Flights

by Jim Shepard

  There was a rope swing at the end of Prospect Drive, the street perpendicular to Biddy’s, which was long and knotted and hung from high in the branches of an old oak. Prospect Drive, which ran the length of Lordship from the salt marshes to the Gun Club, met the salt marsh abruptly at that oak, the pavement and earth covering the roots dropping away to expose four feet of yellowish dirt running into cattails and reeds. Motorists were expected to have turned left for Long Beach or Lordship Boulevard by that point.

  He had swung on the rope once, the grass below worn through to form a runway of dirt that fell away as he swept high over the reeds, the brown fur of the cattails waving up at him. It was slipperier than it looked.

  One of Biddy’s friends, Teddy Bell, lived nearby, on Oak Bluff. Teddy had serious fights with his older brother, Neil, fights of frightening intensity, four or five times a week. Teddy was Biddy’s classmate and Neil a year older. They came to blows over everything. Neil had once tried to break his brother’s arm by levering it across his leg. Friends had pulled them apart. Their fights were approaching legend in the neighborhood and Biddy had seen three, convinced during each that one brother or the other would not survive.

  And one day Teddy broke his wrist on the rope swing. He slipped off on the downswing. He came home crying and was mocked and goaded until his wild temper broke loose and he went after his older brother with a shriek and one arm, and Neil, who usually won anyway, beat him up. Their father separated them and threw Neil bodily out of the house—“The goddamn kid’s got a hurt arm!” he’d yelled—and Neil, panting, still full of energy, had stalked past Teddy’s friends, wide-eyed witnesses, down the block to the rope swing, out of sight behind the oak, and had fallen himself minutes later, breaking both wrists. He had returned running and crying, holding both hands in front of him with his elbows next to his belly. When Teddy, waiting to be driven to the hospital, saw him, he’d managed to laugh, and Neil had gone through the car window after him. Teddy’s friends had stood unable to move as they kicked, wrestled, pulled, and scratched, tumbling half in, half out of the car with one unbroken wrist between them. Their father separated them again.

  “Imagine that,” someone had said to Biddy on the way home. “Imagine how much it must’ve hurt to beat up his brother with two broken wrists?”

  Later that day Biddy had helped his mother with the macchina, the macaroni machine. They were making homemades. Kristi sat at the kitchen table nearby, forming peanuts into rows. He was still shaken by the fight, and he guided the long macaroni strips like flat soft tongues away from the machine’s rollers as his mother cranked. The machine was clamped to the table but still shifted and squeaked. As the pale ribbons would emerge Biddy would drape them, like diminutive scarves, over towels on the backs of chairs. His sister had assembled a row of peanuts fully a foot long, and had refused to tell either of them why.

  His mother fed already thin strips expertly into the crack between the stainless-steel rollers with one hand, cranking rhythmically with the other. He lifted the thinner sheets as they emerged, palms supporting the cool, elastic weight. He could see Neil’s flailing legs, the ferocity of the speed of the blows, Teddy’s foot stomping wide of his brother’s face. “Did kids fight a lot when you were a kid?” he asked his mother.

  “As much as they do now, I guess,” she answered. “Watch the end of that. It’s going to bunch.”

  “Did you used to fight?” He carried a moist and pliant strip to a chair.

  “I’m sure I was no brighter than anybody else. Aunt Sandy and I used to have real fights. She hit me on the head with a bottle once.”

  Biddy flinched. “Did it break?”

  His mother laughed. “No. It was a Coke bottle. I had a huge bump, though.”

  He envisioned his mother on her rear with the bottle nearby, slightly stunned in the backyard of his grandmother’s old home.

  “Once I pushed her into the street, and she hit a fire hydrant, I think. We were about even, overall.”

  Biddy supported macaroni, palm crossing under palm to cradle the emerging piece. The image of his mother as having once been very much like his sister unnerved him, seemed to make the kitchen slightly unsteady beneath his feet. He felt separated, again.

  “I don’t get into many fights,” he said, his words half confession, half offering.

