Fearless

by Rafael Yglesias

  “I also wanted to tell you not to worry about the presentation. I’ve made other arrangements.”

  “You’ve hired other architects?” Max was startled, not upset. That had been quick. It meant there had been competition all along, racing beside them at the same pace.

  “Yes. Other things being equal, if the designs you came up with were as good as what you did with the Long Island store, I probably would have hired you, but—well, to be honest, I’m a superstitious man. I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear any more bad news, but I felt I owed it to you to tell you directly.”

  “What do you mean,” Max wondered, partly to himself, although he spoke aloud, “that you’re a superstitious man?”

  “You know. Anyway, I expect a bill for the preliminary drawings. Please extend my sympathies to Mrs. Gordon—”

  “Excuse me.” Max couldn’t let this mystery go. “What do you mean, I know? I don’t know what you mean when you say you’re superstitious.”

  “Well, you were on your way to see me and you couldn’t get here. So I feel there’s a jinx…” The giant’s voice hesitated, flustered by embarrassment.

  “You mean I’ve got bad luck and you don’t want to catch it?”

  “No, no, no,” the giant said, almost chuckling. He had the false good cheer of a man in a Santa Claus suit. “This project requires a lot of immediate attention. Obviously you’re going to need time to adjust to this tragedy. We’ll work together in the future. Thank you for—”

  “Yeah, goodbye,” Max hung up rudely. He hadn’t felt angry until Nutty Nick lied. In fact, he had been grateful to hear his previous, truthful statement of worry that Max was jinxed. Max had survived all these attempted killings; he thought he was lucky to be alive, that he was overflowing with good fortune. That was wrongheaded. Nutty Nick was right. All these events were bad luck. He was dogged by bad luck, by the malicious actions of an evil god.

  Was it punishment? The therapists would line up from New York to China to tell him it wasn’t. But they wouldn’t make much of a living informing their patients that they deserved their fates.

  Okay, it is punishment, Max decided. What for? What did he do? Abandon his ambitious plans? No, not for that. Everyone had jumped off the ship of ideals. A huge asteroid would be on its way to pulverize the earth if that were a serious crime.

  Gladys interrupted. “Max, a Mr. Brillstein is on the phone. He says he’s your lawyer.” She had her hands on her hips again, a scolding posture.

  “I’m sorry you don’t approve,” Max said.

  “It’s not up to me to approve,” Gladys flung her hands out, tossing the subject away. “Maybe you should close the business. I just think you shouldn’t be making decisions right now. You shouldn’t turn down a job like Nutty Nick, the kind of success you’ve worked so hard for. You’ve wanted a job like that for years. You’ve killed yourself to get it—” She was revved up, pacing in a tight circle, full of passionate feeling and mistaken history.

  “Gladys—” Max stopped her, hand up, a smile on his face. “Mr. Lobell called to tell me that, because of the crash, he isn’t hiring us.”

  “What?” Gladys asked this of the rug, as if something hideous and unknown had erupted at her feet.

  “And, believe me, I wasn’t working hard all these years to figure out the best way to display programmable VCRs next to microwave ovens.”

  Gladys ignored his sarcasm, because that’s all it was to her, Max realized. All these years she had thought his most profound statements were the talk of a wise guy. “He’s not giving you the job because of the crash?”

  “Well, we’re jinxed. We’re on our way to see him with the prototype drawings and the plane crashes. Who wants to invest millions in a design scheme made up by people with such bad luck?”

  “That’s disgusting.” Gladys mumbled this as she shuffled out. She slumped, aging as she walked away. She was beaten. She had encountered a human act that was beyond her comprehension. “What a disgusting man,” she said almost to herself.

  Max was amused. He smiled at her exit. “He’s perfectly normal, Gladys,” he called out.

  Gladys stopped just beyond the doorway. Her evenly divided black and gray hair, pulled back into a bun, seemed to have turned mostly gray. He was sorry to have teased her. She used to mother Jeff. He would hug her affectionately, complain in a teenager’s whine if she nagged him, and ask her advice (which he never followed) about his children. For a moment, Max thought she was going to cry. “Don’t forget,” she said softly, discouraged, “Mr. Brillstein is on the phone.”

