Fighter Pilots, Rabbits, and
Writers
©2005 by Bryan Fields
As the son of an Air Force fighter pilot, risk is in my blood. Going five hundred miles an hour at treetop level with people shooting at me is not part of my job description, but as I prepare for my workday I am immediately aware of clear and present danger:
There is a rabbit in my office chair.
It’s Thumper, my son’s pet—eleven pounds of stubborn Godzilla-bunny, able to shred flesh at the slightest provocation. When I try to move him, he digs his claws into the fabric and puffs up like a furry white volleyball. He growls at me. I never knew rabbits could growl.
He can’t be bribed with carrots or lettuce. He has claimed my chair as his, apparently unfazed by my authority.
“Look, fuzzball,” I tell him. “You may be the alpha bunny, but around here I’m the über-man, and you need to get out of my chair so I can get to work.”
He stares at me. Something about that stare is disquieting.
Thumper has my father’s eyebrows.
No, seriously, he does. He’s mostly white, but there are dark brown spots above his eyes. His expression reminds me a lot of an old photo I have of Major Sam Fields standing in front of his F-4C Phantom, stern and immovable, daring anyone to cross him.
My dad’s trademark stare.
His squadron mates playfully nicknamed him “Happy Sam the Good Humor Man.”
So I wonder now if Happy Sam hasn’t been reincarnated as a large grumpy rabbit, here to make sure I don’t sully the family name with the stuff I write (a tall order, since I often write about my family).
Actually, Dad wanted to write. In 1966 he enrolled in a correspondence course for aspiring writers. He was doing well with it, and getting high praise from his instructors, when Vietnam interrupted. There followed a year of dangerous combat sorties, commendations, promotions, and further exciting assignments after he returned, including a year in the Pentagon. Upon retirement from the Air Force, he again thought about writing, but a series of sales and management jobs got in the way—for about twenty years. Finally, in his late sixties, he announced his intention to retire and spend the rest of his days writing glorious war stories and historical novels.
He cleaned off his desk, sat down, switched on his computer—and stared at it for a week before going out and getting a paper route. Fighter pilots just can’t sit still. I guess flinging papers from a speeding Honda at four a.m. was reminiscent of low-level bombing runs, and less dangerous than writer’s block.
He died quietly at seventy-three with his stories untold, a handful of aborted efforts turning brown between the pages of his unfinished writing course. Going through his effects with my siblings, we found some of his college English papers. It was good stuff. His talent was obvious.
But Dad never viewed himself as a writer; he was a fighter pilot, or salesman, or city manager. Though occasionally bitten by the writing mosquito, he always allowed the welt to go away on its own, never really scratching the itch.
Me? I have to scratch it, until it’s annoyingly raw, and never stop picking at it, so I always know it’s there, keeping me up at night, making me spend a small fortune on stamps and printer ink. I’m not going to my grave with my stories untold.
And no long-eared
varmint is going to stand in my way.
I reach for the rabbit and he growls again. Exasperated, I propose a compromise:
“Okay, just scoot over a little bit and we’ll share.”
Nothing doing. He continues to stare at me and spreads himself menacingly over the seat.
After sitting too long on the front three inches of my chair with Thumper snorting and stomping behind me, I have to see my chiropractor. He asks me how I hurt myself.
“Well, Doc, I have a dangerous job. I’m a writer.”