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Authors: Tobias Wolff
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my smoking jacket. How unfortunate that you failed to decry the derringer in my pocket!”). We were flabbergasted that we didn’t win.
I supplied the genius, or so I believed. But I understood even then that Clark gave it form and did all the work. His drawings of our plane were crisp and minutely detailed, like real blueprints that a spy would cut somebody’s throat for. As I pondered them at the end of the day (frontal andside views, views from above and behind and below), the separate designs locked together like a puzzle and lifted away from the flatness of the page. They became an airplane, a jet—my jet. And through all the long run home I was in the cockpit of my jet, skimming sawtooth peaks, weaving through steep valleys, buzzing fishermen in the sound and tearing over the city in such a storm of flash and thunder that football games stopped in mid-play, cheerleaders gaping up at me, legs still flexed under their plaid skirts. A barrel roll, a waggle of the wings and I was gone, racing up through the clouds. I could feel the Gs in my arms, my chest, my face. The skin pulled back from my cheeks. Tears streaked from my eyes. The plane shook like crazy. When I couldn’t go any higher, I went higher. Sweet Jesus, I did some flying!
Clark and I hadn’t talked much about the actual construction of the jet. We let that question hang while we fine-tuned the plans. But the plans couldn’t be worked on forever; we were getting bored and stale. And then Clark came up to me at recess one day and said he knew where we could get a canopy. When I asked him where, he looked over at the guy I’d been shooting baskets with and pushed his lips together. Clark had long ago decided that I was a security risk. “You’ll see,” he said, and walked off.
All afternoon I nagged him to tell me where the canopy was, who we were getting it from. He wouldn’t say a thing. I wanted to tear him apart.
Instead of heading toward his place after school, Clark led me down the avenue past the post office and Safeway and the line of drive-ins and pinball joints where the high-school kids hung out. Clark had long legs and never looked to right or left, he just flat-out marched, so I had to hustle to keep up. I resented being at his heels, sweaty and short ofbreath and ignorant of our destination, and most of all I resented his knowing that I would follow him anyway.
We turned down the alley beside the Odd Fellows hall and skirted a big lot full of school buses, then cut through a construction site that gave onto a park where I’d once been chased by some older boys. On the other side of the park we crossed the bridge over Flint Creek, swollen with a week’s heavy rain. Beyond the bridge the road turned into a series of mudholes bordered by small, soggy-looking houses overhung by dripping trees. By then I’d stopped asking where we were going, because I knew. I had been this way before, many times.
“I don’t remember Freddy having any airplane canopies around,” I said.
“He’s got a whole barnful of stuff.”
“I know, I’ve seen it, but I didn’t see any canopies.”
“Maybe he just got it.”
“That’s a big fat maybe.”
Clark picked up the pace.
I said, “So, Mr. Top Secret, how come you told Freddy about the plane?”
“I didn’t. Sandra told him.”
I let that ride, since I’d told Sandra.
Freddy lived at the dead end of the street. As Clark and I got closer I could hear the snarl of a chain saw from the woods behind the house. Freddy and I used to lose ourselves all day in there. I hung back while Clark went up to the house and knocked. Freddy’s mother opened the door. She let Clark in and waited as I crossed the yard and mounted the steps. “Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” she said, not as a reproach, though I felt it that way. She ruffled my hair as I went past. “You’ve grown a few inches.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Freddy’s in the kitchen.”
Freddy closed his book and stood up
I supplied the genius, or so I believed. But I understood even then that Clark gave it form and did all the work. His drawings of our plane were crisp and minutely detailed, like real blueprints that a spy would cut somebody’s throat for. As I pondered them at the end of the day (frontal andside views, views from above and behind and below), the separate designs locked together like a puzzle and lifted away from the flatness of the page. They became an airplane, a jet—my jet. And through all the long run home I was in the cockpit of my jet, skimming sawtooth peaks, weaving through steep valleys, buzzing fishermen in the sound and tearing over the city in such a storm of flash and thunder that football games stopped in mid-play, cheerleaders gaping up at me, legs still flexed under their plaid skirts. A barrel roll, a waggle of the wings and I was gone, racing up through the clouds. I could feel the Gs in my arms, my chest, my face. The skin pulled back from my cheeks. Tears streaked from my eyes. The plane shook like crazy. When I couldn’t go any higher, I went higher. Sweet Jesus, I did some flying!
Clark and I hadn’t talked much about the actual construction of the jet. We let that question hang while we fine-tuned the plans. But the plans couldn’t be worked on forever; we were getting bored and stale. And then Clark came up to me at recess one day and said he knew where we could get a canopy. When I asked him where, he looked over at the guy I’d been shooting baskets with and pushed his lips together. Clark had long ago decided that I was a security risk. “You’ll see,” he said, and walked off.
All afternoon I nagged him to tell me where the canopy was, who we were getting it from. He wouldn’t say a thing. I wanted to tear him apart.
Instead of heading toward his place after school, Clark led me down the avenue past the post office and Safeway and the line of drive-ins and pinball joints where the high-school kids hung out. Clark had long legs and never looked to right or left, he just flat-out marched, so I had to hustle to keep up. I resented being at his heels, sweaty and short ofbreath and ignorant of our destination, and most of all I resented his knowing that I would follow him anyway.
We turned down the alley beside the Odd Fellows hall and skirted a big lot full of school buses, then cut through a construction site that gave onto a park where I’d once been chased by some older boys. On the other side of the park we crossed the bridge over Flint Creek, swollen with a week’s heavy rain. Beyond the bridge the road turned into a series of mudholes bordered by small, soggy-looking houses overhung by dripping trees. By then I’d stopped asking where we were going, because I knew. I had been this way before, many times.
“I don’t remember Freddy having any airplane canopies around,” I said.
“He’s got a whole barnful of stuff.”
“I know, I’ve seen it, but I didn’t see any canopies.”
“Maybe he just got it.”
“That’s a big fat maybe.”
Clark picked up the pace.
I said, “So, Mr. Top Secret, how come you told Freddy about the plane?”
“I didn’t. Sandra told him.”
I let that ride, since I’d told Sandra.
Freddy lived at the dead end of the street. As Clark and I got closer I could hear the snarl of a chain saw from the woods behind the house. Freddy and I used to lose ourselves all day in there. I hung back while Clark went up to the house and knocked. Freddy’s mother opened the door. She let Clark in and waited as I crossed the yard and mounted the steps. “Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” she said, not as a reproach, though I felt it that way. She ruffled my hair as I went past. “You’ve grown a few inches.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Freddy’s in the kitchen.”
Freddy closed his book and stood up
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