Home
Don't touch that dial folks... What you've all been waiting for I'm sure!
Tales From The Wild Blue Yonder
Flight To The Heavenly Water or, A Twenty Peso Bargain
By John Quinn Olson
ISBN 0-9820703-4-5 Paperback
84th edition copyright © 2011 by Dust Devil Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher.
Flight To The Heavenly Water or, A Twenty Peso Bargain
A dozen colorful wings were once again spread atop a cliff on the steep side of Cerro Grande, a towering mountain outside of Colima City in the central Mexican heartland. A Mexican polka danced raucously from the dashboard of a nearby pickup truck while the wings were stretched, the ribs were stuffed and the wires were tensioned. Occasionally, a brave soul would sidle up to the precipice just a few short steps away, and stick a hand into the vertical blast of air, checking it out.
To an observer who might happen along to witness this daily ritual, the thermals might sound a bit like an eighteen-wheeler as they roar up past the launch ramp. A family of buzzards dove in below launch to hook the thermal and one by one, went spiraling silently into the blue sky above the flyers and disappeared. The buzzards did not go unnoticed as they soared aloft, but not much was said over the music; the flyers were intent on making all preparations for another day of flying. The sweltering tropical sun made every movement a bit of a struggle for at least one gringo, but it was shaping up as yet another bitchin’ day over Cerro Grande.
A raucous rook came diving into the thermal and circled out noisily above the flyers gathered below—making as much racket as one single bird might. “FOOLS!” he seemed to cry; “Fools Fools Fools!”
Clipped into his wing now, all suited up for altitude and sweating like an army mule, Walter approached the edge of the cliff on Cerro Grande very cautiously, with an amigo holding each wing wire, until he was standing in front of a narrow steel launch ramp. The incline jutted out from the cliff at a steep angle and ended in the sky. It was about three giant steps long. A ripping thermal wagged his wings dangerously, so Pedro and Benigno grabbed at his wires and brought his wings back to level. Walter was grunting with effort to control and balance the wings when suddenly, they were light as a feather and tugging at him in eagerness.
“Clear!” he hollered.
“CLEAR!” came the chorus from his launch crew as they released his wires.
With another grunt Walter took three giant-steps with his nose pointed sharply down the cliff. But only one toe scratched the ramp below as the thermal blasted him into the sky. In a flash he was off the mountain cleanly, wings level, airspeed roaring ... WahOOO! Another day of flight was underway in the skies above Mexico.
Counting to ten, the gringo banked the wing up and dug in to a fierce column of rising air right in front of launch. With a shot of adrenaline coursing through his brain he headed for the Heavens Above. Down below, the scramble was ON!
Walter climbed out above the launch ramp, and watched the activity below as his amigos del cielo all scrambled for their harnesses, clipped into their wings, and eagerly bailed for the sky. Before long they were but tiny little dots below him, each one circling in their own private dance of the thermals, and everyone climbing for the clouds. It was just too good!
This particular day Walter climbed quite high above Cerro Grande. Having launched at about twenty-five hundred feet, he soon topped-out at near ten grand. The sky was particularly clear today and the smoking fire volcano Colimótl was offering a spectacular show in the near distance, crouched and puffing like a smoldering god on the horizon.
Having gained such lofty heights Walter decided to cash in on them; perhaps today was the day to try to make the glide all the way back home to the airfield at the Flying Club of Colima. So he aimed his nose at the distant far edge of Colima town, leveled the wings with the bar at his chest, and commenced a long unlikely glide figuring what the heck—nothing ventured, nothing gained.
It soon became quite clear however that Walter would have to either find another thermal or get a better glide somewhere along the line, or he would come up short of the refreshing swimming pool at his destination. The magic spot that only the flyer can see while he is on glide—the spot he’s gliding to—was a bit shy of the airfield. Pointing his toes, tucking in his elbows, Walter went for the glide anyway. But it was not to be...
