Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales (29 page)

So did I, Dixon thought.

“Nonsense!” Although he sounded hearty, Freeman looked decidedly green around the gills. “These planes, the way they’re built, they could fly into a hurricane. They—”

A liquid belch halted his disquisition. Freeman plucked an airsick bag from the pocket in the back of the seat ahead of him, opened it, and put it over his mouth. There followed a noise that reminded Dixon of a small but efficient coffee grinder. It stopped, then started again.

The ding-dong went. “Sorry about that, folks,” Captain Stuart said. Still sounding as cool as the other side of the pillow. “It happens from time to time, a little weather phenomenon we call clear air turbulence. The good news is I’ve called it in, and other aircraft will be vectored around that particular trouble spot. The better news is that we’ll be landing in forty minutes, and I guarantee you a smooth ride the rest of the way.”

Mary Worth laughed shakily. “That’s what he said before.”

Frank Freeman was folding down the top of his airsick bag, doing it like a man with experience. “That wasn’t fear, don’t get that idea, just plain old motion sickness. I can’t even ride in the back seat of a car without getting nauseated.”

“I’m going to take the train back to Boston,” Mary Worth said. “No more of
that
, thank you very much.”

Dixon watched as the flight attendants first made sure that the unbelted passengers were all right, then cleared the aisle of spilled luggage. The cabin was filled with chatter and nervous laughter. Dixon watched and listened, his heartbeat returning to normal. He was tired. He was always tired after saving an aircraft filled with passengers.

The rest of the flight was routine, just as the captain had promised.

5

Mary Worth hurried after her luggage, which would be arriving on Carousel 2 downstairs. Dixon, with just the one small bag, stopped for a drink in Dewar’s Clubhouse. He invited Mr. Businessman to join him, but Freeman shook his head. “I puked up tomorrow’s hangover somewhere over the South Carolina-Georgia line, and I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead. Good luck with your business in Sarasota, Mr. Dixon.”

Dixon, whose business had actually been transacted over that same South Carolina-Georgia line, nodded and thanked him. A text came in while he was finishing his whiskey and soda. It was from the facilitator, just two words:
Good job
.

He took the escalator down. A man in a dark suit and a chauffer’s cap was standing at the bottom, holding a sign with his name on it. “That’s me,” Dixon said. “Where am I booked?”

“The Ritz-Carlton,” the driver said. “Very nice.”

Of course it was, and there would be a fine suite waiting for him, probably with a bay view. There would also be a rental car waiting for him in the hotel garage, should he care to visit a nearby beach or any of the local attractions. In the room he would find an envelope containing a list of various female services, which he had no interest in taking advantage of tonight. All he wanted tonight was sleep.

When he and the driver stepped out onto the curb, he saw Mary Worth standing by herself, looking a bit forlorn. She had a suitcase on either side of her (matching, of course, and tartan). Her phone was in her hand.

“Ms. Worth,” Dixon said.

She looked up and smiled. “Hello, Mr. Dixon. We survived, didn’t we?”

“We did. Is someone meeting you? One of your chums?”

“Mrs. Yeager—Claudette—was supposed to, but her car won’t start. I was just about to call an Uber.”

He thought of what she’d said when the turbulence—forty seconds that had seemed like four hours—finally eased: I
knew
we were going to die. I
saw
it.

“You don’t need to do that. We can take you to Siesta Key.” He pointed to the stretch limo a little way down the curb, then turned to the driver. “Can’t we?”

“Of course, sir.”

She looked at him doubtfully. “Are you sure? It’s awfully late.”

“My pleasure,” he said. “Let’s do this thing.”

6

“Ooh, this is nice,” Mary Worth said, settling into the leather seat and stretching out her legs. “Whatever your business is, you must be very successful at it, Mr. Dixon.”

“Call me Craig. You’re Mary, I’m Craig. We should be on a first-name basis, because I want to talk to you.” He pressed a button and the privacy glass went up.

Mary Worth watched this rather nervously, then turned to Dixon. “You aren’t going to, as they say, put a move on me, are you?”

He smiled. “No, you’re safe with me. You said you were going to take the train back. Did you mean that?”

“Absolutely. Do you remember me saying that flying made me feel close to God?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t feel close to God while we were being tossed like a salad six or seven miles up in the air. Not at all. I only felt close to death.”

“Would you
ever
fly again?”

