A Story

Here is the other story I promised a few weeks (months?) back. It is a fiction inspired by a 'real' legend. As my earlier writing sample was presented with no editing and with minimal polishing, this one has been reworked a fair bit. The strongest, yet valid, criticism the original received as a writing class submission was the readers' difficulty slogging through jargon and depicted procedures. It is this area in which I did the most revising, hoping to smooth out and clarify those things that I am - I was - so close to that it's difficult for me to know how to water them down.

Feel free to offer your critiques and make suggestions, and let me know if, after reading it through (and IF you could read it through!) any confusing jargon or confounding procedure from the beginning became clearer by the time you reached the end. Don't be afraid you'll hurt my feelings. You will. This is my baby. But I have to know where it fails in order to fix it.

And it's pretty long. At Times New Roman 12 pt. font single-spaced, it's eightteen pages. Prepare yourself for that. Go potty now. Crack open that beer or cork that wine. Just don't pass out before you finish! :^(



Incident At Alpha Five
by Farrago


“’Legend has it that Alpha five was built on an old Indian burial ground.’ Quintero looked at me with his shit grin. That was the last thing I needed. Why do people always have to pick on the new guys?”

I looked first at Lieutenant Kirby at my bedside, then between my suspended feet at Agent Gage, the guy from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Neither answered. Gage stepped toward my bed from where he was leaning against the bathroom door in my sterile room. He had already made the orderlies move the other patients out of the room so they wouldn’t hear. He spoke curtly. “Just keep going, Randy. I need to know everything.”

I looked to the lieutenant. He nodded and leaned back in his chair.


* * *


The tour had started off just as badly as any other. Up at 3:45 a.m., I shook off the grog in the shower. After two years in the Air Force running this same routine, you’d think I was used to this. I hadn’t shined my boots the night before, so I spent a few minutes brushing them off in my dorm room between getting dressed and running to the chow hall. They looked presentable enough. At the chow hall I met Sugar Bowl.

“Hey! Nice boots, dickhead!” He was always a joy to talk to at 4:30 in the morning.

I suppressed a greeting just as cheerful and looked at his chubby face. If it wasn’t embossed on his uniform, I would never remember that Sugar Bowl’s real name was Brown. He and I went through Security Specialist Technical Training together at Lackland Air force Base, and one of the instructors there gave him the nickname because he didn’t like his haircut, thought it looked as though someone had placed a large bowl on Brown’s head and trimmed the hairs that hung below it. The name followed Brown to Montana, mainly because of people like me who wouldn’t let him forget it, and he abused anyone equal or lower in rank who called him by the name. I reached up and stroked his smooth, pale, round cheek and faked a lisp. “Oh! My goodness! You shaved!”

“I shined my boots, too! There’s a full inspection this morning, and the colonel is gonna love your shine!” He’s not a bad person, Sugar Bowl, but when he’s got somebody, he really lets him have it. And he had me. Under the glaring fluorescents of the chow hall, my boots looked like shit.

At the squadron, nothing was different. Leaning against the wall in line for weapons issue, bitching because the camper and escort teams had posting priority and were allowed to cut in, I realized that every team that cut in meant a later and later guardmount and post, prolonging my dread of the inspection from hell.

“Mornin’ Steve,” I said to Sergeant Jenkins when I finally got to the armory window. I slid my weapons issue card to him and said, “I’ll have the usual.” He didn’t laugh. I said the same thing every posting day. He picked up my card and disappeared into the racks of M-16 rifles.

Beside me, at the other issue window, Sergeant Rodriguez, one of the Flight Security Controllers in Charlie flight area, dropped one of his magazines full of M-16 rounds. A chorus of men’s voice rose up from various corners, and I joined in: “Jeep!” It was a word reserved for a newbie, someone with no experience, but it was also used when someone of any level of experience made a stupid mistake.

When Jenkins returned he spoke. “Congratulations, Bogner.” He placed the magazines fully loaded with rifle rounds on the counter, and I placed them in the magazine pouches on my web belt. He pointed the weapon into the sand-filled clearing barrel suspended from the ceiling and pulled the rifle’s charging handle, sliding the bolt away from the chamber with the flat “shuk” noise that, after two years of this routine, was so familiar to me. Jenkins looked into the chamber to make sure it was clear of any foreign objects – or more importantly, a bullet – turned it to show me, and then handed it through the window. “Full weapon breakdown and inspection on recovery day!” said Jenkins, pulling my weapons issue card and a grease pencil out of his pocket, and writing on the card a large letter “I” and circling it.

“Christ!” I spat. “Why don’t you guys have us do that on posting day? We got nowhere else to go, then!”

Jenkins shrugged and said, “Rules.” Then he called for the guy in line behind me.

I walked to the clearing barrel, rifle muzzle pointed at the ceiling, rifle at a forty-five degree angle four inches from my chest. Some people get angry if you don’t hold the rifle at port arms during the clearing procedure. Rules. And it would be the same procedure in reverse on recovery day. After I stripped and cleaned my rifle for inspection, of course.

Senior Airman Quintero – that morning’s clearing barrel official – waved me forward and snapped to attention. I reached into my ammo pouch and pulled out one magazine, and I handed it to Quintero. I walked to the bright red barrel and pointed my rifle into it, showing Quintero the open ejection port, the oval cut into the side of the rifle where the spent shells would be spit out after being fired. He looked into the open oval and the empty chamber and said, crisply, “Clear, SIR!” I rotated the rifle clockwise, revealing the other side to him. He looked first at the fire selector lever beside my thumb, and said just as crisply as before, “Safe, SIR!” Some of the other guys in the room were laughing at Quintero’s performance. He never really took the military crap seriously, and now being so “short,” with fewer than six months left before getting out, he openly showed his hatred for it. I reached down and slapped the bolt release on the left side of the rifle, feeling the whole thing jump as the bolt slammed into the chamber with a flat “shak,” completing the two-step sequence that was started at the armory issue window. Quintero handed the magazine back to me, and I slid it into the magazine well on the rifle until I heard the telltale ‘click’ that told me it was locked into place. The weapon was “half-safe,” not a danger to anyone until the charging handle was pulled back to send a round from the magazine into the chamber. As I stepped away from the barrel I looked at Quintero and said, “Lighten up, Frances,” quoting a line from one of my favorite films.

Without acknowledging my joke, he barked, “Sir! Yes, SIR!” He was giving the guys in line a good morning. As I walked out of the armory, the “shuk-shak” sound of M-16 rifles being cleared behind me reminded me of the firing range. Weapons requalification always got me excited – a magazine loaded with standard issue 5.56 millimeter NATO rounds, sliding it into the magazine well until it clicked, pulling the charging handle back and hearing the bolt slide back, the distinct sound of smooth, oiled metal sliding against smooth, oiled metal. “Shuk!” Then releasing the charging handle and the distinctly different sound of a cartridge being stripped out of the magazine and into the chamber – “SHLAK!” Ready to rock and roll! I’ve consistently been one of the top five marksmen on Bravo Flight since I got to Montana.



“SQUADRON! ‘Ten HUT!” The guardmount room suddenly became quiet, with the exception of Quintero humming just under his breath something close to “California Here I Come.” Standing next to him, I couldn’t help but hear. Lieutenant Colonel Robbin, our squadron commander, walked between the two formations of Security Specialists, all armed, all shiny – except for me – and stopped in front of Lieutenant Kirby and Master Sergeant Hickson. The lieutenant and the master sergeant presented perfect salutes, and the lieutenant said to the colonel, “Sir! The flights are ready for inspection.”

Colonel Robbin first inspected Lieutenant Kirby, then Sergeant Hickson, and then he executed a crisp about-face and stared ahead at the two flights. Guardmount is a formality in the Air Force cop world, a personal inspection at the beginning of every shift, and something I’ve resented since I joined. It’s worse for cops at other bases who have to do it daily, so I guess I shouldn’t complain about having to do it once every nine days. But then, people in every other Air Force specialty have to do it only two or three times a year. Colonel Robbin had assumed command earlier in the year, and was a little more into formality than Major Wooten, his predecessor.

“BRAVO FLIGHT!” Sergeant Hickson barked, “Parade REST!” As one with the rest of the flight, I stepped my left foot out to a shoulder-width stance and brought my left hand from my side to my rear waist, leaving my right hand at my shoulder, on the rifle’s carrying strap. Colonel Robbin began the inspection with Delta flight, with Lieutenant Kirby and Sergeant Hickson in tow. Right behind me I heard Sugar Bowl whisper.

“The colonel’s gonna make you lick your boots, ‘Boogner!’” He had his nickname. I had mine.

In the middle of a military formation, I couldn’t respond verbally, but with the advantage of parade rest, with our hands behind our backs, I silently bent my wrist upward and curled all of my fingers but one. I heard a brief snort from Sergeant Bearse, next to Sugar Bowl, and then silence. Despite my quiet triumph, the image of me licking my own boots squashed my smile.

