Max had been quiet but thoughtful as Betty Ann drove the ancient Lincoln the six miles to the airport.
“The Tonopah Army Airport was built in 1940 while war clouds gathered over Europe, and it was used to train P-39 and P-40 pilots during WWII,” Betty Ann said. “The Army gave it up in 1946 and it belonged to the county then. They tried for a number of years to convert it into a light industrial area, provide some jobs less dependent on silver prices than the mines, but without too much success. My husband bought this part of it from the county, about 15 years ago, as investment land. It’s the old military housing area. It never was too big, many of the people here were just housed in tents, and as you can see…there hasn’t been any maintenance on the homes in fifty years and the desert sun is kind of rough on the exterior. They are duplexes…this first one is where Anna lives. I offered to let her stay with me, but she wanted her own nest I think. The other half of it already has water, electric, and propane. It doesn’t look like much, and like Anna’s, it’ll take a lot of cleaning….but if you want it….well, the housing would only cost you the utilities and $50 a month.”
The duplex looked to be identical to a dozen others in the row, mirror images to the ones across the street. The whole area had clearly sat empty since the 40s. But while the desert wind and sun had done a number on the exterior, the interior didn’t look bad….if you overlooked fifty years of dust bunnies and the occasional scorpion. The south side of the duplex was probably less than 700 square feet but Max could imagine with a lot of cleaning and a little paint…or molecular manipulation.. it really wouldn’t be all that bad.
“Why are you doing this…?” Max asked.
The question kind of took Betty Ann by surprise. Why WAS she doing this? She knew of course, but did she really want to share that with Mark…if that was even really his name? She looked at him….assessing him…and remembering the way the two had looked at each other. Somehow she made the decision then….based upon how the two had looked at each other when they’d left the restaurant, that what those two had was the real thing.
“I suppose, Mark,..if that’s really your name, it’s because I was young too once, and even an old lady can remember what it was like. That and…well, I’ve never had any children of my own, so I guess I just like to mother other people’s children…like I do Gracie, my Pomeranian in the back seat there. My employees are kind of my family. I pretty well imagine that you and Beth lied about your ages when you got married….now it’s just the two of you. I figured you might need some help.”
“If we had done that…and I’m not saying we have…helping us would make you an accessory.”
Betty Ann laughed. “Hell son, I’m at that dangerous age. I got enough money to make bail and pay a lawyer to drag the case out long enough for me to die of old age….it’s hard to intimidate someone like that. Besides, I’m a hopeless romantic..and it wouldn’t have mattered to me even back when I was in my thirties. So I take it her parents didn’t approve?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well how long have you and her known each other?”
“Since the third grade.”
“So when did you fall in love with her?”
His large brown eyes twinkled and he shook his head slightly, chuckling to himself . “The third grade…..”
“Damn,” said Betty Ann, laughing. “…and I thought I was a hopeless romantic.
So I take it the plan is to hide out until you both are legal age…so the marriage can’t be annulled?”
“Yeah, something like that..”
“And that would be how long?”
Max looked at her, uncertain exactly what to say, exactly how much of a romantic she was…, “Oh, a little over six months.”
She smiled at him. He wasn’t a very good liar…obviously didn’t have much practice. “And how ‘little” would that amount be, son?” She saw him blush slightly, knowing she didn’t believe him. He assessed her for a few seconds and finally smiled. “About a year over six months, actually.”
“You know, that probably should bother me, Mark…but you and Beth…you are the most comfortable couple of your age I’ve ever seen. It’s almost like you’ve been together all your lives, you just kind of radiate concern and caring for one another. Funny, that doesn’t usually happen with people from bad homes.”
“There’s nothing wrong with our folks….not hers or mine. It just sort of happened. We stayed out too late once….we really did fall asleep….nothing serious happened…..and they were going to separate us…send her off to boarding school…..we just couldn’t let that happen. Then, once we’d run off…once it was just the two of us….well, eventually something would have happened. We both really do love one another. So rather than let that happen…well, it seemed more respectful to her..and to our folks…to go ahead and get married first.. Now we just have to stay married.”
“Do your parents know? They must be frightened to death.”
“We let them know we were alright. We haven’t told them we are married yet. I’m not sure it would make any difference to them…they still wouldn’t approve.”
“Well, maybe yes, maybe no, Mark. But I don’t know many fathers who would be upset to know that the guy their little girl ran off with actually cared enough about her to marry her. I mean, that’s a possibility he’s kind of had to deal with since she was born….the idea of her and some guy just kind of shacking up….well, until it happens, most don’t want to think about it….and even when it does, they aren’t any too pleased.”
