Flight Dreams (20 page)

He steps onto the rickety dais and turns to greet the people. Their chatter instantly ceases, and they respond like schoolchildren with a lilting “Good morning, Father.”

“Let us pray,” he tells them, and they rise amid a clanging of metal folding chairs. “God, our Father,” he intones mechanically, “be with us this glorious morning as we seek to find Your ways in a world that is often hostile yet forever beautiful. Make us worthy to act as servants in the home You have created for us. Make us one in mind and spirit. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.” He waves his hand in a loose blessing and asks the people to sit.

The only sure thing about these meetings is that they begin with a prayer; other than that, the agenda is left to the whim of the assembly. What can of worms, wonders the priest, will be opened this morning? Several hands already flutter, seeking recognition. A gangly young man, the choir director, itches to speak. “Yes, Ed?” says the priest.

Ed bolts up from his chair near the front of the hall and turns sideways to address the crowd. “Christmas is coming,” he says in a loud but wavering voice. “It’s only four days away, and
we
have a problem—the organ. Or I should say, the
lack
of an organ. The one we have doesn’t work and can’t be fixed. Now, traditional church music—the kind of music we all expect to hear in Assumption—is almost exclusively organ music. So we are faced with two unappealing options: Either we go
a capella
again, or we substitute a piano.”

“No!”
wails an old man, rising from his chair to speak without being recognized. “We’re
Catholics
here,” he bellows, amazed that he should have to state something so obvious. “Catholics don’t play pianos in church—not
real
Catholics. Pianos are for dance halls, not churches. Pianos are for heretics. They’re for, they’re for…
Protestants.
My God,” he says in a horrified whisper, crossing himself as the thought enters his mind, “first we’d have pianos, and then—before you knew what hit you—
guitars.
” He plops in his chair, quaking at the image he himself has conjured.

An uproar swells through the hall, with a cross fire of discussions and an anxious crop of raised hands. Father McMullen recognizes a young woman who cradles a sleeping infant in her arms. As she rises, the crowd hushes itself so as not to wake the child.

In a clear, soft voice, she says, “I think we should just keep things simple. Some of us feel awful strong that we shouldn’t have a piano in church, and I guess we don’t have the money for a new organ, so I think we should just go on without either. The Mass is beautiful. We don’t need to jazz it up. Let’s keep it simple.”

The room bursts into discussion as the woman sits down. The baby wakes and adds its crying to the din. Some of the crowd support the young woman, saying that she talks sense and that her solution is the only way to keep everyone happy. Others insist that they won’t be happy at all if they don’t get some
real
music into the church—disputing among themselves whether a piano is an acceptable substitute for an organ. Father McMullen makes no attempt to bring the meeting to order, preferring to let the assembly argue itself out. He will gladly go along with any resolution that the parish finds acceptable.

The priest notices Owen Foss sitting calmly in the crowd with his hand raised, not taking part in the discussion that roils around him. Owen is mature but not elderly, has never shown particular interest in musical matters, and the priest has always judged him levelheaded. “What’s on your mind, Owen?” calls Father McMullen above the turmoil.

Startled by the priest’s voice, the crowd falls silent and turns to watch Owen, who strokes his chin while rising. “I just think it’s kinda funny, Father, for everyone to be frettin’ over Christmas carols when there’s so much other stuff—
big
stuff—that needs our attention. Just look around you, everybody. Look at this pitiful excuse for a town hall—a dirty lunchroom in a run-down old school. The whole building’s a disgrace, and we need to replace it. But first, we’ve got to do something about health care. There’s lots of kids here, and old folks too, but
no doctors.
Why, we almost lost Father McMullen when he had his attack last year. We’ve
got
to build a hospital, a full-blown medical center! And when we’re through with that …”

“Now hold on, Owen,” says Father McMullen through a nervous chuckle. “That’s quite a wish list you’ve got there. Let’s not allow our worthy ambitions to get in the way of earthly practicalities. We’ve already gotten some initial estimates, and the hospital you describe would cost almost fifty million dollars. Good Lord, that project alone would entirely deplete our expected endowment.” He suddenly stops, as though he has let something slip.

