by James Hynes
“Oh God,” Kevin used to moan, slouching into the family room where Mom watched TV with the sound way up, while Dad and his florid friends preserved and encouraged barbershop quartet singing in America from the paneled basement below, “make it stop.”
“Shh.” His mother cradled her drink in one hand and with the other aimed the huge remote at the Zenith, clicking M*A*S*H up even louder.
“He can’t hear me,” Kevin whined.
“I don’t care if he can hear you,” said his mother. “I’m trying to watch Alan Alda.”
“Fuck Alan Alda,” muttered Kevin.
“What’s that?” She heard that, even over the tinny laughter from the Zenith.
“Nothing.” Slouching away again, down the hall toward his room.
“What did you say, young man?”
“Nothing, okay? Jee-zus.” Rolling his eyes as the idiot laugh track swelled and the blowhards in the basement swung with terrifying enthusiasm into some awful tune from The Music Man. Oh Lida Rose, oh, Lida Rose, oh, you put the sun back in the skyyyyy… God! Another Saturday night in Royal fucking Oak, the armpit of the fucking universe. Another fucking Saturday night in hell. He slammed his bedroom door and switched on the stereo, twirling the volume as high as it would go, to WRIF. The fucking turntable was broken and he’d spent all his money last week on weed—weak shit, too, fucking worthless—and the thought of that stalled him in the middle of his littered bedroom floor while Arthur Penhallow breathed heavily out of the speakers. If only Mom’d have another highball, he could tiptoe past her snoring on the sectional couch and ride his ten-speed up Twelve Mile to the mall, where he was pretty sure he could score some better weed off a guy who worked at Spencer Gifts. Worse yet, ’RIF was bumming him out; it’s always fucking “Stairway to Heaven” or fucking Bob Seger or J. fucking Geils—and tonight it’s fucking “Aqualung,” he fucking hates that song. So he switched the stereo off and flung himself onto his bed and piled both pillows over his face and screamed as loud as he could, “I wish I was an ORPHAN!”
And later that evening, he was halfway there. Cruising home at eleven with no light on his bike, standing on the pedals, his pupils dilated wide as dimes, he found an ambulance in the driveway and a police car at the curb, and the Murrays and the Nowakowskis on his front lawn. Mrs. Murray and Mrs. Nowakowski each struck the same pose, one arm pressed across her midriff, one hand pressed to her mouth. Mr. Murray stood with his arms crossed talking in low tones to Mr. Nowakowski, who had his hands thrust in his pockets. Nancy Nowakowski, with whom Kevin had almost lost his virginity another Saturday night not long before—“Aren’t we naughty?” he’d said to her before she peeled his hand off her warm breast—Nancy gave him a look of wide-eyed pity, brushing his arm in passing with her fingertips as he dropped his bike on the grass and went up the steps. Inside, in the living room, his gawky sister, Kathleen, all knees and elbows, was doubled over on the sofa, sobbing, while Mom’s priest, Father Vince, perched on the cushion next to her and patted her awkwardly on the back. Kevin floated through the room toward the hallway, at the end of which he could see his mother standing just outside the master bedroom in the same pose as Mesdames Murray and Nowakoski, arm over midriff as if she’d been punched, hand to her mouth. Kevin’s growing alarm sparked uselessly through the fog of his high like a flint that wouldn’t light, and a cop like a middle linebacker stopped Kevin by putting his beefy hands on Kevin’s shoulders and looked knowingly into the boy’s dilated pupils.
“Are you Kevin?” he said with surprising tenderness.