Soon Bravo flight was at attention, and the colonel worked his way to me. To my surprise he didn’t make a comment to me. He stepped from the man to my left, snapped a perfect right-face to look me dead in the eye, then he examined me from top to bottom – beret, haircut, shave, uniform – every detail from head to foot. His eyes returned to mine, and then he mumbled “Boots.” Sergeant Hickson jotted it down on the roster sheet on his clipboard. Colonel Robbin then crisply executed a left face, took a step to my right, directly in front of Senior Airman Hoffman next to me, with Lieutenant Kirby and Sergeant Hickson mimicking the colonel not quite as crisply. As the colonel examined Hoffman in the same manner as he had me, Lieutenant Kirby stared me straight in the face. Colonel Robbin moved on again, and this time Sergeant Hickson stood directly in front of me looking, without moving his head, first at my face, and then at my boots, and then at my face again. Each time, his lips drew back at one corner and his right eyebrow lifted higher, communicating his disapproval. The colonel moved on.

The colonel didn’t give his usual speech that morning; he had meetings to go to, and since he left the room with our flight commander on his tail, I was spared Lieutenant Kirby’s wrath. Sergeant Hickson still managed to make an example of me, anyway. “Senior Airman Bogner! Front and Center! Show the troops a proper post briefing.”

I faced the formations and snapped to attention. Out on post I could rattle off my post briefing crisp and clear for the colonel or Sergeant Hickson and any visitor, but in front of the troops, all of my friends, I was a quivering ball of sweat. I hitched and stuttered through it. “Sir, Airman Bogner reports. As Alarm Response Team leader my primary responsibility is to provide an armed response to any alarms or situations that exist at the Launch Facilities in my flight area, and to supervise and direct my team member in such response. Other responsibilities include weekly inspections of Launch Facilities, and domestic tasks at the Launch Control Facility. My team member and I are each armed with one M-16 rifle and...

“Okay, good enough,” said Sergeant Hickson.

As I returned to formation there was some half-assed applause, and a muffled laugh from Sugar Bowl. I was glad I wasn’t posting with him.

Hickson began the routine announcements. “Alpha crew, there’s a change in your post. Airman Campbell, report immediately to the 342nd guardmount room. You’re the swap this tour.”

I looked over to Tim Cambpell as he looked over to me. We worked well together as an ART, but not this time out. He was this week’s choice for the 341st Missile Security Group’s personnel swap. It had started a couple of months before as a remedial lesson in comradeship after two guys, one from the 342nd Missile Security Squadron, and one from ours, the 341st, got into a fistfight at the NCO club. The group commander, the base’s top cop, liked the swap idea so much he decided to make it a regular thing. He thought that tearing a young guy from his familiar surroundings and the people he works best with and putting him with people, procedures, and places that are practically foreign to him was good for the ‘espirit de corps’ of the whole Group. All it did for ‘de corps’ was piss them off.

As Tim began gathering his equipment, Sergeant Hickson then said, “Airmen Quintero and Bogner, you will swap shifts as ART leaders.” This meant that I would be working nights with the swap troop from the 342nd. Since Quintero was a short-timer, Hickson didn’t trust putting anyone new with him because of his attitude. Also, since the swap guy doesn’t know our flight areas, he would be put on nights so if he did anything stupid nobody would see him and embarrass us. Hickson then confirmed my assessment. “Bogner, keep Quintero away from the swap and he should do okay.” The troops laughed. “I’m trusting you to train the swap properly.” Hickson paused a moment, an eyebrow arching mischievously. “And maybe the swap can train you to shine your boots.” The guardmount erupted in loud, brief laughter. I paid for my boots infraction in full. “Show this guy how we do things in the ‘41st,” said Sergeant Hickson.

“Yes, SIR!” I barked.

Seregeant Hickson looked at me with that same pulled back lip and arched eyebrow, a look that read, “don’t call me ‘sir,’ I work for a living.” He wasn’t much for the military pomp, either, but I considered it change back from what I paid him.

I looked to Quintero, on my right, just as he was pretending to nod off while standing. He jerked his head up with a snort and said, “Chit, man!” exaggerating his East L.A. Chicano dialect. The post change would mess him up. For tours when he’s scheduled to work nights, he stays up all night before posting day so he can sleep well through the afternoon. I do the same thing. For me this was a plus. Even though I wouldn’t be working with my good friend, Campbell, as soon as we arrived at the Launch Control Facility and changed over with the old crew, I could go straight to bed! It also meant that we wouldn’t be hassled with any exercise scenarios because there’s usually nobody out in the flight areas the first night.

Just as Sergeant Hickson began his departure safety briefing, the troop from the 342nd came in. Hickson waved him to the front of the room and told him to turn around and face us. “Troops,” Hickson announced, “meet Airman Green. He will post with us for this tour in the field. Please show him your hospitality and your respect.” And then Hickson mumbled into his hand as though he was clearing his throat: “…even though he is from the ‘42nd!

As all of the other troops laughed, I noticed how shiny and stiff and new the one single stripe was on green’s uniform sleeve.

I leaned over to Quintero and whispered harshly, “Great! They sent us a fuckin’ jeep!”

Quintero jerked his head up with a snort again and said, “Chit, man!”


* * *


“Quintero!” I groaned. “Lay off the jeep.” I looked at Green and said, “Don’t listen to him. It’s a load of crap, and Quintero’s full of it.”

We were halfway to Alpha Launch Control Facility when Quintero had changed subjects from his latest jailbait conquest to the mystery of Alpha five Launch Facility. He was sitting between Airman Green and me on the middle seat of the Air Force issue dark blue Chevy Suburban.

Green blinked at me for a few seconds and then focused on Quintero again. “Indians?” Green’s eyes had the look of a little kid who wanted to go into the carnival spook house, but needed a reason not to.

“Blackfeet.” Sergeant Rimbaux spoke to the rear view mirror from his spot behind the steering wheel, alternating his gaze between Green’s reflection and U.S. 89 vibrating beneath us as we headed east. His smooth, Cajun-spiced voice made the subject even more eerie to hear about, and I’m certain he realized it. “Da Blackfeet was at the diggin’, telling the white men that they was disturbin’ the dead, an’ that they would pay fo they crime.”

Staff Sergeant McCrindle, beside Rimbaux in the front passenger seat, said, “Ram-bo, you and Quintero BOTH fulla shit!” The two black men looked at each other and, after a silent glare, both burst into laughter. To speak to each one separately, they had nothing in common but the color of their skin. Rimbaux was a backwoods country boy from somewhere in Louisiana bayou country, and McCrindle was a street-tough homeboy from Philadelphia. One would think that Rimbaux’s smooth, laid-back personality and McCrindle’s choppy, high-strung one would clash, but they didn’t. Each seemed to complement the other and they got along smoothly with lots of laughter between them. The hulking Suburban straddled the yellow line under the influence of Rimbaux’s laughter, and McCrindle corrected him, laughing anew. “Get back on this side, ‘Bo! Ain’t you got lines in the road in ‘Loosiana?’”

“What roads?” Rimbaux’s laughter intensified with his own joke, and he took the Suburban all the way to the left side of the pavement.

I leaned across Quintero and said to Green, beneath the laughter, “Welcome to the 341st Missile Security Squadron!”

He faked a laugh. His brown eyes shifted from me to Rimbaux, almost as if we would leave the pavement if he were to look away from him too long.

“Don’t worry about these guys, I said, waving my thumb at the front seat. “We usually make it there alive.”

After wake-up that afternoon, I gave Green a tour of Alpha Launch Control Facility. During dinner I asked him what he thought.

“It’s a lot smaller than the LCFs in the west side of the complex.”

Though true, the west side is no different from the east side. Each LCF supports a launch crew sequestered in a capsule deep in the earth, who control ten missiles dispersed across the Montana countryside. These crews wait, day in and day out, for the order to launch any or all of their missiles, doing their part to aid in the destruction of the earth’s living creatures. Topside, the LCF building houses teams of Security Specialists who regularly run around to all of the launch facilities, where the missiles are housed deep under ground, in response to alarms detected out there, or just to make routine checks to make sure the alarm systems are working correctly.

“Which one do you work?” I asked, as if I would know where any of the flight areas on that side of the missile complex were. I had never gone beyond Great Falls in that direction.

“Romeo.”

“Oh.” It was all I could think of to say. Then, “East complex was here first, so everything built later had all the improvements.” Green’s face was blank, so I continued. “Alpha was the first Minuteman II launch complex built, actually. We’re sitting on history.” Green’s expression didn’t change. I had recalled this information, so now I felt compelled to spit it out to him. “During the Cuban Missile Crisis, in 1962, Alpha was Kennedy’s ‘ace in the hole.’ He convinced the commies that aiming their missiles at us from Cuba was a bad idea.” Green was as ignorant to the history of Malmstrom Air Force Base as I was when I first heard about it. Only Green didn’t even seem to know which Kennedy I was talking about. I looked up at the clock and said, “Five ‘til seven. Let’s change over.”

Rimbaux buzzed the lock to let us into Flight Security Control when we knocked. He and McCrindle had already changed over and were sharing a laugh about something as we came in. I noticed that McCrindle’s camouflage fatigue shirt was completely unbuttoned, his O.D. green undershirt untucked and ruffled, exposing the ‘outie’ protruding from his flat, brown belly, his belt unbuckled and his boots unlaced.

“Jeez, Mac!” I said. “You’re supposed to wait until you’re ready for bed to get undressed!”

“What you talkin’ about, Bog?” he said, straight-faced. “I been like this all day!” I laughed along with him and Rimbaux, and Green even relaxed a little with a chuckle.

