by Amanda Davis
Dianne saw Irma reach into her white leather purse for a mirror, then reapply shimmery pink lipstick. Irma’s silver pantsuit was dated; its collar frayed. Her skin bagged around the eyes and dripped around her jowls. She did not look like a sexy appealing woman to Dianne. She looked dumpy and wrinkled and bitter. She looked old.
Soon a bosomy woman with candy-red hair wheeled Irving down the hall. He was sliding down in the chair, his thin hair combed back and his yellow shirt unbuttoned at the neck. He wore brown slippers on his feet and held on to the arms of the wheelchair. His face was slack, his skin drooped; he was very, very thin and gray.
Hello Irma, the nurse called out as they grew closer. Have you brought the family for Irving today?
This is Irving’s daughter, Dianne, Irma said without smiling. And his granddaughter Sarah.
Charmed, said the nurse. He’s very excited, aren’t you. Irving?
Dianne and Sarah watched the old man. He was so small in the chair, his bones poking out beneath his shirt, his eyes watery and desperate. He smiled a small, confused smile and looked from one to the other.
Hello Papa, the girl said brightly, crouching by the wheelchair. Do you remember me?
The old man looked at her and smiled, then reached out and touched her pink hair. Hello, he said. Hello there. He began to laugh, a soundless lurching laugh, then he pointed at Sarah’s head and looked up at Irma. Pink, he said.
The girl was unfazed. Papa, I’m Sarah, she said. I’m your granddaughter.
Oh. He looked down. Confusion seemed to tumble from him like water, leaking all over their shoes and dampening the cuffs of their pants.
Papa, do you remember the story of the giraffe? the girl asked, and the old man looked desperately to Irma.
You used tell it to me when I was little?
I’m going to give you some time alone, Irma announced, spun around and headed down the hall. Dianne leapt after her.
Giraffes, she heard behind her. Papa, the giraffes?
Irma walked quickly, her prim little heels tap-tapping against the linoleum, but Dianne was determined to catch up.
Irma, she called out, Irma.
The old woman charged ahead as though she hadn’t heard. They passed room after identical room. Dianne saw a tuft of white hair, the chrome of a hospital bed, wheelchairs, macramé hangings. Irma showed no signs of slowing down.
Irma, she called out. Goddamnit.
But Irma pushed past, disappearing through a swinging door marked ‘Ladies,’ leaving Dianne alone in the long white hallway, only the rattle and hum of the aging around.
Sarah sat back on her knees and looked at her grandfather’s face. She could see the bones behind it, but she could also see how he used to look, when he was so big and handsome and loud. Papa, she said. You used to tell me stories, do you remember?
He stared back with empty blue eyes. The room smelled of ammonia and faintly of urine. Her mother was nowhere to be seen. I wish you remembered me, Papa, Sarah said. But you probably don’t recognize me, anyway, because I’m not a kid anymore.
She ran her fingers through her hair and looked at her nails—the green polish had mostly chipped off; they looked short and bitten. She sighed, then took her grandfather’s hands in hers. They felt like paper: light and dry.
I’m in eleventh grade, now, she said. And I have this boyfriend named Taylor who you’d really like. He’s a totally great guy.
She stopped. In the distance she heard the wheels of a cart or a bed. The red-haired nurse walked by and waved. Sarah let Irving’s hands go and waved back, then she sat cross-legged and put her hands on his knees.
Papa, how about you help me remember the giraffe story so I can tell my kids someday?
The old man blinked and looked past her.
I loved that story. How did it start? Monkeys. The monkey comes to visit the elephant? Man, I wish you could meet Taylor, he’s totally smart and he’s a musician. He could probably turn it into a song, even.
Monkeys? Irving said, then cocked his head as though considering.
Dianne stood by the ladies’-room door for a minute and listened. A nurse floated by with a tray of pills in tiny cups. Off in the distance she heard a hacking, wheezing cough, a desperate breathless unceasing sound.
