Falling by T.J. Newman
CHAPTER TWO
STEPPING OFF THE JET BRIDGEstairs onto the tarmac, bill squinted under his hand’s attempt to shield the sun. Fall leaves and frosty mornings covered most of the country, but in Los Angeles endless summer reigned.
The walk around: the standard aircraft inspection done before every flight. Look the aircraft up and down, check for irregularities, visible signs of a compromised airframe, or any other mechanical issues. To most pilots, it was just another FAA regulation. To Bill, it was church. Placing a hand on the engine’s cowling, he closed his eyes. Fingers spreading with a slow inhale and exhale, metal and flesh communed, both warm to the touch.
He would turn eighteen next month, but that day in flight school, Bill knew he’d met a more important rite of passage.
“Now, when we log a flight plan, do you know why we write ‘souls on board’ instead of ‘people on board’?” his instructor had asked.
Bill shook his head.
“We say it that way so that if we crash,” he explained, “they know exactlyhow many bodies they’re looking for. Avoids the confusion of different titles like passengers, crew, infants. Just how many bodies, son. That’s all they need to know. Oh!” He snapped his fingers. “And sometimes we carry dead bodies in the cargo hold so they need to know not to count them. So now, after you log in the souls…”
Bill couldn’t sleep that night. Lying on his back, watching the ceiling fan spin, he listened to his younger brother snoring softly from across the room. Cream-colored curtains and a warm Illinois summer breeze flirted through the open window, making wavy shadows dance on the wall.
With darkness still painting the room, he dressed and slipped out of the house, riding his bike alongside the cornfields to the town’s tiny airfield. Two planes sat on the tarmac; the air traffic control tower, empty and quiet, loomed in the distance. The planes were small single-engine pistons, the types of planes he was learning on. The types of planes he would outgrow, trading them in for bigger engines, greater loads, heavier aircraft. Bill leaned against the fence for a long time staring them down.
Or were they sizing him up? As the stars faded and dawn began to break with pink and orange streaks, it felt as though the questioning had turned.
Could he bear the burden of duty? Could he be the man the job demanded?
Everything looked good. Tire tread fresh, gears greasy, sensors properly positioned, no fractures, no fissures. Catching a movement from out of the corner of his eye, Bill took a few steps out from under the plane. Up in the cockpit, his copilot, Ben Miro, leaned forward with a wave, letting Bill know he’d arrived. Bill dropped his smile when the young man held his Yankees ball cap up to the window. Bill shook his head with a face of disgust. Ben kept on grinning, flashing the captain his middle finger.
Walk around completed, Bill climbed the stairs up to the jet bridge with a look back at his plane. The tail of the Airbus A320, proudly bearing the red-and-white Coastal Airways logo, filled him with pride—and then he remembered Carrie. Punching in the door’s security code, he checked his phone.
No missed texts. No missed calls.
His eyes adjusted in the fluorescent lighting as the door shut behind him. Tripping over a passenger’s bag, Bill apologized with a surprised chuckle while the man scowled down at him—which was impressive, considering the pilot himself was six foot four. Looking the uniform up and down as the captain stepped around him, the man returned a meager grin.
The line of passengers snaked down the jet bridge onto the plane and Bill skirted through the suitcases and strollers with an accommodating smile. At last he stepped on board with a glance toward the back of the plane through the pink-and-purple mood lighting, the hip airline’s iconic nightclub atmosphere.
“I guess we’re boarding,” he said to the flight attendant standing on her tiptoes to reach into one of the carriers in her galley. Jo turned, her eyes lighting up with surprise as Bill stooped to hug the petite middle-aged woman. Her fluffy black coils tickled his cheek as a familiar vanilla scent rose up from her dark brown skin.
“It’s my signature scent,” Jo said. “Same as my mama and her mama before that. See, when a Watkins girl turns thirteen, all the women in the family gather to celebrate her. No men allowed—just the ladies. We sit in the kitchen. We talk, we cook, we just…feel the generations of female.”
It was music, the way she spoke. Bill delighted in every dragged-out vowel, hanging on to the hilly cadence and unpredictable word emphasis. He always asked about her childhood because he loved hearing her faded East Texas accent get stronger, as it always did, when she talked about her past. Bill finished his beer, indicating to the bartender they’d like another round.
“I’ll never forget Great-Grammy taking the Dr Pepper bottle out of my hand and setting it there on the kitchen counter,” Jo recalled, smiling into her wineglass like she was watching the memory play out. “Lord, that woman’s hands. She wasn’t a big woman, but those hands…
“Anyway, she didn’t say a word, she just handed me this shiny gold box with this royal-blue bow. I knew what it was, we all did. I remember my fingers sliding that bow off so careful-like, and when I opened that box—there it was. My very own bottle of Shalimar. I smelled it. It smelled like my mama. And her mama. It smelled like what I was and who I would become.”
“I didn’t know you were on this trip,” Jo said.
“I picked it up last night. They were out of reserves so O’Malley asked me to help out.”
“Look at you on speed dial with the chief pilot,” she said, smiling all the while to the boarding guests.
