Flying in the Heart of the Lafayette Escadrille Read Online Free PDF Page A

had left. He sat dry-eyed but desperately alone on his kitchen porch step. The horizon glowed faintly orange. The dragon came to him, flying out of the sunset, then landed in the yard and consoled him. For a year after whenever he was most alone, the dragon came. When the hurt faded away, when Thomas found other friends, the dragon quit coming. Thomas hardly missed him. But now, he thought, he would rather have had a father. What does a father do? he thought. What does a father do when his son doesn’t listen to him and his wife is so distant that when they are in the same bed late at night the father is afraid to breathe because she may hear him? Thomas’s father had taken the magic escape. He had ridden the dragon and never returned.
    Thomas sat in the dark with his eyes closed until his back and thighs ached from the cold floor.
    When he looked up, he saw the cellar was not unlit. The hot water heater’s blue-flamed pilot washed a cool and steady light the length of the room. Shadows were deep, black and long. The wet floor glistened like a still ocean under the moon, and from floor to ceiling, tiny mirrors of quartz or mica in the stones reflected stars of pure blue. His cellar suddenly seemed to him the most beautiful place he had ever seen. He imagined he could form constellations from the reflected points, name them anything he wanted, after his dad, his wife, his son, himself.
    His back cracked when he stood, and all the stars changed. His own shadow blocked out half the room. He picked up his tools and climbed the stairs.
    Under the sink, the steady hiss of escaping water was silenced. Thomas mopped the floor again, squeezing the mop dry after each pass across the tile, filling a bucket half way. When he was done, he stored the mop and bucket, rung out the towel he’d placed under the sink, hung it to dry, and, after making sure the kitchen was in order, opened the screen door and walked into his back yard.
    His neighbor’s cornfield on the other side of the fence rustled like a thousand sheets of paper rubbing against each other, and the moon glowed in the tassels. Thomas faced his home; light from the kitchen streamed through the door and windows. His bedroom window on the second floor was dark. Dolby’s was lit. On the roof the dragon lay, straddling the apex. As long as the house, its tail looped around and under its front paw.
    Graceful as a cat, the dragon came down and stretched itself at Thomas’s feet. He could hear its breathing, low and rumbling, and when the dragon turned his head toward him, its eye was big as a manhole cover. A clear membrane flicked over the eye from below, changing it from green to milky gray for an instant and then back. Then the dragon turned its head away and lowered its shoulder. Thomas saw the flat place behind its head and in front of the wings. A place where a man could mount and hold on.
    Thomas stepped forward and stroked the dragon’s neck. The skin was warm and the scales finely textured like silk. Thomas said, “I know why you came back, but I can’t go with you. That was my father’s choice.”
    Under the moon, in the night, in Thomas’s back yard, the dragon raised his head and looked down at him. Thomas said, “I have to fix the plumbing.” The dragon’s breath growled. Thomas added, “I have work to do.”
    Thomas walked inside and started to shut the door. The dragon’s eyes followed him. Thomas lifted a hand to wave. “I’m sorry,” he said.
    In the kitchen, he waited until he heard noises like gusts of wind, the huge wings flapping. He listened until he couldn’t hear them anymore, and then he headed up the stairs.
    At the top, he paused. The house was quite. No dripping. The pressure was off. Thomas knocked on his son’s door. “Dolby, we need to talk.”

Just Before Recess

    P arker kept a sun in his desk. He fed it gravel and twigs, and once his gum when it lost its flavor. The warm varnished desktop felt good against his forearms, and the