Separate Flights

by Andre Dubus

  ‘Jo, I can’t cross the lawn. It looked huge, it looked like Nebraska. I took a step. Or two of them. I had the bourbon and I had the car key in my hand. I couldn’t get down the steps.’

  ‘You want me to come get you?’

  ‘You can’t leave your kids.’

  ‘I could leave them for just a minute.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you want me to?’

  ‘I want to be able to move. Look, I feel better now.’ He looks around his room at things he has bought, things which every day tell him he’s at home. They seem to be telling him that now. The room is a place he can depart from, Jo’s voice on the phone is a person he can go to. He is uncorking the bottle. ‘I think I can make it.’ he says, and swallows as she says, ‘I’ll get a fire going. We’ll have hot toddies. It’ll be nice, Peter.’

  Clutching the bottle in one hand, keys dangling from the other, he goes down the hall. He is whistling before he realizes he is. He is whistling ‘Summertime.’ In the foyer he closes the apartment door behind him, in that closed dark space the demons are so near that he wants to make some sound, not a scream or sob of terror, but a growl, a shout, a sharp command, so they will know they are still dealing with a man in possession of—He is out of the foyer, he is on the porch, and he shuts the door behind him and looks at the dark and minatory sky over dark, whitesplotched rooftops; across the street the common is white and smooth; black evergreens rise from it, they are tall and wide, they obscure the sky, they become the horizon until he looks past them at the white church tower with a light in the very top of its steeple, it is nearly a white light in the open, unglassed windows, up where the bell is. Beyond it the sky is without stars. He looks down at his own silent white lawn, and he crosses the porch and is on the top step and without breaking stride he is on the second step and then the walk itself, he is moving, he reaches the sidewalk that parallels the street and he turns right and reaches the corner where there is a streetlight.

  He looks to his left-front, lifts his eyes to the light of the steeple, scans the peaceful snow of the common, and then abruptly turns right and is looking down a dark street and sidewalk; as he moves forward he leaves the streetlight behind him, he is passing his living room and now he approaches his bedroom window, but he keeps his eyes fixed on the dark sidewalk before him, he sees that and the huge stump that was a tree until the telephone lines came, he sees the shadowed snow piled between the sidewalk and the apartment and, in his vision to the front and in the corner of his left eye, the dark road. There is no more wind here than there was at the front of the apartment, there is no wind at all tonight, but on this sidewalk he is colder, his breath is fast as though he were walking briskly for miles; only a few feet ahead of him is the corner of the building, he will go past that to the driveway and then turn and walk up it and open the door to the garage and then get into his car—He stops. For a second (and in that second his fear stops the clock, he stands within the circle of a pause that threatens to hold him) he knows he cannot go forward but he also believes he cannot retrace his steps, cannot reach the corner he has left, believes he will stand immobile holding a whiskey bottle and car keys until someone comes to save him.

  Then he is turning, he is heading fast back to the corner, too relieved to feel shame or failure, the streetlight is waiting, now the door, then he is in his warm hall and he goes directly to the kitchen. He takes off his gloves and makes a drink. He goes to the bedroom, drops his coat to the floor, and turns on the radio. Judy Collins is singing, plaintive and sweet. He sits on the bed, drinks twice, drinks again, then he calls Jo. She does not say hello. She says: ‘I’ll come get you.’

  ‘Wait. Every time you say that I think I can make it. Last time I almost got to the driveway, I got as far as the kitchen. Look: hold on, will you? I’ll just go take a look outside and see how things are. Will you just hold a minute?’

  ‘I’ll hold. The fire is going. I’m looking at the fire.’

  ‘What do you have on?’

  ‘My nightgown and a robe. They’re both pink. My feet are bare. They were cold but now they’re warm by the fire.’

  ‘Are you drinking?’

  ‘A little brandy with coffee.’

  ‘Coffee? You’ll never sleep.’

  ‘I need to wake up some. You woke me from what they call a drugged sleep. And I just smoked my last cigarette. And you know how coffee and brandy make you want to smoke. So you have to get out of the house so you can bring me some cigarettes. There are all-night service stations with machines.’