  Max picked up. “Mr. Klein,” Brillstein seemed to be in the middle of a long monologue. “I’m glad I got you. There’s paperwork we should take care of right away. I didn’t want you to be bothered last night, but I’ve got—you know, it’s annoying but there are some papers you have to sign. Could you come by—I’m near you—or maybe I could come over?”

  “Max—” This time it was young Betty. Even with his polo shirt back on she seemed fascinated by his chest. What was she searching for? His heart? “I’ve got four calls for you. Everything’s lit up.”

  Meanwhile Brillstein hadn’t paused in his ear: “Nothing important. By the way, has an FAA investigator gotten to you yet? Mrs. Gordon had one at her place first thing in the morning. A little tacky, I thought, a little early for that stuff. By the way, we have to give up any idea of Mr. Gordon’s death taking time—they know he was killed instantly.”

  “Sorry about that,” Max said and told Brillstein to hang on. “Who are all the calls?” he asked Betty.

  She had her head tilted to the side and was staring at his chest wistfully. “What?” she came out of a reverie, startled. “Oh. Two of them I think are lawyers.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t get them to really say who they are or what they’re calling about.”

  “Get rid of any lawyers. They want to sign me up.” Betty’s young face was at last wrinkled—by a crease of puzzlement across her forehead. Max pointed toward the sky. “To sue.”

  “Oh…!” Betty sighed with relief. She was quickly appalled. “God, what pigs.”

  “Wait for a second.” Max returned to Brillstein. “I’ve got lawyers coming out of my phone lines. What do I tell my secretary to say to get rid of them?”

  “No kidding,” Brillstein was grim. “Ugh. What a business. Well, I guess I can’t be too holier than thou. What should she say? Have her tell them you have a lawyer. That might, I emphasize might, get rid of them.”

  Max relayed the advice to Betty. She seemed glad to have it. Her mouth set and she clenched her fists. “Okay. Great. Oh. Also there’s somebody from the Federal Aviation Administration who needs to interview you. He said—”

  “Get rid of him. Tell the lawyers I’ve got a lawyer. Tell everybody else you don’t know where I am and take messages.”

  Betty nodded seriously. “Right.” Her lips and cheeks were as plump and fresh as a child’s.

  “Thank you,” Max said. “I’m sorry about all this.”

  “Hey—no problem. It’s exciting,” she said and smiled. Her happiness was revealed only for a moment. She realized that it wasn’t polite and was embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

  “Don’t be, don’t apologize. You’ve got it,” Max said and encouraged her with applause. “Thank you. You understand. It’s terrible and it’s exciting.”

  Betty backed out, flushed. “Okay,” she said. As she turned and left, Max indulged himself by admiring her beautifully thick and richly colored hair. He used to wonder if Jeff had hit on her; Jeff chatted and flirted with her every day. Max had disapproved. She’s almost young enough to be his daughter, he would think, and suggest Jeff get to work. What a prude I was, he decided. What a fool. I could have enjoyed that fresh cream instead of cleverly pitching Nutty Nick’s roof to create more storage. Maybe Jeff wasn’t irresponsible, lazy, cheap, and a petty thief. Maybe he was a man who knew that the sensual world was the only real one.

  “
Betty,” he called as she was about to disappear.

  She returned eagerly. She had long black shorts on. They reached almost to her knees. Her legs were white, bleached when compared to her tanned face. She wore an oversized men’s T-shirt, tucked into the shorts, also black, but a lighter shade. Shoulder pads gave her a cocky attitude. Her bushy hair trailed behind, an abundant mass, a rope that could rescue him. Max gestured for her to come closer. “Hang on,” he said to Brillstein on the phone, who shot right back: “No problem.” Max got up from his chair as Betty came close. He stayed low at her level and kissed her on those young lips. It was a quick peck but long enough for a dozen sensations. Her lips were soft, of course, and a little wet. He also smelled cigarettes on her although he had thought she had given them up. “I’m sorry,” Max mumbled, inches from her surprised mouth. “But you’re pretty and sweet.”

  Betty’s eyes lowered, her lids fluttering. Her eyes glistened. “I like you,” she said softly and then shook her head. “What am I saying?” she asked and stepped back.

  “Thank you,” Max said. “I appreciate that you didn’t scold me.” He sank back into his chair. It rolled from the force and bumped him into the desk. He felt sore around his ribs. Was that from dodging the knife or jumping out of me plane? He picked up the receiver. Betty backed out, but she moved reluctantly. Max smiled at her. “You want me to sign stuff and see you,” he said to Brillstein on the phone. “Your office is clear, right? The press doesn’t know about you and me?”

