Que Asi Sea (So Be It)

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(This draft being retooled…))
“Ignition!”

With a final pull, the three propellers caught. The engines sputtered, then turned into a deafening growl as it drew in more fuel.

“Chocks away!”

He moved away from the engines to the right-side wheel, kneeling down, wrapping his hand around the small length of rope that was tied to the wheel chock, testing the force he would have to apply to get it to move. As expected, the force of the aircraft yearning to go was pressing down on it.
Bracing himself against the tarmac, he yanked the rope.

Let the magic begin.

He tossed the wheel chock aside, sparing no moment to get down on the ground to let the plane’s wings pass over him. The pilots doing the Cuban run were the type that needed to get off the ground as soon as they hit the runway.
He covered his head with his hands as he waited for the rest of the plane to clear. The sound of the engines was deafening, the gust from the propellers whipping his face.

The last of the wing passed over him. Just like a stage being illuminated, the comforting shade was gone, leaving him alone and exposed to the relentless Floridian sun and its sweltering heat.

He slowly got up on his feet, watching the Trimotor taxi to the runway line, laden with cargo and passengers, lining up behind other planes that were also laden with cargo and passengers. He could tell their final destinations just by their airline names alone.

Rio De Janeiro, Nashville, Monterrey, Havana.

It was with a certain irony that he had originally wanted to be a dockhand.
-

His father, Ignacio Nunez, Sr. and uncle, Santiago Ramirez and his countless friends, were all dockhands, working into the late hours loading and unloading cargo of countless ships that came and left the Florida Keys.

In those days, the port could not afford the luxury of land-based cranes, leaving the dockhands to work with whatever was available to them. The well-off ships going up the Gulf to the southern states were equipped with their own hoists, winches and booms, making loading an easy affair, but such luxuries were few.

More often, old and weary freighters slipped into port to get serviced. They made the leisurely round-about runs throughout the Caribbean, seemingly never in a hurry. Loading and unloading freight was done using sheer force and a convoluted system of often frayed ropes. Teams of two or three hands would push heavy crates and barrels up a steep ramp, where they would be jerry-rigged for loading into the hold, one soul manning the rope down bracing themselves against a railing, shouting,

“Agárrate fuerte! Hold fast! Hold fast! Hold fast!”

Plenty of men hurt themselves doing the work in those days—it seemed like every other month two or three men retired due to some induced injury. As a child, he remembered his fellow schoolchildren jeer out the open schoolhouse windows at the men wandering around town with a lame leg, rattling a tin cup in their hands, a few stray coins clanging.

Whenever his peers would finish and turn around, they would inevitably get confronted by the schoolmistress, whose face transformed into that of a raging, swollen bull. She bared her teeth before slapping a ruler across their backs.

She would then slam shut the window, letting off a string of curses under her breath in both English and broken Spanish, before walking away, giving the boys chilling glances over her shoulder as she walked back towards the chalkboard…

-

“I hated the sound of the chalkboard,” The Guatemalan aviator said, taking a long drag off his cigar, “just like I hated escuela. Such a dull time of life. One moment, Ignacio.”

He fumbled in his pants pockets, eventually drawing a silver-colored flask engraved with the words Que Asi Sea. He uncapped the cork, tossing it aside.

“Care for some, Ignacio? This is good stuff.”

“I would love to,” Ignacio replied, glancing towards the one stray yet to be loaded, dreading its weight, “but I still have freight that I need to load.”

“So be it.” The pilot raised the flask high to his lips, swigging all the contents down within a matter of half a minute. He slammed the flask down on the tarmac, and swayed a little bit.

“You…. okay there?” Ignacio asked. He hefted the crate to his chest, feeling his arms burn, and took the first steps toward the open aft freight door of the Trimotor.

“I’ve seen worse days, friend!” The pilot blurted out, and the swaying abruptly turned into a furious tango, “Let me tell you a story, amigo! The story of the gods, the earth and the virtues of stolen love!”

“I’d rather not hear that….” But his half-hearted plea was laughed aside.

“I was flying over the Sierra Madres at altitudes so high that the wingtips could touch the cusps of the peaks, when an arc of lighting struck across my propellers! As any good pilot would do, I urged my machine even higher, to the roof of the world, where I had a conversation with a saint!”

Ignacio’s arms buckled. A few more steps and the final piece would be onboard. Then he could take his lunch break and forget the whole thing.

“When the saint finally released me from her dominion, my plane fell back to Earth, the ground opening up its arms to receive me. It was going to
swallow me whole! I tugged and tugged on that control stick, trying to get the nose back up, but alas, to no avail!”

Ignacio felt a strong urge to put down the crate, but he gritted his teeth. Just a few more…

“When I woke up, I was staring into the eyes of my furious wife! She was angry that I got a chance to meet the patron sain-” with a surprised grunt, the pilot stumbled and fell against Ignacio. Ignacio felt his arms give way.

