Читать книгу The Seven Year-Old Pilot - Capt. Steven Archille - Страница 5

The days passed merrily along in a familiar routine, with me making the short walk from home to school in the mornings through that cornfield, and then running home in the afternoons to play with my friends around the neighborhood. I often visited my mom’s side of the family and spent time with Mama and Papa Tita and their children, my Aunt and Uncles on Mom’s side. It was a joyful time, and I enjoyed the happy-go-lucky life of a young boy. Then, just before my seventh birthday in the spring of 1980, the news came that put a halt to my cheerful little world: my parents had finally gotten my visa, and I would soon be going to live with them and my sister in New York. It was a day that Mama and Papa Franchil had always told me was coming, but I think deep down I never thought it would. How could I leave Fort Jacques? I wondered. My family was there, my friends, my school, my frescos… my whole world! I was struck with a deep sense of sadness because everything and everyone I knew was going to be left behind, and I was going to a place I knew nothing about and whose language I didn’t even speak! I cried for days, and my family on both sides tried their best to console me, telling me that everything was going to be okay. But how could things ever be okay again? I wondered. As the departure date drew closer, my sadness was mixed with fear of what lay ahead, but also a little excitement about finally being with Mom, Dad, and Betty full time instead of only talking to them over the phone or seeing them on their yearly visits. What cheered me up most however, was the thought of was finally getting to get to ride inside one of those airplanes I had often seen flying overhead.

With all the papers finally in order, Mom, Dad, and Betty came to Haiti to take me home. I said my last goodbyes to Mama and Papa Franchil and the rest of my family and friends, cried my final tears, and resigned myself to the fact that I was leaving, unsure of what the future held for me. The ride to the airport with my family was one of the longest of my life. Everything went by in slow motion. It seemed as if we drove by every place that had ever meant anything to me in my first seven years of life. I saw my school, my cornfield and the countless fresco stands downtown. I was saying goodbye to my whole world. When we arrived at the airport, my only concern was not getting lost in the chaotic sea of people and baggage and carts. We checked in, put our bags on a magical moving belt that took them away into a hole in the wall, and went to the departure area to await our boarding time.

I didn’t see our plane when it landed and only caught my first glimpse of it as it taxied into its parking spot near the terminal building. I now know that it was an American Airlines Boeing 727, but to my seven year-old mind, it looked like a gigantic metallic bird. My face was stuck to the window in sheer awe and amazement as the plane’s three engines pushed it into its parking spot with a deafening roar. I looked back at my family and the other passengers, wondering how they all could sit around so casually with this amazing machine right outside our window. The sight of that gigantic silver metal bird staring at me from its cockpit windows had me beaming with excitement at the prospect of actually going inside it. I literally couldn’t wait. After what seemed like an eternity, I heard an announcement in Kreol that sent my little heart racing: “Now boarding American Airlines to New York JFK International Airport”.

I leapt for joy and for a while anyway, forgot about my sadness about the world I was leaving behind. I wasn’t really even thinking about where we were going. New York and America had no meaning for me yet. For one of the first times in my life, I was completely in the moment. I was taking in everything as it happened, thinking neither of the past I was leaving behind nor of the unknown future. All that mattered was that I was about to go flying.

As we stepped back out into the heat and started walking towards the aircraft, I could not believe how BIG it was. The closer we got, the bigger it got. The flight was full. I looked at the plane and all the people walking in line with us, along with all the bags being put into the belly of the big silver bird, and thought this is IMPOSSIBLE! How can this heavy machine possibly lift all of us and all this stuff into THIN AIR? The apparent lack of concern on the faces of my parents, sister, and the other passengers didn’t serve to put my wonderment to rest. To my mind, it simply could not work.

