Clipped Wings

The cockpit might be claustrophobic to some, but to Neil it was theatre seating for an IMAX view of the world. As a pilot for British Airways, hundreds of thousands of passengers entrust their lives to him every year.  He understood that responsibility and took it to heart every time he clipped on his wings, put on his hat, and buckled his seatbelt.  Staring out into the thin, wispy afternoon sky, he couldn’t help but feel empowered, ready to take on the—

“Neil. Neil!  Stop daydreaming and pay attention, lad.  You’ll be in my seat very soon, God help us.”

Gary’s last few words were mumbled out of his brittle, gray beard, but Neil heard them loud and clear.  He always did.  They had these conversations every time they broke 5,000 feet without Neil ever so much as looking in Gary’s direction. Even though they didn’t know each other well, their first few months in the sky had been filled with turbulence — a joke Neil presented to his girlfriend that was met with silence all four times he previously told it.

So maybe Neil hadn’t flown a plane filled with hundreds of passengers yet, per se, but he was definitely still a pilot, and a damn good one at that. Did Gary ever have to reach across to adjust something on the right side of the cockpit? No, he most certainly did not. Sure, he did it anyway, but Neil knew that he could handle it if he had to, which was the job of a good first officer. He was far more than a simple orange-slices-and-cup-of-water co-pilot after all.

“Yes, sir, Gary, sir,” Neil said mockingly with an over-the-top salute to his superior, while Gary slowly shook his head and sighed into the windshield.

“Your grandfather was a man just like you and I, well at least like me,” Gary went on.  Neil rolled his eyes.  “He wasn’t Superman or a Blue Angel. He listened to his captain while he was in your seat to make it up to be a captain himself, God rest his soul.”

William Clarke, or “Pap” as Neil was wont to call him when in his lap, always wanted to be a pilot from the moment he flew seven feet from the ground while in his own father’s arms.  He realized that dream in a traditional fashion, rising slowly up the ranks as a co-pilot, small plane pilot, and eventual top captain for Pan American World Airways once he turned 44 years old.  To Neil, he was his idol, his hero.  To the world, he was a footnote, a pub trivia answer, and never someone who was responsible for, at least if you asked Neil, one of the most important moments in pop culture history.

Pap Clarke was at the top of his game in early 1964.  The new year had barely been rung in when he received a phone call from Pan Am’s vice president of flight operations, Kenneth Something-or-other (that part of the story always bored Neil) to pilot Flight 101 in February.  The cargo? Oh, you know, just four lads from Liverpool making their first trip to the United States.  That’s right, Neil always liked to boast to anyone after a few pints, The Beatles never would have invaded America without my Pap.  They would then always ask if another pilot could have just been hired instead, since it was The Beatles’ moment after all, and Neil would always concede that they could have, but they didn’t.

So now, it was up to Neil to continue his legacy in the skies. Although in his 28 years of life he had only sat by as a semi-active observer to planes that essentially flew themselves and babies that managed to reach new decibel levels every few weeks, he was proud to be another Clarke in the sky. His father, a dentist on a pilgrimage to fight British oral care stereotypes, was far more reserved than the generations that sandwiched him, putting even more of an occupational chip on Neil’s shoulder.

Just as he did every time he recalled that story internally or to an audience, Neil smiled and let out a reflective sigh, wondering when he would be flying a pop star or stars — why limit his expectations, after all — around the world to runways lined with screaming teens.

“You just can’t beat this view, can you Gary?”  Neil said, not about to lose the casual staring contest he was having with a cirrus cloud.  A quiet moment passed.  Then another.  Gary usually never waited this long to say something snarky or pensive, depending on the amount of caffeine in his system.

“Gary?!”  Neil said, looking over in horror. Gary’s eyes were shut, his head slunk back at a right angle to the headrest.

“Ah good one, Gare Bear, you got me,” Neil scoffed, lightly slapping his captain’s arm, only to see that one tap to a grown man’s humerus turned into a decidedly unfunny situation.  Still unresponsive, and with Gary’s typical desire for his personal space, Neil figured the best way to make this prank stop was to forcefully poke his captain’s right cheek.  One childish, dated Facebook interaction later found the captain’s face just pushed onto his left shoulder with no reaction.

