The Prisoner's Tale Conclusion

This all started on a flight from Duluth MN to Cairo IL. Fitting it should end after a flight in the opposite direction. KCIR to KDLH at the start of the longest day of my life. I had lost my way. I had certainly lost who I was.

I picked them up in Cairo for a flight up to Duluth where the captain would pick up an ore carrier for Cleveland delivery. I’d planned to pick up his wife later the same day. Our destination was to be somewhat different. We’d been at it for a year by now. Getting together for...whatever. We’d started target shooting. She seemed interested in shooting and guns, so that’s what we did. If she had been interested in collecting stamps or coloring books, I’d have done that too. Somewhere along the way she had started wearing light cotton gloves when shooting. Said the blowback made her hands itchy and blotchy.

I was waiting for her to call my motel and let me know when the captain had left on his trip to Cleveland and late in the afternoon she called and said she had seen him off on his voyage but that the vessel wouldn’t sail until five a.m. or so but that he would be tied up aboard ship all night. Then she gave me directions to a location outside of Duluth. She said it was a remote wooded location and she wanted me in the woods--like an animal. She said to wait there for her. I found the location with the help of a detailed road map (remember Rand-McNally?) and a stop or two at a local gas station/country store. Then I waited...and waited.

I’d brought along a bottle, we always had a few drinks along “just for relaxation”. I guess I relaxed too much, I guess. I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until nearly 2:00a.m. She hadn’t shown up, of course, and I couldn’t call her. Remember, this was in 1979, no GPS and cell phones then. Find a payphone somewhere or you were without communications until you found your way back to civilization. All those country stores had closed at like five p.m. of course. Anyway back to my motel I went, I had planned to call from there. I never got to make that call. I’ll make the rest of this as brief as possible:

The police were waiting when I got there. I was arrested and charged with the murder of Captain C….. and the brutal beating of his wife. Evidently she had lured the Captain back to her room. Or had been surprised when he showed up unexpectedly. I suspect she had gotten some new dupe to do the beating and perhaps the shooting too, though I have no way of knowing.

Remember those gloves she always wore shooting? Turns out they kept her fingerprints from the gun. The somewhat smeared and blotted prints were mine of course. The prosecutor said the blotting was from my clumsy attempts to wipe the gun clean. No one was given a gunshot residue test other than me. I failed. I’d been target shooting that afternoon to kill time waiting for her.

My attorney managed to get me a deal, the best he could do I guess--30 to life with a chance for parole after 25 years. The D.A. had wanted life without the chance of parole, so that was the best I could hope for.

I was up for parole again last year. She came to the hearing to plead that I not be released from prison, citing the brutal beating she had received and a continuing fear for her life. She still had those guileless blue eyes...and that black, black soul.

I found this tune on my radio the other day. It says a lot to me. Maybe you might think about it if you ever meet a woman with guileless blue eyes:

The Prisoner's Tale

Part I can be seen here. Part II can be seen here. This flight is from Cairo Il to Shreveport LA. We started sleeping together whenever the Captain was gone, which seemed to be a lot. And I don't guess we actually slept all that much. What we did was...well it was what we did. Occasionally one or the other (or both of us) was left bruised and sometimes bloody by what we did to each other. Neither one of us complained. Once I had a girl friend (she was married and I was too) and I asked her what I had permission to do to her. She replied "anything you want as long as it doesn't leave marks for my husband to see". I asked Sydney (yeah, her) and the answer I got was "anything you want that doesn't kill me or leave me crippled".

I don't how she managed to have such clear and innocent turquoise eyes. She'd been through a lot. She had these cut scars on the inside of her thighs and upper arms like four long series of slash marks ///////. I found out much later they are usually signs of self cutting. Teenage girls seem to do it a lot when they feel they have no control over their lives. She also had scars on her back that looked an awful lot like cigarette burns. Sometimes she cried when she slept.

She would call me whenever the captain was away on some ocean or Great Lakes voyage. Usually he was gone for long periods--weeks even. We would arrange to meet and off we would go, into whatever world we were living in. Yeah, my performance for my employer wasn't the best and I lost a job or two, but it was just so easy to find another flying job back in the late seventies.

We did do other things. She'd come up with some idea and it wasn't long before I was thoroughly sold that nothing else would do me but to do whatever she thought of. Or maybe I thought of. I was no longer sure.

It started innocently enough...go see some sight or museum. She bought us motorcycles and we learned to ride them. Learned to shoot guns--I had enough guns in the Marines but it was what she wanted to do and so it was OK with me.