“We were going to tell them once we were really settled in somewhere….somewhere we were pretty sure they wouldn’t be able to find us and try to get it annulled.”
“Well this may be the place,” she said. Tonopah has pretty much been ignored by the rest of the world since the forties…. But a year and a half…..what are you going to do about your educations? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being a waitress…or working the desk of a hotel…but you really should get your high school diplomas…and college wouldn’t be a bad idea either.”
“Betty Ann…we really do intend to go back….to put our lives back together, once they can’t separate us. Beth…..well, her name is Liz really, anyway she does love her parents, and I love mine…and my sister. We hope to go back home when we are both eighteen…try to get them to understand why we did this. This isn’t about rebellion or anything…it’s about being together for the rest of our lives.”
“A lot of people homeschool these days, particularly out here. Colleges have tests you can pass, to get credit for High School. And there are courses available at night through the alternative High School, and college courses through UNLV, if you can qualify to take them. What were your grades like, where you came from?”
“Well, Liz was probably going to be valedictorian of the class. I was in the top five or so I guess. Probably we should just take the courses…figure out how to get them in our own name later.”
“You know, Mark…”
“That would be Max, actually…”
“Well you know, Max,….parents have a way of getting over being upset with their kids. It could be that already they are wanting to talk things over with you…work things out. Maybe I could help you with that.”
“I don’t think so. They were upset that we fell asleep and stayed out overnight. Being married...that would really freak them out, I can't believe they'd permit it. It would have been different…even the first day or so after we ran off. If they’d have agreed to just let us keep seeing each other….we’d have been happy with that…willing to wait. It’s past that point now.”
She watched as the deep brown eyes looked at her, the emotion obvious in his voice. “I’m her husband now…I couldn’t ever be anything other than that…not even for eighteen months.”
“Well, I’m not going to push you, but the offer is there…if you want an intermediary, let me know. I’ve done a little negotiating in my time. And if your folks are as good as you two think….well, they’ll come around, eventually.”
“I hope so. We’ll settle for just having each other…that’s the most important thing, but it’d be good to have our families back too.”
“Well, some don’t have it that well. Maybe that’s something you can help me with, Max, you and Liz…or maybe we better leave it Mark and Beth, while you two are hiding out.”
“What’s that?”
"It’s Anna. Her grandmother, rest her soul, was my best friend in high school. Anna’s mother..well she was always sort of a wild child. Debbie tried to get her help, but by her teen years she was pretty uncontrollable. She’s never gotten off the booze and drugs. Anna’s father…if he was her father, left when she was two. She barely remembers him. Anna’s had a tough life, living in a small town like this, when everyone knows your mother…what kind of a train wreck she is. That was hard enough but a few years ago her mother had another in a long series of boyfriends living with her and this one really seemed to take an interest in Anna. Finally it seemed almost like she had a father, and I think she thought of him that way…as the father she never had. Until about a year ago.”
“What happened then?”
“I’m not sure, she really won’t say. I know her mother was drunk, the man was too. I’m pretty sure he assaulted her, probably raped her. She didn’t have great self-esteem before that, and none at all afterwards. She did what her mother had done…lost herself in drugs and alcohol. The last six months or so she has been trying to get dried out, went to work for me two weeks ago. She’s still really shaky, I was scared to death that yesterday was going to push her over the edge until I came back and saw that ‘Beth’ had helped her out.”
“Well what can we do? How can we help?”
“You’ve both already helped. ‘Beth’ by being like a big sister to her…even though I guess their age isn’t all that different. And you? You by doing what you are doing. You love your wife, treat her with respect,…and you seem to be best friends. Anna’s never really seen that. For her entire life her mother has gone from one abusive relationship to another, and when it finally did seem like she’d met a nice guy….well, he was apparently just playing a game…just waiting to get in the pants of her fifteen year old daughter.
She needs to know that men aren’t all animals. She needs to know that they can be good human beings…like you are.
If she doesn’t learn that….well, she’ll never be well. I think it’d help that if you lived out here too, you and your wife. It’s too remote, really, to leave her out here by herself. A couple her own age who have found something special with each other….well, it could give her hope, could give her an example of the way things are really supposed to be.”
Max looked at the little duplex, imagining it with a coat of paint….a real one, actually…at least for the outside. Sure, it still would look like half-century old military housing, but with Liz living in it with him….yea, it could be real beautiful.
