Flights of Angels

by Ellen Gilchrist

  I threw a dime into the pool by the dolphin and made a wish for world peace. Then I went back into the hotel and called the Realtor and told her to come and save me.

  Down at the Dollhouse

  When Mrs. Woods-Landry left the house that morning she had no idea she was going to die. She was eighty-nine years old and still driving and she intended to keep on driving. Not that anyone had said she should stop driving. She was eighty-nine years old in fine health and without a crooked bone, which is more than could be said for most of the patrons of the Dollhouse, in Woodland Hills Shopping Center. The Dollhouse had been fixing the hair and nails and toenails of the ladies of Jackson, Mississippi, for forty years and Joseph, the proprietor, was certainly not going to stop now just because it was forty years since he was the hot new hair-dresser from the Delta and the darling of the Junior League. He had been fixing their hair for forty years and he was going to keep on fixing their hair no matter how old they became.

  “I can’t believe you drive all the way over to Woodland Hills by yourself,” Mrs. Woods-Landry’s daughter said to her when she came to visit. “I can’t believe you get out on the highway.”

  “Well, I’m certainly not going to be taken.” Mrs. Woods-Landry put on the face that she reserved for her daughter. There was no one else in the world for whom Mrs. Woods-Landry had to be mean. But her daughter, Donna, was mean and the only way to protect yourself in her presence was to be mean. “Why say such a mean thing, Donna? No one ever questions my driving to get my hair done.”

  “I just think you should get a driver if you’re going to get out on the highway.”

  “I’m doing everything I can. When I can’t go in anymore, Joseph will come to me. He has promised me on his honor. We share a birthday, as you might remember.”

  “We could get someone to drive you.”

  “No, I’ll go under my own steam or not at all. I’ve seen too many people die in there.”

  “Someone died at the Dollhouse? My God, what a way to go.”

  “Donna! Not like that. I mean, come in more and more weakened and unable to walk. I don’t want to be remembered like that.”

  That had been several weeks before. Mrs. Woods-Landry had a good sense of humor. After Donna left and went back to her home in Kansas, Mrs. Woods-Landry mused upon it. Would one die under the dryer? That would be ignominious. While getting a manicure? The hand would loosen, drop, the girl would gasp, the body would fall. What a mess that would be. Or would it be in Joseph’s chair, with the hair all in place, every hair combed and styled until it was perfect?

  On the last day, Mrs. Woods-Landry got into her Oldsmobile and backed carefully out of her driveway. Not that there were any children in the neighborhood anymore, but still, a dog or bird or squirrel might be there, not to mention trying to miss the mailbox.

  She drove down the tree-lined street and out onto Meadowbrook and down and across it to the highway and up the ramp and drove carefully along at fifty miles an hour in the slow lane and turned off and went up a ramp and over and arrived at Woodland Hills with ten minutes to spare. She got out of the car and locked the door and walked past the drugstore and the antiques store and into the door of the Dollhouse. There were ladies in every chair. Ladies she had played bridge with, ladies she had known in altar guild, in the Junior League, ladies she had gone to All Saint’s with when she was young, ladies she had known in the Delta, in Cleveland and Greenville and Clarksdale and Rosedale and Itta Bena. Ladies who had sat by her in classes at the University of Mississippi. There was not a lady in the Dollhouse who had ever had a bad word to say about Mrs. Woods-Landry or who could think of a bad thing to say about her under oath. She was a good person, in thought, word, and deed. For eighty-nine years she had walked the ground of the state of Mississippi and done no harm to a soul. She liked gay people and she liked women Episcopal ministers and she was not a racist and had never been. Her grandparents had been pioneers from the state of Pennsylvania and come to Mississippi after the Civil War and taught their children to love their fellowmen.

  Mrs. Woods-Landry walked past the chairs and back to the hair-washing stands and a black girl washed her hair and received three dollars in return and then Joseph put her in his chair and began to do her hair.

  “What do you hear from Donna?” he asked. He liked Mrs. Woods-Landry’s mean daughter, Donna, and thought she was funny.

  “Not much. She gets into moods where she won’t call us.”

