THE COPILOT'S CAT(Michael D. Warner) THE COPILOT’S CAT

by Michael D. Warner

Copyright 2012 by Michael D. Warner all rights reserved.



I rubbed bleary eyes and glanced at my wristwatch. Too early for a call, I mumbled to myself, fumbling for the phone.

“Hello, go ahead, talk to me, it’s your dime,” I recited all at once, believing it to be my old pal and copilot, Bobby. Luckily, it was.

“Man, I need some help,” he began. “I can’t get this f***in’ garbage disposal to run.”

(Oh, nearly forgot. This is a story about a cat. Sorry ‘bout that.)

Well, here goes:

He was an unusual cat, a gray male, a rather large one with a long fluffy tail. His name was “Mugs Bunny”, partly derived from having an extra toe on each front paw and partly from his habit of frequently “mugging” things, anything, a pair of shoes, a toy rat, or perhaps an unsuspecting visitor’s tender hand.

Mugs favorite perch was the elevated counter top just in front and above dual kitchen sinks overlooking the living room area. His long fluffy tail would swish this way and that as he lay there contemplating his kingdom.

The right hand sink contained a garbage disposal unit.

I was awake now. “Tell me all about it,” I sighed.

About an hour later I pulled my ‘65 Mustang into a space just outside the posh town house unit, parked and let myself in through the front door. Mugs greeted me as a familiar soul, rubbing his long body against my right leg then reversing to drag his massive tail across my left ankle. Cats generally will do that after they have decided the newcomer isn’t an enemy or some other sort of threat.

The apartment town-house was nicely furnished. Oriental rugs and expensive paintings adorned the walls. State-of-the-art audio equipment situated atop fine mahogany tables gave the impression of a modern sound studio. Ample seating arrangements consisted of a longish sofa, three overstuffed chairs and various ottomans upon which to rest one’s feet. Three potted palm trees indirectly lit by hidden flood lamps added a tropical atmosphere to the large room.

In contrast my own apartment, some twenty miles distant, was less opulent, containing a rickety old couch and a side chair in the living room, a tired double-bed in one of the two bedrooms and the usual clutter of stuff in the kitchen. The other bedroom basically served as a store room. Garbage disposal? Well, I didn’t have one. Eating out three times a day didn’t produce all that much disposable garbage, besides my lease included free garbage pickup.

His live-in girlfriend had left home early this day to spend time with her brother before checking in for work.

I walked over to the kitchen counter, set my tool bag upon it, held my left wrist up, conspicuously stared at my watch, and quipped: “Okay, let’s get started. I’m on your clock.”

As I set about unfastening clamps and unscrewing fittings, Bobby explained what had happened.

“Kathy left for work as usual yesterday evening and I cooked up some spaghetti and meat sauce and kicked back. Well, this morning I rinsed out the pots and pans and dishes and all, then flipped on the disposal. All it would do was make a buzzing sound.” He cocked his head. “What do you think happened?”

As he talked, I was visualizing Kathy, his live-in room mate and a girl certainly worth visualizing. I knew they were serious about each other and I was happy for him. Gee, she really was pretty, five-foot-two, long blonde hair, cute figure and all the usual female stuff. He had always had the problem of being surrounded by gorgeous females, a malady with which I never seemed to find myself so unfortunately afflicted.

Before I could answer, he shook his head. “Geeze, it’s always somethin’, ain’t it?”

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “You know yourself life is just a journey between tragedies.”

Tragedies? I repeated to myself. What the hell was he thinking? I began focusing on the disposal unit.

Neither of us had forgotten our last pot run, completed only a month earlier. Shots from automatic weapons crackled as we scrambled into the cockpit to make the hurried late-night take off in our heavily loaded Douglas B-26 bomber. The clandestine strip, having a slight bend about midway along its length, had been carved in the boondocks of the Colombian Guajira peninsula perhaps fifty miles south of the Caribbean coast. Also, we had shorted ourselves about two hours worth of fuel due to a refueling mistake made by lantern light when pumping 100 octane aviation fuel from rusty 55 gallon drums through a filter and into our long-range tanks. As a result our aux tanks ended up being filled only half-way.

If you want to test your heart’s ability to pump adrenalin, just have your two 2400 horsepower radial engines suddenly quit in mid-air over the middle of the black Caribbean Sea at two a.m. especially after earlier having possibly been struck by hostile gunfire. Our bomber immediately nosed down descending rapidly toward the deep black waters below.

“Switch em’ to the mains!” I shouted at Bobby, hauling back on the control column with my left hand and pulling the throttles aft with my right. I saw his hands twisting the fuel selector valves. Then I reached to flip on the fuel boost pumps. The propellers were windmilling at a reduced rpm. We held our breath. When fuel finally reached the pressure carburetors, the engines restarted just as suddenly as they had quit.

