30 Pieces of a Novel

by Stephen Dixon

  The Plane

  They’re on a plane, whole family and him, he’s sitting with his wife in the middle bulkhead seats, had to maneuver to get them once they were in the air—“We asked for bulkhead, middle or ends, it didn’t matter; the woman at the ticket checkin said they were filled, though we’d requested them months ago when we made the reservations; now I see nobody’s sitting there, would it be possible?”—kids sitting about eight rows back in two seats together by the window; they didn’t want to move up just to face, as his older daughter said, a cloth wall; dinner’s being served, predinner drink glasses with crumpled-up peanut bags and cocktail napkins inside them have been taken away, first he smelled the food, thought it was from up front and now turns around and sees the food cart being pushed and pulled down the narrow aisle by two flight attendants some five rows behind the kids so about fifteen from him and his wife, only bad reason for sitting here is that they’ll get their dinner last and he’s really hungry, thought when they moved up—this wasn’t why they did it; it was to get more leg room for his wife: “She needs all the room she can get because of her medical condition,” he also explained to the chief flight attendant; “her legs need to be extended or they stiffen up on her and become hard to bend back, and I also wouldn’t mind more room in these tot chairs, I almost want to call them; what does the airline think, everyone who flies on these planes is five feet or less and svelte?”—he thought they might have a chance to be served first in economy, since the section on the other side of the bulkhead, the entrances to it curtained now, is for business class; on their way to Paris, was last there with his wife and older daughter when she was almost three, remembers the spaceship and plane merry-go-round near the metro in the Marais where they were staying, once she found she could move the ship up and down with a lever inside she didn’t want to be taken out of it, it first frightened them when they saw her suddenly rise and glide, but then they kept buying these strips of discount tickets for it day after day; their younger daughter only experienced Paris “from the interior,” he liked to say, and even teased her about it during the drive to the airport: “Starting tomorrow you’ll be able to hook up the visual Paree of today with the aural of old,” his wife was six months pregnant with her then, they spent two weeks there after a brief lecture tour he had in Eastern Europe; this time it’ll only be for a week, less, six days, even less than that since tomorrow he expects they’ll be so tired because of the time change that they’ll spend most of the afternoon in bed; they’re scheduled to land at nine, which to them will be 3 A.M. Baltimore time, and they probably won’t get to their hotel for another two hours—when he hears from behind what sounds like, “Smoke, smoke … over there!” then a woman shouting, “Hey, there’s a lot of smoke back here, get the pilot, tell the captain!” then several people shouting from the rear of his section, “Smoke … fire … it feels burning hot, coming from the cabinet there … flight person, get the extinguisher!” someone falls on top of the food cart trying to climb over it, “Get that fucking thing out of here!” a flight attendant yells, two attendants throw open the business-class curtains on both sides and run to the back, “What’s going on?” his wife says—she has a flight headset on, is listening to music, doesn’t seem to have heard any of the shouting—“Don’t worry,” he says, but she can’t hear him even with the headset off, so many people are screaming now, “What?” she says; “Kids,” he yells to where they’re sitting, but can’t see them over the seat backs in front of them, stands on his seat and yells, “Kids, come here to Daddy right away, come quick, emergency!” “Fire! Au feu!” people are shouting in back, more attendants and what looks like the captain run past his wife with extinguishers and other equipment but get stopped halfway up by people in the aisle, “Let us through, everyone back to their seats, mouvez, mouvez,” this man who could be the captain’s saying, “don’t panic, no panic, be calm, sit down, asseyez, seet, seet, everything will be okay, but out of the way, out of the way before I have to toss you out of the way”—rear’s almost all smoke now—“Kids!” he shouts, still standing on the seat but still not seeing them; “Where are you? Show me you’re hearing me!” fire coming out of the rear center wall now behind which are the toilets; are they in them? is that why they’re not answering him? “Fasten your seatbelts everyone,” an attendant’s shouting, “seatbelt signs aren’t functioning; everyone be calm and in their seats with their seatbelts on so