I turned to Rimbaux and said, “Okay, boss. Brief me.”

He turned his head to face his feet propped up on the desk and spoke to them and the piece of paper with his notes on it. “ART on da road, on da way back. You gotta weekly at Alpha four due by midnight. Alpha seven gone off six times today – that’s where the ART just comin’ back from. And we got a camper at Alpha five.”

“You’re kidding! Since when?” I thought he was joking until he reached forward and pulled McCrindle’s report from the desk.

“They just arrived. Had maintenance doin’ routine, and outer zone system wouldn’t reset when they tried to leave. Escorts sat two hours waitin’ fo’ da camper.”

I looked at Green and sighed. “It’s gonna be a long three nights.”

Green cocked his head at me. “Why’s that?”

“Well,” I said, “when a site has a camper team on it, the ART…” It dawned on me as I spoke that, in our earlier conversation, I hadn’t thought to ask Green just how much of a jeep he was. “How long have you been at Malmstrom?”

Green looked to the ceiling to calculate. “Two months.”

“Fuckin’ 42nd!” I muttered to myself, rubbing my face with my hand. Then to Green: “Do you remember anything from orientation? From TECH SCHOOL?”

Green shrugged tentatively.

“When a site has a camper team on it,” I sighed, “the dedicated ART has to relieve them for two hours out of every 24 so they can get a shower and a hot meal. We usually wind up stuck out there for a lot longer because they can never find the LCF on their own. Their two-hour break doesn’t start until they arrive at the LCF. While they’re on relief, they’re the responding ART, so if there are any alarms, their two-hour break clock stops, and it doesn’t start up again until they return to the LCF.

“It’s worse at night, and since they initiated at the start of our shift, you and I are their relief. That’s why it’s gonna be a long three nights.

“Oh.” Green’s face was blank. It was all he said.

“Only two,” Rimbaux said.

“Huh?” I looked at him.

“Only two nights. They just got there. You don’ gotta go tonight.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Of course, he was right. I was just so pissed at the idea I had assumed was effective immediately. Then another thought occurred to me. “Maybe they’ll fix the O.Z. by tomorrow afternoon, and we won’t have to go at all.”

“Mebbee, mebbee,” said Rimbaux, nodding at his boots.

Just as Quintero and Hoffman, the day-shift Alarm Response Team, were pulling in, the missile commander housed in the capsule deep in the earth below us called on the intercom. “Status Detroit, Alpha seven.” Since we used common, unsecure radio frequencies in the flight areas, the Air Force had devised generic codes that wouldn’t necessarily tip off scanner buzzards when something serious happened. A “Detroit” was the code to let us know that the outer zone security alarm system had been triggered at the Alpha seven site again. At least its O.Z. system worked!

Green and I ran out to meet Quinetro and Hoffman at the Alarm Response Team vehicle, a Ford Bronco, painted the same dark blue as the Suburban we had arrived in earlier in the day, its bright yellow identification decals blooming in the late afternoon sun hitting the passenger door as Hoffman opened it. As we quickly changed over, I slapped Quintero on the back and asked, “What’s the story with Alpha seven, man?”

“I don’t know, man,” he replied, looking up at me with drooping, very tired, coal black eyes. “I been out there all damn day. Seen a gopher hole on site, but no gopher. If you see him, kill the fucker!”

“Rah-JO!” I said, plopping the Kevlar helmet on my head and unshouldering my rifle. An O.Z. alarm is usually nothing to be alarmed about, but the Air Force has rules, and just in case there really is something sinister happening at a LF, we have to be prepared with our Kevlar helmets and our Kevlar vests on and fastened when we leave the LCF. Of course, once we leave, the helmets come off and the vest is opened until we arrive at the LF, just in case it’s Sergeant Hickson conducting an exercise. I climbed into the Ford Bronco’s driver seat, and Quintero trotted to the LCF gate to let us out. As I drove past him I looked to him and shouted through the open window, “Get some sleep!”

He shouted back, “Sir! Yes, SIR!” snapping to exaggerated attention and giving a goofy salute.

Green watched Quintero out the back window of the Bronco for a few seconds as we drew away from him, and then he turned to me and said, “Is he always like that?”

“He’s short,” was my only response.



Arriving at Alpha seven Launch Facility about an hour later, I immediately saw what had triggered the alarm. Silhouetted against the clear western sky, right in the middle of the O.Z., was what Quintero hadn’t been able to glimpse earlier in the day: a lone gopher, up on his haunches and viewing his domain.

“You know how to kill a gopher, Green?”

He stared at me for a second, then blinked, and said, “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

“Why kill it?”

“He lives here,” I said. “If you just chase him off, he’ll just come back after we leave and trigger the alarm again and again.”

Green looked at his rifle timidly. A light breeze blew through both of our open windows, causing the hair in his outgrown brown flat-top to flitter like fresh cut grass. “So, we shoot it?”

It was the same reaction every new ART member in the missile fields had when confronted with this situation. It was mine when I was in Green’s position. “No. We can’t do that. Too dangerous for the locals and the launcher site. We’re supposed to protect Air Force resources, not shoot at them.”

Green looked out at the gopher, searching his young mind for ideas. “No,” he said. “I don’t know how.”

I grabbed the microphone attached to the Bronco’s mobile radio, and pressed the transmit button. “Alpha control, Alpha sixty.”

A few seconds went by, then the radio speaker burped. “Go, sixty,” crackled Rimbaux’s voice.

“We have visual of a gopher on site. Likely cause. Over.”

“Roger, that, sixty. Proceed on site and escort him off. Over.”

“Ten-four.”

I looked at Green. “Turn on the lights and unlock the gate.” I opened my door and stood just outside the vehicle. I removed my flak vest and put on my beret. While Green unlocked the gate I opened the hood on the Bronco.

“What are you doing?” Green asked over his shoulder while he fiddled with the lock.

“Watch and learn, my boy,” I said. “Watch and learn.” Along the driver’s side fender panel, under retaining clips, was the vehicle’s jack handle, a straight, steel rod, hinged in the middle, with a squared “S” bent into one end, intended to be used as a crank for the jack when changing a tire.

I turned to face the Launch Facility. With a few cosmetic differences, all Minuteman missile silos are the same: a huge concrete launcher lid shaped like a six-pointed diamond, perched on a set of rails, which point south. Why all silos point south, I don’t know; maybe it has something to do with the rotation of the earth. I never bothered to ask. Around the launcher lid at four corners are the outer zone field motion detectors, large, circular things with plastic covers, each perched atop a vertical pole and facing in toward the launcher lid. As far as I’m aware, they’ve been called “banjos” forever, and if you relax your mind a little bit, you can see the resemblance to the namesake instrument, stood up on its tuning head. It was this system of sensors that had detected our gopher, which was now clearly aware of our presence.

“Open the gate slowly,” I ordered Green. “Be as quiet as possible.” He followed my instructions well.

With the jack handle in my hand I walked through the LF gate. The gopher reacted cautiously, dropping to all fours and moving a few steps toward the north end of the launcher lid. That’s where its hole was, at least the hole where it intended to make its escape. I scanned the area north of the lid and found the telltale signs of the hole: a slightly raised berm created by the discarded dirt from the gopher’s digging. I moved to my left, toward the area north of the lid.

“Walk along inside the fence,” I said to Green, pointing in the opposite direction from where I was heading. “Stand at the end of the rails.” I waited while Green got into position. I unclipped my handheld radio and raised it to my mouth. The gopher was occupied with Green’s movement, so I inched a little closer to its hole.

When Green reached the rails, I keyed the mike of my radio. “If the gopher comes over the lid toward you, charge after him.” Green fumbled for his handheld radio as I spoke. “Make as much noise as possible. But don’t move until he comes over the ledge. Got it?”

My radio spat, “Got it.”

I stepped forward, kicking the gravel before me. The gopher spun to look at me, crouched and ready to dart for its hole. I leaned forward and then broke into a sprint right for the gopher’s hole, screaming like an idiot. The startled gopher ran a few tentative steps toward his hole and then abandoned the idea, making a run for it in the exact opposite direction, right for the edge of the launcher lid.

Green seemed almost as startled by my actions as the gopher, and when the gopher went over the ledge, I think Green’s scream was as much astonishment as it was following instructions. Either way, it worked, and the frightened gopher’s survival instinct kicked in. When it hit the concrete at the base of the lid, it scrambled away from Green and under the lid.

“Aw, CRAP!” shouted Green. “He got away!”

I trotted to the edge of the lid and hopped off. “No he didn’t. Come here. Look.” I pulled my flashlight off of my web belt and lay flat on the concrete. Green did the same. I shined the light beneath the lid and found the gopher, squeezed as tightly as it could manage into the smallest space it could find, against the launcher lid seal. Inwardly, I was a little embarrassed at myself. My usual ART member, Tim Campbell, had perfected the gopher hunt to a science, and could wrangle any gopher under the lid without my help. Whenever I tried it alone, the gopher always managed to disappear into one of its many other holes. But my two-man method works, at least.

“Huh!” Green snorted. “Now what?”

“Just keep the flashlight on him,” I said. I unfolded the Bronco’s jack handle and slid it under the lid.

“You gonna stab it?” asked Green.

The end of the jack handle is too blunt for that. “Tried that once,” I said. “Didn’t work. They’re hardy little fuckers.”

