Flight Read online

  I’m lying alone.

  The soldiers ride closer and closer.

  In great pain, I roll over on my stomach, and then crawl to a log. My cover. I brace my rifle on the log. I don’t even know if this old Indian rifle works anymore. But I’m going to try.

  I take careful aim at the tree line.

  The cavalry roars closer and closer, just minutes and seconds away.

  I take careful aim. Then I laugh. This journey started when I shot a bunch of strangers in a bank. A horrible, evil act. And now I’m lying in the dirt, getting ready to shoot a bunch of other strangers. This time in self-defense and in defense of the two boys who are riding farther and farther away from me.

  Is there really a difference between that killing and this killing? Does God approve of some killing and not other killing? If I kill these soldiers so that Small Saint and Bow Boy can escape, does that make me a hero?

  I don’t know. How am I supposed to know? I don’t even have a good guess.

  I take careful aim at the trees. In my fear, I realize the trees look like people. Giants. An audience of eager giants. All waiting for the show.

  Me versus the soldiers.

  I take careful aim at the dozen soldiers who crash into my view. They see me and curse and laugh. They are happy to have caught me. They ride hard toward me.

  The general is with them. His face a mass of bloody bandages.

  I take careful aim. I don’t know if I have the heart to kill them. Isn’t that odd? I once filled a room with bullets. I shot people who would never do me harm. And now I’m not sure I can shoot at the men who plan to kill me.

  I hear screaming. I realize it is me screaming.

  I hear weeping. I realize it is me weeping.

  I close my eyes.

  Thirteen

  I’M FLYING.

  I open my eyes in an airplane: a small plane. There’s enough room for two or three people, but I’m alone.

  I’m the pilot. I’m inside the body of the pilot.

  No, I have become the pilot. I don’t feel separate from him.

  I fly just below a ceiling of clouds and above the ocean. If I flipped the plane over, the ocean would be my ceiling and the clouds my floor, and it would not matter.

  It is my plane, the clouds, the ocean, and me. All of it is beautiful and interchangeable. All of it is equally important and unimportant. All of it is connected.

  I am the pilot and the clouds and the ocean and the plane.

  Man, this has to be Heaven.

  I laugh.

  Yes, it is Heaven.

  I have survived my journey through time and place and person and war and have now arrived in my Heaven.

  And my Heaven is a small airplane that will forever fly. It will never land.

  Maybe that sounds boring. A small part of me thinks, Well, yeah, that is boring. But I am happy right now. It feels like the kind of happy that can last forever.

  I wonder about Small Saint and Bow Boy. Did they escape? What happened after I left old Gus’s body? Did he suddenly wake up and shit himself when he saw his old friend General Mustache shooting at him?

  But I can’t wonder and worry too much. I’ll go insane, I think. But if being crazy means I get to fly a plane, then I’ll take crazy.

  The really funny thing is that I’m scared of flying. Terrified, really.

  I’ve only been on two flights before: the one to visit New York with that rich Seattle do-gooder and the other with my mother. When she was pregnant with me. I know I’m not supposed to remember it. And I don’t remember it, not really. But I can feel it. I have the memory of it in my DNA.

  I have the photograph of my mother sitting in the airplane: a big jet. I don’t know who took the photograph. I think it was my Indian father. I think so because my mother smiles in that photograph. She stares into the camera and smiles.

  It’s obvious that my mother loved my father.

  A few months after that photograph, my mother was in labor with me, and my father was leaving. By the time my mother held me, a newborn, in her arms, my father was already hundreds of miles away, never to return.

  Fucking bastard.

  And then six years after he left, my mother was dead of breast cancer. I think she missed my father so much that it killed her. I think her sadness caused her cancer. I think her grief grew those tumors.

  I miss my mother. I miss her all the time. I want to see her again. And now here I am in the body of a pilot as he flies.

  It makes sense.

  The last time my mother was happy she was on an airplane. So maybe this is my last place to be happy. Maybe I’ll be as happy as my mother. Maybe I am flying to meet her.

