He takes a deep breath. His lungs fill with the enriched and purified air that hangs over this special place. His veins course with blood that is instantly thicker, redder, more nourished for action.
Manning begins to run. His feet grate the pebbled asphalt on either side of the white line. His hair bobs rhythmically, parting into broad, tapering licks. He feels the repeated tug of gravity on the muscles of his chest and on his wobbling penis. Picking up speed, he feels no trace of pain or stress or fatigue, focusing only upon that point at the horizon where the white line ends. Houses and trees rush past him in a blur.
He trips. As though a wire has snagged his toes, he pitches forward with a force that threatens to grind his body along the pavement, but he feels no fear, recalling in a flash that the street will not rise to scrape against him. He is aloft.
He summons with ecstatic abandon the powers that he so needlessly doubted and even feared when he first came to this place—those powers from within that erase his tensions and allow him to soar, to flee from the forces that sought to trap him, to restrict him, to anchor him, plodding forever the approved and expected pathways of a hostile earth—forces from without that he now so easily conquers from within.
Manning blasts ahead over the line that stretches endlessly toward the horizon—a horizon that curves downward at the limits of his vision as he rises steadily from the ground and approaches the canopy of trees and birds that roar above him in the gusty friction of moving air. He does not want to break through the trees—not yet—but to soar at ever greater speed just below their limbs, constantly within sight of the line. It seems as though the universe itself is ripping past him—only the hard-edged strip of white tape travels with him, fixed and unwavering, pure and straight.
Zipping through space with his eyes aimed before him, Manning now notices that there is something on the road, on top of the line, far, far ahead. Intrigued, he slows his flight as he draws nearer, approaching the unknown object with caution. A burst of anger rises within him, provoked by the discovery that something has encroached upon his territory, something has invaded a world that’s been his alone.
The object moves. It’s alive.
Manning freezes in midair for the slightest fraction of a second. It is not something, but someone, who has entered his inner world. Manning’s flight slows to a crawl, high in the trees, as he stalks the alien visitor. The person is still a great distance down the road, but Manning now sees his features with sudden clarity. It is Neil.
He lies naked on the street, atop the white line, facing Manning. His legs are spread wide and his eyes are closed. He tugs comfortably, patiently on his swollen penis.
Manning’s arousal grows with new intensity and fevered urgency. A single desire, a single need, grips all his senses. He darts from his concealed path of flight and dives toward the man lying in the street. He plummets from the trees in a state of wild excitement and at last feels the burn of flesh against his own, the stiff jab of a penis, the abrasion of hair, the tangle of legs. Manning is blind, lost in a frenzy of random thrusts when he hears the words “you’re not queer, you’re not queer” echoing from his partner. He looks to the head of the body he has penetrated and finds Roxanne’s face thrashing in the pool of hair upon the street.
Manning awakes, terrified, gasping for each breath. His terror gives way to inexpressible confusion, and he sobs aloud. A hot tear slides from his cheek to form a cold little pool between the tendons of his neck. In the darkness, he kicks free of the sheets and tries to masturbate.
“Good morning.” It is Bud Stirkham. Manning’s chances for an orgasm—which were iffy at best—now wither completely. The radio drawls, “It’s twenty degrees at seven o’clock in Chicago, and the weatherman says snow is coming, maybe a heap of it. In case you’re keeping track, it’s our darkest morning of the year, the first full day of winter. But there’s news on a couple of fronts that should brighten your day and warm your heart.
“First, there are more encouraging signs from Ethiopia that the hostages there will soon be released—a lot of prayers would be answered if those heroic Americans made it home for Christmas! And locally, the state’s attorney is wrapping up a Christmas gift for the people, promising rigorous interrogations when the Houseman Trial opens next week—the answer to our prayers for justice in the shocking saga of Helena Carter’s disappearance.
“We’ll open the phone lines later to get your input on all this late-breaking news, but first let’s ease into the morning with a little Puccini, born this day in 1858. Let’s travel back in time with him to a Christmas Eve in Paris.”
