Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
Later that night, Ryan looked up when Pru walked in the door, kicked her shoes off, and gave him the stink eye.
“What?”
“Did you feed my chickens?”
“I did. You said you were working until seven, I thought I would save you the hassle when you got home. I also cooked supper for the two of us.”
“How long before it’s ready?” She looked at the clock on the microwave and then down at her dirty clothes. “Do I have time to shower?”
“Yes, you have about thirty minutes.” He nodded as she quickly left the area. Five minutes later he groaned when he heard the shower come on. To distract himself from the fact that she was naked behind that door, he started stirring the pot on the stove. He had decided to make a batch of goulash, and as the water boiled, he dumped in the macaroni. He stirred it, then waited for it to cook. When Pru entered the kitchen, he was just dumping the pan of water and noodles in the strainer in the sink. He combined the pans, and as he heated everything up, he removed the garlic bread from the oven. Five minutes later, they sat down to eat.
Neither of them said a word as they ate. It wasn’t until several minutes later, that Pru looked at him.
“What?”
“I know I promised I would tell you my story tonight,” she began, but Ryan stopped her by shaking his head at her.
“No, you said you would tell me tomorrow, and I’m perfectly fine with waiting.”
“Good, because I had a thought.” She looked at him, then scowled at his expression. She became defensive in her next statement. “What? I have thoughts. I’m not a total airhead.”
“I’m not saying you are, Prudora, I’m only waiting for you to continue.”
“Oh.” The use of her full name threw her for a loop, and it took a few minutes to continue. She remained silent while continuing to eat. Finally, she pushed her plate away, leaned back in her chair, and released a sigh so hard that her bangs flew in the air. “First, thank you for dinner, that hit the spot.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Second, as I said a few minutes ago, I had a thought. Before I tell you my story, I need you to watch a movie. In my current befuddled brain, I think if you saw it before I told you my story, then I’ll be able to explain better.”
“Okay, but you don’t have a TV here.”
“I know that, but I have a laptop.” She pointed to the table on the other side of the wall. “I can clean up if you want to get started on watching it.”
“You won’t mind?”
“No.” Pru stood, went to get the laptop, and after turning it on, she fiddled with the keyboard, then brought the machine to him. “It’s ready, all you have to do is press play.”
“May I take it into the living room?”
“Sure.” Pru shrugged, and watched as he left the room. To distract herself, she first took care of the leftover food, then started doing dishes. By the time she joined him in the other room, she had cleaned every surface of the kitchen. Knowing she shouldn’t stall any more, she went in and sat next to him. She didn’t know whether she liked it or not when he lifted his arm and she snuggled into him. She watched the movie for a few minutes, then closed her eyes. The next thing she knew, Ryan shook her awake. The little nap she took, had her wide awake.
Ryan saw her eyes, and asked quietly, “Do you want to talk about it now?”
“Might as well,” she said as she sighed heavily. She sat up, turned to face him, and crossed her legs beneath her. “What did you think of the movie?”
“It was intense. I saw it was based on a true story.”
“Yes. I had you watch it because of the main character.”
“Okay, what about her?”
“You saw how she did all the math to make sure that Neil Armstrong could get to the moon without blowing up? That’s why I had you watch it. Not for the racist aspects, but from the smartness of the main female character.”
“Okay.”
“Before my accident, that was me.”
“What was?” Ryan asked in confusion.
“The smartness of that female character. There wasn’t a math problem that I couldn’t figure out. Except, I did it differently.”
“Differently how?”
“In my head. I never used scratch paper, I was able to calculate any math problem in my mind, and it took my teachers and professors about triple the time using scratch paper to check my math.” She shook her head, then looked at him with a small smile. “Used to piss them off.”
“I can imagine.”
“Yeah, anyway, after I graduated high school, I joined the Air Force. My goal was to have a military career as a pilot, and when I got out, I wanted to fly planes commercially.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Fly for Delta, Southwest, Jet Blue. Those type of planes. Going into the service, I figured I’d work behind the scenes for a couple of years, then apply for flight school, learn how to fly, do ten years, then get out to fly commercially.”
