Lobsters and Landmines

by Glen Johnson

  A message scrolled along the bottom of the television screen, announcing NYC subways and airports are closed.

  The camera view on CNN went to street level. People were running in all directions. It was complete chaos.

  Kerri watched for a glimpse of Jade, just in case she had run from the buildings.

  A camera crew was looking up with the southern tower in the distance. Both were pouring forth smoke and flames.

  Then the unimaginable happened.

  Kerri’s eyes were fixed on the screen, when suddenly the southern tower started to tumble down onto itself less than an hour after being hit.

  The person holding the camera could be heard crying and screaming, repeating over and over, between sobbing, “Oh my God! Oh my God! NO! NO!” His voice was heart rendering, filled with sorrow and utter sadness.

  Weeks later Kerri could still hear the man’s voice in her head.

  This couldn’t be happening; Kerri’s mind was screaming. She was shouting into the phone. She could hear Jade’s high-pitched panicked cries, and then it sounded like the phone was dropped. Kerri could hear it being kicked along the ground by panicked feet, accompanied by frantic crying and loud screaming. Then a thunderous crashing sound echoed down the line. Then the line went dead.

  On the television, the tower was flattened, taking eleven long seconds to collapse. Huge plumes of greasy grey smoke poured high into the atmosphere, and rolled across the ground covering everything in concrete dust and fragments, looking like a great grey sandstorm washing across the city.

  Kerri sat in silence, holding the phone in her shaking grip. She could feel the very building she sat in shake from the towering building’s impact. Rather than look out the window, her eyes were glued to the screen.

  The reporter holding the camera was still screaming, and then he turned and ran as the cloud of debris and dust headed towards his location.

  Kerri sat dumbfounded and in utter shock. Her best friend was right under the collapsed building.

  Kerri just stared at the scene being repeated over and over from different angles. She was numb and her mind was blank, with tears blurring her vision.

  She hadn’t even realized she had moved off the couch and was knelt in front of the TV.

  What seemed like minutes later, but was, in fact, twenty-nine minutes, the second tower started to compress down upon itself, one floor after another, flattening down like a huge pack of steel cards. More smoke and debris were pouring high into the already smoke and dust laden air.

  My God no! Her mind screamed, repeating the camera operator’s very words.

  Kerri’s eyes could not blink. Tears ran like streams down her cheeks. She held the silent phone in her hand. It rang, making her jump.

  Jade?

  Was Jade still alive after all that? Maybe she started running straight away and found cover?

  She looked at the number on the little LCD screen. It was Jade’s mother thinking that Jade was spending the day with Kerri, as she always did on her days off.

  Kerri ignored the ringing and dropped the phone, which clattered to the floor. The images of the fallen towers playing repeatedly on the screen. Voices of the presenters screaming in disbelief at all the unimaginable amount of death they were witnessing.

  The phone must have hit a button, because Kerri could hear Jade’s mothers voice talking down the line. As she went unanswered, her voice became pleading and started crying for someone to answer – dispel her fears.

  Kerri gripped the television on both sides, and pressed a wet, tear-covered cheek against the cold screen. Closing her eyes, she said a silent prayer for her lost best friend.

  -5-

  Best for the Job

  But some [man] will say, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?” 1 Corinthians 15:35

  Jenny Anna Clark was excited.

  It is about time something went right; she thought to herself, while buttoning up her thin white blouse. She picked up her purse from the chair and thanked the doctor for his time. She left with a genuine smile on her face for the first time in months.

  It’s good to know I’m in perfect health.

  At twenty-seven, she still had her teenage body. At six foot two, she was tall and lithe. She had long blonde hair down to her shoulders, which constantly made her stand out, and a grace that her mother said came from her bloodline, whatever that meant? Her breasts are a little too large for her body. She had even contemplated having a reduction, but she knew that they were a ticket sometimes, helping her out of situations or as her mother said, “If you have it, flaunt it!”

