"He'd probably pay you to do it. He's got some other flying job lined up and he's quitting in two weeks anyway."

"Then it's a go? Next jump run?"

"Yeah, but we need a fifth person. We don't want Tom. He'd probably tell Stephanie, and you know how she is. Keith might try to feel me up. Rick's not here..."

"We wouldn't want him-lightning might strike twice," Henry warned with a laugh.

"Yeah, no shit," George replied, and broke up also.

"Is Carl Beck here?"

"Haven't seen him today. Jesus, wouldn't he be perfect, though?" Carl Beck was a cadaverous, one-eyed WWII vet. He had been shot to ribbons and left for dead in the European theater, and his sewn-up eye socket, tortuous limp, ruined jaw, and wispy hair made him look like an extra in a Boris Karloff movie. Carl had done the logical thing for a man who was completely disabled: He had taken up sport parachuting. In free-fall, his disabilities vanished, and everyone on the airport liked jumping with Carl. He was a bit lackadaisical about packing his main parachute, however, and the joke at Orange was that Carl Beck was the only man around who could qualify for a Class A license (which required 25 jumps) on his reserve 'chute. Some years later, Carl would have his reserve 'chute fail as well, and he would land in a muddy drainage ditch at an estimated 85 miles an hour. After that, his limp became even worse, but he kept jumping.

"What about Franny, then?" Henry asked. "She's here-would she pitch a bitch?"

"Hell, no. Yeah, she'd be perfect-and Bill will believe her, if it comes to that."

"Great," Henry said. "Here, give whatsisname-the pilot-give him my helmet to wear, and make sure he knows to go rich before restart. And make damn sure that even if she freaks out, that girl doesn't pull inside the plane, okay? That would ruin your day."

"Yeah, I can take care of that. Good point. We'll stick her in the far back."

"I'll trim it up for best glide with no power before I go. And George? Since I won't be there to see it, milk it real good, okay? Act as if you're all snarled up and can't get out for a while, before letting the pilot take over, huh?"

"This is going to be a good one, Henry," George Goveia said with a big grin. Henry Bowman nodded and started walking towards the shack which served as the airport restaurant.

Like most activities that could loosely be called 'thrill sports', sport parachuting in 1973 was an activity practiced primarily by young men. College students of both sexes drove up to Orange every weekend to make the first and only parachute jump of their lives so they could say they did it. Very few women of that era, however, ever became experienced jumpers with instructor's ratings, or had jump logbooks with hundred of entries. Those that did achieve such measures of proficiency, however, were accepted as equals. 'Fast Franny' Strimenos was one of that group. Like almost all experienced jumpers, she liked a good 'gotcha', and more importantly, she felt no particular kinship to non-jumpers merely because they were of the same gender. That was important for what was about to happen.

At Orange, as at every commercial drop zone in the country, an interested party could pay the same fee that the jumpers paid for their air lift and go on an 'observation flight'. This meant that he or she got to ride in the plane with the parachutists, watch them jump out, and then land in the plane along with the pilot.

Safety regulations required that in single engine jump planes, all non-parachutists had to wear an emergency parachute in case of engine failure. Henry Bowman always thought this was a crazy rule. Jump planes stayed directly over whatever drop zone they serviced, and any pilot who had an engine failure directly over an airport and elected to abandon his aircraft did not deserve to have a pilot's license in the first place, in Henry's opinion. In spite of that, all drop zones around the country followed the rule. Pilots and observers in single-engine jump planes wore emergency parachutes.

At almost every drop zone around the country, there was an equally-important unwritten rule that the staff also followed. It took effect only when an exceptionally good-looking female signed up for an observation flight on a plane full of instructors and other experienced jumpers. The unwritten rule was that when the airplane got to jump altitude, the pilot pulled the throttle back to idle and told the observer that the engine had lost power and she was going to have to jump with the others.

This practice had been going on almost as long as there had been sport jumpers and attractive female observers. Usually the woman would turn pale, and occasionally screamed, before the pilot opened the throttle and let her in on the joke. One young lady at Orange the year before had greatly endeared herself to the instructors. When given the news, she had nodded once in acceptance and then started to climb over the right seat of the Beech 18 to get to the door at the rear of the plane. The Beech was a twin, but the instructors had put a 'chute on her anyway, and the pilot had chopped both throttles.

