Skeletons (7 page)

Though part of me longed to follow, a greater part told me to hold back. Josh Speed once said I had a quick mind, but this, I countered, was not true; as I said many times, I am slow to learn and slow to forget. In this case there was much to learn, and I couldn't see rushing about it like those others down below. They sought only to get out of where they were. To me the question was, why?

There were those buried here in Oak Ridge whom I had known. I did not have to walk far to stand before the open grave of one I had known and dearly loved. Remembered grief overcame me in looking at the name on the little gravestone: WILLIAM WALLACE LINCOLN.

My little Willie, who had died of fever. I still remember the pony we kept in the White House stables, and which he loved to ride, the little codger. His death broke Mrs. Lincoln, and it almost broke me. Even the pony had died only months later, in a stable fire.

His hole was empty, the ground churned up where a little body might bore up and through. I found myself, lost in long-ago grief, fallen to the ground, digging through that dirt, saying, "Willie? Willie?" until I found his coffin, sure enough, open and empty.

I stood, shaking with a new emotion. Would I actually see him again? And Edward? And all the others I had known here and in Kentucky and Indiana and Washington? All the many ones, both dear and remembered in fondness, who had been taken away by time and the Greater Power?

This was a truly overwhelming idea.

I sat on the ground, momentarily overcome with the greater idea of it. The dead risen. What did this mean? Was it, indeed, the Judgment Day?

I stood myself up. This was foolishness, allowing myself to wallow in idle speculation like this.

Letting my hand fall on the cold corner of Willie's gravestone, I turned and walked down the hill, determined to find newspapers, to find books with facts.

I determined to learn just what the world had become.

I mean, what the shit has been going on tonight? Have you ever seen anything like this? I just hope my
friggin
' batteries hold out. I mean, music's music, right? I mean, you never know. Here I am, minding my own business, listening to tapes at thirty thou feet like they used to pay me to do, the sons of bitches, and
bammo
, next thing you know I'm in the middle of a war. And if we're in the middle of a war, it might be hard to get batteries, right?

Are these batteries in correctly?

Oh, hey, what about the Vomits? I mean, I can always hope they're dead, can't I? Maybe the first
friggin
' bomb landed on their
friggin
' bus, and boom, there goes Roundabout Records' meal ticket. Carl
Peters's
first-class flights, the videos in his plane seat, the whole nine yards down the drain. One can hope, right?
Heh
,
heh
.

Hey, what the hell's this pilot doing? He's not gonna land in the middle of this shit, is he? What the—

Good. Just a little announcement on the loudspeaker. "We'll be circling for a little while longer, ladies and gentlemen." Right, until we run out of
friggin
' fuel. I wonder what the dumb bastards back in coach think of all this, the ground-to-air fire below us, the streaks of fireworks light and little puffs of popping smoke ten thou feet below. They figure out if we come down into that it's good-bye Roger and Co.?

The cows.

So I can only hope the
friggin
' Vomits are dead. 'Cause I know I am. The big flight home to get fired. And I hope Carl Peters, ol' Carly boy, went with them.
Bammo
, right into an abutment or something. Hey, I mean it would probably be a month before they cut off my expense account, I could have some serious fun during that time, while all the funerals and shit are going on.

How long these batteries last?

No matter. Got a whole case full of 'em. Double-A's up the wazoo. Turn off the machine, I'm sick of listening to it anyway. I wish that bitch stewardess would come by, I need another vodka and lime to wash the tingle of that coke out of my sinuses.

No matter. Ring the little buzzer thingy.

Hey, miss? Another vodka and lime. And you got any more of those chips?

Bitch, she looked at me like I'd just kicked her off the toilet while she was changing her tampon. No matter. She'll have a special place in my heart, the bitch of the skies, Carol I think her name is, I'll find out who she is and have her fired. These big airlines don't want trouble in their first-class cabins, I've done it before. They'll just kiss her ass good-bye and she'll be selling Chanel No. 5 behind a counter by next Friday.

Oh, the power of the expense account and here she comes with that drink

Uh-oh, there goes the plane. What the—oh, she spilled the drink on me! Shit! You know how much this suit cost, you bitch? That's Chilean leather! Don't you sit down, you get me a
friggin
' cloth or something!

Jeez, her face is kind of pale.

"Look out the window," she says.

Fine, I'll look out the window. So what, it's the ground I see. Which means that
friggin
' pilot made one heck of a turn. We're not supposed to be over this far, are we? That's the lights of L.A. down there, all right, and look at all the fires. So what's the pro—

Oh, right, the wing. So the
friggin
' engine's on fire. Another puff of smoke below, and the plane rocks and then straightens.

"This mean we'll be landing on time?" I say to the bitch, who has stood up and straightened herself out.

She stares at me and shakes her head, and walks away.

"Hey, how 'bout another drink!"

Shit, I'm enjoying this. Ol' Carly, I hope he's dead, damned if I'll give him the chance to fire me like he was going to. I guess I owe that cow Rita something for passing that along when I called in yesterday. Did she really expect me to make it with her tonight? Jeez, I just thought being with the cow was payment enough.

Give me the ax, huh, Carly boy? We'll see about that,
dude
.

Uh-oh—

Later, as they say. Seems we made another unscheduled dive. This one I kind of saw, the ground spinning outside my window like some
friggin
' Bugs Bunny cartoon. Lots of screaming from back in the cattle car. But ol' Cap'n Bob, whatever his name is, he pulled us through, got us straight again.

Hurray for Cap'n Bob!

