The Mercy of Thin Air

by Ronlyn Domingue

  The arm holding the microphone belonged to a younger Amy. Her stance and expression were serious. She gritted her teeth. She was holding back a laugh.

  Another pop, and Chloe said, “As if the way he talks to people isn’t shameful enough, what would his Lord think of this?”

  Sitting on the sofa watching her past life, Amy let out a scream of laughter. The lens tightened toward the man’s pants until it was evident that he expressed disdain for his congregation in a unique—and rigid—manner.

  Several scenes followed that featured the people Chloe called the protesters. Some of them addressed the camera directly, making a case for their beliefs. A short row of Catholics on their knees in the dirt didn’t say a word. Rosaries looped through their fingers.

  The final clip was a shot of a portable tape player balanced on the high fence around the women’s clinic. Through the speakers, a baby wailed. The cry didn’t hint that she was wet, hungry, or tired. The child sounded as if someone had left her for a long time—there was no break in the tape—forcing her to beg for attention the only way she knew how. A bullhorn projected a man’s voice. “Hear this, mother! This cry is coming from your womb!”

  “That’s your own baby, you asshole.” Amy was shaking again, but now from a fury that had worked its way out of the place she buried it.

  The next few scenes were personal interviews with several women, and a couple of men. They explained why they got up at dawn to huddle in front of the clinic, breaking away in pairs throughout the morning to walk a woman—sometimes accompanied by a boyfriend or friend—from her car to the door. Their passion was no deeper than that of the people who stood on the other side of the fence calling them whores, Jezebels, and babykillers. It was an ugly business, both sides agreed, but for different reasons.

  The setting changed. Amy and Chloe, in their early twenties, sat on a green tweed sofa lumpy from two decades of use.

  “I wanted to make this tape to remember. I’m told that I’m going to turn into a Republican”—Chloe waved her hand with a series of dismissive flicks—“and that I’ll look back on all of this like any other youthful folly. Jesus, I hope not. I hope I don’t forget this shit.”

  “Speaking of Republicans,” young Amy said, “this is worth capturing. I went home last weekend, and my Grandma Sunny said she’d seen on the news that Operation Rescue is coming to Baton Rouge. She was glad to know someone was defending all those innocent babies. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, she grew up when women died from illegal abortions. I told her if these people cared so much, they could show some real charity. Then I realized my grandfather was listening at the doorway. I could hear him jingling change in his pocket. That habit was so annoying. But when I ignored him and told Grandma that it should have never become a government issue—it was too private—Poppa Fin said something about true conservatives rejecting government interference like that. I told him I wasn’t conservative, but he said we agreed in principle. Of all people, I wouldn’t have expected him to be pro-choice.”

  Chloe laughed. “You share more than the color of your eyes, then.”

  “Grandma Sunny insists that’s from her side of the family—going way back.”

  For nearly an hour, the two shared memories of their activism. When the picture turned to static, she looked for the remote control to shut it off.

  I thought of my suffragette mother, the curt public glances between her and those who opposed her point of view, the resolute look in her eyes. I remembered the faces of women who came to me, afraid, curious, asking questions that were illegal for me to answer. I thought of Mrs. Delacourt, the woman who treated me as an equal and later protected me as fiercely as a mother.

  A blurry image appeared on the screen. “Chloe, get that damn thing away from me,” said a young man with brown hair tied in a ponytail.

  Amy’s head snapped up toward the television. “Oh, my God.”

  Suddenly, the room’s air was heavy with patchouli and musty books. The young man’s face filled the television screen. He was as big as life.

  “Amy.” He looked straight ahead. “Doesn’t she know she’s capturing my soul on that contraption?”

  “What, have you switched to some weird-ass pygmy religion?” Chloe was unseen, but her voice on the recording was clear.

  His hand rose in front of his green eyes, and it blurred from focus as he pushed the lens toward a pair of Birkenstocks filled with furry man feet. “This week, I’m an Aztec. I’ll make you my first sacrifice.” The camera pulled back and up again. Amy stood in front, facing him. “I don’t have any virgins to pick from anyway.” He winked down at her and grinned mischievously.

