Flights

by Jim Shepard

  3. I don’t like to show my pictures because I don’t like them.

  4. I don’t like to get lost in a crowd because some one could take you.

  5. I don’t like my dog.

  He made a face and turned it over, sitting forward in her chair. He pulled out “Things I Like About Myself”:

  I like the way I swim with Lisa.

  I like the way I do wheelies.

  And I feed the dog.

  I like when I play socker.

  Halfway down the page, “Things I Don’t Like About Myself”:

  I don’t like the way I eat.

  My closit is a disaster.

  I hate the way my brother looks.

  He sat back and shut the drawer, taking the page with him. He got out into the sun in just his shorts, with the page, his dice, and a pencil. He squinted. The leaves on the trees were bright and blinding and the white of the garage forced him to avert his eyes.

  His sister was still scraping. Every so often she’d hold the spoon up and examine it critically before resuming. It struck him that she was no happier than he was, and no one would ever know. She volunteered nothing.

  “What’re you doing?” he asked, shading his eyes.

  “I’m getting it sharper.” She held it up, testing the edge with her thumb.

  “Wait’ll they see what you’re doing with the spoon,” he said, sitting down himself a few feet away and spreading the paper out in front of him. Ants were following an invisible track nearby.

  “That’s nice,” his father said from the kitchen window. “I got a beautiful yard and my kids play in the driveway.”

  “It’s nice and warm,” Biddy said, rolling the dice.

  “You can’t sit in the sun in the grass?”

  “The grass is wet.”

  There was a rattling and a grinding sound from around the house and Simon labored into view, his bicycle wobbling up the driveway as he stood all of his weight on the pedals, one after the other. Something was wrong with the chain and had been wrong with it for weeks, and no one had fixed it for him. He lived a few houses down and was Kristi’s age.

  Biddy said hello. Simon ground to a halt, perched high on the pedals, tipping to one side. He just got his foot out to catch his balance, legs spread wide, as the bicycle came down with a little crash on the pavement.

  “Hi,” he said.

  He stood beside Kristi, watching her. They looked like brother and sister except his hair was still lighter than hers—white, in bright sun—and as fine as Biddy’s. Most people’s blue eyes, Biddy had noticed, were predominantly gray, but Simon’s, like Kristi’s, were blue.

  “Get out of the way,” Kristi said. “You’re in the sun.”

  Simon moved. He moved when she told him to move. He moved when nearly anyone told him to move. He was a nice kid, and got beat up a good deal.

  “Don’t leave your bike all over the driveway,” Kristi said. “My father’ll run it over.”

  Simon picked it up and wheeled it onto the grass.

  Biddy called him over. “Want to play dice?” he asked.

  Simon said no.

  “He doesn’t know how,” Kristi said.

  Simon looked at him as though he had no excuse.

  His father came outside carrying a bucket with an oversized sponge in it. “Hey, Simon. What’s up?”

  “Hi,” Simon said.

  “Kristi, what are you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, get out of the driveway. You too, Biddy. I’m going to back the car out.”

  Simon wandered back to his bike and hunched over it, poking at the chain. Biddy followed. Simon’s fingers edged in on the teeth of the gear sprocket, slipping along black grease. “It sticks or something,” he said in explanation, gazing at it as if it had always stuck and would always stick.

  “Want to put some oil on it?” Biddy asked.

  “No, my father’ll fix it.” He stood the bike up and got on the seat, wavering. His parents were divorced and he lived with his mother, rarely seeing his father.

  “Bye,” he said. “Bye, Kristi.” He pushed, rocking forward toward the handlebars in the effort, grinding his way back down the driveway, and turned out into the street. The front wheel wove its way along from side to side like a dog’s exploring nose.

  Biddy’s father paused to watch, slopping soapy water on the vinyl roof of the car. “That poor little son of a bitch,” he said. “All he does is ride up and down the street on that bike.”

  “Are we going out tonight, by the way?” his mother called from the house. She was not visible.

