Among the Dead

by Michael Tolkin

  The cop looked at him in the rear-view mirror. ‘Burning to death.’

  ‘I used to be afraid of drowning. But I guess that’s kind of a psychological thing, the great mother, the ocean.’ As usual, his voice rose almost to form a question, to invite the cop to join the party of his view of things.

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I don’t cover the harbour.’

  ‘But people drown in swimming pools.’

  ‘Very few. Hot tubs sometimes, but usually they pass out from drugs and alcohol, and have a heart attack after soaking in the hot water for hours.’

  ‘You’ve seen that?’

  ‘It happens. Not so much any more. People know the dangers.’

  This was another cheap discussion, and Frank stopped it. What had he meant to say? What did he want to know from this policeman, the second black man to drive him tonight?

  At the police station he was taken to a room where he was fingerprinted, and then his picture was taken, full-face and profile. Then he called Lowell, who came to the station and posted his bail. Lowell tried to get them to drop the charges, but now that Frank had been arrested, only a judge could do that.

  ‘My brother just went through the worst experience of his life,’ said Lowell. And the dead? Lowell posted the bail, ten thousand dollars, and Frank was free.

  Outside the police station, Lowell smacked Frank on the arm, an old gesture. ‘Let’s go home.’

  ‘No,’ said Frank. ‘I want to go to the hotel.’

  ‘Which hotel?’

  ‘Whichever hotel the airline has, the hotel they’re putting the survivors in.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I want to be with all the other families. I need to be.’

  ‘No, you need to be in my house, in your bedroom in my house. I’m your family. Not the others.’

  ‘But I need to know what’s going on.’

  ‘Frank, please. Come home with me.’

  ‘No, Lowell. I want to go to the hotel. I have to find Bettina Welch. She may have more information.’

  ‘Listen to me. I don’t know if you can hear me, but listen to me. You’ve gone through a terrible trauma. You can’t be left alone. I have to be with you. No one expects you to behave in any way other than the way you’re behaving now.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  ‘I don’t want to get into this.’

  ‘Into what?’

  ‘You shouldn’t have taken the train. You should have driven down with me. You shouldn’t have gone to the crash site. You should have been with me, or with Mom and Dad.’

  ‘But I had to see the crash site. And I had to take the train alone. I had to be alone for a little while. And now I want you to take me to the hotel.’

  ‘OK,’ said Lowell, without enthusiasm. Frank felt the pointlessness of checking into a hotel at 1 in the morning; no one would be awake to take care of him, but at breakfast he could find Bettina. What would he ask her? Anything.

  In the car, Lowell called a number that the airline had given him. The Flight 221 Hot Line. A man answered. Lowell told him who he was, who he was related to, and the man told them to go to a Marriott, near the airport.

  When they got there, Bettina Welch was in a small conference room with a hand-lettered posterboard sign on the door that said ‘OPERATIONS CENTER’.

  ‘Frank, oh Frank,’ she said. ‘What were you thinking?’ Of all the things she might have said, this seemed to be the most perfect, the best expression of the corporation’s union with her. What else could she have said? It was reprimand but not condemnation. To assume friendship and still be impersonal!

  ‘I just wanted to ...’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘Of course, who wouldn’t?’

  Lowell put a hand on Frank’s shoulder. ‘OK Frank, I’m going home. I’ll be back in the morning.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Frank. But he didn’t care about Lowell coming back. What difference would it make? He was tired of everyone’s compassion.

  Two women were at a table with phones. Did they work for the airline, or for the hotel?

  Lowell walked away. Bettina Welch called the hotel’s front desk. She identified herself, and then explained that she had another guest with her. Then she thanked someone, and put the phone down. ‘I’ve got a nice room for you upstairs. It has a view of the bay.’

  ‘That would be nice,’ said Frank.

  ‘And anything else you want, remember that the airline is here to help you. I’m here to help you. And if I’m not here, you can speak to Kelly or Chris.’ And then she introduced him to the two women at the desk.

  ‘But you won’t need them,’ said Bettina, ‘because I’m always available.’

