Misfit Read Free Page A

Don’t dare glance up. Hope she’ll only pass on through. But again she circles. Round and round. And then she stops behind you. She’s mumbling. Over and over. An incantation. And at first the words make no sense. But as she keeps repeating them, you pick up the rhythm, and you start to find the words, For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you . . . For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you . . . For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you . . . For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you . . . Soon you’re chanting it over and over in your head, as though it’s the only sound in the entire universe, with the words becoming almost nonsensical. The first blow drops you to your knees. Across the back and between the shoulder blades. It’s something hard, like a cane, whistling by your ear when she pulls it back. And you brace. Prepare for another blow. You want to say no . You want to say anything. But you have no voice. There are no words inside you. For if ye forgive
men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you . . . For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you . . . For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you . . . She doesn’t stop. Even for a breath. And then it smacks down on you again. But you don’t fall off your knees until the fourth blow. And as you lie on the floor, being beaten from the back of your thighs up to your shoulders and back down your rear, all you can think of is crawling away, climbing into your suitcase, somehow magically snapping the latches and locking yourself inside, holding on to Clark Gable, both of you stowing away into another life where this one will become nothing more than a pitiable story.

1945: Metropolitan Airport, Van Nuys, CA
    In the old Timm Aircraft plant at Metropolitan Airport, movie actor Reginald Denny set up a manufacturing shop. In the early thirties, his acting career in full bloom, Denny, a former RAF pilot in World War I, opened a model-plane store on Hollywood Boulevard, initially calling it Reginald Denny Enterprises but soon recasting it as the Radioplane Company. The crown jewel was the remote-controlled plane that he and his team developed: the Dennymite. Initially built in 1938 with the hobbyist in mind, Denny’s plane garnered interest from the army. A radio-controlled model airplane
would be perfect for training antiaircraft artillerymen. Now he produces the OQ-2 drones. Daily, by the hundreds. Located in Van Nuys, about twenty miles outside of Los Angeles, Metropolitan Airport is an industrial center surrounded by farmland. Once the airport to the stars, and later auxiliary soundstages for the pictures, the airport was bought in 1942 by the military, which then converted many of the buildings into manufacturing centers for defense while still maintaining the soundstages. At one end, aircraft was being assembled; at the other, scenes from Casablanca were being filmed. Now, in the midforties, production is in full swing. The civilian workers, mostly women, are dedicated, faceless in our anonymity, with a posture that conveys a sense of pride in its stoutness. We build the drones. Measure the balsa. Cut. Assemble and glue. Some paint the parts. Stretch fabric over the frame. Others make miniature parachutes, which, down the line, are folded inside the fuselage. Some of us inspect for quality control.
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    We’re all orphans in here. Seated at tables along the perimeter of this giant warehouse, forming the production line. It’s a home for girls. It’s an income. And it supports the war effort. But more than anything it’s something to do. Something to keep your mind off being a bride who has lost her footing since her husband was shipped away. All of us may be