Flying Home (20 page)

“Why?”

“Why? ’Cause he done broke outa the crazy house, that’s why. He liable to kill somebody,” he said. “They oughta have him by now though. Then here
you
come. First I think it’s one of them white boys. Then doggone if you don’t fall outa there. Lawd, I’d done heard about you boys but I haven’t never
seen
one o’ you all. Caint tell you how it felt to see somebody what look like me in a airplane!”

The old man talked on, the sound streaming around
Todd’s thoughts like air flowing over the fuselage of a flying plane. You were a fool, he thought, remembering how before the spin the sun had blazed, bright against the billboard signs beyond the town, and how a boy’s blue kite had bloomed beneath him, tugging gently in the wind like a strange, odd-shaped flower. He had once flown such kites himself and tried to find the boy at the end of the invisible cord. But he had been flying too high and too fast. He had climbed steeply away in exultation. Too steeply, he thought. And one of the first rules you learn is that if the angle of thrust is too steep the plane goes into a spin. And then, instead of pulling out of it and going into a dive you let a buzzard panic you. A lousy buzzard!

“Son, what made all that blood on the glass?”

“A buzzard,” he said, remembering how the blood and feathers had sprayed back against the hatch. It had been as though he had flown into a storm of blood and blackness.

“Well, I declare! They’s lots of ’em around here. They after dead things. Don’t eat nothing what’s alive.”

“A little bit more and he would have made a meal out of me,” Todd said grimly.

“They had luck all right. Teddy’s got a name for ’em, calls ’em jimcrows,” the old man laughed.

“It’s a damned good name.”

“They the damnedest birds. Once I seen a hoss all stretched out like he was sick, you know. So I hollers, ‘Gid up from there, suh!’ Just to make sho! An’, doggone, son, if I don’t see two old jimcrows come flying right up outa that hoss’s insides! Yessuh! The sun was shinin’ on ’em and they couldn’ta been no greasier if they’d been eating barbecue!”

Todd thought he would vomit; his stomach quivered.

“You made that up,” he said.

“Nawsuh! Saw him just like you.”

“Well, I’m glad it was you.”

“You see lots a funny things down here, son.”

“No, I’ll let you see them,” he said.

“By the way, the white folks round here don’t like to see you boys up there in the sky. They ever bother you?”

“No.”

“Well, they’d like to.”

“Someone always wants to bother someone else,” Todd said. “How do you know?”

“I just know.”

“Well,” he said defensively, “no one has bothered us.”

Blood pounded in his ears as he looked away into space. He tensed, seeing a black spot in the sky, and strained to confirm what he could not clearly see.

“What does that look like to you?” he asked excitedly.

“Just another bad luck, son.”

Then he saw the movement of wings with disappointment. It was gliding smoothly down, wings outspread, tail feathers gripping the air, down swiftly—gone behind the green screen of trees. It was like a bird he had imagined there, only the sloping branches of the pines remained, sharp against the pale stretch of sky. He lay barely breathing and stared at the point where it had disappeared, caught in a spell of loathing and admiration. Why did they make them so disgusting and yet teach them to fly so well?
It’s like when I was up in heaven
, he heard, starting.

The old man was chuckling, rubbing his stubbled chin.

“What did you say?”

“Sho, I died and went to heaven … maybe by time I tell you about it they be done come after you.”

“I hope so,” he said wearily.

“You boys ever sit around and swap lies?”

“Not often. Is this going to be one?”

“Well, I ain’t so sho, on account of it took place when I was dead.”

The old man paused. “That wasn’t no lie ’bout the buzzards though.”

“All right,” he said.

“Sho you want to hear ’bout heaven?”

“Please,” he answered, resting his head upon his arm.

“Well, I went to heaven and right away started to sproutin’ me some wings. Six-foot ones, they was. Just like them the white angels had. I couldn’t hardly believe it. I was so glad that I went off on some clouds by myself and tried ’em out. You know, ’cause I didn’t want to make a fool outa myself the first thing …”

It’s an old tale, Todd thought. Told me years ago. Had forgotten. But at least it will keep him from talking about buzzards.

He closed his eyes, listening.