  “Well your sister does fine for both of you,” his mother said, adjusting the rolling thickness.

  Kristi swept her hands across the peanuts, one ticking loudly off the floor. “I’m just sitting here and even then you pick on me,” she said.

  Teddy was an altar boy on Biddy’s team, and served with the broken wrist. He looked heroic, Biddy’s mother said. Father Rubino referred to him now and then as the walking wounded. Teddy was bored with the whole thing and was planning to quit.

  Every four weeks they were assigned seven-thirty Mass and Teddy came down with an ailment. This Sunday two others on the four-man team did as well. Biddy was left to go it alone, which he knew to be exceedingly difficult, even if the priest was extraordinarily patient and helped out. And Father Rubino was not extraordinarily patient and did not ever think to help out.

  The Mass was always deserted. He counted eight people in the pews. He yawned, peeking out of the sacristy, fumbling with the cassock around his shoulders.

  Father waited a full two minutes longer than usual before finally asking irritably if his friends were coming or what. Biddy couldn’t say. He rubbed his eye and straightened his cassock. Father gestured him out and fell in step behind him at the sound of the organ, and he led the two-person procession embarrassed, half asleep, and beginning to wonder if he could handle everything on the altar alone. Father followed, muttering.

  He performed erratically. He was late covering the chalice, slow with the wine and water, and forgot the bells during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again, and Father turned to him and said piercingly, “The bells.” Scattered among the pews eight people shifted and coughed.

  During Communion, he let the plate drop and was told sharply to hold it up, at which point he jerked it into a sleepy woman’s throat, causing her to gag.

  He was giving the morning up for lost, thinking, This is nuts, when a girl appeared before him in the Communion line, her face smooth and wide and serious, her gaze startling. She looked at him as though the whole ungainly, tottering ceremony were running so smoothly that there was room for only reverence in one’s perspective of it. He blinked and steadied the plate. She was wearing a white dress with blue trim and her hair was swept away from her face with perfect brushstrokes. She was beautiful. It surprised him, in that time and that place. In her solemnity she somehow began to redeem or confirm the idea of a seven-thirty Mass with one altar boy and eight people attending. He felt silly, foolishly theological, but she gazed directly at him as she received Communion, and he held the plate level.

  He led the closing processional with little enthusiasm, dreading facing Father Rubino in the sacristy, wondering at his revelation with the girl. They were barely free of the tones of the organ when a woman poked her head in and asked for a moment of Father’s time, leading the same girl with the beautiful hair and face. She was Mrs. Ransey; this was Laura. She was new in the diocese, in the neighborhood; she wanted all sorts of information, not the least of which was whether or not her Laura could attend Our Lady of Peace at this late date. Seventh grade. She knew it was late, but—Father cut her off: Yes, yes, fine, fine. Nice to see her. As for the school, she’d have to check with Sister Theresa: she ran everything over there. He didn’t know what her policy on late entry was. Biddy continued to watch Laura as he poured back the excess wine and water, her attention wandering through the thicket of chalices and covering linens as the adults spoke.

  “Sin,” Sister Theresa said. It was first period Monday morning and Biddy was still looking at Laura, hovering quiet and serious beyond his catechism book.

  “You’re getting to be
young adults,” Sister said. “I’ve told you this before. Too big to be just memorizing catechism. ‘Who is God?’ ‘God is good’: you should be expected to do more than that now. You’re old enough, you’ve been old enough, to start to take responsibility for your Christian lives. And that responsibility means having to deal with sin. Laura.” Laura flushed, looking down. “What is sin?”

  “Sin?” Laura said.

  “Sin.”

  “Thirty-four,” Biddy whispered, but her eyes remained away from the book.

  “No coaching, Mr. Siebert.”

  “Sin is …” She waited, and Sister waited with her, more tolerant with new students. “Sin is doing something wrong.”

  “Is that all? Biddy?”

  “Sin is knowingly doing something wrong?” Biddy said.

