Terraplane

by Jack Womack

  Jake straightened himself, his hand still hidden. "Transport us. She's pained overmuch. Help now or help never."

  "Jake!" I said, hoping to preserve and prevent. "Hospital us if possible, please. We'll reimburse. It's urgent twiceover."

  Laughter cracked his face's wax; was it my look or sound? I wondered, and feared how badly we showed. "I'm a doctor," he said, kneeling beside Oktobriana, holding her wrist to try the pulse, patting her face to stir her. "Miss, can you hear me? What's wrong? You hear me?"

  "Da," she slurred, newborn pup's eyes unopened. "Govoritye li vy porusski?"

  "Russian?" he said. "Good Lord. Ya govoritye," he said, "a little." She slumped again, and no conversation ensued. He doctored: ran hands about her neck, touched her toes, prodded her ears. Unpocketing a small flash, he shone it into her dilated eyes.

  "No bones broke," he said, gently pressing her abdomen, seeming to look for her liver. "Took a hell of a lick on the head, looks like. What happened?"

  "An accident," I said. "We're travelers."

  "What kind of accident?"

  "Our plane descended," I said. "Out there." Peering into the swamp's acreage, he scanned for several moments.

  "Think I see it." He hefted himself upright with fatman's grace. "She's got a slight concussion. Mild shock, that's expected. When was the accident?"

  "Thirty past," said Jake.

  "Past what? Good thing you kept her bundled up. She oughta be all right, long as we get her into town soon." As if to self-flagellate, he slapped his neck three hard strokes. "Damn skeets. Get malaria hanging out in this damn swamp. What about you two? Looks like you took quite a licking yourself," he said, flashing his beam over my forehead, sighting my slices and bumps. "Hurt anywhere else?"

  `All over but nothing of import," I said. "Jake dislocated his shoulder, but we readjusted."

  "Shit. You're walking around?" he asked Jake.

  "Diodin holds antishock agents. If I sit overlong I'd fade to black. Standing's necessaried during the first fifteen minutes."

  The man's look puzzled; possibly Jake's phrasing confused. "You all are some bunch. Damn lucky you made it. How high were you flying?"

  We glided groundways," I said. "Freefall, nearly." The man's own voice fascinated; I wondered if we sounded so strange to him as he did to me. The way his phrases wrapped themselves round his words, his odd pronunciations, his remarkable tone and pitch; all amazed. "We've ridden rough roads," I said. "We're hospitalnear?"

  "We'll go back to my office," he said, pushing his hat back upon his head, dejacketing, showing a drenched shirt. His under's line showed clear. "Little bird tells me you all may not want to get too involved with too many strangers right off. That a good guess? Give me a hand getting her into the car. We'll hash things out later on. Those your bags?" he asked. "Toss 'em in the trunk." Lumbering over, he unlocked the lid, pulled it up. "What do you go by, brother?"

  "Excuse?" I asked. "Uncomprehended."

  "What's your name?" he asked, sounding miffed.

  "Luther. That's Jake. She's Oktobriana."

  "Man," he said. "Damn Russians. I knew one once called Glory of Revolution. My name's Norman Quarles. Call me Doc. You two carried her out of the swamp?"

  "I did," said Jake. Stooping, he encircled her shoulders with his good arm, placed his hand beneath and lifted.

  "Careful-" Doc said, then realized Jake suffered no trouble in his act. Still, he took hold of her legs, to relieve the weight. Shortly they backseated her, Jake sliding in next to keep her upright. Certifying the roadside clear of our holdings, I grasped the trunklid, startled by its weight as I slammed it down.

  "Your car's plated?" I asked Doc, seeing no call for such density but for security's sake. He stared, again.

  "With what? Silver or gold?" He laughed. "Jake, you want some morphine for that arm? I can't believe it doesn't hu-"

  "Morphine contraindicates Diodin," I said. "We're fixed." - - - - - - - - - -- -- - - -

  Doc shook his head, and wheeled himself. Opening the shotgun door, expecting to descend, I climbed instead, seating myself on worn, tape-patched upholstery; fine leatherette upholstery, nonetheless. A ceiling incandescent buttered us with yellow light. On the unpadded, polished-metal dash were but six gauges and the glove compartment.

  "Isn't much traffic, this time of night," Doc said. "We ought to make it in no time."

  "What time is it?" I asked, fumbling for nonexistent seat belts.

