“What was stupid, Max? The crash?”
“Yeah,” Max said, returning his attention to the furry red therapist. “It was pointless.”
“That makes it very hard,” Perlman agreed. “That seems to be the hardest thing for everyone who’s hurt by an accident to deal with. They feel it’s senseless.”
Max’s heart hardened, his tears evaporated. He looked over at the big man. Perlman filled up even the relatively spacious first-class seat. “Have any of your patients succeeded in making sense of it?” he asked the plane-crash therapist.
“Well…after a while—it takes a while—they find a kind of peace about it. I think it’s appropriate for survivors and relatives to feel that it’s senseless, because it is senseless.”
Unless I give it sense, Doctor, Max thought. Unless I give it a point. Max nodded agreeably at Perlman, pretending to agree with his philosophical bumper car, bouncing merrily off all the hard jolts of life. Max had his mission now and saw no reason to share it with a civilian. He was glad the FBI had found him and turned him around. He had been going the wrong way, into the failed past. Now things were set right. He put his head back and listened to the engines, thrilled by their power. Mr. President, he thought, I’m ready. Max was launched, roaring out of Perlman’s orbit, able and willing to land on the strange terrain of his home.
8
Max was aroused by his wife. Debby greeted him with a firm wholehearted embrace, pressing herself against him from toe to head. They were almost the same height, had always seemed to fit nicely, although it had been years since Max had felt so thoroughly hugged. He squashed himself against her, ran his hand down her strong straight back until he reached the top slopes of her ass. He was erect.
“Isn’t almost dying a wonderful thing?” Max whispered in Debby’s ear.
She bit his earlobe hard. He jerked his head away and saw her face was animated, eyes brilliant, face flushed. “Why didn’t you call?” she said, angry and excited. Her voice was loud, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Everyone was Debby’s parents, Max’s mother and sister, his son, his wife’s closest friend, and someone he didn’t recognize, a mild fellow wearing a light gray business suit. The man in the suit had a youthful, fleshy face, no chin, bashed-in shoulders, and appeared both shy and obtrusive, that is, his body hung back while his head jutted forward, apparently straining to overhear what Max had to say.
Entering his home Max had ignored them, even his son Jonah, who was half-hidden anyway, slouched by the hallway to his bedroom, willing to observe, but keeping distant from his father’s arrival. Max moved past them all into Debby’s open arms.
Getting to her arms from the airport had been difficult and dramatic. On landing at La Guardia two Transcontinental employees entered the plane before anyone had a chance to depart. They led Max out into a car that was waiting on the runway. The other passengers from Pittsburgh watched him go, impressed by how Max was ushered ahead in this special way, hustled off as if he were an important official. Max had said goodbye to Dr. Perlman at their seats. The therapist handed him a business card and said, “Call me anytime. I’m either at that number or my service will know how to reach me.” Perlman then shook Max’s hand and stepped back to wave goodbye. He did this with the insecure reassurance of a parent sending his child off to the first day of school.
Max went down the ramp and into a waiting car, an ordinary dark sedan. One of the airline employees got in with him. He was a short blond man with wire-rimmed glasses. He introduced himself as a media liaison for the Transcontinental New York office.
“Does that mean you’re in public relations?” Max asked.
The blond admitted it did. He got right to his job, even before they had cleared the airport, while their sedan still swayed through the exit loops onto the Grand Central Parkway. “There’s probably gonna be press at your apartment building. I saw two TV crews at the terminal, but we’ve got you past them. They have your name. Not from us. Our policy is not to release names—but you were wandering out there for a day—and we didn’t…” he waved his hand, “Anyway, do you want to avoid them at your building?”
Max wondered why reporters wanted to talk to him. What did they know? Did they know he had seen Jeff dead? Did they know he had left the scene? Did they know about his dropping acid? No, of course not. What was especially interesting to them about his experience?
“That is,” the airline man said, “if we can avoid them. Is there a back entrance, a service entrance?”
