What the Family Needed

by Steven Amsterdam

  Surely this made up for the attitude of that sparrow.

  What the hell? For his own exercise, Ben stood up and climbed to the bird’s spot on the top of the rock. Panting from the ten steps, he held his arms out to the sun and that felt good enough. King of the city, top of the world. Pathetic. At least no one was looking. He listed back and forth on his ankles in the sun. He hopped up once to amuse himself. The first jump felt higher than the push that caused it. He concentrated on imitating the bird’s movements and hopped again, this time with more force, and went up, staying there without gravity, for what felt like three seconds. It was strangely high for a jump. He did it again and found that if he flexed his elbows behind him, he could steer more easily on the way back down to the rock.

  Steer?

  Ivan would have commanded him, “Again.”

  Ben jumped again, using all of his power. His body met the wind in an equal embrace. He was wrapped in it and sliding upward in a slender curve, almost as high as the first branch of the tree. His arms knew exactly where to go to keep control. He guided himself slowly down, his feet coming to rest next to the stroller. Ivan was still sleeping with a worried scowl. Poor kid, decades of scowls awaited. Ben relaxed his knees in a slight dip, raised his arms over his head dramatically, like a violinist spiraling toward a crescendo, and soared up.

  Instantly he was above the tree, balancing the wind long enough to gain his bearings. He remembered the gulls they saw earlier and admired them for making these mechanics look so effortless. Once he was in motion he felt more in control, so he thrust up and then down, circling their private corner of the park in jags.

  He felt light.

  Slowly, the details became recognizable. At first there was a dull geometry to the view. From above, people and trees were reduced to circles of hair or hats. Cars, in all their costly variations, were leveled into equivalent rectangles. Winding paths were brief and only for show, stopping at the park’s boundaries. Streets crossed avenues and made up the ungraceful grid. The rooftops, just drab squares from here, told nothing of the grandeur beneath. It was like seeing a beautiful painting from the side.

  But that was only when he looked down. The older buildings that stood along the edge of the park had been carved, corniced, and gargoyled for optimum fourth-floor viewing. He shot up and the ragged skyline belonged entirely to him. Beyond that, if he pushed a bit more, he was able to see the river and the city sprawl beyond.

  Birds drifted by in the distance, floating on the same breeze. Did they even appreciate the view? He watched them as he experimented with his maneuvers, expecting them to welcome him to their tribe. They would explain all their tricks and lead him to their favorite haunts. But even when he briefly stumbled, losing altitude in a clumsy twist, they didn’t seem to notice. It didn’t matter; he would pretend to be relaxed about the whole thing too. He didn’t want to look like an amateur.

  The airy afternoon light was a few shades brighter up here and, as a new inhabitant, he observed a different dimension: there was sky beneath him. Sky was no longer limited to up.

  On the verge of waking, Ivan stretched in his seat, pushing his empty sippy cup to the ground. The sound it made knocked up through the wind till it found Ben. Before Ivan could even begin to whimper, his father dove down, inventing a flourish as he spiraled once around the tree and landed. Not entirely awake, Ivan saw his father lower smoothly into view. With a smile, Ben picked up the cup and tucked it back into his son’s sticky hands.

  “Watch: When I tell your mother, she’ll say I’m doing it wrong.”

  Ivan giggled and yawned. He stuck his finger up to get his father to give another performance, but Ben whisked him away from the bench before he had the chance to wonder why he hadn’t been taken out of the stroller to play.

  At the market Ben splurged and bought salmon, Janelle’s favorite, for reasons of nutrition and brain vitamins. He would soften her up. That evening, she came home to a clean house and a calm child. As they ate dinner, she expressed her thanks. So far, so good. After, he would show her what else he could do.

  Janelle watched as he fed Ivan. A spoonful of peas dropped down the front of the bib, but Ben wasn’t fast enough to catch them all. “Watch him,” she said. The tone had made an appearance.