Astounded, Owen asks the priest over the murmur of the crowd, “What are you talking about? That’s only
half
the money—it’s common knowledge.”

Near the back of the hall sits the woman with a novel, which lies unopened in her lap as she watches the progress of the meeting with an icy stare. Disgusted, she rises, turns, and walks out of the room, noticed only by the priest.

As she descends the front stairs of the school and walks off toward the town square, Father McMullen rushes out of the building after her. Winded, he calls, “What’s wrong?”

She stops in her tracks to look him straight in the eye. “These people make me sick,” she tells him, “bickering and pouting about what they want for Christmas, carrying on like a bunch of kids. I’d call you all hypocrites if I didn’t realize that I must be the biggest one of all—or the biggest fool. I have half a mind to put myself on the next plane out of here.”

“If I thought you meant that … you know you could break my heart.” He pats his ticker woefully, reminding her of his delicate condition. With an infectious grin, he coaxes a smile out of the woman.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him, unable to remain angry. “God’s given us a fine cool day, and we should thank Him for it by enjoying it.”

“So true. The simple pleasures of clear sky and birdsong are gifts we too often overlook.” A brownish bird dives from the church steeple and caws horribly as it passes over them. A snotlike circle of birdshit lands next to Father McMullen’s shoe. The woman stares at it, laughing inwardly while pretending to appreciate the priest’s enraptured monologue. “The gifts of nature,” he continues, “are among the sweetest of our Lord’s bountiful kindnesses. He showers us with fruits of the field and the bread of heaven.” The priest shifts his weight and steps on the slimy bread of heaven. The woman’s eyes bulge. “But God’s gifts are only one manifestation of His love for us. The trials, the
crosses
He sends us, are of course His most special blessings.”

“Jamie, you’re a good, holy man, and I love you like a true Christian, a brother—but I’ll have none of that ‘suffering is a blessing’ nonsense.” She beads him with a squint from beneath her sharply penciled brows, then tells him, “You’d better get back to your flock before they eat each other alive. I’ve got to go tend my own little herd.”

M
ANNING STANDS IN THE
middle of the street that runs straight between two rows of white houses. This is everyone’s mental picture of everyone else’s hometown. Though no one ever grew up here, it is the childhood setting that everyone feels deprived for having missed.

Manning is dressed to run again. He has been lax about it lately, and guilt gnaws at the lining of his stomach. He wonders if he’s fit for the task that now faces him.

The sun shines intensely from somewhere in the crystal sky, and he knows that his run will soon overheat him. He straddles the line of elastic tape in the middle of the road and removes his tight black T-shirt, his loose white shorts, and stands naked except for his running shoes. Aroused by the warmth of the sun against his body, he answers without hesitation the urge to stroke his penis to full erection. He wonders without caring if he is watched from behind the delicate lace curtains that flutter in the windows of the big clapboard houses.

He takes a deep breath. His lungs fill with the enriched and purified air that hangs over this special place. His veins course with blood that is instantly thicker, redder, more nourished for action.

Manning begins to run. His feet grate the pebbled asphalt on either side of the white line. His hair bobs rhythmically, parting into broad, tapering licks. He feels the repeated tug of gravity on the muscles of his chest and on his wobbling penis. Picking up speed, he feels no trace of pain or stress or fatigue, focusing only upon that point at the horizon where the white line ends. Houses and trees rush past him in a blur.

He trips. As though a wire has snagged his toes, he pitches forward with a force that threatens to grind his body along the pavement, but he feels no fear, recalling in a flash that the street will not rise to scrape against him. He is aloft.

He summons with ecstatic abandon the powers that he so needlessly doubted and even feared when he first came to this place—those powers from within that erase his tensions and allow him to soar, to flee from the forces that sought to trap him, to restrict him, to anchor him, plodding forever the approved and expected pathways of a hostile earth—forces from without that he now so easily conquers from within.