Manning recognizes the festive opening of Act Two of La Bohème. It’s a lovely recording, but he’s not in the mood for it. He switches off the radio and stares into the dark silence.
He has always prided himself on his efficiency, his organization, his ability to get things done by rationally analyzing a situation and proceeding logically from point A to point Z. But now it’s come to this: His life is a mass, a mess of uncertainties that threaten his job, his reputation, his very identity. Lying there in the predawn emptiness of his bed, there’s not a damned thing he can do to defend his career as a reporter—not at this moment—but there is, he knows, something he can do to bolster his own self-worth through the honesty of a simple action he can no longer dodge.
Manning swings his feet to the floor and sits up. He switches on a lamp—his eyes crackle for a few seconds—then he reaches for the phone and dials a number he has never called but knows by heart. Spurts of electricity race fifteen hundred miles southwest to another time zone and enliven a bedside telephone on a mountain in the desert.
Neil picks up the receiver on the second ring. He has been roused from a deep sleep and holds the phone next to his head on the pillow, eyes still closed, unsure of what to do next.
A voice finally says, “Hello, Neil? This is Mark. In Chicago.”
The words hit Neil like cold water. His eyes spring open as he bolts upright in bed, checking the time. “Is something wrong, Mark? It’s six o’clock. Are you all right?”
Manning laughs. “Yes, Neil, everything’s fine. I’m sorry to wake you, but I really need to talk. Are you angry?”
It’s Neil’s turn to laugh. “Hardly! I’ve been hoping you’d call for weeks. I’d have lost hope completely without the updates from Rox. She says you’ve … spent some time together.”
Neil interprets the silence as an audible blush. The only time Manning has spent with Roxanne, other than a few awkward phone conversations at the office, was their session in her apartment after the airport.
“That was a strange day for all of us, Neil. Whatever happened—I’m still not able to make sense of it.” Manning pauses, ready to change the subject, but careful to weigh his words. “You once invited me to come out and spend some time with you. I know it’s short notice, but I need to see you. Soon. There’s so much to talk about. There’s so much that hasn’t been said—or done. I can get away Thursday, day after tomorrow, if it’s not inconvenient for you.”
“Of course you’re welcome. How long can you stay?”
“Just a few days, a long weekend. I’ve got a hell of a lot going on here right now.”
“That’ll be wonderful. Do you have a ticket? Thursday is Christmas Eve, so flights are bound to be booked solid.”
“Oh,” says Manning. He hasn’t given the holidays the slightest thought. “I made up my mind about this only a few minutes ago, and I wanted to check with you first.”
“Let me see what I can do,” offers Neil. “I know a travel agent, and he owes me a favor.”
“Please, Neil, don’t bother. Truly, I forgot about Christmas. You must have plans. I don’t want to intrude.”
“Nonsense. Christmas is a family holiday. I have no family out here, and I have no plans that can’t be broken gracefully. Besides, Mark, I’d rather be with you. I actually dreamed about you last night. Must’ve been thinking about you when I went to bed. I’d just seen
you on TV …”
“You what?”
“Didn’t you see it? It wasn’t the first time, either.”
Manning won’t admit that he never watches television—it sounds so snobbish—yet the fact remains that he long ago lost interest in the tube.
“It was on the evening news,” Neil continues. “It was just a crowd scene in some hallway, but there you were, and they flashed your name on the screen. You’re becoming quite the media darling, Mr. Manning.”
Thursday, December 24
8 days till deadline
O’HARE IS CHAOS.
Bud Stirkham was right. The snow has come, and there’s “a heap of it.” The blanket of slop that began to cover the city yesterday—and still deepens by the hour—glistens in the delighted eyes of children who have yearned for a white Christmas. And it brings a nostalgic warmth to parents secure in their homes as they tuck in the young ones and remember the giggling excitement of bedtime that is known only on this night of the year. But to the holiday throngs milling at O’Hare tonight, the snow has brought endless delays, unexplained cancellations, growing fatigue, and flares of temper.