  “Going out?” His father paused, sweeping the sponge in a dark track across the vinyl. “No. The Game of the Week is on.”

  “Wonderful.” Biddy could not place his mother’s voice at all; it might well have been coming from any room on that side of the house. “Terrific. Baseball.”

  His father whistled the beginning of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

  “All summer I get baseball. We watch baseball. We go to see baseball. We play baseball. We’re in our second childhood here.”

  “I realize one game a week is unbearable,” his father said.

  His mother appeared at the screen on the porch. “It’s not one game a week. I wish it was. We talk baseball. That’s how we get through to each other. When we do. When do you talk with him anymore?” She flashed a hand at Biddy. “And what do you talk about when you do? ‘Oh, the Orioles pissed that one away.’ He does the same thing now. He doesn’t talk about things when he’s upset. He talks baseball. You’re getting him as crazy as you are.”

  “Well, we’re all emotional cripples here.”

  His mother turned away from the screen.

  His father’s arms had stopped, soap drying in streaks on the car. “And it’s baseball that did it. It’s not normal. Who ever heard of a father and son talking baseball? I think he should learn Sanskrit instead,” he said to the house. “And we should hold weekly discussion groups to go over everything and make sure nothing’s wrong.” He resumed soaping, the only other sound the scraping of Kristi’s spoon on the pavement, the house quiet and giving no indication that anyone inside had heard.

  Later that night they watched The Game of the Week. Biddy and his sister were sprawled on the floor with the dog; their parents were in the two big chairs with the lamp between them. It was a small den. His feet went under his father’s chair and his head, his mother complained, was much too close to the television.

  The Orioles were leading the Royals in the third inning. Doug DeCinces led off with a long, looping double to right center, and as he slid into second Biddy’s father got up and changed the channel. A young woman hitched up her dress and ran across a railroad yard covered with the bodies of men in gray uniforms. He looked back over his shoulder at his father, waiting for an explanation. But his father only turned to his mother and remarked that it had been a good thing they hadn’t gone out. His mother didn’t respond.

  Biddy gave it a few minutes before he finally said, “What is this?”

  “Gone With the Wind,” his father said. “Good movie.”

  At the commercial Biddy rose to all fours and reached out, awkwardly, and flipped the dial.

  “What’re you doing, Biddy?” his mother asked.

  “I’ll switch it back,” he said. Dauer was standing on third and Kansas City had a new pitcher. He waited but nothing happened; the pitcher was warming up, so he turned back.

  “You know,” his mother said, and at first he was unsure whom she was addressing, “it’s not like we go anywhere at all. And that’s not even the point. The point is that it doesn’t seem to matter anymore, what I want, what I’d like. It’s like if that fits into the plans, fine.”

  “It does matter,” Biddy’s father said.

  His mother returned her attention to the movie.

  Biddy watched with her, the air humid and unmoving with the window open. Armies marched and cities burned. Men and women gazed at
each other like starving animals or religious zealots. Kristi yawned and squashed a tiny spider creeping by on the rug.

  His father went into the kitchen during a commercial and returned with a big glass noisy with ice.

  “What’s that?” his mother asked. “You didn’t get me one?”

  “You want one? I’ll get you one. Collins?” His father gestured with the glass. She nodded.

  They were quiet with their drinks for two or three scenes. His mother moved her chair closer and his father put an arm around her. The movie boomed on. There was some whispering and Kristi said, “I’m trying to hear.”

  At the commercial his mother went into the bathroom. When she came out, they both said good night and went to bed, shutting the bedroom door lightly.

  Biddy looked at Kristi.

  “I guess they made up,” she said. “See what else is on.”

  Two days later, they drove to Yankee Stadium. Eight of them, the Sieberts and Lirianos: Biddy, his mother, father, Kristi, Louis, Mickey, Ginnie, and Dom, for a game with the Brewers. Only Cindy remained home, preferring to watch The Band Wagon on television with her fiancé.

