Zoltan cleared his throat.
“You actually want to fly one of those contraptions, Rudy? That’s much too dangerous. I hear those things are put together with glue and sewing thread!” On hearing “sewing thread,” Jane picked up her ears.
That evening, the talk of the parlor revolved around man’s freedom of the sky, not the open road. Heated discussion of how effective such glued-together crates could be, where men shot pistols at each other amongst the clouds.
“No, no …” Rudy animated by newly acquired knowledge stimulated the room, “they no longer have to lean out of the cockpit to shoot at each other—a French flyer has invented a way to mount a machine gun that shoots straight ahead.”
“Where is it mounted?” asked Zoltan.
“Directly in front on the top of the forward fuselage.”
“Interesting …” Forever the automobile man, John seemed amused at the new terminology Rudy used with such ease. “… but it would seem that bullets traveling at their accelerated speed—towards the blades of a propeller, spinning at its accelerated speed—would surely strike the propeller blades, ricochet back thereby killing the pilot. Possible, don’t you think, Rudy?”
Fritz and Carl tried not to laugh—Zoltan gave them both a warning look, Stan snickered. Jane, captured, looked to Rudy for an illuminating answer.
“Aha—now I’ve got you. Well, John, my clever, all-so-knowing friend—it’s right smack in your territory! You said it long ago—with our moving assembly line—you were the one who said it!”
“What for God’s sake?”
“Timing, my friend, timing.”
Stan was getting impatient. “What the hell do you mean?”
“The gun and the propeller—their actions are synchronized! Speed, John, it’s just a matter of timing—the speed!”
Fritz shook his head in awe.
“I can’t believe it!”
“Well, you better—because that’s exactly how they’re now doing it over there. Now all sides are shooting each other’s tails off instead of having to lean down out of the cockpit to kill each other with lucky potshots.”
Zoltan cleared his throat, “Falling from the sky—what a death that must be.”
“Ja—can you imagine?” Fritz sighed.
“I wonder how the Huns first got so good at it,” mused Ebbely.
Johann put down his paper.”Well, I heard that years ago when one of the Wright Brothers was on vacation in Germany, he took their crown prince up for a spin. Who knows—maybe that impressed the future kaiser to take the future of flying machines seriously.”
“I have said it often—and I’ll say it again,” Stan knocked out his pipe, “Americans can be so damn gullible—like children we give, give, give and think the whole world will love us for it. I’ve got to go—we’ve got trouble at the yard.”
“Stan,” John stopped him at the parlor door. “You’ve made up your mind? You’re still leaving?”
“Who told you?”
“Never mind, are you?”
“Yes.” His friends murmured disbelief. “Well, I was going to tell you all in my own way—but I guess now is as good a time as any.”
“Come back—sit.” Fritz patted the vacant chair next to him.
“No, I haven’t got time—but try to understand, it isn’t just because of the family business … it’s other things much more important—I just have no other choice. Got to go. … Good night.”
Their thoughts channeled, the men smoked.
Zoltan broke the silence. “I am worried, John.”
“Yes, so am I.”
“Me, too,” chorused Fritz and Carl.
Ebbely seemed confused. “Why? Because Stan’s leaving Ford after so many years?”
“That’s not what’s worrying us.”
“Then what, Fritz?”
“Let John tell it—he’s better and knows more, told me.”
“Well?” Ebbely turned towards John.
“We think Stan has joined the Socialist Party and must leave the company before he is discovered. That’s only one worry and one that some of us have expected for some time.”
“What is even more,” Fritz interrupted, “is that this liquor business of the father-in-law is now maybe shady business over the border, and that can get Stan into very big trouble.”
“Stan’s a bootlegger?!” Rudy was shocked.
“Shush! Not so loud. Hannah will hear and if she ever suspects I don’t want her to get involved!”
“Involved? What do you mean involved?” Now even John sounded surprised.
“Oh, come on—you think I didn’t know about her Watchers and the risks those women first took to go against the company’s inspectors?”
“Watchers? Women? What are you rambling on about?”
Suddenly made aware that John knew nothing of Hannah’s Watchers or Jane’s involvement with them, Fritz tried to cover up his mistake. “Oh, you know Hannah—how she watches everything and how the women talk and they gossip all the time about the Boss and everything … hey, I hear we may be building a forty-pound tank on top of our chassis—is that right?”
“Experimenting, Fritz, only experimenting,” John corrected. “It’s the balance … it keeps toppling over. “
“Never in my life did I think I would see one day a flivver tank …” Fritz was laughing.
“Well, Rudy?” Ebbely extinguished his cigarette. “I must say I admire your decision. Up, up into the blue on gossamer wings—sounds like a title for a song.”
“I’m not flying yet, Ebbely.”
“But you will, my boy. I’m convinced that you will and be good at it. It takes spunk—and that you’ve got. Gentlemen, I’m off to welcome Morpheus. You all know how a good meal always exhausts me.”
Later, rolling down her sleeves, making ready to walk home, Jane stopped Rudy as he was going up to bed.
“Rudy—may I ask you something?”
“Of course—what is it?”
“Well—remember you spoke of how flying machines needed gluing and their wings—the material of their wings, sewn?” He nodded. She rushed on so as not to detain him—but really not to lose courage. “Well—sewing is something I can do really well—and I was wondering—once you are working—do you think you could find out if there might be a position open for a sewer of wings?”
Jane never did get the chance to sew wings. In later years she often wished she had, for by then glue had given way to rivets, and gossamer magic to expedient transportation.
Instructing Gloria to hold the jam jar ready and not to allow his brother to snatch it from her, Michael was concentrating on finding worms. Hannah tending her vegetable patch grumbled that this year nature wasn’t doing what nature was supposed to do.
“Ninnie, you tink it’s dis light ting wit de playing around daytime?” Jane laughed. “Well, Miss-Know-It-All, you see snap beans like dis puny, maybe ever?” Hannah pointed with disgust towards her deserted string trellis that did look rather woebegone.
“Give them time, it’s only the end of May. It’s early yet.” Jane nibbled on a twig of parsley loving its spicy taste. “Oh, I read in John’s evening paper that many more troops have arrived in France, but they called them ‘doughboys.’ Is that what they’re called now? What happened to the ‘Sammies’?”
“I don’t know. How dey spell it?”