#well!

even the people of tyler, texas, agree that while thirteen is a perfectly reasonable age to drive a tractor and work the fields, it's too young to be pilotin' aircraft. even more so for twelve-year-olds, which is the age h.m was when he started flyin'. but aside from shakin' their heads, they hadn't actually done anythin' about it. besides, he's not a bad pilot. not at all. he's flown successfully all year even though the planes are older'n he is and, despite his uncle's best efforts, haven't been cared for quite how they should be. it's fairweather's fault he's even flyin' the plane in the first place, which is probably another black mark against his ability to care for planes responsibly.

fairweather—real name wayne, but nobody calls him that except his mother—was a flight engineer during world war two and made a lot of friends among the pilots, so he tells h.m. he's charmin', is fairweather. much more charmin' than h.m's daddy, crop (real name earl, but again, only granny emma jean calls him that), but, to be honest, a brick wall woulda been more charmin' than him. crop died over in korea, god rest his soul, 'fore h.m could really get to know this about him.

by the end of the war, fairweather had convinced his friends to give him enough impromptu flyin' lessons that he was more or less a pilot himself, just without any official licensing. then all it took was convincin' crop that buying surplus planes and convertin' 'em into crop dusters would be a lucrative business plan (it ain't, really, but then again fairweather couldn't have known the drought was comin'), and askin' one of his pilot friends to pick up the planes and fly 'em over to tyler.

at thirteen, h.m already realizes that, as a business, it ain't really that efficient and barely makes enough to cover the cost of fuel. but he doesn't care. for h.m's tenth birthday, fairweather announced that he would begin teachin' him to fly. it took a long time 'n most of it was just readin' the few books fairweather had on the subject. but finally, for h.m's twelfth birthday, he'd been allowed to get behind the controls.

he'd loved it. he'd loved it so, so much. and now it's all ruint.

h.m. is sprawled out in the dust, flat on his back and tryin' not to breathe too deeply because it hurts his ribs when he does. since he came to, he's moved only enough to wriggle out of the straps holdin' him into his seat and crawl into the patch of shade cast by the plane, with a quick detour to vomit.

it wasn't a very bad crash. there had been nothing so excitin' as an explosion like he's seen in the movies, just a mid-air stall that h.m was too low to climb out of. still, he thinks to himself, mentally buildin' his case, he at least slowed it down enough that he didn't roll or break up (much) or squash him flat. the plane is still mostly in one piece, just with the two wings on one side of the biplane all smashed up and the nose buried into the dirt. it's left a big gouge in the earth behind it and h.m is relieved he crashed in cattle-grazin' land and not into any crops or else there'd be hell to pay. his backside'n'legs'd be striped quicker than he could say he was gettin' too old 'n too tall'n'heavy besides for switchin's. even he knows, in his state, that's a piss-poor excuse in the eyes'a the old-timers of tyler like his granddaddy. he'd just haul him over some workbench as opposed to his lap.

as for h.m himself, he's okay. he'd worried, at first, that he was badly hurt. but he doesn't think he is. (a few years back lemuel doster had gone and got his arm caught when a cow had barged into a door. he'd come into town laid out on ol' digger's trailer shoutin' his head off. h.m had stuck his nose over to see what was going on. lemuel's arm had been all twisted and wrong-lookin' and his fingers had been pointed in the wrong direction.) none of h.m's arms or legs are twisted or wrong-lookin'. he wriggles his fingers and toes experimentally. all fine. his chest still hurts somethin' fierce from where the straps caught him, and somethin' must've hit his face because he has a deep cut on his nose that stings like hell, but when he finally decides that he's tired of layin' beneath the plane, he finds he can walk just fine. he just feels a li'l shaky is all, and even that's mostly worn off.

he gets slowly to his feet and walks back from the plane, turnin' to view the wreckage miserably. the nose of the plane is all wrinkled up and bashed in, and the left two wings are torn and twisted where they hit the ground. the glass in front of where h.m had been sitting is smashed—probably what cut his nose. the name of the plane, galveston i, which he spent so long carefully painting in his very best penmanship, is chipped and dented. ruint. galveston i will never fly again. fairweather 'n some men'll probably come out here and take her apart for scrap metal, butchering her like they butcher hogs.

and what of h.m? he won't get to fly again. fairweather's plane, hubert i (h.m's plane was hubert ii before he renamed it), is his pride and joy. there's no way in hell he'll let h.m anywhere near it, not after this. somebody'll be angry because the plane cost money and fairweather'll be disappointed and his cousin jed'll laugh at him and granny jean'll worry and granddaddy floyd'll not take him to the woodshed because "the poor boy looks so damn hangdog already" and it's july 3, 1960, and h.m'll never fly again. —so he thinks.