  Amy leapt from the sofa and pushed the eject button. She grabbed the DVD and darted toward the front room. Before she reached the doorway, she stopped in her tracks and glanced at the chair in which I was sitting. Amy shook her head, buried the disc in a bookcase drawer, and ran into the bathroom.

  I STAND NAKED in front of the vanity’s mirror. I have no shame about what I see. The truth is, I’m fearless. I curl my biceps, jut out my elbows, fill my nineteen-year-old lungs until I almost look buxom. I’m in the mood to cause a spectacle today.

  As I dress, I think of my mother. Lingering Victorian prudishness didn’t stunt her obligation to prepare me for womanhood. Claire Burrat Nolan taught me the correct names of body parts and explained what would happen as I became a woman. My poor father spent plenty of time ducked behind a newspaper with one finger in his left ear and the other pressed to the side of his wingback chair. He agreed with Mother that I shouldn’t feel embarrassed about the way nature took its course. Old Barrett simply didn’t want to hear about it.

  I am the one who told the girls what was going to happen to them. I didn’t care if the boys overheard. I knew about their problems, too. Sometimes mothers found out what I said to their children, so I endured several lectures from mine about keeping my mouth shut. Showing decorum, Mother called it. I couldn’t help it, though. Between what she told me and what I read on my own, I became a little authority on subjects that make grown people blush.

  I like to see how far I can go to expose old prune-pit standards for what they are. Most of the time, I don’t make a huge scene. Instead of ordering my monthly supplies from Sears Roebuck, I go to different drugstores and ask for Kotex. I don’t bother to use the pharmacist’s silent partner, The Box. What I do is research. A girl has to know where she won’t be ashamed.

  This afternoon, when I meet Twolly outside the soda fountain several blocks from campus, she knows there is going to be special trouble. The fake wedding ring dangles on the hook of my finger. She protests—as usual—but it’s halfhearted. She doesn’t mind being a prop. The worst that could happen is that we’re kicked out and never allowed inside again. And maybe get a reputation, which Twolly needs to develop anyway.

  We order chocolate malts and roll our peepers at a drugstore cowboy who makes eyes at us. Twolly sips on her malt, waving her left hand to draw attention to the ring. He twirls away on his seat, sweeping his fashionable tie across a puddle of pineapple sauce.

  “Set it up, Twolls,” I whisper as I bring my lips around a straw.

  “God, why do I do this with you?” She is as annoyed as she is excited.

  “Because it’s fun.”

  We pretend to be deeply involved in a conversation about her husband, an appliance and radio salesman. I make sure that the pharmacist passes at least once to hear the praises of the fictional Mr. Farthingworth.

  “He’s promised to add more diamonds to my ring by the end of the year. Sales are that good.” Nervous as she is, Twolly is a convincing actress.

  “My, my, aren’t you the lucky one, Mrs. Farthingworth?”

  “I’ll say. My husband is such a dear. And so good to me.”

  The pharmacist, whose embroidered coat reads Finch, waddles by again. His rear is so pinched that he must be hiding something precious up there.

  “Are you sure you can’t get them your
self, dear?” I ask.

  She shakes her head furiously from side to side. “I cain’t imagine.”

  The pharmacist is near the register. He stretches toward a shelf as high as his dwarfish arms can reach.

  Dress smooth, lipstick dabbed away, I announce my presence behind him with a demure a-hem. Tolerant expression from him, at best.

  “Could you please bag a box of Kotex and some rubbers for me?” I feel brave. I have tried to purchase rubbers only twice before. Both times, the druggists were so mortified that I asked for such items by name that they bagged them and took my money without questioning whether Twolly or I even looked old enough to be married.

  As his color goes from rose to coral to crimson, with rage I’m sure, all sound in the store hushes like the trailing flutter of birds. “Are you married, miss?”