Gliding over fields and villages, getting lower and lower, coming up short of the airstrip, Walter finally chickened-out. If he held his present course he would come up about two fields shy of success. He might be able to glide blindly into a strange field and land successfully or... or he might not. He might arrive over the unfamiliar field and discover some obstacle that would complicate his landing or otherwise ruin his day; a fence or power lines or a ditch. Perhaps the field would be plowed or full of cattle. That mental picture was too grim to dwell on. One thing was certain though: the flyer would get only one chance at success. He cranked a shallow turn to larboard and began a close inspection of the field he was directly over, flying a pattern for a safe landing.
As a concession to convenience, Walter made one glance about him looking for the easy way out of this field once he’d packed-up. All he could see for certain was a housing development off to the east. Then, with a quick turn from base-to-final, he stuffed the bar and came blazing in. Diving in to the field now and roaring over a few startled burros, Walter gave the bar a big heave and flared to a stop. Gently, he settled to the ground as though stepping off his bar stool. The flight had not been a total success, but it had been action-packed and disaster-free.
Now to pack up his wing and gear in their bags and get home somehow...
~₪≥≤₪~
Grunting with effort and slipping and sliding in the loose dirt, the gringo dragged his wing up the steep arroyo as best he could. He’d been forced to leave his gear bag behind him in the bottom of the gully while he dragged his Wills Wing Fusion first down the steep bank, then up the other side. There, he’d been confronted with a barbed-wire fence. Shoving the glider nose-first between the ground and the lowest strand of wire, Walter’d had to groan and curse with effort to keep the wing moving, and to keep himself from pitching backwards into the hole. With another curse to the Sky Gods and to whoever cabron had invented barbed wire, he shoved the wing under the rusty old strands and scurried under with it.
Once the wing was under the wire he’d been able to grab on and drag it completely clear of the fence and over a few mounds of dirt where he took a bit of a breather. Then, in what he hoped to be the last time for one day, he shouldered his burden once again, and trudged like some grimey and unlikely pilgrim to the edge of a street. He unloaded the wing from his shoulder and dropped to his knees in exhaustion. He had some notion how Jesus himself must have suffered his burden so long ago. He drained the last few drops of agua from his bottle and clambered back over the fence to fetch his gear bag.
By the time Walter had returned to his wing, having scrambling through the arroyo yet again and through thorn bushes and over hill and dale, he was spent, dirty and most of all — parched. His shirt was torn from the rusty barbed wire and he was bleeding too, from a nasty thorn that had pierced his shin and broken off. He’d had to grab the thorn with his fingernails and yank it out. In fact, it seemed to the gringo that everything in the Mexican bush came with a thorn or a barb attached. Either that, or it bit, stung or itched.
Examining his surroundings he discovered that his ordeal had brought him smack into the middle of a construction zone. He really wasn’t on a street at all, more of a dusty work-access area. Tough-looking Mexican hard-hat types were eyeballing him from various locations; suspicion and scorn written across some faces, curiosity and glee on others.
“¿Que pasa con este pinche gringo?” they seemed to say, and “What the chingada do you suppose he has in those bags?”
But Walter didn’t care—he was just too spent. He’d survived certain disaster after all, defied the Grim Reaper once again and lived through it, flung himself from the heights and slipped the surly bonds of Earth. What could be more uncertain back on the planet? Besides, things always seem to sort themselves out here in old Mexico.
He was alive! It was all that mattered.
For twenty years now people, mostly other gringos who had no idea what the hell they were talking about, had been warning Walter to stay the hell away from Mexico. Bad things, terrible things it seemed, happened to gringos who wandered around down there. But Walter was too dumb or too stubborn to worry about these rumors. It was the flying that called on him to travel south. The rest of it would work itself out and sure enough, just then the miracle happened.
Oh, it was a tiny miracle, the type of miracle that happens many thousands of times a day just in Colima alone. Must be millions of times each day in the whole country he supposed; maybe then, not a miracle at all—just a chance encounter. But as Walter plunked himself down on a pile of rubble in the shade of a stately primavera tree... the Cielo truck turned the corner and headed straight for the suffering gringo. Not much of a bible-thumper, Walter was grateful nonetheless.
“¡Gracias al cielo!” he declared to himself, to no one, to everyone. Thank the Heavens!