I maneuvered the flattened tip of the jack handle underneath the gopher’s neck and pressed up as hard as I could, trying to strangle the poor creature. It took about twenty seconds for it to stop struggling, and its little limbs went slack. Using the end of the jack handle, I pulled its limp little body out from beneath the launcher lid. Using my right foot I positioned it so that its head was toward me, its tail away. I placed the heel of my right boot over its head. Green’s eyes went briefly wide, and then he turned his head slightly, closing his eyes in disgust as the gopher’s skull crunched under my heel.

“Why’d you have to do that? He was dead already.”

“Are you sure of that? My first gopher, I just strangled it. While I looked at it, wondering what to do next, it came to and ran back under the lid. How long does it take to strangle a gopher to death? I don’t know. So you knock him out and squish its head. It’s the most humane way we can do it out here.”

I agreed with Green. I didn’t like doing it, but I had done it so many times now that it was just part of the job. It was the modified law of the jungle. If I didn’t kill it, it would just keep triggering alarms. Besides, there are probably more gophers in the Montana missile fields than there are people in the United States, so I don’t think a few hundred a year going MIA would tip nature’s scales.

I squatted before the little corpse and grasped it by its stubby, little tail.

“Now what are you doing?” asked Green.

I walked with the gopher dangling from my thumb and forefinger to the fence and tossed it up and over, as far beyond the fence as I could muster. Walking back to Green, I said, “Scavengers will find it and eat it. We took care of the gopher problem here, we don’t want to leave it on site for the scavengers to trip the alarm.” I continued past Green. “Come on. You still have to do the topside check.”

Against procedure, I walked the topside while Green trotted through his check, and he pointed out the differences between the west complex LFs and those here in the east complex. I answered his questions, and he seemed to be aware enough of the differences.

From Alpha seven we drove directly to Alpha four and completed the weekly inspection due there. On the way back to Alpha LCF, the Bronco’s radio barked. “Alpha control, this is Alpha five.” It was the camper team Rimbaux had told us about.

After a couple of seconds, Rimbaux’s smooth voice called back. “Alpha control. Go ahead, five.”

“Site is secure. Bravo lima.”

The radio went silent, and I could picture Rimbaux running his finger across the code page, finding the camper guard’s authenticator numbers matching ‘B’ and ‘L,’ and keying his radio microphone. “Ten-four, Alpha five. Control out.” Just a comfortable reminder of the camper relief in our future.

Green looked at me for a few seconds, and then at the radio. I knew what he was thinking.

“What was Quintero talking about today? About Alpha five?”

I sighed and remained silent, hoping he would drop it. He wouldn’t.

“Bog?”

I sighed again. “The story goes that, back in the fifties, when they were building these missile sites, some of the Blackfeet tribe protested at Alpha five. They complained that the digging was disturbing an ancient burial ground. The Air Force said, ‘Sure. We’ll stop,’ kicked the Indians off the site, and continued building. End of story.”

“Then what’s the big mystery?” Green hadn’t taken his eyes off of me.

I sighed yet again and rolled my eyes. “There have been rumors since the missiles came on line that the spirits of the dead Indians roam Alpha five looking for their lost graves.”

In the sparse light from the twilight sky around us I could see Green’s eyes bugged wide. “No shit?” He was almost whispering.

“They’re just rumors, Green! Ghost stories.” I shouted at him. “I’ve spent more nights at Alpha five than I can remember, and all I’ve seen out there was the fence and the trees! Don’t let Quintero and Rimbaux spook you. They’re just fucking with you because you’re a jeep.” After my words I held my eyes steady on the road, occasionally admiring the dazzling array of colors offered after one of northern Montana’s typical Big Sky sunsets, and breathing in the fresh, late June air blowing in through the Bronco’s open windows. Neither of us spoke again until we arrived at Alpha LCF.

The rest of the night was quiet out in the Alpha flight area. I sat in the lounge, nodding off in front of the TV while the VCR spun out “Ghostbusters.” I had seen it at least fifty times already. It was the only tape at the LCF, and Campbell wasn’t here with his usual stash of porn videos. Green spent the rest of the night in the office shooting the shit with Rimbaux.



The next evening I was again at the dinner table with Green. I had had trouble sleeping through the day, and I wasn’t in a mood to talk. But Green was.

“So, where are you from, Bogner?”

I paused, trying to work a piece of corn hull from between my teeth with my tongue. It sounded almost like I was trying to remember. “Ohio,” I replied, finally. I picked up the cob and tore another mouthful of corn into my mouth.

“Oh,” said Green. He paused while I chewed, but when I stabbed a piece of Salisbury steak and put it in my mouth instead of asking him where he was from, he answered as if I had. “I’m from Washington state. Near Olympia.”

“Mm-hmm,” I chewed. I know Washington like I know the back of my head.

Green was quiet for a few minutes while he ate. He stared at the salt and pepper shakers while he chewed. His expression seemed to change, to sink. I started to wonder what he was thinking about when, without turning his eyes from the shakers, he asked, “Do you think we’ll have to go to Alpha five tonight?”

“Aw, Jesus, Green!” I groaned. “That’s what you get for sitting there and letting Rimbaux fill your head with his ghost stories. Do I have to tell you again? Alpha five is just a bullshit story made up to scare new guys like you!”

Green’s facial expression didn’t change, but he was looking at me now. I waited for him to say something, but he stayed quiet. I looked at the clock. It was past seven. I stood up. “Come on. Let’s change over.”

Quintero, sprawled on the lounge sofa in front of “Ghostbusters” for his hundredth time at least, had overheard our conversation. As we walked past the sofa toward the office, he said, “Ey, Green! I seen a ghost at five. Yeah, she was beautiful. Got her in the camper all night!” He lost his steel and began to laugh at his own joke.

Green turned away with a red face.

Quintero called to Green’s back, “Watch out for them ghost bitches, Green! They’ll wear you out!” Quintero was still laughing when the door to the office closed behind us, shutting out his laughter.

After changeover, Rimbaux dispatched us to Alpha five for the twenty-four hour camper relief. We were halfway there when our radio barked. “Alpha sixty, Alpha control.”

Green grabbed the mike. “Alpha sixty. Go.”

Rimbaux was quick and to the point. “Status Detroit, Alpha three.”

"Ah, Christ!” I groaned.

I pulled the Bronco to the side of the road and began turning it around. Green keyed the mike and said, “On our way,” he said brightly. He seemed relieved.

I rolled down the window and said to the steering wheel, “We’re not gonna make it to five until it’s dark. I just know it.” Alpha three is just as far from Alpha LCF to the west as five is to the east.

An hour and fifteen minutes later we arrived at Alpha three. Nothing and nobody on site, so we checked it out and locked it back up. After authenticating with Rimbaux, I burned my finger while destroying my code page.

“Are you okay?” Green asked me with a grin.

“Just shut up!” I was taking my frustration and lack of sleep out on him, and I shouldn’t have.

As soon as Alpha three’s alarm system reset, we headed back to Alpha five.



“Alpha control, this is Alpha sixty.”

“Control. Go ahead.”

By now the sun had hidden itself beneath the west, but the sky in its aftermath still glowed red, pink and purple. The earth around us was now only variations of gray. I steered the Bronco along the access road, the gravel crunching beneath its tires, our headlights creeping up onto a dull, gray, chain-link gate and, as we slowed to a stop, onto a weathered, blue sign affixed to the fence beside the gate, paint chipping badly, its yellow letters, “A-5” barely visible. Tucked comfortably in the trees, the site is practically invisible in daylight from the road that brought us there. At night it takes a skilled veteran to find it.

I sighed into the mike, “Arrived Alpha five.” I killed the Bronco’s motor and headlights. As the silence rushed in through the Bronco’s open windows, I could understand why anybody might get spooked out here. In the quiet darkness, Alpha five had more in common with a cemetery than with anything else – secrets buried in the ground, a concrete slab marking the location. Only this secret delivers death, and the concrete bears no epitaph.

After a few moments, the only sign of life on the site revealed itself to us: the dome light inside the cab of the camper came on as the team exited it. At my instruction, Green turned on the site lights. As the team approached the gate I recognized the camper team leader, also from my technical training class.

“Hey, Goober! That you?” I called through the gate.

“Ay, Boogner!” Airman Cooper called back. The Air Force runs on stupid nicknames. Nicknames and abbreviations.

Rimbaux initiated the tedious process of cross-authenticating, instructing each member of each team to send his secret number, in code, to control, and verifying each member’s number to make sure none of us was a Soviet spy bent on dismantling the United States’ intercontinental ballistic missile system.

Rimbaux then radioed that we were indeed secure for changeover and Green began to unlock the gate.

“What’s it like out here tonight?” I asked.

“Dead,” said Cooper.

With that, Green snapped the padlock open and swung the gate out toward me, its hinges creaking vibrations eerily through the fence around the whole site.

“Who’s the jeep?” asked Cooper, walking out through the gate, his camper team member right behind him.

“That’s Green. He’s a swap.”

Cooper shook his head. “They still doing that?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Group made it a regular thing.”

“How’s Sugar Bowl?”

“Still Sugar Bowl.”

Cooper snorted and slapped my shoulder, and said, “Welp, I’d like to stay and talk, but I need a shower…bad!”

