The Steppes of Rehab

The Steppes of Rehab

Copyrighted

IL-76 cargo jet.  Taken in Iraq, circa 2004

It was the noises. You couldn’t escape them. Trust me, I tried. 

 

It was incessant, but still I was trying to embrace my “opportunity,” which is what he called it, that smug son of a bitch. After ruining me. “When in Rome” wasn’t cutting it at the bazaar, with the shamans swaying in loose tambourine pants and the chickens choking out their swan song. Work wasn’t much better, but at least I still retained a little control. God, there was no relief. 

 

I used to get pretty bent out of shape if I wasn’t in control. I had many people tell me this, some as an accusation (angry dish towel whipping up a special rage, peppered with hot angry tears), some with a tinge of pride and envy. Pilots are taught to be in control—it’s the whole point, right? Pictures of out-of-control, careening aircraft don’t sell too many tickets. 

 

I have to admit; they were pretty nice to me from the start. I didn’t know anything about Central Asia, mare’s milk or Turkmen Air, only that they were short on experience, and willing to overlook my record. The record was otherwise clear: never going to operate in the United States again. Never mind how I got there of course, nobody cares about that. 

 

Before I left I got the standard “call if you need” and “it’s just such a damn shame” from all my friends. It’s hard to call someone from beneath a pile of beer cans and stubble. My cycle was still 24 hours, but a large chunk of the pie chart consisted of infomercials, or anything capable of blurring reality. At least I hoped they would. I used to hunt out the most egregious, stupefying shows I could. Anything to ease the pain. 

 

Pain is like a teenager’s friend. Doesn’t really care about you, really, which is nice, because that means it’s not personal. The pain is tough but is better than being alone. That is the ultimate. And so, the infomercials were voted into power, where they proceeded to burn down the Reichstag. Actually, the flames may have been started with 80-proof whiskey. Something like that. 

 

Lisa didn't understand it, couldn’t understand any of it really: Ryan, now me. My parents kind of did, having lost a child themselves—my older brother— when I was an infant. Nobody can truly understand it though. It’s the black hole of understanding. It’s where understanding goes to die. Understanding is completely unnecessary anyway. You don’t need to understand to suffer. 

 

I thought about mentioning that at the Flying Review Board, my records strewn about the table like fish guts on the shore. Three pairs of grizzled eyes held me in their gaze; eyes that knew only control, despised weakness. They held my career delicately with wrinkled old man fingers, debating which hole to fling it down. Reinstatement or condemnation. Those were the choices. 

 

Those men also did not understand. How could they understand what it’s like lowering your lifeblood, your treasure— the same smile you see in yourself and raised for 7 years into 6 feet of cold dark earth? The Chief Pilot was especially profound, offering sage advice regarding a treatment plan; get me “back on my feet.” I thought of him getting back to his feet after I'd struck him down, a tiny bit of joy in my murky world. Or offering him a glimpse of my wallet photos and giving him some treatment himself. Run the grievance checklist for him right there. 

 

Little League- big bat, small hands. Check.

School photo- missing front tooth. Check.

First goldfish- clear plastic bag. Check.

But instead I stood there and listened to everything I already knew, while he and the others perched on a peak and hurled lightning to my village accompanied to gentle saline rain. Nothing in the village left to burn; I’d taken care of that already... In the end, he did as he’d said. He made the call, and a month later I caught the red-eye to Ashgabat. 

 

The Turkmens offered a decent compensation package, plus living accommodations. A concrete mid-rise seemed just what I needed. Treat my misery in the Soviet style. $40,000 a year doesn’t seem like much, until you figure that the average income’s $800. Whatever. 

 

Oh but the noise… During the flight in from London it began. Piercing tribal-esque music, complete with panging bells and unpleasant cries. The Turkmen equivalent of elevator music. They must have gotten a damn good deal on the music, because they piped it in everywhere. Bathrooms, restaurants, they even had it outside on the plaza of the rotating gold man. I was a little in awe when I first saw it. A two hundred foot golden statue has that effect, especially when rotating so that the face is always peering into the sun. 

