Roy White

Choice by extinction sounded ominous to Yanks like us — we all remembered the war. But that was just Herr Schreiff’s personal English. We were on the same side now, building the thing, the thing, the VTOL fighter. What’s today? There must be some big dates coming up, historic dates. He’d say,Cold hands frog heart, and it became a gag among the engineers: Soft hands wombat heart, Sweaty hands lawnmower heart. The docs in this place want to put in a pacemaker; I said no, I’m not in this for the long run. On his birthday Schreiff brought in three bottles of schnapps and we sat around half pickled trying to do the do the debug the navigation. What a fright? Patty —     Debbie —    Susan called, wanted to know could she bring me anything. I told her,My old brain. I used to be smart, you know? I’m assuming someone is in charge of the dates, the historic dates. Schreiff had worked for Heinkel during the war, on those last-ditch plywood jet fighters that kept disintegrating in midair and killing their precious test pilots. Ah Christ, look at this mess! Where’s the thing, the thing to call the nurse? Someone needs to deal with those important dates, it’s all so disorganized.