The Floatplane Notebooks (2 page)

“Can I go?” I said.

“You need to stay here with your mama,” said Papa.

Mama came out the back door. “How do you know it'll float?” she said.

“It'll float.”

“Joe Ray Hoover said—”

“It'll float. I ain't worried about it floating.”

“If it sinks,” said Thatcher, “that's a hundred and thirty dollars of chain-saw engines on the bottom of Lake Blanca.”

Thatcher and Meredith painted it red.

“That's the last thing I'm worried about,” says Papa.

“Why can't I go?” I said.

“You ain't old enough,” said Meredith.

“I am too. I'm five.”

“You'll be in the way.”

I wanted to see what all would happen. “Please, Papa. I won't be in the way.”

“Let her go,” said Mama. “You need somebody there to run for help.”

They let me go. They said they were going to zip it around on the lake. They let me ride in the back of the truck. They all rode in the front. The dogs rode in back with me.

We had a long ride to Lake Blanca. Papa drove slow. It was a sunny day and we were just riding along pulling it behind us down the road with people passing us.

When we got it to the lake, a lot of people came around and watched them get it down in the water. Meredith and Thatcher had on their bathing suits and were down in the water and Papa was standing on the plank thing that goes out in the water. Meredith just got to be a teenager.

More and more people came up and Meredith and Thatcher got out of the water.

“Who's going with me first?” said Papa. He was standing on the wood thing and he was holding the wing.

Meredith said he would.

Because the wing was in the way they couldn't get it close enough to the wood thing you stand on to get in it. Then they got it turned the right way and got in. Papa told Thatcher to hold the tail while he started it up. It was sunk down low with him and Meredith both in there. Papa sent Thatcher to the truck to get the lawnmower rope to start it with. The little
rope with the little wood handle and a knot in the end. A man who walked out there was holding the floatplane while Thatcher went and got the rope. I was staying in the back of the truck like Papa told me.

Thatcher and the man held on to the tail while Papa tried to start a engine but it wouldn't start. Then he wrapped the rope around the little thing on the other engine and jerked it and it started. It was the one in front of Meredith. It was running real fast and made a lot of noise and the plane was pulling on Thatcher and the man. The dogs were standing there barking. Papa told them to turn loose. When they turned loose the plane started out in this big circle. The engine was real loud. Papa was pointing down under the front inside, and hollering at Meredith. The plane was turning in a big circle back around toward the wood thing where the man was. The dogs were still barking and standing on the wood thing. The man started running back onto the land. Papa bended down and I couldn't see him no more. The plane was going in a big circle but it was headed toward the wood thing. Meredith stood up. He bended over like he was talking to Papa. He jumped out.

The airplane kept in the circle and missed the thing you stand on. It kept going in a big circle and was headed back around right at Meredith so he started swimming fast and looking back over his shoulder. It looked like it was going to miss him but it—Papa was down inside working on it—it straightened out all of a sudden and came right at Meredith and he just waited for it and when it got to him he dived under water. Then Papa stood up and when he sat down it was headed straight for the land. When it hit the land it sort
of flipped Papa up to the front and then back. He put safety belts in it when we got home. The dogs ran up around him barking. The motor shut off and they quit barking. Fox and Trader.

Thatcher told Mama when we got home that if Papa had been going any faster he would have cut his head off in the propeller when he hit the land. But he wouldn't have, because he was on the side where the engine didn't start.

This floatplane thing Papa's working on. I swear. The frame is a bunch of aluminum pipes that fit together, and it's on pontoons so it'll fly off a lake.

Papa says by the time he's finished building it he'll have all his flying lessons from Mr. Hoover, who has an instructor's license and instructs part-time at the airport. Then he'll fly it off Lake Blanca.

My ass. He's taken it to the lake once to try it out on the water and it just turned in these two big circles and ended up
grounding
itself. Meredith jumped out.