Then she wanted to do other things. Or was it me? We stole a car and took a joy ride. Then another one, and burnt it to the ground. Then we robbed a 7-11 for a thrill. Then another. And somehow the clerk got shot. Listen, I have to tell you our time together was like compressed somehow. These things happened over a horribly short period of time. The whole sorry mess probably took less than six months. Just six months and my life was over.

The Prisoner's Tale

This flight is from Burlington IA KBRL to Sault Ste Marie MI. I guess I always was in trouble of one sort or another. Being a teenager in the early '60's in Eastern Kentucky meant having to go to work early. I didn't ever want to go into the coal mines. There was an airport outside of Hazard, not much of one but a place to hang out, wash planes, do some grunt work pushing airplanes and listen to the mine owners laugh about the dumb A..ed miners, like my dad. I wanted to fly so I swallowed my anger and smiled. And finally got taught to fly by the airport owner. I also got into trouble here and there. When the trouble got too bad the judge (an airplane owner himself) offered me a choice of jail or the Marines. I chose the Marines and got assigned to flight training.

I got assigned to a carrier and was stationed off Vietnam, flying cover for grunts and doing ground attack flying an A4D Skyraider. We'd fly over, drop a little (actually a lot) of napalm, launching rockets as directed, and blowing up a few hooches here and there. I think a lot of those hooches never had more than mamma-san and papa-san inside. Occasionally, some light small arms fire would be returned but generally not a thing. I found a drug habit too. Hell, everybody in the Nam used drugs of some sort even the high brass, looking at how they ran their war.

I finally managed to get shot down and taken prisoner. Not something I recommend to anyone. My broken leg sort of healed itself while I was in the Hanoi Hilton. I also lost 65 lbs but did kick the drugs. Not a rehabilitation program I'd recommend but it worked. No more drugs, well except for maryjane. Like everybody else in the world I suppose. Long story short, after I was "repatriated" the Navy fixed up my leg as well as possible and I got a medical discharge.

I bummed around a while, drove a big truck, drove a little truck, found my way back into aviation flying for a major corporation, and then found my way into piloting for first one charter service and then another. And finally here I was flying for Mid-Central Air and things seemed to be settling down for me.

Then I was assigned the flight from Duluth to Cairo and life started a slide I couldn't even have guess at in even my wildest nightmares..

She was just so dang pretty and...well available I guess.

And she was looking for a thrill too I guess.

The Prisoner's Tale

I picked up my charter in Duluth MN bound for Cairo Il--a lakes freighter captain and wife bound for a late spring vacation. She had on a pair of Levis that were so tight I could see that she had a dime in her right rear pocket--it was heads--and the clearest, most innocent blue eyes. At the time I didn't know she also came equipped with a soul that would give the devil himself pause. And thereby begins my story...

I didn't think much at the time, in fact I was busy with getting the airplane off the ground and so dismissed the attractiveness sitting a few feet behind me.

But by the time I was getting turned onto course and had put the airplane on auto-pilot for climb and cruise I found I was getting a request from the ship captain asking whether his wife could ride the right seat. She was working on her private pilots license and wanted to study how to... And, well you get the idea.

So, sure. Nice scenery for me and maybe some study time for her. She came up front after we had leveled out and scrambled into the right seat and rewarded me with a perfect smile and a flash of those turquoise eyes. Yeah, she also bumped me a couple of times while climbing into the seat. And maybe those bumps lingered a little and maybe the body parts that bumped were not hands or knees.

I had no idea where this was intended to go so kept my eyes front and center and attended to flying the airplane. But I sure did find those eyes irresistible. Honest to God I tried to keep myself to myself.

Before we started descent I asked her to go back to the passenger cabin and again there were those bumps and the hand overlong on my shoulder as she left the flight deck.

After landing and unloading the captain and the lady both shook my hand. When she did I felt a piece of paper pass from her hand to mine. I put the paper in my pocket and read it later and in private. Yeah, name, rank and serial number, so to speak, were all included. And times when it would be appropriate (her word) for me to call.

I didn't know it at the time, but in a few months she would be rich and I would be in prison for life. Oh yeah, and the captain would be dead.

Back on the Job

Joyce and I got the air carrier started about 1985, more or less. Getting started is tough. When do you actually get started? When you sign the necessary (and many) papers? When the bank puts the money in your account? When that first paying charter shows up? When...? You get the idea.

Anyway you get the idea. We were off and running. Well maybe stumbling along might be a better term. We started off with two airplanes, neither of which was a King Air. We did have a Cessna 182 and a Beech Baron. Neither was luxury equipped, but both were IFR capable. But then again, neither was set up for flight into known icing conditions. We had one part time employee pilot. Very part time. He wasn't needed a whole lot at first.

And I had (still have) a tattoo on my back, "Will you kiss me before I die Johnny?" Joyce never asked about it, and I've never talked about it either. I'll know it's there every day until I die.