“That sounds like a solid plan. What happened?”
“All through regular school, I was quiet. I know I told you earlier that I was a scrapper and fighter, that I could hold my own. That was only on the streets in my neighborhood. I did that not only to survive, but to avoid being confronted by the gangs. Back then, I had two reputations.” She smiled as she shook her head at him. “They were so totally opposite of one another that it wasn’t that hard to keep them separate. On the way to and from school, and on the weekends when I was outside, I was the scrapper. My street name was Scrappy. The second I stepped outside my apartment, I turned into this aggressive, bad-ass bitch with a don’t fuck with me attitude.” She shook her head at his questioning look. “No, I didn’t act like that inside my home, or in school. I only adopted that type of attitude to get to and from school. I lived on the line between the Bronx and Harlem.”
“Rough neighborhood?”
“When I lived there, yes. Anyway, I was Scrappy on the streets. You saw the way I helped you fight off those men. That was how I was back then.”
“How were you in school?” Ryan encouraged her when she stayed silent for a few minutes. He took her hands in his when she gave a start.
“Sorry, in school, I had the nickname of Mouse. I was an A+ student, I sat in the back of the class, and never drew attention to myself. Everyone, even the teachers thought I was a troublemaker because of what happened in the streets on the way to and from school. I’d arrive with something cut up.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ryan demanded in alarm.
“A cut lip, a black eye, a bruised cheek, bruised knuckles, skinned knees. It wasn’t every day, but at least one day a week. After a few months, I didn’t have the bruises.” She looked at him with a grin. “I learned to hold my own. Anyway, because of my appearance, I also refused to wear good clothes, I had Mom shop with me at the local Goodwill, I learned my lesson when I started school one day with a designer outfit. It was ruined before I got to the bus stop. Anyway, I kept my head down in school. I did my work, and passed my grades. I’m not bragging, but I was the valedictorian when I graduated. Because of my mousy behavior, and rough exterior, the teachers thought I cheated, but they soon learned I didn’t.”
“That sounds like a story.”
“It is, but for another time. Anyway, I graduated from high school, and instead of going to college, I left for the Air Force. Three weeks after I left that neighborhood, Dad got a transfer to the suburbs of Chicago, so I never went back to New York. I had no reason to return.”
“I can understand that.”
“Okay, I did what I set out to do. I went to basic, did my schooling, and while I was there I took the AFSC tests. I won’t get into details, but it’s basically tests to see where you qualify. I was the top of my class in everything.”
“Have you ever had your IQ tested?”
“Not really. I do know that once I read something, I retained it. I think I was told I had an eidetic memory.” She shook her head sadly, and looked at him with sad eyes. “Now I can’t remember shit.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“As I said, I did what I set out to do. I did basic, then the schooling. I aced the AFCSs, and did two years in the chosen field. I don’t know if it was because of my smarts, but I soon became bored. I had a commander that told me once that I had basically learned everything there was to in the field I’d chosen. That’s when I asked him if I could apply for flight school. He looked into it, and it took six months, but I was accepted. Again, I had to go to school for it, and we were in the simulators for at least nine months before we were allowed to fly a real plane.” She shook her head and settled back against the couch. She uncrossed her legs and laid them over his thighs. Ryan automatically reached down and started massaging them. He kept that up to relax her until she continued with her story.
“While we were in the schooling for flight school, we were assigned what they referred to as a flight buddy.” She scowled at him. “I believe it’s what you would call a swim buddy for the SEALs.”
“Okay, I got it.”
“Oh, and they didn’t pair women with women, or men with men. They didn’t even allow us to pick our own partner. They threw all our names in a hat, literally, and we were called forward to pick one.”
“That made it fair.”
“Correct. Well, because I acted the way I did while inside the high school, I got the moniker of Mouse. I was quiet, I only spoke when spoken to, and didn’t make any waves. My flight buddy was a man by the name of Jared Cole. From the time we drew names, there were two teams that were to stick together like glue. The four of us would have to eat, sleep, and work together. We were all in the same barracks.” She shook her head at him. “I wasn’t the only woman in my flight class. The only thing different was that the barracks we stayed in had two rooms, one for the men, one for the women. We each had our own showers. The only thing in that aspect that we did together was that we slept in the same building. If we weren’t sleeping, or in the bathroom, we had to be with our flight buddy at all times. No exceptions.”
