Flights

by Jim Shepard

  “Stupid.”

  “If you don’t want to name it that, you can name it something else,” Biddy said.

  “It’s your dog,” his father said. “C’mere, Stupid.”

  On a windy Saturday, he stood in the front yard punting the ball back and forth. The Lirianos were visiting and everyone was in the kitchen. He punted it lightly from one end of the yard to the other, and then walked after it and punted it back.

  Simon rode up, his bike still grinding. He smiled.

  “Hey, Simon,” Biddy said. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Hi,” he said.

  “You want some cheesecake?”

  Simon looked around, not seeing any. “Sure.”

  Biddy put the ball down and went into the house.

  “What’re you doin’ out there, champ?” Dom asked.

  “Punting around.”

  “Oh. You need cheesecake for that?”

  He put a slice on a paper plate. “Uh-huh. Bye.” He returned to the front and handed the plate to Simon.

  “Pick it off the plate,” he suggested. “I didn’t bring a fork.”

  Simon took a tentative bite and Biddy resumed punting.

  “I’m gonna run away,” Simon said.

  Biddy looked at him, startled. The ball thumped to the ground.

  He walked over to him. “You shouldn’t run away,” he said.

  Simon shrugged, limp and unhappy, mouth working on the cheesecake.

  “Going to go to your father?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You shouldn’t go,” he repeated, searching for a reason. “Your mother’d be all upset. You’re too young.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m too young to do anything.”

  Biddy imagined him in the Cessna, his white hair shaking with excitement and the vibration of the engine, refusing to sit still, crying in terror at what they were about to do, grabbing at disastrous levers and switches.

  “Things’ll get better,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  “I don’t think so.” Simon set the paper plate on the grass and climbed onto his bike. “Thanks for the cake.”

  He decided to talk to Cindy about it. “What’s up, sexy?” she asked when he appeared at the door, and he said simply, “Simon’s going to run away.”

  “Simon’s going to run away? Who told you that? Simon?”

  He nodded and stepped back from the doorway, changing his mind about the whole thing, ready to go.

  “Well, come on in. You walk over here? This is worth some coffee at least. Or would you rather have soda?”

  He shrugged and she put a mug in front of him.

  “You make up with Mickey yet?” she said. She set a glass sugar bowl and a carton of milk near the mug.

  “I don’t even know what he’s mad at me for.”

  “Don’t worry about it. He probably doesn’t know either.” She sat comfortably opposite him. “Ronnie, your pal’s here,” she called.

  “Where’s Ronnie?”

  “He’s indisposed.” She looked back at the bubbling coffeemaker.

  “He’s taking a dump,” Ronnie called.

  “So what’s this about Simon?” she said. “Do you think he’s serious?”

  He was beginning to feel this whole thing might have been a mistake. “I don’t know. He’s pretty unhappy.”

  “Poor little dork,” Ronnie said.

  “Well, you must think so or you wouldn’t be coming to me with it. You tell his mother?”

  “No.”

  “Well she should know, don’t you think?”

  Ronnie sang from the bathroom that he had to dance.

  “All right, you,” Cindy called back. “Try and concentrate on what you’re doing.”

  Ronnie sang that the Broadway rhythm had him and that everybody had to dance. Cindy laughed and said he was crazy. He kept singing.

  “We’re just going to ignore you,” Cindy said. “That’s all.” She got up for the coffee. “Don’t you think you should tell his mother?”

  “I don’t know,” Biddy said. “She’s never around.”

  “Well, I’m sure she cares,” she said.

  Ronnie was still singing about that Broadway rhythm. “Ronnie, we’re tryin’ to talk. We got a serious problem out here,” she said.

  “Serious problem? Who cares?” he called. “Biddy and I crush serious problems. We destroy serious problems. When I get out of here, we’re gonna put our heads together and bury that serious problem.”

  “Well, hurry up.”

  “Ah, you’d rush a wet dream.”

  She was quiet.

  “Sorry.” He bumped around, muffled noises coming through the walls. “You didn’t hear that, did you, Bid?”

  “No,” Biddy said.

