Flight Dreams

by Michael Craft

  “Mr. Manning?” calls Brother Burt from the dressing room door. As Manning reappears from around the corner, Brother Burt tells him, “Vi will see you now,” and ushers him in.

  Miss Viola sits in front of her makeup mirror, its glaring bulbs surrounding her like a halo. Some of the bulbs, though, are burned out or missing, lending to the room’s general seediness. She fluffs a matted blue feather boa, thrown on over a dressing gown stained with coffee and rouge. Her hair is in a turban, her reddish wig on the vanity. Curled atop the wig, sleeping, is the kitten.

  “Good evening, Miss Viola. My name is Mark Manning.”

  “Smile-God-loves-you, Brother Mark,” she singsongs, offering her hand to be kissed, but he shakes it. “You’re here about my Angel?”

  “What?” he asks, wondering if she’s “on” something—or just nuts.

  “My Abby-cat. Angel.” She eyes the kitten warmly for a moment. “Isn’t she precious? She had a bit of the devil in her tonight, though.” She laughs maniacally at her play on words.

  “Probably just a phase. Nothing that can’t be exorcised, I’m sure,” says Manning, deliberately ingratiating himself.

  “How clever, Mark,” she twitters. “I must remember that.”

  Manning steps forward to stroke the forehead of the kitten, who barely stirs. “I’ve become an unabashed cat fancier myself in recent months. You’ve got a spectacular Abyssinian here. When did you get Angel?”

  Brother Burt’s pupils shift beneath his eyelids, following the dialogue with reptilian precision.

  Miss Viola tells Manning, “Just this week. I’d been looking for a special pet for a long time, hoping to find a little friend that would match the rather extraordinary color of my hair.” She primps, stuffing a telltale lock of gray back into her turban, unaware that the cat, purring at Manning’s touch, is kneading its little claws in her wig. “Then I saw a picture of an Abyssinian and knew I had to have one. But they’re so terribly difficult to find.”

  “Yes, I know, Miss Viola. I’ve been looking for just such a pet myself. Could you tell me where you got Angel?”

  Brother Burt clears his throat, and Miss Viola glances at him before answering, “I’m so sorry. I’d like to help you—and I know this must sound terribly odd—but I’ve taken a solemn oath not to identify Angel’s breeder.”

  “I wouldn’t think of asking you to break your promise, Miss Viola, but perhaps you could tell me just this much: Did Angel come from a town named Assumption?”

  Miss Viola pauses. Then, with a happy, relieved voice, she says, “I suppose I can tell you that much, Mark—especially since you already seem to know. Yes, Angel came from Assumption.”

  Brother Burt’s eyes widen with disbelief.

  Manning’s heart pounds in his ears, but his voice does not betray the importance he attaches to his next question. “This may sound stupid of me, Miss Viola, but where is Assumption?”

  The woman again bursts into her maniacal laugh. “Oh, Mark,” she says, as if slapping her knee, “you are a wit. Where is Assumption, indeed!”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Viola. I don’t understand the joke.”

  Her laughter breaks off. “Really? I mean, you asked about Assumption, and you’re here, so I presumed… Mark, you’re practically in Assumption. It’s out beyond the other side of town, about an hour off the interstate.”

  Catching his breath, Manning thanks her, nods to Brother Burt—who says nothing—and quickly leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

  In the hall, he pauses to collect his thoughts and jot a few notes. Not a half minute later, his concentration is broken by Brother Burt’s voice, screaming inside the dressing room: “Stupid cunt—I told you not to tell him a fucking thing!”

  Saturday, December 26

  6 days till deadline

  DRIVING NEIL’S CAR, MANNING turns off the interstate and heads down the rural two-lane highway that leads to Assumption. There’s never much traffic out here, and even less this Saturday morning, the day after Christmas. The road is his alone.

  Both he and Neil awoke early today. They had considered driving to Assumption from the TV studio last night, but it was late, and they were so hungry that Manning couldn’t trust his own judgment. Better to eat, sleep, and start fresh. Neil guessed that Manning wouldn’t want company on this excursion, so he offered his car, asking Manning to drop him at his office on the way out of town—Neil could get some work done, uninterrupted, on an important project that was “due yesterday.”

