by Cole Alpaugh
The cries and prayers were muffled as brand new noises commenced.
The seal around Dash’s window formed a hissing gap. They were roaring across the heavens with a view only meant for angels. Daredevil angels, with helmets and parachutes in case their wings failed. The sea below was a soiled blue rug frozen in a snapshot. Monstrous oil tankers were mere fly shit specks, nothing more than granules of instant coffee left on the spoon.
Then the plane, rattling through the sky, began its harrowing descent in earnest.
The fuselage against Dash’s right shoulder billowed and crackled, making sounds that reminded him of stage hands waving sheet metal to create thunder for dismal scenes. The wall peeled away from one side of his window frame. It produced a harsh sucking noise that drowned out the screams. He put his fingers to the seam and it was as though his thumb found a powerful vacuum nozzle, its suction intense but not painful. Was it eighth grade when his buddies were goofing around after school, smoking stolen butts and bullshitting about clever ways to whack off? Dash secretly attempted the vacuum cleaner method but had gotten stuck, pubic hair ripping out, eyes watering like crazy as he fumbled for the off switch. It had been his only such attempt.
Dash glanced back at the old lady, whose head rocked side to side in an arc, right cheek then the left touching the seat. The mask was still attached to her throat, the cord a hangman’s noose. He imagined her leaning forward and executing a horror movie-style full rotation.
“We’ll be okay, ma’am, I promise.” He kept his voice calm, thumb stuck in the window seam, his own mask dangling untouched. He wanted her to like him, to need him, maybe even love him. “I’m sure this happens all the time. It’s probably a drill.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain.” It was the voice of a man maintaining aplomb while hefting a thousand pound weight, a worthy hero. “Please tighten your seatbelts. Put your knees together and feet flat on the floor. I need you to lean forward and brace for impact. God bless us all.”
“Impact?” The woman’s voice accused Dash. “You said this was a drill.”
He should have kept his mouth shut, left sturdier hands in charge of comforting the weak. The silent engines and falling elevator rush had been dead giveaways that things were going all wrong. They were dropping out of the sky like a broken kite.
“I’m sorry.”
He reached a hand across, but it was blindly swatted. The woman’s eyes were locked on the ceiling, head still moving, lips signing off on a final prayer. Obeying the captain’s orders, she lunged forward and grabbed at her bare ankles beneath the hem of her flowered dress. Dash noticed the worn carpet. It was the same blue as the attendant’s uniform, but faded where passengers’ feet had rested. There were loose threads and rust spots on screws that locked seats in place. The closer his examination, the more tattered it all appeared and the stronger his sense of doom.
The plane rolled and caused a chorus of different notes. Dash was socked in the jaw by the laptop he’d stowed with the magazines and vomit bag. He didn’t need the damn computer. He had no work, and no emails to check. What he had was photos on the hard drive to sulk over—thousands—all of him and his fiancée, who was supposed to be in the middle seat. Strike that. She’d have demanded the window, would still have her seat reclined and tray table in the down position, jabbing at the overhead service button for a fresh gin and tonic right that very goddamn second.
The spiteful thoughts made him feel like crap again. Sarah would have joined the harmony of anguish. She was just as human as the lady grabbing her ankles, despite being a treacherous, black-hearted whore.
The already dim cabin lights flickered, and there was a reek of things on fire. Not wood or paper, or even the smell of a flaming model airplane tethered to cotton string on a humid July afternoon. This odor was sharper—hot wires and melting glass—as though electronic things, maybe even his computer, had begun to smolder.
The vibrations intensified, making the screamers stutter. Some of the praying passengers remained upright, maybe not wanting to point their asses at God just yet. A few seemed to be trying to decide if they should scream or pray by doing both. Dash opened his mouth wide, but his ears blessedly popped before he could try screaming or repeating one of the prayers. It was a wonderful release, like waking from a nightmare with perfect clarity, the certainty of being safe.
The tight motion of his cushiony seat was more calming than terrifying, and he turned his attention back to the sucking window gap. It pulled at his hair, tugged at his breath.