There were other good stories that the instructors liked to retell, but Henry's favorite was the legendary one that had occurred when the instructors had pulled the trick on a woman in a 10-person Noorduyn Norseman. The Orange facility owned three 'Norse Hogs', which were slow-flying 1940's-era military cargo aircraft, each powered by a single big radial engine. On the afternoon in question, the pilot gave the standard bad news to the observer, and then, as was custom, one of the instructors gave her the good news that it was just a joke. In this case, an instructor with the unlikely name of Rick Hustler had done the honors.

What happened next varied according to who was telling the story and how much he had had to drink. What was not disputed was that the young woman threw her arms around Rick Hustler's neck and said 'Oh, thank you, thank you', or some other equally appropriate words of gratitude. The second thing that was never disputed was that when the plane passed over the exit point, Rick Hustler elected not to jump out of the aircraft with the rest of the jumpers, and actually landed in the plane with his new admirer. What transpired between the time the jumpers exited and the time the plane landed was cause for great speculation, but there was a third undisputed fact about the incident: Within a year, Rick Hustler and the young woman were husband and wife.

Henry Bowman was about to elevate this standard drop zone prank into an art form.

He didn't know it, but in so doing, he was also going to help the pilot get what he would later say was 'the best blow job I ever had in my life.' Since Henry did not know the man well, he would be unable to assess whether this was an impressive claim or not.

Henry smiled as he bit into his hamburger. Henry thought the Orange Airport hamburgers were the best to be had in Massachusetts. When he saw through the restaurant window that the four people were standing around the Cessna 180 waiting for the pilot, Henry popped the last bite into his mouth and ran out the door.

"Sorry I'm late," Henry apologized as he slowed to a walk in front of the group.

"No problem," Franny Strimenos said immediately. "I was just telling Debbie here the most comfortable way to sit. She's never been cramped up in a plane with no seats."

"Let's get in," said the man whose name Henry had forgotten. He was wearing a single emergency 'chute. "I haven't made any jumps yet today." Henry and George bit their lips to keep from laughing.

The Cessna 180 was set up as a jump aircraft, which meant it had all its seats removed save the one for the pilot, and would now hold five people instead of four. A special jump door had been installed that hinged at the top and could be opened all the way in flight. The observer got in first and sat with her knees bunched up alongside the rear bulkhead. Fran Strimenos sat facing her, and George got in next. Then Henry climbed into the pilot's seat, and the other man sat on the floor where the passenger seat would normally have been, facing rearward.

Henry Bowman quickly ran through the preflight checklist and started the engine. He taxied the plane immediately and kept his face turned to the left. He did not want the drop zone's owner to see that the man who was flying his jump aircraft was not the person he had hired to perform that job.

The 180 was a tailwheel airplane like Henry's acrobatic Cub, and its ground handling was similar, although the pedal effort was higher. Henry taxied to the end of the runway, did his engine runup and magneto check, mumbled something unintelligible into the microphone, and pulled out onto the runway centerline. He pushed the throttle to full and held the yoke forward, keeping the plane straight with quick stabs on the rudder pedals. As the tail came up, he eased the yoke back and let the airplane fly itself off the runway. Decent power for a spam can he thought with a smile. Henry had a tube-and-rag pilot's disdain for all-metal airplanes.

Although modern equipment allows sport parachutists to glide to a landing virtually anywhere they choose, in 1973 many jumpers had 'chutes of limited maneuverability, and the first high-performance gliding reserve 'chutes were still six years away. Thus, jumpers always strove to exit the aircraft at the proper point upwind of their intended landing spot, so that if they ended up having to deploy a non-steerable reserve 'chute, they would still end up somewhere on the airport and not in the woods. Normally, when a jump aircraft gets to jump altitude, this is accomplished by one of the jumpers opening the door, holding his head out so he can see straight down, and giving the pilot hand corrections to put him over a spot that has been preselected based on other jump runs or a test with a crepe paper streamer. On this flight, however, Henry Bowman was going to have to guess.

