The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin' (7 page)

I passed from the jaundiced lighting of the parking garage to the
halogen glare of the walkway. Passed two porters, slumped on plastic chairs. Both glanced at my carry-on luggage, then blinked me away, as disinterested as sunning lizards. And right inside the terminal, who do I see but Velvet Hoon. Hard to miss a girl in a blue crew cut.

She was wearing a gray uniform, part of a cleaning crew. A hippie-looking guy with a gray beard was buffing the floor. A scrawny black woman was running a vacuum. Velvet had a squirt bottle and a cleaning cloth and was wiping down plastic chairs. I thought about the kids I’d just left at the post-prom party—their fun and games, their Gummy Bear sundaes and college plans. But, hey, Velvet was her own worst enemy. I walked a little faster, relieved that she didn’t see me. Better for both of us. I had to talk to Maureen again about not getting sucked into the black hole of Velvet’s needs. She’d just get used and abused. You can’t undo that kind of damage. You
can’t.

No line at my airline counter. Just two attendants keeping each other company. They were both good-looking women. The buxom redhead was in her forties, the little blonde maybe two or three years out of high school. A phrase bubbled up from my college days, something Rocco Buzzi and I used to say about pretty girls :
I wouldn’t throw her out of bed.
Big Red took the lead.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Morning. I have an e-ticket. Last name’s Quirk.” Red nodded. Her fingers whizzed across her keyboard.

“Caelum
Quirk?”

“Yes.”

“And your final destination today is Hartford-Springfield?” “That’s right.”

The blonde squinted at the screen. “I never heard the name Caelum before,” she said. “Is it from the Bible?”

I shook my head. “Old family name.”

“Well, at least you weren’t named after some stupid song on the radio.”

I squinted to read her name tag: Layla. My eyes bounced over to
Big Red’s, too: Vivian. That’s the tricky part about women and name tags: to read them is to check out the frontal real estate. Which I was doing when Vivian caught me. “Well,” I told Layla. “You could do worse than being named after a Clapton song.”

“Picture ID, sir?” Viv said.

I nodded. Fumbled for my wallet. Handed her my driver’s license. Layla asked me if I was traveling for business or pleasure.

“Neither,” I said. “Sick relative.” Freshman year, Rocco and I had had four classifications for the girls we scoped out from afar in the BU cafeteria: wouldn’t screw her blindfolded;
would
screw her blindfolded; wouldn’t throw her out of bed; and, for girls of the highest order, would screw her grandmother to screw
her.
Rocco and I were both virgins back then, of course—huddled together, eating our turkey à la king and room-temperature Jell-O and rating girls we were too chicken-shit to approach.

“My son’s sick, too,” Layla said. “Four ear infections in one year. Wanna see his picture?”

Viv’s nostrils flared. “I think what Mr. Quirk wants is to get to his gate,” she said. She gave me a professional smile. “This is her first day on the job.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “And actually, I’d
like
to see her son’s picture.”

Viv’s smile became a grimace. Layla produced her purse. Her son dangled from her key ring, in a little plastic frame. Nappy hair, coffee skin.

“He’s cute,” I said. “How old?”

Three, she said. His name was Shabbaz. Vivian asked if I was checking any bags with them today.

“Uh, no. I just have the one carry-on.”

“And has anyone asked you to hold anything for them since you entered airport property, sir?”

Only the heroin smuggler, Viv.
“Uh, no. Nope.”

“And has the bag you’re carrying on board been in your possession at all times since you packed it?”

Pretty much, except when I left it with the Unabomber.
“Uh-huh.”

She looked up, concerned. “What?”

Had I just
said
Unabomber?”
Yes. Yes, it has.”

She nodded. “Aisle seat? Window seat?”

“Window, I guess. Better for sleeping.”

“Try sleeping when you’re a single mom,” Layla said. “Last night—”

“Well, then,” Viv interrupted. “You’re all set. Concourse B, gate thirty-six.” She handed me my boarding pass. “Have a nice flight.”

“Have a nice flight,” Layla echoed.

Ten or twelve steps toward the security gate, I looked back. Layla was getting chewed out in spades.