She considered the question carefully, watching the palms and car dealerships and fast food franchises slide past as they rolled south on the Tamiami Trail. “I suppose I would. If someone was on his deathbed, say, and I had to get there fast. Only I don’t know who that someone would be, because I don’t have much in the way of family. My husband and I never had children, my parents are dead, and that just leaves a few cousins that I rarely email with, let alone see.”

Better and better, Dixon thought.

“But you’d be afraid.”

“Yes.” She looked back at him, eyes wide. “I really thought we were going to die. In the sky, if the plane came apart. On the ground if it didn’t. Nothing left of us but charred little pieces.”

“Let me spin you a hypothetical,” Dixon said. “Don’t laugh, think about it seriously.”

“Okay…”

“Suppose there’s an organization whose job is to keep airplanes safe.”

“There is,” Mary Worth said, smiling. “I believe it’s called the FAA.”

“Suppose it was an organization that could predict which airplanes would encounter severe and unexpected turbulence on any given flight.”

Mary Worth clapped her hands in soft applause, smiling more widely now. Into it. “No doubt staffed by precognates! Those are people who—”

“People who see the future,” Dixon said. And wasn’t that possible? Likely, even? How else could the facilitator get his information? “But let’s say their ability to see the future is limited to this one thing.”

“Why would that be? Why wouldn’t they be able to predict elections…football scores…the Kentucky Derby…”

“I don’t know,” Dixon said, thinking, maybe they can. Maybe they can predict all sorts of things, these hypothetical precognates in some hypothetical room. Maybe they do. He didn’t care. “Now let’s go a little further. Let’s suppose Mr. Freeman was wrong, and turbulence of the sort we encountered tonight is a lot more serious than anyone—including the airlines—believes, or is willing to admit. Suppose that kind of turbulence can only be survived if there is at least one talented, terrified passenger on each plane that encounters it.” He paused. “And suppose that on tonight’s flight, that talented and terrified passenger was me.”

She pealed merry laughter and only sobered when she saw he wasn’t joining her.

“What about the planes that fly into hurricanes, Craig? I believe Mr. Freeman mentioned something about planes like that just before he needed to use the airsick bag.
Those
planes survive turbulence that’s probably even worse than what we experienced this evening.”

“But the people flying them know what they’re getting into,” Dixon said. “They are mentally prepared. The same is true of many commercial flights. The pilot will come on even before takeoff and say, ‘Folks, I’m sorry, but we’re in for a bit of a rough ride tonight, so keep those seatbelts buckled.’”

“I get it,” she said. “Mentally prepared passengers could use…I guess you’d call it united telepathic strength to hold the plane up. It’s only
unexpected
turbulence that would call for the presence of someone already prepared. A terrified…mmm…I don’t know what you’d call a person like that.”

“A turbulence expert,” Dixon said quietly. “That’s what you’d call them. What you’d call me.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I am. And I’m sure you’re thinking right now that you’re riding with a man suffering a serious delusion, and you can’t wait to get out of this car. But in fact it
is
my job. I’m well paid—”

“By whom?”

“I don’t know. A man calls. I and the other turbulence experts—there are a few dozen of us—call him the facilitator. Sometimes weeks go by between calls. Once it was two months. This time it was only two days. I came to Boston from Seattle, and over the Rockies…” He wiped a hand over his mouth, not wanting to remember but remembering, anyway. “Let’s just say it was bad. There were a couple of broken arms.”

They turned. Dixon looked out the window and saw a sign reading SIESTA KEY, 2 MILES.

“If this was true,” she said, “why in God’s name would you do it?”

“The pay is good. The amenities are good. I like to travel…or did, anyway; after five or ten years, all places start to look the same. But mostly…” He leaned forward and took one of her hands in both of his. He thought she might pull away, but she didn’t. She was looking at him, fascinated. “It’s saving lives. There were over a hundred and fifty people on that airplane tonight. Only the airlines don’t just call them people, they call them
souls
, and that’s the right way to put it. I saved a hundred and fifty souls tonight. And since I’ve been doing this job I’ve saved thousands.” He shook his head. “No, tens of thousands.”

“But you’re terrified each time. I saw you tonight, Craig. You were in mortal terror. So was I. Unlike Mr. Freeman, who only threw up because he was airsick.”

“Mr. Freeman could never do this job,” Dixon said. “You can’t do the job unless you’re convinced each time the turbulence starts that you are going to die. You’re convinced of that even though you know you’re the one making sure that won’t happen.”

The driver spoke quietly from the intercom. “Five minutes, Mr. Dixon.”