Wow, thinks Kevin on the bridge. He turns his back on Kelly and palms the tears out of the corners of his eyes. I don’t need this now, I really, really don’t, but there’s no stopping it: thirty-five years later, the night of his father’s death can still sneak up on him. Sitting on the end of the bed after his barbershop buddies went home, Kevin’s father died as he bent over to untie his shoes, a pair of Hush Puppies that he wore around the house. Mom was talking to him through their open bathroom door. She saw him puff out his cheeks and pat his stomach as if he had indigestion, then she turned away. When she turned back, he was already dead, in a heap on the carpet. It was that quick. Unlike Grandpa Quinn’s death later in a morphine fog from colon cancer, which was slow and unpleasant and as well- attended as an English king’s, half a dozen people crowded into the bedroom watching each whispery breath from his blue lips, Kevin’s father vanished when no one was looking. No one ever talked to Kevin about it, so everything he knows about what a heart attack is like is from that old Richard Pryor routine, and the older he gets, the more he thinks about it, not just because it might foreshadow what will happen to him, but because he can’t help but wonder what his father thought in that last moment. Was it painful? Did he feel a blow to the chest? A seam of fire up his left arm? Did he hear the voice of God, pace Pryor, telling him to stay down, motherfucker? Was it a good way to go, not seeing it coming, not having to think about it, blindsided by death? Did his life fast-forward before his eyes? Was he scared? Was he resigned? Was he relieved? Annoyed? Angry? Did he think it was funny to die like that, bending over to untie your Hush Puppies, with your wife ignoring you from across the room? Did he even know it was happening, or was it, now you see me, now you don’t? Going, going, gone. Did he snuff out like a candle, like a spark floating away from a fire? Or did he just bend over into oblivion, like someone diving into dark water?
Is it the heat that’s making Kevin breathless? Or is he having a heart attack right now, just like his dad? He steadies himself on the railing, which is warm to the touch, on the other side of the bridge from Kelly, facing west. Directly before him is the Lamar Avenue Bridge, a gray, weather-stained, WPA-era span that springs wearily across the river on five low arches. Kevin can hear the clack of tires over expansion joints as cars charge too fast onto the bridge, and then the squeal of tires as one impatient SUV lurches to a stop where the snake of traffic has kinked up at the light at the south end of the bridge. Beyond it tiny, glittering cars flash along a highway bridge over a distant bend in the river, and on the hills beyond that the mansions Kevin saw from Congress Avenue rise more clearly now, cream-walled and red-roofed.
He glances sideways. The Amazon runner has stopped to stretch, folding herself in two and grabbing her ankles from behind, a sight that is alternately painful and thrilling to see. Nearer to Kevin, a portly young guy with an unkempt black beard and a distended black T-shirt sits on a bench smoking, while a plump, liver and white springer spaniel pants at his feet, the two of them connected by a long, red canvas leash that winds around the fat guy’s wrist. Kevin turns a little more, and there’s Kelly still gazing east up the river where the plane is still weaving a weary figure eight over the skyline, still unsuccessfully trying to make that stupid banner unfurl. An old, rust-red railroad trestle supported by cement pylons comes out of the treetops of one bank and disappears into the treetops on the other, and over each pylon graffiti writers have left a fat-lettered slogan like a tangle of yellow pythons, completely unreadable, except for one, SCOPE LORIC, whatever that means, right in the middle of the trestle, in bold white letters. Beyond the trestle, more bridges, with cars shuttling silently back and forth, and on the north bank the coppery pyramids and pale deco skyscrapers and the thicket of cranes. The ice-blue tower of Barad-dûr rises out of the sunlit haze, improbably tall and narrow. Meanwhile another jet climbs steeply over Austin’s skyline, baring its long neck. Kevin can hear its hollow roar trailing behind it, a bass note to the annoying treble buzz of the little plane, and he wonders, which one is Snoopy and which the Red Baron? Is it wise these days to let either plane fly so close to a city skyline? Thinks Kevin, am I the only one who worries about stuff like this? Or does everybody, these days?
Kelly steps back from the railing, and pushes her hair back with both hands, arching her back. Kevin flinches and looks over his side of the bridge at a moiré of ripples on the water below. Closer to the shore, five startlingly white swans, two b
ig ones and three baby ones, paddle idly among the reeds along the bank. On the jogging trail above them a single file of jogging mothers push fabulously engineered strollers like little Formula One racers, and when the mother in the lead turns and starts galloping sideways, her legs scissoring, all the other mothers do the same. Out of the deep bucket seat of the last stroller flies a petulantly flung stuffed animal, which rolls in the dust, and the last mother stops and stoops to retrieve the toy. Some of the jogging mothers are a bit broad in the beam yet, still losing their baby weight, but as the last woman returns the stuffed animal to her invisible little tyrant in the stroller, Kevin admires the long, lean line of her leg as she bends over. She’s a MILF, thinks Kevin, an acronym he never knew until he heard it on The Daily Show, which he watches in bed with Stella. Oh God, he thinks, is Stella already a Mother I’d Like to Fuck? A year from now, is that going to be Stella, in Gallup Park or the Arb, pushing her expensive, high-tech jogging stroller along the river with her child? With my child?
