Sophomores

by Sean Desmond

  Anne turned away from them. “Wait . . . quiet.”

  “And here she comes!”

  And then the baby was there on the TV. Her head and fragile body tied to a spine board. Her eyes were open. Not frightened. Aware.

  “Live and direct from Midland, Texas, Jessica McClure is up. She is alive. What a fighter.”

  And Anne pushed away from the table and began to weep. Her husband and son looked at each other, astonished, as she ran down the hall to the bedroom, sobbing.

  [ OCTOBER 19 ]

  Like the crusaders’ fortress in Acre, the American offices on the east concourse of Love Field were a besieged relic from the airline wars of the 1970s. Back then, Love Field was the gateway to Dallas, but American, Delta, and Braniff didn’t want to contend with the peanut fares of scrappy upstarts the likes of Southwest and Texas Air. So with the help of future House Speaker Jim Wright, the big carriers made two moves. First, they transformed eighteen thousand acres of pasture west of the city into an international airport the size of Manhattan: DFW. Second, they lobbied the FAA and prevailed in limiting Love Field traffic to Texas and bordering states. Keep that pissant Herb Kelleher in his chicken coop, shuttling abuelas to El Paso and college kids to Harlingen. This was the gospel according to Bob Crandall.

  Still, American maintained skeleton operations out of Love Field—a couple of gates for regional flights at the end of Braniff’s now-defunct Terminal of the Future and a handful of offices. It was a rubber room for a slew of HR challenges—from senior management with pending litigation against the company, to reservationists who were deaf or had customer Tourette’s, to mechanics suspected of workman’s comp fraud—and Pat Malone was the lucky AMR executive who made the semiannual visit to this island of misfit toys.

  Sitting in Gene Petzinger’s office, Pat looked down at the operations roster and shook his head. How has it escaped this long? The cuts are coming. One more downturn and good night. Pat smiled at Gene, who did not smile back.

  “What’s the news out of Irving?” Gene asked.

  “You’re not missing any Disney parades. Our fearless leader continues to march us forward.”

  Picking at a dust mote on the desk blotter, Gene tried not to grimace at the mention of Bob Crandall, the man who had exiled him to this post. Gene was officially the Love Field operations manager, but Pat noticed the calendar hadn’t been turned since September. It was a Potemkin office, they both knew, and both didn’t really care. Why does the Pharaoh Crandall keep all of this on life support? Pat shivered. There but for the grace of God go I . . .

  “You guys geared up for the holidays?” Gene asked.

  Pat flicked at the garnet in his Fordham class ring and stretched out his stiff left leg. “They say they are. Fuel is cheap. Ridership up. But when is it enough?”

  “Never enough.”

  “What’s the latest news on Love Airline?”

  “Southwest’s still running cattle cars to Lubbock and the like. Nineteen-dollar weekend fares. No seat assignments.”

  “No class.”

  “Exactly. Like a Greyhound bus.”

  “They’re a knockoff. Loehmann’s; we’re Macy’s.”

  “Come again?”

  Pat blinked and realized Gene was a native. “Sorry, we’re Dillard’s. They’re . . . uh . . . whatever the hell . . . Kmart.”

  “Roger that. They put butts in those seats though. Every flight to Hobby goes full.”

  Pat nodded. “True, but their whole plane goes for what we get out of two seats in first class. And they make their pilots clean the cabin.”

  “Ten-minute turnarounds. They squeeze every penny out of those 737s.”

  Pat didn’t have the heart to go into the Sabre reports that made clear what a moribund toehold the Love Field operation had become. I could have written this up from Irving. If folks want to fly Kelleher’s cheapo airline, so be it. I’ve just got to hold on, make it another five years to get Dan through school. Pat stood—behind Gene was a picture of LBJ taking the oath next to a despairing Jackie. MS or not, I can still make five years and retire early on disability. Pat then looked out the tinted windows of the office at runway 13L, smeared black with skid marks, and wondered where Air Force One had been parked during that dreadful moment. Pat noticed a 727 with a government tail number taxiing to the private hangar.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Let me see.” Gene checked the tower manifest. “Chairman of the Fed coming to town. Greenspan.”

