Free Playing Tyler by T L Costa Page A

11
    FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5
    TYLER
    Rick’s waiting at the field. The airstrip. Borrowed Mom’s car to get out here, she’s working from home today. Should probably text her and let her know I have the car. Does she even know that I finally got my license? I filled out the form to add myself to her insurance, but she probably didn’t notice. She just signs stuff when I put it in front of her. I set up all the bills for the house so they come out of her account automatically. Learned to do that when they cut off our electric. It’s not that she doesn’t have the money, it’s just that she forgets to pay. I shoot her a quick text and walk over to where Rick’s waiting.
    Normally I would feel a little bad coming out here since I’ve been blowing off all the Civil Air Patrol meetings. But it’s sunny and warm and the trees add bright shocks of red and yellows and oranges to the green of the field and well, I have a hard time feeling guilty on such a nice day, I guess. Rick saunters up to me with that smile. I like that smile. Lately he’s been looking like he’d only be happy if leaping from a helicopter fully armed, but today he looks tired, old. But nice.
    â€œGlad you could make it.” He puts his hand on my shoulder, firmly, intently, then turns his eyes up to the cloudless sky. “Wanna go up?”
    â€œHell yeah,” I say without thinking. Rick has a plane. A small propeller plane that he probably bought way back in the Nineties, but it still flies like a dream. We used to go up a lot, when I first started going to the Civil Air Patrol meetings. Usually, mentors are randomly paired, but Rick came to a bunch of meetings, watched us at the controls, studied our files. Creeped me out at first, this guy in uniform who was sort of part of the meetings and sort of not. Then like two years ago he told me that he was going to be my mentor. Most of the other kids already had them, usually a bunch of middle-aged guys who flew a lot of model planes or who liked to play soldier. Rick couldn’t be more different than those guys. He totally sold me on the whole mentoring thing the second he handed me the controls of his plane. It was like he could see right inside of me and just knew. We stopped hanging out with the group, have been doing our own thing ever since.
    He’s a hero, Rick. A real American hero, not some rock star or some politician or shit, someone who actually put his life on the line and just keeps on doing it. He was in the Air Force, has these great stories. And even though he pretty much is Haranco, he never makes me feel like he’d rather be doing something else when we hang out. The first time B went missing and Mom freaked out, Rick was the one who was there. He drove me to hundreds of different shelters all over the state, called police stations and hospitals, held me up when I wanted to turn off the way Mom did. The mornings I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to get out of bed. Some days I felt like the world was just too loud and I would shut myself away, cover my head and scream to try and make everything stop hurting. Rick was there, always, pulling me up. Getting me out of the house, taking me for epic trail runs or even just out for a coffee. Mostly we talked. I talked. When I could.
    He smiles, small wrinkles spreading out on his tanned face as we walk over to the prop. The day smells like burning leaves and hamburgers from the airport grill, and sounds from small engines flying somewhere overhead all blend together to make music in my head. Love it here. Now that B’s back, though, getting better, maybe I can start getting out here more, getting my life back together again.
    The leather bucket seats feel so good, so sleek as we slip into them and put on the headsets, the real headsets, not the fake ones like in a game. It’s so different. In the game the fields look sort of gray, life through a lens. Here, with the windows of