  A road map is spread open on the empty passenger’s seat. Miss Viola was right; Manning located, with no difficulty at all, the dot that is Assumption. As he races across the unbending stretch of highway, the whir of the engine blends with the rush of air streaming over the contours of the car—a comforting sound, man-made, assuring. But Manning hears it only subliminally, for his mind is busied by uncertain thoughts. What sort of confrontation might await him out here? Might he at long last find Helena Carter? His preoccupations join with the monotonous landscape to make the trip pass quickly. A road sign sweeps past him announcing a reduced speed limit. He is entering Assumption.

  The highway is the main street of the town. A dog strolls along one of the buckled sidewalks, but Manning sees no people. He drives slowly, approaching the crabgrass plot of the town square, the church, the school. Three children walk together near the square.

  “Excuse me?” he asks from the window, stopping alongside them.

  The youngest of the three, a girl about four years old, hides behind the other two—apparently her brother, about eight, and her sister, about twelve. Manning figures that they don’t see many strangers here, and he is charmed by the girl’s apprehension.

  “Yes, sir?” the boy says boldly.

  Manning says, “I’m looking for someone, and maybe you know where I can find her. It’s a lady—she’s kind of old—and she raises lots of cats. Do you know anyone in town like that?”

  “That’d be Mrs. O’Connor,” the boy offers at once. Everyone in town knows about Mrs. O’Connor’s “funny cats,” though few have seen them.

  “Can you tell me where she lives?”

  The boy opens his mouth to give directions, but a jab from his older sister’s elbow silences him. She tells Manning, “You’d better talk to Father McMullen about it.” She explains that Manning can find the priest in the rectory, pointing to the big house next to the church.

  “Thanks, kids,” Manning says with a wink, then he drives around the square and parks in front of the town’s only brick house. He gets out of the car and closes the door with a quiet slam that seems to violate the tranquility of this secluded place. Walking up the stretch of sidewalk that leads to the porch of the house, he tries not to shatter again the peace of this little town, measuring his steps deliberately, almost stealthily, as if on tiptoes.

  The shady porch is strewn with worn wicker furniture. Windows gape open. Through the screened door, the smell of something in the oven meets Manning’s nostrils. What is that?—something he hasn’t smelled in years. Then it floods back to him. Tuna casserole. Manning twists an old-fashioned doorbell mounted in the jamb, sending a rusty clatter through the house, making him again feel like an intruder, an invader.

  “I’ll get it, Mrs. Weaver,” a man’s voice calls from within. A moment later, Father McMullen appears at the door wearing black priestly slacks and a collarless white shirt unbuttoned at the neck. His years are apparent to Manning from the shuffle of his walk, but his magnificent waves of graying golden hair impart to the man’s face a timeless aura that defies description. Saintly, Manning thinks. No, he reconsiders, it is more the look of a martyr, the look of suffering, smugly endured.

  “Ah!” says the priest. “Good morning, Mr. Manning. Won’t you come in?” He swings the door open.

  Baffled by the greeting, Manning asks, “Have we met, Father?”

  “Only on the phone, when we spoke a couple of months ago. I’ve seen you on television since.” He leads
Manning into his office and motions that they should sit on either side of the cluttered desk.

  Settling in, Manning wonders aloud, “But you seemed to expect me.”

  “Really?” His tone is coy. “Perhaps I did.” He gazes at his visitor through the milky blur that clouds his eyes. Picking up a paper clip, he begins to unravel it. There is a long pause. Then the priest closes his eyes and drops his head in a gesture of resignation. The kinked silver wire slips from his fingers and bounces with a tick on the sheet of green-edged glass that covers the desk. Without looking up, he asks, “Why are you here?”

  “Because some children on the street told me I should see you when I asked them for directions to ‘Mrs. O’Connor’s’ house.”

  “I see.” The priest picks up and begins to mangle a fresh paper clip. He looks Manning in the eye to ask, “Why do you want to see Helen?”

  “I think you know,” Manning says. “Or are you asking me to lie to you?”