  “Great name for the guy in charge of all the money.”

  Gene stayed wearily well mannered. “I appreciate the visit, Pat.”

  “Well, it’s on my way home.”

  What good is a company that always casts off its own people? Pat shook Gene’s hand and kept this futile thought to himself. He didn’t give a shit about Love Field. No one did. And he wasn’t headed home or back to AMR this afternoon. He was headed to the bar.

  * * *

  Happy Landings was the last remaining dive bar on this stretch of Lemmon Avenue near Love Field. It catered to the airport crowd and wasn’t full of overflow from the drug motels and peep shows on Harry Hines Boulevard. The bar was A/C permafrosted and dark—well suited to the afternoon drinker. Pat strolled in around two p.m. and no one looked up. George Strait leaked out of a distant speaker, and a white fluorescent gloom fell over the pool table, the rest of the bar lit by neon signs and slivers of reality peeking under purple curtains. A few model airplanes hanging in approach over the corners of the bar were all that was left of the go-go seventies, when Happy Landings had been the unofficial departure lounge for all the fresh, young air geishas and cabin jockeys to points hot tubbed and coked out. Pat parked under a B-25 replica with the shark’s mouth bristling across the nose. He hunkered down on a black pleather stool across from two old Braniff girls who looked laid over for good.

  “Chicken Little kind of day?” It was the owner and bartender, Steve Miller. Not that Steve Miller, just a good ole boy in a striped off-blue cowboy shirt and jeans belted by a big-ass buckle made of two silver arrows. The one pointed up read: the man; the one pointing down decreed: the legend.

  “Work sucks, but I’m working on it.”

  “Work is for jerks. One and one?”

  Out came a Miller Lite and a Jameson on the rocks. Pat shuddered as he took a long pull of whiskey through the red swizzle straw. That first sip painted all the corners as it ran down his throat into the pit of an empty stomach.

  “What do you say, Pat?” Steve Miller put a foot of ostrich leather up on his beer fridge.

  “Got my wife’s dumb-ass brother-in-law in town.”

  “Aw shit. The not quite family.”

  “Exactly. And he’s a fuckin’ Fed.”

  “Based around here?”

  “No, DC now.”

  “What branch of the Fed?”

  “G-man.” Pat pulled on the Miller Lite and swallowed a burp. “Don’t ask me how that happened—can’t find his ass with two hands.”

  Steve Miller cackled and refilled both tall and small. The first of several rounds as Pat read the paper and got lost in his cups, so it was some time before Pat looked up at CNN, playing on the corner TV. The volume was turned down—but there was a reporter on the NYSE floor and something coming across the crawl.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Sky is falling.” Steve Miller was working on a crossword and didn’t look up. “Market crashed today.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Dow Jones in the toilet.”

  “How bad?”

  “Last I saw, it was down four hundred points. More than Black Thursday.”

  “Shit.” Pat reached into his jacket, looking for his beeper. He patted down all his pockets. “Let me settle up with you.”

  Pat threw money on the bar and hustled out to h
is Cougar. He found the beeper on the passenger seat. The office had tried him four times. Fuck. Pat walked to the 7-Eleven at the end of the strip mall and threw a quarter in the pay phone. He had had two beers and four whiskies, but he shook off the buzz. He called Shapiro, director of personnel and his immediate boss.

  “Les, just got your page.”

  “Where the fuck are you, Malone? I called Love Field and Gene said you were out of there two hours ago.”

  “Sorry, I left his office but was still on site—wanted to go through the personnel files without getting him all in a twist.”

  “Market tanked and people are freaking out.”

  “Want me to come back?”

  “Nah, no good now. The market just closed. You might have missed the start of the next Depression. We’re down seventeen percent. Not as bad as United, down twenty-two percent. I think we survived the day, but it was a bloodbath. IBM down twenty-three percent, US Steel close to forty, Kodak gutted.”

  “Shit.” The Malones owned both IBM and Kodak stock.