She pushed open the door and walked into the bathroom.
There was Irma, leaning on the counter, smoking a cigarette. Oh Christ, she said when she saw Dianne. She doused it in the sink, grabbed her white purse and pushed past Dianne and out into the hallway again.
Dianne followed but Irma moved quickly and Dianne had to almost run to keep up. Irma, she called out. Irma!
Past the rooms, down the long fluorescent hallway, headed back the way they’d come, and then they were back at the lobby and Irma whirled around. Dianne almost crashed into her but stopped herself, stepping backwards immediately to avoid such proximity. Behind Irma, Dianne saw Sarah kneeling by Irving’s wheelchair.
What in the hell do you want, Dianne? Irma said. I mean, Jesus Christ, I came with you, isn’t that enough?
Dianne groped about for the words she needed but couldn’t find them. This was wrong, all of it.
No, it’s not enough, she said. It’s not enough—
Why? Why, Dianne? Why isn’t it enough?
Don’t you love him? she managed. Didn’t you ever love him?
Irma’s hands flew into the air, fluttered about, and landed on her hips. That is none of your damn business, she said finally. Don’t you understand that? That is not your business!
But you’re all he has, Irma, you’re all he wants—
Well, I didn’t ask to be—
But you are! And Dianne reached out. Irma, you are all he’s holding on to—
Jesus Christ! she said, dodging Dianne’s grasp. How dare you! How dare you talk to me like this!
Then silence. Irma stood squarely, arms crossed; behind her Sarah spoke steadily to Irving, her words a blur. Dianne felt herself shrinking.
You come up here, Irma said, and you say these things? Where the hell have you been all this time, Dianne, that you can say these things? You think phone calls are support? Holy Christ, I realize he’s your father but you don’t live here, you don’t visit….
She shook her finger and began walking backwards. I will not be guilted by your self-righteous ideas of how I’m supposed to behave. Do you think I chose this? I did not. I did not choose this. Don’t you lecture me!
Sarah’s voice floated to them now, loud and clear: Then he swung and he swung. And the monkey flew out of the elephant’s trunk and went tumbling through the forest…
Irma’s cheeks were red and her hands balled in fists. I’ve had enough of it over the years, Dianne. I never set out to be your mother and I don’t intend to behave like her now. You come here and don’t even look at your father, you’re so busy telling me what to do. Irma was shaking, now, tears in her eyes.
What kind of daughter are you? Ask yourself that, Dianne. You ask yourself that.
And Irma turned and walked away, to the far side of the lobby where she pushed through a heavy glass door.
It made a quiet click as it closed behind her.
It took a few moments to adjust to the silence that followed. Dianne stood still, Irma’s words resounding, echoing around and around in her head. Sarah’s voice was quiet and steady: The giraffes were there, she said, and the hippos.
Dianne turned towards her daughter and her father. He looked so small there in his wheelchair, so small and stony and still. She didn’t know what to say—she had to do something. How it must look to be standing like this, all alone in the middle of the room. She walked over and sank into a seat behind Sarah, who continued: The snakes hung from the trees, and the birds called to each other from the different branches. And the elephants trumpeted, threw their heads back and stuck their trunks in the air—
Hi Daddy, Dianne said, her voice thin and strained. It’s me, Dianne.
Irving blinked his watery blue
eyes.
I’m your daughter, Dianne said softly, and began to cry.
Sarah reached behind her and put a hand on her mother’s leg. The giraffes were waiting, Sarah said to Irving, and the hippos came too. No one had invited the cheetahs or the lions but they came anyway. They knew the monkey would come back, it was just a matter of time. The leopards and the panthers, even the snakes. Everyone came. And they waited there—
Waited, Irving said.
They waited there and sure enough, who should come waltzing through the jungle but the monkey himself, Sarah said. Sing us a song, they called to him. We’ve been waiting for you to return.
