A hard landing
by Robert Miner
After a quick flip of the wrist, corn flour floated for a moment before falling to the prep table, the way small talk in the pizza kitchen would begin a brief test flight before a hard landing as orders poured in. We were mostly young except one of us whose sense of confidence and purpose made him the center of the kitchen. He worked quickly but without being rushed and always seemed to know what everyone else was doing. “The pizza for order 21 is going to the oven. You might want to send the salads.” Whenever we talked about girls or going to college in the fall or something stupid someone said while drinking too many beers the night before, he would stay quiet and clean a little harder.
Wanting to draw him into our crew’s conversation, I prodded him one night. Are you married? “Yes.” Any kids? “Two boys - five and seven.” Is this a second job for you?” Right now, it’s my only job. I’m an air traffic controller – at least I was. When the union started to negotiate to get a little pay raise and maybe hiring a few more controllers to take the stress level down a little bit, Reagan busted the union – fired every union controller and replaced us with scabs.” That’s not right. “He doesn’t even have the authority to fire union federal employees, but I don’t know who’s going to stop him. The union is going to bring a lawsuit. I don’t know – maybe we can turn this around. I tell you - people are going to regret this when we have an airliner crash because some undertrained controller made a mistake.”
What does it take to train to be a controller? “Most of us came out of the military. I started as an air traffic controller in Vietnam.” Wow, Vietnam. When were you there? “71-72.” Vietnam must have been rough. But at least as a controller, you were at an airport – maybe that was a little better? “Well… listen … you don’t really get what being an air traffic controller was in Vietnam. I would go out on patrol looking to make contact with the enemy. When we got close enough to draw fire, I would call an air strike down on our own position and then run like hell.” Shit. I’m sorry. He shrugged. “I made it through. When I shipped back to the States, I trained to be a controller at an air base. After the Air Force, I came to the airport here and have been a civilian controller since. Well, at least until Reagan. He doesn’t care what it takes to do our jobs right or what we’ve done for our country before. He just locked us out and I’m here making pizzas not even bringing enough home to make ends meet.” I dropped my head. Not knowing what to say I restacked plates.
“Orders up – look alive.” Another flick of the wrist and corn flour floated again before landing on the table. The controller slapped the pizza dough down hard and began to roll it with precise, forceful strokes. “Heads up on the line - there’s a meatball sub in this order.”
Miner is a former political consultant who now works in government affairs on low-carbon energy policy. Recent publications include The Brazos River Review, The Earth Journal, and You Might Need to Hear This. He can be found on @robertminerpoetry on Instagram and @RobertMiner11 on Twitter.