Manning has been at the airport since early morning and found, as Neil guessed, no open seats on any flight to Phoenix. A booking agent for one of the airlines laughed in Manning’s face. So the best he could do was to buy a standby ticket and lug his bags from gate to gate in the hope that a booked passenger would fail to appear. He wishes he had let Neil pull some strings with that travel agent.
As the weather gets worse and air traffic gets more tangled, Manning finally gets lucky. A planeload of travelers from another city, scheduled to connect in Chicago with the last CarterAir flight to Phoenix, will not be arriving, and Manning is assigned a first-class seat at half the coach fare.
He has to move quickly. He’d like to phone Neil to let him know that he’s at last on his way, but there’s no time. Manning called earlier, because of the uncertain flights, to caution Neil not to try meeting him at the Phoenix airport. They agreed that Manning will call when, and if, he arrives.
On the plane, Manning can at last relax as he sinks into the wide leather seat and snaps the safety belt around his waist. The plane is running late and begins at once to taxi toward one of the constantly plowed runways. Manning peers through the little plastic window and watches, through the darkness and the falling snow, the spinning yellow lights that flash atop the plows that scurry around the airfield.
Once in the air, Manning orders a drink, truly needing it after his daylong ordeal. Waiting for it to arrive, he notices that there is a phone at his seat—one of Ridgely Carter’s last pet projects, he remembers—so he fishes a credit card from his wallet and dials. As he listens to the ringing of the other phone, he intends to tell Neil not to wait up for him, that he will take a cab from the airport, but there is no answer.
The vodka arrives in its tiny bottle, and Manning notes, as expected, that it is not the Japanese brand. There’s no point in asking for a slice of orange peel, which is surely not available, so he drinks the vodka straight over ice. It goes down quickly. Soon, Manning is asleep—sleeping so soundly that the steward decides not to rouse him for the meal.
Friday, December 25
7 days till deadline
THE STEWARD FINALLY DOES awaken Manning to tell him they are landing. Manning studies his watch, dazed; he has slept nearly three hours. The captain’s voice crackles that it is Christmas in Phoenix, just past midnight, fifty-five degrees under clear, starry skies. He thanks his passengers for flying CarterAir, then switches off the intercom and drops the plane silkily onto a runway that has never been plowed.
Manning gathers his luggage from the closet at the front of the cabin and walks the Jetway from the plane to the terminal, anxious to call Neil. He shuffles through the yattering crowd of friends and relatives who linger with arriving passengers at the gate, then emerges into a concourse and shoots off, bags in both hands, in search of a phone.
“What’s the big hurry, Mark? You won’t get far without me.”
Manning turns. As Neil walks up behind him from the crowd at the gate, Manning puts his bags on the floor and reaches to embrace him. They hug for long moments without speaking, patting each other on the back with a silent language of tenderness that reveals the toll of their separation—the weeks they were apart that dragged into months, connected only by the thread of Neil’s one awkward letter. Manning finally utters, “You’re here. How’d you know I’d be on this flight?”
“I’ve been here since midafternoon.”
Manning opens his mouth to reprimand him, but Neil continues, “I came because I couldn’t get a damned thing done at work, because everyone else left early for Christmas Eve, and because I’d rather wait here to meet you than wait at home for the phone to ring. I stuck around till the last flight left Chicago, then checked with the airline. Sure enough, you were on it. And here we are. Welcome to Phoenix, Mark.” Neil produces a bouquet of delicate red flowers, like a magician yanking them from nowhere. He has made no effort to hide them, but Manning didn’t notice them in the scuffle of their embrace.
“They’re beautiful,” says Manning as he studies the profusion of strange crimson buds. Flower names have always eluded him, but he can tell that these are some exotic species, rare if not unknown in the Midwest. “No one’s ever given me flowers before.”
“You’re kidding,” says Neil, dismayed that no one has paid so obvious a tribute to Manning’s charms. “Merry Christmas, Mark.”
