Flights (4 page)

“No.” She caught part of a tomato plant with the weeder. “Where you going now? You have breakfast?”

“I'll get something when I get back.” He stepped toward the driveway. “You want me to stay around?”

She looked up, surprised, and shook her head. He popped his fist into his glove and jogged around front.

They got into a game with others at the field and played late into the afternoon. He played badly. While someone was retrieving a foul ball that had gone into the street, Dom left his position and walked over to him at second base.

“You won't play second next year if you can't turn two,” he said. He kept his voice down. Biddy moved away, wishing he hadn't come home from the beach. His father watched them from the pitcher's mound. Biddy wanted to play better. He wanted to handle himself competently, even if only momentarily. His father was frequently of the opinion that he couldn't piss straight without a ruler.

Dom followed him in a circle around second base. “Look, I'm not trying to make you feel bad. You told me you wanted to learn this game.”

Biddy nodded.

“Well, you're going to have to start listening. You let that last one play you instead of playing it. Now don't rush yourself. Are you listening?” Biddy nodded again. “Get to the bag and concentrate on the throw. And get your legs up if the runner's coming in high.”

He returned to third. “Now Mickey's on first, so be ready for it if it's on the ground.”

And the next batter hit one on the ground to third as if on cue, and Dom said, “All right, Biddy,” and crouched for it, and Biddy came across and took the throw on the bag and started to pivot for the relay to first but Mickey hadn't gone into his slide yet and only at the last moment was he able to get the throw up higher, to clear Mickey's head. It pulled Louis, playing first, high off the bag.

He stood where the throw had left him, hating the ball. His father and Dom were looking at him, he knew. No one spoke. What was he doing this for? Why was he always somewhere he didn't want to be?

“I didn't want to hit Mickey,” he said.

“Don't worry about Mickey,” Dom said. “Worry about your throw. They'll do that all day if you let them. Throw it where you're supposed to throw it. Throw right through the runner. Believe me, he'll get out of the way.”

His father said something about bearing down. A boy he didn't know stood on first. He looked at the batter. Hit it to me, he thought miserably. Hit it to me and I'll throw it into the street. The batter dribbled it back to his father, who twirled and threw it to second, the ball and Biddy converging on the base from different angles, and he stomped on the bag and spun, whipping his arm around and rifling the ball low, and the boy coming into second jerked back and sprawled hard into the dirt as the ball went by his face on a line into Louis's glove.

“There's the double play,” his father called, and Dom said, “That's turning two,” and they slapped each other five and trotted off the field together, Biddy following, stopping to help the boy still on his elbows in the base path up as he went by.

He returned to the beach, unsure of his reason why. It was a Saturday afternoon and blankets spotted the slope to the water but an advancing wall of clouds, high up and reaching infinitely higher, black and gray and darkening the expanse of sound beneath, was approaching from the west, from Bridgeport or New York.

To the east and above them the sky remained clear, the sun warm, as if collaborating in the deception. One or two sailboats rested nose forward on the beach, their masts stripped and topped by multicolored floats, their sails heaped onto the hulls like covering sheets. Other boats cruised smoothly into shore, gently racing the oncoming storm. As they pulled onto the beach, dagger boards were slid up and the hulls made pleasant grinding noises on the sand.

He sat watching the boats, towel still rolled beneath his arm. The metal fittings on the lines clanged against the hollow, swaying masts, and trailers, squeaky and toylike, were rolled to the water's edge.

The wind was sweeping around him, audible in the sea grass and sand. People rose from the blankets with the wariness of birds, gauging the speed of the incoming storm. Bridgeport was dark and vague with a distant scrim of rain.

Boats rolled by him toward the boat ramp, disassembled masts clanking on the tops of the hulls and wheels rolling heavily through the deeper sand. Bathers, too, were joining the exodus, with lawn chairs and blankets, coolers and small children, falling into line alongside or behind the boats, all streaming past Biddy like tanned and sandy refugees.

