East of Denver Read Online Free

cathedral. Up in the I beams, sparrows made clicking noises. Dad looked up. “I’ve been meaning to shoot those things.”
    â€œRemember when you used to take me up?”
    â€œIn the plane?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI suppose.”
    â€œYou used to scare the crap out of me.”
    â€œYou’re easy to scare.”
    â€œThat time we were flying back from La Junta and we got hit by the thunderstorm. Remember that?”
    â€œI suppose.”
    I knew he didn’t remember so I narrated. “I don’t know what we were doing down in La Junta, but we were flying home and one of those afternoon thunderkickers popped up in the middle of a blue sky. Quick as a blink, rain was splattering all over the windscreen. The plane was bouncing up and down and left and right. You were flying by instruments only. You said not to worry. And then something went wrong. We stalled. I remember that stall alarm buzzing. We fell forever. If I hadn’t had my seat belt on, I would have floated right up to the roof of the plane.”
    Dad said, “Floater.”
    â€œSomehow, you righted the ship. You tugged the wheel and twisted that airplane until it was pointing the right direction. We shouted like banshees when we busted out of that rain and into the clear sky.”
    â€œClearly.”
    â€œYou told me, after we landed, that you hadn’t known which way was up. You said you’d never been so scared in your life. The next day, you went over the whole plane, looking for what went wrong. Finally, you found it: a twig stuck in the air-speed-indicator dealie. It was giving you bogus readings. We could of died.”
    â€œI think some of that may have happened.”
    He crawled into an imaginary cockpit. Held the steering wheel. Smiled into himself. Closed his eyes.
    â€œDad, did you really fly a loop-de-loop in that plane?”
    â€œA loop-de-what?”
    â€œDid you go upside down?”
    â€œLike this?” He spread his arms and skipped a circle.
    â€œYou said so once. I was just a little kid. You said you did a loop. Would have been twenty, thirty years ago.”
    â€œYou know better than me what I did.”
    ----
    Down nine stone steps into the basement of the house, all the way into the coal bin, a small square room lit with a bare lightbulb. Weak light, black walls, lots of shadows. We had upgraded to natural gas years ago. Instead of coal, the bin was filled with shelves stacked with ancient electronic equipment. A box of vacuum tubes. An oscilloscope. A twenty-pound voltmeter. Things that Dad understood, once. He caressed them all. Wiped dust. “I kept all this junk so I could show you how to use it. I don’t suppose anyone would want it now.”
    Elsewhere in the coal bin, a computer purchased for $2000 in 1982. Wires, a soldering iron, cables, a Heathkit amplifier. An electric motor I made for 4-H. The trophy I won for that motor. Let me clarify: Dad made the motor. I won the trophy.
    Farther in the basement, the cinder block walls were damp. I imagined it smelled like mold. I found a milk crate filled with quart jars. I pulled one out, held it under the light. I said, “Think these are still good?”
    â€œWhat are they?”
    â€œPickles. Mom made ’em.”
    He said, “When did she make pickles?”
    â€œShe made them before she died.”
    ----
    Upstairs, in the kitchen, in the light. We pried the lid off the jar. I reached for a pickle. It turned to mush.
    â€œLimp,” said Dad. “That’s one pickle that wishes it was still a cucumber.”
    ----
    I didn’t feel like cooking dinner so we went to the softball games. In the summer, they had games every Friday night in Keaton, the sister city of Dorsey. Nine-mile drive. The Lions Club played host, ran the concession stand, paid for the lights. We sat in the bleachers and watched the Keaton State Bank take on the Dorton High School seniors. Dorsey and Keaton