Carefully easing the throttles forward, I brought the manifold pressure up to cruise power, leveled off about two thousand feet lower than we had been, checked the fuel pressure gauges then switched off the fuel pumps. “Whew!”

We were still trembling as we began calculating remaining fuel, hence our now decreased remaining options.

That scare wasn’t the end of our problems. Departing five hours ahead of schedule due to being routed out by the Colombian military, not only would we have less than thirty minutes reserve upon reaching our first destination, but wouldn’t have the expected ground crew waiting to unload us. After that, we still needed to fly another fifteen or twenty minutes to another small airport where we would park the big bird.

I reached again for my wrench. Unscrewing the fourth and last nut holding the disposal’s lower trunion, I shrugged mentally. So, now all we’re sweating is a stuck garbage disposal unit. Big deal!

I was still thinking about Kathy, remembering a week earlier when she had shown me her new ring. Bobby had his jeweler friend custom-create it for her. Wow! What an eye-popper, a coiled circle of yellow gold having a large diamond center stone surrounded by a studded group of smaller diamonds. This was a ring one could easily spot from the far side of a large room.

As mentioned earlier, Kathy worked at night, waitressing in the renowned restaurant of a fancy hotel located near downtown Atlanta. She had moved to the big city from a small town in Mississippi, bringing along a younger brother who had mental problems. She supported and cared for him just as his mother would have. The brother lived in a secure, loving home downtown along with others suffering similar disabilities. His petite and pretty older sister visited him almost daily.

This southern-drawling girl soon became adored by her coworkers, particularly the bus boys whom she made sure received their share of the tip revenue each night. This night, would become a testimonial to the affection held for their adopted little sister.

Friday nights were generally hectic, busy with customers. She smiled at the young couple preparing to depart her last table. “I hope you enjoyed your meal,” she said. As they turned to leave, she signaled a bus boy to clear the table then crossed the room hurrying toward the two-way swinging kitchen doors. Just then, she happened to glance at her hand.

“Oh no!” she cried, gaping at the empty place on her third finger. “It’s gone.”

She rushed back across the large dining room to the last table she had served, looked under it, felt between the chair cushions, crawled underneath to search the floor. No ring to be found.

She back tracked to the table she had served previous to that one, gave the area that same detailed inspection, and came up empty. She began to panic. “What is Bobby gonna think?” she moaned. Then, she had another idea. Hurrying to the parking lot, she unlocked her car and searched frantically every place she could reach, including under and between the seats and seat cushions. No luck. She returned to the dining room.

It was now just past closing time and the room had become emptied of diners. Kathy pulled herself together. What to do? she frowned. Then, an idea struck her. Yes, she would ask the bus boys to look in the dumpster out back. Maybe, the ring had gotten tossed out along with scrapings from the plates or something.

An hour later, the four bus boys reported back to her. “No luck, Kathy, they told her. “We looked real careful all through everything and it just ain’t there.”

Almost got it, I grunted to myself, tapping the lower casing of the disposal with my mallet, splitting it from its upper half. Peering inside, I saw that the gearing had jammed. “Oh? What’s this?’

“Looky here, Pal,” I said to Bobby. “Something’s got it jammed stuck tight.”

Bobby gaped at the snarled pieces, then rubbed his finger across the twisted metal. It was of a golden color.

“Geeze!” he gasped. “That’s Kathy’s ring. She’s gonna kill me.”

“What the hell’s it doing in your garbage disposal?”

“I dunno,” he replied. Squinting, he cocked his head, staring fixedly at Mugs who had just taken up his favorite spot sprawled on the counter over the kitchen sink. His fluffy tail twitched absently back and forth.

Bobby shook his head. “Every night, before Kathy finishes off the dishes, she always takes off her ring.” He nodded to himself. “She puts it right there, right where Mugs is laying.” He thought for a moment. “That’s what happened,” he said. “Mugs must of knocked her ring into the sink.”

I noticed the fluffy gray tail swishing back and forth, its feline owner probably aware its name had been mentioned.

I assisted him digging and prying out the stones, along with recovering whatever metal was within reach.

“I’ll just take it back to the jeweler guy and he’ll melt it down and rework it and she’ll have the same as a new ring.” He thought for a moment. “Not a word to her about this, Man.”

“My lips are sealed,” I assured him, as I began reassembling the disposal unit.

Working mechanically, my thoughts returned to the flight. Landing early in Middle Georgia at the small airport low on fuel with no one to meet us had not been the last of our worries. Oh yeah, we made it in all right, but had to walk more than three miles along a south Georgia highway to an all night truck stop where we found the crew sitting around killing time drinking coffee and jawing with the waitresses.