  Jenny was glad the medical checkup went well. Doctor Pérez had stated she had a clean bill of health, and would pass the good news along.

  Jenny knew it wouldn’t be easy when she made the life-changing decision, but love makes people do crazy things; she thought at the time.

  Her mother once stated, “Life never is for someone trying to live in another country,” when she talks to her on the long-distance phone calls – their once a week tradition.

  At first, it was amazing, the new scenery, new people, and a new language to learn. Everything was exciting and fresh. However, like everything, it soon became mundane; you can only marvel at the scenery for so long before it becomes just what’s around you.

  Jenny’s husband to be, Luciano Souza, turned out to be like all the other guys she had ever dated. He seemed so exotic and so masculine when she first met him back in England. Luciano worked in his grandfather’s Brazilian restaurant in London’s chic west end. He was the manager and came out every time she was there with her friends. His stylish, fitted suits, with perfect bleached collars, with that amazing full, white smile, and taut coco coloured skin and dense curly black hair; he looked like he belonged on the cover of a magazine.

  And my God, that accent!

  One thing led to another, and they ended up as a couple.

  At the time, she was an airhostess. “Hostess with the mostess,” her mother always said when she came down the stairs in her flight uniform, with her carry-on bag. She used to have the London to New York route, one of the best she used to think, mainly because that is what all the other airhostesses used to say. They used to tease her, asking whom she had slept with to get that route.

  Jenny made her way out of the small private Profissionais de Saúde Medical Center, out onto Rua Dos Miosotis, in the city of Cuiabá, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. It was so hot and sticky. After living in the cold west end of London, she could never get used to the sticky heat, even after two years.

  Luciano had proposed to her only eight months later – and most of that time she had been working away. He was then called back to Brazil because of his dying grandfather. Once his granddad passed away, his father took on the roll of running the restaurant empire that comprised of over four hundred restaurants on four continents. Luciano was asked to stay to help shoulder the burden. He took Jenny with him, his prize “British, blonde-haired bombshell,” he called her.

  There was no way Jenny could keep her airhostess job, not with living over six thousand miles away.

  Luciano said she didn’t need to work; he earned enough for them both. However, she didn’t want to be a ‘kept woman,’ that just wasn’t her style.

  Jenny’s father had left when she was two years old, and her mother raised her on her own. Her mother never complained, and never asked for anything in return. It was the hardest thing she had ever done, leaving behind her mother. However, if all things went according to plan, then her mother would be moving out to join her in three months.

  Cuiabá’s Marechal Rondon International Airport was small compared to London’s vast Heathrow Airport, and there simply were no jobs going with any of the small airlines that operated there, when she had gone to inquire. Most flights were continental, with only a few international.

  All that had changed though last week, when she had heard about an airhostess job going with a small unheard of air
line, called Maravilhoso Aéreas.

  Small companies popped up all the time in this part of the world, with less stringent laws and safety regulations. Most disappeared after a year or so. A few turned into profitable companies. She hoped this would be one of them, and she could get her foot on the first rung of the ladder.

  She waited at the side of the road for an ônibus, but decided not to bother waiting for a bus and started walking. It was a lovely day. Then again, everyday was lovely. It sort of took the joy out of the good days, when they were all the same. The temperature hit home at Christmas when all the decorations were up, with fake snow melting on the windows in the thirty-degree sunshine, and men walking around sweating to death in their Santa suits.

  It wasn’t too long a walk to their apartment. There was a small ice cream shop on the way that had the strangest of flavors, which took her British palate a while to get used to. Her favorite at the moment is passion fruit with honey and rosemary. She was yet to try the cheese-flavored ice cream.

  Jenny was a little concerned though when it came to safety on these small airlines. Brazil was a large country, covered in jungle and swampland, and numerous planes simply disappeared yearly, with no explanation or recovery. Especially the smaller planes.