  “You needn’t bother,” says the priest with contempt. “Money…” He exhales the word with distaste. “I don’t know which is worse, the greed that produces it or the selfishness that spends it, fritters it away on a cellar full of cats—cats, my God—when there’s so much of His holy work that could be accomplished with it. Greed and selfishness! I thank the Lord almighty that at least I’m not obsessed with the reward.”

  “Neither am I,” Manning says calmly, sidestepping the priest’s insult.

  Father McMullen breaks into laughter, a snide chuckle of disbelief that quickly blossoms into rude, convulsive guffaws thundering through the dreary house and spilling out through the windows onto the street. When he at last regains his composure, he asks through the spasms that still contort his face, “Then what in the name of heaven are you doing here?”

  “You could never understand my purpose,” says Manning with an even voice, staring at the priest through unflinching, truthful eyes. “The world you’ve created for yourself is so alien to the one I know, you could never think the thoughts I’m thinking now.”

  Father McMullen’s laughter halts with a jerk of breath that sticks in his throat. Aware that he does not—cannot—understand Manning, he feels a sudden and intense awe of the unknown, an awe that verges on fear. Finding his voice, he says, “You may be right, Mr. Manning. I’m sure I don’t know. Nor do I care.” His arrogance turns pious. “I see no point in imperiling my faith by engaging with you in games of the intellect—in the workings of the merely ‘rational’ mind.”

  In a brusque tone declaring an end to their discussion, Manning asks, “Where does Helen O’Connor live?”

  “Just a short walk from here, a block past the square.” He points the direction. “It’s a cottage—stucco, the best-looking house on the street. The mailbox is marked, and there’s a statue of a cat crouching under it.”

  “Thank you,” says Manning with a curt bow of his head. He closes the notebook that was folded open on his knee, flipping its cover past the empty page where he has written nothing. He rises from his chair.

  The priest rises with him, his face visibly blanched, looking faint. He falls forward to support himself, smacking both palms on the glass top of the desk. Manning watches, unnerved, as one of the priest’s hands lands firmly atop the jagged end of an unfolded paper clip. Through a desperate choke, the priest says, “Don’t, Mr. Manning … please don’t take her from me.” An oily pool of blood begins to spread on the glass from between his splayed fingers.

  They have pierced my hands and my feet, Manning remembers, they have numbered all my bones. Manning’s eyes shoot back and forth from the desk to Father McMullen’s face. For an instant, he sees the priest’s golden mane surrounded by a tangled ring of thorns. Barely above a whisper, he asks, “Are you all right?”

  The priest falls back into his chair. His wounded hand smears a trail across the top of the desk and disappears in his lap. The paper clip drops to the floor. “Just please don’t take her,” he repeats.

  “I can’t ‘take’ her. I’m not here to ‘deprogram’ her. Let’s not forget about her free will—that’s a concept you people taught me when I was six—surely it’s familiar to you. There’s not a thing I could say or do to make her leave this place if she’s made up her mind to stay.”

  “But she …” the priest begins, then his voice breaks off as he dismisses Manning with a wave of his good hand.

  There is nothing else to say. Manning walks from the room through the front hall and out the door. He darts from the porch to the car at the curb—almost sprinting, no longer fearful of shattering the facade of serenity that hangs over the town like a shroud. He jumps into the car, starts the engine. Though he could easily, quickly walk to the stucco cottage, he does not want to return to the rectory for the car, does not want to leave it as an annoying reminder to the priest.

  He finds the cottage within seconds; he sees the mailbox, the statue of the cat. Getting out of the car, he finds that the late morning has turned hot, so he removes his jacket and tosses it through the open window onto the seat with the road map. He hesitates, wondering whether he should close up the car and lock it, then dismisses the notion as ridiculous—of all the dark and dirty sins that may lurk in Assumption, thievery is surely low on the list.

  Manning walks up to the front of the house. Raising his fist to rap on the screened door, he pauses. He feels his heart pulsing in his chest, his neck, his hands, as his mind races to recall the long string of events that has led him to this spot, this moment—a situation that any other reporter in the country could imagine only as a fantasy, the crowning moment of a life’s work. He has not yet knocked.

  “I thought I heard someone come up the steps,” says a woman’s cheery voice from behind the door.

