THE PALE LIGHT OF SUNSET: SCATTERSHOTS AND HALLUCINATIONS IN AN IMAGINED LIFE

A Finding in the Sky - 1998

290 1998 A Finding in the Sky The Earth is above me, and it isn’t supposed to be. I grip the handhold on the instrument panel, push my head back against the seat and look up, and there it is, the Earth, swirling over my head. I have never been upside-down in an airplane before, but it is the only way I can ditch the kid flying the other plane. I am flying as well as I know how, trying to roll the Marchetti airplane up and over, reversing direction in a vain attempt to lose the kid, to reverse the situation, to get him in my sights, to win the dogfight. It doesn’t work. I bring the plane around and level it out. The other plane is nowhere in sight. “Lose sight, lose the fight,” the briefing pilot had said. And then I know where he is, the other pilot . . . the “kid” . . . my son, Toran. I can’t see him, but I know. He is circling behind and above me, not at all impressed with my weak evasive maneuver. He will circle high, then, to pick up speed, he will dive his own Marchetti toward me, a metal bird of prey stooping at incredible speed. He will roar below my line of flight and then rise sharply—the fighter pilots call it a “yo-yo”— The Pale Light of Sunset 291 using the burst of speed to catch me and to bring his “guns” to bear anytime he wants. Getting me in his electronic sights. Pressing the trigger . Trying his damnedest to “shoot” my aging ass out of the air. It will take him less than a minute. “Tracking, tracking, tracking!” It is Tor, on the radio. And I know this aerial dogfight is over. “Die like a man,” I hear on the radio, the voice chuckling. But I don’t want to die like a man. I want to live like a man. Too late. I have been tracked. And shot. My plane trails smoke. I have lost. “Knock it off!” It is the radio again—the code phrase that means the fight is over. Okay, kid, you win this time. Now, let’s do it again. In the beginning, when he was very young, there was a time when he wanted to do everything I did. Everything. Even mountaineering. He was too young, I knew, but now and then I let him tag along, stumbling and grumbling, lagging behind my friends and me as we climbed at high altitude. Once . . . it was still early morning when we broke out of tree line and could see the hard naked mass of the mountain stretching away to the summit and the sky. The sour look on his face changed to one of awe. He knew, for the first time, that he was on a real mountain. The grumbling stopped—and he stepped to the front and charged the rock. For the rest of the climb—to more than 14,000 feet—he led the way. On the narrow ledge that was the summit, he stood in the cold light and stared out into forever. I could hear the snap in his eyes. He had done what I did and we were there, on the summit, a man and a boy. What would we be, I wondered, when we were both men? He was only ten. Lee Maynard 292 But time passed. And things changed. Tor and I are circling high above the desert in a cool, crystal, September sky. We are flying real fighter planes in simulated air combat, trying to “shoot” each other out of the sky. Each of us is piloting a SIAI Marchetti, an Italian-built, propeller driven, incredibly powerful, 270-mph fightertrainer attack airplane, capable of unlimited aerobatics—one of the meanest, fastest and most nimble aircraft of its kind. Used by a dozen air forces around the world, Marchettis are considered one of the finest aircraft for training pilots in air combat. The Marchettis we are flying are equipped with electronic tracking systems, including electronic “guns,” sending out beams and signals rather than bullets. But no matter that the guns are electronic . . . it is all very real to me. Aerial combat. Dogfighting, the pilots call it. We set up the next dogfight. By rules, the planes are supposed to start the fight “even,” passing left-side to left-side...