  "Clock's right there," he said. With a key, he ignited; when the engine caught it roared and pounded loud. Finding the clock, I found too that it bore hands. Seeing me count off the divisions, Doc said, "One-thirty." He jerked a steering-column lever knobbed with speckled blue, and drew up his left leg. Only on old cars traveling the streets of Kabul or Ankara or out on the Island had I, since childhood, seen such a system. Twohanded, with evident strain, he steered us roadways.

  "Usually I'm not running around this time of night," he said. "Ever' Friday I'm assigned to work over at East Orange Colored Hospital. Poor people out there need all the help they can get."

  "Colorful hospital?"

  "You could say that," he said. "I'll tell the world it's a hell of a mess on weekends."

  In the rearview I saw Jake inserting his pocket-player's phones so that for short minutes, through long-sung songs, he might ascend free from all surrounding. He drew Oktobriana near, despite the heat; Jake generally showed affection only to the unconscious, but his hold was a different hold that night.

  "Where's the AC?" I asked, vizzing the dash; there wasn't even a radio.

  "AC?" Doc said. "You mean electricity?"

  "No. Air-conditioning. Sorry to misunderstand."

  "In a Terraplane?" Reconsidering, I surreptitiously handcrept the doorside, hoping to find the window button. "Packard, maybe. Not in this car. You want some air?" he asked; paused, as if to rephrase. "Use that little crank with the knob on the right. Don't yank the handle, you'll fall out the door." Finding it, I rolled; leaned into the breeze's hot sting. "You and him aren't Russian," he said, "but you're not Americans. Where you all from?"

  "We're American," I said.

  "Been out of the country a long time?" he asked.

  "Not long." Doc's car seemed suspension-free as we bumped and banged along; when he shifted again we settled into cruise. We passed a small house on road's righthand; two thick stanchions stood in the dirt lot fronting. Seeing their hoses and dials and globes marked HESS I realized they were gas pumps. A sign on houseside told that within could be bought ice-cold buttermilk, live bait and Moxie. Between house and bog a billboard announced a sale on DeSotos.

  "What's Moxie?" I asked.

  "Spunk," he said. "Oh, you mean the drink?"

  I shrugged.

  "I tasted it once. Tasted like tar. Creosote."

  How often did he drink creosote? I wondered. "DeSotos are a car?" His look shifted, towards me, to the road, towards me again.

  "Not often you see a mixed group like yours in the country. Some people get a little upset."

  "One car tried a hit," I said. "Missed." We reached a narrow, arched bridge that crossed, said a sign, the Hackensack River. The roadway hummed as we hit it, startling my heart into extra beats. The buzz was as a plane speeding down to spray.

  "You in any trouble with the law?" Doc asked, lowvoiced.

  "We've interacted no legal modes improperly, as I gather."

  "Level with me if you're on the lam, friend. You got something to come clean about, you come clean now for my sake just so I'll know what's going on. I'm not going to rat on you 'less you give me reason to."

  Paranoia's oddest feature is that those closest are least trusted, and a stranger may prove the safest confidant; still, there was no trusting this one yet. If we tarried overlong round him, and under circumstance I knew there might not be choice, he'd have to be told unless he guessed beforehand. I nearly spoke then, but feared he would cast us away so soon after catching us. At present need for docto
ring outweighed need to inform; I stilled my tongue.

  "Stand in my shoes a minute," he said; why should I want to? I wondered, but didn't say. "I'm driving 'cross the Meadows in the middle of the night. Catch you three just crawled out of the swamp. Negro man, white man, white woman. Injured white Russian woman. Ever' one of you beat-up, filthy dirty. Covered with blood. You think people aren't going to do more than just rubberneck? Tried to run you down, hell. You all're lucky nobody tried to shoot you, just on general principle."

  "Why'd you assist if we showed so strange?"

  "I'm a doctor," he said. "God helps fools, doctors help people. If God helped people 'stead of fools, world'd be a perfect place, wouldn't it?" Extracting a cigarette from shirt pocket he stuck it in at mouthcorner, pressed a dash button and tossed a crumpled pack atop the dash. LUCKY STRIKE, its green and red colors told; Christmas colors. "Think you can salvage your plane?"

  "It's demolished," I said. It wasn't, but none here could effect needed repairs. The button clicked; he pulled it out, lighting his cigarette with its glowing end. Noxious fog sucked the air's oxygen away.