“… First thing I done was to git up on a low cloud and jump off. And doggone, boy, if them wings didn’t work! First I tried the right; then I tried the left; then I tried ’em both together. Then, Lawd, I started to move on out among the folks. I let ’em see me …”

He saw the old man gesturing flight with his arms, his face full of mock pride as he indicated an imaginary crowd, thinking,
It’ll be in the newspapers
, as he heard, “… so I went and found me some colored angels—somehow I didn’t believe I was an angel till I seen a real black one, ha, yes! Then I was sho—but they tole me I better come down ’cause us colored folks had to wear a special kin’a harness when
we flew. That was how come
they
wasn’t flyin’. Oh yes, an’ you had to be extra strong for a black man even, to fly with one of them harnesses …”

This is a new turn, Todd thought. What’s he driving at?

“So I said to myself, I ain’t gonna be bothered with no harness! Oh naw! ’Cause if God let you sprout wings you oughta have sense enough not to let nobody make you wear something what gits in the way of flyin’. So I starts to flyin’. Hecks, son,” he chuckled, his eyes twinkling, “you know I had to let eve’body know that old Jefferson could fly good as anybody else. And I could too, fly smooth as a bird! I could even loop-the-loop—only I had to make sho to keep my long white robe down roun’ my ankles …”

Todd felt uneasy. He wanted to laugh at the joke, but his body refused, as of an independent will. He felt as he had as a child when after he had chewed a sugar-coated pill which his mother had given him, she had laughed at his efforts to remove the terrible taste.

“… Well,” he heard. “I was doing all right till I got to speeding. Found out I could fan up a right strong breeze, I could fly so fast. I could do all kin’sa stunts too. I started flying up to the stars and divin’ down and zooming roun’ the moon. Man, I like to scare the devil outa some ole white angels. I was raisin’ hell. Not that I meant any harm, son. But I was just feeling good. It was so good to know I was free at last. I accidentally knocked the tips offa some stars and they tell me I caused a storm and a coupla lynchings down here in Macon County—though I swear I believe them boys what said that was making up lies on me …”

He’s mocking me, Todd thought angrily. He thinks it’s a joke. Grinning down at me … His throat was dry. He
looked at his watch; why the hell didn’t they come? Since they had to, why?
One day I was flying down one of them heavenly streets.
You got yourself into it, Todd thought. Like Jonah in the whale.

“Justa throwin’ feathers in eve’body’s face. An’ ole Saint Peter called me in. Said, ‘Jefferson, tell me two things, what you doin’ flying’ without a harness; an’ how come you flyin’ so fast?’ So I tole him I was flyin’ without a harness ’cause it got in my way, but I couldn’ta been flyin’ so fast, ’cause I wasn’t usin’ but one wing. Saint Peter said, ‘You wasn’t flyin’ with but
one
wing?’ ‘Yessuh,’ I says, scared-like. So he says, ‘Well, since you got sucha extra fine pair of wings you can leave off yo harness awhile. But from now on none of that there one-wing flyin’, ’cause you gittin’ up too damn much speed!’ ”

And with one mouth full of bad teeth you’re making too damned much talk, thought Todd. Why don’t I send him after the boy? His body ached from the hard ground, and seeking to shift his position he twisted his ankle and hated himself for crying out.

“It gittin’ worse?”

“I … I twisted it,” he groaned.

“Try not to think about it, son. That’s what I do.”

He bit his lip, fighting pain with counter-pain as the voice resumed its rhythmical droning. Jefferson seemed caught in his own creation.

“ … After all that trouble I just floated roun’ heaven in slow motion. But I forgot like colored folks will do and got to flyin’ with one wing agin. This time I was restin’ my ole broken arm and got to flyin’ fast enough to shame the devil. I was comin’ so fast, Lawd, I got myself called befo ole Saint
Peter agin. He said, ‘Jeff, didn’t I warn you ’bout that speedin’?’ ‘Yessuh,’ I says, ‘but it was an accident.’ He looked at me sad-like and shook his head and I knowed I was gone. He said, ‘Jeff, you and that speedin’ is a danger to the heavenly community. If I was to let you keep on flyin’, heaven wouldn’t be nothin’ but uproar. Jeff, you got to go!’ Son, I argued and pleaded with that old white man, but it didn’t do a bit of good. They rushed me straight to them pearly gates and gimme a parachute and a map of the state of Alabama …”

Todd heard him laughing so that he could hardly speak, making a screen between them upon which his humiliation glowed like fire.

“Maybe you’d better stop a while,” he said, his voice unreal.

