20. Uncle Jonah
Chapter 20
Uncle Jonah
“A re you wanting to continue with your previous major?” The counselor keeps her eyes on her computer screen, her fingers darting loudly over the keyboard. It’s a question I expected, and the answer is on the tip of my tongue, but I zone out.
Several pens stick out from a cup on her desk, one with a flower taped to the end. I have to hold my hand back from reaching out and feeling the petals.
When I don’t answer, she glances at me over the rim of her glasses before pulling the form I had filled out when I arrived to her face. “It says here that you were a sports science major.”
“Yeah, sorry. No, I don’t want to continue with that, but I’m not sure what I’d major in. I don’t have to decide just yet, right?”
She looks back at her computer, types something, clicks a few times, types some more. “Most of your credits transfer, you’d only have to retake three classes. I’d suggest having it narrowed down at least. Most of what you have left are major classes.”
The whir of the air conditioner kicks off, sucking all the air from the room. Three extra classes that I’ll have to waste money on. Then there are the major classes, for a career I can’t envision for myself.
“Are you wanting to do something sports-related? Like sports medicine or analytics? Or, would you rather go in a completely different direction?”
I’ve only recently reached the point where I can watch sports on TV without ending up a blubbering mess; I can’t plan for another sports-related career.
I keep my eyes on that flower, a daisy maybe, I don’t know flower types. But it’s pink and way too big for the end of a pen. I want to know what it looks like when she’s writing with it. Does it bounce around like-
“Mr. Porter?”
My head snaps up and I realize I’ve zoned out again. “I’m sorry?”
She repeats the question patiently. “Do you currently have a job?”
“Yeah, I actually just started as a machinist not too long ago.”
“That’s a good job, good growth opportunities. But you want to get away from that?”
I lift a shoulder. “I just can’t see myself doing this for the rest of my life.” I know I sound like an idiot, but it’s the only way I know how to explain to a stranger the fear I have of never finding myself. The fear of accepting defeat and succumbing to a discontented and regretful life. I’d already done that when I ran home after my injury, and I moved back here intending to continue on the same way. But something I thought was dead inside of me had awoken and was ready. I just didn’t know what for. Just like Cori’s poem.
She nods, but the furrow of her eyebrows gives away her concern for me.
Ms. Owen, the admissions counselor, sighs and tosses her glasses onto the desk. “Can I give you some advice, Mr. Porter? Less than fifty percent of college graduates end up in the field they studied in school. I majored in music theory and composition before completely changing my path after I was unable to find a job. I probably shouldn’t be saying this, as an admissions counselor, but college isn’t for everyone. There are so many careers and trades that don’t require a degree. Look at your hobbies. Can you turn any of them into a career that you would enjoy? If not, make a list of jobs you’d think you’d like, and look up job listings for those positions to see if there’s a more versatile degree, like business or psychology, that might be accepted for those positions.”
Simply to end this unproductive misery, I tell Ms. Owen that I’ll think about everything she told me, and I go home not feeling any better than before I walked into her office.
* * *
T he next morning, I wake, not looking forward to a Saturday full of thinking. I need out of the apartment so I call Mom and ask if I can visit.
“Of course, I have no plans. How’d the meeting go with the college?”
“Sucked.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Just did.”
“Okay…” She draws out the word. “Well, since you don’t want to talk about that, what do you want for dinner?”
“Whatever's easiest. We can just order pizza or something.”
Then I hear that voice again followed by a distant shushing as if Mom covered the speaker. It was definitely a male voice, definitely real, but it wasn’t close enough for me to hear what it said.
“Is that your boyfriend?” I ask, feigning uninterest.
Mom laughs nervously. “What? I don’t have a boyfriend. It’s just the TV.”
My eyes narrow as I keep listening, but the line is silent. I wish she’d just tell me if she was seeing someone. I’d be happy. That’s all I want is for her to be happy.
“So, dinner. I’ll invite Jonah, unless you just want it to be us. I may need y’all to look at the sink in the bathroom.”
“Sounds good.”
We say our goodbyes and I receive a text from Uncle Jonah shortly after I hang up.
Jonah: Your mom called to invite me to dinner. Do you have time before to come by and help me with something? I got a new plane.
* * *
U ncle Jonah’s hobby is planes. He flies them, builds them, sells them, fixes them, whatever. Turns out, he bought a kit for a Hummel Aviation H5 and wants help putting it together. For as long as I can remember, I’ve stood alongside him working on his planes in the hangar on his property just outside of town. At first, I’d simply hand him tools. Eventually, I was old enough and had learned enough to do everything by myself while he drank a beer in a lawn chair five feet away.
