Thursday, November 08, 2007

Chapter XIII

Sunday found me out at Sea-Tac doing the hurry-up-and-wait routine. There were four of us on the survey crew, the Senior Lead, an Engineer, a Manufacturing Engineer, and me, the Mechanic.

I figure that sitting right there in the lobby of the Airport was more experience at building and repairing Aircraft than anywhere else in the world. Our Senior Lead, Ernie was amazing. Here was a guy that had done it all, been everywhere. If in real life you wanted to do a "Flight of the Phoenix", Ernie was the guy you would want in charge.

He could figure out a way to do just about anything with a basic set of tools. If you couldn’t get something you needed, chances were that he could MAKE one out of sheet metal using nothing more than a torch and a ball peen hammer.

In between making phone calls to Star’s mom’s answering machine, I asked what was going on.

"Took one out body surfing" said Ernie. "They landed it in a thunderstorm, and didn’t bother to stop at the end of the runway, so it’s out there in the water. Took the front landing gear off, but the mains are supposed to be OK. It’s a fairly recent 757, so parts shouldn’t be a problem. The good news is that the gear didn’t wipe out the e/e bay. The bad news is it’s under water."

Most everyone knows that electronics and salt water don’t get along very well. The black boxes down there are not cheap, running from $25,000.00 on up. Everything down there shorted out, so the repair was going to be a couple of million dollars, double that if the engines were wasted, which was probable.

I called for Star again, and got her mom.

I have never gotten along with her mom. Delia figured Star could do better than a glorified knuckle dragging jet jockey.

She reluctantly turned the Phone over to Star.

"How you hanging in there, Star? How’s your dad?"

"Not so good Pat. They still have him in Intensive care. He is getting a little better, but not as fast as they would like. It is still touch and go, but the odds makers think he will make it. The prognosis is a long recovery, and he may not ever come back all the way".

"I’ll pretty much be out of touch for a couple of days. I’m at the Airport on my way to Grand Cayman to check out a bird out in the water. I’ll try to get through to you whenever I can, but I can’t promise much. We pretty much work 12 hours a day seven days a week when we have a repair going on. It’ll take a couple of days for us to do the damage survey, and then we’ll be back here to put together the repair kits, then back on the road as soon as we get the OK from the Insurance Carrier to proceed with repairs. Then it will be back to Cayman and probably a month or so on site to do the repairs. I’ll be in touch."

No lovey-dovey stuff. There was more in that conversation that was there and went unsaid than was spoken right out loud. It left so many questions unanswered and unasked. I figured that time would bring up anything that needed to be dealt with.

It has always been my way to work around the edges of things rather than hit them head on. Saves a lot of bruises on the head.

So off I went to Grand Cayman. Not a lot to talk about there. We did our repair estimate. I got into a big argument with the lead engineer. I thought that the structural stuff in the e/e bay should be replaced. He said that since it hadn’t suffered any structural damage it would be OK. I thought to myself "Salt water, aluminum and electricity. Doesn’t sound like a good combination to me. Once you set up electrolysis in aluminum, there’s no stopping it.

When we were on site, the Engineer told us to wipe down the shelves and racks with denatured alcohol to remove the salt. But like I figured, when we came in the next day, everything was covered with a gray fuzz.

Repeated cleanings did no good, and eventually we had to replace the structural stuff. I felt vindicated, but I also resisted the impulse to rub his nose in it.

I managed to call Star a couple of times. It was difficult getting through. If her mom answered the phone, she was never there, and she didn’t know when she would be back.

A couple of times Star answered herself. Her dad was going to live, but probably wouldn’t be able to work for a long time, if ever. I felt sorry for the guy. He lived for his business, and it was about the only thing he had to keep him going. If he couldn’t go to work it could literally kill him.

By the time I got back, Star had quit her job and moved back home to help take care of her dad. I called her now and then, but it was a busy time for me. There seemed to be a series of accidents one after the other for about six months. By the time the spate of accidents was over, I had pretty much lost contact with Star. She was still in La Grange living with her mom and dad, taking care of her dad, who had never really recovered from his heart attack.

Star was a pretty effective business manager, so the Pharmacy has been turned over to her. She hired a new Pharmacist to replace her dad, and kept the books with a little assistance from a part-time book keeper. The business could almost run on automatic pilot, because there was no competition, and the demographics of the area would support one Pharmacy very nicely.

I missed Star, but our relationship had not really gone anywhere. It was right there hanging on the edge of something, but we let it pull back because of the circumstances.

Sometimes I lay awake at night and wondered what might have been if her old man hadn’t had a heart attack at exactly the time he did.

So I slipped back into my regular life. I was going to say normal, but normal isn’t really a word that applies to the way I live. Long hours of hard work under brutal conditions. Typically 72 hour weeks, with maybe a couple of months without a day off. Usually around 1,000 hours of overtime a year.

It lets me play as hard as I work, and I don’t hurt for the comforts or playtoys.