  She poured the coffee, and the phone rang. Ronnie continued to sing. She put a finger in one ear. “Who?” She darted a look at Biddy. “Hold on.” She stepped around the corner into the living room, stretching the cord taut.

  After a moment he went over to the corner to listen.

  “I don’t know when,” she said, keeping her voice low. “What are you, nuts? What are you calling me here for?”

  Ronnie swung open the bathroom door, the toilet flushing behind him, and caught Biddy. “Hey, champ,” he said. “What’re you, master spy?” He sailed into the kitchen. “What’re you guys having, coffee out here?”

  Cindy came back in, hanging up the phone.

  “Who was that?” Ronnie said.

  “A friend from work.” She sat down and tapped the table with her open palm. “Biddy, let’s get back to Simon.”

  He sat in the front line of desks with five girls in the otherwise empty classroom. Laura was on one side and Sarah Alice on the other. The second hand of the clock above the blackboard ticked off calibrations silently. Sister Theresa returned to the room and sat at her desk, facing them.

  She looked up and snapped her pencil down with a curt, pleasant snap. “Okay,” she said. “Before we begin, I should say I’m proud of all of you, and I only wish you all could go. You’re all our best spellers and I would hate to have to pick two of you. So this is as good a way as any.”

  They were the five finalists from the classwide spelling bee that day. The class period had ended before any of them had been eliminated, so after several extra rounds Sister had decided to have a special extra session after school. Of the five, only Laura was a surprise, still something of an unknown quantity.

  “Now I don’t have to remind you to take your time and give the game your undivided attention.”

  He smiled. Teddy had been first in the earlier spelling bee, and had immediately spelled “awful” o-f-f-l-e.

  “Janet,” she said. “‘Obvious.’”

  Janet spelled “obvious.” Margaret spelled “resource.” Mitsu spelled “algae.” Laura spelled “conservative.” Biddy spelled “political.” Sarah Alice spelled “expressive.”

  On the second round, Margaret and Mitsu missed on “enigmatic” and Laura spelled it correctly, halting and picking her way over the word like someone barefoot stepping from boulder to boulder. They went through three more rounds.

  Sister picked up another vocabulary book. “Well, I can’t send four of you,” she said. “Three is the absolute most.”

  “‘Architect,’” she told Janet. They went through another round.

  “It’s okay,” Laura said suddenly, out of turn. “I quit.”

  The others sat shocked, Biddy included. Sister stared at her.

  “I quit,” she repeated, an offering. “They can go instead.”

  In Sister’s dumbfounded silence, Janet offered to quit as well, and then Biddy.

  “You can’t quit,” she said, recovering. She focused on Laura. “See what you’ve started? Now, miss, if you don’t want to represent Our Lady of Peace, we don’t want you to represent us—and this goes for the rest of you as well—but you’re not going to decide that for yourself. You’re not the only ones sac
rificing extra time to do this. You’re going to take part in this and only be excused when you’re eliminated. Laura. ‘Excretion.’”

  Laura looked down. “E-x … c-r-e-a-t-i-o-n,” she said.

  Sister looked at her. “You misspelled that on purpose. Janet.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Laura protested.

  “Yes, you did. And if anyone else tries that they’ll be in trouble. Believe you me. Janet.”

  Janet, thoroughly rattled, misspelled it as well.

  Sister stared at her for a moment. “You’re eliminated,” she said. “Biddy.”

  Biddy spelled it correctly, the others already having eliminated other plausible versions.

  “Okay,” Sister said. “Biddy, Sarah Alice, and Laura, you’re the representatives. Laura, you’re also staying after today and tomorrow.” She stood up. “It seems even the simplest things become aggravating with this class. Tomorrow I’ll have some practice vocabulary sheets for the three of you to work on over the holiday.” She made a small, dismissing gesture with her hand. “Go ahead, go home. Congratulations.”

  “I didn’t miss on purpose,” Laura said.

  “Laura, please,” she said. “I can’t argue with everyone today. Stay in your seat.”

  Biddy filed out, turning at the doorway. “And don’t bother to wait for her, Mr. Siebert,” she said. “She’s going to be a while.”