“Betty Ann….I think Liz and I would like to try that….at least for awhile. And we’ll write our folks about are marriage, as soon as we can.”
Both occupants of the car were smiling as they left Airway Drive to turn back towards Highway 6. One was dreaming about the past, the other about the future…
0800 Det. 24 Commander’s Office, Area 51, Groom’s Lake Nevada
The Air Force Chief of Staff had told him that he hadn’t been impressed by the soon-to-be-retired Det. 24 commander. Slammer thought the Chief of Staff was awfully diplomatic, ….for a fighter pilot. Slammer WAS impressed by Colonel Jamieson, very impressed. Just not favorably impressed.
He’d looked up Jamieson’s record. As a young Army signal corps lieutenant he’d been part of the offensive biological warfare program at Dugway proving grounds. In 1972, when ratification of that part of the Geneva convention had precluded an offensive program, he had turned down the option to work on defensive programs and somehow wound up with a cross-service transfer to the Air Force. He’d apparently been working at Area 51 ever since.
Jamieson had openly bragged about having a job lined up with the prime contractor, and had as much as said that he expected to be back as a program manager, at multiples of his Air Force salary…plus bonuses. The man looked to be 70 or 80 pounds over his Air Force maximum weight, and wheezed when he went up a flight of stairs, although evidently not enough to stop him from chain-smoking. If he actually owned an Air Force uniform…well, it wasn’t in evidence. Slammer wasn’t actually sure they made them that big.
“A formal change of command ceremony?” Jamieson repeated doubtfully. “Well, I suppose…well yes, tomorrow morning before I leave for Las Vegas, we could do that…..it’s just that in almost thirty years…I’m not sure it’s ever been done. I do have a uniform, of course…I found it when I was doing my packing…but I’m not at all sure that all the military personnel have theirs. And you want the civil service people to attend as well? I honestly don’t know how many would show up…even among the military..but we could certainly announce it and see..”
‘Announce it and see,’ wasn’t quite the nature of the military that Slammer was used to, but Jamieson was going to be commander of this outfit for another 24 hours. Slammer was going to respect the position, if not the person. “Perhaps I can dictate a letter for your signature, Colonel Jamieson. Just to get the word out?”
“Why yes, that would be most kind of you,” said Jamieson, pulling some post-it notes and government pens out of his desk drawer and putting them in to the packing box beside the desk.
1000 Det 24. Area 51 Gymnasium Bulletin Board
- Reply to Det. 24/CC
To: All civilian and military personnel, Det.24
Subject: Change of Command Ceremony
1. A change of Command Ceremony will be held tomorrow morning at 0800. This is a mandatory formation for all military personnel except duty security and medical personnel. Civil Service personnel are invited and requested to attend.
2. Uniform of the day is Service Dress for all military personnel except Battle Dress or Service Uniform for security personnel.
3. There will be an informal social event in dining hall “b” following the change of Command. All personnel whose duties permit are invited to attend to meet the new Commander, Colonel Steve M. Randolph.
4. Civil Service personnel may respond (regrets only) to the Commander’s secretary at x12210.
William Jamieson, Colonel, BSC
“You got to be kidding me,” said LtCol. Fred Barker as he read the posted notice. “I’m might have a Service Dress uniform…but I think it’s still got Captain bars on it. I’m not sure it’s worth changing all the rank insignia to just show up for a social event. I’m thinking about just skipping this….or maybe just going in my lab coat. I don’t think I’ve worn a uniform in eleven years.”
Capt Jim Hawthorne Looked at his immediate supervisor. It wasn’t really his place to tell the guy his business. He’d spent 20 minutes that morning, shining his own shoes and pressing his own uniform, fearing they’d not even get the 23 hours notice they were given. As a squadron section commander, Hawthorne had given article 15s to people who had missed mandatory formations….although not very many of them. People in Slammer’s squadron seemed to learn real quick….or get court-martialed.
“Well sir,” he said, “..suit yourself. But I think we are about to see some real changes around here."
“You really think so, Jimmie-boy? When you have eleven years here, you’ll understand that nothing ever really changes. It may take the new guy a little time to understand just how things work around here, but in six weeks, it’ll be like nothing changed at all….you just wait. You’ll see. I’ll bet you five bucks.”
‘Jimmie-boy’ didn’t say anything more. To him, this situation had now become something like watching a train wreck in slow motion, and being unable to do anything about it. LTCOL Barker was the fourth individual he’d given advice to in the last 20 minutes.
Not a damn one had paid any attention to him whatsoever.