Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year Part 16

Books, pictures, and theaters afford us ample means of enjoying in comfort the hour of high adventure of the other person._

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GRANDSTAND SEAT IN THE SKY

(_See following page_)]

A GRANDSTAND SEAT IN THE SKY

BY HOWARD MINGOS

"I don't know whether we can make it or not," said the pilot. "There's a forty-mile-an-hour wind up aloft, and we're going straight in the teeth of it. Maybe we'll have to turn back."

But we did not turn back, and at times before we had 5 covered the twenty-two miles separating New York from the army's Hazlehurst Field at Mineola, Long Island, I wished that we might turn round, if only for an instant, that I might adjust the fur-lined chin strap, the buckle of which snapped against my left ear with maddening persistency. 10

A half dozen times, perhaps, I had raised my left hand carefully, only to have it flapped back at me as if I were slapping myself in the face. For we were in the pilot's seat of America's largest bombing plane, grandstand seats with nothing between us and the show but air, of which 15 there was a plenty.

Captain Roy N. Francis, one of the best-known American pilots, had cautioned me against sticking out my arm or hand, because of the nine-foot propeller whirling alongside of me, and its tips fanned my elbow just two thousand 20 times a minute as I huddled in the seat with Francis to afford him more room.

You understand I wanted to make myself as small as possible, so that he might have more s.p.a.ce in which to operate the controls. I had every reason to believe they 25 required minute attention if we were to remain rebounding about the skies from wind pocket to wind pocket five thousand feet above the flying field. I had forgotten our objective, which was Manhattan--the dreams of fifteen years about to be realized.

I particularly wanted to be ricocheting from the crest 5 of one air wave to another. It was the choice of alternatives, I concluded, for below us the crazy-quilted landscape of Long Island appeared to be anything but a soft place for landing. And there was a barn directly under us for several minutes--the same barn. I know it was a 10 barn because it had a fence around it; otherwise it might have been a dog's kennel--a lone dog's kennel at that--so tiny was it from our viewpoint.

I know we hung suspended over it for some time. I had an opportunity to review my entire past life, my good 15 deeds, of which there were few that I could recall at the moment, and my misdeeds, of which there were many.

I pondered if they would miss me at the office. I thought of other offices and other fellows and the nature of their retrospection, fellows who had been in positions similar 20 to mine--and I knew where they were, or rather, where they were not.

Francis had pointed at me among four other prospective pa.s.sengers standing about the great plane while they tuned up the motors. 25

"You there, little fellow, get in here beside me!"

I had s.h.i.+nnied up the stepladder and crawled in beside him, flattered at the distinction--the others took their places in other c.o.c.kpits free from controls and instruments--and then I understood the reason for his choice. 30

Our flying suits were lined with fur, and bulky. The c.o.c.kpit was narrow at best, and Francis is not a small man.

So I huddled as far as possible at the side of the flyer's seat, my side of it. And then: "Keep your paws in, if you don't want them taken off with that propeller," he had shouted into my ear. "Sit tight!"

I sat tight. No shrimp ever had as many wrinkles as I. 5 I pulled my hand in a fraction of an inch, braced my legs against nothing in particular, while my back a.s.sumed the characteristics of a concertina, closed.

He had thrown back the throttle. There was a blast and a roar. I had the same lonesome feeling in the pit of my 10 stomach that had seized me when I first took the express elevator in the Woolworth Building.

It occurred to me to win the respect of the pilot by appearing confident. So I forced myself to peer over the side.

The earth was dropping away so fast that it all seemed 15 like a nightmare. I felt as if I had been dreaming and had fallen out of bed.

"Grin at him," something told me. I grinned.

A dozen or more icicles immediately crunched between my teeth, pierced the roof of my mouth, and froze my 20 brain, while leaden drops of water percolated through it and trickled down my spine.

"Keep grinning!" that unconscious self put in again.

The advice was useless. I couldn't have closed my mouth had I wanted to. Finally by bowing my head I shut my 25 jaws. Oh, for that chin strap which was whacking my face! It would have kept me warm. Despite the heat through which we had traveled in reaching Hazlehurst Field that morning, up here, a mile high, the air was cold.

I stole a sidelong glance at Francis from behind the 30 heavy goggles which some friendly stranger had fitted over my helmet. Francis was not looking at me.

Instead of watching and appraising me, as I had thought he was half turned round, gazing back along the fuselage or body, of our craft, for what reason I do not know.

I turned in my seat and looked back at the tail. Not seeing anything unusual, I sat back again. And there was 5 Francis with his head thrown back, gazing at the sky. His hands and feet were not touching the controls.

Every time we struck an air pocket I shuddered. For ten minutes, minutes which seemed hours, I huddled and shrank and shuddered. That was about all there 10 appeared to be in the flight for me--huddles, shrinks, and shudders.

