Saturday, September 30, 2006

A terrible day...

...perhaps not.
As most anybody who reads this will already know, a stupendously awesome thing happened yesterday. I was given a shirt. "What the-" you begin to interject, but I interrupt you with, "Not just any shirt mind you! But a black polo shirt with the SoF logo emblazoned on the left breast." I'm delighted, I'm astounded, I really don't have words to describe this. Once again I came to the Fools feeling dejected and depressed and left incredibly happy. How do they do that? Thanks guys. Thanks a lot!
Moving beyond metaphysical queries, I've got another little bit of writing for ya'll. This is a glimpse into Jared's deeply shrouded and incredibly mysterious past...

~ The young pilot stepped forward resolutely, if not arrogantly.
"Sir you sent for me, sir?"
His eyes stayed obediently on the far wall as he addressed his SO.
"Yeah Slammer, I sent for ya'. Any guesses as to why?"
"Sir I have no clue. Probably something to do with my flying, sir."
Admiral Levy feigned shock. "Your flying? Why in heaven's name would I have a problem with your flying?"
Jared knew the drill by now. Levy liked a confession, preferably with a repentant attitude. Jared had not yet perfected his repentant attitude. He knew that after 10 or 15 minutes of listening to Levy go off about everything but the weather, and sometimes that as well, he would be assigned "discipline", usually taking the form of mess duty, solitary, or grounding. Sometimes all three.
The fellers in mess really enjoyed Jared's company, and Jared usually enjoyed his own company, so the first two weren't that bad. The grounding was really the only one that bothered him and he didn't have to worry about it to often. Levy liked keeping him in the air. Despite his "attitude problem" Jared was a good pilot. Levy most often went for the solitary, and it was this habit that had earned Jared his call name.
It was a well documented fact that "Slammer" had logged nearly a thousand air hours and at least that many in solitary. The general opinion aboard the USS Nimitz was that Jared spent all his time in solitary coming up with new ways to bend the rules and thus irritate Levy.
Admiral Levy finally fell silent and looked Jared over. The boy was barely out of his teens, couldn't even buy himself a beer, and yet he was one of the best pilots that Levy and the Nimitz had ever seen. If only he could keep his mind on just flying the plane by the rules!
"You're in solitary Slammer. 3 days."
"Sir yes, sir."
The boy was still to stinking arrogant.
"You'll only come out for the scheduled training runs the day after tomorrow."
"Sir yes, sir." Jared repeated with a perfectly unreadable face. Levy finally gave up.
"That'll be all."
As Jared escorted himself to solitary he whistled and grinned at everyone he passed. He'd been a little worried that Levy would go for grounding him this time, but as it turned out he wouldn't even miss the training run. He really did have excellent luck.
~

2 comments:

Ryan said...

I *really* like the line "had logged nearly a thousand air hours and at least that many in solitary"

Renee L. said...

Why thank you. Jared does love his F-14's. A quality that I just love about him. Nothin' like writing about a former Navy jet pilot CIA agent!