  “Keep an eye on him,” his father said from the kitchen. The dog circled around in the backyard, trailing a leg through its own manure.

  “Stupid,” Kristi said. “That’s a good name for him.”

  “Not the way you say it,” Biddy said. They sat at the redwood table, Kristi waving a Milk-Bone toward the dog and pulling it away as the dog approached, producing an occasional whine or impatient snort.

  Stupid stopped, barking furiously.

  “It’s all right,” his father said from the kitchen. “Hold him. It’s only the garbageman.”

  A large black man dragged some cans from behind the Frasers’ garage. Stupid, straining at Biddy’s hand on the collar, twisted free.

  “Hold on to him!” his father said, hearing the dog sprint past, and he rushed to the door and swung out onto the frame and yelled, “Come back here, you black bastard!”

  Biddy heard the clang of the cans dropping at the foot of the driveway.

  “Oh, not you,” his father said. “I was talking about the dog. I’m sorry—”

  “Jesus Christ,” his mother said, her voice coming from the bathroom. “He can embarrass me with the garbageman.”

  “All right, all right, all right,” his father said, hustling the collared Stupid back onto the porch. “No harm done. Get in there, you goddamn idiot.”

  “Do you have to fly off the handle every time that dog does something?” his mother said. The mirrored door on the medicine chest swung shut. “You scream like a banshee. The whole neighborhood’s got to know Walt Siebert’s missing his dog.”

  “Get away from me,” Kristi said from the porch, giving the dog’s rear a rough shove. It snapped at her and she bounced the Milk-Bone off its head. There was a crash from the bathroom and his mother wailed, “Oh, no.” Stupid barked at the noise.

  “Jesus Christ,” his father said. “This whole family’s nuts.”

  Biddy lay in bed with his eyes on the ceiling, listening to his parents prepare the manicotti they were going to take to Norwich for Thanksgiving dinner. He looked up into the lights and turned away blinded, red fluorescent streamers and curlicues twisting and whirling when he closed his eyes, and when he could see again he was calling signals for the snap and the Vikings were in punt formation with himself as the punter.

  Over the hunched Vikings, Steelers massed, wedging into cracks, mentally laying down lanes of attack, waiting for the snap. Eleven sets of eyes, all watching and waiting to hit him as hard as they possibly could while he hung in the air with one leg extended and vulnerable in his kick. He received the snap and took his step and a half forward, trying to concentrate with the Steelers bursting through all over, and as he connected and the Steelers swept up and over him he rebelled, revolted, wrenched himself from the moment, and returned forcibly to his bed, crying out, his cry waking Stupid, who slept with him now on the floor by the door, and the dog shifted in the dark and thumped the rug reassuringly with its tail, leaving Biddy to roll over and whisper for it, grateful for the thumping and not knowing what else to do at that point.

  He woke to unusually bright sunshine. Stupid was still thumping and his father was laying his jacket and pants out over his legs on the bed.

  “Let’s go, Admiral Peary,” his father said. “The expedition’s about to begin.”

  “What time is it?” he asked groggily.

  “Time to get ready. Time to hit the ginzos. Let’s go. We’re supposed to be there by noon.”

  Biddy climbed into his pants and sat at the edge of the bed, stroking the dog. Kristi went by, her mother trailing behind combing out snarls.

  “Let’s go,” his father repeated. “I polished your shoes. They’re downstairs. And comb your hair. It looks like a rat’s nest.”

  Sandy and Michael, his aunt and uncle, lived just north of Norwich on what Michael liked to call a kind of a farm. It was a new ranch house of a sort, with a garage on one end and a huge family room on the other, the whole structure spreading across the property lengthwise, with the land sloping away on both sides. Each time they visited, Sandy had a new addition to show his mother. And each time, his father said, his mother came away with a bug in her ass.

  Behind the house a fenced-in corral ran up an easy grade to trails leading into the surrounding woods. Sandy and Michael had five children, three of them girls, each of whom had a horse of her own. There were rabbits as well, and ducks and cats and dogs. All this was fairly new.

