it. For some reason, it
remained open throughout the summer, sucking an air conditioned
draft right outside where it met the humid New York air.
Occasionally, I’d race into the bathroom not to take a shit, but to
elude the sheer boredom of the job. Staring out that window, gazing
up at my dad’s building in lower Manhattan, I’d light a cigarette
and blow the smoke into the hazy exhaust rising from the streets
below. Occasionally, I’d spot a Concorde jet racing over the
Manhattan skyline across the East River, en route to Europe, or
some other faraway place. Dreaming of the excitement of sitting in
that cockpit, longing to be a pilot with an exciting mission to
conquer each new day, I’d smoke and smoke and smoke, wondering how
the hell I’d ever survive at the Air Force Academy if I couldn’t
even tolerate the most simplistic office tasks.
What the hell , I figured, I’m
better than this job, I was born to fly . I’ll show Colorado
Springs a thing or two . I knew all I had to do was wait, wait
for the end of the work day, the end of each summer, the end of
high school, when I’d finally rediscover my mind and refresh it
daily with the thrill of aviation.
Until then, however, I’d keep collecting
paychecks or taking tests, just like every other schmuck in the
world. Why , I thought, do employers pay people to do
grunt work—to staple and fax and file? It just proves that everyone
out there is full of himself . The average Joe endures the toil
of the most ho-hum work simply to feel better about placing it on
his resume and feigning its importance to get a slightly higher
paying, but equally menial, job. These are things I never realized
before that summer job.
All this ties into me losing knowledge.
Suddenly, nothing around me was interesting. Well, that’s not true,
exactly. I liked TV. I was into girls. I’d occasionally read a good
book. I loved cigarettes. But that was really it. Besides those
things, not much really caught my eye, and not much was worth
paying attention too.
I remember reading a book called The
Little Prince back then, thinking that it described my life so
well. I identified not only with the story, but with the author. It
was written by Antoine Saint-Exupery, who was one hell of a pilot
during World War II. His plane disappeared off the coast of France
in 1944, when he was gathering intelligence on the Nazis for his
native France. What a cool way to die. I remember thinking that if
I could choose my own death, it would be just like his. That way, I
wouldn’t actually die; I would just “disappear” one day while
flying, while doing what I love to do.
Years before the war, Saint-Exupery flew a
Caudron C-630 Simoun, a very small plane but still a beauty. It’s
WEFT: 34-foot, 2-inch wings; a Renault Bengali 6Q-09 inline 220
horsepower piston engine; a slab-sided, light alloy fuselage; and a
single tailfin, rounded at the top. On December 30, 1935,
Saint-Exupery’s Caudron crashed in the Sahara desert. He and his
co-pilot survived the crash landing, but according to his memoir
they had only grapes, two oranges, and some wine, hardly enough to
make it through the first day. By the third day they were
dehydrated and experienced hallucinations. On the fourth day they
were rescued by a Bedouin on a camel. The Little Prince begins with a pilot being marooned in the desert, probably a
reference to Saint-Exupery’s experience.
The book was inspiring, and it described me
perfectly. In it, the little prince spends all of his time cruising
around the galaxy on a rocket ship, ostensibly searching for fuel,
but in actuality for the meaning of life. The little prince loathed
grown-ups because everything to them was a “matter of consequence.”
In other words, everything was so serious to the grown-ups that
they never took the time out to use their imaginations. I remember
that in the book, the little prince makes a compelling comparison.
He says that, on the one hand,
remained open throughout the summer, sucking an air conditioned
draft right outside where it met the humid New York air.
Occasionally, I’d race into the bathroom not to take a shit, but to
elude the sheer boredom of the job. Staring out that window, gazing
up at my dad’s building in lower Manhattan, I’d light a cigarette
and blow the smoke into the hazy exhaust rising from the streets
below. Occasionally, I’d spot a Concorde jet racing over the
Manhattan skyline across the East River, en route to Europe, or
some other faraway place. Dreaming of the excitement of sitting in
that cockpit, longing to be a pilot with an exciting mission to
conquer each new day, I’d smoke and smoke and smoke, wondering how
the hell I’d ever survive at the Air Force Academy if I couldn’t
even tolerate the most simplistic office tasks.
What the hell , I figured, I’m
better than this job, I was born to fly . I’ll show Colorado
Springs a thing or two . I knew all I had to do was wait, wait
for the end of the work day, the end of each summer, the end of
high school, when I’d finally rediscover my mind and refresh it
daily with the thrill of aviation.
Until then, however, I’d keep collecting
paychecks or taking tests, just like every other schmuck in the
world. Why , I thought, do employers pay people to do
grunt work—to staple and fax and file? It just proves that everyone
out there is full of himself . The average Joe endures the toil
of the most ho-hum work simply to feel better about placing it on
his resume and feigning its importance to get a slightly higher
paying, but equally menial, job. These are things I never realized
before that summer job.
All this ties into me losing knowledge.
Suddenly, nothing around me was interesting. Well, that’s not true,
exactly. I liked TV. I was into girls. I’d occasionally read a good
book. I loved cigarettes. But that was really it. Besides those
things, not much really caught my eye, and not much was worth
paying attention too.
I remember reading a book called The
Little Prince back then, thinking that it described my life so
well. I identified not only with the story, but with the author. It
was written by Antoine Saint-Exupery, who was one hell of a pilot
during World War II. His plane disappeared off the coast of France
in 1944, when he was gathering intelligence on the Nazis for his
native France. What a cool way to die. I remember thinking that if
I could choose my own death, it would be just like his. That way, I
wouldn’t actually die; I would just “disappear” one day while
flying, while doing what I love to do.
Years before the war, Saint-Exupery flew a
Caudron C-630 Simoun, a very small plane but still a beauty. It’s
WEFT: 34-foot, 2-inch wings; a Renault Bengali 6Q-09 inline 220
horsepower piston engine; a slab-sided, light alloy fuselage; and a
single tailfin, rounded at the top. On December 30, 1935,
Saint-Exupery’s Caudron crashed in the Sahara desert. He and his
co-pilot survived the crash landing, but according to his memoir
they had only grapes, two oranges, and some wine, hardly enough to
make it through the first day. By the third day they were
dehydrated and experienced hallucinations. On the fourth day they
were rescued by a Bedouin on a camel. The Little Prince begins with a pilot being marooned in the desert, probably a
reference to Saint-Exupery’s experience.
The book was inspiring, and it described me
perfectly. In it, the little prince spends all of his time cruising
around the galaxy on a rocket ship, ostensibly searching for fuel,
but in actuality for the meaning of life. The little prince loathed
grown-ups because everything to them was a “matter of consequence.”
In other words, everything was so serious to the grown-ups that
they never took the time out to use their imaginations. I remember
that in the book, the little prince makes a compelling comparison.
He says that, on the one hand,
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