Owing to early onset male pattern balding, a slightly hooked nose, and an uncannily fearless ability to drop a medevac chopper right next to what might otherwise be considered carrion, Mr. Englehorn had answered to the call sign “Buzzard” in the Airforce. He never spoke of his time in the service or attended any of the reunions. The only tangible souvenirs of his three tours were a few photos on his workshop wall, a rough, blued-out tattoo of an eagle on his forearm, and a dress uniform in a plastic dry-cleaning sleeve. His night terrors were a memento mori that he kept to himself.

The Buzzard started losing sight in his left eye after a particularly rough landing. The chopper had sustained a lot of damage as had he and most of the crew. Though he was accustomed to landing at the med tent, he had hoped never to wake up there. For a few excruciating weeks, the doctors had been hopeful that he would regain his sight entirely but as the weeks passed, hopes waned, and eventually he wore an eye patch to sign the discharge paperwork. Although he eventually regained most of his vision in his left eye, it wasn't enough to get his wings back. Shortly after his discharge, he set about rebuilding a new set of wings.

Since his retirement, he had grown thinner and lankier, adding to his birdlike appearance. He had bones so thin they might have been hollow. He still maintained a strict regimen of calisthenics and watched the nightly news from a recumbent stationary bike. Well into his sixties he was fit and lean, though years in the sun had turned his skin leathery. He had excellent posture and most of the neighbors and acquaintances might have been more likely to see him as heron-like were it not for the monocle.

He was friendly enough and had every tool imaginable, so the neighborhood got used to asking him to borrow things. He was always polite about it, opening his garage door and letting the neighbor pick it off the pegboard wall. There was a decent chance that he had a band saw in his garage somewhere.

Austin tucked the template and aluminum sheet into his armpit so he could knock at the front door of Mr. Englehorn’s place. They’d seen him around all morning, so they knew he was in there, but it seemed a little awkward to just walk up to the front door without an invitation.

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Jynx said.

He tucked the rolled cardstock template further under his arm. “It’s the same as shop class, Jynx. I’m just going to cut a patch, Jeremiah can weld it on, and we can probably sell it off to someone. If nothing else, it’s good practice.”

Jynx stopped chewing her gum for a few beats. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

He turned away.

Mr. Englehorn opened the door slowly, smiling. “Well, if it isn’t Abel and Baker back from outer space. What can I do for you young monkeys?”

Austin stood up straighter. “Hey Mr. Englehorn, we were wondering if you might have a band saw in the garage that we could use.”

Mr. Englehorn regarded the sheet of aluminum and the cardboard template tucked under Austin’s arm. “I do. If you’re lucky, it might even have a metal cutting blade on it right now.” He winked at Austin and stepped back from the door to let them pass. “Come on into the shop, we’ll see what we can do.”

The house smelled weird to Jynx. It smelled like an old casino mixed with model paint and freshly burnt toast. As he led them down the front hall, she peeked in at the living room. He had brown leather couches and hardwood paneling on the walls. With all of the curtains drawn shut, the place seemed dark and enclosed. Clothes lay draped across furniture, books lay in stacks in corners, and the glass-fronted cabinets were filled to capacity with plastic model airplanes and various bits of aeronautic memorabilia. A large wooden propeller hung from a wall above the entertainment center. The television played the news channel on mute. Despite the strange smell and the clutter everywhere, she felt comfortable.

Mr. Englehorn flipped a switch just inside the garage and a fluorescent light flickered on, humming softly. He walked along the work bench flicking more switches. A light above the workbench turned on to reveal an entire pegboard wall of hand tools, and then a light in the corner revealed a wall rack of long-handled garden tools. Clean and well-organized, the garage seemed an entirely different place. Jynx smelled sawdust, burnt metal, varnish, and motor oil.

Like a museum closed for the season, stained canvas tarps covered huge sculptural pieces that lined the walls of the two-car garage. Mr. Englehorn swept the drop cloth from the top of an old machine, loosening a cloud of sawdust and metal shavings. He inspected the works with a careful eye, unwound the fabric-wrapped cord, and plugged it into a wall socket. When he flipped a large industrial switch on the side. A motor hummed at the back of the machine, starting the belts slowly, then picking up speed. “That’s what I love about these old machines,” he slapped the steel cowl with the palm of his hand and brushed some dust from the old sage green paint. “They used to build things to last.” As the machine reached its speed, a subtle squeal in the belt rose to a violent screech.