  “Is she still mad at your husband from the last time she was here?”

  “They have always argued. I can’t remember a time when they weren’t yelling at each other.” Mrs. Woods-Landry laughed, then she started giggling and Joseph giggled too.

  “I want to swoop this front up a little bit,” he said. “I want this just a little higher over here.”

  “All right, as long as I can comb it out if I don’t like it.”

  “She always combs it out,” he announced to whoever was listening. “She thinks I don’t know that.”

  “Darling girl.” A lady got up from one of the dryers and walked over to Mrs. Woods-Landry’s chair and took her hand. “It’s Rebecca Garth from Rosedale. You remember me.”

  “My darling one.” Mrs. Woods-Landry squeezed the hand that was in her own. “She was my little sister at Oxford, Joseph. This darling girl.”

  “I had to come up for some tests,” Rebecca said. “I have them all tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed.”

  Mrs. Woods-Landry crossed the fingers on both hands. A young girl came up behind them and was introduced. She was Rebecca’s granddaughter. “I’m going to the drugstore to get Grandmother a sandwich,” she said. “Please let me bring you one. She’s so glad to see you.”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Woods-Landry said. The girl smiled as if in answer to a prayer and later, when she returned from the drugstore with the sack, she came over to Mrs. Woods-Landry and whispered in her ear. “Grandmother is very sick. It’s very bad. We are worried to death about her. So good of you to stay and eat with us. Come on back to the tables when you finish.” Joseph stood with his comb poised. Mrs. Woods-Landry sat up very straight and let him finish her hair-do. It looked wonderful. It was the best comb-out she had had in months.

  “Thank you, angel,” she said to him and put ten dollars underneath the rollers. “Well, let’s go and see about Rebecca.” She went back to the manicure room where there was a long table the clients and hairdressers used when they ordered food in or got sandwiches from the drugstore. No one was seated except her old friend Rebecca and the granddaughter.

  “I’m sure I’ll pass all the tests with flying colors,” Rebecca said and handed Mrs. Woods-Landry a lovely little toasted tuna fish sandwich cut into fourths. Mrs. Woods-Landry ate the sandwich. They gossiped and recalled old times and held hands.

  “I have to go on home when I finish this,” Mrs. Woods-Landry said. “James needs me. He is practically blind now but still nice. I’m lucky to have him.”

  “I lost Carlton, but you know that.”

  “I know you did, my darling angel. I’m so glad I got to see you. Be sure and call tomorrow afternoon and tell me about the tests. I’ll be praying for you, thinking about you. Don’t forget to call.” She looked deep into her friend’s eyes, refusing to add her to the names of the dead. Maybe prayer will work, she decided. There are always miracles. They happen every day. She leaned down and kissed the darling woman who had been her darling girl a million years before in another world.

  “How did we get so old?” Rebecca asked. “How did this happen to us?”

  “How did we get to live so long and have Joseph do our hair?” Mrs. Woods-Landry answered. “How was I lucky enough to have you running into my room every morning in your bloomers and silk stockings. It’s not over, Rebecca, just because we have to keep having tests made. Don’t be afraid. I’m right across town and I’ll be waiting for your call.” As she talked she remembered a dorm room at Ole Miss and Rebecca coming in to borrow thread to men
d her stockings and the birds outside in the oak trees singing their morning songs and coffee waiting in the cafeteria when drinking coffee was dangerous and sophisticated and the in thing to do. It seemed as if a long yellow ribbon of light led from the present to that past and farther back and back and back.

  “You have been a light unto us all,” Rebecca said. “I don’t mind going in. We have to patch and mend and take what we have. At least we’re all in it together.”

  Mrs. Woods-Landry gave her the secret Chi Omega handshake and they started laughing and had to bow their heads to keep from choking with delight. “We are not going to die,” Mrs. Woods-Landry whispered in her friend’s ear when they had stopped laughing. “We aren’t going to get off that easy, I fear.”

  Rebecca touched her cheek against Mrs. Woods-Landry’s cheek. “Precious Celia,” she said. “You have always been the queen of joy.”

  “Let me walk you to your car,” the granddaughter said, as Mrs. Woods-Landry began to move away.

