Landslide by Henry Simpson
Margaret and I ignored the rain and drove down the coastline from Goleta to check Oxnard real estate. We hooked up with an agent and viewed a few houses, and nothing piqued our interests, so we stopped at a restaurant for a late lunch before returning home. On the TV above the bar, a weatherman in a raincoat was reporting from a mudslide covering a section of Highway 101 we had passed over hours before. “Oh,” I moaned.
“What?” Margaret said.
I pointed at the TV, where a weatherman reported that crews were working on the mudslide, which was just like the last one, that had blocked 101 for a week seven years ago.
“John, the kids expect me home after school. Can we still drive there?”
“It’s technically possible,” I said. “First down to Ventura, inland to Santa Maria, then up to Goleta. How’s that sound? That’s two-hundred plus miles. It would take forever and we might get stuck along the way.” I hesitated. “Maybe we could fly.” I called the Oxnard airport, learned airlines no longer operated there, gave Margaret the news. She suggested driving to L.A., leaving our car, and flying home.
“I’d rather drive inland,” I said. Then I remembered Gene McKee, a sociable Virginian, I used to work with who had a private pilot’s license and an airplane. I hadn’t talked to him in years. Got his home number from my smartphone, called, he answered, sounded like his old self, with a friendly upbeat Southern drawl. He asked how I was doing and about Margaret. It amazed me that he remembered her name. Said he was working for himself now, his own company, private express air delivery, doing really well. He’d heard the outfit we’d once worked for as a photographer was in trouble and would go “belly up,” and laughed as if it was well deserved.
I explained our predicament. “I thought of you, Gene. You’re a pilot. You have a plane. I wondered if you could fly down to the Oxnard airport, pick us up, and fly us to the Santa Barbara airport. I’ll pay you, of course.”
“Sure, Johnny, old buddy. Just cover my expenses.”
“That’s great, Gene. I really appreciate it.”
After a long silence, “My ship’s a Cessna 172 Skyhawk, Johnny. I need to prep and gas her up before we fly. I’ll get there in a couple of hours. Wait for me by the Air Taxi gate. Give me your credit card numbers so I can get your show on the road.”
I dictated our Visa card info and the call ended. The time was 12:31 p.m.
We drove to the Oxnard airport and waited near the Air Taxi gate. Small planes taxied in and out, passengers entered and left, until it got tedious with repetition and, after two hours, Gene had not yet arrived, after three still no Gene, and after four I was antsy and Margaret said, “John, call him, John,” and, of course, I did.
“Why’re you calling me?” Gene said, sounding annoyed.
“You said Two hours, Gene. It’s been more than four. What’s the holdup?”
“I ain’t an airline, old buddy. Had a little problem with the ‘lectrics, had to fix it. Ain’t safe to fly otherwise. I told you I had to prep.”
“You did mention that,” I said.
“Okay, then, old buddy. I’m about to take off right now. See you in the next twenty minutes or so. Don’t call me again. I’m not some Yellow Cab jockey.”
I checked my watch, 4:47 p.m.
We waited and watched. At 5:25 p.m., a Cessna with mottled paint taxied into the pickup area with Gene in the pilot’s seat. We watched him remove his headgear, exit the plane, and enter the boarding gate. I remembered him as a pudgy man of forty in casual clothes. Today he was a pear-shaped fat man in skuzzy blue coveralls. He waved as he entered the terminal. “Hey y’all! Here I am. Long time no see.” When he approached, I smelled whiskey on his breath.
“Are you safe to fly?” I said.
He glared at me. “You and Margie change your mind?”
“We’re both rarin’ to go, Gene,” Margaret said.
He nodded. “Yahoo then, but first I gotta drain my radiator.”
As Gene visited the men’s, Margaret grabbed my arm and gave me a panicky look.
I nodded and rolled my eyes.
When Gene returned, we followed him out to his plane. It was all there but looked old. Gene climbed in, told Margaret to sit in back and me to sit front with him. He handed me a headset with attached mike. The cockpit smelled of gasoline and unwashed laundry. “Buckle up,” he said, starting the engine. The Cessna shuddered at first, but settled down as it idled. Through the headphones, I heard Gene utter aeronautical gibberish to the tower.
We taxied out to a runway and took off, climbing to ten-thousand feet and cruising. At last we were on our way. I felt reassured that we were at last making progress. I checked on Margaret, hunched down in her seat, hands over ears to dampen the engine roar, and shaking her head, obviously uncomfortable. With conversation impossible, I nodded at her, without response from her.
I looked out my window and noticed ocean on my right.