I plugged my nose and mocked surprise. “That’s YOU?!”

Cooper laughed and slapped me on the shoulder again. “Fuck you, too, Boogner!”

Green and I grabbed our ‘C’ bags, which, when we aren’t responding to an alarm, contain our helmets, Kevlar vests, gas masks, first aid kits, extra canteens, and a few other whatnots the Air Force decided we need to carry around with us. We stepped inside the fence perimeter and watched as Cooper locked the gate. We stood at the gate while Cooper turned the Bronco around, and his team member fumbled with the light switch key beside the gate. With the rear end of the Bronco facing us, Cooper stuck his head out the driver’s window and shouted, “Later, dudes! Don’t let the spooks get ya!”

In the same instant, the team member figured out the light switch, and the site went completely dark, save for the red glow of the Bronco’s brake lights. I looked at Green, and despite his washed out features in the bright red light, I saw the look of fear set in his face, and in his wide eyes.

“Damn it!” I muttered to myself. He was jittery enough before coming here. He didn’t need anyone’s encouragement. The passenger door closed, and Cooper and his team member, whose name I never caught, crunched away from us down the gravel access road, now the dedicated Alarm Response Team for the Alpha flight area.



I sat for the first half-hour riveted to the mobile radio, listening to Cooper and his member try to find their way to the LCF. Rimbaux was an ART leader in Echo flight area for three years, and had only worked in Alpha flight area twice before becoming a Flight Security Controller here, so he had no idea how to get them home. Finally I got on the radio and talked them in. It was just like in the movies where they talk down a passenger at the controls of a doomed plane, only no one was going to die if I failed.

I was beat. “You mind if I catch a nap?” I asked Green. He just looked at me in confusion. “We’re a camper team, now. One of us can sleep.”

“Okay.” he looked out at the darkness.

“How many tours have you been out on, Green?”

“This is my third.”

“Holy f…” I bit my tongue. “Jesus Christ! You really are a fuckin’ jeep!” Green remained silent. I sighed. “Well, it’s gonna be about four hours before they get back, so wake me up in an hour and then you can crash.”

Still looking out into the black, he nodded and said, “Okay.”

I slid down on the old Dodge’s bench seat until my knees brushed against the dash. I pulled my beret over my face and folded my arms over my chest. The sudden quiet gave me an eerie comfort. I dozed for a while. I don’t know how long. It could have been an hour. It could have been two minutes. It was that kind of a nod. But when I woke up, Green was breathing in short gasps. When I sat up he jumped.

“You okay, Green?”

He was leaning forward with his hands on the dashboard, darting his eyes back and forth, peering out into the darkness. He swallowed loudly and said, “Yeah.” He was actually panting.

“What’s wrong?” I looked out into the darkness as well. “Did you see something?”

“No.” He shook his head slowly.

I leaned toward him as if my stern gaze would get a straight answer out of him. “Green. What’s the matter?”

I could hear his hands squeezing the dashboard, his fingers squeaking against the cheap, leather-look plastic as he tried to put the words together. “Rimbaux said that you can only see the Indians if you believe they’re here.”

I fell back against the driver’s door and buried my face in my hands. “Jesus Christ! You’re freakin’ out on me!”

“No! No! We talked about it for two hours last night. He wasn’t trying to scare me. He says he knows they’re here, and they’re angry.”

“Angry?!” I shouted. “What? Are they gonna kill us? If Rimbaux wasn’t trying to scare you, I’d hate to see you right now if he was!” I leaned toward Green again to make my point clear, to make sure my order was understood. “Calm down. There ain’t no ghosts.”

“He says the Blackfeet was a peaceful tribe, but they…”

“GREEN!” I cut him off. “Rimbaux is a country puke from Louisiana! He don’t know shit about Indians from Montana!”

Green persisted. “They want us to leave, Bogner! We have to—OH MY GOD!!” His eyes bulged wide in their sockets. They were fixed over my shoulder, out the driver’s window. Despite the darkness his face seemed to be illuminated.

A fright jolted me. I felt as though I had been punched in the chest, my heart thudding wildly at the sensation that something was behind me. “What?!” I yelled. I snapped my head around to see what Green was looking at.

Nothing. Nothing but the Montana night.

“Did you see that?!” Green was screaming. He scrambled to look out every window at the same time.

“I didn’t see anything, Green!”

“She was looking right at us! We gotta get out of here!”

How did this guy get in the Air Force? I wondered as my heart slowed. “What are you talking about? We can’t go anywhere.” At that, he slugged me. I leaned back and shook off the sting in my lip. I tasted blood, and I saw red.

“You DICK!” I screamed, lunging at him and grabbing him by the hair. I cocked my fist back to repay the favor plus gratuity, but just before I could let it go, something ran past his window toward the front of the truck. I got up off Green and looked out through the windshield, my head and heart throbbing to the panic pace of my heart.

She was standing there on the launcher lid, looking at us. Something Quintero had said rang in my mind. Was it a coincidence? Or was he telling the truth? She was beautiful. Straight black hair, soft, reddish-brown face, plain hide smock. Despite the night, I could see her clearly, as if in daylight.

Green sat up and screamed, “There she is!”

She turned away from us, jumped off the launcher lid and ran. When she got to the fence, she stopped and looked at us once again. After a few seconds, she turned to the fence and ran through it, disappearing into the wall of pine trees thirty feet beyond.

I blinked a couple of times, uncertain I had really seen what I thought I had seen. I looked at Green, and he completely lost it. He grabbed the front of my uniform shirt with inhuman strength and screamed hysterically, “We gotta get out of here! WE GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE!”

I grabbed his hands and pried at his fingers until I was able to free my shirt and push him away. I wanted to tell him to calm down, but I was shaking almost as badly as he was. I turned on the truck’s headlights and opened the door.

“You can’t go out there!” Green’s voice cracked. His panicked, bloodshot eyes bulged out at me, at the same time denying me permission to get out of the truck as pleading with me not to.

I only looked at him. I grabbed my handheld radio from the seat and left him there. I stepped in front of the truck, my shadow from the headlights a looming giant against the pines where she had dissolved. I walked across the smooth concrete launcher lid to where I had first seen her, and then I jumped the three feet to the concrete below, just as she had. I walked toward the fence. I heard a door open on the Dodge.

“Come on, Bogner. Let’s just get out of here.” Green’s voice was still wracked with panic.

“We can’t!” I yelled. “Get on the radio and tell Rimbaux we’ve got a situation here.” I stopped at the point in the fence where she had been, and I touched it. Then, cutting through the quiet of night like a bolt of lightning, I heard it: the distinct sound of smooth oiled metal sliding against smooth oiled metal – shuk-SHLAK! Green had chambered a round in his M-16. I froze.

“Green?” I called, my back to him. “What are you doing?”

“Just get in the truck, man. We’re getting out of here.” His voice was shrill, high, but not as frantic. I could hear him trembling.

I turned to face him, but could only see the painfully white circles of the Dodge’s headlights.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. I’m coming back.” I walked slowly toward the camper. It bothered me that I couldn’t see him.

Green barked an order. “Hurry up! We should’ve lef –HOLY SHIT!! I can see them! They’re all over the woods! They’re coming after us!”

I tried to call to him, tried to calm him down, but it was too late. The silence of the forest was destroyed by the flash of yellow light and the hot pepper of Green’s M-16 firing at full automatic, shifting left to right and back again, spraying wildly into the tree line. I didn’t even have time to dive for cover. I felt a dull impact across my thighs, and my legs were knocked out from under me, like a good football block.

When I came to, I was face down on the gravel, bleeding from my nose or my mouth. I heard the shiver-churn of the truck’s starter, and then the rumble of the big-block Dodge engine as it came to life, instantly growing to a fierce roar. Gravel crunched and metal creaked, and then the whole fence around me shuddered as the camper punched through the gate. I reached for the handheld radio, about three feet in front of me, and then screamed as pain shot through my legs as though someone had staked me to the ground through them. I caught my breath and tried again, pulling myself to within inches of the radio’s rubber coated antenna. I couldn’t make it.


* * *


“Then what did you do?” Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent Gage leaned forward, into his fifth page of notes.

“I’m not really sure,” I said. “I think I passed out.” I searched my memories. “I dreamed that the pain stopped.”

“And then?”

I looked at the OSI agent for a moment. “And then I woke up in a hospital bed surrounded by doctors and nurses.”

He flipped through his pages of notes for some time, and then he looked at me suspiciously. “Now, you were on the launcher lid when you were shot?”

“No,” I replied. “I was in front of it, beyond the rails, down by the south fence.”

“You said you came to at one point. Do you remember where you were?”

“I was spitting gravel and blood out of my mouth. I was right where I had been standing.”

He and Lieutenant Kirby looked at each other, the expressions on their faces matched. The OSI guy looked back at me. “You’re certain that you weren’t on the launcher lid when Green left you?”

“I’m certain,” I replied.

The agent scratched his forehead as he stared at his notebook.

“Is there something wrong?” I asked him.

“Yeah.” He threw his notebook down on the chair next to the lieutenant. “At what point did Green patch you up?”

I stared at him for a second, I’m sure the look on my face was classic. “Patch me up? He couldn’t get away from there fast enough, he was so scared. He wouldn’t have stopped long enough to scratch an itch, let alone patch me up. He left me there, right where I fell. He probably didn’t even realize what he did.”