  They sat in the United Technologies box and his father felt lucky to have the seats. The Lirianos were in the front four, Louis at eighteen taller than his parents. He ate popcorn one piece at a time, gazing serenely out toward Gorman Thomas in center field and the scoreboard above him even as plays were made in the infield. Mickey, next to him, squirmed or groaned according to events on the field, banging his hands on the rail in front of him when Robin Yount ranged behind second only to have a ground ball carom up over his shoulder into center field. Lou Piniella drove one into right field and the lead runner came around to score when Ben Oglivie of the Brewers slipped fielding the ball. The box was quiet. His father had no particular favorite and Dom felt that rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for IBM. Biddy was an Orioles fan and they were two games behind New York in the pennant race. Louis cheered decorously. Dave Winfield stepped to the plate. The sky was blue and clear and tracked by birds in the distance. The Milwaukee outfield was spread pleasingly against the green of the grass and wall beyond. Thomas arched his back in center, legs spread, and Oglivie stood relaxed and poised, despite his error, waiting for the pitch.

  Over his shoulder Dom suggested beers, and insisted he had it and that Biddy’s father could pay for the next round. After searching briefly for one of the wandering vendors, he stuffed some bills into Biddy’s hand and told him two beers and to take Louis with him, since he was eighteen, and to have him do the ordering.

  Biddy walked up the steps, looking back every so often at Winfield’s cuts, with Louis following, crunching popcorn.

  “What do they want?” Louis said, standing in line.

  Biddy shrugged, hearing a roar, and craned his head around to try and see back out onto the field.

  The line moved up. “Two beers,” Louis said loudly. The man across the counter flicked the taps back and filled two yellow paper cups with foamy beer. “Two-fifty,” he said. Louis laid two of the singles Biddy had given him on the counter and fished in his pocket for change. He set a quarter on the glass.

  The man stared at him evenly. “One more, pal,” he said. Louis blinked, out of bills.

  Biddy stepped closer. “A quarter,” he said. “He needs another quarter, Louis.”

  “A quarter?” Louis said.

  “What is he, retarded?” someone said from the back of the line.

  Biddy pulled him out of line. Louis told the story back at the box. Dom left, Biddy’s father calling after him, asking what he was going to do. Winfield was on second. After Dom disappeared, Biddy asked what had happened.

  His father returned his attention to the field. “Oh, Oglivie again. The son of a bitch looks like he’s on skates out there. They better get him some new shoes or new feet or something.”

  Dom came back down the aisle escorted by two policemen. He stabbed the air with his finger, looking back over his shoulder and saying, “And I’ll tell you what. If that yim-yam says something like that again, I’ll kill him. You tell him that.”

  “Awright, siddown,” the policeman said. “And thank Christ you’re still here.”

  Ginnie and Judy were too embarrassed for anything but anger, and they didn’t move or speak the rest of the game.

  “Son of a bitch,” Dom said to himself.

  The game limped on, the box quiet. In the seventh with the score 3–0 New York, Ben Oglivie blasted a home run into deep center field with two Brewers on base. Dom stood to applaud and sat back down. Biddy watched Oglivie round third, struck by the efficiency with which he had redeemed himself.

  In the ninth Willie Randolph homered for the Yankees and they all got up to go, collecting bags and hats while everyone was still cheering.

  “Those poor bastards aren’t going anywhere,” Dom said, looking back at the disconsolate Brewer dugout. “No pitching.”

  At the top of the aisle Biddy turned and saw the scoreboard in center blink and change, proclaiming a final in Cleveland: CLEVE 5, BALT 4, dropping the Orioles three back, and he turned to follow his family and friends down the exit ramp.

  Kristi had two turtles, Foofer and Kid, and killed them both. Foofer had crawled onto a small stone she had put in the clear plastic terrarium where the turtles were kept and had gotten out, flopping onto his chin with a distinctly wooden noise as she watched. She had done nothing, allowing him to creep across the desk top until he came to the edge, and then had opened the drawer underneath and toppled him in, shutting it with a bang.

  Biddy, who’d been in her room collecting more paper, had said, “Kristi, don’t leave him in the drawer.”