  Sister sat back, for some reason unhappy with the answer. “Well, let’s take an example. Let’s say Teddy there broke his arm hitting his brother.”

  “I broke it before then.”

  “This is just an example.”

  “And it’s my wrist.”

  “Teddy. Would you like to stay after and go over all the blackboards? Keir. Suppose Teddy hit his brother and broke his own arm. Is that a sin?”

  “Breaking his arm?”

  “No, hitting his—Jimmy.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a sin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why.”

  “Because—you shouldn’t hit your brother.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll get in trouble.”

  “Wrong.” Sister pounded the desk and everyone jumped. “Why is that wrong? Come on, let’s start to do some thinking here.” Laura looked over at Biddy, and he smiled.

  “Jimmy. Suppose no one was around and you knew you wouldn’t get caught.”

  “It’d still be wrong.”

  “Okay. Why?”

  “Because—you shouldn’t hit your fellow man.”

  A few students snickered, and Sister sighed. “What about Jesus?” she said. “What does he have to do with all of this?”

  “He’s in all of us,” Jimmy offered.

  “So if we hit someone it’s like we’re hitting Jesus,” Keir said.

  “That’s right.” Sister stood to emphasize the point. “Isn’t sin—any sin—always an offense against yourself and against someone else? So isn’t it always an offense against Jesus?”

  Various students looked agreeable. No one spoke.

  “This class is going to make progress,” Sister said. “In 1989.”

  “Do you know Mr. Ransey?” Biddy asked. He and his father were sitting high up in the cheap seats at Shea Stadium, in the wind. They were freezing. The Jets were playing the Saints. They were Minnesota Viking fans.

  “Who?” his father said, rubbing his thigh.

  “Mr. Ransey. He lives on Spruce Street.”

  “No. Should I?”

  “No.”

  In the distance the Jets ran wide and fumbled. The Saints leaped up and down, pointing downfield to indicate the change of possession.

  “Can I get a gun?” Biddy said.

  “A what?” His father looked at him.

  “You know. A BB gun.”

  “You don’t need a gun.” He returned his attention to the game.

  “I was thinking about getting one.”

  “Forget it. What’re you, Daniel Boone?” They fell silent, watching the Saints struggle upfield. “I take you to see a football game, and all you can think about is guns?”

  The wind whipped through the Sunday crowd, lifting pieces of wrappers and program pages. Biddy had a scarf bundled loosely around his neck and he buried his chin in it. His hand played with the ticket stub deep in his jacket pocket.

  The Jets’ green was not interesting or colorful against the turf, and the black-and-gold Saints looked dirty and tired. Much of the glamour of professional football seemed drained away in the lights reflecting yellow off the dirt and the flat dinginess of the players’ uniforms. It was late Sunday and they had driven over an hour for an interconference game between the New York Jets and the New Orleans Saints, and they shifted and huddled in their seats in the wind, watching the incoming jets cut through the growing darkness toward La Guardia.

  The next Saturday, they sat inches from the bench straining to see over the heads of the players and coaches on the sidelines, watching the Stratford High North Paraders play Fairfield Prep, paying particular attention to senior defensive end Louis Liriano of the North Paraders, the first slightly retarded defensive end in Stratford’s history, as far as anyone knew. They sat next to Dom. Mickey, Ginnie, and Cindy were coming along later.

  The solid red helmets bobbed in an extended line before him, and he could pick out Louis’s above the rest as the defense prepared to go back in.

  “All right, let’s stuff ’em here,” Dom called.

  Fairfield Prep wore black: simple, villainous, no frills. They were Stratford’s main league rivals. Both teams were undefeated.

  This was one of Stratford’s best years ever, Dom was claiming as he watched the defense stream onto the field. No matter what happened, whether they won the MBIAC or not.

  Louis wore number 89 and a full cage face mask. On the first play, he pressured Prep’s quarterback and forced him to throw the ball away, and Dom worried aloud that his son wasn’t mean enough, that he was holding back when hitting people.

  “That’s all you need. Louis to grow up like Jack Tatum,” Biddy’s father said.