His eye caught one boat, still quite a way out, its red-and-white sail sweeping and flapping as it came about. He knew simply from its inept turn, the sail going limp, the motion jagged and wasteful, that it would not beat the oncoming storm. The darkness was rolling in like a curtain and birds swooped and dove past him, fleeing before the gathering violence.

It was noticeably cooler. He shivered, and dug a deep hole, leaning forward on his knees and scooping sand with both hands. A last bather went by. “I don't think you're gonna finish that, son,” he said. “That's a helluva storm coming.” Biddy smiled an acknowledgment and the man trundled off, newspaper flapping against a folded sand chair. With the hole a foot deep he dropped his towel into it and covered it over. He found two large stones, and marked the place.

He was alone on the beach. Bridgeport was gone. A lone gull skimmed by, a shadow along the waterline. His hair lifted from his head. His skin prickled, the tiny hairs on his arm waving.

He was moving the tips of his fingers along the hairs, absorbed, when the storm hit. The rain came down the beach and along the water toward him in an audible track, the shimmering sound on the water and sea grass gaining in intensity until it swept over him and he was shocked by its iciness and power, drenched in seconds. In the half darkness he could see the boat, buffeted, sweeping high over crests, much closer now, struggling in, the two boys on it frantic. The rain swept wet hair across his cheek and eyes and the side facing the wind grew more and more chilled, and he curled lower into the sand, following the boat's progress. It crested a whitecap and plunged toward the beach at full speed, the boy in back lying across the rudder to hold it steady, the boy in the bow trying to control the flapping, angry sail, both hands on the boom. It surged onto the shore with the dagger board being lifted out at the last possible moment and ground up onto the slope and the boys were jumping out and pulling it up farther, the sail collapsing and the mast teetering dangerously from side to side. Off in the distance to the right, where the sky was the blackest, white flashes lit the lighthouse marking the midpoint of the Sound.

“Leave it,” one of the boys shouted. “We'll come back and get it,” and there was another flash, and they pulled the boat still farther up the beach, the hull's slide an overamplified sweep of sandpaper, and they dropped the mast and turned and ran for the boat ramp. They were not dressed for the rain. One stopped and called over, asking if Biddy was all right. “I wouldn't stick around, kid,” he called, and they looked at each other when he didn't respond, and shrugged, and were soon gone.

The storm drove the waves before it, the crests surging through the high-water mark, and they crashed and rolled toward the tilted stern of the beached boat, edging the detached rudder backward. With a third great wave it began to slide, and Biddy got up, opening still-warm areas of his body to the cold and wet, and jogged down to the water's edge, the water foaming no colder than the rain around his toes, the darkness otherworldly. He pulled the rudder across the hull and slipped it under the mast. The hull was a slick, light blue, wider than either a Sunfish or a Sailfish. On a fold in the sail he could make out a circle with an SK-8 inscribed in the center, and a plate near the mast explained the wordplay: “Skate.” He had never heard of one. Lightning flowered high above him, the thunder rolling softly in behind. The Sound was a deep green flecked with white in the darkness, and the boat was fully rigged, all the lines relaxed but still figure-eighted in the stanchions. The darkness seemed to cloak the soft edge of Long Island beyond.

He put two hands on the bow and pulled sideways, dragging it around, and faced the nose to the water. He slipped the rudder into the locking pins. He had never sailed a sailboat before and he lifted the mast, staggering under its weight, and guided it into its hole, the metal on metal making a sliding, secure, locking sound. He experimented with the sail, lifting it a bit. The wind felt smoother but still strong. There was only a single line, running along the boom, to manipulate, its operation easy to understand—pulling on it lifted the sail. He eased out the rudder extension. He waded into the water, his legs disappearing in the surging green, debris tickling his thighs, and pulled. The rain spattered the surface into a kind of electric life. The boat resisted, then relented, sliding forward to hit the waves with a slap, the bow buoyed high, the stern lifting free of the land and spinning with the wind. He remained alongside, waist-deep, then chest-deep, and lifted himself aboard, the boat sweeping rapidly along the shore while he scrabbled around freeing the boom and hoisting the sail line, turning the rudder. With the sail halfway up, the rudder found the right angle and the boat jumped away from the shore, rocking him backward.