It took Henry seventeen minutes of circling the airport to get to an altitude of 7500 feet above the ground. By that time, he had a good feel for the wind velocity and direction, and he turned the aircraft into the wind and flew directly over the big sand landing bowl that was in the center of the three runways.

A quarter-mile past the parachutists' intended landing point, Henry Bowman trimmed the airplane a little nose-up, pulled the mixture control to full lean, and brought the throttle back to idle position. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the jump pilot on the floor next to him draw his breath in sharply. In four seconds the engine sputtered and stopped running. Henry had just fuel-starved it. The airplane was suddenly very quiet.

"What's wrong?" Franny Strimenos yelled, her voice almost cracking. Nice touch, Franny Henry Bowman thought with a smile. Perpetuate the stereotype.

"I don't know!" Henry yelled back. "Bill warned me the jetting was off, but he said he couldn't afford to have the plane in the shop." Henry saw the pilot's face turn bright red as the man forced himself to contain his laughter. All the employees thought the airport owner was a tightwad. Henry put his right hand on the ignition key, looked at the man on the floor next to him, arched his eyebrows, and removed the key. A look of horrified comprehension came over the man's face, and he grabbed Henry's wrist. Henry slid the key back in the ignition, let go of it, and winked. Just checking to see if you were paying attention.

"Is the plane going to crash?" the shapely woman in the back of the plane screamed as she strained to see what was going on. Henry turned around in the pilot's seat and made sure he had solid eye contact with the girl before he spoke.

"I'm sure as shit not going to stay in it and find out," he said in a loud voice. Then he reached across the real pilot's outstretched legs, unlatched the jump door, and swung it up against the wing. Henry stared in the girl's eyes once more. "See you on the ground," he said.

Then Henry Bowman dove headfirst out of the aircraft.

Henry bent slightly forward at the waist and bent his elbows so that he would fall in a back-to-earth position. He wanted to watch the airplane to see what would happen. Since the pilot had borrowed Henry's goggles as well as his helmet, Henry squinted so that his eyes wouldn't tear. It was a full ten seconds before he saw a bright red jumpsuit appear. There's Franny. He glanced at the altimeter on his chest strap. 6300 feet. Henry watched the plane for another ten-count, but George didn't exit, so he flipped to a face-to-earth position, glanced at his altimeter, and got his bearings.

Four thousand-eight hundred feet. Need to get over the north edge of the farmer's field. Henry bent sideways at the waist to turn towards the field, then drew his arms in to his sides, cupped his hands forward, hunched his shoulders, and pointed his toes. He was now falling in a 'track', traveling almost one foot horizontally for every foot down. His speed through the air was over 200 miles per hour. At 3000 feet, Henry was over the proper spot, and he spread his arms and legs out wide. It felt as if he had entered a thicker layer of atmosphere as his body slowed to about 130 miles per hour. At 2400 feet, Henry pulled his ripcord and grabbed the nylon web risers that stretched out above his shoulders. He wanted to take some of the opening shock in his arms instead of entirely on the inside of his thighs.

The rectangular parachute opened abruptly with a ripping noise, and Henry was slowed to a quiet and leisurely nine-mile-an-hour descent. The 'ram-air' inflated-wing design had almost thirty miles per hour of forward speed, and Henry flew his parachute around the airport until he got within a few hundred feet of the ground. Then he aimed it upwind and stalled it out when his shoes were a few feet off the ground in the middle of the sand bowl. He ran downwind and grabbed his 'chute before the wind could catch it and drag him, then he looked up in the air.

Fran Strimenos had opened high and was flying her ram-air 'chute around the sky. George Goveia had evidently pulled at the standard altitude of 2500 feet. He was about 1500 feet above the ground, hanging upside-down in his harness. It was George's trademark; he had been a tumbler in school. George waited until he was twenty feet above the ground before flipping over and landing on his feet, then collapsed his 'chute and walked over to Henry. The two of them looked up in the sky.

"Franny did her 'terrified broad' act, and finally jumped out. I asked Dick if he wanted to jump before me. He said something about how he could see how scared the girl was, and he flew in a plane once, and he was going to try to restart the engine and see if he could land it because the observer was obviously panicked and he didn't want her to have to jump. I waited 'til he did a restart before I got out."

