OCR Text |
Show Flying - 99 John Henry sits alone under the hot blue sky, evaporating gently. Gasoline vapor rises from him into the morning air; a transluscent shimmer a little darker than heat waves hangs above his head. Don't come near. Don't make sparks. Or I will burn bright just off the main runway of Edwards Air Force Base, orange flames and a column of black smoke towering solemn in the desert sky. The enlisted man's Jimmy Stewart. A fighter shot down in flames. Death on the dry lakes. The last victim of an Indian massacre slowly dying under his burning wagon. Ambushed by blood-lusting savages at the edge of the promised land. Never to see the golden cities and green fields of the California coast. O'Connell, sitting in the shadow of the trucks, waves at him. His voice comes faintly to John Henry over the wail of a passing jet fighter. "One hundred and forty-seven days," shouts O'Connell. "One hundred and forty-seven days to go." But sooner or later we will all get out. No man stays in the army forever. Only the lengths of our sentences differ. Even I will someday shuck off this uniform and be forever free. Drying slowly in the late summer sun, John Henry dreams of freedom. Morning dips in cold mountain lakes and long afternoons sleeping under sweet-smelling pines. Wild strawberries and warm milk at dusk by the sandy shore. |