Yeah, the rent on my flat is probably more than your house payment, but I have a couple of playtoys stashed away in a garage downtown that would bring tears to the eyes of a motorhead.

And when I take the Jag out on a fine fall morning on the back roads, things will be temporarily as good as it gets, if I only had someone to share it with.

Friday, June 08, 2007

Chapter XII

I dragged my butt into work on Monday.

I normally look forward to work.

With AOG you never know what you are going to be doing once you get there. We are like the Special Forces, and need to be ready to go anywhere in the world at any time day or night 365 days a year. At the moment we were retrofitting the lightplates on the P18 circuit Breaker panel for UPS package Freighter 757s.

What a fiasco that was.

We had delivered about 100 Package freighters to UPS, and then there was a gap in production of about 18 months.

UPS had a unique lighting system for the P18. The plastic in the lightplates was electroluminescent, that is, it glowed when you applied electricity to it. They were the only customer that used this syste, and there was only one supplier.

It seems that the buyer had failed to secure a long term contract with the supplier, and when we went to buy the lightplates from the vendor they said "Sorry, but we don’t make that product any more".

No amount of pressure or promises would enduce them to start up again. Production had been one endless stream of troubles, and they were delighted to get out of the business of producing lightplates. We could not find another vendor. Finally Bell Labs agreed to try to make them, no guarantees. We would cover any development costs and they would not be penalized if they failed.

The first production airplane of the new order was proceeding down the line as the vendor attempted to make the first set of plates.

We took a full size copy of the drawing and cut it out and scotch taped it in place so we could tell which circuit breaker controlled which circuit, and so we could do functional test.

At last the lighplates came in, and we came in on Saturday to put them in place.

We threw the Power Switch.

FZZZZ, Snap, crackle and pop. The new lightplates shorted out in rather spectacular fashion. Sparks jumped from one place to the other while the plastic started melting and dripping down on the mechanics and into the flight controls.

The upshot was that we had to retrofit the entire fleet of Package Freighters. UPS had had problems for years keeping the lightplates working, and I am sure that they were greatly relieved to have us foot the expense of replacing them on the entire fleet.

One by one they were bringing the aircraft back to Seattle where it took a full day for us to do the retrofit. It was not a real hard job or anything, I was just not used to doing the same thing over and over. They were always in a hurry to get the aircraft back in the air. I heard once that it costs the Airlines $10,000.00 an hour for the plane to sit on the ground.

It was probably one of the most stable times in my adult life. I knew what I would be doing for the next several weeks in a row. Star and I had a kind of understanding. It was not a full time thing, but neither one of us was seeing anyone else. We had not committed to exclusividity or anything, but there was an understood relationship. We were kinda waiting to see what would happen, because something always had. We had a feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Drop it did.

I came home from work one day and the answering machine was blinking away. That in itself was not at all unusual. I had made it clear to Star that I didn’t want to be disturbed at work, unless it was a genuine emergency. I mean, the Company was paying me $35.00/hr. for my expertise, and I would feel guilty for taking pay if I was on the phone for personal reasons. So Star often left me little messages on the answering machine. Just "Miss you, see you tonight" or "You want to go to Jazz Alley this weekend?".

When I picked it up, it was Star all right, but it wasn’t good news. Her dad had not improved and she was going to stay in Spokane with her mom. She wanted me to call as soon as I got the message.

I called but there was no answer. That could either be good or bad. If it had been not bad, he would still be in the hospital for 24 hour observation. If it was bad he would be in intensive care. I had no real alternative but to keep calling.

The Hospital wouldn’t put me through or give me his condition because I wasn’t a relative. I mean, what was I going to say "I may be Stars boyfriend, but I’m not really sure."
I was sleeping fitfully when the phone rang.

I am used to getting calls at any time day or night. We members of the AOG team are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. We had clearance to get the job done any way possible. We have been known to go into the factory and "Borrow" parts right off the airplane. It was all accepted, as long as we left documentation to show what we had taken and why.

"Hi Pat, this is John in dispatch. You have a flight to Grand Cayman leaving Sea-Tac in two hours. Shake a leg and be there. The other guys on the survey team will meet you there."

I had a kit all packed and ready to go. It sits in the closet by the front door on the top shelf. It contains everything I need for a three day stay anywhere in the world. Passport, clothes, camera and cash. I have pared it down over the years.

The lead Engineer brings the laptop. We are the first people on the ground following an incident. I don’t mean a "somebody flew a 757 into the side of a mountain" type of incident. Something less spectacular. We go in and take pictures, assess the damage, describe it and send the description back to Boeing.