“I must say this has been a fascinating discussion,” Mary Worth said. “May I ask how you got this unique job in the first place?”

“I was recruited,” Dixon said. “As I am recruiting you, right now.”

She smiled, but this time she didn’t laugh. “All right, I’ll play. Suppose you did recruit me? What would you get out of it? A bonus?”

“Yes,” Dixon said. Two years of his future service forgiven, that was the bonus. Two years closer to retirement. He had told the truth about having altruistic motives—saving lives, saving
souls
—but he had also told the truth about how travel eventually became wearying. The same was true of saving souls, when the price of doing so was endless moments of terror high above the earth.

Should he tell her that once you were in, you couldn’t get out? That it was your basic deal with the devil? He should. But he wouldn’t.

They swung into the circular drive of a beachfront condo. Two ladies—undoubtedly Mary Worth’s chums—were waiting there.

“Would you give me your phone number?” Dixon asked.

“What? So you can call me? Or so you can pass it on to your boss? Your facilitator?”

“That,” Dixon said. “Nice as it’s been, Mary, you and I will probably never see each other again.”

She paused, thinking. The chums-in-waiting were almost dancing with excitement. Then Mary opened her purse and took out a card. She handed it to Dixon. “This is my cell number. You can also reach me at the Boston Public Library.”

Dixon laughed. “I
knew
you were a librarian.”

“Everyone does,” she said. “It’s a bit boring, but it pays the rent, as they say.” She opened the door. The chums squealed like rock show groupies when they saw her.

“There are more exciting occupations,” Dixon said.

She looked at him gravely. “There’s a big difference between temporary excitement and mortal fear, Craig. As I think we both know.”

He couldn’t argue with her on that score, but got out and helped the driver with her bags while Mary Worth hugged two of the widows she had met in an Internet chat room.

7

Mary was back in Boston, and had almost forgotten Craig Dixon, when her phone rang one night. Her caller was a man with a very slight lisp. They talked for quite awhile.

The following day, Mary Worth was on Jetway Flight 694, nonstop from Boston to Dallas, sitting in coach, just aft of the starboard wing. Middle seat. She refused anything to eat or drink.

The turbulence struck over Oklahoma.

Falling

James Dickey

Before you groan, shake your head, and say “I don’t read poetry,” you should remember that James Dickey wasn’t just a poet; he also wrote the classic novel of survival,
Deliverance
, and the less-read
To the White Sea
, about a B-29 gunner forced to parachute into enemy territory. Dickey wrote from experience; he was a combat flier in both World War II and Korea. “Falling” has the same narrative drive and gorgeously controlled language as
Deliverance
. Once read, it is impossible to forget. An interesting footnote: Dickey admitted in a self-interview that the poem’s central conceit was unlikely (a woman falling from that height would be flash-frozen, he said), but in fact it did happen: in 1972, stewardess Vesna Vulovic fell 33,000 feet in a DC-9 that was probably blown apart by a bomb…and she survived. The text quoted at the beginning of the poem comes from an October 29, 1962, NYT article about an incident involving an Allegheny Airlines twin-engine Convair 440 approaching Bradley Field in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. Two other stewardesses had been killed in similar incidents the previous month.

A 29-year-old stewardess fell ... to her death tonight when she was swept through an emergency door that suddenly sprang open ... The body ... was found ... three hours after the accident.

