Afterburn

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He slept on earth but woke in the sky, he remembered years in order to forget seconds, he lived so that others might die.

In his cement-block quarters an air conditioner chunked night to dawn. The Thai housegirls disappeared when he stirred. At the pre-flight briefing he listened as the frag order-the incomplete target list direct from Saigon or Pentagon Far East-was announced. Then marched stiff-legged to the cockpit of the F-4. Later, beer and darts in the officers' club. And repeat. Bolt breakfast, get the weather report, brief the mission, figure the day's ordnance, run the pre-flight instrument check, line the birds up, boom off the ground, dash in across the jungle, clouds piled against the mountains-hard to ignore the beauty-deliver the load, dash out. Shower, write up the flight, do it again the next day. Count your missions. No sleep, but the food was excellent. He and the other pilots built a dirt basketball court near the airfield, and at the age of thirty-one, he could still get his palm above the rim. All the pilots were good guys and most were real bastards, too. They argued about everything. Nixon. Football teams. How to eat a monkey. The deep structure of the CIA. Hunting rifles. Conflicting theories regarding the locus of the female orgasm. Techniques for inducing same. Then back to it.

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