AIRFIELD
by Jeanette Ingold
"Airfield?" The old guy sorting
radiator caps in front of Joe's Texas Auto Parts sends a dented cap spinning to
a junk heap. "You goin' flyin', young lady?"
"I wish I were! But I'm just
taking a late lunch to my uncle. He's filling in for the station
manager."
"I guessed you was new here. That
turn's another mile on."
"Oh..." I rub the back of my
neck, lifting away hair wet with perspiration. Dark patches of sweat pock
the front of my dress. "I'd hoped I was closer."
Out on the otherwise empty highway, a worn
automobile struggles our way. Its outside bristles with tied-on house
goods, and the inside is packed with people. Depression migrants, I
suppose, like half the world seems to be this June of 1933.
"I reckon," Joe says, "you
could take that old farm track past my billboard. It'd be a bit of a
shortcut."
There's the sudden craack of a tire
blowing out, and the car we've been watching lurches to a lopsided halt.
The first out is a boy who looks to be a
couple of years older than me, perhaps nearer seventeen than my
almost-fifteen. Dirt poor...It's a fleeting thought, gone as fast
as I can feel bad for thinking it.
But, truthfully, he does look about as ragtag
as the vehicle itself.
"They ain't gonna have no money,"
Joe says, as though he's already hearing the whole conversation, him trying to
sell a replacement and the family wanting whatever threadbare tire he'll give
for free.
"Yeah. Well," I answer,
feeling for him and them both, "I ought to be getting along. Will
that shortcut take me straight to the airport?"
"Close enough, anyway."
(Text from AIRFIELD, copyright © 1999 by Jeanette Ingold, used by permission
of Harcourt, Inc.)
