Final Sky

by

Byron Edgington

Chapter 1 thru 4

“Did the carefree, happy pilot named Cal Palmer get shot down in Vietnam, or what?” Amy looked at him, frowning.

         “I didn’t get shot down.” Cal avoided her stare.

         “Why so cynical?”

         “I’m not cynical.”

         “You are, too.”

         “Am not.”

         “Are, too!

         “Am not!”

         “Hey, you two, shut up already,” Ron, the other nurse said. “Jesus, couple’a kids.”

         “Sorry.” Cal checked the mirror above the helicopter’s instrument panel. An arm’s length behind him, Amy, the rookie flight nurse, glared back. Veteran Air Med pilot, Cal Palmer eyed the rookie nurse with derision. “Speaking of kids, since when do they hire children to be flight nurses?”

         “I paid my dues, Palmer.”  

         Turning in the cockpit, Cal glanced back at her, head shaking in disdain.

         Amy looked away, avoiding him. Her mike switch stayed open, a common rookie mistake. All new members of the Air Med team did it at least once, until they learned to use the equipment. Amy had been a flight nurse for four months. She stared outside, wind and cabin noise hissing through all three of their headsets. “Jerk, I can’t believe…”

         Cal turned and stared.

         “What?”

         Ron cleared his throat.

         Amy ignored them. The hissing continued.

         Cal turned and looked at her again, eyes like slits.

         “What?” Amy looked at both men. “Tell me.” She got frantic. “What?” Then she realized she’d done it again, blushed and closed the offending switch. The cabin fell silent.

         “Thank you,” Cal turned forward. “I thought we had a snake loose in the back.”

         “Snake in front, maybe.”

         “Nice…just when I try to…”

         “Get over it, Palmer, okay? It won’t happen again.”

         “Good. If I can’t hear, and miss a radio call…”

         “I’ll remember next time, all right?”

         Ron keyed his mike. “Do I have to separate you two? We have a patient waiting.” He held his little corded comm box up at eye level where they could both see it, and snapped the switch off with a flourish. “Done.”

The helicopter passed over open country, raced across little towns, water towers with graffiti splashed by high school kids, an ocean of green, eye-high corn row on row, fields skirling in the hot, August wind. The patient’s trailer park lay miles ahead. Cal watched the numbers click down on the GPS: 25.4, 25.3, 25.2… The radio stayed quiet.

         Five minutes passed, then... “I paid my dues,” Amy said. “I don’t care what… I’m not here because of her.”

         “Did we mention your mother?” Cal went to the mirror again. “Did we?”

         “Every member of the team thinks…”

         “….rather we welcomed you aboard with open arms? Assumed you’re good? Is that what you’d prefer?”

         “I’d prefer not to have the suspicion follow me all the time, and that…”

         “….we’d just believe you knew what you were doing, without seeing it? Just because your mother’s the CEO of the hospital? I’d think you’d prefer to prove that you’re a good nurse, and that you…”

         “I just don’t like the whisper campaign, okay?”

         “….no one special, Amy, we never assume competence. Never have. Not for anybody.”

         “If you miss a radio call…” Ron said.

Cal scanned the lush Iowa landscape, the sea of corn tasseling in the August morning, Grant Wood farmscapes as far as he could see. AirMed had been dispatched to a mobile home park. The patient report was short and simple: ‘unresponsive white male.’ In other words, as usual, the team had no idea what to expect when they landed. Cal had just come on duty when the call came in. Thirty minutes ago, when he’d pulled his aircraft preflight checks, the AStar’s turbine was still warm.

         As the aircraft bounced along in the warming sky, Cal adjusted power, checked gauges, glanced at the GPS screen where intricate red LED numbers ticked off: Groundspeed: 137 knots. He had a strong tailwind. Another number clicked down, distance to landing: 24 NM. Next to the distance figure, the time unwound: 16 minutes—15—14. Above his head, a small mirror like the one in his Acura. He’d had the program mechanic attach the mirror there so pilots could scan the cabin without turning around. The installation wasn’t FAA approved, but Charlie assured the pilots it wouldn’t be a problem. “...kiss my rosy red ashtray if they want paperwork on a flippin’ mirror, fer gawd’s sake.”