  “He always gets out,” she said.

  “You can’t punish a turtle,” he said. “Take the rock out of there and he won’t get out.”

  She’d replaced the turtle, but days later, seeing only Kid, he’d opened the drawer to find the dried Foofer, half buried under pens and small plastic rulers in his search for moisture or an exit.

  Kid had disappeared a few days later.

  Kristi, her father said, was erratic. Her mother worried about her. She had more trouble at Our Lady of Peace than her brother did, although he seemed to be rapidly closing the gap. Sister Theresa had long since decided and informed the Siebert family by letter and consultation that neither her conduct nor her effort was all it could be. In fact, she did not, ever, behave like a little lady. Biddy had at least been a very good student at her age.

  She despised the nuns and disliked school generally. At times he would be called down from his classroom to help discipline his sister, although how he was expected to help he was never able to fathom. He would at those times look into her defiant eyes with embarrassment, irritation, and pride. She seemed beyond him then, the intensity of her anger and unhappiness revealing itself in fleeting words or gestures that seemed unnoticed or ignored by the others around her. He was never much help. To the Sisters she was as unpredictably ferocious as a cornered raccoon or a small, angry cat. At one point while he looked on she had wrenched herself free from Sister Mary of Mercy, tearing the sleeve of her habit, and had been slapped for her trouble. A kind of horrified and fascinated silence had ensued while they all stared at the black sleeve hanging loose and ragged away from Sister’s arm, even the slap forgotten in the strange blasphemous image before them. Nuns were rarely touched and Kristi’s assault on the taboo had made her famous throughout the school; to an extent it was as if they’d seen God bleed.

  Lady, too, seemed edgy, unprepared, around her, and Kristi was the only human being Lady had ever bitten. Biddy had been present for that bit of history as well: she’d been nipped across the tips of her fingers one hot day after sitting on the dog as she lay in the shade. Lady had growled and Kristi had slapped her nose and she had spun around and snapped. She’d slapped back fiercely, the force of her hand spraying saliva from the dog’s mouth, before erupting into tears. Lady had lain in the shade throu
ghout all the following chaos, unrepentant. His father had yelled at Lady so loudly that her ears had flattened, but she had remained bristling and stubborn, as though she could not be blamed for an altercation with Kristi. When Biddy had seen the size of the needle at the doctor’s, he’d thought it was some kind of awful joke, but his sister had remained grim and silent until the needle had gone in; then she had screamed.

  “How’d Louis get retarded?” she asked. She was flipping cards, bored with diamonds and spades.

  They sat at the redwood table in the backyard, swishing their bare feet back and forth through the grass, slapping mosquitoes, scratching bites. Biddy was looking back over the Brewers-Yankees scorecard.

  “He was born that way,” he said.

  “So he’s never going to get better?”

  “No.”

  “Do you like having him around?”

  He looked up. “Why? You don’t like him?”

  “It’s funny,” she said, squinting. “I feel bad for him, but it’s kind of creepy.”

  “Louis is nice.”

  She didn’t reply. “I remember him looking down at me when I was little and honking and scaring me,” she finally said. Biddy made a face and she added, “He honks when he talks.”

  His father came out and sat next to them, drink in hand.

  “What’s that?” Biddy asked.

  “Milk of Magnesia,” his father said. “What’re you, a cop?”

  They were quiet as it got darker, and Kristi slapped at another mosquito. Her father said, “You guys’re going to get eaten alive out here. Why don’t you sit in the porch?”

  “How come Louis plays with little kids?” Kristi asked.

  “Are you a little kid?” her father teased. She ignored the comment and he cleared his throat. “Well, you know Louis doesn’t always get along that great with kids his own age.”

  “He’s retarded,” she said.

  “Now I don’t want you throwing those words around. Either of you. Do you say that to him? Are you mean to him?” He looked at Biddy. “Is she mean to him?”

  “No,” Biddy said.

  “I don’t want you being mean to him, now. The poor son of a bitch’s got enough problems. He’s a good kid.”