Panama Red

Panama Red's Catering truck








You would think it was a stunt of some kind for the amusement of an airshow audience. An announcer blairing overhead bringing your attention to the incoming seaplane with "Lou the Air Rodeo Clown" at the controls. "There he comes now kids... Oooo he hits hard and it's one bounce, two... three. It looks like he is going to take off and come around again. NO... he is down for a forth time and he has managed to touch the ground with both wing floats, that's known as an Air Rodeo Wave kids. Amazing isn't he?"

No, not amazing.

A few things cross my mind, like sheetmetal repairs to both floats, blown cylinder seals, blown tires, blown mind on my friend Lou. As he taxis up toward me Naomi seems to be moving okay, not crabbing which would indicate a gear or wheel problem. From my perspective I can't see much as he approaches.
"Sorry about that." Lou says over the radio, "I came in faster than I wanted to... kind of scary."
"No shit. You scraped both wing floats. I didn't know you could fly like that."

Nothing.

"Alrighty then... follow me."

I have only been on this airfield once before, and that was more than a year ago. At that time there was a man they called Red that had been working on an old N3N biplane in one of the hangers. Jerry negotiated with him for some of the fuel he had on hand in an old fuel truck. As I taxi toward the hanger, I see no fuel truck, no Bi-plane, and no Red.

I pull up to the open hanger and spin around so I am lined up for the taxi way. Lou does the same dance up ahead of me and we both shut down. Long flight. I am hungry and want, off all things, a clean shitter to do my business in.

"Well, I didn't have to worry about a fire if I would have crashed her."
"Out of fuel?"
"I was out of fuel about ten minutes ago. The only gas I had left was from Polar Negro and salsa."
"Well... " We step into the old hanger and there is no sign of Red, or anyone else. I looks like it has been abandon for some time. Through the hanger and out back our hopes are dashed. No fuel truck out here either.
"Now what?"
I turn and walk back into the hanger and over to an old wooden desk . A film of dust and cobwebs covers the top. I pull a handful of paper from the dust and look through it.
"See if we can find a phone number or something for Red. He is a friend. He can help us."
Lou picks up the WWII era telephone on the corner of the desk, "Lines dead."
"We have Bear's satellite phone, remember?"

The desktop gives up no secrets. Lou starts going through the drawers. I go over to an old cork bulletin board hanging at an angle on the front of an open door. I give a look inside. A greasy, foul smelling camode sits in the dark, the window above it closed and painted black. I close the door on that nightmare and look at the half a dozen cards pinned under a torn page from a phone book, and a few receipts under a thumbtack. I take the receipts and leaf through them.

"Nothing in the desk, Jake." Lou walks over to the bulletin board and plucks the phone book page from under the tack. He looks beyond that to the cards. "These are all the same. What's an IA?"
"Could be a lot of things. But here I would think it stands for Inspection Authority."
"Manny "Red" Arroyo, IA,A&P,Flying Lessons... this is the guy I bet." Lou hands me a card.
"I doubt there was more than one Red working out of this place."

The satellite phone is a trip. Like a super cellphone with unlimited range. I punch in the number but it refuses to dial. "Shit, I need the country code." I start to dig through the little case it comes in."
"Five zero Seven." Lou tells me.
"How did you know that?"
"You think your the only one that has been to, or called to Panama?"

I punch in the country code and number. After a few moments it starts to ring. I hand the phone to Lou.
"What?"
"Talk to whoever answers. We want Red. When he gets on the line, tell him your a friend of Jerry's... the Jerry that has Abigail."

Lou goes through at least three people before he says Reds name. Then it is all Spanish. It is short and sweet. Lou cancels the call and then hands the phone back to me.
"What? Is he coming?"
"Well, he's retired."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know. Something about trading his plane for a Catering truck."
"So now what?"
"I'm not sure. It sounded like he was coming down here."

We wait by the offices for a short time. There are four other hangers in the general vicinity, all of them as trashed and empty as this one. While we are looking through the last of them, we hear the airhorns.

"That's a catering truck all right." Lou heads for the hanger door and I follow.
A panel van with "Red's" and what I assume are enticing menu items are painted on the sides of the vehicle. Like something you would see on a San Diego side street. It pulls to a stop in front of the planes.

"Ola! You call me? Hello... Jerry?" The driver steps out of the panel van.
"Hey, Panama Red!" I give him a wave and he looks at me with a squint as Lou and I walk up.
It looks as though he doesn't remember me.
"It's me, Jake... I was here with Jerry when he bought the fuel from you? We stayed at your house." It turn to Lou, "His wife is one hell of a good cook."

Red smiles and shows the gap in his side grill, "I remember you. You play the piano at my house. You not so good."
I nod. He remembers.
"How's your wife... "
"Dia, she is fine." He turns to the van, "DIA... Recuerda usted Jake? ¿El amigo de Jerry del año pasado?"
She steps out of the van as well and smiles and nods.
"Hey Red, we need to get some fuel. Can you help us?"

We decide that Lou will stay with the aircraft and I will ride with Red and his wife to wherever it is he is taking me. He speaks enough english for us to communicate. He knows we need fuel and lots of it. We drive back up the runway and out another gate that is hanging off it's hinges. After a five minute ride, we turn on to a fairly busy street.

"The truck I use when I have my plane is still for sale."
"Hey, Red, I don't want to buy a truck... just want to fuel up."
"This I understand. I will tell this man that sells the truck that you want to test this truck before you use it. You see? Then we go to fuel farm and buy AVGas."

We pull on to a lot with every sort of commercial vehicle, all very well used. There are cranes, paving machines, graders, dozers, and in the back the old fuel truck. Red points a calloused finger, "There she is... very old truck, very dangerous."
"Why is it dangerous?"
"La conducción es floja." Red looks at me, "The steering is loose."