  Snatched from his thoughts, Manning feels foolish as he lowers his poised hand, struggling to focus on the woman who stands in the darkness behind the screen. His lips curve into a smile as he discerns the vivid henna hair, the friendly features so much like those of Margaret O’Connor. Manning opens his mouth to speak—there is only one thing to say, and he wonders how the woman will react. Will she scream? Slam the door? He says, “Mrs. Carter? I’m Mark Manning.”

  “Oh!” It’s not a scream, just a squeak. She doesn’t seem frightened—merely surprised or embarrassed, as though she has failed to recognize a celebrity standing at her door. “Of course, Mr. Manning,” she says with an apologetic laugh, swinging the door open. “Please come in.”

  The house is small, simply furnished, lacking the expected rummage of advancing years. Manning wonders if the sparse decoration is a reflection of the woman’s taste or if her stay in Assumption has not been long enough to assemble fussier surroundings.

  A large Abyssinian enters from an adjacent room to inspect the newly arrived visitor. A stately cat of elegant bearing, it moves with slow assurance, thoroughly in control of its household domain. It is without question the most strikingly beautiful cat Manning has ever seen. It leans forward to brush against his leg.

  Manning tells the woman, “I’ll bet this is Abe.”

  “You’re as clever as I thought you’d be, Mr. Manning. Yes, this is Abe. Here, baby.” She picks up the creature, many times a champion, sire to many others, and hands him to Manning. “He’s getting on in years, but still, you’ve never seen an Abby quite like this one.”

  Manning takes hold of Abe, handling the cat like a long sausage, as he saw the judges do at home. Lanky and muscular, Abe stretches in Manning’s hands, purring with a loud, unbroken rumble. “You’re right,” says Manning, “he’s one of a kind.”

  Manning and the woman sit down and settle into a long, chatty conversation, addressing each other as Mark and Helen. They speak with a candor and humor that would lead an onlooker to assume they were old friends exchanging gossip, as if Manning popped in every weekend to bring her up to date on things back home. Helen asks about her sister, Margaret, about Father Carey, Arthur Mendel, Jerry Klein—grateful for the information Manning s
upplies, laughing dreamily as she recalls her former life. Abe has hopped into her lap and nested there, preparing for a nap.

  At a lull in their banter, Manning finally says, “When you met me at the door, you welcomed me as though you’d been waiting for me. Why?”

  “Eventually someone would come. But you were the only one who understood—the only one who hadn’t written me off as dead. That was reassuring—to know that someone saw my disappearance as anything more involved than waiting seven years to divide the pie. I’ve read everything you’ve written about me, but it wasn’t till I caught a glimpse of you on TV and saw that determined, calculated look in your eyes—that I knew you would be the one to solve this silly mystery, if anyone could. To tell the truth, I’ve been sort of anxious to hear what you’ll have to say about me when you testify at the Houseman Trial next week.” She chortles at her own vanity, dismissing the vice as a concession to her age.

  Manning laughs with her, then a quizzical look crosses his face. He asks, “What’s this all about, Helen? Why did you leave? It’s never been clear to anyone—that’s why so many people are willing to assume you’re dead. It’s never been clear to me.” He uncaps his Mont Blanc.

  Helena Carter smiles, then exhales a long sigh. “So we finally get down to it. The story? No wonder it’s not clear to you—I’m not sure how much sense I can make of it myself. But I’ll try.

  “I was looking for something. To be honest, I was running away from something too. Imagine that—a woman turning fifty with no kids, a dead husband, and a hundred million dollars—suddenly starting to question … everything. Life and death, success and failure, faith itself—faith in all those things we’ve always been taught were good and pure, unchanging and real. Life really seemed to be over, so it was time to turn to God.

  “Sure, I’d been ‘religious’ all my life, but what does that mean? The religious folks you know—the ones who go through all the motions and recite the creeds about what they believe and where their lives are headed—what does their faith actually mean? It’s just a badge they wear, another label they slap on their chests with all their other identities: American, liberal or conservative, widow or married, Catholic or whatnot, breeder of champion Abyssinians, maybe even vegetarian. The list goes on and on. You become the sum of your parts.