Аэропорт / Аirport
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“How many calls have there been?”
“Fifty at least, we’ve answered; and there’ve been others we haven’t.”
“I suppose you’ve told the people who’ve called that we’ve a special situation—the storm, a runway out of use.”
“We explain. But nobody’s interested. Some of ‘em say that problems or not, pilots are still supposed to use noise abatement procedures.”
“If I were a pilot, neither would I.”
“I guess it depends on your point of view. If I lived in Meadowood, maybe I’d feel the way they do.”
“You wouldn’t live in Meadowood. You’d have listened to the warnings we gave people, years ago, not to build houses there.”
“I guess so. By the way, one of my people told me there’s another community meeting over there tonight.”
“Whatever they are planning,” Mel predicted, “we’ll hear about it soon.” Changing the subject, Mel inquired, “Is my brother on duty tonight?”
“Affirmative. Keith’s on radar watch—west arrival.”
West arrival, Mel knew, was one of the tough, tense positions in the tower. It involved supervising all incoming flights in the west quadrant. “Is Keith all right?”
There was a slight pause before the answer. “Yes, he is. I wish I could let him take things easier. But we’re short-staffed and everybody is under the gun.” He added, “Including me.”
“I know you are, and I appreciate your watching out for Keith the way you have.”
“Well, in this job most of us have combat fatigue at one time or another. When it happens we try to help each other.”
“Thanks.” The conversation had not eased Mel’s anxiety. “I may drop in later.”
“Right, sir.” The tower chief hung up.
The “sir” was strictly a courtesy. Mel had no authority over ATC. But relationships between controllers and airport management were good, and Mel saw to it they stayed that way.
Any airport was an odd complexity of overlapping authority. No single individual had supreme command, yet no segment was entirely independent. As airport general manager, Mel was closest to an over-all authority, but there were areas where he knew better than to intrude. Air Traffic Control was one, airline internal management another.
Mel remembered about the note delivered to him fifteen minutes before.
M —
Thought shd warn u—airlines snow committee (on demerest’s urging …why does your bro-in-law dislike you?) preparing critical report becos run-ways & taxiways snow clearance inefficient… report blames airport (meaning u) for flight delays… also claims 707 wouldn’t have stuck if taxiway plowed sooner, better … and where are you?… buy me coffee soon.
The “t” was for Tanya—Tanya Livingston, passenger relations agent for Trans America, and a special friend of Mel’s. Mel read the note again, as he usually did messages from Tanya, which became clearer the second time around.
The Demerest in the note was Captain Vernon Demerest, also of Trans America. As well as being one of the airline’s more senior captains, Demerest was a campaigner for the Air Line Pilots Association, and, this season, a member of the Airlines Snow Committee at Lincoln International.
Vernon Demerest also happened to be Mel’s brother-in-law, married to Mel’s older sister, Sarah. However, there was little cordiality between Mel and his brother-in-law, whom Mel considered conceited and pompous. Others, he knew, had the same opinion.
Mel was not greatly worried about the report. Whatever shortcomings the airport might have in other ways, he knew they were coping with the storm as well as any organization could.
Mel decided he would make an inspection of the present snow clearance situation at the same time that he was out on the airfield checking on the blocked runway and the mired A'ereo-Mexican jet.
He had remembered what Tanya said in her note about having coffee together. He would stop at his own office first, then he would drop by Trans America to see her. The thought excited him.
2
Mel entered his own interior office. The only reason he had stayed through most of these three-day storm was to be available for emergencies. Otherwise, he mused, as he put on a heavy topcoat and fur-lined boots, by now he would have been home with Cindy and the children.
Or would he?
No matter how objective you tried to be, it was hard to be sure of your own real motives. Not going home seemed lately to have become the pattern of his life. His job was a cause, of course. But—if he was honest with himself—the airport also offered an escape from the quarrels between himself and Cindy which seemed to occur nowadays whenever they spent time together.
“Oh, hell!”
A glance at a typed reminder from his secretary confirmed what he had just recalled. Tonight there was another of his wife’s tedious charity affairs. A week ago, reluctantly, Mel had promised to attend.
Fortunately, the starting time was late—almost two hours from now. So he could still make it, even after inspecting the airfield. Mel would be downtown only a little late. He had better warn Cindy, though. Mel dialed his home number. Roberta, his elder daughter, answered.
“Hi,” Mel said. “This is your old man.”
Roberta’s voice came coolly. “I know.”
“How was school today?”
“Could you be specific, Father? There were several classes.”
Mel sighed. Did all fathers, he wondered, abruptly lose communication with their daughters at age thirteen? Less than a year ago, the two of them had seemed as close as father and daughter could be. Mel loved both his daughters deeply—Roberta, and her younger sister, Libby. There were times when he realized they were the only reasons his marriage had survived.