  The week before, Alek had invited himself to dinner and managed to scatter his own food everywhere and spill his wine, but Janelle was able to laugh it off. As she tossed him a sponge, she pretended to be carefree about the whole thing. Alek kept on talking, entertaining Ivan with his general weirdness, the sponge unused in his hand. All the patience and mercy of the family had gone to Alek. Ben didn’t get a drop.

  The night that Alek had visited, when Ivan saw what Alek could get away with, he flung a potato at the floor and looked around, waiting for applause. Alek and Ben couldn’t help but smile.

  “Don’t do that,” Janelle had said and all of them went quiet. Who was in trouble this time? Ben reflexively picked up the errant potato. Even Alek, not always the most clear-eyed and observant, looked at Ben with sympathy.

  Tonight, Ben’s response was to ignore both the peas and the tone in favor of more important matters. Janelle glanced under the highchair.

  “They’re waiting to be stepped on,” she said.

  “They’re peas. They’ll have to be patient.” He was already losing wood for this.

  “And what else happened today?” she asked, making a sudden bid for rapport.

  This was the moment. Where to begin? The hawk, the city, the weightlessness? How could he sell it to her?

  His pause was too long. The delay was proof that he had done nothing.

  “It seems bizarre to me, not being able to account for it. I know what I did today. I went to work. Have you sent out one letter this week?” She was already curating a different evening. The discussion would be his dim connections to his vaporized career as a lab researcher. Janelle had always politely pretended they held more promise than they did. The opportunities withered as he sought increasingly peripheral jobs, to the point that a twenty-year-old secretarial student would have been more affordable and more attractive. There had been talk about retraining, but that had receded, as his days were full of Ivan. The letters she was always talking about would be for glorified cleaning positions at other people’s labs. They would, as Janelle never tired of pointing out, still be jobs, as if work were an end in itself. Keeping Ivan out of day care, being frugal with the family budget—that never figured into her accounting.

  “What happens to your time?” she asked as if she were truly curious. There was no telling her anything.

  Ivan decided to toss a handful of peas at her. Again, Ben couldn’t help but be impressed by the kid’s sense of timing. He smiled.

  “Please, Ben. Don’t make me into this person.”

  “I haven’t spoken.”

  Janelle exhaled and stood up to bring her dish to the kitchen.

  “Leave it. I’ll do them,” he told her.

  This was the unlovely deal that they had ended up with.

  That night Ben dreamed about the moon landing. He woke up and the room was dark, except for the light over Janelle’s side. He didn’t remember details—only the footage of his first slow step onto its sugary surface.

  Janelle was turned toward the window, still reading under the dome of her light. He knew that she knew that he was awake, even though neither of them had moved or spoken. The book she was reading was about how to find perfect peace in the everyday. Making headway? She was still, for better or for worse, his best friend. She was the wisest person he knew. She made their money. When she was fully at ease, between two and four p.m. on a Saturday, they could make each other happy. When she had the time and energy, she was even an indulgent mother.

  Ben stretched back, nudging her shoulder. She didn’t acknowledge him. He imagined harmony spinning over their bed, always out of reach. They weren’t alone. It was above every couple, every night. He looked past Janelle’s book to the
open bedroom door that let them share their air-conditioning with Ivan across the hall. Was their imperfect peace blowing over his innocent body? Was it being inhaled?

  The next day Ben called Alek to look after Ivan. He had offered to babysit a dozen times before but Janelle always squinted at the prospect. Ivan was too precious, too absorptive to be left alone in his care. Never mind. Alek was available and he was there in half an hour. He was embarrassingly grateful for the chance and patiently listened to the many instructions that came with looking after a two-year-old.

  Ben went back to the same rock and it still worked. At first he worried some official entity would shoot him down. He quickly figured out how to punctuate his meanderings with vertical swoops, so that his shape would remain indistinct to anyone below. He also learned how to go faster—as if he were dashing from one spot to the next. All was still, gravity was less demanding, and there were no people or cars to fight as he crossed the city. Loops and turns and approaches became easier. He began to understand how air worked.

