At 217,000 words, my first draft of IF YOU AIN'T A PILOT was longer than MOBY DICK, a book I was supposed to read in high school but never did, because it was too long. I knew I needed to make cuts, but I didn't know how to chop. My editor, Catherine Adams, Inkslinger Editing, advised me to get rid of any characters and scenes outside of UPT Class 88-07 in order to cut my final work by about 25%. Even though most of these characters and scenes included people who were my friends, I made the suggested changes, cut the number of characters in half, and reduced the length of the manuscript.
At first, this scene appeared early in the book. It starts with a reunion of good friends and continues on to introduce a number of themes that recur and are recurrently ridiculed throughout the novel. This was a tough cut for me, because not only are these characters some of the best friends I'd ever made as a student at the Air Force Academy, but I had used the scene to introduce many of themes in my story.
“A VISIT TO OLD FRIENDS”
The next night after meeting Lieutenant Billy Mike Sims and the rest of my class on the first day of UPT, I took the P’Up out to Brett’s place. I thought I might pick up some cold beer at a package store on my way to his house, so as I drove, I checked out all the little businesses along the way to see if I could see a sign for one. Nearly every business on Highway 45 North had a yellow, flashing arrow sign in front of it advertising something. These signs probably looked reasonably nice when they were new and maybe when only a few businesses had them, but these things were everywhere, and none of them seemed to be maintained by any of the businesses that owned them.
The yellow rectangular portion of the signs all contained partially lettered messages. On top of the yellow rectangle was a flashing white arrow, the centerlines of which were supposed to have six lights bulbs that flashed on and off, but usually between two and five of the light bulbs seemed to be working. The whole contraption sat on a two-wheeled trailer hitch held in place by a cinder block or two. With so many on the sides of the road, if you tried to read all of them, you’d never be looking where you were going.
The yellow rectangular part of these signs held three rows of transparent letters that could be positioned by sliding them in and out of the ends of the rows. Some of these signs advertised a product for sale, such as “CHICKEN AND BATTERIES” or “CIGARETTES AND BATTERIES” or “VIDEOS AND BATTERIES.” Batteries were very important in Columbus.
Some of the signs advertised a service, like the gas station whose sign read, “WE PUMP LADIES GAS.” I needed to read that one a couple of times, because the word “GAS” was on the second line, and the first time through, it didn’t look quite right without an apostrophe. Other businesses that had no batteries or services to sell often chose to offer a Biblical message, instead, or named a particular scripture and verse that you could read as a homework assignment. I saw one that I assume was supposed to say “John 3:16,” but it looked like whoever slid the letters in must have slid the “6” in upside down, which made it look like a “9” instead of a “6.”
The reason I had said earlier that these signs all presented a partial message, though, is that none of the merchants seemed to have a complete set of letters. Most had a lot of black letters, and every once and a while, there would be a few red letters in their signs, too. An upside-down “P” would serve as a lower-case “d,” and an upside-down “7” would hold a spot for an “L.” Almost without exception, though, most of the messages were missing a half-dozen letters. If you didn’t watch “Wheel of Fortune” regularly, you’d have no idea where to get your batteries in Columbus.
The only business with a more conventional sign on Highway 45 North on the way to the base was the local Chevy dealership. It had a tall, plastic, Chevy sign with a dark, electronic message board on the top of it, which flashed the time, “6:05 PM,” as I drove by, and the temperature, “94˚,” followed by a message, “FREE GUN RACK WITH TRUCK PURCHASE.” Then, it repeated the cycle.
I never did see a package store, but I didn’t spend any extra time looking around. I was looking forward to seeing my friends, and I was hungry. I had no interest in stopping… I just wanted to get to my friends’ house. When I finally did get to Brett, Jake, and Fred’s house, Brett came to the door to meet me and lead me inside. Jake was on the phone, and it sounded like he was ordering food. Perfect, because I was starving.
“Okay, yeah,” Jake gave me a nod as he was talking on the phone tethered to the kitchen wall. “Sweet and sour chicken. Yeah, F-4.” I stopped and waited because I wanted to say “Hi” to my friend, and because I wanted to get my order in, but I didn’t want to interrupt.
“Pork fried rice,” he continued, “F-15. Veggie lo mein. OK, F-16. What kind of rice?” The way Jake asked this last question, I couldn’t tell if he was asking the guy at the Chinese restaurant what kind of rice they had, or if he was asking the guy on the phone if he wanted rice. I know I had just walked in on his phone conversation, but I wanted to get in an order, too, before Jake hung up, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on.
“Are you guys ordering Chinese?” I asked Brett. “I haven’t eaten yet, and I’m starving. Could I get an order of sweet and sour chicken? What’s that… F-4?”
Brett laughed and shook his head. “No,” he told me.
“Dude, I’ve got money.” I told Brett, “I cashed a check at the commissary before I headed out here. Last night, all I had to eat was a soft taco with two packets of hot sauce. I’m starving. I meant to buy some beer on the way over, by the way, but I couldn’t find a package store.”
