The courtyard lights came up as Jo pulled out Layla's case and gently laid her into the velvet cushions inside. "Thanks for another great night girlfriend," she whispered to her guitar. "You were amazing as usual." She picked up the lid to her pedal case and turned back to the front of the stage.
Steve's girlfriend Sara was coming up on stage, pulling Blue Girl by the hand. Blue looked a little like a startled deer in the stage lights. She'd said she played piano, but Jo was guessing she'd never performed much in public. She seemed shy just being on the stage in front of a crowd that was now far more interested in last call at the bar. The band quickly started breaking down their equipment, Jack jumping on stage to help. Steve was rolling up cables, while simultaneously showing Sara and Blue Girl the tricks of packing everything so they could help on the road.
When they finally pulled their cars up to Steve's house in Falls Church it was almost one o'clock in the morning. The women started getting showered and changed while the boys unhitched the trailer from Steve's truck and hooked it up to the tour bus.
Steve had befriended a country artist of moderate success who had chartered some helicopter flights from Collins Aviation. He took every July off to spend the month with his family on a houseboat, and was kind enough to loan Steve his tour bus for the beach tour, in exchange for a few free helicopter rides. It was what that made their summer tours as nice as they were.
By the time they had all the bags and a couple dozen boxes of Rotors t-shirts and hats loaded into the bus's cargo lockers underneath, it was almost two A.M. Steve locked up his house and they all piled onto the bus.
"This is amazing, it's almost bigger than my apartment!" Blue gushed. It must have been her first time on a tour bus. It was a pretty sweet ride, Jo had to admit.
There was a bedroom in the back with a queen-sized bed. Outside the bedroom, there was a tiny shower room on one side of the hall and a room with a toilet and sink on the other. Next, four twin-sized beds, stacked two-high on either side of the hallway, were built into the walls of the bus. Each bunk had sound baffling curtains, a small TV on the wall with a headphone jack, a reading light and even white noise generators. Up in the front half of the bus there was an area with a deep, plush couch on one side and a big flat screen TV. On the other side of the salon there was a small kitchen and dining booth with a table that seated four. Finally, two big, comfy captain's chairs for the driver and copilot.
"Who's taking first shift driving?" Steve asked.
Jack, who did most of the driving on past tours, said, "Man, I'm beat. I was up at six getting shit at work ready for me to be gone for two weeks. Can I get a pass tonight?"
"I'll drive," Jo said. "I got a nap this afternoon." She left unsaid that she was probably the only person on the bus who was used to operating vehicles on little or no sleep.
Larry and Steve played rock-paper-scissors to see who got first pick of the sleeping facilities. Larry wrapped Steve's rock with paper, which got an enthusiastic, "Yes!" and a fist pump from Suzanne. They said their goodnights and closed the door behind them as they claimed the bedroom. Jack went straight to the bunks, claiming the bottom one on the left and pulled the curtain. They could hear him snoring within minutes.
Steve and Sara stayed up for a while talking to Jill and Blue until they passed over the Potomac River and crossed into Maryland. Steve stood up and stretched. "Ok, sis, we're going to crash. Pull over and wake me up when you need to switch out."
"Night," Jo responded, her eyes never leaving the road. She reached over to the driver's control panel and turned off the lights in the lounge area, leaving the interior of the bus fully dark as Steve and Sara climbed into the lower bunk on the right. Jo wondered if they were really going to 'sleep' in the twin bunk but then figured they probably would. Everyone seemed wiped out.
Everyone except Blue, it seemed. As Jo watched her in the mirror, she got up from the couch, put her backpack into the bunk above Steve and Sara, and then came back up and sat in the passenger's captain chair. She dropped down the armrest and curled her legs up under her.
Jo glanced over and said, "Not sleepy?" Blue Girl had showered as well at Steve and Sara's house and changed into yoga pants and a teal long sleeved t-shirt that said 'Bitch Planet' in big purple letters on the front. She'd put her hair into a thick braid.