         Amy’s intercom opened again. “Sure is quiet.”

         Ron and Cal stared at her.

         “What? What did I say, Jesus!”

         “Rookies.” Cal scanned ahead.

         Amy studied them. “Everybody have broken glass for breakfast this morning or what? Jeez, I was checking drug kits on the pad, and Denise came up. I said good morning and she just glared at me. Said go to the ER. Said she’d take care of it.”

         Ron opened his mike. “Reno.”   

         “I heard,” Cal said. “Phil told me at shift change.”

         Amy looked back and forth at the two veterans. “An accident?”

         Ron nodded. “In Nevada. Four dead.”

         Cal checked the mirror again. “Welcome aboard.”

         Amy shut her mike switch and stared out the window. 

Chapter 2

When Cal had reported for duty that morning, fellow pilot Phil told him about the crash. The previous afternoon, an Air Med pilot in Nevada had flown into the side of a mountain for no apparent reason. Reporting for duty that morning, Cal listened to what his colleague had told him. “Guy was hired at the program two weeks ago,” Phil said. “Out of the Gulf oil patch, and sent to frickin’ Nevada. Yesterday, five o’clock, he’s flyin’ west into the afternoon sun and slams a mountain. Four fatals. Not many mountains down in the Gulf, I guess.”

         Cal slipped out of his jacket. “Aircraft?”

         “Two-many-twos,” Phil said. “Brand new out of the box. All the bells and whistles, and he flies ‘er into the old cumulo-asphalt cloud. Boom, done flyin,’ four dead.” Phil hefted his backpack to his shoulder and zipped his jacket. “See ya tonight, Cal. Try not to clip any mountains today, okay?”

         “If I do I’ll have dispatch call so you can have the night off.”

         “Thanks, you’re a pal.” Phil slipped out the door. Cal went to the pad and walked around the helicopter. He checked the cockpit, hung up his helmet and scanned the panel. Phil had just landed from an early morning mission. Engine temp still hovered near 300 degrees. Gauges on the panel looked good: Fuel at 80%, enough for two hours of flight; altimeter set, 750 feet above sea level; battery good, torque measurement gauge good. Cal tapped the glass in the brand new radar altimeter. Installed four months ago, the gauge represented a trophy of sorts in Cal’s ongoing battle with the hospital and his company for safer operations. The device had cost three thousand dollars. The struggle to acquire it took fours years, and the better part of two contract cycles between County General Hospital and National Aviation Company LLC, his employer. In a strange and somewhat mystifying twist to the usual conflict between client hospital and helicopter vendor, the hospital finally agreed to pay for the altimeter.

         Deborah Carlton, the CEO, had called Cal in his quarters to tell him to order the device. “I signed the requisition yesterday,” she said. “Have Charlie install it right away. And let me know how it’s working.”

         Cal held the phone away and stared at it, amazed. He tucked it back against his ear. “Look, I’ll be calling Deb Carlton to let her know someone’s impersonating her, telling me to buy stuff to make the program safer.”

         “Palmer, stop being a wise ass and call Charlie.”

         “Mind if I ask, why the sudden change of heart? We’ve argued about that damn gauge for three years.”

         “Look, Calvin,” she sighed. She always called him Calvin when she’d reached her limit with him, and she called him Calvin a lot. “….let’s just say I’m tired of arguing about it, okay? County General will pay for the device, and Charlie will install it on National Aviation’s nickel. Just call him.”

         “I’ll do it right now, Deb…and, thanks.” The line clicked off. Cal dropped the phone in its rack. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with your daughter joining the AirMed team would it, Deb? Or am I being a wise ass?”

The morning sun painted long, thin shadows on the rolling ground beneath him. Hundred foot silos were arrows pointed west; skewed and twisted farmhouses sprawled over the ground; a tractor shadow stretched, oval tires like rubber bands. Cal looked at the radar altimeter again. As the helicopter passed over verdant fields its reading showed in hundreds of feet. The gauge warned pilots if they drifted too close to the ground. “Four years,” he muttered.

