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by Lucas Shepherd
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With the final F-16 tucked
into its hangar, Valitski and I
cleared the flightline of AGE
for the weekend. The moon waned
gibbous; I would not hesitate
to call the type of light upon
our bobtail truck a soft lunar
glow. It was midnight but Valitski
was determined to make last
call at the Enlisted Club. QA had long
gone home; furthermore, the control
tower stood empty, no eye
-in-the-sky making sure we use ECPs
or radio permission before crossing
runways. Visibility is a trap, I said,
explaining Foucault’s theory of fear-based
motivation, but Valitski had a few
words of his own to say about the matter.
He was younger but outranked
me—I enlisted in my 20s. I snapped
lunette eyes into pintle hooks like the A1C
I had become. We hauled floodlights
by the half dozen; they wobbled behind
our bobtail like a child’s toy, a string
of pull-along duckies. We raced bomb
lifts from corrosion to the ready
line. Our bomb lifts were neutered
of course, no ordnance in
their cradles; even so, I felt
the danger lance my side.
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