Chapter 37. Future plans, my retirement at age 38.
It was nearly another week before I had a chance to call Dan. First, we talked on the phone and he said he found six non-running JU-52s at an aircraft boneyard in Arizona for $8k each, they were already partially disassembled but included all the external parts, without engines and propellers. He said he might buy one or two if he can find a way to get it shipped to Morocco, probably inside a shipping container. After closely looking over the images Dan concluded they'd have to remove the tail and rudder, the landing gear, but the wings are already off. They sent him video and photos of the line-up in the desert of the JU-52s. They were being flown in France after Vietnam so the colors and emblems were wrong. Dan said he'd have to hire someone to fabricate steel brackets to sit in place of the engine to hold the engine shrouds and propellers in place. Dan said he had to fabricate replica propellers too. But it would be a great first step in returning a 1940s active duty look to the airport.
He told me all ten hangar doors are back in place and working properly, and the hangar has one light fixture just below the roof trusses in the center, it's like a totally different building inside now that it's fully enclosed, with lighting and electrical outlets. The place used to collect dead leaves during almost every storm, but now the leaves are gone but he can hear the hangar doors rattle in the strongest winds inside his motorhome!
Dan installed two more power outlets inside the hangar and wants to add two wall mounted three foot fans. He plans on parking a JU-52 inside the hangar and restore it enough so people can walk inside and look at how young German paratroop soldiers flew into the danger zone. For some soldiers it was the final moments of their life. When you have a mass paratroop deployment (in combat) soldiers usually died in the final moments. The biggest killers were chute failures, landing on something that caused serious injury (power lines, animals, steep roofs, fences, land mines, busy roadways, and falling into structure fires), landing on a body of water, and being shot on the way down. 1940s military parachutes were usually not very steerable.
Note: During the war the incidence of injury to paratroopers was 25/1000. Most injuries happened below the waist, mostly to joints (hip, knee, ankle, foot) broken bones and sprains. About 4/1000 experienced head/neck injuries. On D-Day 21% of all paratroopers were shot during descent or within 10 minutes of landing. Many injuries occurred when the paratroop soldier landed improperly, some happened while exiting the airplane, caused by excess combat gear weight increasing their fall speed, lack of proper gear (or improperly used gear), and jumping at night was also a major contributing factor.
Dan said he built a 4th service pad and rented it out to a doctor from Gibraltar who wants to re-build a 1940s British military plane. He said it was a British Percival P.30 Proctor-II built in 1949. The engine is at an airport repair shop in rural England being re-built and it should be done soon and he needs a place to have it delivered and mount it back in the airplane, so he rented the 4th pad and a tent to sit over the pad that was tall enough to give him the vertical room to lift the engine (and propeller) with a crane and install it back in the fuselage. He said the guy is retired military and now works part time at a medical clinic treating tourists with hangovers, jellyfish stings, and sunburn. He said his wife gave him a deadline to get the airplane out of their back yard, it was already in pieces and will be trucked over and re-assembled at Danville.
Dan said if this guy is able to make the tent and 30ft square pad work he will tell his other doctor buddies who were military pilots during the 1940s and 50s and it could open a flood gate of similar projects. They will load the airplane into a shipping container and ship it to Eddalya and then back behind a semi and have it moved to Danville. He said two old guys in their 80s came over to inspect the site and see the restrictions, basically they only have one 220v AC outlet and for their rent money they get a concrete slab, a power outlet, and an outhouse, and that's it. He warned them the airport can get some strong thunderstorms in the evening so their choice of a tent and how it's installed is critically important.
Dan said he was asking $250 a month rent and told them about reliability of the power source and nothing that runs 24/7 (like a beer refrigerator) will be allowed, they must provide their own tent and install it so it doesn't blow away in storms. The first potential renter asked for permission to park a half-size shipping container beside the slab to house his tools and other valuables, like custom leather seats for the cockpit. There would also be a chance the container he used to transport the engine and airplane might sit there for a few weeks while they wait for another truck to come pick it up.
The time the semi-retired MD from Gibraltar arrived in Ain Lahcen to talk airplanes with Dan they met at the airport then went to a restaurant in town for beers and more negotiation. The doctor swore he knew at least a dozen members of his flying club in England who needed access to a place to work on their historic aircraft indoors. So he suggested that they build a small hangar instead of a pad and a tent. Build a hangar maybe 40 feet by 40 feet, a truss roof pole building with a slab floor as the containment, then rent it out by the month to people like him with antique airplanes in the process of restoration. He asked if Dan had space like that and Dan chuckled and said he had plenty of room for maybe eighty of those buildings. So they used a notepad to sketch a building and estimated the cost at about twenty nine thousand Euros.
The doctor suggested he could build the hangar, finish his plane then rent it out to anyone who needed temporary housing for an airplane under restoration, rented by the month, included metered electricity but no other utilities, just a shared outhouse. That meant anyone using it might need to bring their own generator since local power is unreliable. Rent would include space to park one or two shipping containers. Everyone renting the building had to sign a hold-harmless. Since this was an entirely different scenario than first discussed Dan suggested building the hangar in the far northeast corner of the property, near the street and his new airport sign, with the hangar door facing the mountains so the plane could be towed out, turned around, start the engine and taxi between the east end of the runway and the hangar, then up onto the runway. With this arrangement the hangar would eventually become Dan's property but any rental income would be split between the doctor and Dan.