         “Four minutes out?” Ron’s helmet came up in the mirror.

         “Uh...yeah, four minutes,” Cal said.       

         “Thanks.”

Chapter 3

Cal scanned for other traffic. The sky was cloudless. Morning sunlight gleamed off the aircraft’s surfaces as he cruised a thousand feet over lush, summer fields.

         In the cabin the size of a Honda hatchback, the empty cot waited for the next patient. Above Amy’s head two oxygen spigots stuck out, tiny inverted Christmas trees ready for use. Behind Ron, on the back wall, like shoe slots on a closet door, pockets overflowed with medical supplies: gauze, tubing, tape, neck braces, IV bags, pocket-size medical books. On the ceiling of the aircraft, a drop-down compartment held the heart monitor and defib unit. Like a spider’s eyes, a clustered light fixture occupied the overhead. Surrounding it, soft IV hooks wiggled back and forth, synched with the movement of the aircraft. Flight nurses could reach any item from any seat. 

         How many medical flights had he taken? More than three thousand at that point. How many times had he flown over this pastoral ground? How many victims of heart attacks, farm accidents, motor vehicle crashes? How many patients ‘unresponsive’? Eighteen years worth. He’d do some other kind of flying, as Angela had demanded time and again, but despite what the rookie flight nurse said, Cal loved the work. Almost half his nights were away from home. The schedule, and other things, had taxed his marriage, and finally broke it. But Air Medical flying offered things other aviation jobs didn’t. Long-term stability for one thing, despite what his soon to be ex said. “People will likely keep getting sick and maiming themselves, Angela.” The sad ritual became a nightly drama. He’d leave her at five PM again, and she’d call out again from the kitchen. “And flying them won’t stop it, Calvin.” She always called him Calvin at such times. It had become one of those automatic narratives the marriage counselor mentioned, the third one in the last five years to use the term.

         Flying for the hospital meant a degree of dignity for him, finally. He’d ‘paid his dues,’ too. The combat hours in Vietnam, getting shot at every day, and surviving the dangerous part of the war, Army politics. Then the harsh, shameless scramble up the aviation ladder, taking jobs no one else wanted, scaring the bejesus out of himself in aircraft that should have been in a museum, living from a suitcase in three-dollar hotels that weren’t at the end of the world, but you could see it from there. Hospital flying put an end to all that. No more working at the end of the road in broke-dick aircraft, bombing forest fires with water buckets, chasing tuna in the middle of the damn ocean. No more calling in the same rush hour traffic tie-ups every morning and afternoon like an automaton. No more corporate charters, being an airborne limo driver for a bunch of chauvinistic suits who whined about having to read outdated Playboy magazines as they raced over that rush-hour traffic at a hundred-thirty knots, while pissing and moaning about too little ice for their Chivas Regal when they landed next to a waiting Mercedes. “Jesus, I hated that job.” 

         Amy looked up. “Had what job?”

         “Talking to myself. Happens a lot.”

         “If you miss a call…”

         He glared at her in the mirror, and her head dropped. The mobile home park lay five miles ahead, trailers scattered here and there like abandoned kids’ toys. Sagging, battered cars, brimming trash barrels, clotheslines crisscrossing the half-acre redoubt. He slowed the aircraft and checked the gauges. “Bet he’s fakin’ it.”

         “He’s what?”

         “Staus-fake-itis These people do that shit.”

         “Just because the guy lives in a trailer doesn’t mean he’s a scumbag,” Ron said. “Good thing nurses have some compassion.”

         “Ron, experience tells me that, like a lot of his neighbors here at Aluminum Acres our patient’s into some kind of unsavory business.”

         “You just fly. We’ll see that you don’t get your hands dirty.”

         “… just saying.” Cal dropped power, and angled the aircraft toward a landing on the gravel. As the ground rushed up, Ron and Amy tightened belts and lowered visors.

         “Check for wires,” Cal said.