  “Where the fuck are you? They think it’s going to be worse than ’29. They had to stop trading on half the blue chips.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “The phones are ringing off the hook—the pension fund took a major hit, and if tomorrow is like this, we’re gonna have problems. I can’t have you going MIA, Malone.”

  “I swear to you . . .” An eighteen-wheeler on Lemmon roared by. “I didn’t get the page until now.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause. Shapiro knows. “Where are you, Pat?”

  “I pulled over at a 7-Eleven on my way home.” Shit. He isn’t buying this. Think, Malone.

  “I paged you four times. We’re lucky Crandall hasn’t called for all hands on deck. Probably too busy planning chapter eleven.”

  “Listen, Les . . .” Pat’s left leg buckled as he shifted his weight. “I didn’t want to say anything, but after Love Field I went to Medical City. I had an appointment with the neurologist about the MS, and I left the beeper in the car.”

  “Right, okay, sorry, Pat.”

  “It’s no excuse. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  “Christ, Pat, now I feel bad. It’s just that we’re bailing water over here. Everyone thinks this might take us under.”

  “Understood. You sure I shouldn’t come back to Irving?”

  “Don’t bother, seriously.” Les sounded like he was about to cry. “Go home and stuff cash in the mattress. That’s about all we got left to do.”

  The call ended, and Pat threw up next to the pay phone.

  * * *

  A black Crown Vic sat in the driveway as Pat pulled up on Crown Shore. Jack Hurley already making himself at home. Pat parked, hiccupped through a series of calming breaths, and tried to stretch out his legs so as not to limp. He walked in the door to a “There he is,” which instantly negated all his self-soothing and brought back his brown mood. It was six o’clock, neither early nor late, but Pat was still half-drunk enough to be ornery.

  Special Agent Hurley was perched on a sofa in the formal living room—the Malone museum of furniture that no one, except honored guests and heads of state, ever sat in. Leaning into the back of a chair, Pat reached across and shook his wife’s brother-in-law’s hand. The good news was he was slightly fatter and balder. Hurley put down the Manhattan Anne had made him on a cork coaster and tried to grind Pat’s knuckles with his grip.

  “Paddy boy. How’s life in the boondocks?” Jack was wearing a blazer and dark trousers, a blue shirt with white collar and cuffs, suspenders, and an empty shoulder holster that Pat was certain was all for show. Jack loosened his vise. “When are you guys coming back to civilization? You’re a long way from St. Jerome’s, pal.”

  Pat grinned like an idiot at this—How has no one shot this guy yet?—and then scanned the house. Anne was working on some sort of barbecue chicken in the kitchen. Dan sat quietly on the far chair in the living room, chewing through potato chips and French onion dip while keeping Agent Hurley company. Jack took off his jacket and returned to sprawling over the good sofa. Built like an ox, Jack had played right tackle for Frank Leahy at South Bend, which he reminded people of every five goddamn minutes.

  “Paddy, I haven’t been down this way since we came to whip those boys at Southern Methodist. Played them at the Cotton Bowl. Had to clear the cattle off the field before the game.” Jack slapped at Dan’s knee to punctuate his corniness.

  “Nice to see you, Jackie,” Pat said. “You good on drinks?”

  Jack rattled his ice. “I won’t lie: this could use a sequel. Look how big your son has gotten—Danny boy, where are you going to go to college?”

  Dan shrugged. “Notre Dame, I guess.”

  “There you go! Good answer, Dan the man.” Jack then rolled up his sleeve to show Dan his tattoo of Clashmore Mike, the Irish terrier that had been the ND mascot before the leprechaun.

  Annoyed, Pat put down his briefcase in the hall and shuffled toward the alcohol. “He’s still just a sophomore.”

  As Jack made the terrier bark on his twitching forearm, Dan blurted, “I also like Princeton.”

  Jack fell back as if concussed. “That Protestant school? Jesus, Patrick—talk to your boy.”

  “Stop, Jackie,” Anne called out from the kitchen. “Nothing wrong with the Ivy League.”

  “I work for Princeton grads, Annie. It’s a first-class school, full of goo-goos who have no clue what’s going on out there.”

  “Well it was good enough for Einstein . . . ,” Dan offered.