  “You mean that I’m representing the Good Samaritan?” Brillstein grunted. “You didn’t tell me everything,” he said in a lilting voice. Then he altered his tone to church-like solemnity. “What you did was impressive. Very brave. But that means we have a lot to discuss.”

  “Don’t believe what you read—why?” Max interrupted himself, tired of denying his heroism. “Why does that mean we have a lot to discuss?”

  “Well, I assume from the newspapers that you weren’t next to Mr. Gordon when he died.”

  “That makes a difference?”

  “It will to Mrs. Gordon. How Mr. Gordon felt at the end, and whether he knew what was happening to him, are compensable as pain and suffering.”

  “Well, as you know now, he died instantly—”

  “No, no. I mean, even before the crash. Each minute that you and Mr. Gordon believed you were going to die is worth dollars.” Brillstein lowered his voice and mumbled it again to himself, a prayer “Big dollars. Of course you’re alive and can testify to what you knew and felt. To Mrs. Gordon and her children, the question is whether you can—”

  Max impatiently cut off his roundabout approach: “I was with Jeff until only seconds before the crash. I switched seats at the very end.”

  “You were? So you do know how he felt while the plane was in trouble?”

  “For Chrissake even if I weren’t sitting next to him I would know! He thought he was going to die. We all thought we were going to die. For twenty minutes we were—” Max laughed. “What was it Einstein said God didn’t do? He did it with us.”

  Brillstein was stern. “I don’t know what you’re referring to, Mr. Klein.”

  “He played dice with our universe. For twenty minutes we were all looking at the odds of whether we would live or die.”

  “I’m not sure we’re communicating here. Do you know for a fact that Mr. Gordon believed he was going to die?”

  “Of course. We discussed it. We discussed how Nan and the kids would make do.”

  “You’re serious? Why didn’t you tell me yesterday!” Brillstein was thrilled. “Don’t say anything—wait. Let me turn on my recorder. We can do this now. Go ahead. Tell me everything from the moment you realized the plane was in trouble.”

  Max heard the engines roar and felt the floor tremble against the insecure air. A beam of heated light traveled up his neck and bobbled from the shaky hydraulics. Jeff’s greyhound profile turned his way…

  Max hung up. He couldn’t breathe. He heard his heart thumping, expanding in his chest, aching from inflation and effort. He was sweating, but not sweating hot, sweating in the cold air-conditioning, sweating fear. He was scared he was going to die, smashed flat on the ground, his head rolling on the burning carpet.

  He ran out, ran out through the outer offices, trying to catch up to the fearless Max. He saw his employees’ faces startle as he passed. He banged out of the heavy metal door to the hallway.

  He was cushioned by a block of hot air.

  A cornstalk poked his face. He looked down at a little baby’s face, wondering blindly at the sky.

  You’re alive.

  Max ran down the wide fire stairs and his sweat was hot again, his pounding heart no longer too loud. He was growing bigger and stronger with each landing, getting free of his past, of their need to know everything was safe.

  “Max!” His wife was waving a yellow umbrella as he jumped the final four steps to the lobby’s landing. She stood at the elevator surrounded by the tiny dirty white tiles of the marble floor, dressed in white, her long arms raised. The bright yellow circle wasn’t an umbrella. Debby was waving a plastic shopping bag to get his attention before he raced out the front doors.

  “What!” he panted.

  “I brought you clothes. What happened to your shirt? Where are you running? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m closing the business!” he shouted, exasperated. “I hate this place!”

  Debby allowed the yellow bag to drop by her side. As she moved toward him he was struck by her grace and beauty. Her long neck and straight back, acquired in adolescence as a ballet dancer and kept up by her teaching, floated at him in the stilled air. She had pulled her hair back, flush and sleek as a bathing cap. Her sympathetic light brown eyes were awash in tears. She seemed huge. Although she was an inch shorter and skinny as any starved middle-class New York woman, he shrank in her embrace.

  “Please be okay. Please be with me.” Her lips kissed him on the cheek, on the eye, on the mouth, and she mumbled, “Come home with me, Max. I can’t make it without you. I need you.”

  She was so powerful and in total control. She had the strength to hold the chaos of the universe together. Why did she pretend to need him?