Since it would be near the street it would be easy to run another power line with a meter base on the hangar and it would be totally independent of the airport operation. They shook on it and decided to get the lawyers involved to draw up the terms to split the income, cover the taxes, cover insurance, pay the utilities, and who would be involved when the doctor passed away or sold his portion. Dan saw it as an easy way to make another couple hundred dollars a month over in a part of the property that has never been used, even during WW2. He went ahead with his plans to build the 30x30 pad for people to rent and install a tent for doing smaller repair jobs on airplanes. He thinks it would work well for crop dusters and might consider installing a plastic covered green house frame instead of a canvas tent. Even if it was left open on both ends it would still provide sufficient cover to make a suitable workshop.
Dan told me they moved the red approach laser into the center of the LZ box, and it is still powered by D-cell re-chargeable batteries that get trickle charged by the sun all day, so there is a small wire that runs halfway across the runway to a 22 inch square solar panel that just lies on the ground.
He also said he had a dinner meeting in town with the guy who owns a company in Spain near Tarifa they're a crop dusting (and sight-seeing) service and has the same runway access problem in Spain and wants to buy into Danville as part owner. They own nineteen single engine airplanes and often fly into northern Morocco. He said a contract like that would bring in up to 25 more planes a day, sometimes they run seven days a week during the season (and they close down every January and February). He said the guy offered to invest in Danville by paying for widening of the runway, to widen it from 30 feet wide by 4800 feet long, into 54 feet wide by 4800 feet long. It would involve closing the airport for three weeks and could be done during the winter when there are nearly no agri-customers. Dan told him they cannot board sightseeing passengers at his airport, it is strictly for maintenance and storage.
For that investment Dan would not charge them per visit, and he would allow them to install a fuel tank at the airport for their use, and possibly two other liquid storage tanks with containment for fertilizer and pesticides. He would provide their own ground crews and Dan had to build two more refueling pads just for them. They have plenty of space for more pads. After their meeting they had to get lawyers involved to spell out the exact terms of the deal.
If they widened the runway this time he would run a few large conduit pipes under the roadbed for pulling wires, he predicted if this deal came together they might need to add signal lights to maintain traffic control to ensure there were never two airplanes on the runway at the same time. Those traffic lights would be operated from the control tower. Dan wanted to add a traffic light on the driveway at the east end of the runway since the driveway passes within twenty feet of the runway, he wants to stop traffic anytime a plane is taking off because on rare occasions the wheels might be only ten feet above the ground by the time they reach the end of the runway.
Dan said when the guy from Spain toured the airport and met Samir he was surprised because he expected to meet a middle aged woman, and not a 19 year old Arab boy with a high pitched voice. He warned the guy when they walked into the ATC building that the control tower usually smelled like a middle school boy's locker room.
I asked him how he is getting along with the neighbors and Dan said that the land owners bordering the airport don't live there, their land is only used for grazing cattle. Since they are zoned agriculture in Morocco it allows the use of small airplanes without special permission. He said the government prefers the use of airplanes instead of tractors because of road traffic and airplanes last a lot longer than tractors. But they still hire companies with tractors to harvest their crops if they grow anything. Most of the land in the area around Danport is used for grazing cattle, not growing crops. They say the soil is too sandy and rocky to farm. The properties beside the airport usually only need crop dusting for insect swarms, mostly for grasshoppers that can easily devour all the vegetation the cattle need to eat. The cattle on the neighboring property stay away from the areas with the low flying airplanes, except at night.
For wiping out grasshopper swarms they actually use a non-toxic spray similar to vinegar that blinds the grasshoppers (and other flying insects) and damages their wings but will not harm cattle or plants after the rain washes it away.
He said they have two open-meetings (Open = anyone may attend) a month now in the hangar and attendance has stayed around 13-25, depending on time of year. And he has heard some people want a similar meeting in Arabic but he was surprised by the number of drug addicts that speak fluent Spanish in Morocco, most of his visitors come down from Tangier and Tetouan in groups by taxi. His collection of folding chairs in the hangar has grown to 32, and they have a stack of used AA Big Books now that has grown to 19 copies they give out free to anyone who needs one (the book is available in Spanish and Arabic and in 280 other languages). Dan said there is one guy who has been flirting with him at the 12-Step meetings, he is 59 years old and moved here from Algeria, so he is a real Berber but he chain smokes and seems nervous all the time, has a hard time sitting still during meetings. He said they still allow smoking inside the hangar. He said they went out for dinner after a meeting a few weeks ago and nothing weird happened, but the guy seems to be excessively friendly. I told him to text me the guy's name so I could look him up on Interpol while I still had access. Dan said the guy reminds him of Peter Lorre, except he is much taller. Peter Lorre was 5'3" and this guy at the meeting was about 5'8."
Dan told me he is thinking about building himself a house near the ATC building, something with enough room for more modern conveniences that he has no space for in the bus, like a clothes washer and heavily insulated walls and roof, and maybe some alternative energy technology.
He said there are a lot of small homes in the area that are built from home-made mud brick (sand, rocks, clay, and straw), dried in the sun for weeks. They actually survive for hundreds of years but are susceptible to earthquakes. What people often do is build a house with a flat roof out or ordinary building materials then build another roof over the house so it's always in shade and keeps cooler all day.
"How is your boy Samir doing?" I asked.
