High Flying, Adored

I haven’t taken a passenger up in an airplane since 2000. The few times I’ve actually gone up, I have been the passenger or I’ve been alone. I don’t think it’s fair to have someone sitting to my right when I’m up there, to assume the risk that I am going to have one of my not uncommon freak-outs while flying.

However, the boy insists he really wants to go up with me. He wants to see me fly, and after many weeks of putting him off, he has worn me down. Fine. We’ll go flying. But if we crash, don’t come crying to me.

This is how well he knows me: He asked, “Causey or Fastow?”

“Causey,” I replied, and not another word was said about the matter.

It is mid-afternoon when we arrive at the airport, a tiny airstrip about fifteen miles south of the city. The plane belongs to a friend I originally learned to fly with, some ten years ago. I am a Cessna girl (150 and 172 - the Ford Taurus of the sky) and my friend’s aircraft, the aircraft I am borrowing for this adventure, is a Cessna 172. I should be okay - I’ve flown this airplane once before, and the weather is perfect. Clear skies, visibility 7 miles, wind from 310 degrees at 4 knots, temperature 74 degrees Fahrenheit.

I do a pre-flight check, getting comfy in front of the display. I’m told which runway to report to, and we roll over. I’m not happy. Never am happy in this position. I am scared out of my mind, if you want to know the truth. Exhale. Eyes closed for a few seconds, just to calm myself. Open eyes. Orient. Okay… okay, here we go.

The Cessna drifts, then jogs, then runs down the runway. I tease the stick back, gentle, gentle. And voila, flight. There is a point about thirty feet off the ground when the airplane is at an angle that makes me wonder how it stays airbourne. It seems too steep; there is no way there is enough surface of wing for the wind to rush over… I understand that if I were correct, flight as we know it would not exist, but the thought persists. I am always afraid we’re going to suddenly pause, like on a roller coaster ride, and then swing back, back, back and come tumbling down to the earth.

That didn’t happen. Instead, the surroundings fall back and away, the city an impression of greenish yellow behind and below; baby blue sky straight ahead. Downtown is a glittering cluster of buildings, stark for all the space around them. “Look, ducks, there’s the…” His voice is awed. He’s flown in commercial aircraft, of course, but this is new for him. And as always when something is done just for you, you take it more seriously.

“Hush, baby, I’m working,” I mutter. And I am. I’m hyper-vigillant, trying to absorb as much information in as many possible ways as I can. I’m also working at trying to control myself enough to not completely lose my mind, start screaming, cry on the radio to send somebody up to get me because I can’t come down.

My hands are wet. My legs are shaking. I hate flying. Why do I do this? Why can’t I be content to stay at home with my Moonlighting and my Seinfeld and just be happy?

The boy is looking at me with a beatific smile on his face.

“Quit it,” I say.

“What?”

“Quit watching me. And hush, please, I need silence right now.”

I get us up to 2,000 feet, then take a breath. Okay, so far so good. I’m not that bad. I mean, I did get us here, right? And maybe if I can get us here, I can get us around and back down. It’s not so bad, as long as I don’t look down. Or to the left or right. Keep my gaze on the display or the horizon, and I’ll be fine. Of course, I realize its not ideal for a pilot to refuse to actually scan the skies for, say, another plane, but I’m doing my best. I joked at one point, if you want quality flying, you generally have to pay for it. I’m free but dangerously incompetent.

Or at least dangerously uncomfortable.

Flying does not come naturally to me. Some were born knowing the glide and swoop of flight; it is in their bones, like a knack for math or an ability to memorize every US President in order. It makes a sort of limbic sense to them. I am not one of these people. My talents are more terrestrial. I run and bike and swim. I belong on the ground, looking up at the birds and clouds and occasional airplane. When I do fly, I do it by recipe: I don’t have the natural linking thoughts that if I do A, then B will follow. There is a lack of grace in the way I fly. If there is any advantage to knowing this about myself, it is that I will never become arrogant at the controls.

Despite my fear, the flight to Bastrop is uneventful. We edge slightly north, and finally over the prison complex, I finally dared look down. The prison looks like a business park. Several small whitish buildings - completely ordinary in every way. I say, “Hello Mr. Causey!” I turned to the boy. “You okay? You’re not going to say hello to Mr. Causey?”

“You told me to hush. I was trying to keep quiet.”

It took a second to realize he was serious. I smiled. I told him it was okay to say hello to Mr. Causey.

We circled back toward home. A breeze picked up. Since I revoked my order of silence, the boy chatted. I was unexpectedly calmed by the sound of his voice; it made me forget that I was so terrified. As I began to descend, I realized that I was happier with his commentary than without. The fact of him was reassuring, the knowledge that he trusted me to fly the plane and deliver him safely back to terra firma made me feel strangely confident. If he wanted me to do this, I should do it.

The lights of the big city were coming up. The sky was bruising periwinkle. Last ten minutes of the flight, and I realized I still wasn’t freaking out. My concentration narrowed to lining up on the runway, drifting down, down, down, smooth, down… The wheels kissed the runway, then spun in five full revolutions before the full weight of the aircraft settled over them. It was the smoothest, most perfect landing of my life. Like glass. The boy muttered, “Beautiful, Cara.” He reached over and gently rubbed my neck while I used the rudders to get us over to the hangars. After parking the plane and leaving a check to replace the gas we used, we walked out to the parking lot. I paused at the curb and looked up at the beautiful, quiet world.

Somehow, while I wasn’t looking, night had fallen.