  “Sure, honey,” he sighed and leaned his head on her shoulder. “Take me home.”

  POSTTRAUMATIC

  STRESS

  SYNDROME

  15

  In early November Carla agreed to attend a group meeting of survivors organized by Dr. Perlman to be held the week before Thanksgiving. Although Dr. Perlman was paid by TransCon to deal with the effects of crashes on their employees, Manny was assured by Brillstein it was safe for Carla to go. The lawyer explained that all parties had agreed to consider the group sessions confidential and exclude them from the suits. Manny was doubtful. He found excuses to call Brillstein back and ask for this reassurance again and again. Manny was suspicious of everything about the airline since he had learned that the typical insurance payment for a dead child was roughly fifty to one hundred thousand dollars.

  “That’s why they don’t give a shit whether they got infant seats,” Manny mumbled to Carla in their bedroom the night Brillstein had broken that particular bad news to him. “No fucking reason to. Only gonna cost them fifty grand for a dead baby.” He spoke softly and yet the words “dead baby” were like punches to Carla’s stomach.

  “Don’t say that,” she groaned. Her husband didn’t hear her protest. He had already gone on into the bathroom, slamming the door. The old pipes squealed as he started a bath. Usually he took showers. He took baths when he had a fight with his boss or pulled a muscle.

  Carla refused to go to the group meeting at first. To her surprise Manny didn’t argue or coax. A few days later Dr. Perlman phoned. Manny insisted she talk to him. Or listen anyway. Manny unraveled the tangled wire from the base of a large white desk phone. He had rescued it from the garbage where he worked. An impatient tenant had discarded the phone because the speed-dialing buttons se
emed dead when really all the phone needed was new batteries. Manny stretched the wire until he reached Carla’s position on the bed. Manny held the receiver to her ear and said loudly, “Just listen to what he has to say.”

  She was embarrassed that the doctor might hear Manny so she said, “Hello,” to cover up.

  Perlman had a cheerful voice. “How are you doing?” he said casually.

  She took the receiver from Manny. He let go reluctantly. Suspicious and vigilant, he stayed at her side and nodded grimly for her to respond.

  “Okay,” she mumbled back to the cheerful voice.

  “Not great, huh? They told me your cast is off. Your leg was fractured, right? I broke my right leg a couple years ago. It ached in a funny spot for months whenever it got real humid—it hurt right inside the bone. Yours bother you?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes.” She answered Dr. Perlman’s questions with a word or two at most; she didn’t hold back, and yet she didn’t add anything more than the minimum necessary to be polite.

  “Been having trouble sleeping?” he asked.

  “No. I sleep plenty.”

  “Too much, maybe? More than you need?”

  “Maybe.”

  Dr. Perlman explained that he was collecting all the survivors he could to meet in a group and talk. “You don’t have to talk,” he said. “You can just listen.”

  “Group therapy,” she said. She knew about it from television, although she had never heard of a group being more than six or seven people. This would have to be dozens at least; if the doctor got them all to come they would be ninety-eight. That’s how many survived the crash. The number blinked in her head a lot—98—98—98. She thought about the number as if the symbol itself were significant, noticing details: two short of 100; the first digit just one higher than the last; full of curves, almost an 88 if you closed up the 9 a little. Ninety-eight. She said the words to herself sometimes: their music was special. If Bubble had lived they would have been 99, a pretty visual repetition. And a happier sound: ninety-nine. She knew these thoughts were goofy. But they were among the easiest she had had during the four months since the crash. Four months didn’t seem like a long time to her. Manny would say, “It’s been four months,” as if that were forever. He was impatient with her. He complained about her sleeping until noon, staying indoors all day only to go back to bed at ten. Of course she didn’t sleep straight through. She’d wake up in the middle of the night, usually about two A.M. She’d sneak into the kitchen to eat odd combinations of food: ice cream, then a peanut butter sandwich, then some yogurt, and finally a plate of sticky pasta with cold sauce. She gained weight for the first time in her life, except of course for the months she carried Bubble. Her usually nonexistent belly, just an inwardly curved valley between her jutting hipbones, filled in and became a level surface. Manny said he liked her a little fatter. “You ain’t fat,” he said. “You were skinny. Now you’re normal.” She had sex with him once a week or so to keep him pacified, but their lovemaking had no taste and no heat, like the cold pasta and gelled sauce, only it didn’t even fill her up.