“Okay, I can see that, but what about the other team? Did you have to be with them at all times also?”
“Yes, the four of us were to be attached at the hip. If one of us stepped out of line, we were all reprimanded.”
“Shit, did you have an asshole on the team?”
“Yes, but we didn’t know it at first. I was the only woman in our four-man team. It was me and Jared, then there was Nick Hicks and Sam Riley, those two made up the other team.”
“Did they have call names, like you had Mouse?”
“Yes, Cole was Ice, Hicks was Hot Dog, and Riley went by Goose. We got those names the same time we picked our partners. Because my former commander had known my name was Mouse in high school, he passed it along. It stuck. For the next nine months we did everything asked of us. We did the schooling, we did the simulator, and we aced everything. We were never reprimanded for any infraction. The other teams hated us because we were perfect. There was something about us that we clicked. It was like from day one we all became best friends. We learned when the new class came in six months after we started our team, that we were referred to as the dream team from the upper brass. We impressed them.”
“What happened?”
Pru sighed heavily, and shook her head. With her eyes directly on Ryan, she shook her head again. “As I said, we were teams of two, that worked together. My flight buddy was Ice. Hot Dog and Goose worked together, but we were also a team of four. When we started going out in the real helicopter, the four of us, along with the regular pilot went up. The trainee and pilot in the front, the other three strapped in the back. That’s all that fit in the copter. Well, the rule was that one person would have control and we’d fly until we were low on fuel and had to stop to fill up. After we filled up, the flight buddy would fly back to the base.”
“I get it, you’d be in control until you needed to fuel up, then Ice would fly you back to base. The next time you went out, it would be Hot Dog and Goose?”
“Correct. That went on for about six weeks. Then something happened, and I’m not saying this because of my TBI, I’m saying this because I really don’t know what happened. All I know is that we, the team of four, were at the top of our game, we had a weekend of R&R. When we returned, Hot Dog had some bug that had crawled up his ass and he was angry. He snapped at everything, when Goose tried to talk to him, he’d snap and tell him, and the rest of us, to stay the fuck out of his business. He also started taking chances not only while in the air, but also with his personal vehicle. He’d speed, drive recklessly, that sort of thing.”
“Shit, didn’t anyone tell your commander that he shouldn’t take control of the helicopter?”
“We reported it to the pilot. He said he’d observe him and report back. There wasn’t anything we could put our finger on, it was just little things adding up. I do know that the happy go lucky guy returned from that seventy-two-hour R&R angry and pissed off at the world. Something happened, and for the life of me, we never found out what it was that turned him.” She shook her head sadly. “I do know that we were given the weekend off, because when we returned and took to the sky, we would be having some stealth planes on our six watching our every move. Thank god for them.”
“Why?” Ryan asked as she stared off into space. He hoped she wasn’t having a moment and was actually remembering and sighed in continued when without looking at him, she continued,
“It was Goose and Hot Dog’s turn to fly when we went out. Goose took the controls first. By this time, the pilot was there basically for a free ride. He didn’t have to correct us, or anything. We knew what we were doing. We were only a couple of weeks away from earning our wings and going solo. Anyway, Goose flew until we needed fuel, then Hot Dog took over. The flight one-way took one hour and forty-five minutes. Five minutes into our return flight, Hot Dog started doing stupid shit.”
“Like?”
“He said he was tired of the boring shit we had been doing and wanted to spice things up. He took the chopper higher than before, he wouldn’t bring it back down until the bells and whistles would sound. He had a manic look on his face, and he began to laugh. Through the headsets it sounded like he was crazed. Because of my size, I sat in the back between Ice and Goose.” She shook her head and shuddered. “They were about Denver’s size, both of them.”
“Okay.” Ryan couldn’t understand where she was going with that, but decided to wait it out and let her talk.