“Ain’t much more,” Jefferson laughed. “When they gimme the parachute ole Saint Peter ask me if I wanted to say a few words before I went. I felt so bad I couldn’t hardly look at him, specially with all them white angels standin’ around. Then somebody laughed and made me mad. So I tole him, ‘Well, you done took my wings. And you puttin’ me out. You got charge of things so’s I can’t do nothin’ about it. But you got to admit just this: While I was up here I was the flyin’est son-of-a-bitch what ever hit heaven!’ ”

At the burst of laughter Todd felt such an intense humiliation that only great violence would wash it away. The laughter which shook the old man like a boiling purge set up vibrations of guilt within him which not even the intricate machinery of the plane would have been adequate to transform and he heard himself screaming, “Why do you laugh at me this way?”

He hated himself at that moment, but he had lost control. He saw Jefferson’s mouth fall open. “What—?”

“Answer me!”

His blood pounded as though it would surely burst his temples, and he tried to reach the old man and fell, screaming, “Can I help it because they won’t let us actually fly? Maybe we are a bunch of buzzards feeding on a dead horse, but we can hope to be eagles, can’t we?
Can’t we?”

He fell back, exhausted, his ankle pounding. The saliva was like straw in his mouth. If he had the strength he would strangle this old man. This grinning gray-headed clown who made him feel as he felt when watched by the white officers at the field. And yet this old man had neither power, prestige, rank, nor technique. Nothing that could rid him of this terrible feeling. He watched him, seeing his face struggle to express a turmoil of feeling.

“What you mean, son? What you talking ’bout …?”

“Go away. Go tell your tales to the white folks.”

“But I didn’t mean nothing like that … I … I wasn’t tryin’ to hurt your feelings …”

“Please. Get the hell away from me!”

“But I didn’t, son. I didn’t mean all them things a-tall.”

Todd shook as with a chill, searching Jefferson’s face for a trace of the mockery he had seen there. But now the face was somber and tired and old. He was confused. He could not be sure that there had ever been laughter there, that Jefferson had ever really laughed in his whole life. He saw Jefferson reach out to touch him and shrank away, wondering if anything except the pain, now causing his vision to waver, was real. Perhaps he had imagined it all.

“Don’t let it get you down, son,” the voice said pensively.

He heard Jefferson sigh wearily, as though he felt more than he could say. His anger ebbed, leaving only the pain.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“You just wore out with pain, was all …”

He saw him through a blur, smiling. And for a second he felt the embarrassed silence of understanding flutter between them.

“What was you doin’ flyin’ over this section, son? Wasn’t you scared they might shoot you for a crow?”

Todd tensed. Was he being laughed at again? But before he could decide, the pain shook him and a part of him was lying calmly behind the screen of pain that had fallen between them, recalling the first time he had ever seen a plane. It was as though an endless series of hangars had been shaken ajar in the airbase of his memory and from each, like a young wasp emerging from its cell, arose the memory of a plane.

The first time I ever saw a plane I was very small and planes were new in the world. I was four and a half and the only plane that I had ever seen was a model suspended from the ceiling of the automobile exhibit at the state fair. But I did not know that it was only a model. I did not know how large a real plane was, nor how expensive. To me it was a fascinating toy, complete in itself, which my mother said could only be owned by rich little white boys. I stood rigid with admiration, my head straining backward as I watched the gray little plane describing arcs above the gleaming tops of the automobiles. And I vowed that, rich or poor, some day I would own such a toy. My mother had to drag me out of the exhibit, and not even the merry-go-round, the Ferris wheel, or the racing
horses could hold my attention for the rest of the fair. I was too busy imitating the tiny drone of the plane with my lips, and imitating with my hands the motion, swift and circling, that it made in flight.

After that I no longer used the pieces of lumber that lay about our backyard to construct wagons and autos … now it was used for airplanes. I built biplanes, using pieces of board for wings, a small box for the fuselage, another piece of wood for the rudder. The trip to the fair had brought something new into my small world. I asked my mother repeatedly when the fair would come back again. I’d lie in the grass and watch the sky and each flighting bird became a soaring plane. I would have been good a year just to have seen a plane again. I became a nuisance to everyone with my questions about airplanes. But planes were new to the old folks, too, and there was little that they could tell me. Only my uncle knew some of the answers. And better still, he could carve propellers from pieces of wood that would whirl rapidly in the wind, wobbling noisily upon oiled nails.