Manning blasts ahead over the line that stretches endlessly toward the horizon—a horizon that curves downward at the limits of his vision as he rises steadily from the ground and approaches the canopy of trees and birds that roar above him in the gusty friction of moving air. He does not want to break through the trees—not yet—but to soar at ever greater speed just below their limbs, constantly within sight of the line. It seems as though the universe itself is ripping past him—only the hard-edged strip of white tape travels with him, fixed and unwavering, pure and straight.

Zipping through space with his eyes aimed before him, Manning now notices that there is something on the road, on top of the line, far, far ahead. Intrigued, he slows his flight as he draws nearer, approaching the unknown object with caution. A burst of anger rises within him, provoked by the discovery that
something
has encroached upon his territory,
something
has invaded a world that’s been his alone.

The object moves. It’s alive.

Manning freezes in midair for the slightest fraction of a second. It is not something, but
someone,
who has entered his inner world. Manning’s flight slows to a crawl, high in the trees, as he stalks the alien visitor. The person is still a great distance down the road, but Manning now sees his features with sudden clarity. It is Neil.

He lies naked on the street, atop the white line, facing Manning. His legs are spread wide and his eyes are closed. He tugs comfortably, patiently on his swollen penis.

Manning’s arousal grows with new intensity and fevered urgency. A single desire, a single
need,
grips all his senses. He darts from his concealed path of flight and dives toward the man lying in the street. He plummets from the trees in a state of wild excitement and at last feels the burn of flesh against his own, the stiff jab of a penis, the abrasion of hair, the tangle of legs. Manning is blind, lost in a frenzy of random thrusts when he hears the words “you’re not queer, you’re not queer” echoing from his partner. He looks to the head of the body he has penetrated and finds Roxanne’s face thrashing in the pool of hair upon the street.

Manning awakes, terrified, gasping for each breath. His terror gives way to inexpressible confusion, and he sobs aloud. A hot tear slides from his cheek to form a cold little pool between the tendons of his neck. In the darkness, he kicks free of the sheets and tries to masturbate.

“Good morning.” It is Bud Stirkham. Manning’s chances for an orgasm—which were iffy at best—now wither completely. The radio drawls, “It’s twenty degrees at seven o’clock in Chicago, and the weatherman says snow is coming, maybe a heap of it. In case you’re keeping track, it’s our darkest morning of the year, the first full day of winter. But there’s news on a couple of fronts that should brighten your day and warm your heart.

“First, there are more encouraging signs from Ethiopia that the hostages there will soon be released—a lot of prayers would be answered if those heroic Americans made it home for Christmas! And locally, the state’s attorney is wrapping up a Christmas gift for the people, promising rigorous interrogations when the Houseman Trial opens next week—the answer to our prayers for justice in the shocking saga of Helena Carter’s disappearance.

“We’ll open the phone lines later to get
your
input on all this late-breaking news, but first let’s ease into the morning with a little Puccini, born this day in 1858. Let’s travel back in time with him to a Christmas Eve in Paris.”

Manning recognizes the festive opening of Act Two of
La Bohème.
It’s a lovely recording, but he’s not in the mood for it. He switches off the radio and stares into the dark silence.

He has always prided himself on his efficiency, his organization, his ability to
get things done
by rationally analyzing a situation and proceeding logically from point A to point Z. But now it’s come to this: His life is a mass, a
mess
of uncertainties that threaten his job, his reputation, his very identity. Lying there in the predawn emptiness of his bed, there’s not a damned thing he can do to defend his career as a reporter—not at this moment—but there is, he knows, something he can do to bolster his own self-worth through the honesty of a simple action he can no longer dodge.

Manning swings his feet to the floor and sits up. He switches on a lamp—his eyes crackle for a few seconds—then he reaches for the phone and dials a number he has never called but knows by heart. Spurts of electricity race fifteen hundred miles southwest to another time zone and enliven a bedside telephone on a mountain in the desert.

Neil picks up the receiver on the second ring. He has been roused from a deep sleep and holds the phone next to his head on the pillow, eyes still closed, unsure of what to do next.