbox for support. Regaining his footing, he continued, “Heh, that damn thing moved! D’ya see it?”
“Yeah, Jake. It jumped ‘bout two feet. Heh.”
That was the last conversation that night. He went to bed before it was dark. He had no family, except one brother out in California, but they didn’t talk. He also had a couple Army buddies, but they had wives and kids so didn’t share much in common with him. His parents were both dead. He didn’t own a computer and didn’t have cable television. He led a basic existence. The next several days were all repeats.
Bobby’s Girl
It was an easy day to fly. The helicopters always flew under VFR (Visual Flight Rules) over the water and this day was a beauty. At five thousand feet, they could see the giant drilling platform from thirty miles away. The water was deep azure blue, and the wind was almost non-existent. Jake had been invited to eat with the crew at lunch, the normal custom, before returning to his home field. It was three o’clock when he completed tie down of the helicopter and returned to the ops hangar to fill in the logbook. The helicopter had flown with no faults to be recorded.
He sat with BJ and a couple other pilots drinking coffee until quitting time. The hangar always had a faint smell of co-mingled jet fuel, lubricants and coffee. Pilots felt most comfortable in this environment. At four o’clock, Jake was leaving for five days off after nine days of continuous flight status. As he clocked out, he was struck by the irony facing him. With no hobbies or
other off-duty activities, time away from the job was nothing to be excited about.
Walking to the maintenance hangar, Jake whistled at the door and yelled, “Yo, Will, you ready to go?”
The reply came from a workbench in back behind Jake’s 407, “Not if you wanna fly this thing again. I’ll stick around for a while and ride the bicycle home later.”
It wasn’t an uncommon scenario. The mechanics usually preferred to finish whatever assembly they were fixing, and the hangar had a couple bicycles that some used at lunchtime or to travel home if they lived close enough.
“Okay, suit yourself, fella. I’ll pick you up next Thursday.” Jake headed for his truck.
Even though his morning routine never changed, it felt good to have a few days off. The schedule for all pilots was to work seven days straight then get five days off. That way, no one felt unfairly treated when their shift overlapped a weekend or holiday. The flight schedule ran continuously for 365 days a year. If someone wanted to take time off out of sequence, it was up to them to negotiate a trade with another pilot.
Because Jake was single, he often filled in for some of the family men over holidays and birthdays. Working during the holidays distracted him from the loneliness that compounded when Thanksgiving and Christmas were being celebrated in all the other households around him. He enjoyed being out in the Gulf, sharing a heavy meal with the crews on the special