"No, I'm wired! I don't think I could sleep at all right now. I've never been on a trip like this, it's going to be so much fun." Jo made a wager with herself that Blue would be asleep before Baltimore. "How far is it to Cape May?" Blue asked as she kicked off her sneakers.
Jo looked down at the display in the console. The bus had Apple Car Play and she had connected her phone as soon as she had sat down behind the wheel. A screen to the right of the steering wheel was showing the Waze app.
"It says a little under four hours from here. We'll probably get in right about sun-up as long as the assholes out there can keep their cars in between the lines." She touched the screen to switch over to her Spotify app, touched a playlist labeled 'Calm, Cool and Collected', and then switched the screen back to Waze. Jazz guitar started playing over the speakers in the forward cabin.
Blue cocked an ear at the music for a minute. "This won't make you fall asleep at the wheel, will it?" she asked.
"Not a problem," Jo answered. "I'm normally a rock-and-roll girl. But when I'm task focused, I just need some background noise that doesn't intrude. This is Larry Carlton, possibly one of the greatest jazz guitarists currently alive. He's half rock-and-roll anyways, I could never drift off listening to him."
"Hmm." Blue Girl sat quietly for a few minutes, then said, "So I don't know if this qualifies as talking about the Army, but Sara told me you fly helicopters and so do both Steve and your dad. Mind if I ask you how that became the family business?"
"No, it's fine. My dad was a pilot in the Army when he was young," Jo said. She seemed less tense about the subject here in the dark cab of the bus. "He served in Kosovo and the first Gulf War. After that, he got out and started his own charter business so he could be home with us more. He only had the one bird for a long time, but I was riding with him as early as I can remember. He started teaching Steve and I to fly as soon as we were tall enough to reach the pedals."
Blue blinked at her. "Helicopters have pedals?"
"Oh boy. So, you've never been up in one I take it?" Jo laughed.
"I've only been in an airplane like four times. Never a helicopter," Blue answered.
"Well. Yes, they have pedals. Anyway, when I got out of high school, I was pretty adrift. I wasn't interested in going to college. You can go into the Army to be a pilot without a college degree, so that's what I did," Jo said, while signaling a lane change and leaning over to check the bus's blind spot. "I had to argue with the placement officer for weeks to put me on the chopper track instead of flying cargo planes or something."
"So, let me think. You've been in the Army for, what? Ten years?" Blue asked her.
Jo smiled. "Flattering guess. No, I went in at eighteen and I'm almost thirty-two. I've got thirteen years in, seven left until retirement."
"That's crazy to think you could retire before you're forty. For most people our age, retirement hasn't even crossed their mind," Blue said. "I mean I'll turn 30 next spring and I just started a 401k last year."
"I
could
retire then," Jo said, "Doesn't mean I
have
to. And if I do I won't move to Florida to play bingo."
"Will you go into the family business with your dad and Steve? I mean you do the same job as your dad did in the Army. It seems like you could do the same job together now and it'd be nice."
"Not exactly the same job. My dad was a snake driver and I fly slicks."
"What are those?" Blue asked.
"It's terminology that dates back to the Vietnam War. Snakes are attack choppers. My dad flew the Apache. It's a two-person job that's covered in guns and anti-tank missiles. They tore the shit out of Saddam's Republican Guard in the first Gulf War. Slicks are non-offensive birds, mostly. I fly medevac choppers. I mean, we have mini-guns on the sides, but those are mainly for fire suppression when we're going into a hot landing zone."
"Mini-guns? So... they're small?" Jill asked.
"It's an electrically powered machine gun with three rotating barrels that can fire three thousand fifty-caliber rounds per minute," Jo said dryly.
"Oh," Blue replied, her eyes wide.