  “Nonsense. I’m fine. I can still get around, thank the Lord for that. Next year will be soon enough for being helped.”

  “I’ll be here to do it. You can call me any time.” The granddaughter stood to the side and watched the beautiful old woman begin her progress through the salon to the door.

  Mrs. Woods-Landry knew she was being watched and so of course she held her shoulders back and walked with majesty. She walked past the chairs of women whom she liked and knew. Goodbye, she said to every one. How nice to see you. What a pleasure to see you today.

  She walked out into the parking lot and unlocked her car. She got into the driver’s seat and resisted the impulse to pull down the sun visor and look at her hair in the mirror. Instead, she picked up a little zippered purse that was lying on the passenger’s seat. It contained all the fingernail scissors she had collected the night before from around the house. She was planning on taking it to the Singer Sewing Center to have the scissors sharpened. She studied it. It was very old and stained, but her granddaughter had given it to her many years before and she treasured it. She studied the small faded paisley design. Such a darling granddaughter. Such a treasure, going out and choosing this for her at such a tender age. How old had she been then? Seventy perhaps, and Little Margaret had been five or six. Mrs. Woods-Landry held the small purse in her hand. Then she laid her head down on the steering wheel and fell asleep. The sun was very hot and sweet coming in the windows of the car. It warmed her head and shoulders and her hands. It sank down into her hair. She could smell the hair spray Joseph had sprayed on her hair. The sun was like a great caress, a dawning prayer, a benediction and a blessing. I must remember to pray for Rebecca, Mrs. Woods-Landry almost had time to think.

  She did not wake up.

  The Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor

  This is really about how Kelly got a new boyfriend but it is also about why you should register to vote and vote in every election even if you don’t know which one is the worst liar and scoundrel and thief. If you don’t vote, somebody else will. If you don’t have a say in what happens, you might wake up one day and find an experimental fast breeder reactor going up in your backyard and it’s too late to stop it. I live in a town where thirty years ago when the whole town was dirt broke and scratching for a living the politicians who run things came in here and let a bunch of electric power companies and the West German government build a breeder reactor and use it to test whether it would blow up. This is exactly one mile from the Fall Creek cemetery where two of my father’s uncles who were shot down in the Second World War are buried beside their parents and grandparents. I don’t hate Germans or anybody else. Some of my ancestors are Germans. I’m just saying that in 1964, when the Second World War was hardly over, they let the West German government come into Strickler, Arkansas, and build a reactor to see if the Doppler effect would cool it down if it got too hot. It contained plutonium oxide. One-thousandth of a gram of plutonium oxide will kill a human being within hours. One-millionth of a gram will cause cancer in a few years. This is not speculation. These are facts. The other thing about plutonium oxide is that it is a very active sort of powder. It moves around in a sprightly dance. It clings to things. Inside our reactor it was mixed with uranium. At one time at least half a ton of plutonium oxide was inside a building right here in Strickler, Arkansas.

  The reason I’m so interested in this right now is that I ended up on the roof of the reactor for two and a half hours. And then I went inside. I was on the roof for two hours and ten minutes and inside for fifteen minutes. I keep thinking about that plutonium oxide and wondering if some of it might still have been there. I keep thinking of all the places it could have found to hide, the bark of trees, the tar on the roof, the dust on the walls, the shelves, the glove boxes in the wall.

  This happened in December. My boyfriend, Euland Redfern, and my cousin Kelly Nobles and myself were sitting around one Saturday morning freezing to death because it was twenty degrees outside and Daddy still won’t turn the heat pump up above sixty-five and Momma said she thought we ought to go out to Evane’s Hardware Store and buy some insulation for the doors.

  “Come on,” Euland said. “We’ve been sitting around all morning. Let’s go get something done.” Kelly got up off the couch and giggled and started putting on her hiking boots. I was already on my feet. I don’t watch TV. I hate it. I think it’s ruined everybody’s minds.

  “I want to go up to Devil’s Den and hike over to the old reactor,” Kelly said. “You promised you’d go walking with me if I came over.”

