Looking for the Wreck
I met Mona on the same day the plane crashed in Findlay, Ohio. Early Sunday morning, my editor called me to say that a small plane carrying two passengers had gone down, nobody had any details yet, and that I’d be going with Mona, a photographer, to find the wreck and cover the story.
Mona pulled up in a minivan ten minutes later. We had never spoken, but I recognized her immediately. She was the tall, blonde woman who hung out in the newsroom instead of in the back lounge with the other photographers. I had seen her spend her lunchtime eating sandwiches with Victoria, the general assignments reporter, and leaving behind as many rumors as she did crumbs.
On the highway, Mona asked me where home was. I said Queens, New York. “That’s where I’m from, too,” she gushed. She asked if Anthony still ran the bagel store (he did, now with his husband) and if the Friends of Forest Park had ever gotten around to approving the ice skating rink (they had not).
We were just getting to know each other when Mona got off a few exits early. Suddenly we were among farms. The GPS claimed ignorance. The reggae on the radio struggled to swim through the static.
Mona drove past a smear of cornfields. Assuming we could not be that far from the wreck, I scanned our surroundings for anything resembling plane parts or people. Then I realized I might consider looking for corpses, too. Would we be able to see them from afar, or would we find them when we tripped over them?
“So,” Mona said. “How do you like it here?”
I readied my spiel, which included an effusive endorsement of life in “a town that’s a little smaller than I’m used to.” It excluded the seven times I had tried to book tickets home, each time expecting that they would be cheaper; also, that I had been mugged by a gang of eight-year-olds but still thought I could feel my iPhone in my pocket, like a phantom limb.
What I longed to tell Mona was the secret I had been hoarding since Week Three of working at this paper: I hated the job. In fact, I had entirely put to rest my dream of becoming a reporter, the first professional dream of my nascent adulthood. I had no energy for breaking news, and I cared little for the tremors of this small town. I feared I was too lazy to make a career of any meaningful public service, let alone this one. Not knowing how to drive, I rode a rickety bike to assignments wishing I could take off in the opposite direction. There were still three more weeks of the internship to go.
“You hate it here,” Mona said triumphantly, when I was silent. We passed another cornfield with a resigned scarecrow hanging high above the grass. “I hate it here, too,” she continued. “But you’ll be done here after two more weeks, and I’ve got years to go.” She shook her head, and I gave a single laugh like a musician unsure of where to come in.
“Didn’t you have some other plans for this summer?,” she barreled on. I mumbled something about applying to learn Chinese in Beijing for free. “For free?” she screeched in my ear. “You’re in this dump looking for a plane wreck, but you could have gone to China for free?”
We were driving in circles. I knew because things out the window were beginning to look familiar: a Chevy painted with the American flag, a glum man in overalls, a driveway patrolled by eight beaming plastic garden gnomes.
I kept looking for the plane. Mona kept giving advice. She insisted that I not become a journalist under any circumstances because I would end up like her: old, not having “work” pants and “after work” pants but wearing the same stretchy black yoga pair everywhere, and fighting with the paper’s higher-ups for sick paid leave.
She said not to worry, that she had a plan. “I’m taking a class at the London School of Economics,” she declared, absentmindedly scratching the wheel with a manicured fingernail. “Not definitely. I haven’t enrolled yet. But I’m going to Europe, and then I’m going to Pakistan to campaign for women’s rights. What will I do with my dog? Oh, I can sell my dog. I’m getting out!” When she nodded, her blonde bouffant nodded with her. She leaned into my face; she was close enough to count my eyelashes. “Does this sound crazy?”
Her question felt honest. I wanted to be honest back and say Yes, you sound crazy. Then she asked me if there were Kickstarters for this sort of thing, if I would give to her Kickstarter, if I thought the rest of the newsroom would give to her Kickstarter, what even was a Kickstarter. When she laughed, I felt relieved. There was nothing I needed to explain to her.
Before us now were two police picket fences. “There!” I said, for they surely indicated the location of the plane. I got out of the car and walked towards the fences, holding a hand over my eyes. There was no wreckage, as far as I could tell. Not even the smell of smoke.
A policeman crossed the thick grass, planted himself in front of me with arms akimbo, and told me I was not allowed to pass. He was unfazed when I told him I was with the newspaper. “FAA rules, ma’am,” he drawled. “Nothing to see here anyway. They picked up the plane this morning.”
I thanked him and turned for the car. Rain was spilling out of the sky. I wanted to go back. Not just back to the newsroom or to my apartment, but back home, where I could lie on the rented mattress and forget about all this. Dream up a more durable dream. But we needed to run something in tomorrow’s paper, so I banged on doors until an elderly woman finally gave me a quote.
A day after the crash, the police learned the identities of the crash victims. The pilot was Ralf Bronnenmeier, 47, the CEO of a mechanical plant. His passenger was Tiesha McQuin, 26, who had a three-year-old daughter.
Mr. Bronnenmeier had assembled the plane, a Lancair IV-P, from scratch using a home kit. The obituary said he had wanted his whole life to fly.