Now Kevin’s heart is racing. He’s feeling breathless again. Maybe he is having a heart attack. Or at least heatstroke. He grips the warm railing with both hands and takes a couple of deep breaths, but the air is so hot he can’t draw it deeply enough. It’s like drowning in warm water, and he squeezes the railing to steady himself. There’s a bench nearby, and he wonders if it’s better to hang onto the railing before his dizziness passes, or risk the few paces and have a seat. The fat guy with the hefty spaniel is standing and stubbing his cigarette out on the side of a planter, and his dog is on its feet, too, looking up at its master with a goofy, gummy grin, his long tongue draped sideways over his teeth like a big pink necktie. Beyond him the Amazon runner stands with her legs apart and her hands clasped under her ponytail, elbows in the air, and she’s bending slowly from side to side. Kevin starts slowly toward the bench; he’s feeling a little less lightheaded, but he trails one hand along the railing. From the Lamar Avenue Bridge he hears another squeal of brakes and the sharp blare of a horn. The fat guy looks up and loosens his grip on the leash, which unloops from his fat wrist, and the goofy spaniel trots toward Kevin. Nearly to the bench now, Kevin sees that Kelly has turned away from the railing on her side of the bridge and she’s looking at him, as if trying to remember where she’s seen him. Kevin’s not sure where to look. The wet nose of the spaniel brushes his left hand, and Kevin hears the fat guy say, “It’s cool, he’s friendly.” But Kevin ignores the dog, which circles round him to the railing, trailing the slack leash. Instead Kevin looks past Kelly, past the railing, past the railroad trestle to see the single-engined plane climbing like mad, whining like an angry lawnmower. The orange banner has at last snapped straight behind the plane. HOOTERS, it says.
In spite of himself, in spite of the heat, in spite of his racing heart, Kevin starts to laugh. In spite of his lightheadedness, in spite of his fear of incipient fatherhood, in spite of the prospect of Kelly recognizing him, in spite of the prospect of her not recognizing him, he laughs. Kelly’s expression turns quizzical. Their eyes have met, it’s too late to turn back now, so he just grins like the sad, middle-aged loser that he is, and points at the banner in the sky. She turns to see what he is pointing at. The dog is nuzzling Kevin’s leg; the fat guy is saying, “Barney, not your party, buddy, not your party,” and reeling in the leash. Then just as another long squeal of brakes peals from the traffic bridge, Kelly sees the banner and her spine stiffens. A horn blares, the squeal of tires goes on and on, Kelly turns back toward Kevin, and before their eyes even meet, he can see the withering, soul-shriveling look of disdain on her lovely face. Oh boy, thinks Kevin, but still, he laughs.
And then—the squeal of brakes ends in a loud, metallic bang. Kelly starts at the sound. The spaniel flinches and darts between Kevin and the railing. And the leash tightens around Kevin’s calves and jerks him off his feet.
Kevin knows he’s falling, but at the same time he knows there’s nothing he can do about it. Events seem to slow and to become more inevitable all at once. It’s a moment of perfect, blissful contradiction: it feels like it could last forever, as if Kevin falling is something that has always happened and always will, but he also knows it’s only an instant, and will be over almost before it’s started. A moment like this is the closest Kevin has ever come or ever will come to a spiritual experience, when he is perfectly aware of everything around him even as he loses all control. He’s thrilled by the vastness and infinite complexity of the world, even as he’s aware of its utter indifference to him. And so he’s calm, in spite of the pain he knows is coming and doesn’t have time to brace for, and yet it’s not as if he’s watching someone else. He’s fully present in himself and in the moment, and yet he, too, feels a sublime indifference, because the outcome is inevitable, so why worry about it? There’s nothing you can do, so just enjoy this vivid clarity, this glimpse of eternity, this momentary lifting of the veil. He wonders, is this what my father felt—bending over, falling into darkness—did he feel this peeling back of the senses, this simultaneous stillness and tumult of sound and light? As the ground rushes up to meet him, Kevin wonders, is this what it’s like to die?
