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April 28, 2006
the Game
The Cat floated in her moorings, looming in the soft California moonlight, in the thick night air. Twelve taut steel cables held her. She strained against their steel windings, against their buckles, against the concrete anchors. The Cat wanted freedom, but the cables did their job.
Her main lifting body stretched away in the night haze, a tapered ovoid full of the future and of promise, full of engineering and capitalism, buoyant with hope and helium and hydrogen. The booms of her outriggers reached over and sheltered the pontoon of her control body. They floated in the darkness like a great white whale and her nursing calf.
The lights in the cabin glowed through the windows and reflected up against the outrigger, amber on the smooth pale skin of the zeppelin. A tiny red light blinked from the side of the hull, a steady stoplight triple tempo. The wheel wells were open, landing gear down, and a dim glow lit the hydraulic piping that encrusted the interior, exposing the fallacy of the simple smooth exterior of her form. Regularly spaced safety lights ranged on the booms that connected her two pods, a curving constellation on the gleaming silver metal and the filigreed trusswork.
The Cat was waiting for the moment when she could jettison the earth, moonlight on her flanks. And she loomed, pregnant in the night sky, tethered like Gulliver, earthbound for now.
The gridded concrete tarmac stretched out beneath her; worn, sunbaked, cracked and dusty. Arranged here and there in the distance were clusters of trucks, a scaffold elevator surrounded by trailers, a set of three quoncet huts in a group. Two Cessnas sniffed the air, parked and shrouded, the tired rubber of their wheels keeping secrets, paint flecking from their propellers, the aggressive slant of their registration numbers out of place in the night quiet.
Hector stood next to his booth, looking up at her in the darkness, smelling the familiar oil and fuel and ozone. Even the dust is tired tonight, he thought, even the dust. He could hear the rattle of a generator clattering in the distance, powering some traffic signal or construction warning sign for no one to see. There was half a bottle left in the cabinet under his counter, and the thought of it eased his thinking, made the urgencies of the night less probing, quieted the turbulence and loosened the bonds of the stays that held him to the ground.
He fumbled with his zipper and dug it out and pissed hard and long on the concrete, standing with his feet apart. He pissed, making the runway his own, savoring the sound and the sweet burn as he watched the Cat twist slowly in her moorings in the night. The water ran dark on the concrete, away and toward her, a warm weaving finger staining the pavement. He shook himself dry and straightened, sucking in his belly as he pulled the zipper up, then he turned and went back to his booth. Then he went in and slid the thin door closed behind him.
Hector sat on his stool and began the Game. Waiting. The bottle called to him and he heard her, told her no, but as he did his lips were smiling. She'd call again and he'd say no, not yet. The light from the booth cast yellow trapezoids on the concrete around the booth. A moth powdered the plexiglas. The pink press passes with their tall black letters were stacked square on the plywood counter, ready for the coming morning bustle. The guest list was neatly stapled and clipped in the clasp of the chipped masonite clipboard.
Hector opened the cabinet door and reached for the bottle. His hand fit the neck comfortably. He pinched the cap, his fingers whitening, and he heard the snap of the release and then the smooth discus unscrewing sound. He measured some and a little extra into his thermos cup, tightened the cap firmly, and then replaced the bottle in the cabinet, checking the door with the heel of his hand so it would close softly. Hector studied the reflections of fluorescent light twisting on the surface of the liquid in his mug. He held it in two hands and lifted it to his face and inhaled. Then he put it back down on the counter without tasting it, scoring extra points in the Game. Extra points meant extra portions in this game, and Hector's strength was in the finish.
posted by matthew at 10:50 PM
So when's the maiden voyage? Are there any frequent flier seats available?
posted by: Jack on April 30, 2006 11:01 AM