  “We will,” I answered. “As soon as we go to the store and get this stuff for Momma.”

  We all live in Strickler, which is near West Fork, which is just south of Fayetteville. All our families have lived there for ages. I guess my daddy would have moved to West Fork to be near the schools but then G.E. came in and built the reactor and that made work for all the contractors in town. Daddy paved the roads from town to the site. He made eighty thousand dollars that year, which is what built us the new house and dug the well and put money in the savings account. His brother sold the concrete for the silo. His older brother is the principal of the West Fork High School, which got the new gym paid for by the taxes G.E. paid. Now the university has to pay them.

  Nobody in West Fork or Strickler is mad about SEFOR even if it is just sitting there and Uncle Rafe says the concrete is okay but the metal is probably starting to deteriorate. Plus the liquid sodium they used to cool it will catch fire in water and they ought to get the government to come in and take it apart and get it out of here.

  “It would make a really good tornado shelter if they just kept the outside,” Momma always says. She hates to waste anything. That’s the way she was raised.

  So as soon as Euland and Kelly and I got the insulation we went straight to Devil’s Den and decided to hike to the reactor and back. We are all babying Kelly because her boyfriend quit liking her. He’s going out with a girl in Fayetteville who works at the university. I never did think he was good enough for her to begin with but I see why she liked him. He is a really good-looking man, and sexy. He looks a lot like Alan Jackson, who is Kelly’s favorite singer. Sort of a cross between Alan Jackson and Don Johnson. There was no way he was going to stay with Kelly after she gained all that weight last year. I told her to go on a diet but she wouldn’t do it. She is so stubborn it’s unbelievable, just like all the Nobleses.

  Now she has decided to walk six miles a day until some of the weight comes off. I’m not going to be the one to tell her it won’t do any good if she doesn’t stop sitting in front of the television set eating snacks.

  Devil’s Den is our park. People come from all over northwest Arkansas to walk around it and be in nature. It has a waterfall and nature trails and is a good place to go if you’re feeling sad or just want to remember you are on the earth. Euland and I have made love all over the place there, in tents, at night and in the daytime, and once in the car outside the visitors’
center on a Christmas afternoon. It is never hard to get Euland and me to go to Devil’s Den. We have such good memories of it.

  “One thing about going to Devil’s Den in the winter is you don’t have to worry about chiggers,” I said. We were in Euland’s truck with the package of insulation on the floor.

  “Are you sure we can get from the trails to the reactor site?” Euland said. “I think we’d have to cross Lee Creek to do that. I’m not in the mood to spend all day tramping around somebody’s pasture.”

  “You just have to cross Fall Creek and it’s dry as a bone right now. Then we’re on university land. They don’t care if someone walks over there to look at SEFOR. It isn’t even fenced in until you get to the building.”

  “Why are you so interested in SEFOR all of a sudden?” Euland asked. “It’s been there all our lives.”

  “Because there was an article in the paper so I looked it up one day when I had some time on my hands.” Kelly works at the Fayetteville Public Library. She’s been there a year, the longest she has ever stayed at a job. “These guys that built it were using it to do experiments to see if it would blow up. They thought they could start it up and cool it down but they weren’t sure. For three years, when all of us were babies, they were right over there mixing uranium and plutonium together and seeing if they could cool down the nuclear reaction fast enough to keep it from exploding.” She leaned toward us and there was this look on her face I have never seen before, like maybe she had actually forgotten for a minute about her boyfriend and buying makeup at the Wal-Mart and watching television and charging things to her charge card. “They were releasing this plume of heat into the air above our pastures where our cattle feed and inside of it was God knows what. That’s what that long pipe sticking up is for. That’s where the steam came out. When they build a reactor now that pipe has to be six hundred feet above the ground. The one at SEFOR was a hundred feet. So why do you think they built this little experimental breeder reactor in the middle of nowhere in a pasture outside of Strickler, Arkansas? Because our politicians let them. Governor Faubus let them and Senator Fulbright let them, too, the senator who has everything in Fayetteville named for himself. I’ve been thinking about calling up 60 Minutes or 20/20 and telling them to come down and do an investigative report on it.”