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    Wind At My Back: Nerves of Steel
    Wind At My Back: Nerves of Steel
    Wind At My Back: Nerves of Steel
    Ebook111 pages2 hours

    Wind At My Back: Nerves of Steel

    By Kevin Sullivan

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    About this ebook

    IT'S JUST NOT FAIR. HUB'S GOOD AT EVERYTHING - including all the sports that Fat finds impossible. So when Max Sutton, the local schoolteacher, puts together an athletic team to compete for the Fall Fair's Human Pyramid Contest, Hub naturally is right in the thick of things. But as the pyramid nears completion, everyone realizes someone Fat's size is just what the team needs.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavenport Press
    Release dateMay 8, 2012
    ISBN9781926978116
    Wind At My Back: Nerves of Steel
    Author

    Kevin Sullivan

    Captain Kevin 'Sully' Sullivan has made flying his passion and his life for the past 40 years. He graduated in 1977 from the University of Colorado with a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and earned his FAA Private Pilot Licence there before pursuing a career in the United States Navy. Designated a Naval Aviator in 1978, he was transferred to Naval Air Station Miramar (Fightertown) to fly the F-14 Tomcat in 1980. He was deployed to the Indian Ocean onboard USS America and USS Enterprise while assigned to Fighter Squadron 114 (VF-114 Fighting Aardvarks), and was chosen to attend the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOP GUN). In 1983 he was selected as the first US Navy Exchange Pilot to the Royal Australian Air Force, in the role of a Fighter Combat Instructor flying the Mirage 3. He joined QANTAS Airways in 1986 and flew the Boeing 747 and 767 before transitioning to the Airbus A330 in 2004. As Captain of Qantas Flight 72 (QF72) between Singapore and Perth, WA, on 7 October 2008, he narrowly averted a horrific air disaster when a fault in the plane's automation caused the plane to suddenly nosedive, not once but twice. He was medically retired in 2016.

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      Book preview

      Wind At My Back - Kevin Sullivan

      WIND AT MY BACK

      Nerves of Steel

      By: Gail Hamilton

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      *****

      PUBLISHED BY: Davenport Press

      Copyright © 2012 Sullivan Entertainment Inc.

      Copyright Images© 2012 Sullivan Entertainment Inc.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without prior written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

      The characters and incidents portrayed are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.

      * * * * *

      Chapter One

      Fat saw the cop car first. It squealed to a stop in the street below just as he stepped out onto the balcony of his mother’s rooming house apartment. He hadn’t been expecting a cop car. He’d been expecting a taxi with his Aunt Grace inside. She was due to pick him and his big brother Hub up any minute and take them back to their Grandmother Bailey’s home in New Bedford. Now that their mother was living in North Bridge, the boys were only allowed to visit her every other weekend. Those weekends were what they looked forward to most. They usually flew by. Always, as the time to leave grew closer, Fat prayed his Aunt Grace would be late. Maybe then they’d miss the bus back to New Bedford and get to stay one more night with their mother! But today, as he watched the door of the cop car swing open and a burly cop climb out, Fat felt he’d give anything to be as far away from North Bridge as possible. He stepped back from the railing. He could have sworn that the cop looked straight up at him. Fear smacked him, hard as the back of a hand on the side of his head. Had the cop come for him? What had he done? Cops meant trouble, he knew that for sure. He prayed that this one wouldn’t come knocking at his mother’s door. Another man got out of the car and followed the cop to the front door, but Fat didn’t wait to check him out. Turning from the dusty balcony, he stepped quickly back into the apartment.

      He wished Pal were here with him now. Dogs always made you feel better. He sat back down at the table, feeling sick, bracing himself for the knock on the door.

      So? Hub said, staring at him. Is she there or not?

      Jeez. Aunt Grace. He’d clean forgotten about her. What if Aunt Grace saw the cop? What if she said something to Grandmother Bailey?

      What’s up, Fat? His mother was staring at him too.

      His Mom was the only person Fat knew who could do a whole bunch of things really well all at the same time. Now her entire attention seemed fixed on him, but her hands kept right on folding his socks and packing them neatly in the battered suitcase he shared with his brother. Every so often, without missing a beat, she’d turn to stir the soup simmering on the stove. Her nothing soup, she called it, because she made it out of almost nothing.

