He felt his hand nuzzled, the old dog demanding, in his insistent tired way, a late-night walk. Hanley wanted to walk too. There would be no more walks. Not anymore. But he no longer owed anyone anything, no more indebtedness. He owed himself one last thing.
***
The morning sunlight flickered in his eyes, strobed by the tree branches lining the road to the Russiaville Airport, still bare in the early spring, buds now appearing. Hanley raised his hand to shade his face from the blinding flash, trying to avoid a headache. Sitting in the front seat of Rocky’s Lexus, his legs were tied together with strips of cloth, wrangled to make it easier getting him in and out. As the car bumped along, Hanley heard the rattle and clang of his wheelchair in the trunk, an ultra-lightweight model, something that Rocky or Elizabeth could handle. That he needed a device light enough for a woman to carry angered him to the core of his handicapped being. Once in it, he felt like it would collapse any moment. It was a good thing he lost weight, he thought. Being impaled on an errant part of a toppled wheelchair was not how he envisioned ending his life.
“I spoke with T.S. last night. He will have the plane out of the hanger and the rear door of the Beech open when we get there. I told him not to tell anyone we were coming, that you didn’t want others around, but, you know T.S., so if people are there, try to be nice. They all think you’re a hero,” Rocky said.
Hanley said nothing. He didn’t talk much anymore, some days more than others, some less. He was getting a headache. There seemed no avoiding it. Beyond the trees lining the road, the fields were a mixture of dull brown cornfields, strewn with the detritus of the last harvest, shards of corn stalks and tattered leaves covered the ground in shades of yellows and gold, and bright green, the weeds and grasses, vying for space and life. He saw nothing that interested him.
There was some excitement to this trip, a feeling he tried to suppress; he wasn’t up for enthusiasm, didn’t trust it, knew it wouldn’t last. No matter how he felt about seeing the Beech, he couldn’t climb in and fly off to somewhere else. All he had to do was look down at the wheelchair and he was slammed right back to earth, to his shriveling legs, his constant shoulder pain, his frustration and embarrassment. Back to the shitty life he made for himself.
The arrival of the plane in mid-March was a bitter experience for him. Greeting the Campbells from a wheelchair, seeing the look on their faces, concern and discomfort, the bottomless cup of pity he sipped from each minute they spent together. When he did speak, he apologized, hating the necessity. Even though the Campbells said they loved the trip, the time spent together, the adventure, as Sophie called it, he still felt they were the victims of his whim, unwilling players in the story of his stupidity, his tale of startling self-absorption.
Nearing the airport, Rocky said to him, “I thought we’d go to lunch after we see the plane. There is a new cafe in town. Good, I hear. Not just for the quiche-eaters. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. Let’s see how it goes,” he said. “Listen, you don’t need to do this, chauffeur me around. You have other things to do, I know that. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you do, I do, but we both know this is not changing. I won’t get better, I’ll probably only get worse. It was me, my need, and you shouldn’t be punished for it. It was my stupidity, my mistake, my problem.” While saying this, Hanley stared at his dead legs, couldn’t bring himself to look at Rocky, afraid of her face and the expression on it. Nothing was said for a few moments, Hanley relieved there was no response, silence from others his preferred interaction.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said.
Seeing the airport tripped open his trapped emotions. With short breaths, he tried controlling his racing heart. A growing pressure behind his eyes brought tears. This could be the last time I’ll come here, he thought, no matter what happens. Turning to the window, he tried to mask the emotion, scratching an ear and then wiping his eyes at the same time, not fooling her, he knew. Turning in the main gate, Rocky followed an access road leading to the private hangers. Hanley’s was at the end, the largest in the row, well-maintained, white metal siding, trimmed in a teal green, the roof a shallow pitch, enough to hold the snows of northern Indiana.
“I’ll be the one that decides if I stay with you, not you,” she said, turning in her seat. “You made the decision to fly to Africa, ignored me and your family. Well, it’s my turn. When I’m ready to leave, trust me, you’ll be the first to know.”
“All right,” he said.
He saw the Beech the moment the Lexus made the turn north onto the road fronting the hangers. It shone brightly in the sunshine, polished, perfect. T.S made certain of that, he knew. Rocky slowed the car, giving him more time to look at it, he thought. She’s forcing me to look at it, in case I ask her to turn around and leave. Hangars faced the road from each side, some of the doors were open, the snouts of planes facing the air, metal dogs in their metal dog houses, chained to the ground, wanting out, wanting to run through the air, chasing time, engines barking at the sun, the moon at night if they could find it, but not with him, not again.
T.S. was there and no one else. He was sitting on a folding camp chair, the normal dark green color, a cup of coffee on the ground beside him, steaming into the morning air, disappearing before it reached his elbow jutting out over the cement. A magazine lay open in his lap, part of it hanging over his leg, something red, a block, perhaps with an ad printed across it visible to Hanley as they neared the hanger. T.S. looked up when he heard the car approach, a smile spread across his face as he struggled, wiggling, face turning red, from the chair.