Now, the word ‘cielo’ means ‘sky’ in Español, but it also means ‘heaven’. In fact in Mexican Español ‘sky’ seems a rather forgotten word, lost in a pious Catholic frenzy, and ‘heaven’ prevails. In fact, for most Catholic Mexicans ‘cielo’ is far more than just that big blue thing overhead — ‘cielo’ is Heaven. ‘Cielo’ is where God himself allegedly resides as He watches down upon us all. ‘Cielo’ is where everyone — you, and I, and everyone else — hopes to some day end up. It is much the same as in English where we sometimes refer to our sky as ‘the Heavens’ only less so.
But in Mexico, ‘Cielo’ is also a brand of bottled water, a beverage owned by the Coca Cola bottling company and sold all over the country, from trucks you are likely to encounter just about anywhere. It was one of these rumbling beasts that turned the corner now, and made a dusty beeline for the thirsty gringo, in what he saw as a bit of a miracle. Agua del Cielo — Heavenly Water—is sold in many different size bottles, but the truck Walter now beheld carried only the giant twenty-liter jugs called garafones, and meant especially for residential use.
Like a rusty blessing from above the Cielo truck rumbled up to the gringo, who stood slowly to his feet and beckoned the driver to a halt.
“¡Por favor!” he begged. Please!
The driver threw the tranny into park and shut down the spark. Suddenly all was blessedly quiet and tranquil in Walter’s life. Birds chirped in the primavera tree, the dust settled, and the promise of refreshment was but a moment away.
“Favor que tomo uno,” he told his savior while fumbling with a grubby wad of pesos and gazing up at the truck. Please, I’ll take one.
The driver, a bearded man with thick shoulder-length silver hair, a man who looked like no one so much as Moses in one of those heavenly frescos you see from Michaelangelo, popped the door handle and crawled down from on high. He stepped down from the running board and walked about the Earth like a mortal man. He tugged a heavenly garafon off the rack and shouldered it carefully, like the Holy burden it was. He looked here, and he looked there, wondering where amongst the footings and holes and walls and piles of dirt, to put it.
Where do you suppose the gringo wanted his agua?
“¿Como sale el puro liquido?” asked the gringo. How much for just the water only?
Walter may have been feeling blessed, but economics were still an issue and he had no interest in acquiring the bottle, a container which actually cost somewhat more than the contents. Besides, he didn’t need the bottle—he needed a drink. The Cielo driver was confused but gave the standard reply.
“Vente pesos,” he said. Twenty pesos.
“Da me lo,” repeated the gringo. Give it to me.
But the driver was still confused.
“¿Donde?” he asked, peering about. Where? There was no kitchen counter, there was no pantry shelf. There was no clever water dispenser to cradle the garafon as found in all Mexican casas. There was no casa either, for that matter. There was only dust and dirt and rubble. Where would he put it?
“¿Donde?” he asked again. Where?
“Aqui,” replied the gringo... Here. He doffed his sweaty sombrero and pointed to his sweaty head.
The driver smiled at that notion. He laughed when Walter simply sat down on the nearest rock and kept pointing at his head. “¡Da me lo!” he commanded, but he had to say it twice more... “¡Da me lo señor! ¡Favor da me lo!”
The driver tore open the lid, grinning now. Tentatively, he poured a little glug down Walter’s open mouth and throat. The water splashed down the gringo’s chest with a delightful chilling effect. Walter gasped and commanded once again, “¡Da me lo,” he said. “Da me cada gota!” Give me every drop!
Suddenly, the driver didn’t look like Moses any more. He was laughing now and smiling, and he tipped the Heavenly garafon over Walter’s head with mucho gusto.
“Gulg glug glug,” went the bottle.
“Splash splash splash,” went the Heavenly water.
“Gulp gulp gulp,” went the lucky gringo.
The Cielo driver was quite happy now; perhaps he had never dispensed his product quite like this—a sort of impromptu baptismo for a pagan gringo alongside the Camino of Life. Walter was happy too—fulfilled so to speak. Even the tough-hombre worker types on the construction jobs seemed to be refreshed.
Soon the water emptied from the garafon and the driver shook the last few drops on Walter’s soggy head. It left the gringo refreshed, water sloshing around in his belly, a puddle of mud all about him.
It seemed as though, with a bit of Heavenly intervention, he’d live to fly yet another day.
