Flight: A Novel Read online

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

  “All I know for sure is this,” Jimmy says. “You’ve lived in our country for fifteen years. And you’ve done really well—for yourself, for your wife, and for that new baby. Fifteen years, Abbad, fifteen good years.”

  “Yes, Jimmy,” Abbad says. “I’ve lived here for fifteen years, and I have been sad and lonely for my real home on every one of my days. I live in the United States because my real home has been destroyed.”

  Abbad is crying. He wipes his eyes and fades away.

  Jimmy is alone in his truck. He drives fast.

  He has destroyed his home, his marriage. He drives fast.

  He has turned his wife into a refugee.

  Jimmy drives into a small town, turns a corner onto a quiet street, and pulls into the driveway of a green house: his home.

  His wife is there, too. And she’s throwing his clothes out the front door onto the lawn: shirts, pants, shoes.

  Jimmy sits in the truck and watches.

  She’s now throwing out magazines and books and CDs and DVDs and trophies and everything else that might belong to him.

  Jimmy sits and watches.

  Then she throws out plastic airplanes, toy airplanes, model airplanes, remote control airplanes. They crash onto the lawn. They crash into the apple tree in the front yard. They crash onto the driveway. They glide and crash into the street.

  Five, ten, fifteen, twenty little plane crashes.

  Jimmy sits and watches it happen. He watches his wife destroy all his things.

  He knows he deserves it.

  She carries out photo albums, opens them up, and tears out any photo of Jimmy, any photo that includes Jimmy, and any photo that reminds her of Jimmy.

  Soon enough she realizes that every photo reminds her of Jimmy, so she throws all the photo albums into the yard.

  She wants to tear out the parts of her brain and heart that remember Jimmy, but she can’t do that. So she tears off her wedding ring and throws that into the street. It clinks against the pavement and rolls and rolls and rolls and disappears.

  That takes the last of her energy. She falls to her knees on the porch. She pushes her forehead against the floor and she weeps.

  Jimmy sits and watches.

  I wonder if my mother mourned like this when my father left her. I wonder if Jimmy’s wife will get cancer from her sadness.

  Finally, Jimmy gets out of his truck and walks toward his wife. He steps over and around his things strewn all over the lawn. He steps onto the porch and stands above his wife.

  “Linda,” he says.

  Her name is Linda. A simple, pretty name.

  “Linda,” he says again.

  She doesn’t respond. She keeps weeping.

  “Linda,” he says, for the third time.

  Without looking up, without moving, she speaks.

  “How long has this been going on, Jimmy?”

  “A year, thirteen months,” he says.

  “Do you love her?”

  “No.”

  She wails louder. Why is she crying harder now? I don’t understand. Would it have been better if he’d said yes?

  “Linda,” he says, for the fourth time.

  Does this guy think he can fix things if he keeps saying her name? Is he that stupid? He might be. People are that stupid.

  “Did you ever do it in our bed?” she asks.

  “No,” he says.

  “You’re lying,” she says. “Tell me the truth, okay? For once, tell me the truth. Did you sleep with her in our bed?”

  “Yes,” he says.

  Linda suddenly sits up. She pulls a pistol from her coat, a little pistol, and points it at Jimmy.

  And at me.

  Fifteen

  JIMMY WANTS TO DIE.

  As he stands there and stares at the pistol in his wife’s hand, Jimmy realizes he wants her to pull the trigger.

  Jimmy wants his wife to kill him.

  That’s crazy.

  But it happens all the time, right?

  Strangers hardly ever kill strangers. All over the world, thousands of times a day, husbands and wives kill one another.

  It’s mostly husbands killing wives, I think.

  But sometimes a wife will kill a husband.

  Like, right now, as Linda points a pistol at Jimmy and pulls the trigger.

  Click.

  Jimmy doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move.

  “I took the bullets out,” Linda says. “I just wanted to see you shit your pants, you bastard.”

  But Jimmy is strangely disappointed. He wants to be punished for his crimes. I want to be punished for my crimes.

