Out here? I got prettier hogs.
Must be some swine. Maybe he’s met someone?
He’s pastor of the Pasadena Episcopal Church, Charlie. He meets women who want to marry him every day. First whiff of a divorce and the Church would haul his ass out of there. I won’t do that to him. We write each other. Suits us fine.
What’s he doing in Brooklyn again?
Who knows.
She pulled hard on her cigar. Two women, an aisle over, peered through the shelves.
Morning, ladies, Pancho said, blowing smoke through the gap. They disappeared. Pancho smiled. It was a small town; people talked. When folks heard about her swimming pool, they couldn’t believe the extravagance. The first time she filled up her blue Cadillac at Carl Bergman’s Union Oil, he yapped on it for months. It had no backseat, Carl told the other ranchers. It was full of dogs!
Pancho got back to the ranch at eleven. Billy was serving two men at the bar.
Is it on? she said. Billy looked up.
Nope.
Quick.
The radio was wedged between the cash register and the rum. Close to the base, restricted exchanges could be picked up on the right frequency. Billy turned it on. The box popped and whistled.
Plenty fellas go up; you never listen, he said.
Shut up. Is it working?
Yeah.
This is different.
How you know?
This is not an airplane, Pancho said, least nothing a pudknocker like you’d understand one to be. It’s a goddamn rocket with a tail; an orange bullet with razor wings and a needle-nose. They call it the X-1. And it’s got one purpose: fly faster than sound.
That even possible? Fly faster than a man’s own voice?
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, Pancho said. That’s what they been figuring out, and I promised a free steak dinner to any them weenies who does it first. Today’s a big deal: first powered flight, pushing it up to point eight-two Mach. When Harrison hits that switch, the whole damn thing could go kaboom, or drop out the sky like a brick, or malfunction in a thousand other ways. There’s no seat to punch out either; those razor wings would slice him in half. It’s got to work, and he’s got to land it, and he can’t land it with any fuel left on board or the whole goddamn thing will go kaboom soon as it hits the lakebed. So, yeah, it’s different, and everyone’s got their jitters up.
Billy wiped the counter with an old cloth.
So how come you ain’t down there? he said.
I seen plenty drop launches before, Pancho said, turning away to stack glasses.
At Muroc Field, a B-29 bomber took off from the south runway and climbed hard. Harrison sat on an upturned apple box behind the pilot with Jack Ridley, the flight engineer. The X-1 was strapped to the underside of the bomber. The B-29 reached altitude. Harrison climbed down the bomb bay ladder and into the X-1, the sound of the bomber’s giant propellers roaring in his ears. In the tiny cockpit, he clipped on his lines and hoses; the oxygen system, radio-microphone and earphones, then pulled his leather flying helmet over his head. Stored behind him, at minus two hundred and ninety-six degrees was six hundred gallons of lox, liquid nitrogen and oxygen. Ridley climbed down after him, lowered the cockpit door in place, then returned to the bomber. Two chase planes, one flying high, one low, took off from the base to observe the X-1 in flight. Harrison’s lips split, his breath condensing in the dark. In the gloom, he waited for the drop.
Pancho pulled a stool behind the bar and sat by the radio.
Listen, here we go.
Roger, take it easy son.
Ridley, Pancho said, to Billy. They heard Bob Cardenas, the B-29 pilot, announce twenty-six thousand feet, then begin his shallow dive.
Starting countdown …
Pancho leaned in.
Drop!
There was a sharp crack as the shackles released the X-1 like a bomb.
[…] looking at the sky.
Roger that, Jim.
Nose-up stall.
I see you, Jim—you’re dropping like a brick.
Copy that.
[…]
Dive speed […] too slow.
Walt, you got a visual from the ground?
Negative.
Twenty-five thousand feet.
Roger.
Twenty-four.
Say again, Jim? Didn’t copy.
[…]
[…]
[…] Hey […] fuel.
You’re about three thousand pounds heavier than the glide flights.
Twenty-three.
Roger, Jim.
I feel it.
Copy that.
I’m gonna push the nose down […] pick up speed.
Roger.
Leveling out.
[…]
You’re at twenty-two, Jim.
Copy.
[…]
I’m level.
Good work, Jim.
I have a visual.
Copy that, Walt.
Lighting the first chamber.
Standing by.
Lighting one.
Roger.
Point four Mach.
Copy that.
Hey, Jim, you just passed me going upstairs like a bat […]
Point five.
[…] shockwaves […] from the exhaust.
You got eyeballs on that, Kit?
Confirm.
Lighting two.
Roger.
Point seven.
Hold steady.
Forty-five thousand feet. Lighting three […] seven-five.
Jim […]
Watch your nose.
Firing chamber four.
[…]
[…]