"So she still thinks her pilot has never landed a plane before?" Henry demanded as he stared at the descending aircraft, which was now at five hundred feet altitude on final approach. "This is really great." Then he thought of something. "Jesus, I hope she doesn't decide it's too risky and bail out about now."

"Wouldn't that be a bummer."

The pair watched as the pilot brought the 180 in for a smooth landing. When it pulled onto the taxiway, Henry stuck out his hand and grinned. "Happy April Fool's day, George."

"That it is."

May 7,1973 "And so, Hobbes said that our lives are 'nasty, brutish, and short', and he used that as justification for the dictatorial powers of the monarch. Only by granting the State total power will we ever overcome our natural condition, which is to be perpetually at war with one another." The Political Science course the professor was teaching was listed in the course catalog with a dry-sounding title that no one remembered. Throughout the Amherst campus it was referred to as 'Right and Wrong'. Henry Bowman liked the class, mainly because the professor who taught it had a very sharp mind.

"Hobbes is just talking about our old friend, the..." and with this, the lecturer gestured with his arm to show the class he wanted someone to finish the sentence for him.

"Benevolent dictatorship," a Senior in the second row said quickly.

"Exactly, Mr. Hagner. Hobbes' Leviathan is just one more scholarly justification for forfeiting your rights and allowing yourself to be subjugated by the State. Learned, reasoned, articulate, and wrong. Thomas Hobbes has merely-Mr. Bowman," the professor said suddenly, "you are shaking your head. That usually means you disagree with something that's been said. What is it?"

"Professor Arkes, I don't disagree with the basic principle, but it's not enough just to say, Totalitarian regimes are wrong, so don't let the State enslave you'. That's like saying, 'Don't get sick'. The important question is, when do you know it's going to become enslavement? When is the proper time to resist with force?"

"Please elaborate, Mr. Bowman." Henry took a deep breath.

"The end result, which we want to avoid, is the concentration camp. The gulag. The gas chamber. The Spanish Inquisition. All of those things. If you are in a death camp, no one would fault you for resisting. But when you're being herded towards the gas chamber, naked and seventy pounds below your healthy weight, it's too late. You have no chance. On the other hand, no one would support you if you started an armed rebellion because the government posts speed limits on open roads and arrests people for speeding. So when was it not too late, but also not too early?"

"Tell us, Mr. Bowman."

"Professor Arkes, I teach a Personal Protection class off-campus, where most of the students who sign up are women. I'm seeing some strong parallels here, so please indulge me in an analogy." "Go ahead."

"A woman's confronted by a big, strong, stranger. She doesn't know what he's planning, and she's cautious. Getting away from him's not possible. They're in a room and he's standing in front of the only way out, or she's in a wheelchair-whatever. Leaving the area's not an option.

"So now he starts to do things she doesn't like. He asks her for money. She can try to talk him out of it, just like we argue for lower taxes, and maybe it will work. If it doesn't, and she gets outvoted, she'll probably choose to give it to him instead of getting into a fight to the death over ten dollars. You would probably choose to pay your taxes rather than have police arrive to throw you in jail.

"Maybe this big man demands some other things, other minor assaults on this woman's dignity. When should she claw at his eyes or shove her ballpoint pen in his throat? When he tries to force her to kiss him? Tries to force her to let him touch her? Tries to force her to have sex with him?" Henry took a deep breath and shrugged.

"Those are questions that each woman has to answer for herself. There is one situation, though, where I tell the women to fight to the death. That's when the man pulls out a pair of handcuffs and says, 'Come on, I promise I won't hurt you, this is just so you won't flail around and hurt either of us by accident. Come on, I just want to talk, get in the van and let me handcuff you to this eyebolt here, and I promise I won't touch you. I'm not asking you to put on a gag or anything, and since you can still scream for help, you know you'll be safe. Come on, I got a full bar in here, and color TV, and air conditioning, great stereo, come on, just put on the cuffs.'