“We’re going to die.” The voice came from down by the floor. The lady’s face was turned to Dash, her mask gone. Tears ran up into her tight gray hairdo. “We’ve sinned and the Good Lord is calling us home.”
If it were true, it wasn’t the least bit fair. It is Sarah who deserves to be falling into the ocean from above the clouds, not you and me, lady. The Good Lord should take a peek at the laptop that just whacked me. Flip through the snapshots of everlasting love. We didn’t need a million dollars in the bank, only a good hiking trail and a nice view for a picnic. Except, of course, Sarah also needed Tommy Chambers riding on top of her in my bed. In our bed. And we’re the ones being called home?
He hated himself again. It wasn’t that Sarah had changed from the girl he’d met in college. The problem was that he’d tried changing her. She was a free spirit and he was a miserable anchor whose goal in life was to weigh her down. That’s how she’d described it, and he’d believed every word. The irony of her saying it while pinned under Tommy came to him much later, as he stood in the airport check-in line next to his suitcase and backpack.
The plane rolled harder, pushing Dash onto his side, right elbow in the center of the oval framing a rapidly approaching ocean. The sound of rushing air enveloped him as the cabin continued depressurizing. His face tingled, goose bumps spreading everywhere else. The world outside was a giant vacuum cleaner, and maybe his elderly row mate wasn’t wrong. Maybe the sinners on board were about to be sucked into oblivion, some headed to the Promised Land, others going with Dash.
Maybe someone would find Cindy.
The vacuum tugged Dash’s polo shirt, grabbed it from the one nice pair of dress pants he owned. His seat belt was cinched too tight, threatened to snap ribs. He reached down and unclicked, setting himself free.
“Against the rules,” said the lady, and Dash nodded down that he knew.
He’d found Sarah in bed with Tommy, the raddest and baddest guy in all of Northwest Vermont. Man of mystery and grimy fingernails. A man’s man who would light a cigarette at the diner counter and dare anyone in the room to speak up. The word ‘contractor’ spelled with a fucking E on the side of his pickup. He should be on board this plane for that alone.
The fuselage tilted farther and Dash braced against the side of the cabin, knees on his armrest, face plastered to the wall by centrifugal force.
Fucking Tommy Chambers. Dash lost his job a week before the wedding. He’d driven home, unlocked the apartment door, and then closed it quickly so the downstairs neighbors didn’t hear the porn flick Sarah was watching with the sound cranked. He hated those movies. The men always knew the exact right thing to do. Touch here and bingo. Put a tongue there and bango. Just once he wished the woman would climb out from under the guy and call him a clumsy loser. That was how it worked in the real world.
Dash now had an uncomfortable boner as he pressed up against the window, which would have confirmed to the lady holding her ankles his capacity for sin if she hadn’t been totally absorbed in her own moment of terror. He despised every scene his memory painted for him, but they still had an effect.
“Watch a real man.” Sarah’s voice was as strained as the captain’s, equally committed.
It had been the second worst moment of his life. Finding his father in a pool of blood was still numero uno. Both made death by engine failure a cakewalk. “God bless us all,” the captain had said. Heartfelt words even to someone like Dash who bel
ieved as much in gods as he did Martians. The words were profound, all-encompassing and sincere, made you feel the speaker genuinely cared. They’d definitely play those words at the press conference.
“God bless us all,” Dash said.
“Harder,” Sarah practically shouted, laughing and bucking her hips, nearly throwing Tommy from the saddle. Yippee-ki-yay. Her laughter was the cruelest sound in the world, crueler than the cry of an airplane wing tearing free from its last bolt.
“I need you.” The cabin voice was a desperate sigh, barely audible. Whiskers stroked the mouthpiece in place of more words.
Dash pulled a hand from the fuselage wall, reached to unzip his fly. The suction from the widening gap tugged his penis, did the rest.
“You’re going to hell.” The old woman in the flowered dress sounded certain, and he was in no position to argue.
The jetliner broke the surface of the water a few seconds later.