      What is it, pumpkin? she asked again. Come’ on, Fat, spit it out.

      But just then a sharp rat-a-tat-tat struck the door. His Mom turned to answer it.

      Honey Bailey? The male voice sliced through the airless room.

      Yes? His mother sounded far away, subdued.

      Fat forced himself to look over at the cop. But the cop wasn’t there. Instead a gray man filled the doorway. Gray hat, gray hair, gray suit. A gray leather briefcase peeked meekly out from under one drab arm. Where did the cop go?

      I represent North Bridge Savings and Loans, the man said tonelessly. This property’s been taken over by us since your brother skipped town.

      Look, his Mom said quickly. I’m in a hurry. Someone’s picking my kids up any second now. I don’t have time to—

      You’re Joe Callaghan’s sister, ain’tcha? The man in the suit was growing irritable.

      Yes, but—

      Ain’t he the former landlord here?

      Yes, but—

      Ain’t you been sharing this apartment with him for quite a while now?

      I had to move in here, after my husband died. I had no choice— His mother’s voice cracked.

      Hub rose slowly to his feet. Fat could tell he wanted to smack the guy.

      Look, I don’t give a tinker’s curse about your personal affairs, Mrs. Bailey. All I wanna know is do you or do you not intend to go on paying the rent?

      Of course I do!

      Something white rustled in the man’s hand. He thrust it at her. It looked official.

      In that case, this letter serves to inform you, and all other remaining tenants, of a monthly rent increase. Effective the first of September.

      Their mother caught her breath. She blinked down at the letter as though it were written in secret code.

      I’ll be back at the end of the month, droned the man in gray. Any tenants behind in their rent will be escorted off the premises ... by my buddy here.

      He stepped back, and the hair on Fat’s neck stood up. Behind the gray man, like a navy-blue shadow, stood the cop.

      You won’t be escorting me anywhere. This apartment is paid up till the end of the month, and you’ll get your increase on time. Honey Bailey was furious. No constable was gonna drag her off the premises. Over her dead body.

      After she slammed the door, Honey sank into a chair, the paper in her hand shaking. A quiet fell over the three of them. Fat was afraid to open his mouth in case tears came out instead of words.

      Ever since his dad had died he’d had this ache at the back of his throat. Like he could never, ever cry enough to get rid of it. The way Fat saw it, when someone close to you died, someone who had no business up and dying on you like that, it was like the bottom falling out of your world. Everything you ever dreaded and never spoke of became possible. Even being separated from your mother and baby sister. Even cops coming to take you away.

      Chapter Two

      Leaning back against the warm leather of the cab, Grace Bailey tried not to worry The sun shone. The warm air drifted in through the rolled-down windows. You should be singing, not fretting, she told herself. There was a tune somewhere at the back of her mind, a popular tune, one you could dance to. But as the car turned on to her sister-in-law’s street, the worries refused to go away. She disliked taking her nephews back to New Bedford after their weekend visits to their mother. For the life of her, she couldn’t see why Honey should be separated from her sons at a time when they needed her most. That had been May Bailey’s decision.

      May had never warmed to her eldest son’s wife, never welcomed her into the Bailey family. It was clear to Grace that her mother felt she had nothing in common with her daughter-in-law. But now, with Jack’s death, they had a shared sorrow. Grace had hoped it might bring the two women together. But if anything, it seemed to have widened the rift between them. With lightning speed Mrs. Bailey arranged for Violet, Honey and Jack’s two-year-old daughter, to be sent to live with relatives. And she insisted that Hubert and Henry, as she called Hub and Fat, remain at her home in New Bedford, while making it perfectly plain to Honey that she was not welcome there.

      Poor Honey. Instead of the comfort and support she deserved, she had been cast out of her husband’s family to look for work on her own. And in the depths of the Depression, too, when jobs were as scarce as hen’s teeth. It was hard for Grace to believe that her own mother could be so cruel and insensitive. It was almost as if she blamed Honey for Jack’s death.

      Through the windscreen of the cab,

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