ENOUGH!!

All that was a long time ago now. This is today.

I picked up my charter in Laconia New Hampshire after doing the weekly Baltimore run. Are you familiar with Laconia? It used to be the site of a famous bike race and weekend in general Now it's more organized and respectable.

Back when Harrison and I raced the sidecar rig there things were a little wild and wooly I guess. Party like H... all night and ride the same way during the day. When you're young you can do that I guess.

I'm off the ground and you can see the gear just before they tuck away for the two hour flight to Washington NC.

My charter is a motorcycle collector and hobbyist. Yes, he's one of those tech multi-millionaires and likes the old time bikes. Not the bikes from my days in the 60's & 70's, but way back in the really old days. Think teens, twenties, and thirties.

He's on the way south to check out one of those semi-mystical "barn finds". You know what I mean, the car (or bike) that was pushed aside when the owner moves on, grows up, dies or something. Barn finds do exist and finds are still being made almost weekly. This one is supposed to be a Flying Merkel motorcycle. You can find some excellent images of the Flying Merkel here.

In the shot above we're just clearing the extreme southern tip of what is known as the Delmarva Peninsula. Delaware/Maryland/virginia that is. We're over VA in the shot.

In this one, taken a minute or so later, we're over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel connecting the Hampton Roads/Norfolk area to Eastern Shore. Another fun ride by bike or car.

Another shot of the Norfolk/ Hampton Roads area. There is a definite Navy presence here and we in Eastern WV often find fighters practicing contour flying over the Greenbrier River and surrounding countryside.

Ahh, here we are. 500ft annunciator has just sounded. Full flaps and start pulling back on the throttles. If I time this just right I'll be at the throttle stops a very few seconds before touching down.

I gotta smile on this one. It came out nicely thank you very much.

My charter is on his way to check out the hoped for toy. If things work out I'll have the charter back north too. And some awkwardly shaped packing and stowing to take care of.

Where We Came From. Who We Are. Part V

This flight is from Marble Canyon AZ to Mesquite NV and was flown back in 1985 or so. I just found the picture folder from that time.

Back in something like 1985 I was working for a small charter service in Albuquerque New Mexico. I had done a few flights for some jack leg lawyer named Saul Goodman--if you lived out that way back then you couldn't miss his really tacky TV commercials--and about that time I got to thinking about hanging up the high & wild life. Marla was gone, she was three or four, well maybe five or six, women back. My first wife had left and we'd gotten a reasonably amiable divorce and I'd met a woman named Joyce, who was..well...different from the others.

I'd been down the road with flying drugs and whatever else the cartel group I would later find out was a CIA front wanted flown to (?).

Along with El Segundo I'd crash landed a DC-3 loaded with 4 1/2 tons of prime Colombian marijuana in the New Mexico desert and watched in amazement as El Segundo doused the whole thing with avgas and set fire to it.

I've still got a limp and a metal plate (or two) in my left leg from that adventure. I can forecast the weather by the way that leg feels at times. Winters are sometimes uncomfortable and as I get older it seems to get worse.

I'd even sat helplessly and watched a guy take a dive from 200 feet above the ocean so that the wounded Cessna 182 I was flying would limp along long enough to get his crying and nearly hysterically family to safety.

He was a political prisoner of an extremely corrupt Central American government who had escaped and who the CIA wanted transported to safety. Didn't quite work out like the CIA wanted.

I'd even found myself flying in Southeast Asia for a while and still try to forget a lot of what went on there around the time of Khmer Rouge.

When I drink too much I remember the woman who said "will you kiss me before I die Johnny?" Or maybe I drink too much when I remember her. Joyce helps me then.

I'd made a nice pile of money. I didn't spend it all either, unlike most of the guys I flew with. Because of the way our payments were set up, most of it was clean and clear with the IRS. For some reason a lot of the ways that money gets burned up never appealed to me. Believe it or not, I was known as a quiet and homebody type guy, not the one to invite to all the weekends that are better off forgotten about.

I flew airplanes. For better or worse, that's what I did--fly airplanes.

One thing about West Virginians, they all want to go home. There's a joke about St Peter showing a new arrival around Heaven and they come to a gated and fenced area. The gate is heavily locked. When asked why, St Peter says "that's where we keep the West Virginians. The new arrival asks why and St Peter replies "if we don't lock them in, they all go back home."

I guess I was getting older and now I wanted to go home. And I got to thinking about starting a little flying service of my own.

The shot above shows me starting my downwind leg at Mesquite for a visual landing. This is a view of the long taxi in. Below is a shot just prior to shutting down.

I think I was ready to head home to West Virginia. Now all I have to do is sell Joyce on the idea.