"I tell women that if that ever happens, maybe the man is telling the truth, and maybe after talking to her for a while he'll let her go and she will have had a good time drinking champagne and listening to music. But if she gets in the van and puts her wrists in the handcuffs, she has just given up her future ability to fight, and now it is too late." Henry realized he had been making eye contact with all the other people in the lecture hall, just as he did when he taught a course. Now he looked directly at the professor.

"How do you spot the precise point where a society is standing at the back of the van and the State has the handcuffs out? That's the question I'd like to see addressed by one of these philosophers we've been studying, Professor."

"Mr. Bowman, that's a very good point, and I wish now that you had brought it up six weeks ago. I might have given it for the semester's final paper assignment." Most of the class laughed at this comment, and Henry smiled.

For the rest of his life, Henry Bowman would ruminate over the issue he had raised in class that day. "Excellent!" Henry said as the final six bullets from the small pistol clanged satisfyingly against the circular steel plate. The metal disc was hanging fifteen feet away, suspended from a tree limb by two coat hangers.

Danielle Pelletier and Henry Bowman had been out at Quabbin Reservoir all morning. It was a gorgeous place, rocky and secluded, with no other people for over a mile. It was the first time Danielle had been out there alone, instead of with the whole class.

Danielle saw that the pistol's slide remained in the retracted position, and she looked into the loading port at the magazine to verify that the gun was indeed empty. She laid the weapon down carefully in the open hardcase next to the now-empty ammunition box. The gun's muzzle pointed downrange. Danielle stripped off her hearing protectors and Shooting glasses and a big grin filled her pretty face.

"How was that? Am I getting the hang of it?" She waited for the compliment that she knew was coming.

"You don't need to ask," Henry said. "With steel plates, you can hear if you've hit the vital zone." He smiled back, but a look of concern came over his face as he started to pack up the shooting gear and put it away. He appeared to be choosing his words carefully before continuing.

"Shooting steel plates and other targets is great fun, and I have loved doing it all my life. But don't ever forget the real reason to practice. If you ever do have to use your defensive shooting skills, an awful lot of things are going to be going through your mind and body that you will never have experienced out here practicing. That's something that takes a different kind of practice, and it's why I always harp about it in the lectures." Danielle looked thoughtful.

"Mental and emotional preparation, you mean? The Warrior Mentality?"

"Exactly. And for some people, that's much harder to learn than the skills part. It's also much harder for me to teach, and I wish I knew how to improve." Henry continued to stow their gear in the back of the car. The young woman had a knowing look on her face as she looked at her companion.

"Then that explains something I was wondering about." Henry cocked his head and raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue. "When you didn't seem to notice that I was flirting with you, I thought maybe you were brain dead." This got a big grin out of him, and he chewed the inside of his cheek.

"You mean you didn't think I noticed you tossing your head to throw your hair back every few minutes, didn't think I realized you were standing closer to me than you needed to when I was explaining how to see if a gun is loaded, didn't think I felt you rubbing your boob against my arm when I was helping you get your grip right, didn't think I watched your nipples get hard, and didn't think I saw you clench the muscles in your ass every time you had your back to me?"

Danielle started to blush. "You realize more than I thought."

"I not only noticed, I liked it," he said softly. This got her attention, and she looked up into his eyes. "It's just that it would be...wrong if I let us get distracted from something very important that demands concentration. You said you took my course because you wanted to be able to defend yourself, and you sounded completely serious."

"I was serious."

"I know you were. I don't think either one of us says things we don't mean. And learning how to effectively and safely protect yourself with a deadly weapon is something that requires all of your attention." He paused and gave her a big smile. "At least while you are actually doing it. Which I notice we aren't any more."

She came over to him, put her arms around his neck, and rubbed her chest lightly against his. "So I can do this now?" Danielle asked playfully, looking up into his eyes.

"You'd better," Henry said as his hands gripped her small waist. "But first help me pack up the rest of our gear."

She opened the back of the car and looked quizzically at a large, flat metal object in the back of the vehicle, padded with black vinyl and with what appeared to be a piano hinge running its length. "What's this thing?" Danielle demanded.

"Massage table," Henry replied, sliding the gun case and range bag into the back of the vehicle. "I borrowed it from the rugby team. Have to get it back by tomorrow morning."