  “Sir, married or unmarried, all women bleed.” I smile pleasantly. Although I have been speaking softly, several people are well within hearing distance. The bell on the door dingles to announce the departure of a few weak hearts.

  Pinchy-Finchy clasps his stubby, gnawed hands on the counter. “I am referring to the prophylactics.”

  “Oh, I mean, I have no need for them.” I dart splayed fingers to my heart in mock shock. “But my friend here”—I lean close enough to count the white hairs in his mustache and whisper—“she’s too embarrassed to ask.”

  He glances at Twolly, whose hands are flat on the counter. She inspects them with great interest. The hot streak across her left cheek is bright as strawberry sauce.

  “We have a box for that,” he says.

  “But The Box and the unmentionable item are both behind the counter. She’d have to ask for the right box, wouldn’t she?”

  “One may point.”

  “Oh, I see. A rather telling gesture. Is a wink required as well?”

  After Twolly lets out a spatter giggle and a couple of loud guffaws chime in, Pinchy-Finchy realizes what I said. The corners of his mouth twitch up. His eyes widen. Then with force, his face gnarls like a peach pit. “Skin sheath or vulcanized?” That one little question earns old Finch a lifetime of respect from me, although he will never sell me anything but aspirin, soap, and Chiclets from that day forward.

  “Vulcanized. Thank you, Mr. Finch.”

  ONCE I LEARNED to maneuver through the world without a body, I felt that it was my duty to help others adjust to our translucent realm. During my first months between, I’d had no initiation, little guidance, and even less instruction. Eugenia was the only one who had any interest in teaching me how to make the most of our unusual powers. Her skill was with smell, so anything else I had to learn on my own. I didn’t want that to happen to anyone else.

  I found them all over the city, and those I eventually trained brought new ones to me. Some of them were lost, unaware of what had happened. For most, proof came through glances at their obituaries or visits to places where they were missed. If they chose to go beyond, they were taken to deathbeds and told to lean forward into people’s last breaths. That never failed to work. Like vapor, they were gone.

  The ones who stayed for instruction expected me to be dramatic and profound. Their remaining human nature was still bound to roles, perception, expectations. They wanted me to deliver the facts in the voice of a tortured poet, but our state was nothing like the fantasies they’d been told. I refused to pretend that it was.

  “May I have your attention, please?” I would tell the group. “The senses that once connected you to your physical lives have transformed. Has anyone noticed a change in his hearing? Yes? Before, when you had ears, well, made of flesh, you could hear only within a certain range of frequencies. You were limited by that physical form. But now, the rules are different. You can discern individual sounds or conversations in noisy places with little effort. You will also notice sounds in what you once thought was pure silence, or from distances you didn’t think possible. You will recognize subtleties in people’s voices. In this state, it is far easier to understand the meaning or intent of what they say.

  “On to sight. Darkness is no longer an obstacle for us. We don’t ‘see’ the way we used to. We had eyes that depended on the chemical reactions between light and our cells to see. Now, there are no such limitations. You will not experience complete darkness in this state. It simply isn’t possible because of your sensitivities. Bright light won’t affect you either. Glare coming from surfaces or glances into the sun will not make you squint as it once did.

  “Smell and taste are linked, as they were before. You can’t actually ‘taste’ in this form, but you can make a scent linger by warming or cooling the air. Smell is much more intense now because, again, you don’t have the limitations of your physical form. Scents will be much richer, sweeter, odoriferous, and pungent. The air is full of molecules, and combining them in certain configurations can reproduce particular smells. Ladies, that’s how much of your perfume was made. Now, you know, sometimes not consciously, that people have their own scents. You will be more aware of this in your new form. You will also notice that people will give you clues about what they are thinking. You can smell it. Somehow, if a person remembers a nice summer day, you may smell the hint of a sweet breeze and lemonade. That is his memory of that afternoon.”

  “What about touch?” Someone would always ask before I could admit the worst.