Max told him there was, although it was only halfway down the block, within view and a quick jog from the front doors. This information caused a long silence from the PR man that lasted until they had crossed into Manhattan. “You know what?” he came to life as they bucked on the city’s streets. “We don’t know if they know what you look like. They may have paid the doorman to tip them off, but they’ll be expecting you to come by car. If you approach on foot—no,” he interrupted himself guiltily, as if he had committed a taboo. “That’s a nutty idea—”
“What?” Max was game. “You mean, let me out and I’ll walk in? I’ll do it.”
“No, no,” the PR man said, vehemently shaking his head. “I can’t.”
He’s not supposed to let me out of his sight, Max guessed. They’re worried I’ll run again. Why do they care? Was there some sort of general faith in Max’s life, in his marriage and his work, in his friendships and family relations? What was it to Transcontinental Airlines whether he returned home? “I don’t mind going in alone,” Max said.
“No, no.” The blond took off his wire-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Terrible idea,” he mumbled.
“I’d prefer it,” Max insisted.
“If anything went wrong,” the blond replaced his glasses and stared earnestly at Max to emphasize his point: “they’d fire me.”
“Come on,” Max protested.
“Oh yes indeed,” the blond nodded solemnly. He turned to the driver. “Can we take a pass by the entrance and see how bad it is?” The PR man bit thoughtfully on his index finger. They were about twenty blocks away from Max’s building on Eighty-fourth and West End Avenue when the PR man abruptly turned all the way in his seat to face Max, removed his finger from between his lips and demanded, “Why did you leave the crash site?”
Max said, “I’m not sure,” which was the truth.
“Shock?” the blond offered.
“Probably,” Max agreed.
There was only one television crew and one print reporter camped in front of his building. They loafed under the awning. The video and news reporters were chatting near the doors; the TV crew was idle by the curb, their video camera drooped to the pavement, unprepared for a sudden appearance by Max.
“Let’s do it now,” the blond decided on the first go-by. “Stop it here.” He spoke rapidly and with great excitement. “Come on, Mr. Klein, get ready. We’re gonna run past them. My suggestion is just say, ‘No comment.’ Better still, say nothing.”
The driver stopped. The blond hopped out, rushed around to Max’s side, opened his door, and practically dragged Max from the sedan. They had to squeeze between two parked cars on their way to the curb. That allowed the television crew time to start shooting and for the reporters to get between Max and his building. The television reporter stood to one side, angling a mike at Max’s face; the newspaperman bounced ahead of him, hopping back as Max advanced.
“How do you feel?”
“Why did you run away?”
“Are you hurt?”
“Where did you go?”
They were at the door by then. The blond pulled Max relentlessly, interposing his body with quick adjustments to the constantly shifting positions of the crew and reporters. The PR man shouted at the doorman as they got inside: “Keep them out!”
The television reporter was an Asian woman, her smooth puffy cheeks so young and vulnerable she appeared to Max to be a lost waif. The doorman blocked her off. Max felt sorry about ab
andoning her to her bosses without a quote, so he called back: “I’m just happy to be alive.”
“That was great!” the blond praised Max in the elevator. “That was the perfect thing to say.”
And also upstairs, at home, everybody was so pleased with Max. As he made his beeline for Debby he heard a sigh of relief from someone and applause from others. Even Debby, who should have been angry, hugged him with a conviction and desire that was usually absent from their life together. Although she bit his earlobe and complained to the room about his not calling in a formal almost mockingly stern tone, she then hugged him again with welcome and passion. She felt him harden against her; her eyes were tearful and amused. “You seem to be in good shape,” she half whispered.
“Give your father a kiss!” Debby’s mother instructed Max’s son in a harsh and high-pitched tone. Max tried to separate from Debby to greet Jonah, but he succeeded only partly. His wife hung on to half of him, gathering his left arm and hugging it between her breasts.
Jonah had his head down, eyes averted, as he approached Max. This was the shy approach he took with his grandparents, or any adult he was strange to. Jonah was shy anyway; but especially with adults he radiated discomfort and distrust. Not with his father, however, not until now.
