Author’s note: “Boing Boeing Boing” is the last chapter of The Shape of the Earth, a novel I’ve written but not yet published, although some of the chapters have appeared in literary journals. I’m now eager to have people read this chapter in particular because, although it was written in early 2021 and reflected some issues that were relevant at the time (including the fact that Donald Trump had refused to concede the election), recently it’s become much more relevant. Although the novel never mentions Trump directly (or even hints at him until this final chapter), the misinformation that’s his stock in trade is at the heart of the book, so it makes sense he would make a semi-veiled cameo at the end. Since the book was written, however, the final chapter seems all the more relevant. Due to changes Trump & Musk implemented, including the reduction in air traffic controllers, air travel has become much dicier than before. Also, Boeing keeps making the news for all the wrong reasons.
It had been a while since Cheech and Chong had worked together, but now they’d left the entertainment business and decided they wanted to spend part of their golden years fixing aeroplanes. If nothing else, it was something different. Fortunately, there wasn’t a lot of oversight, and it was tacitly understood that if they did a halfway decent job, the airline — whose name will remain anonymous — would be cool with that. “As long as nothing crashes,” is how HR put it during their interview, which lasted about ten minutes and mostly consisted of someone begging them to repeat some of their old skits.
For Cheech and Chong, the inner workings of jet engines were fascinating, though a bit over their head at times, especially when they were high, which was pretty much all the time. At work they wore those big baggy tie-dyed overalls the company made especially for them, and both of them had on big bulky oversized boots like clowns traipse around in at the circus. Cheech was wearing an orange ski hat, and Chong had an oversized green headband that gobbled up most of his forehead.
When these gentlemen finally got down to work, Cheech was holding a star-shaped piece of metal in one hand and a hammer in the other. In front of him was a plane engine that had so many parts it was hard to tell which part was which. In fact, it was really difficult unless you knew which page to turn to in the manual, and they’d given up on that thing, which kind of made sense as it had grease stains all over it and was missing entire sections.
“Are you sure this is the right part?” Cheech asked.
“What did you say?” Chong said with a stoner drawl.
“I said, are you sure this is the right part?”
“Sure, I’m sure.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I checked the number.”
“You differentiated between lower case and upper case and you didn’t confuse the o’s with the 0’s?”
“Of course, man. You know I wouldn’t forget that.”
“So why doesn’t it fit?”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t fit?” Chong ripped the hammer out of Cheech’s hands and did some banging. “See, it fits.”
“That doesn’t look right to me,” said Cheech.
“You’re overthinking it,” said Chong. At this point Chong was eager to get off work and go home, where he wouldn’t have to think about “The Man” watching over everything he did, although, the truth be told, The Man was several hangars away, and at this point said Man was sitting around watching Dukes of Hazzard reruns.
“You’re thinking because it’s a 747 everything has to be perfect or otherwise people are going to die, which means we’ll lose our jobs.”
“Sure, that crossed my mind,” said Cheech, who by this point was starting to seem like the uptight one in the bunch — and, the truth be told, he was getting on Chong’s nerves.
“Stop worrying,” Chong said. “Now would you hand me a screwdriver?”
“Which one?”
“The blue one.”
“Shouldn’t you be using the red one?”
“Actually, give me the yellow one.”
Cheech went right up close to the engine, to the point where he was almost touching it with his nose.
“What are you doing?” asked Chong.
“This spring needs to go in somewhere. I think it’s there. There, that’s it. I found the exact right place.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure.”
Boing, said a spring that, previously compressed, went flying through the air with remarkable velocity.
“Did you hear that?” asked Cheech.
“Hear what?”
“That boing sound.”
“Did you say boing, or did you say Boeing?”
“Boing, not Boeing.”
“Yeah, I heard it.”
“Shouldn’t we… tell someone?”
Chong shook his head disdainfully.
“You know what? These things never crash. I don’t know how they keep flying but they do. It’ll be fine.”
“Okay, if you say so.”
Together the two men called it a day. Cheech was getting ready to punch the time clock when he realised he’d switched an O and an o.
He ran back to the plane, but by now it was heading down the runway. It was then that he noticed that one wing was longer than the other.
