Baker
Battles Bull
Joe taught me to play spades. It was a game I detested, but they said I had to learn it. I made it interesting by kicking off my shoes and placing my bare foot in my partners lap to see if he could keep his mind on his cards while I played my game.
Joe wasn't for me. We both knew it, but he was fun to waste time with. We dated for about a month before I found out he was married.
We went to the movies together, bowled, went to the USO and just generally hung out together. He was airborne, so we were in the same company and I learned a lot through his friendship. Other than my foot in his lap while we played cards, we didn't progress any farther.
He was attending rigger school. A rigger is a person who repairs and packs parachutes. One night we all sat about discussing just what it was like to jump out of an airplane. I'd had some training, but I never actually jumped.
Now it seemed, I had to do it at least once. I felt my grandmother's spirit had given up on me a long time ago. I only prayed, that my mother would never find out about this, my latest in a long list of dumb things for dumb reasons.
Before dawn the next morning, I was at the airport with these strangers, I used to call buddies, about to do something that if I lived to tell about it, would change my whole life forever. I was suited up and hooked up.
I didn't eat breakfast. I was afraid one of us, the breakfast or me, would get to the ground faster than the other. In any case a mess would have occurred.
From the moment I said I'd do it, I didn't want to do it. There was real fear in my heart. There was enough fear for it to have been in a lot of other places, too.
I was committed. Perhaps, I should have been committed. I had to do it. I didn't know how high up we were. The whole thing is fuzzy. The fear dominates the whole morning. I do remember clinging to the wall of the plane and refusing to go.
I screamed, "I changed my mind. I don't want to jump!". I think my fingernails must have left gouges in the metal of the plane. I must have jumped, because I remembered how to land. You have to bend your knees and make sure you jump when you land to lessen the shock to your bones.
Unfortunately, the next thing I remember is icy cold mud, in my face, my eyes, my teeth and my hair. I had missed the target area and landed in the middle of a huge muddy field. Now I had work to do.
A chute is an expensive item. This was not the movies. You can't just unsnap it and let it go. You've got to bring it back. I had to smack the air out of the chute, pack it back up and haul it and myself about six miles, as close as I could figure it, to the nearest road where I hoped someone would be looking for me.
I don't know how to pack a chute, especially a muddy one. I can't understand how that much nylon fits into that small a space. I rolled and stuffed and finally tied it into a bundle. It looked ridiculous but I was on my way to a hot shower. Nothing could stop me now.
That's what I thought until I rounded a big hay loaf. I was making so much noise, what with the bitching and all, that I didn't notice I was not alone.
Till I heard the snort and he was bearing down on me. He was mega-huge and mega-angry and I was the creature from the mud lagoon invading his territory.
I ran, which I admit was stupid. I had no hope of outrunning this thousand pounds, easy, bull from the planet of the giants. By changing direction frequently, I made it back to the hay loaf ahead of him.
A hay loaf is a huge pile of hay shaped like a loaf of bread. I think it's about ten feet high. I'm not real sure about the size. The farmer scoops hay out of one end of it while the "crust" shelters the rest of the loaf.
Luckily, a farmer had been using this one. I managed to scrunch myself inside and use the rolled chute to protect me in front. I pulled some hay down around me, so he couldn't see me.
I stayed hidden there about twenty minutes, although it seemed like a lot longer, while he snorted and pawed the ground outside. He bunted the loaf a few times before he gave up and wandered off after some other creature that was dumb enough to move an inch.
I stayed where I was until I thought it was safe enough to poke my head out. Mr. Bull was nowhere in sight so I took a chance and headed for the fence and the road always looking back to make sure he was nowhere near.
Across the fence, I didn't really know which way to go, not having any idea which direction post was or town either for that matter. After five or ten minutes an old pick up, picked me up. He left me in town where I caught the bus back to post to face the humiliation of my peers, as well as the hysterical laughter.
I didn't immediately run for a pencil and paper. The shower was calling louder. About a week later, Joe admitted he was married. What was worse was that he cared more for his Morgan horses than he did for her.
I wrote "The Airborne Sweetheart" for him and for all the
other guys and gals brave enough to jump out of an airplane. We stayed friendly,
but we weren't friends.