A wise man said once that the purpose of cats is to remind man that not everything in life has a purpose. He was wrong, at least so far as Kiddiot was concerned. Kiddiot’s purpose was to remind me that friends and wives may come and go, but furry, antisocial mooches never leave.
“Anybody ever tell you you’re less than worthless?”
Kiddiot bathed himself with his tongue and ignored me like some sort of lesser life form. I turned on the TV and dialed in Animal Planet so he could watch his favorite shows, grabbed my blue, sweat-stained Air Force Academy ball cap off a hook on the back of the door, and drove to the airport.
El Molino is up the coast and inland from Rancho Bonita. As the crow flies, it’s about 115 miles. As a Cessna 172 flies, depending on winds aloft, the trip normally takes about an hour — the operative word being “normally.” That morning, the winds came screaming out of the north, bucking my little airplane all over the sky, while reducing my ground speed at times to less than fifty knots. On Highway 101, 6,500 feet beneath the Duck’s wings, I watched cars passing me like I was standing still.
Bumpy air and pathetic ground speed aside, the extra time gave me an opportunity to think. I’d had a restless night, what with the heat and Savannah’s unexpected intrusion in my life. The wee hours had been spent sweating atop the sheets and staring up at the ceiling, with memories of her coursing through my head, the soundtrack of my insomnia, an old Bob Dylan tune about switching off your emotions to cope with the loss of that special someone forever embedded on your brain.
The Buddha teaches that suffering is the essence of life, that desire is the root cause of that suffering. Get rid of that which you desire and you get rid of the suffering. Easy. And yet, as I fought the wind on my way toward El Molino that morning, I realized my desire for Savannah had never left me. I’d just learned to turn it off.
The coastal mountains north of Rancho Bonita gave way to the Agua Caliente Valley, a loose patchwork of gentle hills studded with stands of oaks and vineyards. After about fifteen minutes, Rancho Bonita Departure handed me off to Oakland Center, followed by several minutes of silence on the airwaves. I checked in to make sure the Duck’s radios were still working.
“Oakland Center, Cessna Four Charlie Lima, how do you hear?”
“Loud and clear.”
All was quiet because nobody else was stupid enough to be out flying. The high winds had grounded every other private pilot in the region. Half an hour later, I radioed Oakland to report that I had the El Molino airport in sight, fifteen miles off the nose of the plane.
“Four Charlie Lima, roger. El Molino altimeter two niner niner seven. Radar service terminated. Squawk VFR. Frequency change approved.”
“Thanks for the help. Four Charlie Lima.”
I switched over to the number-one radio to listen to the automated weather recording at the El Molino airport. The winds were 330 degrees at twenty-eight knots, gusting to thirty-five. On my number-two radio, I dialed in the airport’s common traffic area frequency to listen for other airplanes coming or going. There were none. At seven miles out, I keyed the push-to-talk mic button on my yoke.
“El Molino traffic, Skyhawk Four Charlie Lima, seven miles south of the field at 4,500 feet descending, landing Runway Thirty-One, El Molino.”
I eased back on the throttle and thumbed in a little forward trim to set up a 700 feet-per-minute descent, keeping Runway Thirty-One centered on the Duck’s nose. Off my left wingtip, about five miles away, was the tourist-friendly burg of El Molino, population 29,000, whose founding fathers made their fortunes selling tourists on the medicinal virtues of soaking in El Molino’s many hot springs and mud baths. More than a century later, with nearly 170 mostly ridiculously overpriced wineries and tasting rooms, the tourists were still being soaked.
The turbulence was severe enough that I twice smacked the top of my head on the cabin roof as I made my approach into the airport. Descending through 2,000 feet, I nearly collided with a seagull. He flashed below the Duck’s left wing close enough that I could make out the red dot at the end of his beak.
By the time I dropped down to pattern altitude, the air had tamed somewhat. The orange wind sock was standing straight out, angled off the runway by about twenty degrees. Turning final, I held my right wingtip into the wind and touched down on my upwind wheel first. A textbook crosswind landing if I do say so myself. I glanced at the clock on the instrument panel as I rolled out. It was almost twelve-thirty — nearly an hour late to my meeting with Gilbert Carlisle, thanks to Mother Nature. Nothing I could do about it now. He’d either be there or he wouldn’t.
There were abundant parking spaces across from the main terminal where the restaurant was located. The Duck, in fact, was the only plane on the ramp. I slid the gust lock into the control column on the pilot’s side, secured the nose wheel with the aluminum travel chocks I keep in the baggage compartment, and secured the tie-down chains on the underside of both wings as tight as they would go. I made sure the door was good and locked, then made for the terminal.
The tarmac was like a wind tunnel. I leaned into the blow, head down, holding onto my ball cap. My eyes burned from the gale-force winds. My shirtsleeves flapped hard against my arms. As I got closer to the terminal, I could see a man in Wrangler jeans, a blue-checked cowboy shirt with pearl snaps, and ostrich skin cowboy boots holding open the door for me.
“Get on in here before you get blowed into another area code,” Gil Carlisle said with a broad grin.
We shook hands as I slid past him into the terminal.
“I was starting to get a little worried,” he said.
“Wind held me up. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Hell, I’m just glad you could make it.”
Standing protectively close beside him was a tall, muscular Latino in his mid-thirties. Gray slacks, white shirt, the frigid scowl of an on-duty Secret Service agent. The grip of what looked like a .40-caliber Glock pistol dangled from a shoulder holster under his left arm.
“This is Frank,” Carlisle said.
“Since when did you start needing a bodyguard, Gil?”
“World’s an increasingly dangerous place, hoss. A little precaution never hurt anybody.”
Frank started to pat me down. Carlisle told him it wasn’t necessary.
“This is my former son-in-law,” he said. “I trust him implicitly.”
My former father-in-law was a stocky man with thick lips. He was all but bald the last time I saw him. But where there was once shiny pate was now a forest of luxuriant curls the color of milk chocolate, with nary a trace of gray. Carlisle noticed me noticing.
“Four bucks a graft,” he said proudly. “Hell, I could’ve damn near bought another island in the Caribbean for what the new hair ended up setting me back. I didn’t want to get ’em, but the new honey, she insisted, bless her heart. That’s the risk you take, datin’ a showgirl young enough to be your grandbaby.”
“Another risk is dying of a massive coronary.”
Gil Carlisle laughed and bear-hugged me. “It’s just damn good to see you, son. Been way too long. Hope you came hungry.”
Frank the bodyguard took up his station at the entrance of the restaurant while Carlisle led me inside. The aromas were mouth-watering. Not a whiff of burning grease like most rural airport cafés, where the menus feature dishes like “Takeoff Tacos” and “The Barnstormer” burger. The restaurant at the El Molino airport caters to gourmands regardless of their interest in aviation. The kind of place that serves up lamb noisette in a blackberry reduction sauce and Peking duck breast seared rare at thirty bucks a plate. Small and intimate, with its tablecloths and pumpkin-colored walls, the restaurant looks like it belongs on Union Square in San Francisco or overlooking Rodeo Drive, not beside some windswept runway in the middle of farm fields.