We pushed in through the door, and they gaped at us as if we were ghosts. The ring-leader came up to me.

“What the hell are you guys doing here?”

I explained and we immediately piled into a car, pulled away and were followed by two guys in a pickup truck with two more guys behind them driving a U-Haul moving truck.

Easing from under the cabinet, and standing, I took a deep breath. “Turn it on, Pal.”

The disposal hummed and gurgled as we ran a small stream of water through it.

“Working fine, now,” he said. I don’t know what I’m gonna tell Kathy.” I smiled at him, thinking how life sure is full of problems.

Then, I thought again about the fateful night. I was back at the little airport, sitting in the cockpit. “Bam!” I heard the sound just as I felt my ship shudder. “What the hell...?”

Bobby, squirmed out of the copilot’s seat and made his way aft. When he returned, he told me that the rent-a-truck had backed into our entrance air-stair door, warping it so that now, it would not latch. We would have to fly with it dangling open. “Oh, crap!”

I watched the rent-a-truck leaving the taxiway to head past the operations building toward the main entrance road. The other two vehicles had already departed. We were alone in the night.

“The hell with the door. Let’s just get outta here!” I shouted, pressing the starter switch for the right hand engine. “We’ll make it to the XX airport then ditch this big iron bird.”

Minutes later, we roared down the runway, lifted off and climbed into the night. I leveled off 1,000 feet above the terrain, flying low to complete the short run to our final destination. I tried not to think about the door being twisted this way and that by the gale of prop wash from the right engine.

Twelve minutes later, we were on final for the runway. “Gear down!” Then full flaps, raise her nose slightly, let the empty ship settle to a gentle touchdown, then just a short burst of reverse engine power so as not to disturb the neighbors. I let her roll slowly while scanning for a turn off into the parking area.

A minute or so later, I swung her into a parking spot on the grass tie-down area, cut the engines, and prepared to exit. I could see the beginning glow of dawn in the East. Bobby sprayed the entire cockpit area, windows, flight instruments, throttle and mixture levers with WD-40 to obliterate fingerprints. We found the air-stair door still in the full open position apparently none the worse from its airborne battering.

I stepped down first, happy to be back on Earth and nearly done with it. Suddenly from behind, Bobby called in a low voice: “There’s still some bales back here, Man.” He was referring to five bundles of pot that had been stacked behind the last row of seats, obviously overlooked by the ground crew.

“Now what?” he said.

“We’ll throw it into the ditch,” I told him, referring to a low-lying area adjacent to the big ship. “We gotta get outta here. It’s getting daylight fast!”

We lugged the forty-plus pound bales into the shallow ditch where they would be hard to spot from any distance away. Then, we began walking out, each toting his small briefcase. Mine held the ship’s flight manual, my flight log and the maps and charts we had used and a .38 caliber Colt Cobra revolver. Passing a house trailer thirty yards to our left, I noticed two cars parked there. I thought for a moment that there was something unusual about them. For one thing, they seemed identical to each other. But, the trailer remained dark and I thought no more about it. If anyone was staying there, apparently we hadn’t awakened them.

We trudged the quarter mile or so to the highway. Our ride pulled up and we hopped into the car. Three hours later, we were home. The next day we picked up the balance of our ill-gotten gains, took it to my apartment and counted it out. An extra thirty-two hundred dollars was in the paper bag containing all denominations of bills, the largest being C-notes, but including bills as small as fives. We split the overage between us, there being no way to return it. Counting the entire fifty-five thousand had taken more than an hour.

Yawning, I stretched my arms, shaking off the dream, close to being a nightmare, but really just a flying episode with lots of extra problems. The memories of that faded rapidly as I came to my feet. The phone rang.

It didn’t take long for him to tell his story. Kathy had come home, her face streaked with tears. She was still crying as she entered the room. Bobby knew exactly what had caused her such pain.

“I ..I lost my ring,” she sobbed. “I’m so, so sorry..”

“Hey Honey,” he consoled. “It’s okay. Mike found it in the garbage disposal. Mugs must have knocked it off the counter. I’m having it fixed. You’ll never know it was even scratched.”

He told me his night had gotten a whole lot better after that!

Well, Dear Reader, it really was a cat story after all. Thanks for your attention.

THE END

Post script:

The middle-Georgia newspaper carried a picture of the B-26 on its front page. Its entrance door was open. The caption beneath read: “Pot plane found abandoned at the airport. Five bales were left behind in a ditch. The plane was discovered earlier this morning parked less than eighty feet from a house trailer shared by two State Patrolmen.”

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