That’s where he sits now while I work on fitting hose clamps onto the outer wing tank. The local country station plays on a battery-operated radio, and the heat inside the metal building is suffocating. After an hour, my shirt is drenched in sweat and I have to take it off to find what little relief I can.
“Can’t you get this thing air-conditioned? I know you can afford it,” I say. “At least a fan or something. I’m over here dying while giving you free labor, and you’re lounging around like you’re on vacation.”
“Oh, hush. You’ll live.” As if to mock me, he props his feet up on the chair next to him. “Your mom said you went to talk to someone at the community college. How’d that go?”
“Fine,” I answer, still not in the mood to talk about it.
“Well? What’d they say?”
I run a hand down my face and recount the meeting to him while he stares thoughtfully out the open door and across the field, taking mouthfuls from his beer can every so often.
He remains quiet after I’m done, and I fit the second clamp on the other side of the tank.
“Do you even wanna go back to school?”
“I mean,”—I shrug—“I’m not doing anything else with my life. Might as well.”
“You don’t sound excited. You should be excited about what you choose to do.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re really excited to do. . . whatever it is you do on the rig.” I wipe my forehead with the back of my arm. “I’m just worried about wasting all that money and time on something else that might not work out.”
My injury was more than just the dead end to my career, it was a failure. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t my fault. If only I had moved out of the way faster, before the 250 lb lineman fell on my leg, forcing my foot to the right and my knee to the left. If only I hadn’t been in that spot. If only I had trained harder after the injury. If only I had run faster while Coach studied my progress.
If only, if only, if only.
“Nick, everythin’ we do in life is a waste of time. We all die anyway and we can’t take any of the accomplishments or relationships or money with us when we go. Might as well do what you want and damn the consequences. With reason, of course.” He winks.
When I was a kid, I wished Uncle Jonah was my real dad, especially on nights when Dad would come home shit-faced drunk. He never laid a hand on me or Mom, but he’d yell so loud the walls would shake like the hands of God himself had a hold of our double-wide.
As I let his words soak in, I realize those childhood wishes of sharing his blood don’t matter. He’s my dad, regardless of how much I look like the man whose last name I share.
“You know what you should do?” he asks, the lines around his eyes more defined as he squints up at me through the light filtering in from the open door.
“What?”
He gestures with his head towards the parts in my hands, but I don’t get his meaning. “Aviation mechanics. There’s a school in Houston. I think it takes a couple years, but once you’re done, you’ll be licensed to work on planes and can get paid for it. And you already know a bunch.”
When I thought of mechanics, my mind usually shot to automobiles. Why had I never considered planes before?
He points to the tattoo starting at my shoulder. “You even have a monoplane tattooed on you already. I think it’s fate.” He chuckles, taking another drink of his beer. “Besides, I’m leavin’ my planes to you when I die anyway. It’d be nice to know they’re goin’ to someone who’ll know how to keep ’em runnin’. Oh, that reminds me. You’re goin’ to need your pilot’s license too. But that’s easy to get.” He scratches at his nose as if he’s telling me what he had for breakfast this morning and not that he’s leaving me his most precious possessions when he dies.
I tap my palm with the fuel filler neck in my hand a few times while I consider the option. “What’s the school called?”
“I don’t know, somethin’ Aviation somethin’ Institute. I’ll google it for you.” He pulls his phone out, and after finding the webpage, hands it out for me to fill out a request for information.
I shake my head. “I don’t know if I want to yet.”
“Just fill it out,” he insists. “All they’ll do is probably call you and set up a tour or meetin’ or somethin’. You can go and find out more information, and then decide.” He stands up from the chair. “While you’re doin’ that, I gotta pee.”
“Hey, real quick. Do you know if Mom is dating someone?”
He cocks his head, then looks around the hangar. “Not that I know of, why?”
I explain the voice I heard in the background during the two phone calls.
“I think you’re readin’ into things that ain't there, but if she is datin’ someone, she’ll tell you when she’s ready.”
There I go again, selfishly making everything about me. All this time, I figured Mom didn’t think I was ready for her to be dating, but maybe Uncle Jonah is right. Maybe she’s the one not ready to share the news.
I nod. “Yeah, okay.”
I think some more about the conversation we just had while I fill out the form.
When I had my sleeve drawn up, I asked for the plane to be added to the design above the mountains. Uncle Jonah and I never flew above mountains during the flights he’d take me on, but the plane alone made the tattoo special. While I’d never consider piloting as a career because of the stress involved, I love working on planes. All this time, I thought it was because I enjoyed spending time with Uncle Jonah, but now I realize I actually enjoy the work. I enjoy working on cars as well, but there’s something special about aircraft, something unique.
But two years? A lot could happen in two years. Hell, a lot could happen in two minutes.