So when we get home that afternoon Papa writes in his notebook. It says “Record” on the front. He had the date, the temperature, the wind direction, the altitude of the lake, which he said was sea level—hell, I got more sense than that—and then this:

NARRATIVE ACCOUNT: THE EXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT WAS TOWED TO LAKE BLANCA BEHIND OWNERS JEEP TRUCK.
ALONG FOR THE OCCASION WAS THE OWNER, SONS MEREDITH COPELAND AND THATCHER COPELAND. DAUGHTER NORALEE COPELAND AND TWO ANIMALS, FOX AND TRADER (DOG NAMES). THE AIRCRAFT FLOATED LEVEL IN THE WATER AND WAS RUN SUCCESSFUL OUT ON THE WATER AND BACK IN. THIS WAS THE FIRST TEST RUN. PASSENGERS WERE THE OWNER AND SON MEREDITH. ALL PARTS WORKED.

Then it's got Meredith's and Mark's and Noralee's weights and heights. I'd be in there but I'm grown.

“Papa,” I said, “you wrote up in that notebook that it was a successful test run. Couldn't much more have gone wrong except if it blowed up.”

“What are you talking about?” he says.

“You wrote down that it was successful.”

“It was.”

“But it ran around in circles and one of the engines wouldn't start!”

“The rudder was caught.”

“I know. But you didn't write that down, and about the engine not starting.”

“No need to. I got it straightened out. That's why I didn't write it down. I got it straightened out.”

“But you're supposed to write down what happened.”

“What happened was I fixed the rudder, and now the engine starts. I'll write that in later. There's no need to write about all that for the test run. Just the simple facts.”

“Papa, that's … why you got them weights and heights and birthdays in there?”

“So they won't get lost.”

“What will the FAA say if you got all—”

“It's a record. That's all it is. I'm keeping it. It's my record. You want a record of something,
you
write it up. But don't you go complaining about
my
record or how I keep it, or I'll hide it. You ain't no government official.”

I asked him later about the lake being at sea level and he said all water has to be at sea level. You can't tell him nothing.

Mr. Copeland was explaining about a company in Michigan that modified chain-saw engines for use on airplanes when Uncle Hawk stood and said, “I got to feed the dogs. Who wants to come?”

I can't get over the importance of dogs to this family.

Mr. Copeland, Meredith, and Mark went along and Thatcher reluctantly followed, wanting to be with me, I firmly believe, yet not wanting, I suppose, to be the only man left inside among several women.

They went out the back door. I momentarily harbored the thought of going with Thatcher out into the night to feed the dogs, but relinquished it.

“Well, how about you, Bliss?” says Aunt Sybil, turning to me. “Where did you get a lovely name like that?”

“It was my grandmother's name. She died before I was born.”

“I think it's wonderful to keep names in the family. We
named Lee after my sister, who had died a year to the day before Lee was born. Poor thing had a stroke and there is not the slightest history of stroke in the family. When's the wedding?”

“Next spring. May fifth. The day after the gravecleaning. Mr. Copeland suggested that—so you and Uncle Hawk would be up there too.”

“Well, that's just wonderful. Thatcher is such a nice young man. And I've been watching him grow up since he weren't bigger than nothing.”

In the back door comes all the men with the addition of a Dan Braddock, whom I had heard some talk about, but whom I had yet to meet. I knew he was Uncle Hawk's partner at the store, but wasn't around too much because of his other businesses.

They came in and Uncle Hawk pulled in another chair from the dining room. Dan Braddock hugged a few necks, took a seat, and went into talking about his business. His appearance was singular. Most noticeable was his belt being extraordinarily high, with the main portion of his stomach below his belt buckle. He had a big, fat, red face, a Stetson hat, which he did not remove, but instead pushed back on his head. He had this noticeable manner of looking around at everybody without ever lighting down on one person. He went into talking about “the old days” and started using curse words and told about cheating the town of Lubbock, Texas, out of four thousand dollars on a land deal and about how he wanted to get into the real estate business full time.

Miss Esther suddenly stands up and says she wants to go on back to get ready for bed. I also stood, knowing the language
was getting too rough for my ears. Then Miss Esther told Mark he ought to go out and get ready for bed. Mark looked at Meredith, Meredith looked at his mother, Mildred, and said, “I want to stay.”

“Am I talking too strong for the kids?” asked Mr. Braddock.