         Ron stuck his thumb up and peered outside. Amy did the same, as the helicopter sank through a hundred feet, then fifty, twenty, shuddering down… Ron relaxed, waiting for Cal to land. Amy squeezed the door handle, knuckles bloodless, unaccustomed to the rocking and vibrating descent to a hover.

         Cal checked the mirror again. “Easy on that handle, Charlie hates it when nurses break shit.”

         “Screw you, Palmer, your safety pilot Phil told us to hang on, remember?”

         “He didn’t say crouch in terror.”

         Amy’s finger came up in the mirror.

         “Children?”

         The airframe buzzed and rattled as the rotors met dirty air and clabbered for purchase. Ten feet, five feet, touchdown.

At the mobile home park an ambulance sat, overheads flashing—blue-red-blue—next to a pinkish-brown singlewide with all its tires flat. A rusted trash barrel sat by the trailer’s front door. Behind it, perched on wobbly concrete blocks, a blinded Chevy pickup lounged with a spider-webbed windshield. Next to the trailer sat a Sheriff’s Crown Vic, unoccupied, driver’s door standing open. Cal idled down as his dust cloud coated the gritty scene. 

         Amy exhaled hard and let go of the door handle. “Nice job.” 

         Cal stared at her. “Survived another one.” 

         “Snowflake landing,” Ron said. “No two alike.” He grinned at his colleague.

         “Same as a rookie’s IV sticks,” Cal said, punching buttons.

         “Asshole.” Amy’s head wagged.

         “He probably is,” Cal said.

         “I meant you.” Then she nodded toward the trailer. “What if he’s got a million bucks hidden in there?”

         Cal eased the throttle off and the turbine whined down. “If that shithole’s full of cash you don’t wanna know how he got it. See the smoke?” A dirt-grey plume skirled up from the trailer’s crooked chimney.

         “What about the smoke?”

         “In August?” He punched off more buttons and lights flickered on the instrument panel. “Who called AirMed anyway?” 

         “Don’t know. Neighbor?” 

         Ron’s shoulders went up and down. 

         Cal smirked. “Sure it’s an MI?”

         “Maybe,” Ron said. “Unresponsive.” He reached for the orange trauma bag.

         Amy spoke up. “Greene County started CPR...” 

         Cal sniffed. “Never works. TV shows… Patient arrests, slap on paddles, shock the shit out of them and they get up and go to McDonald’s with the wife and kids. Bullshit. In eighteen years I never saw a patient survive an arrest.”

         “It happens,” Amy said. “Last week, I saw a patient…”

         Ron interrupted her. “Speaking of patients? Can we go?”

         “They’re gettin’ away,” Cal said. He wrenched the rotor brake and the blades squealed to a stop. Jabbing the master switch off, he stepped from the cockpit.

         Amy hefted the trauma bag onto her shoulder and started toward the trailer.

         Cal sniffed at her back. “I’m guessing it’s an acute case of entitle-itis.”          

         She turned and faced him. “Seriously, what happened to you? This isn’t just about Reno, or my mother…”

         “I didn’t get shot down, if that’s what you mean.”

         “Heard from the divorce lawyer?”

         “She wants the last drop of my blood.”

         “So you do have blood. Does that mean..?”

          “Yes, a heart, too.” Cal nodded toward the trailer. “...don’t you have CPR to do?”

         “I thought it never worked?”

         Ron glared. “As the immortal Rodney King once said, can’t we all just get along?”

         Amy hefted the bag higher and stalked off.

         “Do your job, rookie, and I’ll do mine,” Cal said. “I happen to be very good at it.”

         “It’s more than just moving the sticks around, Palmer.” 

         “How long’ve you been a flight nurse? Four months?”

         “Long enough to know burnout when I see it.” Stopping, she hitched the backpack up again, struggled with it, took several breaths and trudged on.

         “Need help?” Cal started toward her.

         “Nope. Doin’ fine.” 

         “I never got shot down, rookie.”

         “Good to know!” She stomped up the trailer’s metal steps and ducked inside.