Lieutenant Kirby cleared his throat and spoke, his tobacco-scarred voice grating against the calm of the room. “If Green had patched him up, he would have had a lot of Bogner’s blood on him. When they picked him up, he was dry as a bone.” Then the lieutenant hack-laughed. “Well, dry of blood, anyway. Charlie ART found him, camper on its side in a ditch, about six miles from Alpha five. Say he was screaming, shaking, and fouling his drawers. Shrinks still haven’t gotten him to say anything they can understand.”

Agent Gage pursed his lips. “Okay.” He picked up his notebook again and flipped one page back and forth a couple of times. “After you relieved the camper team, when did you turn on the site lights?”

“I didn’t.”

“Did Green?” The agent’s face was reddening, and his creased forehead was shiny with sweat.

“No.”

“After he shot you, did Airman Green turn on the site lights?” He seemed irritated, almost angry.

“No, he didn’t.”

The OSI agent stepped toward the bed menacingly. “How do you know that if you were passed out?”

“Agent Gage,” Lieutenant Kirby interrupted. “The only way to turn on the site lights is with LF keys, at the switch outside the gate. The Alarm Response Teams are the only ones who carry them, and the camper crew was already back at the LCF…with the keys.”

Agent Gage looked at the lieutenant. “The camper teams are LOCKED inside the site?”

Lieutenant Kirby nodded. “They can’t leave the site unsecure. They’re the topside security when the technology fails.”

“Well, what if there’s an emergency? A silo fire, or something?”

Lieutenant Kirby glared at Agent Gage for a moment. “Well, Green got out without a key, didn’t he?”

The room was quiet for several seconds. I looked at Agent Gage. “So, what’s wrong?”

The lieutenant looked again at the agent, who shook his head at the lieutenant, and then both looked at me. “Airman Bogner,” said Lieutenant Kirby, “when the emergency teams got to Alpha five, the lights were on. You were lying on your back on the center of the launcher lid, and your wounds had been treated.” The confusion in the lieutenant’s face, as well as on Agent Gage’s, was intense. “The technique was primitive, but whoever dressed your wounds knew what they were doing. They saved your life.

“The doctors who performed the surgery on your legs said that, had your wounds been left untreated, in the time that passed after Sergeant Rimbaux heard your call and before the emergency teams got to you, you could have bled to death three times over.”

I looked into Lieutenant Kirby’s eyes. “My call?”

The lieutenant motioned with his head to Agent Gage, who flipped several pages back in his notebook. “Yeah. Sergeant Rimbaux’s statement.” He read from his page stiffly, ‘”Shots fired. Shots fired. Shots fired.” And then nothing. I knew it was Bogner’s voice, but he sounded sleepy.’”

“I don’t remember calling in,” I said.

Agent Gage sighed, raising his eyes to me from his notes. He stared at me for a few seconds, apparently searching his thoughts for any other questions. “Is there anything else you can remember? Anything you haven’t told us?”

I thought back, found nothing, and slowly shook my head from side to side.

“Do you have any questions for me?” he asked.

“Green saw something that made him fire,” I said. “Did they find anything out there?”

The lieutenant hack-laughed again and stood up. “Nothing but some splintered trees and a couple of shot-up deer.”

As the men left the room, I called to the lieutenant. “Sir? Do you believe me?” He stared at me. Silent. “I know I saw her, sir. I couldn’t be mistaken about it. She was beautiful.”

Lieutenant Kirby looked down for a second at his beret in his hands, and then said, “You take it easy, Airman Bogner. We’ll probably be back in a day or two with some more questions and have you tell us the story again.” Then he slid out of the room.

He didn’t believe me. He didn’t need to say it. They could come back every day and ask me to tell them the story, trying to find something different from any of the other days, because they didn’t believe me. But they wouldn’t find anything. I couldn’t tell it any differently because there’s no other way to tell it than how it happened.

I adjusted the bed down flat and looked at my feet hanging by cables above the bed. I sighed and closed my eyes. In a little while I knew I’d be asleep, and she’d come to visit me again to take away the pain like she had since I first saw her three nights ago. She is beautiful.

The Condition of Air

Well, I think I just stepped into the last phase of my life. With the summer weather finally upon Chicago, and the bones and joints slowly seizing in my increasingly sedentary state, I've come to believe that I've sealed my fate.

I grew up fairly poor. My father ran his own business, opening a barbershop during the prepubescence of the post-war baby-boom, when young men still had their hair cut regularly enough to keep barbers in business and feeding their families. But then The Beatles introduced American kids to drugs, free love and long hair, and the innocence was over. By 1970, Mom had to stop having kids and go to work. With seven kids, however, the paycheck usually was eaten before it was cashed.

So we went without a lot of the things that friends whose parents made lots more money than did mine took for granted. One of these things was air conditioning. I spent my youth riding out the heat and humidity of Chicago summers. If it was too hot outside, then we ran the sprinkler. When we ran up the water bill too high, then we sat in the house practically naked, in front of a box fan. In the morning we drew the shades and closed the windows on the east side of the house and opened the windows on the west. As the sun traversed the heavens through the day, we closed the windows and shades on the south side, and then on the west side to keep the heat at bay. Those were dismal summers. Too hot to do anything but park in front of a fan and watch the Cubs on TV. Truly dismal summers.

I developed a thick skin in those days, eventually eschewing air conditioning when it offered itself to me, for I knew it was but a temporary respite, and I would only return home to a fan blowing the warm humid air around the house. So I chose to embrace the muggy, accept it as that which made me stronger.

And it did make me stronger, as I learned when I moved to Georgia, where the summers last almost twice as long as in Chicago. The Georgia natives and lifelong transplants thought this northerner would melt in their sunshine like an ice cube on a barbecue, but I showed them. I had learned to weather the weather. I could sweat it out with the best of them, and none of my detractors was among the best. They would last fifteen, maybe twenty minutes on an early August mid-afternoon as I rolled tape on the auto dealership inventory lot, while I toiled with angle after angle, shot after shot, and they shrank to the climate-controlled sanctuary of the showroom.

And my car had the factory installed 4-55 air conditioning system: four windows rolled down at 55 miles per hour. This didn't have as much to do with the fact that the A.C. compressor had croaked two years after I had bought the car and couldn't afford to get it fixed as it did with my disdain for its existence under my hood.

And I endured. I stuck it out. I stood my ground.

Until last year.

Mrs. Farrago and I decided that it was best for us and the future value of our 100-plus year old home to have central air conditioning installed. The summers haven't gotten any cooler, the fans don't work any better, and the Cubs... well, let's face it. They're still the Cubs. So for two weeks in November one diminutive man sawed holes in our floors and ceilings, built a half-mile of ductwork through our basement and our attic, and parked two huge condensers outside our back wall. They loomed there silently through the cold, beneath the snow, stoic in their patience, waiting for their day to shine.

And to my delight, Mrs. Farrago put off firing up the system, ritually closing the east windows and shades in the morning, and then reversing them in the afternoon. But then last week, the first string of 70-degree days alit upon us, and the indoor temperature reached the limit at which we had set the thermostat, and the beast came to life.

And from that moment I have felt my tolerance ebbing. Perspiration, once a welcome sign of my veracity, is now becoming - dare I say it - uncomfortable. In the car I'm even keeping the windows closed and turning on the A.C., aerodynamics and fuel economy my pathetic excuse.

Air conditioning is a drug, an addictive substance that pulls one indoors and renders him pale and meek and pathetic. And it is I who becomes addicted. It is I who feels the rest of his life coming at him, nestled comfortably in air conditioned splendor insulated from the reality of the world.

But, hey. At least the beer stays cold longer!

The 'A' Hole

Wordnerd personally assigned me a letter with which to begin ten words to describe myself. Sure, she gave everybody else a consonant, but she gave me a vowel. Not only a vowel, but she gave me the letter 'A.' That's a pinky letter on a keyboard! You know what that means? Yeah, it's center row, but still! At least 'U,' 'I' and 'O' are bunched together, meaning one occurs at least as frequently as the others. SHEESH!

Well, here goes...

Anal-retentive - Not Mr. Rogers- or "Monk"-like, but I do get anal about certain things, usually work-related. It really bugs me that nobody at the office seems to understand that the back room in the warehouse, the room I've been made resonsible for, is not - I repeat, NOT - a garbage disposal, yet that's where they dump their empty boxes and crap. Nor are they capable of returning tools they borrow from the toolbox. And I am the only one who can or should repack the light kit after its use. Things can go in there only a certain way, and I'm the only one who knows the way.

Asshole - That's how I act when people traipse across my anal-retentive sensitivities.

Aging - Aren't we all? But, at 40+, things seem to be wearing out and seizing up at an alarming rate: lower back, wrists, shoulder, neck (herniated disc, for cripes sake!). I want to exercise, but I'm afraid something will fall off.

Amiable - Perhaps the word is incorrect, but I seem to be able to get along with just about anybody who is willing to be got along with. I seem to be able to tolerate change and obstacles without much stress...except when I'm driving (refer to 'A' #2).

Abruzzo - The mountainous region in east-central Italy where my Italian heritage lies. With my wife, my brothers, and my father, I visited in 2004 the town in the region from where both of my paternal grandparents emigrated about 100 years ago. Beautiful. Absolutely breathtaking. And I mean the people we met as well as the landscape.