Where We Came From. Who We Are. Part IV.I

The pictured flight was from KGCN (Grand Canyon Nat'l Park) to KHND (Henderson Exec Las Vegas NV) and featured a vicious and gusty X-wind at the landing. The OAT at HND at landing was 36*C. For the uninitiated that converts to about 98*F. The Cessna is un-airconditioned.

This is a continuation of my post begun below. Here's a link.

I was left at _________ airport, 250 miles from Miami and told "we may be in touch". What I didn't mention was that it was 3:50a.m. and raining. And every door I could find was locked. I crawled under the wing of a waiting Cessna 310, folded my jacket into something resembling a pillow and went promptly to sleep. About 6:30 I rolled over, the rain had stopped, and an alligator was coming slowly my way and was only about 20 feet away. It seemed closer at the time. I found my way to the perimeter fence and climbed over--remember, in the late 60's airport security was not like it is now--and was on my way back to Miami, riding my thumb.

I got back to town by late afternoon, needing a shave and shower. Marla wasn't too impressed by the "whoevers" I was flying for.

I got cleaned up and about the time I sat down for supper the phone rang and the voice said "Senor, we would like you to fly for us a package." "I'm tired and need some time off to recover. In case you didn't notice, you or your employees left me a long way from home in the rain at night without the offer of a ride home. "I'm very sorry for that Senor, but that is to be expected at times. We need a pilot to fly a package and we need him now. Are you interested in the job Senor?" "...Yeah, I'm interested. Where and when? "_______ Airport and in two hours. "See you then.

I looked at Marla and gave that kinda hang-dog grin I get sometimes.

"Ya basta!! You leave and I will not be here whenever you bother to get back!!

She was there when I got back.

So, long story shortened a little, I popped a little chemical stay awake help and off I went. By this time I was pretty sure I knew where this was heading but so far I hadn't done anything illegal so I figured I was still OK in the eyes of the rest of the world and I could get out anytime I wanted. Ain't that always the way.

I got to the ________ Airport as scheduled and was met by the guy I only knew as El Segundo, who handed me a package. The package weighed 44lbs, exactly. I know this because it was weighed carefully, twice, before being opened when I got to my destination and in my presence.

I guess I knew what was in the package right from the start but didn't think too much about it. A two hour flight, all domestic, and only state borders to cross. No customs.

So off I went in the regular King Air, just me and this 44lb package.

Two hours later I was on the ground at _______. I was met by an unsmiling and muscular guy with the usual gun slightly visible under the sport jacket. And the first thing out of his mouth was "you have opened the package mi amigo and are in very serious trouble indeed. (I hadn't) "No...I haven't. You are wrong. And I don't think I'm really your amigo hombre.

Well, long story shortened here, I got punched a couple of times. I'm not a hero and I'm not much of a fighter. Even less so when the guy opposite is 50 lbs heavier than me and very very fit.

I got my breath back slowly and when I could stand up fairly straight (it would be three more days before I stood really straight) I put my hands up and in plain sight and told the guy I was going to reach in my back pocket, get out my wallet and hand him a phone number I had been given along with the instructions: "You may need this number soon. Keep it and give it to whoever gives you concern. Give him the paper, do not just tell him the number. It would do you no good in that case."

The guy took (snatched more like) the paper, took me into a waiting office area and made his call. I wasn't offered a seat so I stood--rather more of a slump against the door frame I guess.

"He is here Jefe. The package has not been opened. Si Jefe. I will show him. No, he did not weaken. Thank you Jefe, I think so as well"

And the guy hung up the phone and turned to me, but this time with a smile and offered handshake. Oh and by the way, the offer of a healthy belt of Glenfiddich Scotch.

"Come Senor, let us see your delivery.

So we opened the 44lb package and I got a laugh when my muscular friend showed me the contents. 44lbs of the best Colombian...Criollo Chocolate.

"We may be in touch Senor, with a job offer this time. Congratulations, you passed the tests.

"What would have happened if I had opened the package? Armand (I later found out his name) sighed and said "Alas, then your time at this place would have been short and unhappy.

I flew the King Air back to Miami, got home before Marla left for work (see, I knew she wouldn't leave), got some sleep and then waited.

Several days later I got a call to be at ___________ airport at ________ p.m. This was where I got my job offer.

$5000 dollars U.S. every week, whether you fly or not. You will fly for no one else, no matter how much they offer. You will be ready to fly within two hours of our contacting you, day or night, seven days a week. If you are arrested make your phone call to this lawyer. Be sure you understand that, this lawyer only. You are ours until we release you or you die, and you can take that however you wish.

There were a few other provisos, but those are the main ones I guess. Like I said, the whole drug flying business started over a Gin game in Miami I guess.