  How many times today had she said all of this? Two days ago, in Los Angeles, there had been something fresh about her little speeches; even though they were written, she had not yet wrapped her mouth around each word a hundred times. But now the show had been on the road for too long.

  Someone led Frank to a room on the ninth floor. He opened the curtain and turned off the lights, and looked at the bayside traffic in this city he hated. How many places in the world are as pointless as this? How many people are this pointless? Do I have a point? he asked himself. What was lost in the crash? Who was lost? What was lost beside the predictability of a set of lives? Someone assuring someone else of a certain amount of time spent in some semblance of dedication to the other. We know each other, and we will probably continue to know each other. And money, that too, always. I make money, and we share it, and so we will have money together. And now death, and the threat of no money. And what else? Love? Well, who wouldn’t be thrilled, after such a spectacular, divinely decreed divorce, by all the possibilities? I am thrilled, thought Frank, with what I can now do with my life. He looked at boats in the harbour, the lights on top of the masts of the sailing boats at the marina next to the hotel. I can go to islands now, with women who are better-looking than my wife.

  It was a bad hotel room. He wanted to check his answering machine at home, and when he tried to carry the phone from the side table to the bed, the cord’s short line caught him by surprise, and the phone crashed to the floor. When he took a shower, the steam rose to the bathroom’s low ceiling, and after a few minutes the condensation fell back on his head in large, cold drops. And the water temperature was hard to adjust. He used a hand towel on the floor instead of the shower mat. The hand towel had no grip, did not absorb, was too thin, too light, and when he stepped out of the shower, he slipped and had to catch the toilet for balance. Then he saw the bath mat, folded on the towel rack. He dropped the mat on the floor, but it fell on the other towel, and he had to bend down to move them both, and he didn’t like getting his hands wet with the water on the floor, because it brought up old piss that had settled into the grout. He washed his hands again in the sink and then dried them on the remaining bath towel. Next to the sink was a little tray stocked with soap, a shower cap, a small sewing kit (needle, thread, a few buttons), and a small toothbrush and toothpaste. The sink, too shallow for the strong water pressure, became a fountain, splashing on to the counter, staining these little, what, not gifts, they’re paid for, these little ... things. But they’re nice to have, the conditioner, the lotion. The things of the hotel. He brushed his teeth and wished he had some floss. He would have made his gums bleed tonight, he would have liked that, the pain, and the next day, his gums tender, and swollen, not so much that anyone but a dentist would notice, and yet enough for him to feel them, enough to warrant an aspirin he would not take.

  When he called home for his messages, the machine picked up on the first ring, which meant that there had been calls, but when the cycle shifted to rewind, he heard a few clicks, but no messages in reverse.

  The outgoing message on the tape, Anna. ‘Hi, this is the Gale home. We’re not in now. Leave a message at the sound of the tone, and we’ll get back to you when we can.’ We. Madeleine, in the background, singing. And anyone calling would think about the word, that ‘We�
�. Maybe I will leave the tape unchanged, thought Frank, just to bother whoever calls me.

  When the machine started from the beginning of the tape, there were blank spaces, and then the long tone meaning that the messages were finished. A few people had called, but left no messages. The living checking the dead, of course. To hear the voice, knowing that Anna, and the little girl trilling away behind her, were dead.