  Over the last year alone, there had been a spate of four missing planes. All of them were small turboprop airplanes, each carrying about twenty people, which simply vanished. No wreckage or bodies were recovered.

  The plane Maravilhoso Aéreas was starting up with was an old British HS748, a medium-range turboprop airliner designed in the 1950s to replace the DC3s – she had found out through Google. It could seat fifty-eight, along with the pilot and copilot and two-flight crew.

  Once she was cleared through a stringent medical, more rigorous than she had ever been put through before, she would be called in for some refresher training. The company owner was impressed with her credentials and said having a British airhostess would give his company that little extra wow factor.

  She had never been called a wow factor before, and she like Mr. Dias, with his small stature and quick smile, and he had pleasant, soft hands when he shook hers. He looked about fifty and seemed to know what he was talking about. It gave her confidence that the business would survive.

  However, there was something in his eyes, and the way he held her hand; it felt like he was stroking her skin.

  Just my nerves – imagining things.

  With ice cream in hand, she leisurely walked along past The Church of Our Lady of ‘Bom Despacho.’ A vast church built in the 1920s. Its tall imposing cream stone exterior loomed over her as she looked up at the stained glass window of Nossa Senhora – Our Lady, the Virgin Mary.

  Jenny stood contemplating life as she studied the coloured glass. She hoped the job worked out, because she would like to stay, and she was looking for a good reason to, because lately Luciano was giving her mixed signals.

  She checked her watch: 3:17 PM. The lunchtime rush hour would have passed. She stood pondering whether she should go see Luciano at work, in his family’s original flagship restaurant.

  No. Best head home. He will be busy setting up for the nighttime rush.

  She hardly ever saw him since she had emigrated here. He was up at 6 AM to check the deliveries and didn’t leave until past midnight. He stumbled home, showered, and went straight to bed. The only day he had off was Sunday, and Sunday was family day, so she had to share him with over twenty others at his family’s vast ancestral home, on the outskirts of Cuiabá. Even then, he seemed to be on the phone half the time, checking the restaurant was surviving without him.

  When they had first moved over, they lived in the huge, sprawling Souza house. It was complete madness, everyone in everyone else’s business. They all ate together for breakfast, lunch, and supper. Well, the females did; all the males were off at the family restaurant.

  Jenny soon got tired of all the gossip and backstabbing with the Souza females and insisted they got their own place. Six months ago, they did. Then she realized just how lonely she was, with Luciano always working. That is why she was looking forward to working again, and not in the restaurant, that just wasn’t her thing. She had tried it, but it was so hectic.

  Just as Jenny was leaving The Church of Our Lady’s plaza, her mobile started to ring. She rarely got calls on her mobile. She had no friends, and Luciano hadn’t phoned her, to chat during the day, in months.

  It was an unlisted number.

  “Está lá,” Jenny said, the way Brazilians answered the phone. Brazil is the only Portuguese speaking country in Latin America.

  “Senhorita Clark?” The voice asked in thick Brazilian Portuguese. It then swapped to English. “Miss. Clark?”

  “Yes,” Jenny answered, considering the person was talking in English.

  “Miss. Clark, it’s Mr. Dias.” He let that hang in the air, waiting for the penny to drop.

  “Sorry! Hello Mr. Dias. Haha, sorry I wasn’t expecting a call so soon. And from you of all people!” She was flustered and knew she was ranting. She clapped her mouth shut so she didn’t spurt more rubbish, until he spoke again.

  “I’m just calling to congratulate you. You have the job if you want it, Miss. Clark.” He remained silent, letting the news sink in.

  “Wow! Really! Jesus! Oh, shit! Sorry, I didn’t mean to blaspheme.” Jenny knew how serious the Brazilians took their religion.

  “That’s amazing news thank you.” She slapped her forehead. Jesus I am an idiot!

  “No need to apologize, Miss. Clark. Will you be available to start tomorrow, for a little refresher training and our first maiden run?”

  Jesus, tomorrow! Flying again!