  "What? Never seen -a lighter before?"

  "Doctors never smoke," I said, staring.

  "Maybe not the doctors you know. If I didn't smoke I couldn't afford to eat," he laughed, slapping a hand stomachways. "Much as I can put away." He blew smoke as if pumping a bellows; I faced the window's wind, gulping Jersey air. "Plane, huh? Just like old Lindy. I went to the aerodrome out at Holmes Field last year. Those Negro pilots from California, you know the ones. They put on a hell of a show Something to see, brother. Made you walk out a proud man. "

  "We wished to go homeways," I said. "Only that."

  "Ever'body's wandering these days," he said. "Travel if you got plenty, travel if you're busted. If you're getting by, like me, you don't get around much. Lots of people wind up in New York. It'll take most anybody. Better here than most places, brother, believe you me, especially for our people." He patted my shoulder. I wondered about his own suspicions; he'd not inquired as to our specific origin. Whether I read overmuch in, or whether he wasn't yet sure if he wished to know, I couldn't guess; only fear. "Take a long time getting here?"

  "Years," I said.

  The swamp vanished behind us; we ascended the low grade leading to town. Above the crest ahead the azimuth brightened above New York's everrising skyline. Through the car windows the panorama without washed rich with detail's rising tide until all flowed together into a torrent bearing an America horrifying in its course's inferred innocence. The flood carried ragtag tourist courts, airflowed chrome diners, tile-roofed gas stations hawking Sinclair at twenty or Getty at eighteen, sprawling roadhouses with dance floors worn bare. Lamplit billboards sold the Kiwanis, Rup- pert's beer, Silvertop bread, Hudson automobiles, Mazda bulbs, Crosley radios. One big sign announced, beneath a drawing of a carborne family, grinning madly as if driving into sweet, sweet blast, that There's No Way Like the American Way; the other showed nothing but that silhouette of prick and orchid ball, this time with overlain legend proclaiming VISIT THE WORLD OF TOMORROW.

  At ridge's peak the road swept downward; across the road's open cut, over the black river, stood lost New York, its ornate steeples rising as a host of sparkling crystals, freed from the looming flooded walls of our day. We passed into the tunnel below the dark, house-shingled hills, shooting into the city as a virus enters the blood, forever changing the body entering as it changed the body entered.

  "GET YOUR FLYERS SET, LUTHER," SAID Doc, MIDTUNNEL. SO glaringly white the lights within glowed that I felt to be speeding through a fluorescent tube. "Friday night, so they'll still have the watch up. Hey, Jake!"

  Jake, deaf to normal call, softly serenaded himself, eyes lidhid from this world's grotesqueries, ears pitched sole to history's song. Oktobriana fastened limpetlike onto his slumped shoulder, sleeping safely unaware. As if by instinct he stroked her face, brushing her skin's canvas with new color. Under music's influence, I fancied, mayhap Jake's soul returned; heretofore to my sight in his life's art he brought to his palette no hue save red.

  "Jake!"

  "Don't scream," he muttered, de-earing his phones, moving nothing else; I relaxed minuteslong.

  "You hear better without that deaf-aid than you do with it, Jake. We're coming into town, friend. Better look sharp."

  "Doc," I said, "translate flyers. I'm uncertain."

  "Oh, you know. Your pass papers. Get 'em handy."

  "Pass what?" Giving suitable ear impossibled when such unfathomed slang proposed to cue. By my incomprehension, anger's cloud shaded his face, though his temper's worst kept at deep run; his wheel grip tightened and his knuckles paled as blood drained from hands to head.

  "Your pass papers," he repeated. "You don't have them on you?"

  "Haven't them at all," I said. "What's meant?"

  His voice's organ loosed all stops. "Buncha damn lulus, you are," he said. "You know that? All of you just follow my lead, then, till we get through. You especially." With pointing finger he emphasized my attention's need. "Let me do the talking. I think I can pull the wool over their eyes." Dehatting himself he topsided his brim onto my head, rubbing clotted wounds raw It settled upon my ears, rather than skull. "Good thing you got a small head. Now keep that yanked down low. They get a good look at your bean and they'll want to know who went down for the count."

  "Who're they who await?" Jake asked, his voice dawn-calm.

  "Police," said Doc, emphasizing syllables oddly. "Keep your traps shut. Less they hear, the better. Any luck at all and I'll know the ones checking."