"Sam's fine, he gets moody depending on how well he gets along at home. His parents work lots of hours and dad works on their house on weekends. We've discussed him building a small room inside the ATC building but I warned him it's like an oven during the summer so he's holding off for now. I think Sam's waiting to see if I build a house. Sometimes I think Sam wants me to adopt him." Dan told me that for several months after he started working for him that after work he just got on his bicycle and left, but now he tries to hang out after work. I think he is delaying going home early, he says his father is often very grouchy when he gets home from work. It's easy to see which parent Samir gets his moodiness from.
I asked if he built a two bedroom house behind the bus would the second bedroom be for Samir. All Dan did was chuckle and smile so I am sure it's crossed his mind more than once. I think he really likes Samir and is enjoying the role he has taken on being the boy's alternate father for 40+ hours a week. But they both parent each other since Samir is slowly teaching him Arabic. Dan showed him a youtube video of Sesame Street from PBS and said he'd love to learn Arabic in an easy, low stress way like they teach English on PBS.
I asked if he was getting tired of living in a bus yet and he said the small size gets on his nerves, it sometimes feels as small as a prison cell especially on days the airport is closed due to weather. But he still likes bathing outside with the garden hose more than the tiny shower in the back of the bus. So I asked about the lack of privacy showering outside and he said he got used to Sam watching him and Sam is equally as unconcerned about privacy. He uses the toilet in the ATC building with no walls and no privacy and they just sort of got used to it. Dan said Samir is like the only person he's known who pisses and shits in front of him with no sign of embarrassment at all, he really doesn't care who sees him on the toilet.
Dan said sometimes he walks in the ATC building and immediately smells crap, and he looks over at the toilet and there's Samir wiping himself and he smiles and says hi! He really doesn't care about body stuff. Dan says Samir is like a dog when it comes to bodily functions, he doesn't care who watches or why.
I reminded Dan he was sort of that way too back in college too. In our dorms each floor had two large bathrooms with shower rooms that had eight nozzles on the walls and Dan used to jerk off no matter who else was in the shower, but he wasn't the only one who did it. I am way too Protestant to jerk off in front of strangers.
Something he had been talking about for almost a year finally got scheduled.
He decided to take time off and go to Madrid to the airport where he renewed his pilot's license and take a refresher course for instrument certification renewal, even though his airplane does not have radar or instrument landing hardware. He might have to fly an aircraft that requires instrument rated pilots. So he paid for the class that started during Ramadan, which is a major Islamic holiday which greatly reduces the number of customers they get at the airport. It runs from early March to early April every year.
His course in Madrid lasts six days (and costs $5k), so I agreed to come down and take over refueling airplanes and directing traffic on the runway. He asked me in early December and I agreed that my last day working for State would be this December 31st.
Because his role will increase while Dan is gone he also asked Samir if he agreed to work extra hours for that week and Sam agreed and didn't even ask for a raise but I imagine he'll get a cash bonus. I think Dan wants him to stand beside the runway with the VHF walkie talkie directing planes in the air and on the ground while I did the refueling and made sure nobody overstayed their half hour on the pads or crapped all over the inside of the outhouse.
Note: Airplanes use a VHF band that sits just above the FM broadcast band and they use narrow AM modulation for voice comms.
Dan has mentioned he considered buying a cheap Nextgen nav unit for his bi-plane, something he can mount above the instrument panel. He's already ordered the parts to enclose the cockpit, it's a retractable leather cover with aluminum support rods that runs from the top of the windshield over the top and encloses the entire cockpit. When you land you unclip it in front and it slides back and lies on the fuselage behind your headrest.
In January Dan told me it was official, the JU-52 he purchased from an airplane boneyard in the states is packed and waiting for a ride across the Atlantic at a shipping port in Corpus Christi Texas. When it arrives it will be trucked to the airport and left near the hangar, but he has no clue how they are going to get the heavier pieces out of the container.
The old doctor from Gibraltar signed the lease and work starts on the site of the new hangar soon. He hired a builder from Tetouan to build the pole barn with the very wide and tall door on the south wall. He expects it will take three weeks to build the hangar and once it's ready he will have his airplane and the parts and tools delivered, the engine will be ready soon too. The doctor said he already has three others ready to rent it once his plane is finished. He said this is the only place for DIY airplane restorers in Europe or Africa, and expects it will have a decade long wait list.
Because there was some confusion with crop dusting teams about pad-time, Dan purchased a very large analog face clock and had it tightly mounted to the west wall of the hangar. When a team drives their plane onto the pad he walks over and has the pilot look at the clock and they agree on the start and stop time. They agree they must be off the pad by 29 minutes and 59 seconds or they pay for another 30 minutes for ten Euros in cash.
Usually the main cause of a team going over the time limit is when something mechanical on their supply truck fails, especially the air compressors they use to pump fuel and fertilizer.
He also posted fuel sales hours on the side of the tanker truck and extended the airport hours to sunrise to sunset. But during the winter they close earlier, or like Dan says: when the street lights come on the control tower closes. Regardless of what time of year it is Samir doesn't start work until 8am the gas pump opens at 9am.
He was gifted about two dozen more of those small blue solar LED lights. Some went around the runway, some went around the refueling pads, one went on the very peak of the roof of the control tower, and two marked the roof peak of the hangar. Let me tell you, at night out in the desert at the airport it gets very dark because there are almost no street lights outside of town, with millions of stars visible to the naked eye. Sometimes when I go there I lie on the picnic table and stare at the sky and wonder what the ancient humans understood about the lights in the sky. I think they felt they were as supernatural as earthquakes and the weather. I do wonder how many people stared at the stars and thought to themselves "I wonder if our Sun is also a star, just a lot closer?"