  “Why are you just standing there?” Linda asks. “Aren’t you going to say anything to me?”

  “I wish there were bullets in the gun,” Jimmy says.

  “You’re sad,” she says. “You’ve always been so sad.”

  I can feel his sadness. It feels like he’s wearing a sad coat with rocks in his pockets.

  “I’m going to my mother’s,” Linda says. “And when I come back, I want you and your shit gone. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  “Okay,” Jimmy says.

  “Is that all you have to say?” she asks. “Okay? That’s all you’re going to say? Married for twenty years and all you’ve got for me is okay?”

  “Yeah,” Jimmy says.

  “Fuck you, Jimmy.” She walks over to her little car and drives away.

  Jimmy looks around his yard. A few neighbors are watching. They’ve heard the fight. They’re not surprised. They expected this to happen someday.

  Jimmy thinks he should clean up the yard. He thinks he should throw everything into the back of his truck and drive away. And he does start the cleanup. He picks up a broken model plane, a DC-10. It’s snapped in half.

  He carries the broken plane into the house and sits in his chair in the living room.

  He sits there alone and quiet for a long time.

  He stares at the blank television.

  And then a memory comes to him. And me.

  That memory plays on the television.

  It’s a home video of Abbad. He’s speaking directly to the camera. And then he’s shouting in a foreign language, his language. I don’t know what he’s saying, but he’s angry. Furious.

  Then another home video, shot from a boat in the harbor, of a passenger airplane falling from the sky into downtown Chicago. An explosion. Flames rising.

  Then a photograph of Abbad, his wife, and his baby.

  Then a news reporter speaks.

  “Late this afternoon, in Chicago’s Midway Airport, Abbad X and his wife and baby daughter boarded a commuter flight along with thirty-six other passengers. Shortly after takeoff, it appears that Abbad took over the airplane. The details are not clear at this time, but it appears that Abbad and his wife somehow disabled the passengers and crew. Abbad then took control of the airplane and crashed it into downtown Chicago during rush hour.”

  More video of cars and buildings on fire. Fire trucks, ambulances, police cars.

  “All passengers on the airplane died instantly, and it appears that dozens of people on the ground have been injured. Police won’t speculate on the number, but initial estimates are that at least nine people on the street have been killed.”

  A video of a little boy, weeping and wailing, as a fireman carries him through the smoke.

  Jimmy taught Abbad how to fly a plane. And once you know how to fly a plane, you also know how to crash it.

  Jimmy sits in his chair and stares at the blank television.

  Oh, Abbad, you are a murderer. Oh, Abbad, you are a betrayer.

  Furious, Jimmy stands and throws the pieces of his model plane across the room. They crash into a wall and break into more pieces.

  How can Jimmy ever be aerodynamic again?

  He runs out to his truck, jumps in, and speeds away.

 
He remembers the reporters who came to his door. The first one, a woman, promised to be fair.

  “Jimmy,” she said. “What can you tell us about Abbad?”

  Jimmy could not answer the question. He didn’t want to answer the question.

  “Jimmy,” she said. “You taught Abbad how to fly a plane. How did it make you feel when he used that knowledge to kill dozens of people?”

  He could not answer that question. He didn’t want to answer it.

  “Jimmy,” she said. “Do you want to defend yourself?”

  He could not defend himself. He didn’t want to defend himself. He was guilty. He had not murdered anybody. He had never wanted to hurt anybody. But it was his fault. He had trusted Abbad.

  Jimmy races his truck back to the airport. He pulls into the parking lot, jumps out, and runs into the hangar.

  Helda is gone. Linda is gone. Abbad is gone. Everybody is gone, gone, gone.

  Jimmy climbs into his airplane, starts it up, and taxis onto the runway.

  He takes off, lifting his plane into the sky.

  The clouds are the ceiling, the ground is the floor. Everything is green and golden.

  Flight is supposed to be beautiful. It’s supposed to be pure.

  “Okay, Abbad, are you ready to take the controls?” Jimmy says.