Austin pressed his knuckles into his ears. Jynx stumbled backward, hands clapped over her ears, eyes shut as she crouched down against the tarped husk of yet another monolithic monster of a machine. Mr. Englehorn reached for an old hunk of wax that looked like a bar of handmade hippy soap. Applying the wax bar to the belt, the scream subsided back to the steady electric breath of the machine, harmonizing with Jynx, humming with her eyes closed tight.

Austin hunkered down over Jynx. It was best not to touch her when she was like this, but she knew he was close, and being close helped her anxiety. Mr. Englehorn glanced over, nodded, and punched the big red stop button on the machine. The bandsaw hummed to a stop. “Abel, son, I think you know what you’re doing here. I’m going to invite Miss Baker inside for a bit.” He brushed some imagined dust from the workbench and pulled a marker, a pair of safety glasses, and a little plastic packet of yellow foam earplugs from a box on the windowsill.

Austin nodded and helped Jynx back to her feet. She looked down at the concrete floor, still not ready to make eye contact. Mr. Englehorn wrapped his arm around her shoulder and led her back through the museum of old machines, steering her towards the door. “And Abel, don’t go cutting a finger off. You’re not on my insurance.”

Austin nodded.

Jynx followed Mr. Englehorn back into the house, and down the hall into the living room. Mr. Englehorn seemed to tidy as he went ahead, picking up shirts and jackets which he moved from one piece of furniture to the next, as if it made a difference. “You’ll have to pardon the mess, Baker. The maid hasn’t come around since sometime before you were born.” He led her around the corner to find the dining room table covered in newspapers and pieces of a plastic model spread out, organized according to numbered sheets of injection molded plastic. The instructions were folded neatly on an old music stand beside the project piles. “Sorry, kiddo. It’s a bachelor’s life for me.” He smiled apologetically and nodded towards the empty chair. Jynx obligingly seated herself. “Can I get you something to drink? I’m afraid that I haven’t got any soda pop, but I could brew some coffee perhaps, or maybe a glass of milk?” He opened the fridge and peered in, obviously disappointed. He hung his head.

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“Do you have any lemonade?” Jynx asked.

Mr. Englehorn’s face lit up. He smiled. “I just might, provided you don’t mind the powdered stuff.” He turned to the cupboard and started rifling through cans, excavating like an archaeological dig. Some of the cans he withdrew had been there for over a decade. “So, what are you and young Abel up to these days, any big plans for the summer?”

Jynx had been so entirely obsessed with her tablet that she had ignored the beginning of summer. “Austin and I found something in the hills—" She looked around at the walls of flight memorabilia but didn’t see a single flying saucer anywhere in the collection. If she told him what they’d found, he might think she was crazy.

Mr. Englehorn continued to rifle through the cupboards, eventually pulling out a can of something from the back. “Well, would you look at that.” He pulled a little plastic can of Crystal Light from the back and rolled it in his hands, looking for the instructions. He wasn’t really listening anyway. He was just making conversation.

“Mr. Englehorn?” She poked at the little plastic wings on the kitchen table. “How do things fly?”

Mr. Englehorn pulled a pitcher from the cupboard and glanced over with a slight scowl, thinking it over. “Well, Baker, I guess that just depends on what it is that’s flying.” He shrugged, somewhat satisfied with his answer, and set about the delicate process of emptying a tiny packet into the pitcher and adding just enough water to make it drinkable. He was fairly certain that powdered lemonade shouldn’t have an expiration date.

Jynx thought he sounded a little accusative. “Well just about anything, I guess.”

He glanced over at her and regarded her with a quizzical smirk. “Well, whatever you and Abel are up to, you’ve come to the right person.” He slid open a drawer, looking for a spoon or spatula long enough to scrape the clumped powder from the bottom of the pitcher.

“What makes you think we’d be up to anything?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh, I don’t know.” He pulled a couple of old, souvenir cartoon glasses from the cupboard, tossed a couple of ice cubes in each, and poured out his attempt at lemonade. “He’s out there cutting a big chunk of aircraft-grade aluminum and you’re in here making Cupie doll eyes at me and asking about flight theory.” He passed her a glass, saluted her with his, and took a big sip. Smacking his lips around the cloying taste of the diet chemical sweetener, he winced. He still didn’t like the flavor. Jynx took a sip of hers and made a similar face, eyeing her glass of lemonade as if it had just called her a bad name. Mr. Englehorn nodded. “Sorry, shortstop. I never did like the stuff much myself.” He set the glass aside.