They have a special crew that puts together all the parts, plan and drawings necessary to do the repair. When we get the OK from the carrier and Insurance Company, we head off wherever the Airplane is and do the repairs on the spot. It can be pretty primitive. Although the destination might be exotic, we are not there on vacation, we are there to work.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Chapter XI

She was gone when I woke up the next morning. There was a note in the kitchen saying that she had to get home to retrieve her son, Brian from her friend’s. She didn’t say anything else. No sappy love note, no regrets, no apologies. I wasn’t sure whether to be miffed or relieved. A little bit of both I guess.
I have been accused of living more in my head than in the real world, and it was definitely that way now. It was Saturday, and I had my routine down to a science. Men don’t do shopping. We go out with a list, a plan and destination. I knew where I was going to go, what I was going to buy, and how much it would cost before I ever left the house. This was when I would normally be checking out the available females at the market, but today my head was in a different place. (Maybe we males do a little shopping after all.)
Today my head was a million miles away. Solly at the fish place asked me for the third time what I was looking for before I realized I was at the head of the line. In fact I really couldn’t remember any of my meander up to that point. I had been watching the movies and snapshots inside my head all morning.
" Sorry, Solly, I’m a little distracted this morning. Give me a couple of pounds of the Copper River Salmon, and a nice big Dungeness Crab. I feel like cooking tonight."
"I got some real nice shrimp here, just in fresh this morning, How’s about a couple of pound of those. I know you like to make Tempura, and they would be to die for."
"Yeah, go ahead and throw them in. If I’m going to go to the bother with the time and mess, I might as well make it worth while."
"Don’t forget to ice your batter, Pat" Solly chuckled.
I called Star and asked her over to dinner, told her I was in a mood to cook. The only thing required was her presence. She had only one condition, and that was that she bring her son along. While my plans for the evening didn’t include any kids, I still wanted to have her come over anyway. No sense in getting greedy. Besides, I enjoyed Star’s company even without the sex.
She showed up for dinner at about six, kid in tow. He was an agreeable kid. His hair was some darker than Stars, his eyes a little darker shade of blue, but you could definitely see whose kid he was. He enjoyed getting messy helping me dip the seafood in the Tempura batter and frying up dinner. He also enjoyed the food, although he was a little leery of some of the dipping sauces. Star ate everything with great gusto. He told me the Honey Ginger sauce "Tasted like dirt", and I of course asked him how he knew what dirt tasted like. I wondered how long it had been since anyone had cooked for her.
After supper, she offered to do the dishes, and I didn’t object, but I grabbed the dish towel and dried. Brian helped put things away.
It was such a domestic scene. It reminded me of growing up on the farm. I had never known a domestic life on my own. The closest thing was the brief time when Star and I lived together. That was all fire and ice and fireworks. This was mellow and smooth, and felt more like that was the way things were supposed to be. On one side of me it set me to asking if people really lived this way, and on the other it scared the hell out of me.
This could really suck a guy in. It was this big emotional black hole that once you entered its influence, there was no escape. Warning bells were going off inside my head "Warning, Will Smith, Danger!" But Will Smith never payed attention and neither did I.
It was getting late when we finished the dishes and got the kitchen squared away. The need to keep things organized was a trait I picked up in the Army. It is one of
the two things I learned in the Army that have proved invaluable in real life. The other is the ability to take a nap any time any where under just about any circumstances.
Star was living in a 1890’s converted mansion on Queen Anne Hill. The place had been cut up into a half a dozen apartments. Hers was in the Southwest corner, and contained a small kitchen, long skinny living room, tiny bedroom, and the original Master Bath. That bathroom was amazing. It was as big as the rest of the apartment put together. The whole thing was tiled, and had antique brass fixtures and an enormous built in tub. I can tell you from experience that the tub will handle two easily in lots of different positions.
Several weeks passed, and we were sorta drifting between the two places, ending up in one or the other. Everything at the time had this nice warm glow to it. Brian was a good kid, if a little introspective. He wasn’t real demanding, but we had a good time. I had never spent a lot of time with a five year old before, so I wasn’t exactly sure how to proceed around him. Much to my delight, I found that I had a silly side that appealed to him, and we enjoyed each other’s company. It was a revelation to me. There was this whole other dimension to things that I had never experienced.
One Saturday we were lounging in the floor watching TV when the phone rang.
"Hello. Oh, hi mom, what’s up? Oh damn. How is he? I’ll be over tomorrow" It seens her dad had a heart attack, and was in intensive care, so Star was packing up in the morning and heading back to LaGrange to be there for him and her mom.
Her mom had never been any good in a crisis, usually ended up in a darkened room pumped full of chemicals. It created an awkward moment with Star and I. Our relationship was still forming in this new configuration. Her parents had never cared for me particularly, nor I for them. So we decided it was not the best time for her to show up on my arm. Her mom would have enough to deal with for the time being.
So I helped Star pack, loaded her in her old beater Volvo station wagon and kissed her goodbye the next morning.
I went home to my loft, and the place seemed very empty.
I had grown used to being alone, and was frankly, very comfortable being me and being alone whenever I chose to be. But my steps had a hollow ring to them and I caught myself expecting to go around a corner and find Star or Brian waiting. It was weird. We hadn’t been together all that long this time, but it was different.