  As if awakening from a midnight dream we entered the city, moving onto Dyer Avenue's stretch as it funneled us to Fortysecond. Scattered over the dusty lots alongstreet were boxes roped together, cars' rusting frames, a bedouin's camp of patched tents.

  "Burnt out this Hooverville a month ago and now ever'body's back," said Doc, referring-I gathered-to the settlement around us. Long bundles lay in rows as if set out for survivors' identification. Looking closely, I saw the bundles stirring, thrashed by dreams as they were by life. Glimpses of river flashed between cartonlike buildings to our left. Down at waterside, beyond a highrise road, darknesses rose which could, by their form, have only been ships. On the right, past the refugees, Ninth Avenue's unrenovated tenements showed only their worn facades' cornices and boarded stores. Down avenue's midlane stood a row of metal trees. Along its unified branches entwined above a train snaked uptown. Blocks away stood some few recognizables: the Empire State, Chrysler's tickler, Dryco's old slab, now as it once had been, RCA's. In the sky above, so much broader than in our day, there seemed to be stars.

  "Shit," said Doc, eyeing frontways. "We're in the soup now Don't start gumbeatin' about anything. Got me?" A twin-bulbed streetlamp at Forty-second's corner burnished two cars' smooth black hulls with pale gold; upon their roofs red spots revolved, throwing bloodlight. "Jive's on," he said, his whisper closer to ventriloquist's mumble. "Hope I can bamboozle these clowns."

  We stopped and idled. The policeman ambling our way radiated vulnerable danger. Moon white, barrel broad, over two meters tall, he wore an unplated cloth cap and dark uniform bejeweled with silvered buttons. His sole tools were pistol and club; the bovine look his face held suggested that their use came naturally to him. His like usually bagged it homeways by first week's end in my old field. Tapping carside with his club, he reclined, resting elbows roofways until we answered. Doc, flashing three gold teeth in his smile, rolled down his window.

  "Headin' somewhere, boy?" the policeman asked, peering in; his grin drew up as if by poison. "Hard t'see y'in the dark, Doc. How're y'doin'?"

  "Fine, officer. Doin' just fine, sir," Doc laughed. His proper speak came earlier in phlegmful baritone's range; wording to the policeman he ascended uptone an octave, cloaking threat with callow sound, blatant in desiring to do naught but please. They behaved as if by stagecraft, for some unimaginable audition. He drew a paper from his wallet an
d gave it over; the policeman shone his flash over it. "Been over to East Orange, sir. Ever' Friday night, you know That hospital work never do let up. "

  "Who y'got with you?" the policeman asked, blinding us with his beam's sharp light. "Patients?"

  Doc slapped me shoulderways, arousing pain-his intent, undoubted. "Yes, sir, mister officer. That's a good one. Patients!" He laughed a near-psychotic laugh that could have curdled cream. "This here's my cousin Luther," he said, whacking me again. "Had'm gimme a hand over there this evenin', sir. They made him work the smallpox ward."

  "Smallpox," he repeated, slowly. "He can just sit right there, then. Those aren't patients in the back. Who're they?"

  "Doctor Jake," said Doc, whose ease with plot impressed, "and his-uh-nurse. Once a week he comes in to keep a eye on us, sir.

  "Make sure y'don't cut off th' wrong legs?"

  Doe's grip wheelways, during his latest laughing fit, so tightened that I thought he might snap it in two. "It's a tricky kinda situation, officer. See, they both live in town here but they don't live together, if you get my drift. "

  "I get it."

  "Well, they was celebratin' after they got off their shift, see, and I think they celebrated more'n they intended-"

  "Look like they was fuckin' in a swamp," he said. "What's their problem?"

  Doc leaned farther out, looking about as if the conspiracy was set to blow "Blotto."

  "That so?" the policeman said, keeping his light level on them.

  As worded, pokerboy," said Jake. "Dim the blinder pronto." My muscles seized, and I'm sure Doe's did as well; the policeman only returned Doe's papers.

  "He's had a lotta trouble with the wife, sir-"

  "Get outta here 'fore I slap 'em in the drunk tank."

  "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," said Doc, nodding as if thankful for treats bestowed. He repocketed his essential before I could glimpse it. "Have yourself a good evenin', sir."

  Without warning the policeman clubbed the sideview; mirror shards chimed onto the concrete as if tossed by the wind. "You'll get a ticket for that," he laughed. "Better get it fixed."