AVIATRIX (Look what can happen when I get a slow day at work)

July 21, 2005 - 8:01 p.m.

Yes, it is true that the pilot took me to fly in an old WWII trainer biplane. The older I get, the more I fear flying. There’s your proof that aging makes you an uncool ball-less wonder. fear. Fear. FEAR. See how it grows as you get older, and find yourself turning into your mother, and all you can think about all day is which color towels to set out for when your guests arrive? I’m on the road to Suck but I’m digging in my heels along the way.

I fear falling from the sky and dying in a fiery crash. When I first started dating my boyfriend, I thought he was going to die each time he went to work. He doesn’t know this, and I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I used to religiously check cnn.com to see if there had been any plane crashes. I would have stress in my belly, and if I sensed that it had been too many hours or days since I had heard from him, I would nearly chew my hand off.

A lot of that changed when I bought him a cell phone. He, like me, stubbornly resisted getting a cell phone cuz we were all: Dear World, *middle finger*. And all: You can leave a message on my cassette recorder and I’ll git to it when I git to it!

Ya know.

Assholes.

So once I got him a cell phone, suddenly we were connected, and through text messaging I could get frequent updates about his well-being, like peering into a baby’s crib to see if he’s still breathing. Except most of our messages are about sex; how good it was, or how good the next batch is going to be.

But more than the cell phone, the big thing that got me chilled out about flying, was flying with him. I guess we’ve flown about seven times together, and I usually start out by freaking out in my head, hyper aware of all the goings-on on the airplane, listening carefully for any nuts and bolts that may be loosening from the wings. Meanwhile, he is sitting next to me in a figurative cloud of pot smoke, becoming one with his seat, and peering out behind half-closed eyelids like a maharishi in the realm of quietude.

He induced calm in me.

I mean, if a pilot is that relaxed on a flight, then who am I, the Non-Aerodynamics-Understanding Dummy, to argue?

So now I’m not afraid of flying anymore, and have reversed the steady descent into my mama’s world, where seatbelts would be required in bathtubs and on park benches.

Until the day that I got an email from him saying, “Dear Future Aviatrix, check out the PT-17 Stearman we are going to fly on Saturday at 600 pm at Morris Airport. I hope you know you've got the coolest goddamn boyfriend on the planet!”

The lap dog that lives in my head began yipping furiously. DANGER, Yip Yip! DEATH, Yip Yip! SINGLE ENGINE AIRPLANE JOHN DENVER BUDDY HOLLY JFK, JR. Aaaaaggghhhhhhh FIERY CRASH DEATH!

But of course I went anyway.

The airport was an hour and a half outside of Chicago. Along the way I thought of the news story a few years ago about the two lovebirds, engaged to be married, who bought themselves small-airplane rides as a wedding gift. He went up first and had a blast while she looked up in awe. She went up second and he looked up to see her plane spiraling to the ground.

The pilot doesn’t like when I tell that story.

I was scared shitless, and as we were walking toward the plane parked in its hanger I said to him, “It’s a good thing I didn’t wear my white shorts. In case I shit my pants.”

He looked at me in horror.

The plane only holds two people, and we were not allowed to go up together, so we went up separately with an instructor. My boyfriend went first and he was gone for over an hour, I guess doing take-offs and landings in a grass field somewhere. I couldn’t see him so I grew bored and took a nap on a picnic table, soaking up the clean, quiet country air, and taking a picture of the flag that I stared up at.

When it was my turn, I entered a fugue state and, like Sybil, split off into Betsy, Diana, and Amelia Earhart. I figured having multiple personalities would provide a buffer of sorts for when I fall to my death. Like maybe Diana would come out just before impact, and Shawna would just go to sleep and never wake up.

The plane is so small and light I didn’t even feel the takeoff. I just looked over the edge and saw the ground way below me. It was like the world’s best amusement park ride.

So these old planes are flown with the simplest mechanisms you can imagine. I think it was the exact same set-up as a child’s size Tonka Truck I drove around in 1980, with a foot peddle on the right, and a foot peddle on the left, and a steering wheel in the middle. Except the plane had a giant stick in place of the steering wheel.

It was set up like a tandem bicycle, where there are two pilots and all of their controls are connected to each other, so when the other guy moves his stick left, my stick goes left. Perfect for learning how to fly. I am the marionette, and he is the puppet master.

My instructor, John, was talking to me through my headset and he explained how to go up, down, left and right. Then he said, “Ok, your turn!” And I was like Hell No It Isn’t and then he yelled at me TAKE IT TO THE LEFT! MORE! MORE! SEE THAT HIGHWAY THERE – GO STRAIGHT DOWN THE HIGHWAY!

I was being a pussy at the controls so he was yanking the gears around, which yanked my hands around, and was the disciplinarian equivalent of being rapped on the knuckles with a ruler.

TAKE IT UP TAKE IT DOWN, MORE-MORE!

More? He wants me to turn this plane on a dime, and do a burnout IN THE FUCKING SKY.

And then guess what happened?

He said, “Ok, it’s you. That’s all you. You’re flying.”

SHUT YOUR FARGEN ICEHOLE – Who’s flying? Shawna Mooney is flying??

And it was at that moment, right there, high above the parched cornfields of my home state, that I got my first aeronautical period and I became a WOMAN.

John said, “Shawna, isn’t this great! It’s unreal isn’t it? It’s like you can’t even believe that it’s happening!”

And I just looked up at him in his mirror: “John…I love you.”

This plane belonged to the Army, because there was no Air Force back then.

One. Engine.

My flag.

I totally look like I know what I am doing.

Left right, up down.

John in his rear view mirror.

Hell Yah.

Sunset.

Corn!

Touchdown!

And of course, finish off the evening with a fine meal on the corner of Delicious and R Place.

I HAVE A PILOT LOG BOOK!

I have proof that I did turns and climbs!

20 minutes of fly time! (But it was really more like 5 minutes)

Next stop: Me and my boyfriend, humming along in a Stearman across the country. Me in charge of navigation and the maps because I am so damn good at it, and at night provide sexual release so my pilot can stay alert and not fall asleep at the stick.

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