Where's my drink?

The stewardess, what's her name, Carol, she comes by but not with my new drink. By now the old one's drying on my leather pants. Jeez, I can still smell vodka.

"Hey, where's my—"

But the bitch tells me to put my seat belt on and go down into crash position. She even says please. So I say, "Blow me," which gets not much of a reaction, and she reaches over to put the belt on me. At which time I push her hand away, saying, "Not a
hand
job, honey, a blow job," which makes her lose her cool and start yelling at me. At that moment the cabin door opens and Cap'n Bob himself comes out, and he's almost as pale as ol' Carol.

"What's the matter?" he says, in clipped Cap'n Bob tones.

Carol says, rather shrilly, "He won't put his damned belt on!"

"Put it on, and get down," Cap'n Bob says, but at that second the plane does a doozy drop and Cap'n Bob loses all interest in me as well as all the color in his face. He pulls his way back to the cabin. Carol, the
moozer
, now weeping, has decided to go back to coach to help some of those poor suckers save their skins, which is just fine with me.

"Bring me another vodka and lime!" I yell back at her. "And screw you all, I lost my job anyway!"

And then, suddenly the plane is very quiet and the lights go out.

I know this one, I've seen the Airport movies. Right now I bet ol' George Kennedy is on the ground fighting to get us down.

Jeez, I do wish I had that one more drink, just to get me over the top. Look at that, we're on our side again. Another puff of smoke. I know now why it's so quiet. We've lost the engines. Shit, if only I could see and we were straight, I'd do another line of coke.

And then the lights come back on.

Cheering, from the back. I'm the only one in first class, so I give a little cheer myself, to hold up my end. That's just what Carl is going to say to me, "You didn't hold up your end, Roger."

"Hold this, Carl," is what I'm going to say to him. Screw the Vomits, screw Roundabout Records, screw all of it.

The lights go back out.

We're
going down
!

Weeeeeee
! I've never been in a tumbling DC-10 before. Is this pitch or yaw? Actually, it's rather better than Disney. The cattle in coach don't think so though, they're screaming enough. I yell back at them to shut up, but at this point I don't think I can be heard. It's as good a time as any to stop talking and snap on the Walkman again, listen to one of the Vomits' promo tapes I won't be pushing anymore:

Oh, yeah, my-
yi
-
yi
baby

She's as fine as cotton candy, If she's so fine

How come her name is Andy?

That's enough. I mean, this shit is almost saved by Brutus Johnson's guitar, but not quite. That was something Carly boy and the rest of them never understood, that the Vomits didn't have much and weren't going to get much more. It was guys like me who were going to keep them going, pushing those tapes on the college stations, getting those major media deejays high, the only kind of pure payola left. And that was one of the reasons he was going to put my ass in the can? For helping?

"Miss," I shout into the dark, spinning cabin, "I'd like that drink now!"

Fu you, Carl.

Okay, maybe just a little more Vomits before we hit the ground, so let's fast-forward:

In the dankness

I think I love her Reach out to her

Kiss and squeeze her

Then the day comes

And the light comes

And I see her

Ooooo
Ooooo
baby

You're so ugly
.

Enough again!

And then . . . we're not falling!

I can hear that left engine, the one on the other side of the plane, kick in. It feels like being on a boomerang that suddenly goes straight. The lights blink, come on. I see ol' Carol stumbling toward me, stop a couple seats behind, bend over, and throw up. Not too cool, Carol.

Maybe I should let her listen to this tape. They'll dock you for sure, babe. Have to keep the seat covers clean.

You know, she's not such a cow after all. Maybe she'd like to make it before we crash and burn: go out on a high.

"Hey, Carol," I say, but then she stumbles forward as the lights go out yet again and falls across me, crying. I can almost
feel
the ground, very close.

"Who the hell was shooting at us?" I say just before the plane hits.

Lands
, rather. I don't know how Cap'n Bob did it, but he managed to get us on a runway in a reasonably horizontal position. Speaking of Carol, before I can try to get horizontal with her, she's up and off me, obviously glad to be alive.

Stewardess-bitch mode clicks in again, and she's all efficient.

"Maybe you'd better look out the window this time," I say.

She does, and her eyes go bug wide and she gives a little screech.

Coming toward us on the tarmac where we've come to rest, slightly angled on one half-collapsed landing gear, is not the rescue party ol' Carol expected. Me, I'm sure it's just the coke and amphetamines and vodka I pumped into myself making me see what I'm seeing. There's a whole armada of airport vehicles—a fire truck, two or three of those little rumbly luggage carriers, a sedan with a flashing light on top—racing toward us, all manned by skeletons. For a moment it's just too silly, and I have to laugh.

"Grateful Dead, man!"

Carol has backed off and is lurching toward the cockpit cabin.

The cabin door opens and Cap'n Bob appears as the first shot rings out. These skeleton freaks have guns and are firing them at us!

"Is it Halloween?" I ask. They ignore me, so I take the time to gather all my things—Walkman, tapes, batteries—into my briefcase. In the back of the plane the cattle are starting to stampede.

"If they hit the fuel, the plane will blow," Cap'n Bob, in his Cap'n Bob voice, says. "Get the chutes out the opposite side. We've got to get everyone away from the fuselage."

Cow Carol nods and moves off toward the back. Behind Cap'n Bob, in the cabin, I see Navigator Ned and Copilot Pete pulling their headsets off and getting set to abandon ship.

"It's bad," Cap'n Bob says to me grimly, perhaps not noticing my grin. "It's like this everywhere."