—New York Times

The states when they black out and lie there rollingwhen they turn

To something transcontinentalmove bydrawing moonlight out of the great

One-sided stone hung off the starboard wingtipsome sleeper next to

An engine is groaning for coffeeand there is faintly coming in

Somewhere the vast beast-whistle of space. In the galley with its racks

Of traysshe rummages for a blanketand moves in her slim tailored

Uniform to pin it over the cry at the top of the door. As though she blew

The door down with a silent blast from her lungsfrozenshe is black

Out finding herselfwith the plane nowhere and her body taken by the throat

The undying cry of the voidfallinglivingbeginning to be something

That no one has ever been and lived throughscreaming without enough air

Still neatlipstickedstockingedgirdled by regulationher hat

Still onher arms and legs in no worldand yet spaced also strangely

With utter placid rightness on thin airtaking her timeshe holds it

In many placesand now, still thousands of feet from her death she seems

To slowshe develops interestshe turns in her maneuverable body

To watch it. She is hung high up in the overwhelming middle of things in her

Selfin low body-whistling wrapped intenselyin all her dark dance-weight

Coming down from a marvellous leapwith the delaying, dumfounding ease

Of a dream of being drawnlike endless moonlight to the harvest soil

Of a central state of one’s countrywith a great gradual warmth coming

Over herfloatingfinding more and more breath in what she has been using

For breathas the levels become more humanseeing clouds placed honestly

Below her left and rightriding slowly toward themshe clasps it all

To her and can hang her hands and feet in it in peculiar waysand

Her eyes opened wide by wind, can open her mouth as widewider and suck

All the heat from the cornfieldscan go down on her back with a feeling

Of stupendous pillows stacked under herand can turnturn as to someone

In bedsmile, understood in darknesscan go awayslantslide

Off tumblinginto the emblem of a bird with its wings half-spread

Or whirl madly on herselfin endless gymnastics in the growing warmth

Of wheatfields rising toward the harvest moon.There is time to live

In superhuman healthseeing mortal unreachable lights far down seeing

An ultimate highway with one late priceless car probing itarriving

In a square townand off her starboard arm the glitter of water catches

The moon by its one shaken sidescaled, roaming silverMy God it is good

And evillying in one after another of all the positions for love

Makingdancingsleepingand now cloud wisps at her no

Raincoatno matterall small towns brokenly brighter from inside

Cloudshe walks over them like rainbursts out to behold a Greyhound

Bus shooting light through its sidesit is the signal to go straight

Down like a glorious diverthen feet firsther skirt stripped beautifully

Upher face in fear-scented clothsher legs deliriously barethen

Arms outshe slow-rolls oversteadies outwaits for something great

To take control of hertrembles near feathersplanes head-down

The quick movements of bird-necks turning her headgold eyes the insight-

eyesight of owls blazing into the hencoopsa taste for chicken overwhelming

Herthe long-range vision of hawks enlarging all human lights of cars

Freight trainslooped bridgesenlarging the moon racing slowly

Through all the curves of a riverall the darks of the midwest blazing

From above. A rabbit in a bush turns whitethe smothering chickens

Huddlefor over them there is still time for something to live

With the streaming half-idea of a long stoopa hurtlinga fall

That is controlledthat plummets as it willsturns gravity

Into a new condition, showing its other side like a moonshining

New Powersthere is still time to live on a breath made of nothing

But the whole nighttime for her to remember to arrange her skirt

Like a diagram of a battightly it guides hershe has this flying-skin

Made of garmentsand there are also those sky-divers on tvsailing

In sunlightsmiling under their gogglesswapping batons back and forth

And He who jumped without a chute and was handed one by a diving

Buddy. She looks for her grinning companionwhite teethnowhere

She is screamingsinging hymnsher thin human wings spread out

From her neat shouldersthe air beast-crooning to herwarbling

And she can no longer behold the huge partial form of the worldnow

She is watching her country lose its evoked master shapewatching it lose

And gainget back its houses and peopleswatching it bring up

Its local lightssingle homeslamps on barn roofsif she fell

Into water she might livelike a divercleavingperfectplunge

Into anotherheavy silverunbreathableslowingsaving

Element: there is waterthere is time to perfect all the fine

Points of divingfeet togethertoes pointedhands shaped right

To insert her into water like a needleto come out healthily dripping

And be handed a Coca-Colathere they arethere are the waters

Of lifethe moon packed and coiled in a reservoirso let me begin

To plane across the night air of Kansasopening my eyes superhumanly

Brightto the damned moonopening the natural wings of my jacket

By Don Lopermoving like a hunting owl toward the glitter of water

One cannot just falljust tumble screaming all that timeone must use

It
she is now through with allthrough allcloudsdamphair

Straightenedthe last wisp of fog pulled apart on her face like wool revealing

New darksnew progressions of headlights along dirt roads from chaos

And nighta gradual warminga new-made, inevitable world of one’s own

Countrya great stone of light in its waiting watersholdhold out

For water: who knows when what correct young woman must take up her body

And flyand head for the moon-crazed inner eye of midwest imprisoned