Brett just kept shaking his head. “Ray, we’re not ordering Chinese food. Apparently, people around here keep getting our phone number confused with a local Chinese restaurant,” he explained. “It happens every night, and all night on Fridays. At first, we tried to explain to people that this isn’t the Chinese restaurant, and they wanted us to give them the right number for it. I don’t know the number to the Chinese restaurant. It’s probably in the phone book, but we already know they can’t dial it right. Right? I think Columbus just put in the 9-1-1 system, and people have to dial more numbers than they used to have to dial, and I guess, it’s too many for them to remember. So instead of fighting with them about our phone number, we just tell them ‘twenty minutes.’ Jake likes to make their experience more realistic by adding the alphanumeric designations of fighter aircraft to their orders. Did you notice? F-4, F-15, F-16?”
I hadn’t even noticed.
“A VISIT TO OLD FRIENDS”
The next night after meeting Lieutenant Billy Mike Sims and the rest of my class on the first day of UPT, I took the P’Up out to Brett’s place. I thought I might pick up some cold beer at a package store on my way to his house, so as I drove, I checked out all the little businesses along the way to see if I could see a sign for one. Nearly every business on Highway 45 North had a yellow, flashing arrow sign in front of it advertising something. These signs probably looked reasonably nice when they were new and maybe when only a few businesses had them, but these things were everywhere, and none of them seemed to be maintained by any of the businesses that owned them.
The yellow rectangular portion of the signs all contained partially lettered messages. On top of the yellow rectangle was a flashing white arrow, the centerlines of which were supposed to have six lights bulbs that flashed on and off, but usually between two and five of the light bulbs seemed to be working. The whole contraption sat on a two-wheeled trailer hitch held in place by a cinder block or two. With so many on the sides of the road, if you tried to read all of them, you’d never be looking where you were going.
The yellow rectangular part of these signs held three rows of transparent letters that could be positioned by sliding them in and out of the ends of the rows. Some of these signs advertised a product for sale, such as “CHICKEN AND BATTERIES” or “CIGARETTES AND BATTERIES” or “VIDEOS AND BATTERIES.” Batteries were very important in Columbus.
Some of the signs advertised a service, like the gas station whose sign read, “WE PUMP LADIES GAS.” I needed to read that one a couple of times, because the word “GAS” was on the second line, and the first time through, it didn’t look quite right without an apostrophe. Other businesses that had no batteries or services to sell often chose to offer a Biblical message, instead, or named a particular scripture and verse that you could read as a homework assignment. I saw one that I assume was supposed to say “John 3:16,” but it looked like whoever slid the letters in must have slid the “6” in upside down, which made it look like a “9” instead of a “6.”
The reason I had said earlier that these signs all presented a partial message, though, is that none of the merchants seemed to have a complete set of letters. Most had a lot of black letters, and every once and a while, there would be a few red letters in their signs, too. An upside-down “P” would serve as a lower-case “d,” and an upside-down “7” would hold a spot for an “L.” Almost without exception, though, most of the messages were missing a half-dozen letters. If you didn’t watch “Wheel of Fortune” regularly, you’d have no idea where to get your batteries in Columbus.
The only business with a more conventional sign on Highway 45 North on the way to the base was the local Chevy dealership. It had a tall, plastic, Chevy sign with a dark, electronic message board on the top of it, which flashed the time, “6:05 PM,” as I drove by, and the temperature, “94˚,” followed by a message, “FREE GUN RACK WITH TRUCK PURCHASE.” Then, it repeated the cycle.
I never did see a package store, but I didn’t spend any extra time looking around. I was looking forward to seeing my friends, and I was hungry. I had no interest in stopping… I just wanted to get to my friends’ house. When I finally did get to Brett, Jake, and Fred’s house, Brett came to the door to meet me and lead me inside. Jake was on the phone, and it sounded like he was ordering food. Perfect, because I was starving.
“Okay, yeah,” Jake gave me a nod as he was talking on the phone tethered to the kitchen wall. “Sweet and sour chicken. Yeah, F-4.” I stopped and waited because I wanted to say “Hi” to my friend, and because I wanted to get my order in, but I didn’t want to interrupt.
“Pork fried rice,” he continued, “F-15. Veggie lo mein. OK, F-16. What kind of rice?” The way Jake asked this last question, I couldn’t tell if he was asking the guy at the Chinese restaurant what kind of rice they had, or if he was asking the guy on the phone if he wanted rice. I know I had just walked in on his phone conversation, but I wanted to get in an order, too, before Jake hung up, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on.
“Are you guys ordering Chinese?” I asked Brett. “I haven’t eaten yet, and I’m starving. Could I get an order of sweet and sour chicken? What’s that… F-4?”
Brett laughed and shook his head. “No,” he told me.
“Dude, I’ve got money.” I told Brett, “I cashed a check at the commissary before I headed out here. Last night, all I had to eat was a soft taco with two packets of hot sauce. I’m starving. I meant to buy some beer on the way over, by the way, but I couldn’t find a package store.”
