Judges who did not know what had really happened. Judges with the caring look that meant nothing as lawyers said legal phrases that meant nothing.
In the summer Brian would live with his father. In the school year withhis mother. That's what the judge said after looking at papers on his desk and listening to the lawyers talk. Talk. Words.
Now the plane lurched slightly to the right and Brian looked at the pilot. he was rubbing his shoulder again and there was the sudden smell of body gas in the plane. Brian turned back to avoid embarrassing the pilot, who was obviously in some discomfort. Must have stomach trouble.
So this summer, this first summer that he was allowed to have 'visitation rights' with his father, with the divorce only one month old, Brian was heading north. His father was a mechanical engineer who had designed or invented a new drill bit for oil drilling, a self-cleaning, self-sharpening bit. he was working in the oil fields of Canada, up on the tree line where the tundra started and the forests ended.