  By the afternoon, he’d grown bored with the tourist spots. He started to go deeper, lingering over private backyards and hidden alleys where he could see what people did when they thought they weren’t being watched. Unsurprisingly, they cried to themselves, they had sex, they stared into space. They read with oblivion, they looked around waiting to be noticed. Sometimes, when they were doing simple things, like pouring water from a jug, he saw loneliness in the gesture, as if they would rather be pouring it for other people too. All of this was profoundly moving. It was absolutely wasted on birds. In fact, he was surprised to find himself less, rather than more, attuned to birds in general. They took this great picture for granted. The human suffering he witnessed ought to be archived. He’d make a documentary about the real workings of the streets, the city in all its emotional chaos. He’d keep a record—for somebody. Who? Santa Claus? The instinct was to report it to Janelle. If he could fly through not only space but time, he would go back five years so she would actually listen to him. Now she would only care if he could make his enterprise profitable. With more control than a helicopter, he might become a traffic reporter. Amazing? No. His plan was to keep wandering the sky. Another one of his aimless journeys.

  A different angle: What if all anyone needed in order to do this was to take the right lessons? He could become Instructor Number One and share his knowledge with other men like himself. An army of househusbands taking to the skies. What an excellent excuse they would all have for not doing the laundry.

  To test this theory, he headed to a neighborhood near the water, where he didn’t normally go. Three drag queens were leaning against a building. Surely they would have the imagination to give it a shot. He offered to show them a way to punch up their acts. They offered him a makeover.

  “First this,” he said, standing up on a crate. He remembered not to slouch, not in order to improve his takeoff, but to make him look more professorial. His students fell into position next to him, hands on hips like they were learning the macarena. If he could teach them, they would become his followers. The one in the hot pants would make an especially effective advertisement for his service and for the city itself. Picture the tourist billboards.

  Ben started with the basic jumps, allowing the slightest excess in his leap so as not to excite them too much. In their heels they could barely get off the street. He made them try barefoot and from a few other positions, but they came up only as high as mortals. He thought that moving directly to arm movements would be the way to go, but they laughed, thanked him for playing, and went back to holding up the building. The one in the hot pants offered him a hit of vodka, which he declined.

  “You sure? You look like you could use a pick-me-up.”

  Ben shook his head and walked the length of the street. Once he could look back and see the three of them gabbing, dissecting the experience and, probably, him as well, he took off, sailing past their open mouths.

  Back at home Alek was exuberant, almost florid. Ivan had apparently provided him with a breakthrough and Alek’s face was alive with revelation as he reported what had happened. That morning, Ben had left strict orders that Ivan could leave the house in big-boy underpants only if he had been to the toilet. Otherwise, it was a diaper. This had been a contentious issue for the last few weeks, and the addition of a novice caregiver apparently raised the stakes for Ivan. When it had come time to leave, he swore he didn’t have to go to the bathroom and similarly swore that he wouldn’t put on a diaper. They wound up in a fierce battle at the changing table, with Ivan shrieking that he wanted to wear big-boy underpants and Alek trying desperately to wrap him in a diaper. At the tantrum’s crisis point, Ivan dictated that he would settle only if he could wear both, the big-boy underpants and the diaper.

  “And I let him!” Alek said, as if he’d just unfolded the universe.

  Ivan pulled down his pants to display their lumpy teamwork. He stood proud, with his jeans below his dimpled knees.

  Ben said. “Don’t show your mother.”

  Alek pointed proudly at Ivan the Littlest Genius. “This is everything, right here. All of our possibilities, in one little boy.”

  “Right.” Alek was crazy. You could probably see it from space.

  “You’re not getting it. Ivan found the words he needed to get what he wanted. He’s better than we are. Smarter than me, an adult and still at home with my parents. Smarter than you and Janelle in your miserable marriage.”

