Flights Read online

  His father called out at one point, “Listen, Cy Young, you want to give that a rest?” but gave up soon after.

  Mickey was bored, Biddy knew. Kristi bored him and Biddy bored him and his older brother especially bored him, with his excessive patience and kindness and lack of speed in everything he did. The dog bored him, and didn’t like him, besides. The food bored him. Throwing a ball against the side of the garage bored him, and when the Blue Angels came over they’d bore him as well. He brought and wore his Reggie Smith glove in the futile hope he could talk someone—his father, Biddy, anyone—away from the Air Show for a catch at least. He’d already asked more than once and was bored with asking. The rubber ball made almost no noise in his glove, and he threw it against the garage as though it were a hard ball.

  Cindy and Ronnie stood under the big maple, talking and accepting congratulations on the engagement. She was wearing a gauzy light blue dress and he was in shorts and a tennis shirt. Biddy watched them for a short time before Ronnie called him over.

  “How’s tricks, champ,” Ronnie said, sitting down. He was very close to his fiancée’s knee and her dress drifted against his shoulder. “I hear you’re finally getting the hang of second base.”

  Biddy winced, thinking of the game at the field. “Have you set a date?” he said.

  Ronnie made a face. “This May. Memorial Day. Which is perfect.”

  “Why?”

  He shook his head. “Just a joke. Where’s your glove? Want to throw the ball around?”

  “I’m gonna go down and see the Blue Angels come over from Long Island.”

  “How do you know they’re going to do that?”

  “My father told me. They’re filling up at the Grumman plant over there. Doesn’t Cindy want you to hang around?”

  Ronnie shrugged and looked up at her. “I’m like you. I’m not too good at this social stuff.”

  Biddy looked at his watch. The possibility of Phantom jets, in formation, at Lordship was making him impatient with everything else. “I should go. Mickey’d want to play.”

  “I believe it,” Ronnie said. “I surely do believe it.” He leaned around the tree. “Hey psycho. You want to throw it around?” Mickey waved and nodded. “That’s a surprise,” he said, and Biddy left, hurrying toward the blue Sound he could glimpse between the houses.

  He didn’t wait long at the bluffs: six black specks spread themselves along the horizon over Long Island, exciting and precise against the broad blue sky, growing in size and detail until he realized the center of the V formation would be coming right over him, and he waited as long as he could, taking in the royal-blue and yellow markings, the underwing detail, the hint of clear orange behind the exhaust, before running up the bluffs and down the street as they flashed over him, huge, seemingly only a few feet above the houses, the sound following behind like an invisible trailer as he ran, trying not to be left behind. He stopped, panting, to watch the six jets, all glowing orange, huge and powerful, commanding the skies, sweep over his house in the distance and drop into the basin of the airport beyond; he ran again only when they disappeared below the trees.

  The Blue Angels streaked in low in close formation and flip-flopped and tore the sky apart with their roars, making huge bows in the sky with their vapor trails as they flew upside down. They came together from all directions, so close at the converging point that everyone below swore they were going to collide, and stood on their tails and climbed out of sight, or dove with a gradual building scream until below the houses and trees, and everyone half waited for the crash. The Mustang did loops and spins and participated in a mock dogfight. The helicopters skimmed the tree-tops. The small orange plane trailed orange and blue smoke and cut its engine frequently. And finally, when Dom mentioned while looking for his drink that he didn’t know what they could do to top this, distant brown planes appeared, going over with a far-off buzz, with tiny figures falling away from them. “There’re the parachutists!” his father said, and Biddy watched them spinning away and the chutes spilling out and up, filling square and bright.

  “They’re square,” he said to no one in particular.

  “All the new chutes are square,” Dom said behind him. “Better control.”

  “Look at that guy,” Mickey said. One was floating the opposite way, as if delivering a message. Biddy could smell the hot dogs overcooking. The lone parachutist continued to grow larger, the four others gliding in a diamond pattern down toward the airport tower. They could see the parachutist pulling on one side, the top of the canopy dipping on that side, bobbing. Something there was hanging the wrong way, ragged.

  “He ain’t real good, is he?” Dom said, and then added, “You know, Walt, he could be coming here,” and in the general excitement Biddy saw that he could and was, coming in low and hard, still pulling, not floating at all, swooping, and Biddy could see the frustration on his face and the shine on his boots.

  “Jesus Christ,” his father said suddenly, and began to herd the women out of the way, and the parachutist dipped lower and swung in fast, on top of them suddenly, and hit the roof, bam, with his big jumping boots and then was pulled off by his chute, his feet dragging and scraping over the TV antenna, snapping it as the canopy caught in the trees and he swung down, twisting to avoid people, catching a TV tray with watermelon on it and kicking it up over the clothesline in a rain of pink chunks and seeds. Some of the women screamed and the men ducked in and out trying to get a grip on the parachutist as he swung by shouting for them to watch out. He swept back and forth in front of Kristi, still in her chair, amazed and grinning.

  On a backswing they managed to intercept him and hold on, dragging him back and forth to a stop.