We arrived at the bottom of the stairs, and as we walked up, the deafening whine of the plane’s auxiliary power unit blasted my ears. As was common in those days, the captain and lead flight attendant were waiting at the aircraft’s entry door, greeting everyone with a smile and a “Welcome aboard American Airlines”. When I first saw the captain standing there greeting everyone, I smiled at him and was in awe that this man was going to be sitting at the controls of this amazing machine. The captain looked at me and smiled back, and I kept turning to look at him as we walked down the aisle to our seats. My parents had ensured that I had a window seat, because they knew how excited I was about my first flight. Betty, who was happy finally to have her big brother with her, hadn’t protested even though she too had wanted the window seat. Our seats were near the rear of the cabin, and Betty was in the middle seat next to me, with Mom in the aisle seat and Dad across the aisle from us. We sat down, and my mom helped me put my seatbelt on and showed me how to work my overhead reading light and air vent, both of which I could barely reach. My head was on a swivel as took in all of the activity around me. It was all so exciting.

I looked out the window at all the little airport vehicles darting around the airplane, then back up front to where the captain was standing then around the cabin at the sea of passengers, then back to the smiling faces of my family who were happy to see that I was enjoying the experience. After the flight attendants closed the main cabin door, the engines slowly started whining to life and soon we started taxiing towards the runway for takeoff. My little heart was pounding in my chest with more excitement than I had ever felt. A part of me STILL did not believe that it was possible for this gigantic thing to get itself and all of us off the ground. As the flight attendants conducted their safety demonstration, I stared at their beautiful faces, watching their well-rehearsed routine. I commented to my mom about how pretty they were (I guess all future pilots are attracted to flight attendants). Then I heard the captain’s voice over the speaker, which Mom explained was him telling the flight attendants to take their seats for takeoff. Here we go! I thought.

As the engines spooled up and we started rolling down the runway, I felt a force pushing me back into my seat unlike anything I had ever felt in even the fastest tap-tap. The roar of the engines was almost deafening, and my face was plastered to the window, watching as the ground zipped by us faster and faster. After what seemed like forever, and with the airplane shaking and the ground outside a blur, the nose of the giant beast started gracefully lifting off the ground, followed by the main wheels, and we were FLYING! I looked excitedly over at my family who all had big grins on their faces and forward toward the front of the long cabin, which now appeared to be uphill. As we climbed ever higher, the houses, trees, cars, and everything else on the ground got smaller, and I thought they all looked like little toys. There were a few puffy white clouds in the sky. Occasionally, we would be completely surrounded by white, as the clouds enveloped us. I wondered how it would feel to touch them. My parents told me that we would be in the air for about three hours before arriving in New York, and as we leveled off at our cruising altitude, I stared out at the horizon with the sun slowly setting and felt a sense of sheer wonder at where we were and what we were doing. We were flying... I felt at home.

As we cruised along in the night sky, I stared up at the air vents and the square reading lights, and reached up to fiddle with them. I opened the in-flight magazine, and although I couldn’t understand a word of it, being that it was in English, I looked at all the pictures of the beautiful places in its pages, hoping to visit some of them one day. Every few minutes, I heard some soft dings and bells in different tones echoing throughout the cabin. I asked Mom what they all meant, and she told me that the sounds were the flight attendants and pilots calling each other on the interphone (whatever that was). After a while, I noticed the smell of hot food wafting its way through the cabin and the flight attendants starting to come down the aisle with carts piled high with supplies. “What are those for?” I asked my mom.

“The flight attendants are going to bring us drinks and dinner,” she replied.

“They’re going to FEED us too?” I asked, unable to believe it. As if actually being way up in the sky were not enough, we were actually going to get hot food, served by those pretty ladies. Wow, this is awesome! I thought.

As the carts approached my row, I saw Mom reach up and turn a little lever at the back of the seat in front of her and as if by magic, a miniature table appeared in front of her. Coooool! I thought, as Betty and I quickly followed suit. The train of serving carts reached our row finally, and the flight attendants gave us our drinks and dinner. After the flight attendants moved on, I looked down my row and everyone else was already eating and chatting away, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we were thousands of feet in the air eating hot meals! As I sat there eating my delicious dinner for the very first time in an airplane, I had a very strong sense that this flying thing was NOT something ordinary and was not to be taken lightly or for granted. The whole experience was nothing short of a miracle. To this day, although I fully understand the physics and science behind it all, I am still filled with that little boy’s sense of wonder every time I fly.