Oh, I’ll sing to you, the monkey shouted. Let me catch my breath and I’ll sing you everything I know, he cried. If you’ll just listen, I’ll sing it all for you.
Just let me catch my breath.
CRASH
1.
You are weaving through your life when a plane falls from the sky. You could not have prepared for this moment, but you approach it as you would any other: you walk slowly through it, trying hard to listen to what the world wants to tell you.
Only this doesn’t seem to work. You were buying a cup of iced coffee—light, with extra ice and one sugar—when a large metal bird became a ball of fire.
Even in your slow state you realize it didn’t just become a ball of fire. It blew up, exploded, ceased to be a large mass and instead became shrapnel: hundreds of lives singed into burning bits of paper blown away on a strong wind.
2.
You go about your life as you always have. Days begin and end, as they did before, but now they seem wrong. Everything is a little too green, a little too loud, a little too ripe—as though you need to be tuned, as though someone needs to adjust your dials. Unsure how to soften the unpleasant intensity of it, you begin to have a glass of wine with dinner and another before you go to bed. Though you have never been a drinker, it seems reasonable that you should depend on an outside source to calm you in a world like this, a world where planes fall from the sky.
3.
You drive down the street. It is a hot day but your life is insulated by fresh cold air-conditioning. On the radio, people talk about small things. You try to listen, but their words are slippery and won’t stay in your head. Your mind drifts to a blank thought, and then the words slide in and again you try to listen.
You need to turn right. An old man stands in the crosswalk. His head juts forward and a gray fedora balances on the back of his thin white hair. His back is curved and he wears a worn, wrinkled suit but does not look like a vagrant—merely old and brittle, as though he could easily be snapped in two.
His shoulder blades stick up like wings. In fact, he looks like an old, wizened chicken. You mean this in an affectionate way. He looks so well-intentioned and sweet, you can picture him with a small child on his lap telling stories of penny-candy stores and nickel movies. He would teach the child to fish, carry a white cloth handkerchief carefully embroidered with his initials. He would call you Sweetheart.
Suddenly you notice his mouth is moving, and you imagine he mutters to himself, remembering how the street looked long ago when it was the bustling center of a more civilized time. And then you realize he’s staring at you, directly at you, and you can make out his words.
Move your ass, lady, he is saying. Lady, move your ass.
4.
It seems unfathomable, when you try to pull it apart, that people voluntarily collected and were flung into the air with the hopes of gently coming to rest somewhere else. The more you try to separate each strand of this, the stranger it becomes. Even the word: airplane. Air. Plane. Plain. Err. Errplain. It is clunky and tasteless and bothers your tongue. Your mouth will not make such words properly, but you can’t stop trying to say them: airport. To pull them apart. Air. And twist them around. Trop. Soon language is meaningless and silent. Something like the too-bright colors, the too-loud sounds, but more like the unsynched words of the old man. If you let things drift by, let your mind slide into a pile on the floor, everything becomes smooth and empty. Words can be anything you want, or they can be the bleached absence of thought. Maybe. Could add up. To nothing. At all.
5.
If a submarine exploded there would be a slow sinking. Perhaps equally horrible, it seems less so to you. With a submarine, there would be no bright streak of orange in the sky. It would simply descend, its passengers slipping from life as they lost air—a horrible death, but a silent one. There would be no shower from an early evening sky like a grisly storm. There would be no sound, no rip and roar causing traffic to slow, distracted drivers to lean out of their windows and gape. Causing someone distracted by the perfect iced coffee to spot a plummeting star, smoking across the sky and falling all around her. A submarine could not be as loud, you think, or as sudden. To reverberate like that. To echo into open air.
6.
On television there are images of streaked skies. The images are frozen and placed in the papers. Solemn-faced men and women in good blue suits read from TelePrompTers about possible causes. There are images of family members clustered and crying. Images of yearbook photos and strangers posing by Christmas trees. These are the dead and dying, the mourned and mourning. You do not know these people but you watch for them. What would you say? I saw your daughter fall from the sky. I am sorry for your loss.