  But no, that’s not it.

  I can feel this body remembering. Every part of you has different memories. Your fingers remember the feel of a velvet coat. Your feet remember a warm sandy beach. Your eyes remember a face.

  My eyes remember a face.

  I remember a brown-skinned man. Black hair, curly black hair. Brown eyes. Eyeglasses. A short man, thin but muscular. He wore a black shirt and blue jeans every day of his life, every day that I knew him. Who is he? Who is this man I’m remembering? Is it me? Am I the man I am remembering?

  No, I am a pale man. Blond, blue-eyed. Big. Strong. I fill up this airplane.

  I am much larger than the man I am remembering. I am reconstructing him. His name is Abbad. He is an Ethiopian, a Muslim.

  He’s lived in the United States for fifteen years. Came here for college, to study mechanical engineering, and never went back home.

  I look over at the empty seat beside me, and Abbad is there. Or the memory of him is there. Or his ghost is there.

  “Jimmy,” he says to me, “tell me the truth. You must tell me the truth.”

  His English is slightly accented. It is a beautiful accent. Abbad is a beautiful man. Small and dark and beautiful.

  “You cannot hide the truth from me, Jimmy,” Abbad says, and laughs. “I can smell your lies. They smell like onions and beer.”

  My name is Jimmy. I am Jimmy the pilot.

  “Abbad,” I say, “I didn’t think you were a terrorist.”

  “You are a liar, Jimmy. When I came to your door, when I said, I want to be a pilot, you immediately thought of September eleventh. You immediately thought I was another crazy terrorist who wanted to learn how to fly planes into skyscrapers.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did. Of course you did. And do you know how I know you thought such things?”

  “How?”

  “Because I was turned away from seven flight instructors before I came to you. One flight instructor pulled a gun on me.”

  “Now you’re lying,” I say.

  “I wish I were lying,” Abbad says. “But no, he told me to wait a minute while he grabbed some paperwork. Then he went into the back room and came out with a shotgun. He called me a sand nigger and said he was going to blow off my head if I didn’t get the fuck out of his place of business.”

  Abbad laughs.

  “You Americans love capitalism so much,” he says. “That man didn’t tell me to get out of his house, or out of his life. He didn’t tell me to go to hell or back to Africa or back to wherever he thought I came from. No, he told me to get out of his place of business. Business! That’s all he could think about.”

  Abbad laughs.

  What kind of man can laugh at such a horrible story? A kind and funny and forgiving man.

  “So, Jimmy, now tell me the truth. You thought I was a terrorist, didn’t you?”

  I laugh.

  “You did, didn’t you?” Abbad asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “Maybe I was a little worried about you.”

  “Ha, see, I knew it,” Abbad says, and laughs. He rocks back and forth in his seat. The small plane bounces. Abbad is happy turbulence.

  “And now? What do you think now?” Abbad asks.

  “I think you’re an asshole,” I say.

  Abbad
laughs even louder. He laughs so hard that he chokes. Coughing and choking, he keeps laughing. I laugh with him.

  We are friends.

  And then Abbad is gone. His memory fades away. And I am alone in the airplane again.

  I can fall so far inside a person, inside his memories, that I can play them like a movie.

  And I can feel the pilot’s emotions. He misses Abbad. Misses him very much. I can feel his heartbreak.

  Jimmy’s hands work the controls, switching buttons, flipping switches, guiding the plane from left to right across the sky. I guess that pilots call it port and starboard, but I call it left and right. It’s all I know. But it doesn’t matter that I’m a flying moron. I have nothing to do with this. I am a spectator.

  And that’s okay. I can relax and enjoy the flight.

  This is not Heaven, after all, but it feels great to fly. Jimmy is not afraid of flying, so I’m not afraid. I have borrowed his courage and joy, as well as his sadness and regret.

  And I feel the joy and sadness in equal parts as Jimmy floats the plane lower and lower toward a small airport. I see the airport in the distance. Landing lights, control tower, terminal, hangar. All is gold and green.

