The boy had flown too high, but Joe hadn’t. Here was the proof: the boy didn’t have a parachute. Joe did.
The boy was a hallucination born of fear.
Forty thousand feet.
40,000 feet above the New Mexico desert. 0718.
He thought it best not to mention the hallucination on the voice recorder.
The compression exerted by his suit eased up and disappeared. He returned to livable atmosphere. Thick air cushioned him and slowed his descent to a sane speed. His right hand was still ice-cold.
The thunderheads blew north. Joe wouldn’t be falling through any storms today. The cloud layer still waited for him. He could finally see them as something more than flattened sheets of cotton. They looked solid, unyielding beneath his feet. Unconsciously, he tensed in anticipation of impact.
He passed through them, then out of them.
At 18,000 feet, the trigger in his main chute snapped, and a canopy of red and white striped silk burst forth and flowered around him. As air caught the chute, it billowed and spread. Joe jerked against the harness, his descent arrested. The chute would lower him gently the rest of the way to the ground. All he had to do was enjoy the ride. His wings hadn’t melted, not this time.
“Thank you, God, thank you.”
He cracked open his faceplate to take a breath of cool, succulent air. The earth had become recognizable: hills, dry riverbeds, the expanse of the New Mexico desert beneath him. The horizon was flat again. He heard the beat of a helicopter racing to the point where he’d touch down, west of Tularosa.
The balloon had taken an hour and a half to carry him over a hundred thousand feet up. He’d taken thirteen and a half minutes to fall the same distance back to earth.
It wasn’t his best landing. He rolled, the parachute fell around him, and he chose to just lie there and let his crew
come find him. They did, tumbling out of the helicopter. A half a dozen of them clustered around him, shoving aside chute cords and silk and pawing at his helmet. He waved a hand to let them know he was alive. Feeling—intense pins and needles—started to come back to his right hand. Maybe he wouldn’t lose it after all.
Breathlessly, he told them how happy he was to see them.
He sat up as they pulled off his helmet. Looking down, his brow furrowed.
“Joe, what’s the matter?”
With his still-gloved hand, he awkwardly tugged at something caught in one of the lacings on his pressure suit. He held it up, bright in the sunlight: a white feather, sticky with what looked like melted wax.
As of 2004, when the story was written, Joseph Kittinger, Jr.’s record for the highest altitude parachute jump still stands.
As of 2011, when this collection was put together, it still stands.
Peace in Our Time
Two trumpets in harmony called “Taps” through a cemetery at the edge of a winter prairie. The congregation stayed rigid, forced to stillness by the song. Ken and I stood on the other side of the grave, apart from the others. The last sad note held, echoing with the wind, and faded. Ken shut off the digital player, and I presented the flag.
The words came rote. I didn’t hear myself saying them. They were a continuation of the recording.
“On behalf of the United States of America, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post Eternity presents this token of respect and appreciation for your husband’s service to his country.”
We had a recording of “Taps” because no one could play it on trumpet anymore. Matt Barber was the last one I knew who could do it, and he died five years ago. I gave the flag to his son at his funeral.
I had done this so many times, given tightly folded triangles of American flags to widows, sons, daughters, grandchildren. I never wanted to give away one. When I was twenty-one and coming home from China I thought I was done with death. But it started again, a dozen or so years ago. Now, I watched my friends fall to old age, and once again there was nothing I could do but stand at their funerals. I hated this duty then and I hated it now. But someone had to do it. Someone had to stand at attention by the caskets, play “Taps,” and carry the flag to the family.
There were only two of us left.
VFW Post Eternity was the last. It was a special outfit, unlike any of its predecessors. It wasn’t tied to one town or community, its members hadn’t necessarily served together. As people died, as memberships thinned, we combined our posts, clinging together for numbers until there was just this one. We traveled to funerals all over the country with our vests, our medals, the recording, and the flags. None of us would be buried without the last respect, the last military honor.
None of us, except the last.
I used to think they’d stop burying people before I came to this, but some traditions lingered, like the old farming town of Hope’s Fort with its single main street and faded buildings. No matter how big the cities got, there’d always be a few small towns with an old brick post office attached to the feed store, and there’d always be people who wanted to be put in the ground in the same crowded cemeteries their families had been buried in for decades.