"Yeah, they can ruin your day quick. My job is mainly to go in and get out guys who have been wounded. Sometimes it's allied forces or Afghan army. Whoever I get called in to evac. The Iraqi army sometimes, back when we were still there. I did one tour there before we pulled out. But mostly I'm getting our guys. Sometimes the locals will call us in for an injured or sick civilian who needs to be airlifted to a hospital. Ground transportation in Afghanistan is pretty much a nightmare."
"That sounds sort of heroic," Blue said. Jo snorted. "Is that what your dad and Steve do with their company?" Blue asked.
"No, Steve is on the passenger side of the business. We have a couple of nice passenger models and he and a couple other guys pilot them when some dude needs a helicopter and he's rich, but not rich enough to have his own. Dad finds that a bit too boring, so he hires out to Dominion Electric in Virginia or sometimes Delmarva Power in Maryland or Delaware, helping with high-tension line maintenance. He's got a little MD-500, and he'll take three or four guys up and hover over electric transmission lines so they can hop on and off the towers to work on the lines and not have to climb up and down." Jo explained.
Blue stared at her for a moment then exclaimed, "That's insane!" She put her hands over her mouth and glanced guiltily back at the sleeping area. She said more quietly, "Isn't that like, really dangerous?"
Jo smiled again. "I think that's why dad does it, otherwise he gets bored. Steve didn't go into the service. There's something a little different about flying choppers in the Army. Well... a lot different actually. Steve's fine doing what he does and dad likes what he does. I think Dad's still the steadiest stick on the East Coast."
"What about you?" Blue asked, "What do you want to do when you get out?"
Jo didn't say anything for almost a mile. "My job is to go get people who need help. That's what I do. It's..." She trailed off for a moment, then took a deep breath. "That's my job."
"Well, it sounds admirable," Blue said. They rode in silence for a few more miles. Jo eased the bus off the beltway and they started heading north on I-95.
"Hey, I wanted to say that I'm kind of envious of your mom and music nights after you told me about that. She sounds like the kind of mom I wished I'd had. I know it must have been tough to lose her, but I'm glad you had her as long as you did." Blue said. Jo said nothing, staring impassively ahead.
"Anyway, I know it sucks she's gone but she sounds like she was a good mom," Blue said.
"You lost your mom too?" Jo asked.
"Might as well have. I haven't spoken to my parents more than once or twice a year since I came out to them."
Jo glanced over. "Damn, I'm sorry Doran, that blows." They drove in silence for a moment, then Jo said, "I didn't figure out my own shit until I was in high school, a couple of years after mom was gone. Dad was totally blasé about it when I told him in eleventh grade. He said 'Jo I just want you to be happy, no matter who you end up with. As long as they treat you right.' And also, 'Just remember to keep it to yourself if you're thinking about the Army.'" Jo snickered. "I'd already been talking to him about enlisting after high school."
"Why would he tell you to hide who you are?" Blue asked.
"You may not remember, but don't-ask-don't-tell wasn't repealed until 2010. I was on the down low for my first three years in. I remember the day Obama signed the repeal. I wanted to be out so badly, I walked into my squadron leader's office that morning and said 'Major, I just want you to know I'm a lesbian!'"
Blue laughed. "Oh my god, how did he react?"
"She," Jo corrected her. "Major Alice Wright was my commander on my first deployment and my mentor early in my career. She said 'No shit Chief. Now tell me the sky's blue, then go finish writing up your damn maintenance reports.'" Jill cracked up again.
"Is Chief your nickname, like Maverick in Top Gun?" Blue inquired when she stopped laughing.
"No, we mostly don't do call signs in Army aviation. It's short for Chief Warrant Officer. I'm a CW3. Warrant officers are above non-coms, like sergeants and other enlisted, but below officers like lieutenants, captains and on up. Don't ever tell an old sergeant that though, unless you want a half-hour lecture about the importance of non-coms. Chief is a rank for technical personnel like pilots in the Army, or special equipment gunners in the marines. They keep trying to send me to O-school, but then I'd end up behind a desk instead of a stick, so that's a hard negative from me."