  “Yeah, Jack.” Pat cracked an ice tray over two cocktail glasses. “And Bill Bradley!”

  “I can tell I’ve lost you people to the heathens out here.” Jackie rolled away Clashmore Mike but left his cuff undone. “Cheers, Paddy,” he said, accepting the fresh Manhattan Pat handed him. “The house looks good.”

  Even Jack’s benign compliments sounded like slights to Pat as he returned to sitting on the uncomfortable living room furniture.

  “What brings you to town?”

  Jack’s eyes went wide like Sergeant Schultz’s, and he replied, “I vill tell you nothing!” Followed by a big honking laugh, like a seal or a walrus. Jesus. “Seriously, I’m part of a task force. These S & Ls, Paddy . . .”

  “We got out a year ago.”

  “Good. Stay away from it. Let me tell you, after today with the market, they’re all going belly-up. Bunch of crooks pretending to be George Bailey.”

  Pat felt nauseous again thinking about the market. Bourbon on top of scotch isn’t helping either. “Yeah, we went to withdraw a ninety-day CD at Vernon and Anne practically had to sit in for it.”

  “Good for you, Annie. That guy at Vernon is in hock so deep we can’t even count it.” Jack turned to Dan, who was sipping ginger ale. “Danny boy, neither a borrower nor a lender be. Right, buddy?”

  Another barking laugh. Anne put out more potato chips, along with a wine-stained cheese spread and Wheatsworth crackers. Pat studied the miniature machete that came with the cheese plate. Fucking hors d’oeuvres as the economy goes belly-up.

  “Anne girl, what do you say? Still teaching?”

  “Trying to. A little at Dan’s old grade school. How’s my sister?”

  “She’s good. Getting a bit of that arthritis your mother had. Pat, I noticed you’re limping around. What happened to you?”

  The Malones shared quick glances, and Pat took the lead. “Sore from jogging. I think this knee is going on me.”

  Dan took his father’s lie for granted. It was understood that they didn’t tell people he was sick. Nobody’s business, his father declared, not even family. His father had told him about the MS, but that was about all Dan knew. If he’s not that sick, Dan mulled, why does he hide it from people? Why does he hide it from me?

  “Getting old, folks.” Jack shook
his head as he took another big gulp of his Manhattan. “Age is supposed to bring wisdom, but I think in my case it came alone. How’s everything at American, Pat?”

  “We survived the day.”

  “Crazy business, airlines.” Jack Hurley had lots of opinions based on what no one else knew. “I told you when you came out of Fordham to go the government route.”

  “You did.” Pat was getting annoyed again. Five more years—AMR might not last five more weeks.

  “I’m going to just grill these inside,” Anne called out from the kitchen. “By the time we get the hibachi going outside, it’ll be too dark. What did they say at work about the market?”

  Pat guzzled the last of his Manhattan. Keep it civilized.

  “I was out at Love Field all day. When I called in, people were panicked about pensions. It looks like aviation didn’t get the worst of it.”

  Jack ran his fat fingers across his scalp. “My buddies over at Treasury knew this was coming six months ago. Told me to get out, which I did, thank you, Jesus.”

  “It’ll bounce back.” Pat looked over at Dan, who registered no concern, other than about which Ruffles chip to eat next.

  “It’s all going down the toilet. Your carrier might make it through the week, but when folks are down forty percent off their nest egg and don’t have money to vacation with—you’ll feel it by Christmas, that’s for sure. There’s only one employer that never has a downturn.”

  Jesus Christ, someone please knock this guy off his high horse. But Pat was too drunk and tired to debate him. “Uncle Sam?”

  “Law enforcement.” Jack joined Dan at the potato chip bowl. “Crime never goes out of business, Danny boy. You always have bad guys. I tried to tell your dad this years ago—tried to get him in at the FTC or IRS. Unlike the airlines, once they regulate, they ain’t gonna deregulate. Listen to me now, Einstein, before you run off to Princeton.”

  “Want another, Agent Hurley?” Pat asked.

  “Sure, Dean Martin, I’ll join you for a small one.” Jack snorted and gave an in-cahoots wink to Dan, who forced a smile.