  Her voice is warm and cheerful, perhaps amused. He knows the game she is playing with him, but he needs it and it seems to be working. He imagines himself in his car, driving.

  ‘I have some here,’ he says. ‘I’ll bring those.’

  ‘Good. Go see how things look outside.’

  ‘Here I go,’ he says, and drops the phone to his pillow, not all the way from his ear but lowering it first to a gentle height; he feels he must treat the phone as though Jo were in it. As he goes down the hall past the children’s paintings (he averts his eyes from Kathi’s happy sun and happy dog and her own happy face at the window in Colorado) he knows he won’t make it. The hall itself is too long, already there is too much distance from his bedroom, the only place tonight where he can be, and what will happen if he lets himself be driven there and that room too becomes untenable? He pictures himself huddled on the bed while demons crawl the floor. He looks out the front door, but does not cross the threshold, he does not even take his hand from the doorknob, his look outside is hasty and as he sees the white lawn and dark street with its dirty snowbanks and the swath of yellow sand under the streetlight, the full dark pines and hemlocks, the stripped oaks and maples and elms of the common, and the lighted steeple beyond, he is seeing himself facing the alone and cold passage down the side of his apartment to the garage in the rear, and he is turning away and pulling the door shut behind him. Walking back down the hall he drinks and he drinks again before lifting Jo from his pillow.

  ‘Things are bad out there,’ he says. He sits on the bed and looks around him. ‘Things are pretty bad in here too, they’re coming with bugles. I feel like I’m in the Chosin Reservoir.’

  ‘Peter: listen. Put your drink down.’

  ‘Jesus.’ He puts it down.

  ‘Do you have your coat on?’

  He looks at it on the floor, shakes his head, then says, ‘No.’

  ‘All right. Where is it?’

  ‘It’s on the floor. Right here.’

  ‘Leave it there. Leave the drink on the table. Do you have your car keys?’

  ‘They’re in my pocket.’

  ‘Take them out and hold them.’ To do this he must stand up. He stands and reaches into his pocket and brings out the keys. He lets the other keys fall to the bottom of the ring and holds the ignition key at the ready. ‘Now go outside as fast as you can. Don’t shut your door behind you. Don’t look to the left or the right. Don’t wear gloves or a coat. If you stop you’ll be cold. You’ll be cold anyway. Get in the car and start it and drive it back to your door. Then leave the engine running and come back here and get your coat and tell me you’re on your way. You woke me up and now I’m awake till breakfast and I want those cigarettes and I want to see you. Now go.’

  The actor in him is dead but by no means buried and he mutters huskily into the phone, ‘All right, baby,’ drops the phone, and surrenders to a long glance at the drink on the table but doesn’t touch it. He gets a trotting start down the hall and through the foyer, leaves the front door open so light and warmth follow him outside like mute, tactile cheers. He makes it down the walk and turns and walks as fast as he can and when he reaches the corner he is shivering with cold. He turns and heads into the dark, eyes on the sidewalk; as he passes his dark living room he feels its emptiness, but as he passes the bedroom he feels Jo in there on the pillow, she is a wing man in a World War II movie, he is blinded by his shattered cockpit, she is talking
him back to the carrier, she is seeing him as he passes the last bedroom window and now the lone kitchen window and he has gone farther than before.

  His fingers are stiff and he jams them in his pockets, the right hand still clutching the key, and he has passed the rear corner of the building, he is approaching the driveway, with a sense of victory he turns and goes up the driveway, he knows there are two trials still ahead: stepping into the garage and then getting into the car. But he has momentum and he believes he can make it, his boots are crunching on the packed snow of the driveway, to his right is the dark rising bulk of the building where others sleep, the garage is white before him, the closed door is waiting for his hand. He is there and his cold hand closes on the black handle and he pushes upward, it is good to use his arm and shoulder, to deal with something as direct and physical as thrusting a garage door upward. The door goes up on its rollers and disappears above him. He knows better than to pause. He moves quickly into the dark garage, his teeth are chattering as he slides behind the wheel of the Volvo, his shivering fingers miss the ignition slot, then he finds it and inserts and turns and the engine starts as he notices (wise Jo, she must have gone crazy a few times) that the chill in his back is so severe that it has overwhelmed the other chill he would have felt on a night like this: the chill telling him that if he looks in the rear-view mirror he will finally see the face of a demon.

