Boozy slides down icy Clinton County back roads. Airplanes that spin down on routine maintenance flights. Or inexplicably drop out of the sky. On fucking fire. Carrying the names of faces once familiar to our little backwater Mittened gateway.
Danger seems to lurk everywhere these days.
And all I can think is…. fuck it.
Bring on your worst, Michigan.
I am not afraid.
Because at this point, I think it’s honestly kind of funny.
Maybe it’s the unreasonable number of fresh Old Fashioneds helping pump the cloying sludge through aging veins fueling that bravado. Maybe it’s just the sheer repetitiveness of it all. Because when you dance with the devil every damn night, danger quickly melts into the mundane. Especially after so many close calls.
Admittedly, I’m not quite sure if that should be viewed as a personal achievement. Or be taken as a source of justified concern. But like a beloved running fool once said, maybe it’s both?
I just know that I wasn’t afraid.
Not when I was running towards that fire. Back when I saved the life of a rookie pilot after her number one engine ruptured a fuel line. And immediately sparked into flames when taxiing past my big jet.
I was ridiculously polite when I informed one of the employees under my watch over the radio that his loader was sporting flames. In a place where flames weren’t supposed to be. So I kindly requested he abandon his station as quickly as possible. And even said “please” when I asked him to grab the first of many fire extinguishers we used that night. Because I knew that if I panicked, he would panic. And when shit is going that wrong, fear is the last thing that is needed.
Cooler heads must prevail in order for everyone to go home safe.
And that night, they did.
Somehow, in the great ridiculousness of happenstance, that responsibility falls to me. Five nights a week. Or six, when it’s our peak season. And the number of airplanes increases exponentially with the escalating pulse of panicked holiday consumerism.
I guess it’s true what they say. That demons tremble hardest when a wounded man has nothing left to lose.
Because I have certainly been wounded. And it won’t take much until I’ve lost it all. So there isn’t much point in really being afraid.
Or feeling anything, really.
I simply invest myself in the dangerous game of kicking tin. Or burning though whiskey, when not busy bleeding out on a typewriter.
Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
The catastrophic lifecycle of a Michigan ramp rat wanna-be writer. The silly fool born to fight airplanes. Because they are a hell of a lot easier to understand than most people.
Airplanes are what they are. And exist solely in a realm of unforgiving absolutes. The airplane either rolls on time, or it doesn’t. It either flies, or it doesn’t. There is no room for excuses. Or mistakes. It’s meat against metal. And most every night, we make sure that the metal fucking wins in the battle against time.
But people, they lie. Intentionally and indiscriminately. They continually spin their stories. And sugarcoat their skeletons. Constantly whitewash their canvas clean of dishonesty and unsightly flaws.
The was once a canvas so captivating, it pulled a lethargic Indiana boy up out of his unemployed depression. Inspired him to grow the fuck up. And to chase after his dream job kicking tin. Just to match the achievement of winning the affections of what he thought was his dream girl.
But those conflicting dreams proved incompatible.
And ended in a different kind of flames.
But there is no romantic division of the NTSB tasked with performing that kind of investigation. So I’ve sifted through the rubble to the best of my abilities. Questioned the circumstances in whiskey-fueled temper tantrums. Debated theories and conclusions with bloody knuckles bouncing off of Old Town brick. And I learned my lessons when it comes to matters of romantic investment.
Like those orange boxes strapped aboard every tin monster (the ones everyone thinks are black), my heart is guarded against future catastrophe. Armoured and anchored in a place most people could never find, even if they wanted to. Fortified against the threat of that next coming crash and burn.
Because it’s only a matter of time.
So bring on your worst, Michigan.
I am not afraid.