  “Yes! Yes of course. That would be great.” Jenny’s head was spinning; it was all happening so fast.

  “Great! We are at hanger seventeen, obviously at Marechal Rondon International Airport. Go to the Green Gate and state your name, a pass will be ready for you.”

  “Thank you Mr. Dias, I will not let you down.” Jenny stood stock still, on the corner of the street; head lowered so she didn’t miss a single word Mr. Dias said.

  He gave the hanger number again and hung up.

  Jenny pulled a small notepad from her purse and wrote the information down. She had a terrible memory, and she would run over conversations repeatedly, and she would get confused as to what was said and unsaid, hence she now wrote important information down.

  She ignored the impulse to whoop aloud, punch the air, and shout Lindo maravilhoso, which meant amazing in Brazilian Portuguese.

  With a big smile on her face, she headed to the restaurant to tell her fiancée the good news.

  *

  The restaurant still had late lunchers splattered around the main dinning area, with a few outside in the baking sun under large yellow umbrellas. The clinking of utensils on china rattled throughout the restaurant, along with the white noise of conversations and laughter.

  Luciano looked like he was shouting at a kitchen helper by the kitchens swinging door, but that was just the way Brazilians talked to each other. It took her a while – when she first arrived in the country – to realize everyone wasn’t fighting all the time.

  “Boa tarde! Como vai?” Cassia Cavalcanti, the Maitre d’ – and Lucano’s second cousin – said as Jenny strolled in.

  “Obrigada!” Jenny answered. She had always liked Cassia, and if Cassia didn’t work every hour sent, they may have become good friends. Cassia was just as tall as Jenny, and just as strikingly thin and well shaped, but with jet-black long, curly hair down past her shoulders.

  Cassia swapped to English. “He won’t be a minute; he’s just sorting Paulo out.”

  Paulo was also a distant cousin.

  “Thanks Cassia.”

  Jenny walked to the bar that was against the wall to the right of the main eating area.

  “Boa tarde! Como vai?” Silvio – Luciano’s younger brother – asked.

  “Obrigada!” Jenny said again
, as Silvio slid a cold, freshly squeezed lemonade across the mahogany bar top.

  “Bored?” Silvio asked in English. He knew her all too well.

  Jenny was amazed when she first arrived as to how many people spoke English. She had been here two years and had picked up most of the dialect, but that was only because she had to. The probability of most Brazilians going to an English-speaking country was remote, yet a large majority still spoke it.

  When most of Luciano’s family spoke to her, it was in English, so they could practice.

  “I was, but not anymore. I got the job!” she said as she took a refreshing sip of the tangy drink, while awaiting Silvio’s response.

  “Parabens meu amigo!” He stopped wiping the bar down and seemed to gaze into space. “I mean, congratulations my friend!”

  “Very good!” Jenny smiled.

  “You will be so not bored I believe from now on. Yes?”

  “Yes!” She loved the fact that Silvio couldn’t get the words in the right order.

  “Something stronger. Yes!” Silvio went to reach for the gin, Jenny’s poison of choice.

  She had always liked Silvio, with his easy smile and down to earth character. Nothing seemed to worry or upset him. Sometimes she wished it was Silvio she was marrying.

  “No, no! The lemonade is fine, thank you Silvio.”

  Silvio gave a lopsided grin and wandered off to prepare some drinks for a customer, singing while doing so.

  “Is everything okay?” Luciano asked from behind her.

  Jenny slipped off the seat, spun around and gave her fiancée a hug.

  “What’s wrong? What’s the problem?” Luciano had pushed her away and held her at arm’s length, while studying her face. He had a scowl on his.

  “Why does there have to be a problem for me to come and see you at work?”

  His face screwed up in confusion. “Then why are you here?”

  “Can’t a woman visit her man?” She said teasing.

  Luciano seemed to relax a little. “You scared me then. I thought something was wrong.” He pulled her back in for a longer hug.