“I’m telling you how big they are because of what they did, it saved my life. Forgive me for rushing this, but I have to get it out. Hot Dog took the chopper as high as he could, and with that manic laugh and look, when we came down, he started rolling the chopper. When the pilot started to take control, he reached out and punched him. It stunned him, but didn’t knock him out. One thing Hot Dog didn’t know was that the pilot had flipped a switch so that base and those two stealth planes could hear whatever Hot Dog said. They radioed into base to see what they wanted them to do. They were told to stay back and observe.
“For the next hour, Hot Dog flew that chopper like a deranged maniac. No matter what any of us said or tried to do, he’d put us in worse danger. We were in the middle of a roll, him laughing hysterically when he lost control. Instead of righting the roll, he lost control and we were upside down when we crashed into the trees. Remember I just said that Ice and Goose were the size of Denver?”
“Yes.” Ryan had no idea where she was going with that, then sucked in his breath as she told him.
“Because of their size, and me being small like I am, when we knew we were going to crash, they took half of their bodies and smothered me with themselves. I never saw the impact, but I heard and felt it. Somehow I was knocked out, and when I came to, there were several tree branches through the windshield. I tried to get loose, but couldn’t move. With Ice and Goose covering me with their shoulders, and the way we landed, face down, several tree branches came through the windshield. They impaled Hot Dog, the pilot, and others came in and did the same to them. Because they were pinned by the branches, and I was pinned by them, I couldn’t move, literally. Hot Dog and the pilot were dead, but I had to sit there and listen to Ice and Goose die. I couldn’t do anything to help them. My entire body was pinned. I later learned that they had leaned forward to protect me when they saw the tree coming at them. I was hit by the branch, but only received a bump on the head. It wasn’t until help arrived hours later and I was taken to the hospital that I learned the impact scrambled my brains.”
“Shit, how long were you stuck there?”
“At least twelve hours, but closer to eighteen. We went down in a thick forest, the stealth planes could only give base a general area. By chopper it was one hour and forty-five minutes, by road, it was six hours, then they had to find us, and get us down. We were at least fifty feet in the air, hanging upside down.” She sat there in silence looking off to the side. She looked back at him, and Ryan sucked in his breath at the anguish he saw there. “With Nick hot dogging, he took us off course. No one knows whether my hanging upside down all that time contributed to my TBI or the tree branch that was jammed against my forehead was the cause. Anyway, when they found us, I was out cold. At first they thought I was dead until we were all put into an ambulance and they felt for a pulse, then did that thing to your chest where they dig their knuckles in to see if you react. I was the only one that did. With Ice and Goose protecting me, they were impaled and I was saved, they both took the brunt of the impact of the trees.” She hadn’t realized she was crying until Ryan reached out and wiped her tears, then he moved her feet to the side and gathered her to him. He held her for a good ten minutes before he spoke. He had to clear his throat several times for any sound to come out.
“How long were you in the hospital?”
“Six months. The first four I was in a coma. After waking in the helicopter and I panicked as I listened to Ice and Goose die, we shifted, the tree trunk wedged against my forehead shifted, and I lost consciousness. I didn’t wake the entire time they extracted us. They only knew I was alive when they felt my pulse, and did that thing to my chest. They ran all types of tests, but I was out of it naturally.” She shook her head then looked at him silently. “We were based out of Hampton, Virginia, and we were found in West Virginia.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah, Hot Dog took us off course by at least two hundred miles. I guess you could say out of all this, there was one good thing that happened.”
“What was that?”
“We ran out of fuel. We’ll never know if that’s why we crashed, or if it was Nick’s antics, or if it leaked out when we were upside down for that long. I do know that Nick and the pilot were killed on impact, whereas Jared and Sam took at least three hours to die.”
“And you heard and watched everything?”
“I did.” She didn’t say anything after that, and Ryan continued to hold her until she stopped shaking. After at least half an hour, he rose, gathered her in his arms, and carried her to his room. Because she didn’t move, or protest, he tucked her in his bed, went to the bathroom to do his business, turned off all the lights, and joined her. He gathered her in his arms and held her until she fell asleep. He lay there for almost two hours trying to wrap his head around the hell she had gone through.