 

I was already checked out in the 757, so there wasn’t much training. Did a couple of taxis around the airport, signed the paperwork in the cigarette-bathed office of the soviet-blue admin room. Got my lapel pin and name tag. I was quite the celebrity, giggles and red faces everywhere I went. All I wanted was some quiet. 

 

The flight schedule was incredibly simple, mostly because there were no other fields. Based out of Ashgabat, which is what the locals call capitol. Tallest points being the presidential figurine spinning like a coin on its side. They gave me left seat, said I had the flight hours—which was true. I think they just wanted the publicity of an English-speaking Captain. Three times a week we’d fly Ashgabat to Baku to Tashkent and then back. 10 hours, no big deal. The only problem was the maintenance, which rivaled the standards of a third-world country. Oh wait. 

Frankfurt am Main (near Sachsenhausen), Germany

 

Twice a month I got to do a “random” piss test for them, for my “record.” I knew when they were. 

 

Once a week I’d get the milk run: Ashgabat to Frankfurt, Germany. Had to really cram the fuel on-board, but the route was easy. I’d flown into Frankfurt hundreds of times, and now that I think about it, that’s probably why they gave me the Captain’s chair so easily. Their homegrown pilots were something else…

But that fucking noise. The only relief I had was once a week, crew resting in Frankfurt. The apartment I had in Ashgabat was constructed out of concrete for everything but the walls, which must have been balsa. The rest was solid noise. I could hear everything: the neighbor’s cat scratching her way through the shag area rug, the tea pot boiling, the conversation of what to get at the market. My other neighbor had a daughter who liked the techno. I did pretty well considering. I made it almost a month before falling off the wagon. 

 

I blame no one but myself and the nation of Turkmenistan. Do you know what it’s like to experience a cacophony of cymbals while you wait for a 50’s-era Soviet elevator? I asked several locals about the music. Said they liked it. Something about the strong winds and no music allowed until after 1991. The night I got that answer I bought two bottles.

 

During pre-flight they wanted me to greet the passengers, be a Caucasian emissary of goodwill to the rose merchants, gas barons and sheep farmers. I tried it but hated the effect I had; everyone wanted to shake my hand, practice broken vocab. I went back up front, but the cockpit was noisy too. The 757s Turkmen Air had were second-hand from Germany, who had decommissioned them for airworthiness concerns. Awesome. 

 

Truthfully they did fine, but were damn noisy. During the preflight with the auxiliary generator running you had to shout to be heard, and that was to the copilot three feet away. So, we didn’t talk too much. He did his thing, I did mine. 

 

It was a loud noise, but at least one I knew and didn’t feature the bleating of goats. Off duty I started paying the neighbor girl to get my groceries and weekly items. Delegate the bleats to her numbed ears. 

 

The day in question was like any other, but it was the milk run, and so I didn’t hate it with full force. Five months in and I almost had a routine going. That was a big deal going to Germany, not having to fly three approaches into the roach motels of the Orient. The radios the controllers had squealed like a stuck pig. When you did get through, the controller usually didn’t care, couldn’t hear or both. The one nice thing about that is you could do pretty much what you want, which was far different from my time in the states. 

 

Pre-flight went fine, although admin sent a thin little bugger down to remind me of the importance of “greeting the distinguished passengers,” as the chap put it. I gave him my best “uh-huh” head nod and went back to my roar cave. The copilot that day I’d flown with before, not terrible given the wide range we had at the time. I tapped him on the shoulder, and then tapped my watch. He nodded. 
 

Stepping back to the galley to drop my pickled eggs and rye bread into the crew fridge, I spotted a tall willowy stewardess that I hadn’t seen on my way in, which didn’t mean much after the bender the night before. The back half did a separate crew brief than the front end, and I usually just checked in with the head stewardess to get a nose count in case we had to evacuate. This girl was young, with sweeping cascades of raven dark hair. She had several bands tied around her thin wrists; a hint of rouge on her cheeks and could have been Native American royalty. She beamed a smile at me and I fled back to the cockpit. The feelings I had were foreign and strange; Lisa hadn’t felt overly amorous after the funeral and since the divorce it’d been solid drought. 