I myself certainly thought so.

“Yes, I suppose. A little, I think,” said Miss Esther.

“It's too bad Thomas didn't live through the war,” Mr. Braddock said to Miss Esther. “You'd a had to get used to it.”

“Thomas never cheated nobody, Dan, and if he did he didn't laugh about it.”

“Well,” said Mr. Braddock, “I understand he might have cheated somebody.”

Miss Esther didn't say anything. She stood there staring at him for about five or ten seconds and then walked on into the bedroom.

As I departed, I noticed that Mr. Braddock's eyes were darting around the room looking at everybody, and as I walked into the bedroom, Miss Esther called out to Mark to go on out and get ready to go to bed. “Now,” she said.

I then prepared for bed, hoping I would sleep well in strange circumstances.

I felt it would be appropriate to say something because Miss Esther seemed a little… I suppose
flustered
is the best word. So I said, “Your family is very interesting.”

“They are. They are,” she replied. “Hawk's always been as good as he could be. Giving people things. Taking on Dan like he did, as a business partner, and then Dan turning out like he did.” As she turned back her sheet I noticed her hand was shaking.

I turned back the sheet on my rollaway bed. “Your husband was named Thomas?”

“Yes. Thomas Carl… Thomas Carl Oakley.”

Next morning was Silver Springs—and it was all I had dreamed and more.

The glass-bottom boats were exquisite. What a sight looking down into those underwater caverns! What exquisite underwater scenery! And just as was promised, the guide, upon encountering a school of catfish, threw a ball of white bread over the side, and as we watched through that glass boat-bottom, the catfish chased the bread all over the place, one and then the other running with it and all of this in this exquisite underwater world where the water was so very clear—as if it were all happening in the very sky. It was as if the very sky were below you, open and naked.

And to top it all off, there was a man at Silver Springs named Ross Allen who
milked
rattlesnakes, putting the rim of a glass into a rattlesnake's mouth and causing venom to squirt into the glass, a few drops, enough to kill a human being.

What a good, good time!

After the men came in from hunting on each of the next three afternoons, Thatcher and I would have a little time to talk alone at a table in the cafe section. He'd tell me all about the hunt. He was very excited on all three days, and would have that safari look which I adore in a man, especially Thatcher who stands so tall and looks so handsome in anything he wears, and Meredith of course would be trying to
tell me all these things that happened on the hunt, and Thatcher, bless his heart, would want to be alone with me at the table—as I did want to be alone with him, while at the same time I found Meredith a joy. So finally Meredith and Mark would go out under the shed in the back of the store where Uncle Hawk and Mr. Copeland were cleaning birds.

The spectacle of a bird cleaning is something to behold: feathers and birds' insides all over the place, with the cats, Ford and Plymouth, sitting nearby—watching and waiting intently—waiting for the spoils of battle to come flinging their way.

Thatcher explained how, in the early morning before the hunt, Uncle Hawk comes to the foot of their bed before light and holds their feet until they wake up. Then he comes on over to the store while they get dressed. Then they walk across the road in the dark and in through the back door of the store where Uncle Hawk is cooking breakfast, pretending he's Old Ross, his granddaddy, and singing while he cooks breakfast like Old Ross used to. Old Ross was Thatcher's great-granddaddy and died back before Thatcher was born. Thatcher's granddaddy, Tyree, used to do the same thing at breakfast—sing like his daddy. Now Uncle Hawk pretends
he's
Old Ross and
he
sings.

Thatcher also told me on the second day that they'd killed a rattlesnake. Horrors!

We said our warm goodbyes and left without incident on the fifth morning at about six a.m. We drove through some pretty country in Florida, with the trees far apart. I like it with space between the trees. And on up through Georgia and South Carolina.

At some point when we stopped to let the dogs out, and Thatcher and I were relatively alone, I asked him what Dan Braddock meant when he made the comment about Mark's father cheating. Thatcher said nobody ever talked about it but it had to do with “another woman” overseas during the war. That's all he knew. I wondered about it, but also recalled the wisdom of that old saying, “Let bygones be bygones.”