“My son,” Max called to him encouragingly, sounding for all the world like a biblical character. Jonah ducked his head under his father’s free hand and snuggled into Max’s stomach, a furtive embrace. Max bent over and whispered in Jonah’s ear: “Were you scared?”
Jonah shook his head no. Max felt Jonah’s nose rub against his belly. His son stayed silent and kept his face obscured.
“No?” Max prompted.
“No,” Jonah was muffled, talking from another dimension. “I was worried.”
“Aw…” said several relatives in the room. Someone laughed softly. Debby’s eyes flooded, big drops overflowing, but she smiled also, her head tilted sympathetically in the direction of her child.
“Who are you?” Max asked the half-shy, half-nosy man in the suit.
“Excuse me,” the man answered and came forward with a spurt of energy, extending a small hand. “I’m Steven Brillstein.”
Max had to untangle from the clinging growths of his wife and child to free a hand. “Nan asked me if he could be here when you arrived,” Debby said in a quick, confidential way to Max while he shook hands with Brillstein. The small hand was strong and energetic and quick to escape the contact.
“I’m an attorney,” Brillstein announced gravely. His voice was wringing its hands: “I’m sorry to intrude. Mrs. Gordon is frustrated. She’s gotten some conflicting information from the airline—”
“Jeff’s dead,” Max interrupted. Brillstein’s tone, agonized by seriousness and gravity, had irritated him. Max wanted to shut him up. What Max hadn’t wanted or anticipated was the reaction of the rest of the room. His bald statement had shocked them. His mother, whom Max realized with a pang he had so far completely ignored, gasped and staggered, until she was steadied by Max’s sister.
“Max!” his sister complained, not about the weight of their mother, but his cruel statement.
“He is,” Max insisted, although sheepishly. Jeff was long gone for him: he had forgotten that it was news to them. “I saw his—” Max gestured toward the floor, at his red Oriental rug, which he used to think was blood red, but he realized was nothing like the color on the man whom he saw stumble out of the plane, or the smears on the fractured metal, or Jeff’s blood-filled eyes. He never finished the sentence. They all waited for him to. Instead he said, “He’s dead. I’m sorry.”
“You know that for a fact?” Brillstein asked. “I don’t want to give Mrs. Gordon any false hope, but I also—”
“Who are you?” Max demanded. “Jeff doesn’t have a lawyer.”
“I’m a family friend—”
“Whose family? Not Jeff’s?”
“Max!” his sister repeated. She guided their mother to the couch, helped now by Debby’s father. Evidently his sister thought he should be helping.
“What?” Max asked his sister.
“Your mother!” his sister gestured to her. Max’s mother sat stunned on the couch, staring forward, as if beaten into idiocy by the blow of Max’s news.
“What’s the matter, Ma?” Max asked.
“It’s horrible,” his mother muttered.
“What’s the matter!” his sister repeated Max’s question sarcastically.
“I didn’t realize you felt so close to Jeff,” Max said.
His mother looked up at him. Her eyes were red, her cheeks sagging. She shook her head slowly, in an incredulous way. “Oh you didn’t?” she said rhetorically, with heavy disapproval.
“Well, he was my partner,” Max found himself explaining to them all, although he didn’t know what he was explaining or why he felt he had to.
Debby, no longer titillated or amused, walked back into Max’s arms. This time she was frightened. She leaned her head against his chest and tried to pull Jonah along with her. He resisted and then yanked free. Jonah was suddenly bold, his shy light brown eyes peering at his father. “How do you know?” Jonah demanded, not skeptically, but urgently.
Max separated from Debby and faced his son. “I just know,” Max said. He was suspicious of them all suddenly. He was no longer like them. Max knew that they felt what he said about Jeff’s death and how he said it were as significant as the fact. They were almost mystics, virtually believing Max could breathe life or death into Jeff with his choice of language.