Dan said they've had a few situations he never anticipated before. This happened twice in the last six months: a crop duster lands but his crew truck never arrives because they broke down or were in an accident and the plane does not have enough fuel to return to their base runway. That meant they were stuck at Danville all night, pilot and his airplane. They had the pilot call for a taxi and get a ride to town to rent a room for the night. One time the pilot slept in his plane, which was like trying to sleep in a lawn chair.
Another case was he landed at Danville and blew a tire, so Dan had to drag him off the runway with the Bobcat and a chain. It took them four days to get the tire replaced and they used Dan's jack and tools to take the flat tire off, and then took a taxi from Danville to Tangier for a replacement tire and having it balanced too. Dan was angry over that because repairing other people's airplanes is not his responsibility. That plane was the first one he booted since they owed him money for his labor and storing their plane near the runway for four days. At first the owner didn't want to pay, that was when he got booted. Actually, he didn't boot the wheel, he chained both of them.
And they had a pilot who was testing a Lipo battery in his plane instead of an approved lead-acid car battery. The Lipo battery burst into flames and destroyed the plane, again Dan had to drag it out of the way and he chained it. That was the day he banned Lipo batteries from his airport. Four months later they drove over in a roll back tow truck and removed the blackened airplane wreck from the field in the southeast corner of the property. He billed the insurance company for storage and a fee to drag it out of the way. The insurance money he made off that he used to hire someone to design and print out plans for a house for him, 24x30 pole construction with a slab floor, joined to the existing utilities. Luckily the pilot was able to roll off the runway before he jumped out. That afternoon Dan ordered three very large fire extinguishers for the airport.
His home will have two small bedrooms, one small living room, one medium size kitchen and bathroom, four closets, and a utility room. It is designed to catch and store rain water to supply the clothes washer and toilet from a series of elevated plastic 55 gallon drums. The bathroom has two doors: one into the main bedroom and other into the hallway. The second bedroom will be small, like 6'x11'. The master bedroom is also small at 10x11 and the kitchen the same. To save space they incorporated the utility room into the living room but there will be doors covering the stackable clothes washer/dryer and the water heater, and large wash tub. There will be a 12" sunlight tube in the kitchen and the living room.
In February I almost went up to visit Jen for the weekend but she told me she had the flu, I shouldn't visit her, so I went down to visit Dan instead.
I took the bus down to the Roundabout and Samir picked me up since it was a slow airplane day. He drove down on a small motorcycle, a Yamaha 175 Dualsport, I had to hold onto Samir since it had no passenger handles, but it did have passenger foot pegs. Samir said Dan bought it for getting around the airport faster, but he had a small mountain bike for the same purpose.
I asked Samir when he rode up and I didn't recognize him at first, he looked to have grown a little taller and he had a few more hairs growing on his chin. He told me to hold onto him for the five minute ride back, so I flipped my leg over and sat pressed against him and held my hands in front of his stomach with my body pressed against his back. Of course that nearly got me turned on because I was basically rubbing my body against his back and had my hands one inch from his dick.
That close I could smell body odor but it wasn't horrible. The wind immediately blew his Djellaba way up so I grabbed the bunch of fabric like a rope and held on, but when I relaxed my arms my hands were against his hairless lower stomach just inches from his patch. On the ride back he pointed to a driveway just one block from town and said that was where he lived. When we drove past the property I was possibly going to buy I showed him the driveway and he said he knew the family that used to live there but they moved to Egypt for better paying jobs.
On the ride back I asked Sam (but I had to lean over and kind of speak in his ear) if he had a driver's license and he shook his head yes. I asked if they had motorcycle endorsement in Morocco and he said no, it was one license for non-commercial driving of any vehicle. Then he told me he was thinking about getting a pilot's license.
We drove into the airport driveway and took the first right turn on the new driveway directly to the bus, I saw one airplane on the pad and nobody waiting. I got off first, but it took me a few seconds to get my balance after such a bouncy ride. I looked down at his thighs, yes, his Djellaba was blown up but now that the wind was gone it covered his parts. He saw me staring and smiled and got off the dirtbike too and shook the Djellaba so it slid down again. Sam walked inside the ATC building and I took my stuff inside the bus and dropped my backpack on the sofa and got some water and looked out through the curtains at what was going on over on the refueling pads.
I put on some sunscreen and went outside to see if I could help. Outside I heard the control tower brass bell ring about ten times which meant an airplane was about to land, I ran across the runway.
The plane landed and stopped about 800ft past the LZ and rolled off the runway and got into the line (Point Alpha), but he was the only plane waiting and Dan had two empty pads so he walked over to check what the pilot needed, this guy just wanted AV-Gas so he had him wait for the plane on the pad to leave, they just finished filling him. Dan can only sell AV-Gas on pad #1.
Months ago Dan got rolls of yellow police tape and marked out an exit ramp from the runway for planes to exit and get in line for using a pad (Point Alpha). He tries to get everyone off the runway before they reach 1100 feet down the pavement. And behind the pads he has an entrance ramp marked in the ground in yellow tape to show pilots how to taxi around the pads and where to stop and wait (Point Bravo) for clearance to use the runway. Before he got those marked the tarmac was sort of a dangerous chaotic mess, Dan says it is now `systematized.'
