Free Fog Bastards 2 Destination by Bill Robinson Page B

driver from the vehicle, a grey haired thin older woman wearing a simple white cotton dress.
     
     
I put her on the ground, a man claiming to be a doctor comes up next to her, and I hit the molecules and get out of the way. Back to Colton, back into Starbuck, back into traffic, back into Long Beach, and back into my apartment. Read until dawn, go running, check out my pictures on the front page of the Times, and roll for the airport.
     
     
No funny feelings this morning, just fighting a winter snow storm over the Rockies, a wet runaway at Denver International, a wet sock from sticking my foot in a puddle while doing my walk around in the melting snow, and a captain who I've never flown with before.
     
     
Home, I pick up Starbuck, no Jen, no Perez, no interest in going out, I spend my night at home surfing the web for things I might do.
     
     
Saturday is fun. It's my first day of advanced training from the LAPD, and basically we spend it shooting and playing whack a mole on each other with batons. I make no donut jokes, no one tries to get street creds by killing an airplane pilot, and the day ends with both me and our instructor, Lope, happy with the performance.
     
     
Saturday night I'm out at a club in Santa Monica, watching three of my fellow first officers pick up women, while I resist every temptation thrown my way. Sunday is both the best of times and the worst. Training is marvelous, I am a consistent eight and nine out of 10 by the end of the day, and pretty handy with my baton as well (no jokes about that please).
     
     
At my parents, Perez asks me if I've seen the paper. I say no, and she gives me the run down. Four women are in the hospital and two dead from crashing their vehicles into guard rails on the 405, apparently trying to get my attention. Ditto three dead males after a world record 36 high speed chases over the past two nights. The LAPD sent out a message through the media to ask everyone to stop.
     
     
Perez walks me to our cars about nine. She stops beside Starbuck, looks me in the eye for the millionth time tonight, and starts in on me.
     
     
"Do not, under any circumstances, blame yourself for the death of idiots."
     
     
"I..." She cuts me off.
     
     
"You are going to drive home and stay up all night repeating ‘I am not responsible for idiots' over and over again. Do you get me?"
     
     
"Yes, sir."
     
     
Instead I go home and actually go to sleep.
     
     
The fog is mild tonight, cool, not particularly damp, a few swirls, and a couple balls happily chasing each other across the sky. Fog Dude is there, dressed in his usual black robe with staff, but somehow it feels like he's wearing jeans, a t shirt, and cowboy boots.
     
     
"You can't take this so personally," he's apparently been talking to Perez behind my back. "Let it go."
     
     
That's the last he gets out before Halloween delivers her spit covered coup de grace. It's time to get up and run. Oatmeal. Shower. Off to LAX. Taylor and I have a nice 10 minute chat waiting for my new captain. His name is Don, he's been flying to New York, and now is joining us on the Kona route in place of Matt.
     
     
No Perez in the terminal, she's got driving around duty this morning. We walk down to the aircraft, and I walk down to the tarmac. Don spends the entire transit from the street to the gate telling me exactly how he wants me to do the walk around. I nod, make agree noises, say "that's a good idea" a couple times. I have no idea what he said.
     
     
As I walk to the tail to check out the rudder, elevators, and skid pad, a commuter aircraft taxis by, pretending to be part of a major carrier, but really a little guy that pays nothing and uses the lesser skilled among us. It's a nice looking new small regional jet, and it's flashing evil with every spin of its tires. I call Perez on my special cel phone. She's over at air cargo, but before I finish checking out the number one engine, I hear the sirens converge somewhere in the 80