Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

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The elms sway back and forth with the light westerly breeze coming in over the the hills to the bad side of the river. Barbed wire fences stretch on for a half mile in either direction of the crossing bridge. They frame the scrapyard, left vacant and unattended for twenty odd years. The yard is a strange monument to organization, the debris of landlocked shipwrecks rusting away in an ocean of weeds and wildflowers. The warehouse buildings stretch on in single file, sprawled out next to the railroad tracks which appear in the distance, widen, and then dissapear without ever changing course or level. Along the side close to the tracks the windows are large art-deco glass brick remanesant of Frank Loyd Wright. They are beaten down in places, cracked or looted, and through these holes the kudzu grows, up and over the roof grabbing hold of anything it can for support. Trees have sprouted through the loading docks and now shade the railroad tracks which run parellel to the river on the other side leading to the station roundabout.

Just beyond the roundabout is a field with an old runway for small planes, and just over the low hill by the river is the airfield where the DC-3's and Constelations used to land with their assortment of cargo from South America and the Carribean. The river itself has a dock with a filling station. Hidden by the trees which now line the banks, it used to harbor the smaller Havanah clippers. On sunny days after the clippers tipped their wings toward the far east the mechanics would fish from the dock and joke late into the evening, drinking beer from thick glass bottles, edged around the top with frost.

A few of the mechanics really wanted to fly and they held to their own around the airfield, talking to the Constellation pilots as they headed toward the tower and into their black Fords and ultimatly out the front gate and down the road leaving dust rising like cumulus clouds over the heads of the want-to-be pilots.

These were the men who were headed for Spain...

goodnight 12.30.97