About 60 seconds later the guy on pad #1 started his engine and rolled forward then once he cleared the pad he did a turn to the left and rolled past the other pads then turned left again to taxi toward the runway, Dan had the waiting pilot taxi over and park on that fueling pad and block his tires. On days when they are super busy he carries a radio to tell Samir what is going on ahead of time, "This plane on pad #1 is about to taxi and hold." The #1 most important rule is that nobody should enter the runway without clearance, and everyone must call for permission to taxi anywhere, but if there is a waiting line he has them roll off the pad and stop, then call for permission to taxi.
When they are ready to leave the pad they call the tower and ask for permission to taxi to the runway. The tower tells them they are clear to taxi around the pads and hold short of the runway at Point Bravo. Dan has a small sign on the ground, sort of like a line across the taxiway with a small sign that simply says BRAVO. He actually marked taxiway lines from each of the pads around the back side that curves back and stops about 30 feet from the runway at point Bravo. Once there they call again for clearance to taxi onto the active runway, and usually he tells them they are clear to enter the ACTIVE --AND- take off toward the EAST. Samir always reminds them to watch for air traffic around Tetouan Airport which can be heading in almost any direction. He clears them to climb to 1200 feet and call Tangier ATC for routing if they plan on flying above that altitude.
Most of what Samir says is scripted and printed on a sheet of cardboard on the countertop in front of him. 90% of what he does is to make sure there are never two airplanes on the runway at the same time, and airplanes in motion have the right of way. Although they have brakes on every wheel, airplanes are basically not designed to stop suddenly.
The guy who just finished fueling his airplane stopped about 30 feet short of the runway (beside the BRAVO sign) and called for clearance, once he got the clearance to enter the `active' he was also cleared for an eastbound take-off, have a safe flight. The guy sped up his motor, rolled onto the runway and then I heard his engine wind-up and he started rolling eastbound and after about 1500 feet he lifted off the runway and slowly disappeared into the eastern sky. From point Bravo straight ahead onto the runway they turn sharply to the right and line up with the centerline. From that point there is about 3500 feet of runway left, which is plenty of runway for 92% of the planes they see at the Danport.
Occasionally they get a twin engine airplane come in for fuel and those planes often taxi to the far west end and turn around and use the entire runway for their take-off roll, the wind can be a major factor in that decision. Part of the reason for them to call the tower is so everyone at the airport or flying in can hear what is going on with the plane on the runway. Like boats in the harbor all airplanes must announce their intentions beforehand. And if the control tower is closed they must broadcast their intentions at least twice before acting.
Dan already started fueling the next one on the pad and I went over to the Porta-potty to use it and inspect the inside. I saw some build-up of pee drips on the steel floor in front of the toilet so I used the cleaning gear and wiped it and cleaned the seat and sprayed the urinal and toilet with Lysol and then put the lid down and used the urinal too. I did not see any lizards and I think there was one flying insect.
As soon as I walked outside I heard the big ATC brass bell ring and I looked around in the sky to the west and saw not one but three planes approaching. So I jogged over as Samir started to ring it again and again for three inbound. I told Dan and he said he was ready, he was standing on the ladder that was leaned against the wing of an airplane he reached down and thanked me for coming and gestured for me to go talk to the next pilot. So I walked over and he was a duster and had a crew coming any second. I turned around and saw a truck drive into the airport so I told him to take pad #2, the pilot said he had been here many times and knew exactly where to go, I reminded him on the pad he must block his tires. And by then the next plane had landed and I gestured for him to stop beside me, which he did.
For tire chocks Dan bought two old semi-truck tires and cut them with a jig saw to make his own tire blocks. They're about four inches thick and six by six inches across. I told him he should try to make a bunch of them and wrap them in plastic and sell them as good for the environment.
The next one was also a duster and his crew was on their way too. I told him to shut down and wait here, no need to chock the tires. And I stepped back and looked down the runway to see the third one was about 1000 feet out and approaching fine, moments later he chirped his wheels and I gestured for him to stop behind the other waiting plane.
When he taxied up I asked what he was doing and he was also a duster and had a crew coming. He handed me a ten Euro note and shut down his engine, then he asked how much longer until we had an open pad and I said maybe 5-10 minutes and he said fine and got out his cell to call his crew.
I ran over to Dan and he said he knew the next plane, they had a contract, park him on pad #3 and review start/stop time. They get 30 minutes. Pad #3 was the newest one and was the closest to the Porta-potty. If he staggered them he has room in that area for about two or three more pads, which will probably be added this winter when business slows.
When their crews arrive they drive around behind the hangar and wait there for their duster to get parked on the pad and get the tires blocked, then we gesture for them to approach and drive up on the pad and shut down their engine. By that time the pilot is usually out of the plane and ready to start re-loading his duster. For most of the dusters their ground crew is usually the wife or an older son or daughter. They have their own ladders and all their equipment. They set a ladder and start to pull out the hoses off the reels while the pilot places their ladder, climbs up and opens the tank caps on top of the wing. There are lots of different configurations for airplane tanks but most of the older planes have the fuel tank between the engine and the cockpit, but the fertilizer tanks are usually inside the wings. On newer dusters the fertilizer tanks are often cylindrical aluminum tubes inside the wings that are joined by a pipe with a valve in the cockpit so each wing has its own tank. Most of them spray chemicals powered by electric pumps for precise control.
So I went back to the waiting line and pointed to the clock and we agreed to start at 25 minutes after he had until 55 and go ahead and park on pad #3. So he started his engine and taxied over while his crew drove up and parked on the pad beside him. The pilot blocked his tires and he spoke to his wife and both of them pulled out hoses and a ladder and she started the compressor while he checked engine oil. By then Dan was nearly done with his AV-Gas customer and I saw them un-do the ground wire. That generally means they're done, the caps are on and the ladder is put away and all that is left is to unblock tires and call for clearance to taxi back and depart.