“See? You understand what that means. Could you please explain it to Carrie?”
Jo raised an eyebrow. “Well, that depends. What are you missing to be here?”
“Scott’s Little League season opener. After I promised him I’d be there.”
Jo winced.
“I know,” Bill said. “But what was I supposed to do? It’s not like I’m an absent father. When I’m home, I’m home. I’m present, I’m there. I just happen to have a job that means when I’m at work, I’m away. I’ll make it up to him when I get back.”
He waited for some sort of validation, but Jo just kept pouring her first-class pre-departure beverages. She looked up after a moment.
“Oh, I’m sorry, were you still talking to me? I thought you were explaining all that to your wife. Or to your son. Or to… yourself.” She picked up the tray of drinks. “You’re not wrong, honey. But you are working it out with the wrong person.”
Jo was right. Jo was always right.
“You want coffee?” she asked over her shoulder on her way to deliver the drinks.
“C’mon. You know the answer to that.” Bill ducked into the cockpit.
“Boss man!” Ben said, the men shaking hands as Bill took the left seat. Black and gray buttons and knobs covered nearly every surface in the tiny space. Occasionally, a flash of red or a pop of yellow. Those buttons were the messengers of something gone wrong—the gate-crashers to a quiet flight.
“Sorry I was late,” Ben said. “Even on a Saturday, fucking LA traffic.”
“It happens,” Bill said, reaching for the hand mic in its cradle to the left of his seat. He cleared his throat. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Coastal Airways Flight four-one-six with nonstop service to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. My name is Bill Hoffman and I have the privilege of being your captain on today’s flight. With me in the cockpit is First Officer Ben and we have a terrific in-flight team serving you in the cabin, although they are here primarily for your safety. Jo is up front, Michael and Kellie are in the back. Flight time today will be five hours and twenty-four minutes and it looks to be a smooth ride. If there is anything we can do to make this flight more pleasant, please don’t hesitate to let us know. For now, sit back, enjoy our in-seat entertainment system, and as always, thank you for choosing to fly Coastal Airways.”
“Did you see Kellie? The new reserve in the back?” Ben asked.
“No, why?”
Ben stopped punching coordinates into the flight management guidance computer to make a few lewd gestures, his hips driving the message home. Bill shook his head with a snort. The days before Carrie, when he too had been a skirt-chasing first officer, seemed like another lifetime. Ben stopped abruptly as Jo entered the cockpit with a steaming cup.
“You want coffee, hon?” she asked the first officer, passing the cup to Bill, not needing to ask to know he took it black.
“No, ma’am, but I will take a drink once we get to the bar in New York.”
“Correct,” she said with a nod and a finger point. “We’re good to go back here, just waiting on two. Y’all mind a visitor while we finish up?”
Bill turned to see a young boy peering out from behind Jo’s legs.
“Sure, come on in,” Bill said as Jo left, shifting in his seat to beckon the boy forward. His father crouched behind him, whispering encouragement into his ear.
“He’s a little shy,” the man said. “But he loves planes. We park by the airport and watch them take off and land all the time.”
“The lot by the burger joint just off the north runway? My son and I did that a lot when he was this guy’s age. Still do from time to time.” Bill made a mental note that he should take Scott after this trip. “Would you like to know what some of these buttons do?” Bill asked the child before starting a tour.
A few minutes later, Jo poked her head in the cockpit as the last two passengers boarded behind her. “All set, Bill,” she said, handing him the final paperwork.
“Well, I guess we better get to work. Thanks for coming up. Would you like a pair of wings?” Bill reached into his messenger bag that sat to the left of his seat, producing a pair of small plastic wings. Removing the back with an official flourish, he stuck it to the boy’s T-shirt. The child looked down at the shiny wings, his head rising a moment later in a peal of laughter before burying his face in his dad’s leg. Bill smiled with a nostalgic pang, thinking of Scott when he was that small, a time that now felt so long ago. The two left to take their seats, the father mouthing his thanks.
Souls on board, Bill reminded himself as he double-checked the numbers on the load sheet. Signing off, he passed it back to Jo, who handed it to the waiting gate agent. A moment later, the aircraft door closed with a heavy thud as passengers ended phone calls and settled in.
“ ‘Before start’ checklist to the line, Bill?” Ben said.
Bill’s phone lit up. Expecting a text from “Carrie Cell,” he frowned at finding a promotional email from his gym instead.
Behind them, Jo pulled the cockpit door out of the magnetic latch that held it open.
“Cabin ready for pushback,” she said, waiting. Bill turned in his seat with a nod and thumbs-up. At that, she shut the door and the two men were alone.
Bill turned his phone to airplane mode, shutting Carrie out. She’d known his time was limited; she knew once they took off he wouldn’t really be able to talk, what with Ben sitting beside him. It was childish for him to be annoyed. But he was. If she’d wanted an apology she should have called him back on the ground. He’d text her once they were at cruise, but that was the best she would get until they landed in New York.
“Okay. ‘Before start’ checklist to the line, please,” Bill said.
