maverick

the summer of 1986 was a tough time for me. i had just suffered the worst accident of my life, i had been crushed by a tractor, both legs were pinned and one was in a cast for the next year. the life i had wanted from the time i was nine, to be a pilot in the US marine corps had been washed away by a tragic slip of a clutch. at the time, i was still in denial, i wanted to believe i could recover from this and go right back to the life i had planned. i had chosen to go with gravity, meaning no pins were surgically inserted into my leg to hold the bones together, a decision made within hours of the break when the doctor told me pins would mean i would never be able to join the military.

in retrospect this decision was just dumb. someone else in my college had more or less the same break a week after me while playing baseball. he returned to school at the end of the summer running and playing sports. it was 8 more months before i was out of the cast and two years before i could really compete in sports again. i should have gone the easy route, but it would have meant accepting my defeat and i was not ready for that.

i have been spending time thinking about that summer, which was also the summer that top gun came out, tom cruise played the tormented pilot with a checkered history of stupid decisions and issues with authority. i saw the film which i really enjoyed, went out to get in my fathers car that a friend was driving (driving is really hard when your right leg is in a cast up to your hip), and it hit me that my life would never be as the pilot i wanted to be. i would never have the chance to launch of a carrier and save a friend. i broke into tears and smashed my hand through the dashboard, leaving a clearly identifiable fist mark which my father never asked me about.

as i remember the movie the first quotes that come to mind are, maverick saying, “i feel the need, the need for speed” or goose asking maverick if he still had the number for the truck driving school, “so we can drive the big rigs, yeah i might need that.” the one that really stands out is carol (meg ryan) asking goose to “take me to bed, or lose me forever”, what guy could forget meg ryan or kelly mcgillis saying that.

i was recently accused of not being able to engage. someone else told me i was a coward for not being willing to fight for the things that i want. as i think about this, i remember the hesitancy i felt in many aspects of my life after the accident, and i think back to this movie also. maverick watches his best friend smash his head against the canopy and later swims over and finds him dead. afterwards people expect him to just move on, to keep fighting. at one point someone tries to push him into taking a shot, and he yells, “i will shoot when i am god damn good and ready”, immediately after this exchange maverick quits and walks away.

this is what i have been thinking about. when is it time to get back in there and fight? when is it time to stop thinking about the friend you found floating dead and broken; a friend you felt as though you should have protected? when do you remember that you really are capable of engaging, being better, faster and stronger and winning any battle you decide to fight?

one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when the top gun squadron commander, someone who almost stole the film for me comes to maverick and tells him goose is gone. maverick is shaving, the metaphor of attempting to cleanse the guilt and pain away is clear. the dark and steamy bathroom scene unfolds with:

viper: how ya doin'?
maverick: i'm all right.
viper: goose is dead.
maverick: i know.
viper: you fly jets long enough, something like this happens.
maverick: he was my r.i.o., my responsibility.
viper: my squadron we lost 8 of 18 aircraft. 10 men. first one dies you die too, but there will be others. you can count on that. you gotta let him go. you gotta let him go.

in the end maverick does let goose go, he throws his dog tags he has been holding onto into the ocean and buries him within the waves they used to cruise together. this is only after he has fought a real battle, one that he froze in the middle of and some how found the strength to push through the fear and find the ability to “do some of that pilot shit”.

maverick was a role model for me once, or was more of a reflection of something i thought i wanted to be. he is now a reflection of me in another way. i don’t look much like maverick any more (yes people did tell me this when i was younger), i am more like the bald cag who sends maverick and goose to top gun in the first place, but i do still think of maverick at times. maybe it’s the times where i see myself about to do something reckless and i hear the following exchange in my head:

goose: no. no, mav, this is not a good idea.
maverick: sorry goose, but it's time to buzz a tower.