  He went to bed and turned off the lights. Amazing, to feel so unglued, just by sleeping in a hotel room alone. In the dark he stroked his penis a few times, but let it go. He wondered if Bettina Welch would understand the freedom his grief gave him. Why jack off, when he could fuck a whore, or rape someone? Not rape, not really, he thought, but then, yes, he supposed so, the fantasy was there. Bettina Welch in a stairwell. Fuck her bloody and leave her in the basement. But not to die, only to forgive him, to understand, because she would understand. It might wake her up, though. No, she would cry. She would PRESS CHARGES. She WOULD FEEL VIOLATED. She would learn that it was NOT A SEXUAL CRIME, but A CRIME OF VIOLENCE. But then she might forgive him if she considered that, to be so violent, HE MUST HAVE BEEN TREATED VIOLENTLY AS A CHILD, HE MUST HAVE BEEN BEATEN AND RAPED HIMSELF. And the man who blew up the plane? HE MUST HAVE BEEN BLOWN UP AS A CHILD. His father must have put a hose up his ass and pumped air into him until his intestines ruptured. And so he must have pursued a crisis in his life that would JUSTIFY ACTING OUT his scenarios of distension. Or he could pump air into Bettina’s ass with his own lungs? Was that the sort of thing homosexuals do with each other? Rimming. A tongue in the middle of the face that can’t talk back. Someone wears the right colour handkerchief in the pocket of choice, and someone else knows that he likes his ass sucked in a certain way. He played with his penis as he thought about Bettina’s ass. Was Bettina wearing something that told people who knew how to read such things that she liked to have a man play with her nipples while lightly circling her asshole with his pinkie? Was there something in the way that Frank dressed, or in the way he spoke, or held his shoulders, or his arms, or in the way he polished or did not polish his shoes, or arranged his clothes in his closet, that signalled to the attentive world that he did not, in fact, have any particular fantasy at all? That he was dull, or dull to those whose fantasies were involved, specific, bold. Did hard muscles, tight clothes and an obsession with fashion bring someone closer to ecstasy? The gold chain on Bettina’s ankle: there was someone in the world who saw her when the bracelet was all she wore. He felt the shadow of a tall man, with a big American face, someone with ambition but little discipline, and the voice of someone on the radio, late-night disc jockey on an oldies station, someone who lived in utopia. He lives with Bettina, and they talk sometimes of marriage. What if the three of them went to bed together? Would that bring back his wife and daughter? If he fucked Bettina’s boyfriend while he fucked Bettina, on the grave of his family, would that help turn back the clock? But there never was a saint who altered time. A demoniac ritual, all of the impulses, larger impulses than mass murder and terrorism. Fuck them all! That’s what they say. Fuck ’em all! And to do that? To really fuck them all? Every one of them, in every hole, happy, angry.

  And Mary Sifka, well, yes, with Mary he was almost a good fuck. She liked him. She wanted him. But that had taken a little time, for both of them. And if Mary loved him, and also loved her husband, did she ever want to fuck them both, fuck them all? Which one of them would get her ass first? Or her mouth while the other one fucked her? Would she suck Frank while her husband fucked her ass? Or would the husband claim seigneurial rights, and dictate to Frank what he could and could not do? You can drink her piss, but she won’t drink yours. Yes, the yellow handkerchiefs that homosexuals used to wear, golden showers, actually to sit on a toilet in a bar, an open stall in a bathroom with five seats in a row, your pants around your ankles, your dick in hand, trying to come, while strangers line up to piss their beery piss into your mouth. Frank had never been to that kind of party. But once he knew about these bars, he couldn’t look at a crowded room without wondering, Would you? Do you? And Lowell, how far down was that creature of abandon, how close were the memories, or the anticipations, of licking someone’s butt in a men’s room? Was the pressure of such impulses the force that stopped the talk at dinner tables? Look at a not-too-crowded party, everyone posed about the room, and the boredom over it all, the exhaustion that makes each word a screaming effort. All that food, something to keep the teeth busy, away from skin.

  Or murders too. Let’s fuck each other, and bring down an airplane! Come on, guys, let’s pee! Could he fuck Mary Sifka and then have her husband lick her juices off his stick? Frank wondered if people thought like this a thousand years ago, or fifty years ago, or twenty years ago, or was it new?

  His brain spinning away, Frank fell asleep. His dreams were a continuation of his last conscious thoughts. He had never known this before, that he could watch himself dreaming. How could he call himself asleep, if he knew that he was dreaming? On any other night these dreadful images would have catapulted him awake, and he would have grabbed his wife, and told her about the nightmare. But this was not a nightmare, this was meditation. Bodies falling around him, a dark street with the houses burned, a ride in a police car, the conductor on the train. There was nothing hidden behind a screen, nothing repressed. And there was no fear.

  He lay in this hypnogogia for a few hours, until the sun came up. At seven in the morning, he called Mary Sifka at home. He needed to talk to her, to tell her that he was alive.

  Her husband answered, as Frank thought he might, but they had never spoken, and what was so odd about early calls to a woman who worked?