“He’s alone,” she said.
“Yeah, good,” Hanley said, shifting his dead legs to the right, feeling like he was pushing thin sacks of sand tied in an unwieldy bundle. Moving his legs this way was and would forever be odd, thinking of his useless legs as something apart from himself, getting them out of the way, as he would a box in the trunk of his car, blocking access to something he really wanted. He thought about having them amputated, but put that thought aside. He would carry them around, dead weight. Dead weight. It was all dead weight. He was dead weight.
Rocky’s window dropped and T.S., leaning in to speak, said, “Hey, thought you’d like the plane out in the sunshine. It’s chilly in the hanger anyway. Planes, like dogs, should be outside, don’t you think?”
“Funny you should say that,” Hanley said. He was surprised at how good seeing his friend made him feel at that moment. Feeling good was rare anymore. Maybe it was the lack of expectation between them, old friends who passed beyond that, well beyond that a long time ago. Criticism was taken for exactly what it was, nothing more, a laugh was appreciated for what it was, nothing more. Trust was genuine, respect expected, love, whatever it was between friends was there, given, received, delivered free of charge, taken without guilt. He hoped he had given it back to T.S., enough to have made a difference. He’s such a good friend, it wouldn’t matter to him, Hanley thought.
“Why, what’s funny about that? How much have you had to drink this morning? Rocky, it’s a shame you still resort to liquor to get him under control. A woman as beautiful as you should just have to wiggle something. I know it would work on me,” T.S. said, smiling.
“Charming, as always,” Rocky said, showing a bit of a smile.
Hanley said to T.S., “I hadn’t thought about a drink today until this very moment. Just seeing you makes me want to down a few. Jack Daniels would pay you a fortune if they only knew the effect you have on people. Come around here and help me out.”
“Rocky, I promise I’ll only drop him twice; once getting him out and then getting him in. It will almost be as good as doing it yourself, but you won’t have to endure all the bitching on the way home,” T.S. said, then laughed, a high bray that made Rocky laugh too.
Getting out and into the chair was not difficult. Hanley and Rocky practiced it so much that he only needed someone to bring him the chair. T.S. hovered until Hanley suggest
ed he not, then held the chair while Hanley lifted his legs out and onto the ground, grabbed the right armrest of the chair, the top of the door jamb and lifted himself into the chair, grunting noticeably as he did.
“You sound like a female tennis player,” T.S. said.
“Fuck you,” Hanley responded as he strapped himself into the chair.
“Like you never left.”
Fingering the end of the strip of cloth which held his legs together, Hanley thought of untying them, then didn’t, thinking they would be more manageable, as if they were a bundle of sticks. Rocky closed the car door as Hanley wheeled himself away toward the Beech. He rolled only a few feet and stopped, looking up at the plane, searching for the two bullet holes in the engine cowling. He asked Michael Campbell to leave them, the scars, earned, reminders that the plane played a role, maybe even the greatest role, in what had been done for the children. As he rolled forward, Rocky and T.S. stayed by the car, Hanley turned slightly to see them staying behind, thinking perhaps they did not want to violate the space forming around he and the plane. The aluminum skin was again polished to a brilliance, the mirror skin turning everything around it into distorted reflections, dumb interpretations of those that looked at it and all that didn’t. Hanley thought it was beautiful and realized how proud he was of the plane and what it had done. He wasn’t proud of what he did, knowing his search for an answer came at a cost too dear to so many others. The rescued children did not make up for the people he loved or for Jumma, but they helped.
Rolling beneath the nose of the Beech, Hanley reached up, touched the cowling, felt the rough edge of the hole made by the same gun that killed Jumma, the gun that left his own legs dangling useless beneath him. Placing his hand over the hole, he felt connected to the plane, connected in a way he wasn’t certain he understood, but knew he felt. “We did make it back, didn’t we?” he asked the Beech.
Wheeling around, he pushed himself past the big engine, his left hand sliding over the propeller blade, feeling the cool smoothness across his palm, then around the wing and to the rear, where the cargo door stood open. Rolling up beside the steps leading up to the darkness inside, Hanley felt for an instant he could stand and enter the plane, but only for a second. In the presence of the plane, he seemed to gain strength.
His aching heart longed to fly this plane again. Wondering if any other plane but this one would have saved the children, the nun and himself, Hanley wheeled the chair forward and placed his hand on its cold, shining skin. He stared into the interior’s darkness and thought of the children. He thought that, perhaps, now, the return of the children to their families was payment enough.
THE END
Copyright
Published by Clink Street Publishing 2017
Copyright © 2017
First edition.
The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that with which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN:
978-1-912262-21-2 - paperback
978-1-912262-22-9 - ebook
Sometimes the Darkness Page 28