Brett just kept shaking his head. “Ray, we’re not ordering Chinese food. Apparently, people around here keep getting our phone number confused with a local Chinese restaurant,” he explained. “It happens every night, and all night on Fridays. At first, we tried to explain to people that this isn’t the Chinese restaurant, and they wanted us to give them the right number for it. I don’t know the number to the Chinese restaurant. It’s probably in the phone book, but we already know they can’t dial it right. Right? I think Columbus just put in the 9-1-1 system, and people have to dial more numbers than they used to have to dial, and I guess, it’s too many for them to remember. So instead of fighting with them about our phone number, we just tell them ‘twenty minutes.’ Jake likes to make their experience more realistic by adding the alphanumeric designations of fighter aircraft to their orders. Did you notice? F-4, F-15, F-16?”
I hadn’t even noticed.
“You want chopsticks?” Jake asked into the phone.
“Excellent!” I laughed, even though now, I was really hungry, and the “F-4” had sounded pretty good. “So, did you guys eat yet?”
“We just ordered four pizzas. They’re already here. I got you your usual,” Brett told me. As roommates for the past two and a half years, he and I must have placed hundreds of pizza orders together. The question was never “What toppings do you want?” as much as it was, “Where do you want to order from… Little Caesar’s, Domino’s, or Arnold Hall?” Changing delivery services was our way of bringing variety to our diet. Then Brett added, “We have plenty of beer, too. It might be a little warm, because they don’t refrigerate it at the grocery store. C’mon in the other room.”
Brett led me through the house to the living room in the back of the place. On the way, he also explained to me that in Columbus, there are no package stores. You buy beer at the supermarket, but because of the local “Blue Laws,” the supermarkets didn’t refrigerate the beer, and they couldn’t sell it on Sunday. I never would have figured that out.
Back in the living room, Brett’s other roommate Fred and a couple of guys I knew from the Academy were watching “Top Gun” on a big, console TV. The screen was as big as anything I’d ever seen—like 21”—with a VCR and stereo speakers on top of it. Of course, the movie had to be “Top Gun.” “Top Gun” had come out in theaters the previous summer, between our junior and senior years at the Academy. I saw it twice when it came out, and now that it was on videotape, it seemed like everyone with a VCR had a copy and was working on memorizing every line of the dialogue. I guess if we were going to be pilots, we had to learn about the image we were going to have to uphold.
I said “Hi” to my buddies, ate four slices of my usual pizza—pepperoni, sausage, peppers, and olives, and drank a few beers. Brett and I caught up on things we did over the summer and why I couldn’t move into their house. When the movie ended, and the guys were going to rewind it and start it over again, I left and headed back to the base and my room in the VOQ. I had already seen the movie twice at the theater, and since I had to drive back onto the base, after having a few beers with my pizza I didn’t want to be the student responsible for resetting the “Days Since Last DUI” sign back from four days to one day.
“You want chopsticks?” Jake asked into the phone.
“Excellent!” I laughed, even though now, I was really hungry, and the “F-4” had sounded pretty good. “So, did you guys eat yet?”
“We just ordered four pizzas. They’re already here. I got you your usual,” Brett told me. As roommates for the past two and a half years, he and I must have placed hundreds of pizza orders together. The question was never “What toppings do you want?” as much as it was, “Where do you want to order from… Little Caesar’s, Domino’s, or Arnold Hall?” Changing delivery services was our way of bringing variety to our diet. Then Brett added, “We have plenty of beer, too. It might be a little warm, because they don’t refrigerate it at the grocery store. C’mon in the other room.”
Brett led me through the house to the living room in the back of the place. On the way, he also explained to me that in Columbus, there are no package stores. You buy beer at the supermarket, but because of the local “Blue Laws,” the supermarkets didn’t refrigerate the beer, and they couldn’t sell it on Sunday. I never would have figured that out.
Back in the living room, Brett’s other roommate Fred and a couple of guys I knew from the Academy were watching “Top Gun” on a big, console TV. The screen was as big as anything I’d ever seen—like 21”—with a VCR and stereo speakers on top of it. Of course, the movie had to be “Top Gun.” “Top Gun” had come out in theaters the previous summer, between our junior and senior years at the Academy. I saw it twice when it came out, and now that it was on videotape, it seemed like everyone with a VCR had a copy and was working on memorizing every line of the dialogue. I guess if we were going to be pilots, we had to learn about the image we were going to have to uphold.
I said “Hi” to my buddies, ate four slices of my usual pizza—pepperoni, sausage, peppers, and olives, and drank a few beers. Brett and I caught up on things we did over the summer and why I couldn’t move into their house. When the movie ended, and the guys were going to rewind it and start it over again, I left and headed back to the base and my room in the VOQ. I had already seen the movie twice at the theater, and since I had to drive back onto the base, after having a few beers with my pizza I didn’t want to be the student responsible for resetting the “Days Since Last DUI” sign back from four days to one day.