 

Oh, how the hands of fate work, slapping and pulling at each other to be the one who sets into motion the final spin. Do they gloat to each other, knowing full well what they do to us mortals? They’d already given me a healthy shove onto the toboggan of Hell, and now the rolling hillside was morphing to cliff. 

 

After calming down a bit, I got us our push-back clearance, the celebratory jangles in the terminal audible even over the noise and ear plugs. I called for engine start, and the copilot and I both looked in anticipation to Engine #1 after I cycled the starter. It stared right back, with no movement. 30 seconds later I canceled the start and tried #2, figuring we could use cross-bleed if we didn’t have enough from the APU. 

 

Nope, uh-uh, nyet. No Frankfurt today folks. 

 

Well, management was not exactly pleased about this, and pulled the maintenance conscripts in to fix it pronto. Being flight crew, we entered back into crew rest, and slipped takeoff 16 hours to the right. The sheep barons, rose tycoons and hooligani settled into the comfortable grime of the airport lobby.

I got my crew bedded down into the company rooms just off the terminal, and was walking across the scarlet red carpeting to my room when I froze in my tracks. She was in the lobby bar, drinking a coke. She still wore her uniform, and had a Mona Lisa smile—very demure. Drinking a coke, staring into me. Oh god.

I’d been in country five months, 150 days behind the wire. There’d been little comfort. Even in the damn lobby they had the wailing music. I ordered for me. Then I ordered for her. Still the music played. 

 

Eventually, I ordered her. 

 

Eleven hours later was a bitch. First off, I felt like death warmed over. Second off, I was late, so was she, and I had now officially violated two distinctly separate and sacrosanct Turkmen Air regulations. Oh, and also a stewardess. 

 

Being awoken by a blaring rotary dial phone is less than pleasant, as is hearing a thickly-accented voice inquire if I’m sick. I cleared my throat several times and said no, I’d just overslept. The dispatcher mentioned the rest of the crew was at the breezeway, but there was a problem—they couldn’t find one of the stewardesses. The pit of my stomach went into freefall as the voice detailed where the stewardess was not—not in her room, not at the breezeway, not in the dining facility. Apparently the entire country had been called in to organize her search and rescue. 

 

I fought down panic, which is saying quite a bit since my physical condition was not capable of much strength, and panic is a worthy competitor. I feared for us both, the Turkmens were oddly conservative in the off-duty matters of 20-year old stewardesses. No choice but to just go with it. I told her to get dressed and make her own way to the rest of the crew; maybe she could defuse the waiting bomb. Meanwhile I tried abbreviating a 20-minute bathroom routine into 60 seconds. 

 

I got back to the breezeway, popped some Tums and found some sparkling water. Voda C Gazom. Bubbles might cleanse some of the impurities from my system, and possibly my soul. I also avoided eye contact with everyone there—fearing the scarlet tinge would raise eyebrows. The jet looked to be in good shape. I dropped into my seat and checked my oxygen mask at 100% for 15 minutes, or roughly 14 minutes too long, just to make sure it was doing ok. The copilot did his thing. 

 

Finally it was time to get out of dodge. Push-back, engine start and taxi passed by like a train in the mist; more felt than seen. The plane was a little sluggish turning onto Runway 12R, but they cleared us onto the runway with no delay. No other traffic this early in the morning. The big runway was closed for repair, but 9800 feet is plenty for the 757, even at max weight. 

 

It was my takeoff. I felt like hell, but Buddy (I called them all Buddy. They ate it up) wanted the takeoff out of Frankfurt. I didn’t want to make a scene; I thought Mona Lisa and I might actually be able to just put the whole thing behind us with no one the wiser, so I said I’d do the takeoff. The sleepy voice cleared us for takeoff. I pushed the twin throttles up, watched the needles quiver like a girl on a date, and we started our roll. 

