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Show Flying - 98 jeep's spare five-gallon gas can and squeezes the handle gently. The can bounces twenty feet into the air and a splash of gasoline hangs an instant ralnbowed in the morning sun, then arches over to soak John Henry's sleeping bag lying neatly rolled on the ground a few feet away. The Air Force driver leans out of his cab with a gentle smile. "I guess I must've forgot to tell you fellers," he says. "This here's a truck for refueling airplanes. It pumps out eighteen, hundred gallons a minute. Take it a little easy with it. That way you won't waste so much." By the time the jeep is fully fueled John Henry is soaked in hundred-octane avgas and stands dripping slowly on the concrete, a puddle growing around each foot. He stands and watches the truck go on down the line, but Biggs makes the Air Force driver come down and handle the hose himself, and nobody else gets wet. He stands and drips until Sergeant Sutter comes along and sees O'Connell standing next to him with a lighted cigarette. He drags John Henry away from the convoy and seats him on the grass fifty feet away from the nearest truck. "You better just stay away from everybody for a while," he says. "You Just ain't safe. Stay away from them until you dry off good, or you're gonna go up like a lone pine in a thunderstorm." |