  Jimmy smiles as the plane touches down. I understand that he never takes flight for granted. He is always happy to fly and happier to land safely.

  He taxies the plane into the hangar and shuts it down.

  He opens the door, steps out onto the wing, and jumps down onto the floor. He walks over to a large sink, fills a bucket with soap and water, and begins to wash his airplane.

  He does this with great care, even affection.

  As he washes each airplane part, he says its name aloud: stabilizer, rudder, lift, wing, elevator, aileron, spoiler, slat, wheel.

  I remember my mother naming my parts as she bathed me. How could I remember that? I was just a baby. She had to wash me in a tub that sat on the kitchen table. Do I really remember that? Or am I pretending to remember it?

  As Jimmy washes his plane, he again remembers Abbad. And as he remembers, Abbad appears again. Also carrying a bucket and sponge.

  “Jimmy, you are a fool,” Abbad says. “You have a beautiful wife at home and you spend all your time with your airplane.”

  “My airplane is more dependable,” Jimmy says.

  “Ah, you Americans, you let your wives control your destiny. That is not our way.”

  “You’re full of it, Abbad. You might think you control your women, but it’s always the other way around. Muslim women just have to be craftier. They can’t say they’re in charge, but they’re in charge.”

  “No. My wife knows that I wear the big pants in our family.”

  “You mean you wear the pants.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “No, you said big pants. They’re just pants.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Abbad’s English is nearly perfect, better than most native speakers, but he doesn’t know how to use clichés.

  Abbad shakes his head. “That doesn’t make sense,” he says. “How can you be the king if you don’t have big pants?”

  “Forget it,” Jimmy says.

  “I don’t forget anything,” Abbad says. And he says it so seriously that it makes Jimmy laugh.

  It makes me laugh.

  And then Abbad’s cell phone rings. He looks at the caller ID.

  “It’s my wife,” he says.

  “Aren’t you going to talk to her?”

  “No, she’s still mad at me because I forgot to bring home milk last night.”

  Abbad stares at the caller ID for a moment, then he smiles. And laughs.

  Jimmy laughs, too.

  “I guess I am the king of milk,” Abbad says.

  The men laugh harder. The laughter echoes in the hangar. And then it fades away.

  Abbad fades away.

  Jimmy is alone again with his airplane.

  No, he’s not alone.

  “Hello, Jimmy.” A woman’s voice.

  She’s standing in a nearby doorway. She wears a T-shirt and blue jeans. She’s young, maybe twenty. Red hair, green eyes. And she’s pretty. Very short and very curvy. Cheerleader curvy.

  I hope this is Jimmy’s wife. And I wonder why he wants to spend more time with his airplane than he does with this woman.

  “Hello, Helda,” he says.

  Helda! Her name is Helda? How does a beautiful girl get such an ugly name? Her parents must have been cruel and cold people.

  “How was it up there today?” she asks.

  “Beautiful. I could see for miles and miles,” he says. “You should let me take you up.”

  “No way,” she says. “You know I hate flying.”

  “You’ll get over it,” Jimmy says. I can feel his impatience with her. He wants her to love flying as much as he does.

  “Are you hungry?” Helda asks.

  I can’t believe her name is Helda.

  “I could eat,” he says.

  “Good, I brought a little picnic.”

  Jimmy walks into the office. She’s laid out a feast on a blanket on the floor. Bread, fruit, fried chicken, wine. Wow, this woman is romantic. She’s trying to woo Jimmy. Oh, that’s so cute. Their marriage must be fragile. Married people only have picnics when their marriages are in trouble. I read that somewhere. But Jimmy is touched by this. I can feel his happiness. It makes me happy.

  “Have a seat,” she says.

  Jimmy sits on the floor. He grabs a piece of fried chicken, a leg, and takes a bite. It’s a little dry. So, okay, Helda isn’t much of a cook. But that’s okay. That’s perfectly okay. Because she turns on a CD player and starts dancing.

  She dances for Jimmy! Dances for me!

  This has never happened to me before. And from the way that Jimmy feels, I don’t think it’s happened to him before either.