  Ivan stared up at Alek, a finger holding on to the elastic of his pants.

  “Thanks,” Ben said.

  “Think about it. We haven’t asked for what we want yet. Right now, we’re in the wrong version of our lives. Too much security, too little freedom. That was Ivan’s problem and he found a way out. So can we. All we have to do is pick a different story, one where we get what we want. That’s where you and I will see each other next.” It sounded nice, choosing another channel like that. In this version, I’ll have wings.

  Alek kissed Ben on his forehead, chin, and both cheeks. “Your boy is so wonderful. One day I want him to show me the world.”

  Ben considered talking about his afternoon above the city, but he didn’t think Alek could have handled any additional amazement.

  Ben brought the depressed in from ledges; he found lost children and led them to their parents; he retrieved cats, kites, and Frisbees. An old woman slipped him a twenty for untangling her grandson’s balloon from a tree. When he brought a bottle of water to an old man changing a tire by the side of the highway in the hottest part of the afternoon, Ben heard, for the first time in his life, somebody call him a hero. His mother’s voice: That word gives you reason to reflect, doesn’t it?

  He floated above the city, considering it. I could go away, he thought. Leave Janelle and Ivan and go and do this instead. What Alek had said even made some sense. Say good-bye to security and be free to serve. It sounded noble. He wasn’t too old. The security part might turn up again, elsewhere. In the meantime, he could avoid a future of professional malaise and arguments about peas. There was a way for him to contribute to the good of the world; there were people who needed him. And Janelle could spend the rest of her days berating this deadbeat Superman who’d abandoned her. Who was he fooling? He wasn’t the type to seize such a chance. That, as Janelle would have said, was the entire problem.

  Publicity would have helped. Not that he cared, but the next time she asked what happened to his days it would be devastating if he could present her with a dramatic visual, proof that he was good for more than chores.

  He set out to get some press. The goal was small items, one-paragraph reports, preferably with a photograph. In films, tights or a cape were expected, but he was sure the effect wouldn’t be as appealing on him. He wore his interview suit, minus the vest. He got a haircut and sculpted his sideburns. The aim was to get the word “stylish” in front of “hero.”

  He became bolder in his excursions, showing up to assist at house fires
and car accidents. Someone or something always needed to be saved. He chose larger groups, scanning for people with cameras, sometimes even posing with his arms spread open as he landed, maintaining a face of beneficence, as if he were an angel. The ones who witnessed his descent inevitably flocked to him, asking questions. He was coy about giving his name, fearing he would end up in some remote government lab. “I’m going to go help” became his excuse for leaving quickly. The phrase left a bit to be desired as a tagline, but it never became an issue. They told no one, certainly none of the major news outlets. Or he was reading the wrong papers.

  At home, at least, Janelle appreciated his new fastidiousness. Ivan was happier, largely because the sitter he had employed instead of Alek allowed him to play all day in the sandbox while she sat on a nearby bench breaking up and reuniting with her boyfriend over the phone. The most tangible change was that Ben had started to lose weight. One day Janelle even commented on it.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of walking,” he told her.

  As soon as he said it, he panicked that he was telling the truth. Was this all imagined? Was he any saner than Alek? Yes. What he was experiencing was too vivid. Wasn’t it?

  The next day, he strapped his son to his chest in one of his old carriers. The boy, wiggling as always, faced forward as they headed into the park. To lighten things for the long journey, Ben found a shady spot and stowed his shoes and socks under a bush. He put on his Ray-Bans, rocked back and forth, and took off.

  Hovering a few feet from the ground, he asked Ivan what he thought.

  “Up,” the boy said, squirming. He was proud that his son had the spirit of excitement.

  Ben moved cautiously, circling up around the thick trunk of a tree, keeping one hand on Ivan’s chest until he had fully integrated the effect of the added load. Ben put both arms straight out and extended his back so that he could take them up above the street, above the trees, and to the river. Over the water, Ben found the gust he expected and turned into it.