  Dom shrugged. “It sounds awful, but that’s the way the game is played. Give him a shot now and maybe the next time instead of thinking about coverages he’s thinking about you. Or maybe he throws it a little sooner than he should.”

  They watched the Prep fullback trundle around the end for eighteen or twenty yards.

  “He still gets fooled on those traps,” Dom said. The officials moved the chains.

  “The All-MBIAC team comes out this week, after the Milford game,” Dom said, unzipping his jacket. The flap of one side was restless in the wind. “A lot depends on how he does here and against Milford. Most of the tube steaks who vote only pay attention to the big games.”

  Biddy’s father mentioned that it was too bad. Dom brought up the Bullard-Havens game as an example, likening it to watching men against boys.

  On the next snap, Louis got good penetration, sweeping around his man, but the play went the other way.

  “He always loved football,” Dom said. “I always said I’m not going to pressure this kid into anything. He wants to play, he’ll play. Anyway, how could you pressure him?” Biddy’s father smiled.

  “He never quits. He’s just a hell of a good kid.” The three of them raised their hands to their mouths to warm them, a shortened chorus line. “Imagine if he makes All-MBIAC?”

  Prep scored, the halfback leaping into the tangle of bodies at the goal line.

  “Hey, Dom,” a fat man said across the aisle. “What’s wrong with Louis today? They’re goin’ right over him.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Dom said. “What game you watching?”

  The first quarter ended with Prep ahead 7–0 and threatening again. Ginnie and Cindy threaded their way down the aisle. “What’d we miss? Anything?” Ginnie said.

  Dom looked over the field sourly. “Where’s Mickey?”

  “He’s coming. He’s getting some ice cream. We miss anything?”

  “Not a goddamned thing.”

  Cindy turned to Biddy. “We behind?”

  He nodded. “Seven nothing.”

  “Oh, that’s not too bad. Dad, you make it sound like it’s fifty-seven to seven.”

  “Yeah, I’m terrible. Seven looks like a lot to me right now.”

  “We’ll get it back.”

  “I just hope he doesn’t get hurt,” Ginnie said.

  “What else is new?” Dom said. “Come on, defense.” Prep continued to drive, and he sat down. “He’s not stopping the sweep o
n his side,” he said to no one in particular. “They’re moving him out and going right over him.”

  “They’re running on the whole side, not just Louis,” Biddy’s father said.

  “Bullshit. He’s the defensive end on that side. And right now he’s invisible out there.”

  “He’ll adjust,” Cindy said. “They’ll adjust.”

  “Yeah. Well one more touchdown and we won’t have to worry about it.”

  Prep set up near the Stratford goal line. “You gotta get the uniform dirty,” Dom said. “They have to be more aggressive. He has to be more aggressive. He’s gotta start throwing himself at people out there.” He looked around. “Where the hell is Mickey? I thought he was just getting an ice cream.”

  “He was,” Ginnie said. “Maybe he found some friends.”

  “Come on, Louis!” Cindy yelled. Louis waved. Prep, all in black, came out of their huddle. Biddy craned his neck to see, felt himself digging in with Louis, mentally trying to push Prep back.

  At the snap the defense rose up on Louis’s side and threw back the sweep and the crowd roared and shook the bleachers. A second-down pass failed, and on the third down the runner was chased out of bounds.

  “Hit ’em again! Hit ’em again! Harder! Harder!” the bleachers began to chant, Biddy’s row picking it up. The chant had been growing in strength with each successive down, and he began to feel a part of that unity of spectators and players that was halting and mastering Fairfield Prep, and he shouted, “Defense, defense,” with the others, the air cool on his throat and their voices mixing and filling the air above the red line of defenders on the field. They leaped together, Cindy hugging him and Dom hugging them both when the red of the North Paraders overwhelmed Prep, the fullback slipping and stumbling on fourth down under a wave of bodies with houses and telephone wires rising beyond them, in the second quarter of an MBIAC high-school football game in Stratford, Connecticut.