“Good luck,” he said to the plane and its passengers.
Already there was tension on the plane. The passengers and the co-pilot and the stewardesses couldn’t believe it was legal to fly something this old — not unless it was part of an air show, and even those had crashes. It wasn’t safe when it was built, and now it belonged in a scrapyard. There were bolts missing and one of the wings was sagging. In spite of the plane’s condition, the stewardess smiled and acted confident as the plane headed down the runway.
Lift-off was precarious but not too bad and things levelled off, and for a minute the plane seemed like a bird in flight. Then strange things started happening. A red light started beeping, and then the stewardess heard a knocking sound in the back of the plane that reminded her of the radiators in her flat. That’s fine when it’s coming from your radiators, but planes are a different matter.
Eventually, the plane was bouncing up and down so hard it was like it was stuck inside a cocktail shaker. One of the stewardesses ran into the cockpit, where the pilot was howling with laughter. He had a shiny orange toupee and shiny orange skin, and on his lap was a huge bag of Cheetos. Somehow he had figured out how to cram his mouth full of Cheetos and talk at the same time, although it should be noted that there were lots of Cheetos crumbs flying out of his mouth while he talked.
“This shit ain’t real,” he said. “They can’t fool me. Reality is just a construct and I dare anyone to try to prove me wrong!”
“You’ve got three hundred and thirty million passengers back there who think reality is real,” the stewardess said.
“Passengers, schmashengers,” the pilot smirked, then looked over at the co-pilot. “Hey, did you hear that? That was almost a pun — you know, passengers smashengers! Get it!”
“Keep your eyes in front of you,” the co-pilot said.
“I thought that was pretty clever,” said the Cheeto-eater. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you guys. You never laugh. It’s like you have no sense of humour. You need to loosen up a little!”
Another stewardess appeared.
“The passengers are having a hard time back in the fuselage,” she said.
“The fuselage? What the fuck is a fuselage?” By now the pilot was laughing so hard his toupee was starting to fall off. “Seriously, how much do they expect me to know? I’m having a hard enough time just figuring out this damn dashboard.”
The pilot started pushing buttons randomly just to see what would happen.
“This is Air Traffic Control,” said a voice over a speaker that made a crackly sound at the same time that it transmitted human voices.
“Oh, fuck you,” the pilot said, shutting off the speaker before once again howling with laughter.
When an aeroplane feels like the inside of a cocktail shaker you know you’ve got a problem, and when the pilot is laughing about the fact that it feels like it’s inside a cocktail shaker you’ve got a big problem. Now lightning started hitting the plane, sparking fits of laughter from the pilot.
Rrrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnnnnggggg!
“What was that?” the co-pilot said. “I’ve never heard that sound before.”
“Who cares?” the pilot said, again howling with laughter.
The bumpier it got, the faster the plane went, which horrified the passengers but proved endlessly amusing to the pilot. That’s understandable considering he was tripping balls. “Passengers, schmashengers!” he kept yelling, and he wondered why no one else was laughing.
Rrrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnnnnggggg!
As the ringing continued, Maggie Moberg wondered where she was. She thought she was in a plane, but instead she was in a bed. Why was somebody poking her?
“It’s time to get up,” Everett said.
“Where am I?” Maggie asked.
“In the bedroom, with me. You okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s just this dream I keep having.”
“It sounds more like a nightmare.”
“I’m getting used to it, though. I think I’m getting used to it. Hopefully I’m getting used to it.”
It was almost time for the young couple to get ready for work. Everett was going to the Happy Ending Library, and Maggie was heading to Fact-Based Reality, which by now had merged with Tale Spinners of America™. While they were excited to go to work, Maggie and Everett devoted the first part of the day to their morning ritual. Above them was a cathedral ceiling with skylights built into it, and although it was early, the sun was filling the room with warmth and light. Lying on their backs and holding hands, the couple let their minds and hearts soar into the sky, which was as blue as it could possibly be. It was the same sky that had been up there when the two of them lay down in the grass together and looked up there for the very first time. Life was confusing in all sorts of ways, but in spite of all that they’d found the perfect way to start the day.
DoubleSpeak 