OhGodOhGodOhGod was all that Neil’s brain could produce as he went to take Gary’s pulse. He had never even taken his own pulse before, let alone his potentially dead boss’. Two fingers on Gary’s neck and no rhythm after a three-second count, Neil felt the soul escape from his body. He fell back in his chair, incredulous as to what to do next.

He remembered his flight instructor always said that in moments of crisis, the best thing to do was, ‘simply take a deep breath and assess the situation’ but there was simply no time for that right now as far as the Tilt-a-Whirl in Neil’s skull was concerned.  He looked around and the only thing that came to his mind was that it was his time now. His moment had arrived.  Although the plane was cruising at altitude, someone was going to have to land it in New York soon and no one wants to be that bloke that clipped the goose.  Although, Neil thought, I’d probably have Tom Hardy play me instead of Tom Hanks.

Neil began to focus on the host of knobs and buttons in front of him.  Although he aced his exams in school — well, ok fine, but a B-minus isn’t anywhere near failing — the panels began to blur in front of him and he began to wonder if his travel mug was filled with a pint instead of coffee. He attempted to harness his frenetic breaths into actionable movement but found himself suddenly paralyzed with fear.  This was in fact, his moment, and he knew it.  Though that moment was to perish in a fiery plane crash, apparently. He was beginning to regret his aerial cockiness that was innate simply from being a branch on his family tree.

The plane was now minutes from its initial descent.  Minutes from the moment the captain traditionally hops on the intercom to let everyone know that the flight was smooth and they are about to reach their destination, followed closely by a breezy skidding of tires on the runway and the clapping hands of elderly passengers and drunken twentysomethings who both missed out on the social customs of 21^st Century air travel.  Now, the airbus was minutes from everyone having to follow the safety protocols they ignored to watch sitcom reruns on their tablets. Neil had never even worn a life vest outside of training, because the water, ironically enough now, has never been his friend.

Motioning a cross over his heart and head to whomever was listening slightly above them, Neil pulled out his phone to begin to text his family. Right as his thumb hovered over the messaging button, his phone fell to the floor as he nearly jumped through the windshield from the commotion to his left. He turned to find Gary attempting to catch his breath, startled and looking around like a newborn reincarnated in the body of a grizzled prisoner of war.

“Gary?! What the hell?  Are you ok?  I thought you were dead!  Are you dead?”

His heart rate calming down, Gary seemed to begin to get his faculties back as he gave his body a shake to re-center himself.

“Sorry, mate,” Gary said, tapping Neil on the leg.  “I don’t know what that was.  It happened to me once before a few weeks back, but I was also a few swigs in, so I didn’t think anything of it.  All good now though.”

Stunned, Neil couldn’t believe the casual tone coming out of his captain’s mouth.  “All good? All good? Are you serious? I didn’t feel your pulse!”

“Well then, I guess we’re just lucky you’re a pilot and not a medic, eh?” Gary shrugged, appreciating his own joke.

“Sir, I hate to say this, but I think you might be narcopolegic, or whatever it’s called.”

“It’s narcoleptic, Neil. And maybe so, unfortunately,” Gary sighed. After a brief pause, he flipped right back into captain mode.  “I guess I’ll have to see the doctor down on land.”

He looked over at Neil and their eyes met.  Gary’s were steely now alert from his slumber and Neil’s feverish from his 10 minutes of chaos.  Gary then smiled and said, “Looks like your time will be coming sooner than you think, son.”

Gary then spun his head back, adjusted his tie for no one in particular, and grabbed the mic. ‘Allllrighty then folks, we are about a wee 20 minutes from New. York. City. And are about to begin our initial descent…”

Everything after that became inaudible to Neil. His eyes stopped blinking as the gravity of his new situation set in.  An hour ago, he was on top of the world, ready to take the reins from Gary and anyone else in his way to be what he hoped his Pap would want him to be.  Now, he could not wait to feel the tires on that sweet, solid tarmac after a flight that really, truly, felt across the universe.