I walked over to the next plane and told him once the guy by the gas truck leaves the pad he can move to that position. Since there were three planes and two trucks with Aviation radios on when the guy in the first plane got clearance to taxi and depart I heard Samir's voice echo loudly around the entire tarmac, sure enough he really does sound like a middle-aged woman!
As the first plane roared down the runway the third plane taxi'd onto pad #1 and blocked his tires while his crew drove up in a large Ford truck and parked on the pad beside the airplane and they started their work. Dan reviewed start and stop times for them too. He carries a pen and a small spiral notepad in his pocket to write down a record of who was there and what they did, times, and anything he saw that was unusual or wrong.
Eventually #2 was done and he left, then #3 left, and by then it was nearly the end of the day and there were no planes in the western sky. I decided to go get some water, and Dan took a seat by his little outdoor desk and wrote more notes down and looked around for anything out of place. I got my water then went inside the ATC building to use the toilet.
It was a nice peaceful walk from the tanker truck to the ATC building. The sun was partially behind the mountains so it was about time for the control tower to close for the day.
As I was pissing I guess it was time for Sam to leave so he came downstairs and stared at me while I stood there pissing in the toilet. When I was done he told me not to flush, so he walked up and raised his Djellaba and he peed too then he flushed and said it was time for him to leave. Both of us walked outside, he got on his bicycle and raised his skirt and sat there with his hands on the handgrips for a bit while we chatted. He hadn't even started moving yet and he was fully exposed to me, I looked at it and he sort of leaned back and sat straight upright, I guess he did that for my benefit, then he started to move and we exchanged good wishes and he left. Dan was right, he does look like half an Oscar Meyer Weiner with a dark foreskin. I think they call it a turtleneck when it grows longer than the penis.
I gotta say something else nice about Samir, around the world most radio communications between pilots and control towers is scripted and they speak super fast, but Samir doesn't do that, he speaks clearly and at a relaxed speed so he is super easy to understand in Spanish or Arabic.
After the airport was closed we decided to shower on the rocks near his picnic table. We went outside and started to get naked with one beach towel on the table he always had the garden hose laid out in the sun with the end on an area he spread crushed limestone rocks over so he doesn't stand in mud, but you have to wear flip flops or the rocks are murder on the bottoms of your feet.
So I stood on the bench of the picnic table to work the hose while Dan showered with a rather thin stream of water. After he was done we traded places and I stood facing him so I could stare at his body while I scrubbed my body and shaved.
After the wash and rinse came the towel part then we went inside after he hung the towel on the clothes line. I brushed my teeth in the kitchen sink, and then it was his turn.
I noticed Dan had changed over to using an old fashioned double edge razor handle instead of the multi blade Gillette razors he buys at the store. Dan said he really has to keep his trash load down so he always tries to avoid throw away plastic anything. And the price on those multi blade plastic razors or the refills got so high he switched to the double edge like his grandfather used, the blades are dirt cheap and make almost no trash.
Then with a rather sarcastic tone he asked me if I fucked Sam yet.
In a rather sour tone I said "No. But he's flashed it at me the last two or three times I came here."
Dan said he thinks the kid doesn't care who sees his wiener when he's limp, he felt Sam thought it was as sexual as letting people see his elbows or his belly button. He simply doesn't care. So to get him back I asked if he was going to adopt him. Dan laughed and said Samir is too old to adopt. I told him I think Sam needs a father; he probably needs to be hugged and touched by parents and never gets that at home.
Then I asked about his house plans and he gestured for me to put my shoes on and follow him outside.
We walked out of the bus and around behind it and he showed me an area where he bulldozed the plants down, it sat sort of beside the leach field for the septic system, it was about 30x30ft. He had four stakes in the ground and said he was going to build here, a 24x24 foot pole building, super insulated, and earthquake resistant.
Back in the bus he turned on his computer and showed me the floor plan he was working on in Microsoft Paint. Then I broke the news to him that I had almost the exact same plans. I walked to the sofa and got my backpack and dug out my new passport and handed it to him. He sort of guessed what it was and opened it to see it showed United States and Morocco as countries of citizenship, 50% each.
I told him I was looking at some land half way between here and roundabout. He seemed excited but both of us hoped we'd be neighbors but for now this was the best we could do. He asked why I don't just buy a Class-A and park it at the airport and I sat down on the arm chair beside the sofa and told him, "Like I said before, I'd love to do that, it would save me a lot of money but if I was here and you fell in love with a woman the first thing she would want is for me to move out.
He sighed and said he understood why I felt that. But he told me if I made a base over by the barracks building foundation there has to be a septic system buried over there somewhere and it would be like 700 feet from his bus and that would be far enough away to prevent his girl friend or future wife from pressuring me to move elsewhere.
Dan said if he was me he'd have the corner of the airport property radar scanned underground, then hire someone to pour a concrete slab to park a Class-A motorhome on, and get a 2000 gallon water tank, pay the power company to trench in another line to provide electrical service and a telephone line. And make that corner of the property into your own little country. Fence it in, grow some food, and kill all the snakes, get a decent outdoor cat or two, and you can live rent free. The only bad thing would be you'd have a hard time getting in and out during Dronefest weekends but that's only three weekends a year.