7.
In the night you wake to silence, sweat and the catch of your own breath. You are crying, and below your ribs is a knot of pain. It scoops you out, feeds the tears, you cannot push it away. You realize you dreamed of falling from the sky with one hundred total strangers, and this rouses you.
Silver light floods the windows, washing through the bars that keep them out, and you in, and onto the floor in stripy lines. Water, you think, and run a bath. But even later, while you float, you see the orange streaks your arms made as you fell, feel the flames that chewed on you.
8.
Even before you woke without his warm naked body in your bed, something told you his departure was imminent. You felt it on the horizon like a bitter storm. And then one morning his things were gone, his toothbrush had abandoned yours. His laptop left a dusty ring to remind you. You pulled open empty drawers, found a single sock, not strong enough to make the journey, left behind. In the closet, your clothes swung free, moved against the momentum of the door. They were happy he was gone. We never liked those itchy suits, your dresses whispered gently. They didn’t respect our space. They crowded us.
9.
People stop calling. There are a few weeks of murmured concern, but then the world evens out again and everyone you know takes another step forward in their lives. You feel abandoned, left behind, uninvited. You picture this: an exquisitely engraved invitation arrives by messenger to alert the day and time; people face the direction of the sun; everyone—the entire neighborhood, the city, the entire country—poised with eyes locked on their watches and clocks, their faces lit by fading sunset. Then, as the moment rolls through, you picture them taking one simple collective step into the fiery sky. The sound of it thunders! So many feet moving at once. You can picture it. You can almost hear it, as you stand absolutely still, wrapped in the solitary darkness of early evening.
10.
And you replay that day again and again: You sat on the end of your wrinkled bed and surveyed the place: nubby green chairs, blue couch, light oak table. Things were there, but all around you felt the absences, the holes. Then, off to the right, a black outline caught your attention. A camera you didn’t recognize. His? Your head began to pound. You picked it up: film. The room seemed stuffy, thick. You could barely breathe. I’ll get an iced coffee, you thought, grabbing the camera and shifting it around in your hands.
This lifted the heaviness a little. You found your shoes and slipped them on, never letting go of the camera. Perhaps he wasn’t really gone, he’d been called away on a sudden trip of some kind. This fantasy felt much better, and your mind wrapped the yarn of it
around and around you: he’d been called away on a trip, so he bought a camera. He’d meant to tell you, but had to leave in a hurry.
He must have scrawled a note which, in his haste, was carried out the window on a swell of air. Perhaps outside you would see the note pinned to the side of the building, you would see his plane fly by.
These were the tricks of lightness that pulled you out the door, camera around your neck. But, as you ordered your iced coffee, what spun you around? What aimed his camera in the sky? What pushed the shutter just at that moment? Just in time to fill your lens with fire.
THE VERY MOMENT THEY’RE ABOUT
It’s the last song of the last dance on the second-to-last night of camp.
Which means it’s the last dance of the last dance, and the air is heavy (though lighter than it was five or so hours ago, when the sun was up and boiling the Neuse River). The air is thick, solid, something to push through on the caged-in blacktop, on the dance floor.
The crowd is dressed in their finest, outfits carefully selected, though wilted now, at the end of the last evening together, after a whole evening of dances, a whole summer of evenings.
It’s a slow dance, and it’s the last one.
She stands with him at this moment. Bill’s so cute, her campers giggled all summer—the gaggle of them, a mass of nine-year-old bodies swarming this way and that, little brown bodies shiny from so much heat and sleep and scheduled fun. She is their Counselor in Leadership Training, their almost-counselor, which makes her better than their real counselors who are old (in college, even), but not so young that she isn’t cool, and not too old to be fun, or to understand about the nuances of nine-year-old clique etiquette.