Amerika by Paul Lally Page B

silent signal that meant ‘go for it,’ so I continued quickly, ‘Mr. Diaz one of the best mechanics in Key West, sir. And since you fired Mr. Brewster the other day, I thought maybe you could find time to…’
    Preister said, ‘I haff already five egg-sellent candidates.’
    ‘But none of them are as good Mr. Diaz.’
    ‘Vy you say diss?’
    ‘I’ve seen him raise engines from the dead. Like Lazarus in the bible. In fact, I sometimes call him Jesus - just kidding, of course - but it’s true.’
    ‘Vatt is true?’
    ‘The marine engines he works on are beat up, worn out pieces of junk when he gets his hands on them, but a few hours later they’re running like new. Show him your hands, O.’
    Orlando spread open his hands. The imbedded grease stains traced a complex map upon his pink palms.
    ‘If he laid his hands on four-oh-six’s engines in hangar two, I bet you they’d start working for a change.’
    Preister frowned. ‘Nussing will make dem work right. I am sending dem back to Wright.’
    Orlando said, ‘Mind if I take a look first, sir?’
    ‘Deez are airplane engines, not boats.’
    ‘Beg pardon, sir, but a bad engine’s a bad engine. Let me take a look. If I get ‘em going you hire me, if I don’t, you don’t. My work won’t cost you a penny. It’s on the house.’ Orlando’s smile lit up the room. ‘How’s that sound?’
    Preister took the measure of this towering giant. Orlando was only nineteen years old like me, but he looked a lot older. Maybe the lateness of the  hour  or  a  sudden  flash  of  insight,  but  whatever  the  reason  the Dutchman dropped his customary rod-up-his-ass attitude and said, ‘Hangar two. You come back in morning.’
    ‘If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll start in right now.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘You haff tools?’
    ‘I’ll get ‘em.’
    When dawn broke the next day, the birds were singing, and so were the engines on NC 406. Orlando was hired, and he stayed with Pan Am until the day I got fired.
    At the time of my disgrace, he said to me, ‘You need me more than they do.’
    ‘For what?’
    ‘For Carter Aviation .  We can’t have an airline without a licensed mechanic.’
    ‘We?’
    He took my hand in his callused and scarred mitt and shook it.
    ‘Us.’
     

     
    Abby watched in silence as the Pan Am S-40 grew smaller and smaller, easily traveling fifty knots faster than us.
    ‘Were they fun to fly?’ she said.
    ‘Fun and hard. Lots of moving parts, both on the ground and in the air.’
    The wake of the plane caused some mild turbulence that Abby handled easily. She patted the control wheel. ‘Nice having you here instead of there.’
    ‘Good.’
    ‘You were never home before. Just mommy and me all the time – I mean, before Baby Eddie came. We never EVER saw you.’
    ‘Not true. I was home plenty of times.’
    She shook her head. ‘Not enough.’
    ‘I had to make money to buy food and clothes for the family.’
    She shook her head in disagreement, but didn’t say anything. Instead, she looked out her side window. ‘If you follow the railroad tracks, isn’t that the same course to Miami?
    I let her change the subject. ‘More or less, yes.’
    ‘Then why don’t we? Mail plane pilots flew the rails all the time.’
    ‘They did, but what do you do when it’s cloudy and you can’t see the ground?’
    She sighed and tapped the compass. ‘I guess you follow this. But it’s not as much fun - tell me about Pop-Pop.’
    ‘You know the story.’
    ‘I  like  hearing  it  when  I  can  see  the  railroad  tracks  where  it  happened.’
    ‘Watch your heading. We’ve drifted five degrees.’
    She tapped the rudder pedals. ‘Sorry.’ Then she grinned. ‘Pop-Pop didn’t have to worry about compasses. He just rode the rails.’
    My father, John Carter, had worked his way up from a hostler servicing Florida East Coast engines in Miami, to fireman when they extended the line down to Key West. He met my mother