Ben pulled out the laminated checklist. “Logbook, release, tail number…”
Reaching up, Bill flicked the FASTEN SEAT BELT sign off. The plane had leveled off and now floated eastward, a mass of humanity hanging in limbo.
“Coastal four-one-six, contact LA center one-two-niner-point-five-zero,”the squawk of the air traffic controller rang throughout the cockpit.
“Coastal four-one-six,” Bill identified, “LA on one-two-niner-point-five-oh. Good day.”
Ben reached to his left and pushed a knob on the lower console control panel. Turning it counterclockwise, yellow digital numbers descended toward the new frequency. The controller who would answer the other end of the line would guide them through his jurisdiction before handing the plane off to the next sector’s en route controller. Like that, all the way across the country, the plane’s communication to ground would be passed off like a baton.
Bill waited until Ben stopped at 129.50 and pressed the transfer button. “Good afternoon, Los Angeles center,” he said into the mic, studying the panel indicating their altitude, direction, and speed. “Coastal four-one-six checking in at flight level three-five-zero.”
“Good afternoon, Costal. Maintain three-five-zero,”responded the controller. Bill holstered the mic and punched a button on the console in front of him. A green light lit up above the label “AP1,” confirming the autopilot had been engaged. Releasing the shoulder straps of his five-point harness and reclining his seat, Bill settled in for the cruise.
“Sir?” Jo said. “Sir?”
The man stared at the seatback TV in front of him. Jo wiggled her fingers in front of the screen, his eyes darting up as he hastily removed his headphones and accepted the glass of wine she held out.
“Sorry,” he apologized, returning to the screen.
“Big game?” she asked, passing a seltzer no ice off her tray to the college-aged girl in the first-class seat next to him.
“You kiddin’?” he said, with a thick New York accent. “Game seven of the World Series? Yeah, it’s a big game.”
“I’m assuming you’re rooting for the Yankees,” Jo said.
“Since the day I was born,” he replied, putting his headphones back on to hear the pregame coverage. Next to him, the girl sent a text to her boyfriend. We land at 10:30. Can you pick me up? She watched his three dots at work, smiling when his text came through.
Four rows back in the main cabin, a man turned the page in his book. The beam of the overhead light irritated the guy in the middle seat next to him who was trying to sleep. Across the aisle, a woman pressed “Send” on her laptop, the email arriving seconds later in her boss’s inbox back in LA. The guy by the window squirmed in his seat, wondering how long he could wait before he’d have to ask the row to get up so he could use the bathroom. Behind him, neck arched, mouth agape, a loud snore came from the “passenger of size” who had asked the flight attendants for a seat belt extender during boarding. A toddler ambled down the aisle past them all. His mother held on to his raised hands, steadying the child in the plane’s gentle rock.
On the other side of the cockpit door, the pilots spoke with air traffic control, adjusting the plane’s altitude or speed when directed. They checked weather reports for updates and surveyed the open expanse in front of them, endless stretches of deserts and snow-covered mountaintops, a rolling procession of the dramatic landscapes of the western United States. But with the plane steadily cruising, they mostly passed the time just like their passengers. Ben read a book on his tablet and occasionally sent a text. Bill chewed a granola bar, working on the computer-based portion of the biannual recurrent training he had coming up in a few weeks.
Bill’s laptop pinged with an incoming email. It was from Carrie—but it had no subject or text, only a picture attachment. That’s odd, he thought as he clicked on the attachment. It wasn’t unusual for her to send pictures of the kids or of an activity that he was missing at home. But after the way they’d left things, the gesture felt out of place.
Studying the picture, Bill blinked a few times, even more confused. He recognized the couch and the television behind it. He was familiar with the books and the picture frames. He saw the beer bottle where he had left it the night before after he and Scott finished watching the Dodgers lose game six, and he could envision the tall oak tree in the backyard that left its shadowy outline on the floor of his sunlit family room.
These things made sense to him.
The two figures that stood in the middle of the room did not.
Barefoot, bare-legged, their arms outstretched in the shape of a cross; timid hands opened toward the heavens in a silent plea of helplessness. He knew their faces, but he could not see them beneath the black hoods that covered their heads. He did not need to glimpse his wife’s pink toenail polish to know one figure was her, and he did not need confirmation that the other’s skinny legs were those of his son.
Bill leaned forward, trying to make sense of what Carrie was wearing. Strapped across her whole torso was some strange sort of vest. Pockets covered it front to back, brightly colored wires protruding from small bricks that lay inside. He’d seen such vests on the news in grainy video footage of suicide bombers making their final martyrdom statements. But in the moment, his mind couldn’t process the sight of something so perverse strapped across his wife’s body.
His mouth went dry. Steadying himself with a hand on the tray table, his head spun. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, hoping that when he opened them, the picture would be gone. Or that he would wake up and find this was all a dream. Somehow, maybe, he could start over. Or just—disappear.
Opening his eyes, he thought he might be sick.
The picture of his wife, wearing an explosive suicide vest, standing next to their son in their own living room, was still there.
Another email hit the inbox.
Put on your headphones.
With that, an incoming FaceTime call popped up on the screen.