  Abbad materializes in the next seat.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready,” Abbad says. “I don’t think I’m ready to do it alone.”

  “You’re not alone,” Jimmy says. “I’m right here.”

  “Okay, okay, just give me a moment. I’ll be ready in a moment. Just give me a moment.”

  “I’m right here, Abbad. Just trust me, okay? Just trust the plane. She’ll take care of you.”

  Abbad reaches out and takes the controls. The plane feels lighter than it should.

  “Okay, you have the helm,” Jimmy says. “You have control.”

  Abbad flies the plane. He’s smiling. And then he laughs.

  “I’m flying!” Abbad screams.

  “Yes, you are,” Jimmy says. “How does it feel?”

  “It’s beautiful, it’s so beautiful. Nothing is as beautiful as this.”

  Jimmy laughs at Abbad’s poetry. He has heard it before. All first-time pilots have this moment, when they see the face of God in the sky ahead of them.

  “Ah, fuck the birds!” Abbad shouts. “Fuck them, they get to fly like this whenever they want!”

  Yes, Jimmy thinks. Yes, fuck the birds and their fucking wings.

  Jimmy remembers Abbad’s first landing, how they skidded to a sideways stop.

  “Jimmy, I almost wrecked your plane,” Abbad said.

  “It’s okay, first landings are always rough,” Jimmy said.

  “What would you have done if I wrecked your plane?”

  “I would have killed you.”

  They laughed.

  Jimmy remembers getting drunk with the less than devout Abbad later that night. In celebration.

  “To Abbad!” Jimmy toasted.

  “To flight!” Abbad toasted.

  They drank whiskey and wine and good beer and cheap beer. They talked about sex and love and marriage and planes and religion and politics and both kinds of football.

  Too drunk to drive, they walked back to the airport and fell down on the hangar floor beneath Jimmy’s glorious airplane.

  “To your plane!” Abbad toasted.

  “Her name is Linda!” Jimmy shouted. His plane and his wife. Jimmy’s two loves shared the same name.

  “To Linda!” Abbad toasted.

  “To Linda!” Jimmy agreed.

  Lying on the floor, Jimmy reached out and grabbed Abbad’s hand.

  “You are my best friend,” Jimmy said.

  “You are my brother,” Abbad said.

  Oh, Abbad, you are a murderer. Oh, Abbad, you are a betrayer.

  Alone in his airplane, Jimmy flies. I am with him. Jimmy flies out over the water, over the great lake, until the blue of the water and the blue of the sky are the same blue. He flies until he cannot see any land. Then he pushes down on the controls and sends the plane plummeting toward the water.

  As we fall, I think about my mother and father. I think about the people I loved. I think about the people I hated. I think about the people I betrayed. I think about the people who have betrayed me.

  We’re all the same people. And we are all falling.

  I close my eyes and pray.

  Jimmy stays silent all the way down.

  Sixteen

  WHEN I OPEN MY eyes I am staring at a rat.

  No, wait.

  The rat stares at me.

  It’s a huge wharf rat, two feet long, with intelligent eyes. And the rat seems to be thinking, You’re too big to kill, but I’m going to take a bite out of your ass anyway.

  I panic and roll away, thinking that the rat’s violent intentions might actually be amorous. What if I’ve dropped into the body of a rat? What if I’m about to get fucked by another rat?

  Shit.

  But, no, I feel human. I am human. A human who rolls away from a rat.

  I roll through rotten food and dog shit and rank water and moldy newspaper. And then I slam into a Dumpster. Damn, it hurts.

  But I have no time to complain. What if that rat has followed me? What if it’s ready to attack? I look back for it, my enemy.

  It hasn’t moved. It stares at me.

  “Fuck you, rat,” I say.

  My words are quickly followed by projectile vomit. I spew half-digested food and booze toward the rat.

  That scares it away, and I laugh.

  Damn rat wasn’t expecting that. Of course, if I hadn’t scared him, the rat would have gladly eaten my vomit. And that disgusting thought makes me vomit again.