“You saw him?” Jonah’s voice rang out, again demanding and hurried. But Jonah had reason to consider himself an exception and want an answer. Jonah was close friends with Sam, Jeff’s elder son. They had played together in the park as toddlers, had been given video games with synchronized forethought; together the sons of the partners had fought side by side, little fingers flashing on the game controls, conquering the villains of the Japanese computer. “Oh, damn it,” you could hear them cry out from rooms away, “I died again!”
So Max waved to his son to come close, and bent over to whisper, “I saw him die. He didn’t know it. He didn’t feel any pain.”
“How do you know that?” Jonah’s incredulity was so strong, he almost laughed.
Brillstein leaned over as well. His head appeared next to Jonah’s. They had formed a football huddle.
“Excuse me,” Max said to him.
“Can we speak privately?” the lawyer asked.
“No,” Max said to Brillstein. He returned his attention to Jonah. “He was killed instantly. I was right there. I know.”
“Okay,” Jonah agreed to the death. His bright eyes shone inward, worried.
“We’ll spend a lot of time with Sammy,” Max said.
“Okay,” Jonah said, very low, eyes going down, down to the floor, down to someplace in his heart unknown to Max. Was he afraid of his friend’s loss? Or embarrassed by his comparative good fortune?
“Excuse me,” Brillstein insisted. “In fairness to Mrs. Gordon, I would like to hear the details of what you saw in order to make sure before I tell her.”
“I’ll tell her,” Max said. He straightened, a hand still resting on Jonah’s head.
Brillstein straightened with Max, unfazed by his responses. “I understand,” the lawyer said. “But I have a problem. Mrs. Gordon asked me to call as soon as I spoke with you, so when do you think you’ll tell her?”
There was nothing for it: Max had to dance to their choreography for at least a little longer. “All right, we’ll go together to see Nan,” he told Brillstein.
“What!” Debby’s body was rigid. There had been only a hint of anger from her until then. And even with this release she seemed to be trying exceptionally hard to hold back more. Max was surprised: he wasn’t used to her being shy about that emotion.
“I’m going to see Nan and tell her. I don’t think she should hear from a stranger.”
“You just got home.” Debby let
this furious remark escape and then returned to a self-imposed silence: lips together, arms folded.
“I’m going to be home for a long time. Jeff isn’t.”
“You could call her,” Debby said in a furious mumble, still a miser with her annoyance.
“I should tell her in person,” Max said.
“You should be here with us,” Debby insisted, forcing herself to speak in an unnaturally slow and reasonable tone. “You nearly died. After something like that you should be with your family.”
“Don’t scold me.” Under the terms of their marriage he was supposed to give way when she invoked his duty to the family. Not anymore. “Don’t make me apologize for being a good person just because this time it isn’t being good to you,” he said and he could have sworn someone, probably his in-laws, had gasped.
“Good to me!” Debby could keep it in no more. “Good to me!” She clenched her fists together and appealed to the others: “You didn’t tell me you were alive for twenty-four hours!” She looked at Max and released him with contempt: “You want to go to Nan, then go.” Debby turned and walked out into the hallway leading to the bedrooms. They all waited together for the inevitable noise of a door slamming. It didn’t come.
Instead Brillstein spoke. “I’m willing to tell Mrs. Gordon myself provided I know what I’m talking about.”
“Could you give these people a break?” Debby’s father protested. His interruption surprised Max in two respects. Harold was usually a mild man, almost timid with strangers; and as a prominent professor of American literature, he rarely spoke a colloquialism such as “give these people a break.” The change of character lasted for only one sentence. “My son-in-law has just been restored to us,” Harry continued. “It’s a shock for all concerned. We need time to ourselves.”
“Thanks for trying, Dad,” Max told him. Harry wanted to smooth over the quarrel with Debby. He had no son and Max had no father. Years ago they had decided—it was a willful act—to fill in each other’s family gaps. As a consequence Harry seemed to have more invested in his daughter’s marriage than the typical father-in-law. The rare—indeed, Max could think of only two—occasions when Max and Debby fought in his presence, Harry had become agitated and tried to distract them by comparing their argument with marital disagreements in nineteenth-century novels.
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