  He has no time for demons now, no warm space in his body where fear of them can live. As he backs out of the garage, twisting to his right to look out the rear window, he is thinking only of the coat and gloves on his bedroom floor. He drives to the corner, leaves the engine idling, and trots up the sidewalk and through the door and down the hall. He puts on his coat and gloves, picks up the phone, and says: ‘I’m on the way.’

  ‘Good,’ Jo says, and he is down the hall and out the door. He drives through the small empty town, he stops shivering, he warms beneath his coat and in his gloves, the car warms and he turns on the heater. From the radio Joan Baez serenades and celebrates his drive past locked and front-lighted stores and one bundled policeman checking locks.

  She hugs him at the door and takes him to the fire in the living room and, still holding him, gives him a maternal and possessive smile that, on a saner night, would frighten him. Looking at her he begins to think that maybe she never has gone crazy, that maybe by instinct she knew what to do with him, the way they always know what to do when someone is sick or hurt. He gives her the cigarettes, she gratefully lights one, and asks if he wants a hot toddy. He says he does. She unbuttons his coat, slips off his scarf, goes behind him and takes his coat off.

  ‘Sit here by the fire,’ she says. ‘I’ll make the drinks.’

  She takes the bottle and leaves. He sits and watches the fire and props his feet on a leather hassock. In the warmth and color of the room (it is blue, there are green potted plants, a seascape hangs on one wall, a landscape on another), in its smell of woodsmoke and the sound of burning logs, he feels safe, and when she returns with the drinks he treasures the touch of her fingers as she gives him the glass. She puts her drink on the floor and sits at his feet and unlaces his boots. He gives in to this. At first an instinct tells him he is letting her go too far, that by saving him she will possess him, but he wants his boots off, he wants a woman to take them off, and he watches her fingers on the laces, and when she is done and begins to tug at the boot he pulls his foot out. She takes off the other one and he leans back in the chair and sips. Jo remains sitting near his propped feet, her back to the fire. There are long gray streaks in her brown hair and he fondly takes one in his fingers, then smooths it back into place. Her face is awake, her eyes alert, yet about her mouth and eyes is that weariness she will probably always have; tonight he likes it.

  ‘What was it?’ she says. ‘Do you know?’

  ‘It was a girl named Miranda.’

  ‘Miranda?’

  ‘Miranda Jones. She’s twenty-one years old.’

  She lights a cigarette and settles her back against the hassock; her ribs touch his calf, her left arm rests on his knee and thigh.

  ‘Tell me about her,’ she says.

  ‘I don’t have to. I mean, I’ve been through this before. I don’t have to get it all out anymore.’

  ‘I want you to get it all out. For me. I want to look at it.’

  He drinks and tells her; once she rises and brings him another hot toddy and sits again resting her arm on his leg and sometimes she takes his hand, fondles his fingers, and when he finishes his story she says: ‘You didn’t really love her. You only thought you did.’

  ‘I’ve never understood the difference.’

  ‘She was only a life jacket.’

  ‘A life jacket is enough, if you’re out in the ocean.’

  Then he yields to her. He takes her hand and squeezes it with intent, he leaves his chair and lies beside her, this sad woman whom tonight he is learning to love; and as his fingers part her robe he says: ‘You and I. We’re what’s left over, after the storm.’

  Still he does not sleep. He gets up and puts another log on the fire, then lies on the rug and she returns her head to his shoulder. She lies between him and the fire, he is warm and peaceful, and his hand moves down her side and settles at her waist.

  ‘What did you do today?’ he says.

  ‘What did I do?’

  ‘Yes. What did you do.’

  ‘I gave the girls breakfast.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Oatmeal. Oatmeal and French toast.’

  ‘Good. Then what?’

  ‘I washed the dishes, then took the girls to church. Do you think that’s silly?’