A-POS - Fortunately it's not a type that is in high demand, for I can't stomach the thought of having a needle in my arm for more than a few seconds.

Absurd - At times, my favorite type of humor (e.g. "Monty Python's Flying Circus"). In high school I was even in "The Bald Soprano," by Eugene Ionesco. I didn't get it, but I was in it.

Actor - I discovered it in high school, dreamed of making it my career (and in those dreams I got every role I ever auditioned for), and in life I've kept it part of me, sometimes for real (community theatre), and sometimes only in my dreams (R-rated sex-comedies starring opposite Meg Ryan, Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie and Judy Geeson (huh?))

Accident - It's what I was back in January of 1964 (or possibly December, 1963). My parents were accident prone. They had seven. They finally learned their lesson with me, as I was their last.

Atheist - I don't imagine this one needs any explanation. It's something I felt since around 8th grade (confirm THAT, Father!), and which I learned sometime during high school had a name.

Well, I bitched and moaned about my letter and the difficulty I would have finding ten descriptors, and here I am now thinking ten aren't enough!


dassall

A Little Karma of My Own

The recent trip to Vancouver was an odd one for interesting in-flight bedfellows. There was, of course, The Sarah McLachlan Moment, highlighted in an earlier post. On the return trip, as my co-worker and I were waiting at Vancouver airport to board our plane, the gate agents preboarded the plane with people accompanied by small children and others who needed assistance or a little extra time. In a wheelchair, a mid-forties, completely bald, and otherwise very fit-looking man with amputated legs wheeled past us and onto the plane. I don't usually do this, but I looked to my co-worker, a man who is constantly cracking jokes, and I gestured to the wheelchair-bound man as he disappeared into the jetway, and said, "He doesn't have a leg to stand on." My comment got the reaction it deserved - silence - and we prepared to board.

As I had done on the trip to Vancouver, I had put in for and received an upgrade to first class. I arrived at my seat, and who should be in the seat next to mine but the man whose misfortune I had made light of only minutes earlier! He spoke with a distinctive accent when we made our niceties, and I guessed correctly that he was Australian. Our small-talk led us to our reasons for going where we were going, and he said that he was headed to Chicago because he was taping with Oprah Winfrey the next day. HELLO!

I asked what the show was to be about, and he said that it was about people who had beaten the odds and survived horrendous ordeals. His was the two days he had spent in 1997 with his legs pinned under the side of a rock cliff that had broken free when he tried to climb it, while his friend went for help (two days away!!) and he kept himself alive who knows how.

His name is Warren MacDonald, and his "Oprah" episode will air "in August or September." Still an active climber, he has written two books - "A Test of Will: One Man's Extraordinary Story of Survival," and "One Step Beyond" - and he is busy with his new career on the public speaking circuit.

And the karma part of this story... I woke up after about a half hour of sleep - something I don't usually do so much on a plane - to discover that the flight attendant had served breakfast to everyone in first class except for me. I looked over at Mr. MacDonald's tray and he had a scrumptious-looking omelet with sliced ham and a sausage on the side. When I caught the flight attendant's attention, she informed me that she only had the fruit plate left. To add to my disappointment, most of the fruit sucked.

When you look for Mr. MacDonald's turn on "Oprah" in August/September, as I know I will, just remember that the day before he sat with Oprah, he sat with Farrago. And hope that he gave her my card and that she'll throw some work my way.


dassall

I Really Need to Pay Closer Attention to Unimportant Things

When I checked in to my flight to Vancouver yesterday, I requested and received an upgrade to first class, something I always try to do on flights longer than three hours. I was seated in the very front row of the plane, right side, on the aisle. The passengers in the seats directly behind me were moving around, talking, getting settled when I glanced back and momentarily thought the thirty-something woman in the window seat was wearing a very revealing top. Not one who wants to miss such a thing, I turned for a better look, only to discover that it was a scarf draped over her neck, and she was wearing a black tank-top and a jacket as well.

A few minutes later I heard the flight attendant talking to her behind me, most of it unintelligible until I heard him say, "...wonderful. Are you performing?" I didn't hear the answer, but I turned to regard the woman again. She looked at me, and I looked at her. She didn't smile, I didn't smile. She didn't seem like anything special, nor did I, I'm sure, to her. I never heard much from the couple behind me through the rest of the flight, and I pretty much forgot about them.

We landed in Vancouver, several hours late due to the weather in Chicago, and I was the second person off the plane and on the long customs-segregated walk above the rest of the nearly abandoned airport. I was screened at Immigration and I proceeded to the baggage carousel to wait with the rest of the people from my flight. A thirty-something Canadian man stood near me and made brief small-talk. Then he said, "Have you ever heard of Sarah McLachlan?"

I said, "Yeah, I've heard of her. Singer, right?" I've even seen her perform one of her songs on TV.

"Yeah," he said. Then he gestured to the woman who had been seated behind me for the last four and a half hours. "That's her right there."

Holy shit.

Somebody Else's Really Bad Day

The return home from Prague entailed a short flight to Frankfurt, Germany, and then a long, long flight from Frankfurt to Chicago. All told, it was 15 hours of chasing the sun before touching down and heading for home. I hailed a taxi outside Terminal 5 just in time to hit the evening rush, putting yet another hour between me and home.

The cab driver was a very considerate man. He didn't talk to me at all except when I said something first, and I wasn't in a talking mood. He had the radio on, but it was at a very low volume - some old-time gospel and sermon station I found somewhat amusing.

We finally left the Kennedy Expressway, less than a mile from my home and pulled in to a line of cars waiting at a stop light. I heard a faint screech of tires and my driver grasped his head with both hands. I had felt a gentle jolt of the car and thought perhaps we had been rear-ended, but when I turned to look behind us and saw the huge grille of a huge Dodge pickup truck, I knew we would have felt a considerably stronger jolt if it had hit us. I think the cab driver had iinstinctively and only momentarily lifted his foot off of the brake. Then I noticed ahead of us, as the light turned green and all the witnesses left the scene, that a car heading in our opposite direction and attempting to turn left had been hit by a red Ford Explorer that had either tried to beat the yellow, or had run the red all together. The car didn't appear to have tremendous damage: the right front quarterpanel clearly had a dent, and I think the right front headlight was broken out, but it didn't look terribly serious. My driver pulled up to the stop line -- we still had the green light -- and stopped as the driver of the Explorer tried to navigate out of the intersection, from our left to our right. We were in the left lane, between the left-turn lane and the rightmost lane on the street. This must have confused the driver of the Explorer, disoriented as he probably already was in the moments after an accident, as he/she gunned the accelerator to cross the rightmost lane, and was immediately hit by a pickup truck flying to the intersection in the moments-earlier clear lane!

Two accidents within twenty seconds, both involving the red Explorer. Even though he was quite clearly at fault, in my opinion, especially in the first accident, I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the guy. On the other hand, talk about instant karma! Asshole move : just desserts!

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the cab driver. I thought we should stop and render assistance, or at least to stick around and tell the police what we saw. I didn't voice this, but I thought it. The cab driver pulled away and took me home. As I was paying him he said that he was going to head back to that intersection to tell his account of the accident, hoping that the one responsible for the crash(es) would be the one actually blamed.

The Weary Traveler

At times my job becomes impossibly hectic, with travels to what seems to be all corners of the globe. Barely two weeks ago I shared some thoughts about Costa Rica; a truly blogworthy event at the beginning of my trip to Europe; and now I’m in Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada (I haven't spent this much time outside of the United States in a one-month period since I was stationed in Germany!), and each trip so far has had at least one event worthy of blog-note.

I will share, but first a few thoughts and images from my recent travels:

Berlin was the Nazi brain during World War II, and so was target #1 in the efforts to decapitate the German Wehrmacht. Thusly, there was no shortage of ordnance when it came to bringing the Allied war to Hitler’s doorstep toward the end of the war. The city was pretty much bombed flat, leaving the charm and beauty of centuries-old buildings to the memories of today's surviving elderly and the creased and faded photos they may possess, taken in the peaceful calm before the storm.

Because of its place in history, Berlin, a very old city by U.S. standards, is actually one of the newest world cities, architecturally. My hotel didn’t even exist ten years ago. Nothing around my hotel existed ten years ago because the particular area around the Brandenburg Gate was all part of the former East Germany, all in the no-man’s-land between two walls, two blocks apart, which formed the barrier between freedom and oppression.

This is the only Berlin photo I took worth showing (okay, there were others WITHOUT me in them), a self-portrait against the Brandenburg Gate, a relic of ancient Berlin. In the upper left of the photo is the future US Embassy, now under construction. Most notable in this photo is my lack of a chin.


Prague, on the other hand, despite its location and spending much of the 20th century in Soviet bondage, was remarkably untouched by the fingers of war. It was bombed once, a mistake by the Allied pilots who dropped their loads when they thought they were over their intended target, Dresden, Germany. She was seized and locked down by the Soviets in 1968 when she tried to assert a little independence, but was left to her own people to care for her. She retains much of her original charm: cobblestone streets; old, old buildings; lovely, friendly people; and evidence that in old cities, buildings were built where the people felt like building them, and they took many long years to build by people who were meticulous craftsmen using sturdy, ancient methods.