The rapidity of his progress unnerved him, as did the receding, darkening shoreline. He was cutting a swift diagonal away from the beach, the spray from the bow distinguishable in its warmth and saltiness from the rain. A motorboat, its canvas covers down, turtled by, waves lashing at its sides. The possible power of the storm began to frighten him, and he felt uncertain of his ability to bring the boat about but knew he could not pursue a diagonal course the whole way across. He paused, amazed at himself, wondering what he really hoped to do. He had to bring the boat about one way or the other, he realized, and he held the sail, jerked the rudder, and the boat spun right, cutting a wide arc through the water, and the sail collapsed with a ruffle and a bang on his head. It bounced to his shoulders and then to the hull, slipping off into the swell. The shroud filled with dark Sound and he was suddenly dead in the water, waves breaking over the hull in sheets and draping seaweed across his knees, and the faint drone of the motorboat was returning, and the boat showed on his stern, chuffing through the waves as if on a watery treadmill. It turned, its side bumping his long hull gently, and its engines idled down, still fighting the current. A bit of canvas flap unsnapped, water splaying and dancing from its corner, and a hand and face appeared.

“You all right, son?” a voice called. “We'll get you a towline.”

The shore was visible. The wind was beating them onto the beach.

“I'm okay,” he called. “I live right here. We're almost on the beach.” He pointed.

There was some rapid movement under the canvas, and the engines throttled up. They shouted something he couldn't make out. The boat slipped away, farther out, and turned and edged back in. Its bow rose against the side of the sailboat, the prow leaning out of the rain alongside him over the sailboat's hull, and the engine roared briefly, surging them forward. They were giving him a push. He pulled the rudder around, spinning the nose into the shore, and waved. The little motorboat gave a blast of its air horn and disappeared into the darkness.

He was off the hull, shoulder-deep in the warm water, wading in. The boat was hard to control, his feet braced against barnacled rocks. He struggled and pulled, and when the hull slipped onto shore the water rushed from the downed sails with a torrential noise. He pulled the boat higher and higher and sat down after the final pull exhausted and wet, shaking. Lightning illuminated the sky to the east now, having passed without coming very near. The mast stood outlined against the sky and the sail flapped resolutely as it lost water, flapped as if in response to what had just occurred, and continued to flap, behind him, as he walked up the beach, heavy-legged, and stooped to dig up his towel, water-soaked and sandy, before continuing up the stone steps for home.

Drawing the Walk

He's a good kid: there's no reason to foam at the mouth over all of this. We have to keep some kind of perspective.

You watch this kid day to day and you'll see what I mean. He gets up, he enjoys things, he gets along with his sister, he's got lots of friends, he does well in school. We're talking about a kid who's got a lot going for him here. Sure he's quiet; he's sensitive. Okay, he's sensitive. You don't have to be Kreskin to figure that out. Maybe he gets hurt easier than most kids. But the thing to remember here is not to overreact. If the kid doesn't have a serious problem we may give him one before we're through.

Most of the time we don't even know what's going on. We can't protect him from everything that might upset him. Things stay with him. Whether it's one thing or another. Everything at home might be all smiles and he might spot a dog outside dragging by on three legs. What are you going to do? How much can you insulate him? For instance: we drove to Florida a few years ago and got off 95 in Georgia because of construction. We took a back road and in the middle of it in front of a gas station we came across this wolfhound or something. It was a big white dog, like a sled dog, really a beautiful animal—dead, on its back, twisted around with its paws in the air. Stiff. Cars were going around it. The guys in the gas station just left it out there. Well, that was it for Biddy's vacation. We might as well have taken the dog to the beach with us. And I had to go back that way, on the way home, to show him the goddamn thing wasn't still out there, paws in the air.

I'm not trying to gloss over anything or say there's no cause for concern. I'm just saying let's look at the whole picture here; let's try and put these things into some kind of context.