“Santa Barbara’s behind us,“ I asked Gene. “Why are we flying south?”
“I gotta meet a guy at the Burbank airport,” Gene said.
“You never mentioned a detour.”
“Somethin’ came up.”
“How long will it take?”
“Not long. Don’t get your knickers in an uproar, old buddy.”
“Our kids are home alone.”
“They’ll survive.”
“Is that your attitude toward young kids?”
He laughed. “What kids? Kids’re a pain in the ass.”
Except for the engine, we flew on in silence. A few minutes later, Gene said, “Whoa. We’re almost to the airport.” We descended, landed, taxied to a terminal, parked, and exited.
Gene said, “The instruments is actin’ squirrely. A technician’s gotta fix ‘em. Go inside and grab a bite while I deal with it.”
Margaret and I visited the cafe for sandwiches and drinks. When we returned to the gate, Gene’s plane was gone. I asked a counter agent if she had seen a big man in a jumpsuit take off in a Cessna 172 in the past few minutes.
“Genie McKee?” she said with a smirk.
“Yeah,” I said. “D’you know him?”
“He just left. Don’t know how he keeps that Cesspit in the air.”
I gave Margaret the news.
“Oh, John,” she said, like I had murdered her cat.
I put my hand on her arm.
She looked at me, and then removed it.
“Shit happens, Margie.”
“Did you learn that in business school?”
“It’ll all work out in the end.”
“What about our Visa? How much did you . . . ” She diddled with her phone. “He’s charged $2100 on our Visa, John. That’s ridiculous.”
“It does seem high,” I said.
She called home, talked to both kids, then handed me her phone. I talked to them to reassure them, but they were in good spirits, with the sound of TV in the background. Why weren’t they worried as much as we were? What was wrong with them?
Margaret spoke to an agent. When she returned, she said, “What we’ll do, John, is we’ll take a shuttle bus to L.A. International and catch the next flight from there to Santa Barbara.” The next flight was scheduled the following morning. We spent a fitful night trying to sleep sitting upright in the lounge.
On the flight home, Margaret asked me why Gene had “screwed us over.”
I said, “The only thing I can think of is that, after I took some office party photos, he warned me against ever treading on his turf again. The company didn’t need a full-time photographer. He was insecure, and overreacted.”
“Did you mention it to anyone at work?”
“I’m sure I did. No one was surprised.”
As soon as we got home, I called Gene’s home number. I got an answering machine and left a callback request. I didn’t expect one, but Gene called a few hours later, sounding calm, with that same friendly drawl, “How ya doin’, old buddy?”
“Not so good, Gene,” I said, “after you dumped us in Burbank.”
He chuckled, like it was a trivial matter. “That’s nothin’ after you got Harry to fire me. You were such a dickhead. Everyone in that shop hated you.”
“That’s insane. I never did that.”
“I ain’t insane, old buddy.”
“You owe me twenty-one hundred bucks on that ride to Burbank.”
“I don’t own you jack shit, old buddy. You just panicked before I returned from my test flight.” He ended the call.
After that call I fumed. It was the humiliation of being ripped off by that guy. Did he really return to Burbank, or was it a lie? We waited for several hours before Margaret decided it was time to find another way home. And he had just revealed a motive, based on the erroneous belief that I had persuaded Harry to fire him.
What to do now? Declare that his charges on our Visa were fraudulent? If we did, Gene would tell investigators that we prevented him from completing the deal by leaving Burbank while he was on a test flight: his word against ours; the same if we sued him in small claims court.
After stewing for a few days, I researched the local airport. I scouted it and located Gene’s Cessna, parked outside on the tarmac about twenty feet from the fence, along with several other low-rent relics. Lights were on in a nearby hanger, and a security patrol circled the airport, but infrequently during the early morning hours.
I visited a Goodwill store and purchased a set of well-worn blue coveralls, workman’s shirt, and ballcap. I filled a one-gallon jerrycan at a gas station. At 2 a.m. on a Wednesday, I parked near the airport and took the jerrycan over the fence to Gene’s plane. The Cessna’s door lock was worn and failed. I poured the gas into the cockpit, left the jerrycan, stepped back, lit and tossed in a match, and ran like hell to the fence and over.
In due course, an insurance investigator visited me at work and told me Gene McKee had accused me of setting his Cessna on fire. I told him no and mentioned that Gene had a grudge against me based on the mistaken belief that I was responsible for his termination at work. The investigator nodded and thanked me. A few months later, Margaret told me that Gene had been prosecuted for insurance fraud and sentenced to six months in jail plus five years probation.
* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Henry Simpson 2026
Image Source: Dey from Fictom.com