  “We’ll get to that,” I’d say. “I want you to pay close attention now. There are three rules. First, leave your loved ones alone. There is still something left to you that is familiar, and they can sense that. It confuses them. A rare brief visit may be acceptable, but never, never stay.

  “Second, do not linger at your grave, marked or unmarked. You will be close to your remains, the matter that you recognized as you. The physical absence will be disconcerting, at the very least.

  “Finally, do not touch. Any and all attempts will result in a desire for the tangible you cannot fulfill, and it will make you very vulnerable to your memories. Contact with the breathing—the living—can be disruptive, even dangerous. Some of you will be able to shape your energy into a shell of what you were, inside and out, but don’t let that fool you. You simply no longer have the inherent structures needed to experience touch in a way that is either familiar or satisfying.”

  “But—” one of them would protest.

  “See me later for more explanation. Questions?”

  “Are we ghosts?”

  “Call yourself whatever you want. There are plenty of other words to use.” Then I would give them the speech about the common elements between our former bodies and the air. I explained the postulate that subatomic particles remain after our bodies fail and do not dissipate into the atmosphere. The energy shared among the particles allows us our heightened senses and the power to manipulate matter. To me, that reduction made sense.

  “Are we made of ectoplasm?” another would ask. “That white goo. You’ve seen it in movies, right?”

  “Foolishness.” My tone did not invite further discussion.

  “So how come I remember everything?” One would return us to serious issues.

  “The physical structure that held your mind is gone, but what was your mind still endures,” I’d reply.

  Silence. Then, “That’s intense,” or “That’s deep,” or “That makes no sense.”

  “Other questions?”

  “What happens if we break the rules?”

  “You suffer the consequences.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’ve never felt—or inflicted—such pain.” My voice was so dark and cold that they shook into spark clusters. When I said that, I was no longer their prosaic instructor, their trusted guide through the difficult first days. I spoke a warning from experience. I knew. I remembered Donna, three years old, unclothed and alone, who wanted nothing but to be held again. I remembered Andrew—naked, stunned, bleeding, damaged.

  For those who didn’t immediately go beyond, there were more lessons. To start, matter man
ipulation.

  “All it takes is concentration,” I’d say. “When you first start, you’ll make a mess, so be careful where you practice. Look—no hands.”

  I would make a flowerpot loop-the-loop over their pointillistic heads or scoot a china cabinet across the floor right through one of them.

  “Oooh,” they said, like mesmerized children.

  A FRIGID NOVEMBER MORNING, 1926. Mrs. Delacourt and I collide in the doorway of a shoe store on Canal Street. My package falls to the ground. We have not seen each other since my high school graduation, almost a year and a half ago. Custom dictates a polite exchange of handshakes, but Mrs. Delacourt embraces me with affection. I agree to join her for luncheon at her home that very day.

  I take the streetcar because it’s warmer than walking. When I settle on the wooden seat, I realize that a blanket of static covers my skin, and my stomach is filled with sparks. How strange, after all this time. I am as thrilled to visit her today as I was when I was a curious little girl.

  I remember being among those brave and well-spoken ladies, Mrs. Delacourt the ringleader of her group of suffragettes. Silently skimming books in a corner, I listened to the strategies used to convince certain gentlemen of power that a woman’s vote could benefit all involved, from society to the gentleman’s reelection bid. They often met with little success—so many men being self-interested, narrow-minded louts, unlike your fine father, Mother would tell me. These women found encouragement in subtle victories, such as daughters-in-law realizing the rightness of this position, stacks of pennies and nickels and dimes going toward the effort.

  Mrs. Delacourt, beautiful and brilliant, was the most dangerous of them all. Jet hair exposed the Spaniards in her blood, while Norman ancestors revealed themselves in almond-shaped blue eyes. Although tall for a woman, she refused to slouch; her bosom rose high and wide beneath crossbow shoulders. Hips arched from a broad waist, proof that she had comfortably borne her children. Deceptively delicate hands cabled with muscles when she moved them about, whether she clenched a fist or held a teacup. Her voice was oboe sweet, brass-section strong.