A tiny nook in one among hundreds of narrow, hidden streets in the old section of the city.


Absolutely every sidewalk around the Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square is constructed in this way. Imagine the years and individual man-hours of labor this took to accomplish. And when?


I was told by a tour guide that this is one of the oldest open-air markets in Europe.


Do you suppose, maybe, they were young plumber's apprentices? Sorry, but when confronted with such a sight, one must capture it!


Just about every turn of a corner reveals a sight as charming.


The Charles Bridge (liberties are taken with the name, as English and Czech are two vastly different languages). The tower marks the entrance to a pedestrians-only span across the river Vltava. (No, it's not a typo.)


Beauty is found not only in the architecture.


This is Prague Castle, the political and architectural focal point of the city. It's not actually a castle, but rather a grouping of buildings: cathedral, palace, others. The royal family of the Czech Kingdom used to live here, but it now is host mainly to events of state...and an endless stream of tours.

Prague lived up to everything I've ever read or been told about it. It's truly a beautiful place to see and experience, and I highly recommend you find the time to visit before you die.




dassall

Farrago Gets a (Rare) Break

For anyone who has not had the opportunity, international travel generally ranges from unpleasant to grueling. Most flights abroad are crowded, full of people who, in everyday life may not be so rude, but tossed together into a sardine can with 250 other people from a dozen cutures, become crazed serial killers if someone looks at them the wrong way. And so it was with a mild dread that I approached the ticket counter with two co-workers to begin our trip to Berlin.

One of the co-workers - let's call him co-worker #1 - is a really attentive guy, always on top of details and ready to rope something in if it threatens to get away, so it didn't surprise anyone when, back in 2002, he missed the misspelling of his last name on his brand new PASSPORT, of all things! He had to get an amendment page inserted in the back of the passport to make it legal, showing the correct spelling.

The ticket agent took our passports to begin checking us in, and she immediately encountered a problem. Co-worker #1's reservation was nowhere to be found. She checked for mine and found it no problem, even noticing that I had been upgraded to business class to make room in coach! Once I heard that, I was really looking forward to the flight! But co-worker #1's issue seemed to threaten to delay us. The ticket agent, who I think was either not very competent, or was just too new to be able to deal with such a problem, and who thought co-worker #1's reservation had been lost in the system, decided to make it right by taking the three of us - and our mountain of luggage - off of the original flight and putting us on an all-business-class flight to Düsseldorf, where we would connect to Berlin. She told us it was an Airbus A320, which in normal configuration carries 100- 120 people, configured now to carry only 48!! It had twelve rows of business class seats four across. After encountering further problems getting our original reservations cancelled the ticket agent then discovered why she couldn't find co-worker #1's reservation... she had used the misspelling from the ID page of his passport to look for his reservation, but now she saw the correct spelling of his name. When she saw it I thought we were going to be screwed out of the cush plane, but in her dedication to positive customer service - and, no doubt, her dread of going back through all that computer hassle - she kept us on the new flight!

This marks the first time that a co-worker's fuck-up has ever resulted in a BETTER outcome for me. But I was already uprgraded to business class on the original flight, so I guess I was in a win-win. The greatest beneficiary of the snafu was co-worker #2, who has no status on any airline, and who would otherwise have been crammed in with the serial killers and their whiny children.

Despite our great fortune, however, I didn't get the sleep I had hoped for, and my cold hasn't let up. It hasn't quite blossomed into the bird-flu, but it hasn't let up. Just in case you resented that I got off too easy.

A Fading Light

She was born on a farm on October 31, 1993. I guess I had always wanted one since I was a kid, but I knew for sure when I saw somebody else's; his blue eyes blew me away. She seemed deeply interested in eating my shoelaces. All of the blue-eyed ones were already taken. And then so was I.

I named her in the car on our way home. I don't know where I came up with it. Maybe it was the season, a week before Christmas. I'm not a religious person. Moreover, I eschew such symbolism and reference. But for whatever reason, I named her Angel. She is pure-bred, and on her American Kennel Club pedigree, her name is Angel For Now, which belies both the tenuous hold her name held in my heart at the time, and my belief that whatever of her qualities that possessed me to name her as I did wouldn't prevail!

She bonded to me quickly. I learned within a day or two how important my scent was to her; she was awfully content to curl up and sleep in a laundry basket on top of my dirty clothes. In one of my most wildly creative moments, I used her habit to stop her whimpering at night while she was penned in the bathroom; I tossed a dirty t-shirt in to her and she went quietly to sleep almost immediately!

I brought her with me to my parents' home to meet the family at Christmas. Living only 300 miles away at the time and having to work between the holdays meant I could still be home at Christmas and New Year's, and the sixteen accumulated hours in the car over two round trips made Angel into a comfortable (enough) road dog. She spent those first few months, those first few trips, curled up on the passenger seat beside me, and I'll never forget the seemingly confused look about her eyes when, as she got to be too big for the seat, she was no longer comfortable there. It wasn't long after that she learned how roomy was the area of an SUV behind the front seats, and she could still be close enough to me to smell me and to be touched.

She learned the joys of the frisbee when, with the help of a friend and neighbor, she finally got the timing right and caught it. It was only a few days later when she learned how much more fun it could be if she would bring it back to me and let me throw it again!

She dazzled me with her intelligence. Her first toys were plastic chew toys that proved to be very fragile in her jaws, and a shoe and a child's slipper donated by family members. The slipper was actually in the form of a bunny rabbit, but it looked more to me like a kitty kat. So, when playing with Angel with these toys I called them "shoe," and "kitty." Her toybox quickly expanded to include "ball," a tennis ball; a knotted chew "rope"; a donut-shaped rubber chew toy, "ring"; a squeak toy about the size of a 12" softball, "squeaky ball"; a number three sized, child's soccer ball, "big ball"; and of course, "frisbee." In all, there were about 15 different items of all shapes and sizes. One day it dawned on me that she was responding to my words by picking up the toy I called out to her. I tested her by spreading her toys out all over the floor and randomly called out to her, "Where's the 'big ball?'" "Gimme the 'rope!'" "Where's that 'ring?'" And with about 95 percent accuracy she retrieved the correct toy!

At her second Christmas with my family it was my father, of all people -- Mr. Gruff Exterior, tough-as-nails, don't-cry-about-it-just-get-back-on-your-feet-and-go, to-hell-with-flowers-plant-tomatoes -- who noticed that she has a cute, little, Valentine-heart-shaped spot on her left foreleg/shoulder!

She had been with me barely a year when I uprooted and moved 600 miles further south. When I finally settled in to my new apartment, Angel ran to the door every time I stood up, thinking we were finally going back home (I know this because if I opened the door, she ran straight for the car, and then looked at me!). This behavior tapered off over about a month, and she was conent in her new home. I did it to her again after about 18 months, only moving to a place out in the woods. She absolutely loved it there, and her urge to go back "home" dissipated within several days.

Then I met the future Mrs. Farrago. When it came time to move I really regretted taking Angel out of the environment she so dearly enjoyed - a huge field in which to run, a creek running past a sandy beach (despite my fear an alligator might eat her!), scrumptious squirrels running all over the place. The improvement in my life, the upgrade of my environment meant the opposite for Angel. Mrs. Farrago had two dogs of her own. Angel would no longer be the sole focus of my affection. She had to compete for attention, place, and toys, and she was a sore loser.

She forced the other female out: she's still in the family, but now with Mrs. Farrago's brother. The male, two years older than Angel, began to break down and, since he was Mrs. Farrago's dog it was Mrs. Farrago's decision, he was put down at the end of August 2004 before he experienced any true misery.

And now, nearly two years later, Angel is meandering down the same path. Her eyes can't track and her jaws can't catch the ball like they used to. She can no longer run the frisbee down, nor catch it. Her hind legs are objecting to her decisions to get up off of her pillow, sometimes refusing to move for a few more seconds. She doesn't hear me when I come home from work, but more feels my footsteps in the floor when I get very near her. Her rear end is failing her more and more often, as there is some nerve issue causing her incontinence. We have her on a daily dose of selegiline hydrochloride, an effort to determine if she suffers from cognitive dysfunction syndrome in dogs. It has helped curtail the incontinence, but not 100 percent.

Angel narrowly escaped the will of Mrs. Farrago in March, but she cannot escape the ticking clock. The day, as yet unmarked, weighs heavier on me as it approaches. When it is time, if she hasn't checked out on her own, Angel's eyes will close for the last time on the man who has belonged to her forever and the woman who joined him about halfway through, and on the house she has shared with them and those damn birds she's not allowed to eat.

Pura Vida

At your center you are dirty. Grimy. Noisy. Busy.

At your edges you are lush. Voluptuous. Green.

In between you are rugged. Treacherous.

At all times and all places you are hot. Steamy.

As a man you are hard-working. Self-respecting. Friendly. As a woman you are the much the same, and at most times dazzlingly beautiful.

You are sad. Poor. Underprivileged. Yet you are proud. Strong.

I only knew you briefly, but I am glad I met you.

You are Costa Rica.

Night Blogger

It's 2:30 a.m. I leave for Berlin in12 hours. I'm coming down with a cold. I'm hungry ("Feed a cold, starve a fever?" "Starve a...?" fuck it. I'll eat.) I can't sleep.

And so I write.