AT GATE
36,
I JOINED
my fellow travelers: guys with laptops, guys on cell phones, tanned retirees in jogging suits and gold jewelry. A college-age couple leaned against each other, napping. A Mexican dad passed out churros to his kids. I caught a whiff of the fried dough and started thinking about the Mama Mia Bakery. Maybe I’d stop by, check in with Alphonse while I was home. Or maybe not. Alphonse’s e-mails were depressing: all those politically incorrect jokes, all that silent salivating over some latest counter girl he’d just hired. Pushing fifty, Alphonse was still afraid to approach women. Still searching for his holy grail, too: a 1965 yellow Mustang hardtop with 289-cubic-inch engine, four-barrel carburetor, and solid-lifter valve train. He belonged to something called the Yellow Mustang Registry. Checked eBay five or six times a day.
Phoenician
Yellow, his dream car had to be, not the paler Springtime Yellow, also available back in ‘65. “Eat your breakfast now,” the Mexican dad said.
“Whoever don’t finish theirs don’t get on the plane.” One of the kids began to cry.

I got up, grabbed a seat closer to the TV. CNN Sports. Tim Couch had gone number one in the NFL draft. The Eagles had nabbed McNabb. Darryl Strawberry was in trouble again.

I watched the approach of a freaky-looking couple. Early twenties, maybe. She was fat, her hair a bunch of pigtail stubs. He was rat-faced. Nose ring, tattooed hands and fingers, missing teeth. She was eating a churro, too. They plopped down across from the napping college couple, whose eyes cracked open, then opened wider.

“Hi,” Pigtails said.

“Hey,” College Guy said.

“What are you guys going to Chicago for?”

They answered in unison. “Back to school.”

“Guess why me and him are going?” The college kids both shrugged. “We’re gonna be on
Jerry Springer.”

“Really?” College Girl said. College Boy leaned forward.

“They’re picking us up in a limo and paying for our hotel. The chauffeur’s meetin’ us at the baggage pickup. He’s gonna have a sign with my name on it.”

“That’s awesome,” College Boy said. “What are you going to be on for?”

Pigtails smiled at Ratso. Her fingers grazed his chest. “Me and him are lovers. And first cousins. Which is fine, because he got fixed.”

The airline rep announced that boarding would begin, small children and passengers with special needs first.

“Acourse, what’s fixed can get unfixed,” Ratso assured College Guy. “You know what I’m saying?”

“See that fat cow sitting over there?” Pigtails said. “That’s my mom. She’s gonna be on the show, too.” College Boy, College Girl, and I followed her gaze to a sad, puffy-looking woman with dyed black hair, seated by herself in the otherwise empty sea of chairs at
gate thirty-seven. She was glaring back. “He done her, too. When we get on
Springer,
there’s gonna be a showdown!”

“This so rocks,” College Boy said. He raised his fist and punched the air. “Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!”

“She had sex with her own
nephew?”
College Girl said. “Eww.”

“It’s gross, ain’t it?” Pigtails said. “I don’t blame
him,
though. She was always strutting around our apartment half-naked. Throwing it at him like Thanksgiving dinner. His mom? Her sister? She
disowned
her.” She shouted across the walkway. “What are
you
looking at, slut?” Now she had everyone’s attention, the gate attendants included. Her mother stood, turning her back to her daughter. The boarding of first-class customers began.

“If she flashes titty, they give her a bonus,” Ratso said.

“Not money, though,” Pigtails added. “Restaurant coupons. I may do it, I may not. Depends on how I feel. They blur it, so no one sees nothing.”

“What about the studio audience?” Ratso said. “Ain’t nobody blurring nothin’ out for them.”

“So?” she said. “Shut up.”

Rows thirty through forty were called to board. I was both relieved and disappointed when the
Springer
guests stood up. There went Mexican Guy and his brood, too. Pigtails’ mom was in the rows-twenty-to-thirty group. I found her strangely sympathetic. Well,
pathetic,
I guess. What, other than dim-wittedness, would have ever motivated her to go on that show?

My row was among the last called. I grabbed my breakfast tote from the self-serve cart, got through the tunnel, and made it to my window seat, 10A. This morning’s flight was a full one, the intercom voice told us. Would we please be seated, seatbelts secured, as soon as possible?

Through the magazine and blanket distribution, the headset sales and overhead baggage jockeying, the seat next to mine remained
empty. With any luck, I’d be able to flip up the armrest and stretch out a little, the better to sleep my way to Chicago.