we can clear the aisles and douse the fire,” he climbs over his wife into the aisle, “Stay here,” he says, “Where can I go with my legs?” she says, “the children, get the children,” “That’s what I’m finding out,” tries going up the aisle but it’s jammed with people trying to get to the front, glass is smashed somewhere, sounds like a window, nobody’s doing that, they can’t, he thinks; “We’re going to die,” people are screaming, “help, someone save us, do something!” Just push through, he thinks, you can do it, just force or squeeze your way around them but get past, stands on an aisle armrest, “Watch out, I’m jumping!” he shouts, jumps over a few people, and lands in the aisle on someone a couple of rows up, stands, explosion from in back, more glass breaking, freezing air gusts through the plane, sending people’s hair and ties flying, fire’s suddenly snuffed out, rear wall’s not there anymore, it seems, or the toilets; lights flitter and then stay off except for the little aisle ones that might not be lights, cabin’s almost black, outside mostly clouds, slim penlight beam goes on from a few rows away, everyone now seems to be screaming; “My darlings,” he yells, “tell me where you are. Please, shout for Daddy!” feeling he’s shouting over the others, “shout for me, shout so I can get to you, I know I’m close,” thinks he hears one of them near yell “Daddy!” but there are other kids aboard, some the same age, then a loud crack, lights below him go, metal sawed and ripped, plane seems to be spinning, things flying around hitting him, he’s thrown to the floor, then onto some people in seats, his head seems pulled off, can’t hear, eyes go, wet but with oil or blood, is stabbed in the side, please no pain, he thinks, for me and my kids, just confiscate, then nothing else. Next thing he knows he’s in the water floating. Or on something, that is. This is important. Find them. Feels around—he can feel; it’s a board, some floating device or part of the plane that floats. Maybe the whole plane but no, it’s like a jagged plastic raft in water, he sees, about the size of him across, and no one else on it. Stars, no moon, though when he last looked out the plane windows there was still a little daylight. Debris, a man’s body, that jet fuel smell, almost no waves or sea sound. “Kids,” he shouts, “it’s Daddy, yell out if you hear me!” Screams their names and his wife’s. “Can anyone else hear me? Is anyone alive? Y a-t-il anyone ici?” Yells and listens, yells and listens. Hears a bird once but sees none. How far are they out? Too far to be found. How’d he escape? He has his hands and legs and doesn’t seem hurt. That puncture, and feels his side, but must have been nothing, the only part of this in his head. Blood on his lips, maybe running down his face, but so what? Feels okay but wants to die. Can’t live through this even if he does. But first has to see if they made it. Knows they didn’t. But try, you never know. Even if he only sees their dead bodies, he can jump in and grab hold of them and sink. Tries paddling the float around with his hands but it won’t go anywhere, or that’s what it seems. He’ll have to wait till things bump into it or, if he hears one of them, swim. Tears at his hair, digs into his cheeks, and shrieks, thinks, Get done with it, and rolls into the water. Cold, and grabs the float as it starts moving away. Can’t get up, no strength to, but that’s not true, and hoists himself onto it. “Kids!” he screams, “listen, I’m strong, give me a chance. I’ve this float. Though if I have to I’ll swim us all to shore, Mommy included, but you got to yell out you hear me.” Hours of this, whole thing’s hopeless. Pissed he has to think about how cold he is, but maybe in the long run it’ll be worth it if he freezes to death by morning. Then lights in the sky, first like satellites or slow meteorites that don’t disappear
and then two headlight beams. Later, as the beams get nearer, helicopter sounds. A voice from the sky, but can’t make it out, something about “anyone” and “ocean” and “plane.” Then, when the lights get much closer, crisscrossing the water, a man over an amplification system saying, “We see debris, is anyone down there? Attention, attention, we have come to rescue you, Flight two-eighteen, make yourself known. Do you have lights? Can you make yourself seen or heard? A gunshot or lit cigarette lighter will do. We don’t speak French—no parle français—so listen closely to the English. Do you have an instrument that can make a loud sound or any kind of light? Don’t shout or scream. It will be a waste of energy that can be used for later, as you can’t be heard over our rotors. Wave. If you have a shirt on, take it off to wave.” He doesn’t want to be saved. But maybe his wife and kids were picked up in another spot. One part of