Chapter 2
Dash sank in the froth, water rushing up his pant legs and causing his shirt to billow. His head was pinned to one shoulder by a heavy chunk of metal that pushed him deeper. He twisted his face to profit from a shrinking air cavity, breathing quick puffs. Down he slid into the darkness, the water colder, filled with objects that deflected off his legs and ass. He filled his lungs with the last of the air, raised his hands and pushed with his remaining strength. He went down feet first, kicked sideways and got free, ears aching, water pressing his sinuses. He toed off his old canvas sneakers and swam toward an orange light.
Two bodies danced. She was already topless, immodest, long hair a shocking corona. He had no hair or face, one remaining arm twisting on a thread.
Our Father in Heaven.
A girl, not quite a teen, wore a pretty dress, an unbuttoned sweater. She had no shoes or legs.
Dash broke the viscous surface, a smoldering cauldron of oil and jet fuel. Burning islands floated in every direction, reflecting their hellish light in the poisoned water. He latched onto the first object not spewing flames, not caring if it was the Devil himself; anything to keep his face out of the toxic mix. Deep breaths pulled in the searing heat, cooking him from the inside. He switched to the quick puffs women in labor did on television, climbed higher onto the demon’s spine with blind faith in the thick smoke. The creature was buoyant, the scratchy hide vaguely familiar.
The oven glowed for hours, Dash turning slow rotations, a rotisserie singeing both his sides equally. The fires eventually ate themselves and blinked out, shrinking into gray mounds and dipping beneath the surface. The debris field spread, the water spotted with swirling rainbows. He was submerged to his chest, his legs being brushed by hidden things with no interest in biting just yet. Unmerciful thirst forced a cupped hand into the littered water. He sniffed and then drank the warm, briny liquid. He was adrift in a sea of stale margaritas. Dash shifted more and guzzled a bellyful, then paused when a cramp pinched his stomach in a steel vise. A deep belch nearly knocked him from his host. The retching began and wouldn’t stop. He vomited salty water, and every last bit of mini pretzel and gristly meat the lovely flight attendant had served. Tiny fish came to say hello with eager round mouths, greedily cleaning up his mess.
Hallowed be Your name.
Up from the depths rose a human hand, a fleshy stump with manly fingers. It arrived pinky side first then righted itself just beneath the surface, luring away the hungry fish. The hand didn’t seem to belong to anyone, had struck out on its own. A dull flash showed off a gold ring.
Dash drew a painful breath. “How’s married life?”
The hand did not answer, only stood upright with its three middle pads tickling the oily surface.
“I’m going a little crazy now.”
He collapsed, leaned his cheek on a forearm, chin stirring the water. He tried his best to ignore the hand, its constant waving, the monotonous hellos or goodbyes. Thirst came back worse than before, and he couldn’t fight the impulse. He tilted forward, took noisy gulps, swallowing hard. He wiped his arm across a burned face and cold tears, braced for the spasm building deep in his gut. The pain subsided when his mind latched onto a better place, in a different time, one with a more peaceful view and better margaritas.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done ….
* * *
The music hurt his ears even after he finished chugging an icy thick margarita from a beer stein dipped in salt. The Omega Psis were rich pricks who spared no expense at party time. Live bands, top-shelf booze, a level pool table with no rips, and juicehead goons on barf detail ushering woozy partygoers to the front of the bathroom line.
One of the goons stopped Dash in the act of retrieving his coat from a second floor bedroom, stepping in front of the door, latching one giant hand to his shoulder. Sausage-like fingers from the other hand dangled in front of Dash’s face.
“Waddya see?”
“A peace sign.”
“Not what I’m lookin’ for.”
“I need my coat.” Dash tried to twist away from the hand pinching his skin.
“I think you’re an asshole.”
“You’re not alone.”
“You puke in Dicky’s room and I’ll make you eat it, asshole.”
‘Eat the room or the puke?’ Dash nearly asked before foreseeing the consequences. The goon let him pass with a wave, eyes locked on the next target, a tipsy co-ed with untied shoelaces leaning into a wall.