Jynx shrugged. “Thanks, anyway.” She set her glass aside.

Mr. Englehorn took his seat, sliding a few pieces of the plastic model out of his way so that he could use his hands to speak. “Judging by the aluminum, I’m guessing that we can skip the hot air balloon lecture and move straight into airplanes.” He knit his fingers in front of him.

“So, to make something fly, you’ll be dealing with four general forces.” Despite the fact that it had been nearly half a century since he had learned flight theory himself, the answer was as good as tattooed into his general memory, complete with standard textbook diagrams and easy practical demonstrations. “Weight is a force that works with gravity to hold a thing down. Lift is a force pulling upwards against weight and gravity. Thrust is a forward moving force to counteract drag, the force that pulls back.” Mr. Englehorn embarked on a diluted physics lecture, describing the forces and how they interacted with an airplane. He drew basic diagrams on a yellow legal pad and made a paper airplane with a crisp sheet of paper, pointing out the thicker leading edge of the sweeping delta wings to demonstrate the importance of aerodynamics. He was secretly impressed with the precision of his folds, trying to remember the last time he had actually built a paper airplane.

Jynx listened intently. She nodded along with him but sat enrapt as Mr. Englehorn drew his pictures and traced a long, bony finger along the lines he had drawn to describe the difference in air movement over the top and bottom of a wing. She watched as he reverently held the wings of his plastic model demonstrating their movement through the air. He pulled his monocle from his shirt pocket, placed it in his bad eye, and traced the formulas explaining velocity and airspeed, scribbling them down on his legal pad so that she could go look them up on her computer when she got home. He shut the book they had been sharing and glanced up, his one bad eye squinting at her slightly. “Does that answer your question?”

She had been so enthralled with learning the basics of aerodynamics that she had entirely forgotten the flying saucer. She nodded and shrugged at him, blinking her eyes as if the lights had just come up in a movie theater.

Mr. Englehorn nodded back. “Good.” He blinked, letting the monocle fall from his eye. “Well then.” He regarded the dusty old book in his hand, realized that it was probably twenty years older than she was, and brushed a little more dust off the front cover. He pushed his chair back and walked the book back over to its space on the shelves. “Like I said, you came to the right person, I suppose.”

Jynx took another sip of her lemonade and remembered why she had abandoned it. “So, Mr. Englehorn,” she almost didn’t want to bother him again, but she still didn’t understand how a thing without wings, a propeller, jets, or a tail could fly, “what about flying saucers?” she asked.

He checked the titles on the bindings of the books around his old manual, realizing that he hadn’t touched any of those books in a few decades at least. He had reference materials dating back to the eighties, at least, most of which were entirely obsolete. “Flying saucers?” he asked, “like, little green men?”

Jynx shrugged and nodded timidly, suddenly regretting the question. He’d already wasted a half hour patiently explaining the physics of flight, and now she might as well have asked him how Santa Claus made his sleigh fly all around the world in a single night.

He blinked at her a few times, looking for just a moment as if he might actually be considering the question. “Well, Baker, I have to admit, I don’t honestly know.” He shook his head. “I’d feel bad pretending that I could answer that one, but honestly, I’ve never flown one.” He took the unfinished glasses of lemonade from the table and walked them into the kitchen. “They say that it is reverse gravity or magnetism of some sort, but that’s all a lot of voodoo in my opinion.” He smiled, rinsed the glasses, and set them in the sink. “I suppose you’d be better off looking that up on the internet.” He took the pitcher of lemonade from the fridge, sniffed it, and dumped that down the sink as well. “I forgot how terrible that stuff was,” he said, shaking his head. He took the plastic can and the remaining lemonade powder and dumped it in the trash. “What makes you ask?”

Jynx shrugged. “Just curious, I guess.” She looked down at her lap and scratched at a stain on her shorts.

Mr. Englehorn nodded, watching her. Whatever they were up to, they weren’t about to go telling the old guy, that was for sure. “Well, Baker, I don’t hear a lot of noise coming from the garage, maybe we ought to go check on your partner in crime.”

Jynx nodded, still a little embarrassed that she had just asked Mr. Englehorn how the little green men got their magical flying machines to work.