Waterstored up for her for yearsthe arms of her jacket slipping

Air up her sleeves to goall over her? What final things can be said

Of one who starts her sheerly in her body in the high middle of night

Airto track down water like a rabbit where it lies like life itself

Off to the right in Kansas? She goes towardthe blazing-bare lake

Her skirts neather hands and face warmed more and more by the air

Rising from pastures of beansand under herunder chenille bedspreads

The farm girls are feeling the goddess in them struggle and rise brooding

On the scratch-shining posts of the beddreaming of female signs

Of the moonmale blood like ironof what is really said by the moan

Of airliners passing over them at dead of midwest midnightpassing

Over brush firesburning out in silence on little hillsand will wake

To see the woman they should bestruggling on the rooftree to become

Stars: for her the ground is closerwater is nearershe passes

Itthen banksturnsher sleeves fluttering differently as she rolls

Out to face the east, where the sun shall come up from wheatfields she must

Do something with waterfly to itfall in itdrink itrise

From itbut there is none left upon earththe clouds have drunk it back

The plants have sucked it downthere are standing toward her only

The common fields of deathshe comes back from flying to falling

Returns to a powerful crythe silent scream with which she blew down

The coupled door of the airlinernearlynearly losing hold

Of what she has doneremembersremembers the shape at the heart

Of cloudfashionably swirlingremembers she still has time to die

Beyond explanation. Let her now take off her hat in summer air the contour

Of cornfieldsand have enough time to kick off her one remaining

Shoe with the toesof the other footto unhook her stockings

With calm fingers, noting how fatally easy it is to undress in midair

Near deathwhen the body will assume without effort any position

Except the one that will sustain itenable it to riselive

Not dienine farms hover closewideneight of them separate, leaving

One in the middlethen the fields of that farm do the samethere is no

Way to back offfrom her chosen groundbut she sheds the jacket

With its silver sad impotent wingssheds the bat’s guiding tailpiece

Of her skirtthe lightning-charged clinging of her blousethe intimate

Inner flying-garment of her slip in which she rides like the holy ghost

Of a virginsheds the long windsocks of her stockingsabsurd

Brassierethen feels the girdle required by regulations squirming

Off her: no longer monobuttockedshe feels the girdle fluttershake

In her handand floatupwardher clothes rising off her ascending

Into cloudand fights away from her head the last sharp dangerous shoe

Like a dumb birdand now will drop insoonnow will drop

In like thisthe greatest thing that ever came to Kansasdown from all

Heightsall levels of American breathlayered in the lungs from the frail

Chill of space to the loam where extinction slumbers in corn tassels thickly

And breathes like rich farmers counting: will come along them after

Her last superhuman actthe last slow careful passing of her hands

All over her unharmed bodydesired by every sleeper in his dream:

Boys finding for the first time their loins filled with heart’s blood

Widowed farmers whose hands float under light covers to find themselves

Arisen at sunrisethe splendid position of blood unearthly drawn

Toward cloudsall feel somethingpass over them as she passes

Her palms over
her
long legs
her
small breastsand deeply between

Her thighsher hair shot loose from all pinsstreaming in the wind

Of her bodylet her come openlytrying at the last second to land

On her backThis is it
this

All those who find her impressed

In the soft loamgone downdriven well into the image of her body

The furrows for miles flowing in upon her where she lies very deep

In her mortal outlinein the earth as it is in cloudcan tell nothing

But that she is thereinexplicableunquestionableand remember

That something broke in them as welland began to live and die more

When they walked for no reason into their fields to where the whole earth

Caught herinterrupted her maiden flighttold her how to lie she cannot

Turngo awaycannot movecannot slide off it and assume another

Positionno sky-diver with any grin could save herhold her in his arms

Plummet with herunfold above her his wedding silksshe can no longer

Mark the rain with whirling women that take the place of a dead wife

Or the goddess in Norwegian farm girlsor all the back-breaking whores

Of Wichita. All the known air above her is not giving up quite one

Breathit is all goneand yet not deadnot anywhere else

Quitelying still in the field on her backsensing the smells

Of incessant growth try to lift hera little sight left in the corner

Of one eyefadingseeing something wavelies believing

That she could have made itat the best part of her brief goddess

Stateto watergone in headfirstcome out smilinginvulnerable

Girl in a bathing-suit adbut she is lying like a sunbather at the last

Of moonlighthalf-buried in her impact on the earthnot far

From a railroad trestlea water tankshe could see if she could

Raise her head from her modest holewith her clothes beginning

To come down all over Kansasinto busheson the dewy sixth green

Of a golf courseone shoeher girdle coming down fantastically

On a clothesline, where it belongsher blouse on a lightning rod:

Lies in the fieldsin
this
fieldon her broken back as though on

A cloud she cannot drop throughwhile farmers sleepwalk without

Their women from housesa walk like falling toward the far waters

Of lifein moonlighttoward the dreamed eternal meaning of their farms

Toward the flowering of the harvest in their handsthat tragic cost