  ‘No. No, I think it’s good.’

  ‘Do you believe in God?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So do I. Do you know anything about Him?’

  ‘Not much. What church was it?’

  ‘The Unitarian.’

  ‘The old white one by the common?’

  ‘Yes. I looked over at your apartment. That’s how I told you good morning.’

  ‘What did you do after that?’

  ‘I went to the supermarket. You made me feel guilty last night, about cooking. Something funny happened at the supermarket.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘You’ll think I’m weird.’

  ‘No I won’t.’

  ‘I left my basket and walked out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The basket was full. I had groceries for a week.’

  ‘Why did you walk out?’

  ‘I was sad. I told you you’d think I was weird.’

  ‘I don’t. You said you were sad.’

  ‘I was looking at all the women. They looked sad. Some had little children with them. They were barking at their children. Some were smoking. Some had their coats buttoned and they were hot but they didn’t take their coats off. One stood at the meat counter. She was looking around. She wanted something. There was no one behind the counter. There’s a button on a pipe, and it calls the butchers out of the room where they butcher the meat. She pressed the button. No one came. I looked at her and I looked through the window where the butchers were supposed to be. There was meat on the tables and meat hanging from hooks. But no one was there. She kept pressing the button. That’s when I left.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘I went to a little market on the corner. Right down the street from here. I probably spent ten dollars more. It’s a very small place and people nudge each other while they shop. There’s a butcher and a man at the cash register. They knew everyone in the store except me. Everyone was talking. The butcher talked to me while he cut the meat. He told me how good the meat was. He told me he was spoiling me. He’s old, and the man at the cash register is his son. I figured that out listening to them. The man at the cash register told me it was going to snow three inches. That’s what I paid the ten dollars for. I’ll go back.’

  ‘I’ll go with you.’

  Outside th
e sky is growing light, the night is almost ended, and inside Peter lies awake. Jo sleeps in his arms, his flesh is warm from the fire, and his heart is a piñata: it bursts and streams invisible colors which he can see: they are the colors of fire, the hopeful rose and gold and red of sunrise, and in the colors he sees Jo, her eyes are a laughing pale blue sky, tonight he will bring wine and flowers, this afternoon between records he will say, once and softly: Hello Jo; and he means that hello, his warm heart pounds with it, he will follow the course of it, for love is time too, and lying here before the fire and looking at her sleeping face on his arm he knows he will love her, and with great relief and new strength his blood runs through his body and he kisses her until she warmly wakes and encircles him with her squeezing arms; he ascends; he is Prometheus; and he pauses in his passion to gently kiss her brightened eyes.

  Miranda Over the Valley

  ALL THAT DAY she thought of Michaelis: as she packed for school in Boston and confirmed her reservation and, in Woodland Hills, did shopping which she knew was foolish: as though she were going to some primitive land, she bought deodorant and bath powder and shampoo, and nylons and leotards for the cold. At one o’clock she was driving the Corvette past cracked tan earth and dry brush, it was a no smoking zone and she put out her cigarette and thought: Now he has finished his lunch and they have gone back to the roof, he’s not wearing his shirt, he has a handkerchief tied around his head so sweat won’t burn his eyes; he’s kneeling down nailing shingles. She saw them eating dinner, her last good Mexican food until she flew west again at Thanksgiving, but she could not see the evening beyond dinner. She saw enchiladas and Margaritas, she saw them talking, she talked with him now driving to the shopping center, but after that she saw nothing. And she was afraid. In the evening she brushed her long dark hair and waited for him and she opened the front door when he rang; he was tall, he was tanned from his summer work, and he shook her father’s hand and kissed her mother’s cheek. Miranda liked the approval in her parents’ eyes, and she took his arm as they walked out to the driveway, to his old and dented Plymouth parked behind the Corvette. They went to dinner and then drove and then stopped on Mulholland Drive, high above the fog lying over the San Fernando Valley, and out her window she saw stars and a lone cloud slowly passing the moon. She took his thick curly hair in one hand and kissed him and with her tongue she told him yes, told him again and again while she waited for him to know she was saying yes.