  And that’s sad. You’d think some beautiful woman would have danced for Jimmy before today.

  But who’s to judge? Helda dances for Jimmy now. She sexes their marriage. And I’m getting to enjoy a little bit of that sex.

  I wonder if Helda will take off her clothes.

  And then I hear another woman’s voice. Or, rather, I hear a choked sob.

  I turn to see another woman standing in the doorway. She’s older, gray-haired, a little bit pretty and a little bit chubby. Her brown eyes are huge. Her knees buckle. But she catches her balance, puts a hand against the doorjamb for support, and covers her mouth. She sobs.

  Then she turns and runs away.

  “Who was that?” Helda asks.

  “My wife,” Jimmy says.

  Fourteen

  OKAY, SO I GUESS that Jimmy the pilot is a dirty liar and a cheat.

  My Indian father was a dirty liar and a cheat.

  So I guess this is another kind of justice. I’ve been dropped into the body of a man just like my father.

  But I do know that Jimmy feels terrible. There’s acid bubbling in his stomach and rising up his throat into his mouth. It tastes awful. Burning awful. I guess that’s what guilt tastes like.

  “Jesus,” Helda says. “I didn’t mean—”

  She doesn’t know what to say. She just stands there and stares at the doorway where Jimmy’s wife used to be.

  “She’s never been here before,” Jimmy says. “I’ve been flying planes for twelve years, and never, not once in all that time, has she ever come down here.”

  Jimmy is a traitor. I’m mad at him, sure, but I also feel sorry for him. Or maybe he’s just feeling sorry for himself, and so I feel him feeling sorry.

  “What are we going to do?” Helda asks.

  Jimmy looks at her. He doesn’t love her. I can feel that he doesn’t love her.

  He is having an affair with a woman he doesn’t love. So he’s cheating on her, too, sort of. I mean, I don’t think you’re supposed to have sex with people you don’t love. I know, I know, I know. People do it all the time. But I really think you’re supposed to be a little bit in
love with them. At least a tiny bit. And I can feel that Jimmy doesn’t love Helda at all. In fact, he thinks she’s irritating.

  “Jimmy,” Helda says again. “What are we going to do now?”

  “I’m going to go find my wife,” Jimmy says.

  “But what about me?” she asks.

  “I love my wife,” Jimmy says.

  Helda starts crying.

  Jimmy is a major-league jerk. He’s made two women weep and wail in two minutes. And he made Helda cry by saying, “I love my wife.” I mean, normally, those four words are romantic and lovely, right? But right now they’re as cold and sharp as an icicle stabbed into the heart.

  Why do people hurt each other like this?

  I just know I never want to be as much in love with anybody as these women are in love with Jimmy. You can’t trust people with your love. People will use your love. They’ll take advantage of you. They’ll lie to you. They’ll cheat you.

  “I love my wife,” Jimmy says again.

  “But what about me?” Helda asks.

  “I have to go,” Jimmy says.

  He leaves her like that. I try to make him stay. I try to hold him back. But I have zero control of his body. I try to influence his mind. I shout. But he can’t hear me.

  He walks out the door and leaves Helda behind. I can hear her crying hard as Jimmy walks into the parking lot. Jimmy jumps into a big pickup and drives off.

  He thinks about betrayal, so I think about betrayal.

  He thinks of how many wives and husbands are cheating on each other. And thinks of how many fathers are abandoning their children. He thinks of how many people are going to war against other people. We’re all betraying one another all the time.

  I think how I betrayed those people in the bank. Those people in the bank trusted me to be sober and smart and kind. I betrayed them. I’m a betrayer.

  I want to weep, but it’s kind of hard to do that when you don’t have a body. I want to make Jimmy weep for me, but his eyes are filled with his own tears.

  He’s crying about his marriage and he’s crying about other shit, too.

  He’s crying about Abbad, I think, because that beautiful brown man suddenly materializes in the truck with us.

  “Jimmy, Jimmy,” he says, “you Americans are so arrogant. You think the whole world wants to be like you.”