Chapter 4

Palmer arrived at the sagging trailer. Two flea-bit Pit Bulls snarled and snapped on their clothesline restraint, front paws boxing air. On the anemic stand of grass a dented yellow Camaro sat in the shade, black and orange  #3 decal filling its rear window. Behind the wheel a woman slumped, a Salem menthol dangling from her lip. Smoke curling out the open window, she called out to him, and he turned. “Hey, mister. Cop won’t ‘llow me inside,” she said, her voice like sandpaper. “Where ya’ll takin’ him?”

         “County,” Palmer said. “You next of kin?”

         “Girlfriend. I’ll be up soons I can get there.”

         Palmer stared at her, hoping she wanted nothing more. “Never changes,” he muttered.

         “Do what?” she said, squinting through smoke.

         “Nothing. Taking him to County General.”

         The woman nodded once, and looked away. Then she cranked the ignition and the backup lights flared. Her cigarette arced onto the ground. The Camaro backed out, and swung around. Spitting gravel, it took the highway, tires squealing, racing north.

         Palmer watched the car jitter down the road and shook his head. “Never changes.” He ducked into the trailer, where the sheriff leaned against the wall, an ample belly overlapping his gun belt.

         Ron knelt over the medical bag and unzipped it. Medical supplies littered the floor, tubing and gauze, tape, needles and fluid bags. “How long’s he been down?” Ron said to no one in particular.

         An EMT bent over the patient, hands overlapped, doing CPR. On his sleeve a patch read ‘Greene County EMS.’ “‘bout forty minutes, near’s we can tell,” he huffed between compressions. “Thought you guys’d never get here.” He pressed the victim’s chest in trained rhythm, sweat dripping, his mouth an ‘O.’ His partner knelt at the man’s head squeezing a tan ambu bag. With every mash of the rubber bag the victim’s chest rose, then fell in turn.

         The patient was mid thirties, thin as a shadow, wearing faded jeans and black Dingos with stainless steel harness chains. Inked in blurry black and blue, a tattoo on the right bicep read I ♥ Jolene. On the left: USMC, and Semper Fi. Amy knelt beside the patient, aimed her needle at the antecubital and stabbed it home. A plug of blood filled the IV stick, and she attached a line to it. With success on the first attempt, she glared at Palmer. “Questions?”  Then she handed him the clear bag of saline solution. “Hold this at eye level.”

         “I know…”

         “Good.”

         Cal did his best Statue of Liberty impression as IV drips dripped, one after another.

         The team worked on the fellow for several minutes. Nothing changed except the hands on the plastic battery clock over the brown stained sink. Ron sighed, and polled the room. “Transport?” 

         “Stable as he’s gonna be,” Amy said.

          “’fraid so,” the older EMT said. “Let’s do it.”

         They lifted the patient onto the helicopter cot, strapped him down and grunted through the narrow doorway with him. Once again the dogs yelped in hysterics, baring their teeth, straining against their collars.

         Walking across the compound, Cal looked at other trailers. Window shades flicked open, then back shut. The park was a tomb, like the guy had no neighbors. He smelled the insides of those places, the acrid tobacco stench, month-old laundry and the pungent, bleachy stink of cat piss. He saw the crinkled plastic walls, the dips and sags of cracked tile floors in shoulder-wide hallways. The velvet paintings of St. Elvis, mournful Christ with rheumy eyes and hands joined in prayer, framed pictures of stiff Marines in snappy white hats. He felt his ears sting on frigid mornings when the goddam space heater’s pilot light had gone out again. The walls shaking when his old man came home drunk, reeling through the narrow trailer. The freshet sound as he barely made the toilet and pissed a cascade of recycled Becks.

         And he felt the gush of relief when the Greyhound’s door shut and the bus started down the road, next stop the recruiting station the day after he turned eighteen.

         He zipped up his flight jacket, put his head down, and marched to the helicopter.

         The team loaded the patient inside. Cal closed doors, climbed aboard, cranked the engine. Lifting off in a geyser of grit he added power and the helicopter clambered for altitude. His chest ached as the cloud enveloped the dingy park, trailers disappearing in the dust. “Never changes.”

         “What?” Amy stopped CPR.

         “Nothing. Forget it.” Cal leveled at two thousand feet and aimed for the hospital thirty miles away.