  ‘Is Mrs Sifka there?’ Frank asked.

  ‘She’s in the shower,’ said her husband, which seemed like a piggish thing to say, giving a stranger permission to think about water running down his wife’s naked body.

  ‘I’ll call her at work. This is the New York office calling, Ed Welch, I’m about to tell the printers to go ahead on the spring proposal, and I need to check some last-minute figures with her.’ He hoped this sounded reasonable, and dull. Doesn’t everyone have to deal with a spring proposal?

  Mary’s husband turned away from the phone, and Frank heard him call to his wife, that there was a phone call for her, from the New York office. ‘One second,’ he said. Frank supposed she was getting the phone in another room.

  She picked it up, and said ‘Hello?’ and then the husband put the receiver down. They were alone.

  ‘I know I shouldn’t call you at home.’

  As soon as he said this, she screamed. ‘Oh, God, I thought you were dead.’

  ‘I missed the plane.’

  ‘Your name was listed in the paper this morning. You’re listed among the dead.’

  ‘Well, here I am.’

  She started to cry, and then her husband came into the room. Frank heard him. Muffled, ‘Honey, what’s wrong?’

  Is that all to say? What else?

  She hung up. What was she telling him right now? Why did I call? I should have had someone else call. My voice, I was a ghost to her.

  He felt a smile growing. This is fun, he thought. This is actually quite amazing. This will be legend. Who else can I scare? He got out of bed and went to the door, to see if the hotel had left a courtesy copy of the newspaper outside. They had, but not the Los Angeles Times, only the stupid local paper. The crash was the only news on the front page, with four pictures; the largest was an aerial view of the burned-out blocks, and the other two were of children crying at the neighbourhood’s high school, because a favourite teacher had been killed. The third was titled ‘CRASH INVESTIGATORS SEARCHING THROUGH THE RUBBLE’. The fourth picture was of Lonnie Walter, the former airline employee suspected of causing the crash. The photograph had been taken when he had been given his job for the airline. Frank could tell nothing from his expression. He wore a white shirt and a tie, but no jacket. He was forty-five. The article said that little was known abou
t his background, beyond a few dates. He had been born in Texas, and the family had moved to Los Angeles when he was seven. He was divorced. He had a son. And he had been fired by the airline a few days before the crash, by Nick Burdett, an operations supervisor who was on his way to Acapulco to a meeting there at the airline’s aircraft-maintenance centre. Walter had left a note at home, for his ex-wife, telling her that he was never coming back. Well, that was true. Frank could not connect the man’s face, or his story, to the death of his family. He closed the door and looked for the list of the dead.

  The airline, or the newspaper, divided the dead into categories under three headings. The first heading was ‘passengers’. The second heading was ‘FLIGHT CREW’. The third heading was ‘on the ground’. The paper cautioned readers that the lists were incomplete. The flight crew list separated the ‘Cockpit Crew’, the pilot and first and second officers, from the ‘Cabin Crew’. Frank could further break the passenger list down by nationality, since a third of the names were Mexican. The rest were tourists or people going to Mexico for business, but that distinction was harder to read. He could separate all single men from the list and assume they were on business, perhaps all single men over forty. How many fifty-year-old men would go to Mexico for a vacation by themselves? But then, how many of them were attached to women whose last names they did not share? For example, Anna, who had kept her maiden name, was separated from Frank on the list.

  Between Fogel, Mark and Gallegos, Luisa B. were:

  Gale, Frank

  Gale, Madeleine

  Then, down the list, between Levy, Lawrence and Keith, Darnelle was Klauber, Anna. Someone reading the list with an eye towards solving the puzzle of the relationships would assume that Gale, Frank and Klauber, Anna were strangers to each other. If that breakfast-table detective tried to dissect the list for all the single men and women, to stack them together again in couples, he might put Levy, Lawrence with Klauber, Anna, but it was also possible that he would create for himself an Anna Klauber heading for Mexico to drink margaritas at lunch and fuck the cabana boys. He would follow this Anna down in flames to the ground, thinking of her underpants, her bathing suit, her vagina.