Crossing Allenby Bridge by Michael Looft

Author:Michael Looft [Looft, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Proteus Publishing
Published: 2018-06-08T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 2 | father jack

Jakarta was a mess. Kyle was right. I was glad that I looked into flights down to Adipala once I stepped off the plane, which couldn’t be had from the international airport. The closest one was Yogyakarta, a few hours’ drive from where I was headed, but there was a small airport a town over on the map from Fr. Jack. The one problem was connecting flights went out of the old military airport on the other side of Jakarta and I landed just in time for morning rush hour. I assumed four hours would be enough cushion to get there and avoid staying in Jakarta any longer than I needed to–judging by the plethora of traffic and people everywhere I wanted to avoid–but I nearly missed my flight.

I’m not sure what I expected, but the airport looked like a dilapidated bus station. I had just enough time to telephone Fr. Jack’s office and give his secretary my flight details before hopping on my flight. The plane was smaller than I imagined–a slight step up from a Cessna–a twelve-seater single prop plane with no bathrooms and two fresh young New Zealand pilots sitting up front like bus drivers. I was exhausted from the overnight flight from Hong Kong, and so I dozed off after take-off, tucked into a window with no one sitting next to me–the plane half-full. When I woke up, forty minutes later, we were descending over a misty jungle canopy and so low I thought we were going to plow through the trees. Those pilots earned their stripes on that flight, struggling to keep her steady like wrangling an angry bull to the ground. With a rough bounce we zipped along the concrete runway strewn with weeds like some derelict parking lot. I thought Dumaguete’s airport was small, but this one seemed like an old converted highway, the little red roofed terminal house resembling an oversized toll booth. I suppose it didn’t get much air traffic, and after the 24-hour journey, I was glad not to be greeted by yet another desperate horde asking if I needed a taxi.

I picked up my suitcase straight off the plane and wheeled it up to the little house, where I could see Fr. Jack’s face through the glass window, his shining smile covering a face structurally designed for scowling. The warm weather, his blue floral print shirt and relaxed manner, everyone moving at half-speed; the whole scene made me wonder if I’d spent the past half century living the wrong life. As I passed through the doorway, Fr. Jack lifted himself from a half-seated position against a wooden railing, exuding the same charm I’d seen in the footage Patrick had shown me. His eyes were a blazing blue burning with intelligence and a hint of childlike vulnerability.

“Good to meet you, Harry.” His powerful hand gripped mine while the other snatched my suitcase before I could even consider shrugging him off. His singsong Irish brogue seemed both

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