Beyond the door was a room that had grown two igloo-size mounds of winter outerwear, one on each twin bed. Dash chose to hunt the nearest pile, stomach churning from the goon’s power of suggestion. He peeled back layers of expensive down coats and handmade scarves, looking for signs of his Army surplus parka. Nearing the bottom, the material shifted, came alive. He unearthed a miniskirt with a tanned leg. Parting two leather jackets, he found a girl with curly blond hair wearing a t-shirt with the word CRAZY in large letters across the chest. She smelled of cinnamon gum and fruity perfume and made purring sounds in her sleep.
He put his full weight on the bed and she stirred, turning to look up through foggy eyes. Her lips parted as if to speak, but then her lids dropped and her head lolled. She began snoring. Dash couldn’t help but notice that her skirt had hitched up to expose the first shaved crotch he’d seen outside of magazines. It grinned at him sideways, and he resisted the temptation to reach down and make it talk the way he did his niece’s chubby belly.
“Hello, how are you?” he’d made his niece’s belly button say. “My name is Boo Boo.”
Dash knew the sleeping girl’s name. He’d heard the guys talk about Sarah the Fuck Machine, the school’s gold medal tramp champ. Just wind Sarah up and watch her blow. But this Sarah was quiet and lovely, and Dash knew how full of shit guys were because of all the lies he’d told personally.
Did respectable girls shave their privates? He knew for sure they tended pits and legs, but he had no experience with hair down there. The missing panties might be an indication of her habits, but he only had rumors to go by. He sure as heck never witnessed her using her mouth like a Hoover on half the basketball squad, JV included.
Her cheekbones were rounded and soft, lips thin and fragile, meant to whisper, not service athletes. It was an innocent mouth, nothing like a household appliance.
“I think you’re beautiful,” he told the lovely Sarah, whose face was nestled in black leather and silver zippers. He leaned forward and brushed golden ringlets from her forehead, trying his best to ignore her intriguing crotch with its tantalizing smile.
Again she responded, opening her eyes and then her mouth, first looking at him as though startled, and then turning away to projectile vomit across the coats he’d stacked. Dash glanced at the door, where he’d promised Godzilla there’d be no such crime. Luckily, it didn’t touch any of Dicky’s stuff, he imagined telling the goon. Not a speck hit the mattress, not a single chunk on his tasteful shag carpet. But Dash knew it wouldn’t fly.
His fingers touched her collarb
one. “It’ll be okay.”
Sarah’s head tilted back, eyes dancing over his face like a moth afraid to land. She squinted, perhaps searching for a name, or maybe his position on the basketball court. “I’m a mess,” she said, eyelids again drooping. Her breathing turned smooth and deep, and Dash lightly stroked her bare arm after flicking a wad of gum from the letter Y over her left breast. He pulled a high school varsity jacket from under his butt and used its soft cuff to dab the corners of her mouth.
“I’m sort of a mess, too,” he told the sleeping girl, then tossed the jacket onto the floor. Fuck you, Dicky. Fuck every basketball player who ever lived.
Dash then did something that would cause guilty pangs over the coming months and years, shame that would haunt his conscience late at night. He considered confessing, but there was never the right time when Sarah might understand his loneliness, might not turn and leave forever. He had betrayed her on the night they’d first met, and there would be no forgiveness if she discovered he’d maneuvered over her partially naked body, then shifted her hips. In a total breakdown of his moral self, Dash had gently touched her shaven parts with trembling fingertips.
“I love you,” Dash said, his voice quaking.
“I love you, too,” he made her labia respond. Then he turned her puffy lips into a smile and kissed them goodnight.
* * *
Dash puckered his cracked lips, tasted salt. He determined he was floating chest deep, legs prickly numb, arms folded over some kind of soggy cushion. His face throbbed, was full of needles when he pressed a cheek into his forearm. He could barely force one eye into a blurry slit. It was sunset, or maybe sunrise. An orange ball was out there, low on the horizon. His stomach was shit, abs strained as if he’d been throwing up all night. Yeah, that was it. Some part of him made sense of the situation, and relief settled in. He was in the Omega pool, experienced enough at drinking himself into oblivion that he hadn’t relinquished hold of the cushion. And while dumb enough to wind up in the deep end, he’d remained at least one beer shy of drowning.