Free The Screaming Room by Thomas O'Callaghan

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    â€œPermission for me and my son to come aboard, sir?” The man was addressing the sailor who was guarding the gang-way to the museum’s main attraction: the Intrepid ’s flight deck.
    â€œPermission granted,” the sailor replied, firing a rigid salute to the little freckled-faced boy flaunting a white ensign’s cap inscribed USS IOWA .
    â€œLet’s go, Daddy!” the boy said.
    Scurrying up the steel-studded steps, they reached the carrier’s upper deck. It was immense. Gutted warplanes stood silent under a blistering sun. A semicircle of onlookers had formed around the exhibit’s newest acquisition: a Russian MiG-21.
    The boy’s attention was diverted to a loud commotion erupting behind an F-14 Tomcat. Filled with curiosity, he bolted behind the aircraft. A bare-chested youth, his wrists in handcuffs, was yelling at his girlfriend. Provoked, the girl lunged forward, striking her restrained Romeo on the side of his head with the heel of her shoe.
    â€œSee that? See that? Why ain’t ya handcuffing her?” the youth screamed. “Ain’t that assault with a deadly weapon?”
    â€œAny more out of you, young lady, and you’ll be riding in the wagon, too,” the military guard warned. He barked orders into his handheld radio. “Reilly, here! We got ourselves a situation on the flight deck. Get a transport ready.”
    â€œWhat exactly we lookin’ at?” the dispatcher’s voice crackled back.
    â€œA domestic quarrel…with injuries. I cuffed the agitator after he slapped his girlfriend in the face. While I had him immobilized, she hauls off and tattoos him on the side of the head with her shoe.”
    The guard positioned himself between the two combatants to block another blow from the irate girlfriend.
    â€œLook, Jack! Over there! That’s a Fighting Falcon! Let’s get a closer look,” the father urged, hoping to distract his son from the fracas.
    â€œD-a-a-a-d. This is getting g-o-o-d.”
    â€œWe came to see the planes, remember?”
    â€œBut, D-a-a-a-d.”
    The father steered his son to the steps that led to the exhibits featured below.
    â€œWhy was that lady hitting that man?” the boy asked, descending the steps ahead of his father.
    â€œI don’t know, son. The man must have done something bad.”
    â€œWas the policeman gonna take him to jail?”
    â€œSure looked that way to me.”
    As the boy and his father were nearing the bottom of the steps, a prerecorded voice sounded from a loudspeaker: “Ladies and gentlemen, the USS Intrepid was used by NASA as the primary recovery vessel for the Mercury and Gemini space programs. Just imagine yourself returning to Earth and the first people you see are the sailors aboard this floating airport…”
    Reaching the hangar deck, the man led his son to the exhibit marked “Aircrafts of the Pacific.” He pointed at the Grumman F6F Hellcat, which was painted in the navy’s tri-color camouflage: sea blue, intermediate blue, and insignia white. He then read aloud from the aircraft’s polished plaque: “The Hellcat’s most successful day in combat came on June 19, 1944, during operations in the Mariana Islands. During this air battle, which became known as ‘The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot,’ the Japanese lost over three hundred seventy-five planes. Eighty were lost by the United States…. Wow! Pretty impressive, eh, Jack?”
    â€œSure is,” the wide-eyed youth said, stroking the underside of the plane’s sleek fuselage. “Look! Over there! What’s that one?”
    A larger aircraft had caught the boy’s attention.
    â€œLet’s go have a look,” said his dad.
    They headed toward the next exhibit. The father depressed its red button, activating its tape.
    A prerecorded voice began its narration: “The three-seat TBM 3-E Avenger, with a wingspan of over fifty-four