“Merry Christmas, Neil.” Then Manning adds, “It’s all been so rushed—this trip, I mean—I’m afraid I didn’t bring you anything.”
Slyly, Neil answers, “Oh yes you did,” and picks up the larger of his guest’s bags. Manning rolls his eyes as he lifts the other bag. They walk down the concourse together and exit the terminal.
Outdoors in the parking lot, Manning is chagrined to discover that it is not cold. Neil wears only a light sweater. Manning’s topcoat is far too warm, and he wonders why he bothered to put it on as he left the plane. He knew what temperature to expect—the captain announced it—but the words meant nothing until he felt the spring-like midnight air of December in the desert.
Once in the car and beyond the airport grounds, Neil drives swiftly through the city along boulevards that resemble expressways more than local streets. There are few tall buildings, not by Chicago standards, but the horizon is broken instead by the hulking peaks of mountains, some rising from within the city limits. Manning has always prided himself on a keen sense of direction, but he finds this environment disorienting. At home he thinks in terms of Lake Michigan—there is always water to the east. He has no such bearings here.
“So they’re having a white Christmas in Chicago,” Neil muses as he guides the car up a road on the side of a mountain.
“They certainly are, and they’re welcome to it,” says Manning, relishing his own escape. “It was a bitch of a storm.”
“It’s probably the same one that rolled through here on Tuesday. It rained, Mark. Rained hard. Now everything’s washed and clean and blooming. Just wait till morning. We’ll take that run together that I promised you. You’ll see how spectacular Christmas Day can be.”
He pulls into the driveway of a low house hidden by a wall. They emerge from the car into a parking court where soft lighting washes upward across the white stucco facade of the house—a boxy structure that blends with the wall concealing the terraced courtyard from the street. A black sky stretches overhead, pierced everywhere by stars. Manning is aware of nothing else, for the courtyard has the privacy of indoor space. Neil removes Manning’s bags from the car and places them at his feet. As the bottoms of the bags scrape the terrace, their sound seems amplified in the stillness.
“Neil, where are we?” Manning wonders aloud. “Where’s the city, what happened to the mountain, how far is your nearest neighbor?”
Neil laughs—a satisfied noise that says his efforts have succeeded. �
�There are houses within thirty feet of us. You’re standing on the mountain. And the city’s over there,” he says, pointing through and beyond the house. He picks up the bags and motions with his head for Manning to follow.
They walk through a narrow passage that slits the front wall of the house. There’s a slatted arbor overhead, a boardwalk underfoot. On both sides of the boardwalk, narrow beds sprout with leafy ground cover, cactuses, and little flowering bushes that bear the same red buds Manning still holds in one hand. At the end of the walk is a tall slab of a door, which Neil unlocks and swings open. He reaches inside to switch on a few lights, then steps aside so Manning can enter first, alone.
Manning walks into the room and is drawn to the wall of glass at its opposite end, to the panoramic display of city lights that flow down the side of the mountain then endlessly across the floor of the desert, interrupted only by the dark forms of other mountains. He crosses the room slowly, but with the confidence of having been there many times before, as though the setting were not new to him. Approaching the big windows, he finds that some of them are doors leading to another terrace, similar to the one in front except that it gives the impression not of enclosure, but of openness, like a viewing platform perched above the city below. He opens one of the doors, again as though he has done it before, and steps outdoors.
The dominant feature of the back terrace, other than its view, is a small swimming pool, perfectly square, no more than fifteen feet to a side. Its inside is tiled with black, not blue, making the water’s smooth surface strikingly reflective. Interlocking rectangular decks descend toward the pool, forming ledges for sitting or lounging. The lowest of these decks, at the water’s edge, is covered with long flat cushions upholstered in raw canvas. The stucco walls of the house extend outward from the sides of the building so that the terraces and pool are enclosed on three sides, hidden from the view of other homes, exposed only to the anonymous city and sky.
Flight Dreams Page 16