 

They always say you never want to out fly your own brain. It’d never made sense to me until that day. 

 

Takeoff run would be around 5400 feet. Passing 4000 feet I gripped the stick once, then twice, twitching my muscles. Passing 5200 feet we hit rotate speed. I pulled back on the stick and it fell all the way back, offering no resistance. The nose remained on the ground.

One summer when I was young I tripped over a wasp nest out in a field. That had been one of those moments where I knew something was wrong just not what exactly. This was exactly the same…

The control stick is not supposed to easily pull into your lap, even on a piece like this plane. My woolen mind struggled with the compounding issues that suddenly appeared like relatives to a lotto winner. I saw the “4” board fly by, and decided we’d better just keep this on the ground—four thousand feet isn’t a whole lot to play with. I brought the throttles back, slamming them as hard into the stops as I could, taking an extra second to make sure I brought them into Reverse Thrust mode. I also stomped onto the brakes like a man killing spiders. The pedals fell to the floor without any resistance, and my system took a hit of brilliant white adrenaline.

I managed a glance at the hydraulic readout and saw it flat as a Saturday frat boy—something I'd missed on the preflight. Easy enough I thought, wondering if I'd get that embossed on my tomb.

The “3” board was 3 seconds behind us and we still had 132 knots. That gave us about 2400 feet to go before conducting an experiment on aircraft off-roading. The runway lights up ahead turned to red in a thousand feet. The engines were still in forward idle. No way to get the exhaust sleeves down without hydraulic fluid. I tried to ignore all of the other distractions—flashing red lights, emergency sirens, screaming copilot—and focus on what was important: that we had about 8 seconds left on the game clock. 

 

Newton tells us that a body in motion tends to remain in motion. I will tell you that stopping a fully laden 757 with no brakes is a bitch and a half. 

 

I thought about collapsing the gear, but on this Boeing piglet that might happen one by one, bathing us all in flames. The only other idea I had was a ground loop.

Stock car drivers and skiers know the best way to stop is a controlled skid. Survivors know that doing so is tricky. The key to a ground loop is being slow enough not to shred the tires, but fast enough to get them to skid. Too fast or too slow: the rubber peels off, the metal gear showers the fuselage with sparks until it convinces the fuel to explode, and BBC ensures that everyone knows the Captain once blew a .06 at the gate for the red-eye out of Dulles and that’s why he’s in Turkmenistan. 

 

1800 feet remaining before smooth runway turned into the steppes of Central Asia. I drifted the plane left; I still had pretty good nose authority. My copilot did an okay job through the whole thing, just sat there, his screams eventually tapering. Sometimes they freak out and start grabbing for the controls. Thinking about it later, he might have passed out.

When I felt the left mains nip the outside of the runway, I reversed direction and brought the ground tiller full bore to the right. The nose of the plane yawed like a drunken sailor, and the force shoved me against the eyebrow window. This was the moment of truth. I looked down and saw we still had 110 knots of smash. 12 Right is only 200 feet wide, and I’d been almost all the way over the left side, so I started the turn with the nose wheels having about 185 feet of pavement to go. After a 90-degree turn, if we didn’t skid we were going to depart the right-hand side of the runway in exactly three seconds.

Three seconds is a long time. It doesn’t seem that way, but I was able to squeeze the tiller until it physically bent, kick the right rudder pedal into the floor, watch the airspeed and then wait for the next 2 seconds to pass. 

 

12 Right hadn’t been repaved in decades, which is a long time for Soviet-era planes to deposit fumes, drips and leaks onto the surface. The mains skidded like a champ, cheering on our performance with acrid white smoke. Even over the screech of the Michelins, the dry throbbing in my ears and chorus of demons in the back I could still hear that goddamn music. 

 

The last 25 knots dropped fast, and we slammed to a halt. The engines were off; the copilot had managed to do that much, and only the reddish hue of the emergency lights were on. With the electrics off and the passengers taking in the fact they were alive, it was dead quiet. 

 

So I just sat there, and enjoyed the silence.