PART TWO
Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?
“DON’T SIT UP.”
Kevin has no intention of sitting up. Sitting up is the furthest thing from his mind. He’s aware of someone near him—more than one person, in fact—but all he can see is faded blue sky, a spiderweb in an angle of railing, and the blurred silhouettes of dead bugs in the frosted dome of one of the flat-topped lights along the bridge. The sight is startlingly clear and strange all at once; the sunlight seems to be brighter than it was before. He feels like he does when he wakes up disoriented from a long nap on a Sunday afternoon, or after snoozing for an hour or two after dinner on a weeknight—unsure of where he is or what time it is, but everything around him vivid and bright. He’s aware that his fall represents a caesura, and it doesn’t really matter whether he’s been out for hours or minutes or only seconds: the break somehow stands for infinity, and now, on the other side of it, everything is strange and as sharply defined as a cartoon.
“Did you hit your head?” says the same voice, a woman’s.
Kevin blinks and tries to focus his attention on the back of his head. What just happened? Why is he flat on his back? The numbers 666 float before him, which jolts him a little further alert. Is this a Buchanan Street Station situation? He didn’t hear a bang, but then he wouldn’t have, would he? Or at least he wouldn’t remember it. His ears are ringing a little but then they always are, from all that loud music he heard years ago in Second Chance and Joe’s Star Lounge. Are there other people around him, flat on their backs as well? Or worse, pieces of other people? Is he all there himself, or is he bleeding to death from a severed leg? Maybe that’s why his head doesn’t hurt, because all his blood is draining out his femoral artery. He lifts his head to look.
“Barney, no,” somebody else says, and suddenly, in monstrous close-up, Kevin sees gummy, drooling jaws, yellowed incisors, bloodshot eyes. There’s a hoarse panting in his ear, a wet nose against his cheek, sour doggy breath all over his face.
“Could you please keep your dog back, please?” says the woman.
The dog recedes with a yelp and a scrabbling of claws.
“Sorry, sorry,” says the second voice, a man. Then, louder, “Dude, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
“No,” says Kevin.
“Lie still,” says the woman, and at last Kevin sees a face—Aztec nose, dark eyes, glossy, scalp-tight black hair—between him and the sky. She holds her hand over his face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Now Kevin’s Admiral Adama in the CIC of the Galactica, which is full of smoke and sparking wires, and he’s waiting for a damage control report. All decks are checking in: the bulkheads held, the hull’s intact, nobody was vented into space. He can wriggle his toes and fingers, his head feels fine. The pavement under his back is very warm. Meanwhile the Amazon
runner is splaying her thumb and two fingers just beyond his nose, so close that they’re out of focus.
“Three,” says Kevin, and he lifts his own hand to push them away. “Let me up.”
She presses his chest with the tips of her fingers to keep him down, but he levers up onto his elbows anyway. Only now is he beginning to worry about his suit. Just beyond the toes of his shoes, the spaniel Barney reposes like the Sphinx, panting, while the fat guy holds the leash tight and bounces awkwardly on his toes as if he’s about to run away. The Amazon is squatting next to Kevin on her powerful thighs, peering at him intently. She’s close enough that he can smell her sweat.
“Easy.” She grips him firmly under one arm as he pushes himself up off the warm pavement. On his feet he feels lightheaded, and he’s aware of his heart hammering. He brushes the grit off his palms.
“Sit.” The Amazon’s warrior grip guides wobbly Kevin to a bench.
“Man, I’m so sorry,” says the fat guy. “Barney,” he snaps, “bad dog. Bad dog.” The dog only looks up at its master mournfully, his big pink tongue lolling out of his mouth.
“Here.” The Amazon offers Kevin his sunglasses, and he turns them over in his hands as if he’s never seen anything like them before. Then he notices that his hands are trembling a little, so he folds the glasses and slides them into his jacket to cover it up. Then he remembers what the glasses are for and takes them out again and puts them on. In their autumnal glaze the Amazon stands with her hands on her hips, watching him.
“Just let me catch my breath.” Kevin puts his hands on his thighs. It isn’t until then that he notices the rip in his right trouser leg, and the blood oozing through the grit embedded in the skin of his knee.
“Oh, man,” says Kevin, with a petulant, rising inflection. “Son of a bitch.”