I heard him before I saw him. “’Scuse me. ‘Scuse me, please. Oops, sorry. ‘Scuse me.” He negotiated the aisle with the grace of a buffalo and stopped dead at row 10. “Howdy doody,” he said. “Hold these for a sec?

I took his coffee in one hand, his pastry in the other—a catcher’s-mitt-sized cinnamon bun. His suitcase was cinched with leather belts. As he jammed and whacked it into the overhead space, his shirt untucked, exposing a jiggling, tofu-colored stomach. Mission accomplished, he crash-landed into seat 10B.

“Whoa,” he said, adjusting his safety belt. “I think an anorexic must have had this seat before I did.” He buckled the belt, flopped down his tray table, reclaimed his coffee and pastry. “Oh, geez,” he said. “Forgot to take my jacket off. Do you mind doing the honors again?” He folded his tray, unbuckled his belt. Struggling out of his sleeves, he whacked my arm, sloshing coffee onto my shirt. “Oops, me bad boy,” he said. His giggle was girlish.

He was Mickey Schmidt, he said. I told him my name. We shook hands. His was sticky. “And what does Caleb Quirk do for a living?” he asked.

It’s Caelum, douchebag.
“I teach.”

“At Colorado State? Me, too!”

I shook my head. “I teach high school.”

“High school!” He groaned. “I almost didn’t survive the experience.” I nodded, half-smiled. Told him a lot of people remembered it that way.

“No, I
mean
it,” he said. “Freshman year, I tried to kill myself.
Twice
.”

“Gee,” I said. I mean, what
can
you say?

“The first time, I filled the bathtub and climbed in with my father’s electric shaver. It kept shutting off. I thought it was God, willing me to live. But come to find out, it had a safety switch.” That giggle
again. He took another slug of coffee, another mouthful of cinnamon bun. He talked and ate simultaneously. “The second time, I tried to OD on my mother’s Kaopectate. She used to buy it by the case. I drank five bottles. I was going for six, but I couldn’t do it. You ever have your stomach pumped? I don’t recommend it.”

I fished out the in-flight magazine. Thumbed through it to shut him up. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small vial of pills. Popped one. “Flight anxiety,” he said. “Takeoffs and landings, mostly. Once I’m in the air, I’m calmer. Want one?” The pill vial hovered in front of my nose. I shook my head. “Well, Mickey, how about you? Would you like another to help you fly a little higher through the friendly skies? Why, yes, please. Don’t mind if I do.” He took a second tablet, a slurp of coffee. “So what do you know about chaos-complexity theory?” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Chaos-complexity theory.”

“Uh … is that the one where a butterfly flaps its wings in Africa and—”

“And it triggers a tornado in Texas. Yup, that’s it. Sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Of course, that’s an oversimplification. It’s all about bifurcation, really. Three types: subtle, catastrophic, and explosive. See, when bifurcation occurs, a dynamical system destabilizes. Becomes
perturbed,
okay? You with me so far?”

A crowded flight probably meant no seat-switching. And who would I end up next to if I
did
switch? The incest aunt?

Mercifully, the video screens blinked on and the emergency landing spiel began. At the front of the plane, a flight attendant mimed the on-screen instructions. You’d think someone with “flying anxieties” would shut up and listen, but Mickey talked over the audio. “Of course, the fascinating thing is that there’s a self-organizing principle at the
edge
of chaos. Order breeds habit, okay? But chaos breeds life.”

“Yeah, hold on,” I said. “I want to hear this.”

He resumed as soon as the video was over. “But anyhoo, that’s my area of expertise. I’m adjunct at Colorado State. I teach one course in math, another in philosophy, which makes perfect sense, see, because chaos-complexity cuts across the disciplines. Actually, I could teach in the theology department, too, because chaos theory’s entirely applicable to the world’s religions. That’s not a concept Pat Robertson and the pope would embrace, but hey. Don’t shoot the messenger!” The giggle. “Of course, three classes is full time, so they’d have to give me the benefits package, which would kill them. Screw the adjuncts, right? We’re the monks of higher education. How much do
you
make?”

I flinched a little. “Rather not say.”

He nodded. “Thank God I have another income stream. Whoops, there I go again. I’m the only atheist I know who keeps thanking God. Well, what do you expect, growing up with
my
mother? I mean, she made my father put a
shrine
to the Blessed Virgin in our backyard. Immaculate conception? Yeah,
sure,
Mom. So what do you teach?”

“American lit,” I said. “And writing.”