The crate hit the tarmac, and the lid splintered. Small round and reflective pieces of glass spilled out and scattered all over.

“Sorry, friend,” The pilot muttered. “Here, have these. So your hands won’t get dirty.” He pulled off his leather gloves and tossed them over.

Ignacio picked up a piece and turned it over in his hand. It was a pocket mirror printed with the picture of a woman for a brand-name advertising soap. His eyes shifted towards the mess. Surprisingly, none of them had been broken.

He could not believe his luck. His hands swept out to grab a handful to put back in, but as his fingers closed around the samples, he heard cracking and felt a sharp pain.

Opening his hands, he saw that the mirrors he scooped up had shattered. He looked around at the mess. All of the mirrors had shattered. His hands burned, and he dropped them…. now he would have to sweep up all the glass shards and frames, and explain…

The pain radiated into his hands and he tried to cry out but he found when he opened his mouth no sound came out….
-

Where was he? Standing on the tarmac on a hot Floridian June afternoon. What had he been thinking about? The old family’s trade as dockhands, loading ships. Unlike his forebears he loaded airplanes and took part in firing them up. Hands on fire as if seared by loading ropes.
He looked down at his hands, and felt a jolt, the shock of conflicting sensations… there were no scars from the glass, no patch left over from a bandage, nothing. Worn hands from throwing countless propellers, lifting crates, escorting passengers to their planes. Perhaps his hands were once on fire, but he couldn’t remember.

All the planes before the Trimotor had taken off now, and as he shifted his eyes to settle on it, the Havana-bound bird had aligned itself with the runway stripes, props at half-speed.

In his mind he could see the fresh-faced Cuban pilot, eyes cast across the clear sea, towards the horizon, beyond the last bit of land at the end of the runway. Clear day, no obstructions. If someone arrived late for their flight or if cargo had been delayed, that was someone else’s problem. There would be no turning back now.

Que Asi Sea. So be it.

The engines leapt into a roar as the pilot threw the throttle wide open. The Trimotor sprang down the runway, gaining speed. The loaded aircraft seemed to hesitate for a second, just as his father did before lifting the last piece out of every cargo hold. Then, the aircraft began its slow ascent into the air, narrowly missing the mast of an ocean liner steaming into port, wheeling free out over the sparkling blue Caribbean.
-

Just as he averted his eyes, there was the screeching of tires and the smell of burning rubber. A Packard had pulled up just behind him. An older man, dressed in a light suit with graying hair got out of the driver’s seat, his face betraying his suppressed panic and anger.

“Freight agent Watterson. Plane just took off, didn't it?” he asked, “You didn’t try to stop it?”

“Well…I’m just the one who loads the cargo and throws the propeller,” Ignacio stammered. “The pilots doing the route to Cuba always want to get into the air as soon as possible. Shippers down there don’t like delays.”

The freight agent’s brows furrowed.

“He ain’t going to Cuba,” he said under his breath, then beckoned for him to follow. “Get in.”

The Packard’s motor whined as Watterson slammed on the pedal, hurtling the roadster in front of the control tower next to the small passenger terminal.

“Manifest, get me today’s manifest!” Watterson bellowed, as he raced up the stairs to the control cabin. Ignacio followed close behind.

The control cabin was in disarray. Operators were on the phone lines with any ships and all hangers, trying to scramble a plane, any fast and nimble plane to get the Trimotor to turn back.

“We got a Curtiss on standby!” someone shouted, accidentally knocking over a pile of papers, which fluttered to the floor, “Mr. Watterson, the manifest….it’s been altered. It’s going to Antigua, not Havana. Five pieces of cargo.”

“I doubt we can intercept that plane in time….” someone else muttered, “We might just wanna let it go.”

“You said….five pieces?” Ignacio remarked, “I counted six when I loaded it.”

Watterson and the operator’s faces dropped.

“What was in it? What was in it?” Watterson demanded, “You got to tell us.”

“The label had ‘GOLD’ stamped on it.” Ignacio drily replied, unsure of what to make of the whole situation now, “Anything wrong?”

“It was stolen dynamite, or munitions, boy. Most likely he is going to sell it to some military or gang down south. Police told us to be on the lookout for that and…here we are.” The old man shook his head.

“Que Asi Sea.” Ignacio whispered, watching the speck of the Trimotor get fainter and fainter.

Then suddenly, the aircraft burst into flames, pieces streaming down from the fuselage and body, the props and wings reduced to shredded metal. Oily black smoke streamed out from the rear, and the remnants of what was the main fuselage plummeted into the sea.

He clenched tight to a corner of the desk, and the sharp pain came roaring back.

“My hand!” he cried. Then, he looked down and realized that he wore the pilot’s gloves, the embedded tiny pieces of glass from the shattered mirrors still glistening bright on the surface of the leather fingers.

-

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This one's been a fun one to write and revise. Thanks to meltedbeemeltedbee for critique!

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