Before I get both feet on the ground the salesman is on the hunt, approaching us through the maze of equipment. "Senior... Senior!"
He yells at us from a hundred yards away. Red lets him get up to us before he tells him what we want. I see the salesman shake his head and then Red looks at me and turns for the catering truck. I turn and follow.
"Espera... Permitiré que él maneje el camión."
Red stops and we both turn around. "He says you can drive the truck."
"Drive it or use it? We'll be gone for a while. I don't need him reporting it stolen."
"Do not worry, my friend, I am the one that brought him the truck. It has no papers... he cannot report it stolen for it is stolen already."

That makes sense.

Red tells me that he tells the guy that we need to see if the pump still works, that we are going to get a little fuel and should be back in an hour. He also told him that if I liked it I would pay him five hundred dollars American. I have five grand with me for fuel and whatever else we run into. But I have a feeling if I pay for the truck and leave it at the airstrip for future use, it won't be there when we return someday. Not like our strip in Barra de la Cruz.
Red tells Dia to take the catering truck back to the plane and wait for us there. I ask Red to tell her that if she makes dinner for us we will make it worth her while. She nods and is off to the airstrip.

I get in the passenger seat and Red climbs in and fires it up. The way he handles it you would have thought it was his daily driver. It has a split rear end with an airshift on the stick. He does his magic and we are headed down the road passed the airfield. He is constantly steering, cranking the wheel about one revolution in one direction and then back the other way... just to keep it heading straight down the road.
"Jesus, this thing gonna make it?"
"Just the steering. Besides we are only going to the aeropuerto local just down the road."

Fifteen minutes later we are watching a boy pump AVgas into the truck from a huge tank. Abby still has fuel on board, probably need a thousand gallons to top her off her main tank and the aux wing tanks. Naomi is bone dry, probably needs four to five hundred gallons with her aux tanks. I get fifteen hundred gallons just to make sure we have enough. Red assures me he has use for the remaining fuel if we don't use it all. It takes thirty minutes to transfer the fuel and then we settle accounts. I make a friend with the guy behind the counterand slip him a Benjamin just so he remembers me next time I am in the area.

When we finally arrive back at the airfield, I am ready to get the hell out of this death trap of a fuel truck. It was bad enough driving with it empty and worrying about it careening off the road. Load it with ten thousand pounds of fuel and it is a like strapping a keg of nitro on a blindfolded bull and riding it down the road. Even Red said a little prayer of thanks when he parked it behind Abby's wing.

Lou is in a lawn chair drinking tequila and eating fajitas off of a paper plate. Dia is in the catering van turning the air sweet with smell of onions and peppers and grilling beef. She is singing with music that is turned down to low to hear, but she sounds great.
"Oh hell no. You comfortable, Lou?"
"Yeah... comfortable." He talks through a mouthful of food and then washes it down with a beer that he pulls out from beneath the plate in his lap.
"Beer?"
"Dia has a whole cooler full of it."
"Jake, viene y obtiene su cena." Dia calls from the truck.
Lou chugs his beer and crushes the can, "Yours is ready."

Dia can cook. I would weigh five hundred pounds if I were to marry a woman like her. It is good that I live with Jerry and we just visit food like this. I eat and drink beer until I am so full that I won't need to eat for the rest of the week. Then I have one more just for good measure.
Me and Lou decide the fueling operation will wait until morning. Panama Red and Dia leave us temporarily, but return fifteen minutes later with wood for a fire, a guitar, and one of those ice cream churns that you have to hand crank.
"You, Jake... you crank the handle." He sets the churn down in front of me and I start a slow turn on the handle. After a fire is made, Red puts the guitar in his lap and tunes it for a moment or two, then strums it and starts singing in Spanish. Lou sparks ups a Walker and we pass it around. It is a beautiful night.

Between songs I can hear a cellphone ringing. It isn't mine. That was left at Tapias with our M16 and Lou's rifle. The music starts again and both Dia and Red sing a little harmony. I know I am stoned but it is very nice. I get the feeling that they sing together often, something totally lost on Americans. When they finish, I hear it again. This time Lou looks at me, passes what's left of the Walker to Dia, and gets up out of his chair. He walks to over to Naomi and reaches in the pilot's window. It is the satellite phone.

Lou answers it and carrys on a lengthy discussion, a debate of sorts that lasts for a few minutes. I start to realize that whomever is calling, it isn't just a wrong number. I get Lou's attention and run my finger across my throat in the "cut" sign. He just looks back at me as he converses in the local tongue.
"Hang up the fucking phone, Lou."
He stops talking and looks at me, shrugging his shoulders.
"Do it."
The call is terminated and he looks at the read out. "Doesn't show any number."
"What did they say?"
"They wanted to talk to someone named Markham. I tried to tell them there wasn't anyone by that name, but they took some convincing."
"Is that the name on Naomi's papers?"
"No... "
"Turn that thing off. They can pinpoint your signal with these phones. We don't need any trouble, especially when it isn't of our own making."

We drink and smoke and sing, and eventually eat this vanilla icecream I have been cranking since god knows when. It is delicious. We part ways with Red and Dia, they have to head home to their family. Lou gives them five hundred bucks for their troubles and they are very gracious. I think we left him a quite a bit of fuel in the truck to use... or sell.

It is not as hot here. There is a constant breeze that moves through Abby as we get settled in the hammocks. I can't shake that phone call. The chances of you dialing a satellite phone number by accident is a million to one. They aren't the same as cell phones or land lines. Someone deliberately kept Lou on the line to triangulate the call. I remember the men in Caracas, the men that seemed like they were watching us. I slip out of the hammock and reach into Jerry's bag and bring out the pistol and check the load. Once I am in the hammock, I tuck it in my belt and try to sleep.