the plane could have gone down here, another part someplace else, but he’s sure he was near his wife and kids when it happened and they all must have gone down together. And if he survived, others could have. Maybe all of his family, or just two or one of them, but that’s something, more than enough to live for. “Hey, hey,” he shouts, “down here. I got lots of energy,” pounding the float hard as he can. Searchlights from what now seem like two helicopters continue to crisscross the water. He has his shirt off by the time they fly over him and he waves and waves. The lights pass him and crisscross the water around him with the same amplified voice saying that if someone’s down there to do something to be seen or heard. Then they turn around and get near him again with their lights, and he waves and screams, “There are people down here, plenty, so stop, stop. My wife, daughters, me, other passengers. We’re all down here waiting for you except for a few who might’ve drowned.” “We see you,” the amplified voice says. “We’re coming down; stay adhered to your craft.” A helicopter hovers about fifty feet above him, searchlights from the other helicopter beaming directly on him, and a man descends in a basket attached to a chain. “Miracle,” the man says when he reaches him. “We didn’t think there was a chance in Hades anyone could live through this; that we’d even find a body, though we got two,” and he says, “So there’s nothing, no reports from other search teams of anyone else alive?” and the man says, “You kidding? That baby you were on blew up at more than ten thousand feet and must have caught fire and started diving about ten thousand above that. Our rescue mission was strictly routine, what we have to do for even foregone lost causes. I’m still pinching my cheeks that you’re really here, and you don’t look an inch scratched. But you were with someone on the flight—maybe your whole family, that it?—I can tell by your face and in what you said. I’m sorry, truly sorry for you, fella, but now we gotta get moving. Sea’s smiling pretty but it might suddenly toughen up and I don’t want us both swept in.” “Go without me, no regrets,” and pushes the basket with his foot so the float drifts away. The man shouts for him to come back; then the basket’s raised, the man gets in the helicopter and on the amplification system says for him not to be a fool, “Stay where you are, don’t get blown off by our blades, and we can still pick you up. We know what you’re going through but we’re running out of fuel and can’t spend too much more time here trying to convince you.” He jumps off, stays underwater awhile, comes up behind the float, and tries hiding with his head just below the top of it. One helicopter goes, another hovers near, a single searchlight beamed on the float, the man practically pleading with him to appear if he’s not frozen or drowned by now and let them save him. After about ten minutes of the man talking to him like this, he says, “Sir, if you are still there, this has to be it. Sorry we couldn’t serve you better but we got to go in or we’re dead eels ourselves,” and the helicopter stays another few minutes before flying off. He climbs onto the float, freezing, and continues the trip to Paris. The landing’s smooth, customs is easy, and there’s no line at the currency-exchange window or for a taxi. Highways are clear and the fare and time it took to get to the hotel are half what the driver said they’d be. Room’s ready, but they have no jet lag so they take a long walk through the neighborhood, go into cheese and delicacy shops just to smell them, visit a thirteenth-century church for its stained-glass windows, and then go to the Rodin Museum. They lunch in the garden there, everything’s reasonably priced, and because his wife’s in a wheelchair and he’s the one pushing her and the kids are under eighteen, they get into the museum free. Later, dinner at a brasserie around the corner from the hotel, bottle of champagne on the house for a reason the restaurant owner is never able to explain to them in English and they can never quite get in French. Everyone they meet so far has been gracious and helpful, the kids are loving the trip and glad they came when at first they didn’t want to go. Weather’s pleasant, street outside the hotel’s quiet, room’s clean and spacious and with a bathroom large enough for the wheelchair to make a complete turn in and a rimless shower his wife can roll herself into on a special chair. Kids in one bed, he and his wife in the other, “Almost one of life’s perfect days, eh?—except for the brief delay in the plane taking off,” and she says, “Really, couldn’t be better. I just know it’s going to be a great visit.” They make love and in the morning they all breakfast downstairs and then go to the Musée d’Orsay.