As he said that he unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, then he pulled his t-shirt off over his head and tossed it on the kitchen counter. Then he stood by counter and leaned back looking all relaxed and sexy, he knows that show turns me on.
I got up and walked toward him but changed course and got out the pitcher from the refrigerator and poured another tall glass of cold water and drank it down and put the stuff away. Then I set my hand on his lower tummy, "You need those hairs shaved." I said about his furry tummy. So he left for the bathroom and came back with his little electric hair trimmer and we went outside.
I tell him at least twice a year: "There is no sense in having a super sexy belly button if it's hidden by black hairs on your stomach." He always chuckles but I doubt he sees any value in having an easily seen belly button, there is nobody around who wants to see it, other than me.
I sat on the picnic bench while he took off his clothes so I could buzz the hairs off his body from his arm pits down to his thighs, front and back. Once he was smooth again he climbed up and sat on top of the picnic table and I sat between his legs and lowered my face into his crotch and took his erection into my mouth and sort of relaxed in that spot to let Little Dan soak in my mouth for a while. He set his hands on my back and cuddled me against his body. It was like a home coming to me.
While we did that I got up slightly and slid down my shorts and started jerking off while I had his dick in my mouth and my face against his crotch, my forehead against his belly button, my hands were busy with my dick. Dan leaned back and sort of slightly fucked my mouth while I was busy with my own dick.
I can usually come pretty fast, I think it took me two minutes of stroking before my orgasm started, he heard me grunt and knew I just came on the rocks (and lizards) under the picnic table. Once I recovered I raised my mouth so his head was at my lips and I stroked him and he also came quickly, but once he started squirting I slid it all the way back in so his semen just went down my throat.
We stayed in that position for probably five minutes after he came then I got up to my feet with my half erect dick hanging out with a long string of semen swaying off the head. I stepped over the picnic bench seat and held him in an embrace and we French kissed for a couple minutes. After that I stepped back and looked all around us but I didn't see anyone watching. I softly told him I'd love to be his neighbor, especially if I could do that more often. He smiled and reached down and shook Little Dan at me.
I asked what he had to eat since it was almost dark outside and stores would be closing soon. He said we should get dressed and ride to the cafe in town and get something to go, we could ride the dirt bike. When he said that he raised his eyebrows at me a few times, which was his way of saying: Hint hint! So that's what we did.
We got dressed in outdoor shoes but no helmets and got on the dirt bike and rode to town, about five minutes. Once we got onto the dirt road at the end of his driveway I slid my hand under his t-shirt and poked one finger all the way into his belly button to hold onto him and that was how we rode to town and parked outside the cafe which is supposed to be open 24 hours, but often closes at night if there is no business. Dan said they have great Ethiopian coffee, the birthplace of coffee, discovered by Kaldi the goat-herder in about 850AD.
There is a language barrier but we got them to understand we were on a small dirtbike and only had a backpack to carry food, so it had to be packed carefully. We ordered hot beef sandwiches which was sort of like a Philly Beef on a hoagie roll. They put cheese on it and melted it, we got pickle slices and small containers of a cabbage salad, sort of like cole slaw. She taped it shut and wrapped it in wax paper too, so we tipped her an extra five bucks and we rode home.
On the ride home I had one hand on his crotch and the other on his belly with one finger pressed inside his belly button.
When we got back I told him that Jen was sick so I called her on my cell and put it in speaker mode. We both talked to her briefly, she was in bed with a fever, body aches, and no appetite. While we were talking I remembered I had twenty bucks of his money in my pocket still so I pulled it out and dropped it on the coffee table, he saw it and chuckled at me.
We ate dinner and cracked open a bottle of wine and poured glasses and opened another bottle. At 8:10pm there was some kind of commotion outside and someone pounded on his door so Dan got up to see who was here. He stepped outside and I heard some kind of drama going on but I stayed on the sofa and finished eating my food. Then he came back inside and whispered "bad news" then Samir walked in. Sam looked like he'd been beat up. His eye was swollen and his nose was bloody, he had scratches across his face and down on his chest I saw long scratches there too, they almost looked like fingernail scratches. He told us in Spanish that he got into a big fight with his parents and his dad was drunk and his father punched Samir twice in the face and he escaped outside then his mother followed and grabbed him and scratched him all over.
His Djellaba was filthy and he had dirt in his hair, under his nails, and everywhere else we checked. I saw he had dirt in his ears too. I could tell he was moments away from crying and for once Dan decided to act like family to him and they stood by the kitchen sink and Dan held him tightly against him and Samir started to weep with his face buried in Dan's chest. Dan put both arms around him and rocked side to side and comforted the boy. Dan rested his chin on top of Samir's head, Dan looked at me and rolled his eyes and I gave him a thumbs-up because I thought he was doing the right thing for the boy.
I wanted to tell Dan it meant something significant that he came here for help. That dramatic show went on for about fifteen minutes and I asked if he had other clothes here and Dan said yes, he has a spare Djellaba out in the ATC building near the shower, so I went outside with the flashlight to find it.
When I came back the tears had stopped but now they were standing against the kitchen counter and Dan his arm over Sam's shoulders with his hand petting the boy's left chest. I dropped the garment on the sofa and sat down. Dan finally stepped away and removed Sam's filthy Djellaba and there stood the boy completely naked but still filthy in the middle of the living room. I turned on the water heater and Dan went in his bedroom, I heard the bathroom door open. Dan stripped to his old gym shorts so I got mine out of my backpack and did the same up front by the driver's seat. While he put together the shower stuff I escorted the naked teen in back.