As we continued along, I stared out at the darkness and at the flashing strobe lights on the airplane’s wing tip, catching glimpses of clouds and an occasional light below. In all the excitement, I hadn’t noticed that the drinks the flight attendants had served us were taxing my small bladder. I asked Mom where the bathroom was, and she pointed to the rear of the cabin.

When I stepped into the lavatory, I was surprised to see myself in a big mirror. There was also a little sink, toilet, and toilet tissues all neatly arranged. Wow, how cool! I thought. After finishing, I pushed down the flush lever and to my astonished eyes; blue water swirled around the bowl and down a silver drain! Having never seen blue toilet bowl water before, I was amazed. Where did it all go? I wondered. I washed my hands (in what disappointingly turned out to be normal, clear water) and rushed back to my seat to regale my parents with tales of my bathroom adventure and my discovery of the blue water.

As I sat back into my seat staring out the window, my mind was spinning with how astonishingly amazing this whole thing was. My thoughts went back to the captain who had disappeared into that little room up front and to the fact that HE was the one controlling this incredible machine in which I was flying. Right at that moment, as if the captain knew I was thinking about him, I heard his voice come over the cabin speaker. I listened intently, not understanding a word of what he was saying, after which I heard a few more of those mysterious dings and bells. Mom explained that the captain had thanked us for flying American Airlines and had told us about the weather in New York, where we would soon be landing.

After the captain’s announcement, I felt a slight lurch and then the airplane’s nose gently started to point downward as we started our descent. The flight attendants were making their pre-landing announcements, and occasionally I felt a few bumps of turbulence, which I thoroughly enjoyed. As we continued descending into the overcast sky, I heard different kinds of mechanical sounds, which I later learned were the wing flaps and landing gear coming down. When we broke out below the clouds, I got my first glimpse of New York and was bewildered by the sheer number of lights on the ground. They stretched as far as my eyes could see. As we neared the ground, I got a sense of our tremendous speed as the runway lights blurred by us. I felt a thump as we touched down and then the roar of the engines as they went into reverse thrust. My little body was pushed forward into my seatbelt as the giant silver bird decelerated, and when the roaring of the engines finally stopped, we turned off the runway and started taxiing to our gate. All the passengers in the cabin erupted in applause, grateful for a safe journey, and I joined in the clapping. There was a sea of lights outside, colorfully arrayed in different patterns and rows, stretching all around the airport. I heard the voice of the lead flight attendant as she made some announcement, which I figured must have meant, “Welcome to New York City”. As we taxied slowly towards the jet bridge, I could see the bright white lights of the terminal building as they poured into the cabin, almost blinding me. I stared out the window transfixed, thinking about all the astonishing things I had experienced in the previous three few hours. As we parked and I heard the last bell, telling it was safe to remove our seatbelts, I KNEW with absolute certainty what I wanted to be when I grew up... I wanted to be an airline pilot!

As we walked slowly up the aisle to exit the plane, I caught a glimpse of the cockpit for the first time and couldn’t believe how much stuff was in there! To my astonishment, there had also been two other people sitting up there all along (I later learned they were the copilot and flight engineer. The 727 had a three-person cockpit crew, as opposed to the now more common two-person crew). The captain had gotten up from his seat to say goodbye to all of us, alongside the lead flight attendant. He was wearing his full uniform, complete with hat, and a jacket adorned with four silver stripes on each sleeve near the wrists. I felt such admiration for this man who had been at the controls of this incredible machine and wanted to be just like him. I had never seen a cooler man in all my life. As I walked by him, I smiled broadly, and the captain flashed a bright smiled back at me. I had found my life’s calling.