Peregrination

Mathew was an airship captain back in World War I. He was awarded the Silver Star for his bombing run over Germany, and he used to wear it, among other decorations, when he held parties aboard the ship. If not for that star pinned smartly to his white dress jacket, there'd have been no hint he'd ever been in the service.

Mathew was the youngest airship captain when he recieved his commission, and the only one left flying at the end of the war. When the Air force was finally formed from odd airborn division of other corps, the brass were more than willing to let Mathew go, on the condition that he took the relic of a ship off thier hands. But that was a long time ago.

Mathew grew up and turned sixteen. He was the second son of a baby boomer, his brother being some tens years older. The family went through hard times when James was growing, and he left at the age of twenty to live with a series of women who were, sequencially, his true love. Mathew didn't see James very often, and rumors of a bachelor's degree grew stale after four years. It became a favorite curse of their father's, and whenever the aging patriarch disapproved of something, you could hear him gnawing on the words "bachelor's degree" like an unsavory cut of beef.

The house was located on a small street, Eisenhowever Ln, in a vast maze of suburbia. Two left turns, then a right, and then two-hundred feet of poorely patched up road and you were dumped unceremoniously onto route 57, with junctions to major highways five miles in either direction. The neighborhood was the result of a population boom, not natural growth. The city needed a place to put people, so they constructed neighbourhoods like plumbing, from generic interchangable pieces and one size fits all street plans.

The school was a convoluted brick building on the other side of route 57. It had been expanded several times, and each of the additions differed significantly from the others in terms of room dimentions, construction, lighting, and furnishing; one whole hall had long pipes running in every direction with bold black and yellow stickers warning: Asbestos!

The city built a replacement school, planned to last into the foreseeable future, with all the modern facilities needed to prepare students for the future. Toward the end of construction, the city council decided the structure could be better utilized as an all-purpose government building. Should you ever visit the DMV, you'll have the pleasure of waiting in the only shipment of student sized chairs to reach the school before plans were changed.

James' mother might have been planning to leave Mr.Owen as soon as he was done with school, but then Mathew showed up. Whatever dreams anyone might have had were discarded with the shrug of a shoulder. Mr.Owen had never been able to fufill her dreams, but she'd have to forget all that.

Things were'nt looking so bad once she quit drinking, though. What were these dreams she had a right to? Can five acres of lush green lawn be brought home with the groceries, or a beautiful vibrant garden be wrapped up at the florist and delivered to you on Valentine's day? These Victorian houses and mountain views were discontents delivered to her every month, so she cancelled the subscription.

"Love is what you make of it." She told Mathew, and then kissed his father. The two seemed happy; beat up and worn down, maybe, but genuinly not unhappy.

Discussion of Mathew's upbringing didn't occur much amount the crew, though. The Airship was far from being run as a millitary vessel, but a captain must be regarded with unhuman respect. The captain is timeless. The ship sprang fully formed from the forehead of Mathew one stormy night, killed a thousand Krauts as it passed, and is kept aloft on the vapors of disobedient crew members, thrust into the boiler by the XO, David Marshall. He was a lieutenant durring the war, when flak brought down his ship; almost blew him apart, too. Had it not been for the steel plate on his right, the shrapnel would have tore through him like it tore through the treated cloth envelope, releasing vast amount of bouyant helium. He's completely blind and deaf on his right side, and has a constant ringing in his left ear. He requested to remain on active duty, and there are stories of a brawl with a commanding officer and a warrant officier who tried to break up the two. The warrent officer spent a week in the hospital, and both parties agreed it served him right.

Eventually David would be thrown in with the remaining crew of River Girl, a grounded airship waiting to be decomissioned. All the other crew either went home or put in transfer requests to other units. Lieutenant Marshall would remain with River Girl until his comission expired, and then ever after.

These days he spends his time either cursing or drinking. He's rarely seen associating with, or even at the same time or place as, the captain. Rather, he'll explode through some door, yell vulgarities and pointed questions at the crew, and then push his way into the next room. God help you should he find something to fault in your person or responcibilities. It's no use trying to explain yourself, he can't hear anything but ringing.

The captain usually shows up several minutes afterward, enough time to fix or hide whatever the XO found fault in. The whole episode is rare, though. The captain generally stays either on the bridge or in his quarters, and the XO generally stays... wherever the hell the XO spends his time.

Though he is the captain, the crew isn't large enough that Mathew can always remain aloof. When things get tough he leaves the bridge to the navigator, removes his captain's coat, and makes his way to the engine room. No one knows the guts of River Girl like her captain, who can finess that extra bit of power from the boiler, and can name the path of each insulated pipe from the engine room to wherever. He emerges when it's all over, covered in a sludge of soot, steam, greese, and sweat, as though all the sound of flak and gunfire were really he and the enemy wreastling in some foresaken pit. That's the captain. He always has been good with mechanics; he got an A in woodshop on his last report card.

Mathew's classmates never saw him for his leadership abilities; someone else always got class president, and Mathew never bothered running. Who cares about all that when summer is high in the sky?

Mathew didn't know either of the O'Niel boys very well, but he knew they had a pool. They had been friends of James', and Mathew determined to use that minor connection to escape the heat.