That dog kennel of a barn gave me much to think about.

The wind was dead against us. Our speedometer registered ninety miles an hour--and the wind pus.h.i.+ng us 15 back at the rate of forty miles left us fifty miles an hour speed. It seemed like fifty feet to me, until I saw off in the distance ahead the silvery haze that hangs over New York like a mantle of mist. A moment later we made out Long Island Sound, laid out with all its little bays and harbors 20 just like a pattern of white paper fallen on the extreme edge of a Persian carpet. There were a few specks on it, and from them whisps of smoke drifted up, many times smaller than pipe smoke.

b.u.mp! A slight jar. I looked at Francis. He was 25 gazing ahead unconcernedly.

Air pockets. We had dropped twenty feet on two separate occasions within the s.p.a.ce of a moment. Great!

The machine was still intact. Good old machine! Nice old craft! . . . I felt like patting it on the nose and stroking 30 its sleek fabric back--that is, if it remained constant.

If ever I craved constancy in anything, it was then.

Suddenly I relaxed. A feeling of delightful content surged through me. Approaching New York. Above the haze, out of all the hustle and bustle of the human maelstrom.

That look of absolute futility I had seen on the faces in the subway, on the streets, in the early hours of 5 morning--these receded from memory. Life was good, after all. It was a wonderful thing if you viewed it correctly.

And this was the way to view it.

Reflections of a bright young man being smeared all over the island were things of the past now, as on the right, 10 as far as we could see, the Bronx stretched away, monotonously, endlessly. I thought how much happier I was up there, looking at the Bronx, than if I were in the Bronx down there, looking up at me.

Straight down I made out a Sound steamer. h.e.l.l Gate 15 Bridge, a tiny thing like the toys in shop windows.

But the Bronx got me. I had heard much of the Bronx and once or twice had visited the Zoo. But I never conceived the Bronx as a few bushels of building blocks thrown down on a wide green lawn and tumbled about promiscuously. 20 They were blocks, too, whole city squares, miles and miles of squares.

And there was the Harlem River--and Harlem. I looked for the homes of the cliff dwellers. They were not there. The scenery was as flat as the side of a house. 25

Veering slightly to the left, a mere touch from Francis of the auto wheel in front of him, and we were speeding over the upper East Side. Now I knew, or thought I knew, the millions who reside there, more or less in a state of perpetual congestion. I had often pondered as to where 30 these millions hung their wash, when they washed. To-day I learned.

Arranged in crisscross rows, compactly and without wasting an inch of s.p.a.ce, that I could see, the roofs of the East Side were literally covered, literally littered, with clothes of a sameness that made of whole blocks or squares an awning. Here and there a red s.h.i.+rt, the only outstanding 5 bit of color. At least I chose to a.s.sume that it was a s.h.i.+rt because I knew that down in those narrow streets, moving about like minute grains of sand guided only by the confines of the conventional walls, were people sweltering in the heat of a summer day, and they needed those s.h.i.+rts 10 another season.

We dropped lower. We saw between the lines of garments, as we gazed straight downward, a bed, another bed, then a cot, more beds, a chair or two, now and then a bit of green I took to be plants, occasionally a bit of carpet 15 on the roof--and babies. The ten or fifteen babies who do not spend their days in the middle of the streets are enjoying the pleasures of their own roof gardens. As far as we could see to the left it was the same--roofs and clothes and babies, divided into squares like cuts of frosted 20 cake.

We struck Fifth Avenue at 110 Street. To our right was Central Park. And it was not as large as the palm of one's hand. In fact it might have been a bare spot from which a few building blocks had been lifted, evenly and 25 without disturbing the sharply outlined sides and corners.

There was nothing to be seen of the beautiful drives.

The wonderful trees were as clumps of sagebrush, the gathering spots mere splotches of gray in a patch of moldy green. The lakes and the reservoir were as bits of broken 30 gla.s.s with jagged edges and no reason on earth for their being there.

Below us we did make out a few of the taller buildings, but it required an effort and a prior knowledge of their location.

Fifth Avenue, over which we were traveling at ninety miles an hour as we tacked across the pathway of the wind and sped southward, was like any other street 5 from that height. One could never recognize it as Fifth Avenue, though in front of the Public Library the limousines forming two thin lines like black threads helped identify it.

The Metropolitan tower was pa.s.sed far more quickly than it requires in the telling. I looked ahead to see the wonderful 10 skyline down toward the Battery with its galaxy of skysc.r.a.pers.

It was not there. Back over my shoulder I saw 42 Street and Broadway. Strange to relate, the great buildings on that side of town stood up in bold relief.

We could now take in both the North and East rivers and 15 all of New York Bay at a single glance. A mile above them, and we were following Broadway to Battery Park. We recognized the Woolworth tower. But the Statue of Liberty was far more prominent, standing alone and distinguished, ready to meet all comers. 20