  I retch. My stomach convulses. And I see blood in my vomit.

  Am I dying?

  Well, I’m certainly a street drunk, a loser whose belly is torn apart by booze. That’s why they call it rotgut.

  A cliché now, but somebody coined that word centuries ago. And imagine how funny and sad and accurate it was the first time somebody said it.

  Yeah, that whiskey will rot your guts. It’s rotgut.

  Why the hell am I thinking this stupid shit? Probably because I’m still drunk.

  “Hey, buddy!”

  Somebody yells at me.

  “Hey, buddy!”

  I see two pairs of shoes walking toward me. I know those shoes are connected to legs, bodies, and faces, but I can’t lift my head high enough to see any details.

  “You all right, dude?” A young man’s voice.

  I roll onto my back and look up at a young man and woman. A couple. Pretty white people. Cameras around their necks, genuine concern in their eyes.

  Gorgeous tourists.

  “You okay?” the young man asks again.

  “I’m drunk,” I say.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “What do I look like?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Am I young or old?”

  The young couple look at each other and laugh. I don’t mean to amuse them. I just want to know whose body I’ve dropped into this time.

  “Am I young or old?” I ask again.

  “You look about fifty,” the young woman says. “Like my father.”

  “Am I white?”

  “No,” she says. “You’re Indian.”

  “How do you know I’m Indian?”

  “Your braids. And your shirt.”

  I look down at my dirty T-shirt, emblazoned with a black-and-white photograph of the Apache warrior Geronimo and the ironed-on caption FIGHTING TERRORISM SINCE 1492.

  “Do you need some help?” the young woman asks.

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Pam,” she says. “And this is Paul.”

  “Pam and Paul,” I say. “That’s too fucking cute.”

  They laugh again. He laughs so hard that he stumbles and almost steps in my vomit. He dances and sp
ins away from it, and that makes them laugh harder. Are they drunk, too?

  “Where am I?” I ask. “What city?”

  “Tacoma,” Paul says.

  Just thirty miles from Seattle. I’m getting closer to home, if not closer to my own body.

  “What year is it?” I ask.

  That makes them laugh, too.

  “Dude,” Paul says, “you are way drunk.”

  “Just tell me what year it is,” I say. “Please.”

  “Two thousand seven,” he says.

  “It’s now,” I say.

  “Well, no matter where you are, dude, it’s always now, ain’t it?”

  Great, a fucking philosopher.

  “Can you help me get up?” I ask.

  “Sure,” he says.

  Pam and Paul help me to my feet. I’m dizzy. And I vomit again. Pam and Paul leap away as I fall to my knees. I vomit again.

  And it’s filled with blood, too much blood.

  I must be dying.

  “Dude,” Paul says. “You need a doctor.”

  “Call nine-one-one,” Pam says.

  Paul pulls his cell phone out of his pocket and calls for help.

  “They’re on the way,” he says.

  But I don’t want help.

  No, wait. This body doesn’t want help. I’m vomiting blood but I want to flee.

  That doesn’t make any sense. But I can’t control my emotions. My fears. Yes, I’m afraid.

  “I have to go,” I say to Pam and Paul.

  I don’t want to say it. But I can’t stop myself. This body is stronger than me. And this body wants to escape.

  And so I run. No, I shamble.

  Jesus, that’s the absolute worst way in which any human can travel: shambling. Shit.

  “Come back,” Pam and Paul call after me. I can hear the concern in their voices, but I don’t hear any passion. They’re not going to detain me or follow me or let me become anything other than an anecdote to tell at dinner parties.

  And then there was the time we helped this homeless Indian guy…

  Of course, they’d revise history in order to make themselves look more heroic, to give the story a happy fucking ending.

  And then the ambulance came and saved him. And the paramedic said the Indian dude would have died if we’d called, like, five minutes later.

  I don’t look back at Pam and Paul as I continue to shamble away. I hate their alliteration almost as much as I hate their reflexive compassion.