  Upon arriving at their house he said hello to everyone and slipped away in the confusion. The backyard was full: girls surrounded the captive horses and boys were slinging footballs back and forth across the uneven ground. He found himself in the den, a new addition. It resembled a ski lodge, with a pitched white ceiling supported by thick dark beams. There was a giant picture window and a new rug and sofa.

  His father came in behind him. “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “Wait’ll your mother sees this.” He smiled. “Gonna go out?”

  Biddy didn’t think so.

  “Why don’t you see what’s on, then?”

  He flipped the remote switch on the TV. He heard his father, back in the kitchen: “I saw it. It’s really something. Has Judy seen it yet?”

  The picture rose up from the dark screen and fixed itself.

  —We’ve only got a quarter, don’t you understand? What’s wrong with you?

  Abbott hustled Costello off the chair.

  —Well, a quarter. We can get something to eat.

  —Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll order a turkey sandwich and a cup of coffee, see? And I’ll give you half. But if she asks you if you want anything, you say no, I don’t care for anything.

  Biddy laughed, dropping to the rug and pulling a foot in close, crossing his legs.

  “Hey, hey, crusher.” Dom reached down, shook his hand. “The Lirianos make the scene. Mickey’s out back.”

  Biddy nodded.

  “What’ve we got goin’ here?”

  —You mean we’re going to put something over on her?

  —No, no, we’re not putting anything over on her.

  —Gonna try and slick her?

  “Click this a minute,” Dom said. “See if the game’s on.”

  He turned to a football field, pale green in the bright sun, with players milling around the sidelines, hopping up and down or high-stepping here and there. He switched back.

  —Aw, go ahead, have something.

  —Give me a turkey sandwich.

  Abbott pulled him off the chair, both of them tumbling toward the camera.

  —What did I just get through telling you?

&nbs
p; —No matter how much you coax me?

  —No matter how much I coax you. You just say you don’t want anything.

  —I’ll say I’m filled up, that’s all.

  —That’s all. We only got a quarter.

  —I ain’t, but I’ll say I am.

  —Well, say that.

  “Biddy, come on.” Dom shifted in his chair. “I don’t need to see these two for any reason.”

  “Let’s go,” an aunt called from the kitchen. “Everything’s ready. Call the kids.” They rose together, Biddy lingering to catch the end of Abbott and Costello. They left the television on.

  Five aunts and four uncles—one divorce in the family—and a sweeping majority of the twenty-seven cousins as well, entered the dining room at once. The Lirianos, friends of the family, squeezed in besides. The adults would be seated at one long table, elbow to elbow. “This is nice,” Dom said as he edged in. “Camp Lejeune.”

  The children were divided roughly into age groups along five other odd tables that spilled out into the front hall and kitchen: He stopped as he passed the main table: his aunts had suddenly moved to reveal the multitude of choices and offerings before him. Crystal and china serving dishes ringed the middle ground, clustered toward the center, supporting steaming areas of color: in the china the moist, rich green of mounded asparagus, the off-white of the cauliflower and creamed onions, the red and yellow of the manicotti; in the crystal the cool, isolated colors of black olives, cherry peppers, celery. Turnips lay beside yellow summer squash, brown gravy near the mottled stuffing. Rising from the center like an island at which these boats hoped to dock was the turkey, glistening and giving off heat and holiday smell. His mother was beside him, her hand reassuring on his hip. This was her world, not his father’s, and he touched her fingers with his own, wanting to communicate how much it meant to him. He was transfixed, and only under her gentle pressure reluctantly moved on, to unclog the aisle.

  Cousins were still streaming into the room, laughing and arguing over seats. Kristi was sitting at the farthest table with four other girls her age. Mickey sat sullenly opposite Biddy. Louis was not there; in two hours Stratford would attempt to complete its undefeated season against Milford, and the team had gone somewhere to eat together or be together, he wasn’t sure which. Cindy was having dinner with Ronnie’s parents. She cruised briefly through his thoughts and he wished she were present, though he wasn’t sure why. He thought of Laura and Sister Theresa and the spelling bee, and focused on the water glass in front of him, draining all his thoughts into it, going blank.