Forget Not Gray Eagles

[Warbird Kid]

A man walks into a room of sorrow and sour expression. He is soaking wet. The quiet fizzle of an old TV and his dripping outfit on a tired wooden floor are the only sounds that permeate from the room’s walls. The place is small and dark; an office light pours in from behind an open door, and there is a small window on the opposite side.

A second man, older than the first, sits inside behind a desk, and stares ahead with no intention of movement.

The old man speaks: “did you know I used to be in charge?” This sudden spoken statement startles the younger man who he has now turned to face. “I had…I had to be in charge of more than a few good airmen, and well, in those days everything was different.”

The old man focuses his eyes on a glass jar of peaches atop his desk. His withered hands move out to open it, when his wise voice cracks again. “Forty bombers at once, ten men in each, and I was in lead formation.”

The younger man stands there, continually dampening the wood underneath him—not moving an inch, just listening. “Forty planes. You know that’s four-hundred men? And all as scared as me,” the old man explains. “The fighters were few and picky, but the flak was worse. Way worse. Because it was random, it was brutal, and it—

His voice ceases as if silenced; then a small whimper escapes from the old airman who has witnessed things no one should. A moment of shed tears pass while the younger man moves forward a few steps in awkward confusion and sadness for what he has heard. He wants to know and understand something he can never experience: those times, that war.

The old man regains control of his memories and starts to reconcile again. “And we got back that time only on three engines, but ya know, that was probably the worst mission I had. That wasn’t the last time I lost a buddy up there.” He looks down at his peaches again and this time picks one out of the jar, quietly eating one after another and becoming lost with his thoughts.

“It must have been so different from what you expected,” the younger man finally responds. He approaches the ancient man and sits down in a chair next to him, then, trying to divert the old man’s thoughts away from the hardships endured and instead to good times cherished, he asks: “what was your plane’s name?”

The old man finishes his slice and a smile grows on his wrinkled, mustached face. “Delightful Deloria!” he proudly remarks, “and I even scammed my buddy Lou, the artist, to put the girl on for free!” The two men laugh with each other, and to themselves, discovering that bit of time and space that connects two different generations.

It was time that caught up to this Lieutenant of a remembered war, and it was the youth of another generation that sparked him to life. An important story of equivalent exchange—an exchange of liberty for life—but that’s just how any old gray eagle is. Humble and wise.




(This is a short story I wrote for a college literary journal along with the painting)