I escorted Sam into the bathroom and sat on the toilet with the liquid soap pump bottle in my hand we got Sam to lean against the wall of the tiny bathroom. Dan pulled the curtain across and got out a wash cloth and wet it in the sink then he hand-washed his face, ears, neck. I got out of the bathroom and got his first aid kit which is mounted on the wall near the outside door up front. I got out the antiseptic ointment and squeezed back onto the toilet. Dan hand-washed his upper body carefully. A few times he turned on the shower nozzle to rinse Samir to see if all the ground-in dirt was gone.
His nose had stopped bleeding so we cleaned his face too.
We bent him over the sink and with a plastic cup we shampoo'd Samir's hair, which was full of sand and dirt. I could tell Dan was getting mad; he looked at me while he was hand massaging the shampoo into his hair. That look told me he wanted us to do something about his father but I wanted to hear the other side of the story before I got out a spray can.
I stared back at Dan and slowly shook my head no.
After his upper body and head were clean we stood him up and Dan turned Samir around so his front side faced me (his penis was only inches from my face. Then we hand washed him down to his toes. He turned him around and hand washed his butt and his crack, and then did the back side of his legs while I did the front. Sam never got hard and had his eyes shut the entire time.
I handed Dan three Q-tips and he even cleaned the sand out of his belly button, but it took more than three. I think he'd had some dirt and shit growing inside that hole before his father beat him.
During the entire wash Samir remained silent except a few times he said Ow-eee when Dan scrubbed over his worst scratches.
After we were done cleaning him up Dan gave him two Tylenol and pulled him (naked) by hand into the bedroom and positioned him by the bed so I could apply Bacitracin to his scratches. After that he pulled the sheets back and got Samir into bed, in the center of the mattress with his head on the pillow, and turned out the lights. We went out to the living room shut the bedroom door. We talked about his situation for a while and finished the second bottle of wine then shut down the bus and went to bed too, this time there were three of us in Dan's bed, with Sam in the middle like thin sliced meat between two sliced of bread.
By the time we got in bed he was sound asleep. I think that was the first time I got that close to Sam where he didn't stink.
The next morning Dan cooked breakfast for us in his tiny kitchen, he made scrambled eggs, toast, and melted Velveeta cheese on the eggs. He had to practically drag Samir out of bed, but he staggered out (naked) and I tossed him his spare Djellaba. When Samir walked out of the bedroom with a boner Dan told him to use the toilet in the ATC building so he left and came back in five minutes, I assume he dropped a deuce too. I turned to watch him walk from the bus to the door of the ATC building and watched his little butt cheeks wiggle as he walked naked to the building and disappear inside the door. After his morning movement he returned fully dressed but still barefoot. Apparently walking on rocks in bare feet is like nothing to Samir.
We sat on the sofa and he sat on the coffee table facing us and he told us about last night, and the explosion of anger and why his father punched him. It started when his mother tried to use his cell to make a call while his father had their cell and when she tried to use it the phone displayed a photo of his special friend's stomach and chest sprinkled with semen, it filled his belly button to the top with semen dribbling down his sides. She showed the picture to Sam's father and then they went into Sam's bedroom to confront him. They asked if he was homosexual and Sam said, `maybe, but its none of your business,' and that was when his father grabbed his ankle and pulled him off the bed and dropped him on the floor, bent over and punched him really hard in the face and stormed out of the house. And then his mother screamed loudly and chased him out the front door scratching his arms and back with her nails the entire way.
As he told the story tears started to dribble down his cheeks as he sat there facing us trying to talk without crying. Finally he could talk no more and he sat there on the table with his hands over his face, which made me cry too. I reached over and held his knee but he sat on the table sobbing into his hands again.
Eventually he calmed down and Dan stood up and lifted Sam to his feet and got him positioned across the sofa, on our laps, on his back, his head was on my lap.
I could tell Dan was pissed and wanted to even the score but I urged him to wait for the other side of the story.
The problem with Samir is (at age 19) he still looks much younger and innocent, and maybe he really is a sweet boy on the inside. But I have learned there are always two sides to every story. Before either of us took action we should hear what his father had to say about his violence toward the boy. I know Dan well enough to know that anytime a big grown man punches a little kid like Samir he wants to make sure it never happens again, with emphasis on never. Plus he knows Samir fairly well and feels somewhat responsible for him and he has learned to trust the boy because they spend all day together. Dan gets to see his responsible side and how he has never had any incidents of improper runway control, which is a very good record.
A big issue is the cultural difference between Dan and Sam's father. Dan was born and raised in Bible belt, southern Texas USA and Sam's parents were born to orthodox Islamic Arab families. The big problem for Sam's father is Dan is a former professional fugitive tracker and killer and he takes domestic violence seriously. I can also say that if he finds out Samir started the shit then he'll easily let the matter drop forever.
Samir works under a simple set of directives: Only one plane on the runway at a time, and any plane on final approach or with an emergency condition has the right of way. He also speaks into the microphone every thirty minutes that Danport has no emergency facilities, no mechanics, no fire or medical services. Any airplane with an emergency is first directed to land at Tetouan, which is the closest full service airport (13.2miles). In your average crop duster airplane that represents six minutes of flying time. The only reason to make an emergency landing at Danville is because the pilot will be dead before he can land at Tetouan.
This book ends at chapter 39 (775 pages)
Contact the author: borischenazatmailfence,com