  Everyone spoke at once, including the parachutist; Biddy watched his sister, still staring, still grinning, and the only one still silent. Above her on the roof of the Frasers’ garage the scattered pieces of watermelon glinted, wet and ridiculous in the sun.

  And that night he thought about the parachutist with all the patches and pockets and buckles and harnesses, and how neat it would be to jump out of a plane and open up your parachute and come down, smash, on somebody’s watermelon and sweep right through their lawn party.

  The next morning he stood in the kitchen excited despite himself by the prospect of the first day of school. He was wearing a new white shirt which choked in a pleasant way, new gray pants, and a plaid tie. He was restless and ate little, leaving the table and drifting around the kitchen while his sister pushed a spoon back and forth through her oatmeal. His father bustled by. His mother put together two lunches. He went to the screen door to let Lady out, appreciating the morning light for its clarity.

  In class Sister Theresa called the roll, calling the same names she had the year before, calling only the first names, twenty-seven of them. Our Lady of Peace was a small school, of a nice, manageable, personal size, Sister liked to say, serving a small parish. There was little turnover and no growth in the size of the student body. This year one boy had moved away and a new girl, Kathy, was added to the class. She was big and quiet and reminded Biddy vaguely of a horse. Their instructor would be Sister Theresa, the principal, for the second year in a row. They did not consider themselves fortunate.

  Books were handed out, new lessons begun, sides for kickball chosen, Mass and milk-money schedules announced, and the day went quickly. He trailed home behind his sister and a friend, who were banging lunch boxes in rhythm as they walked.

  In the backyard he found his father hanging half on, half off a ladder.

  “Dad!” he called. “Are you all right?”

  His father didn’t turn around, spread against the house. “Yes, I’m all right. I know what I’m doing here.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to fix the aerial our paratrooper kicked over.”

  “Why don’t you just move the ladder?”

  His father stopped and closed his eyes, exasperated. “Because I’m trying to keep a hand on this w
ire, too.”

  “You want help?”

  “Not unless you’re taller than you look.”

  He went into the house, threw his book bag on the dog’s chair and his lunch box on the counter, and went down the cellar for an ice-cream sandwich. With the freezer open he heard the rattling metallic crash of the ladder.

  He bolted up the stairs two at a time and rushed past his sister, who was eating an apple at the kitchen table, and out into the driveway.

  His father was high above him swaying back and forth, slowly bending the lateral supports for the antenna downward.

  “Dad!” he said. “What happened?”

  “What the hell do you think happened? Where is everybody? Didn’t anybody hear me yell?”

  “I was down in the cellar.”

  “You got a good view of this? What are you standing there for? Get the ladder!”

  He ran to the ladder. It was stuck in the thick hedges near the garden.

  “What did you, lose interest? What’re you doing?”

  “It’s stuck in the hedges. I’m trying not to wreck them.”

  “You’re trying not to wreck them.”

  Mr. Fraser appeared near his garage. “You all right, Walt?”

  “Fine, Bill. Can’t you tell? Biddy! Where’d he go now?”

  Mr. Fraser bustled over and took hold of the ladder and yanked it free. He swung it back toward the house, suggesting they put it up next to him.

  “No, Bill, put it up on the other side of the house, and I’ll crawl around.”

  Kristi came to the screen. “Biddy, Mom wants you. Is Dad down yet? Hi, Mr. Fraser.”

  “Hello, Kristi. Your father’s in a bit of trouble here.”

  “Could we hurry with the ladder?”

  “All right, Walt, don’t get excited. Got your foot in it? Get your foot in it.”

  Biddy’s mother screamed. “Walt! What happened? Get down from there!”

  “Isn’t this something? Everyone’s gone nuts,” his father said. He swung sideways and hooked his leg around the ladder.

  It began to slip on Biddy’s side and he looked down to see it scraping across the cement and sliding away. He shot a look up and his father was tipping, the huge spiny antenna caught in his sleeve, the final twisted strip of metal holding it giving way with a tiny sharp sighing sound, and the ladder wrenched from his hands and spun away from him and up, his father arcing by overhead and clearing the driveway completely, coming down with a crash that neighbors three full blocks away later claimed to have heard.

  And three days after that, when his father was just beginning to lose his limp and Biddy was sitting in the front yard playing dice baseball, he sent Lady out into the street, just because she was bothering him, and got her killed.

  He had just rolled into a double play and Lady in her exuberance had run right across the page, demanding attention, and he’d yelled and shoved her rear, splaying it out to the side as she went by, and, spooked, she’d continued into the street and he’d seen it as he’d see it again and again, the dog trying to turn out of the way and ducking, her eyes closed and muzzle turned from the impact. There was the inanimate sound of someone dropping a large bag of flour to the pavement and she’d flown forward and rolled, finishing on her side in some gravel.

  She was quiet, twitching, when he reached her. He squatted near disbelieving, touching her, thinking he should get her tongue out of the sand. He started crying and Mr. Fraser crouched beside him with a stick, prodding her with it until, satisfied, he took her by the loose skin of her neck and rear and dragged her out of the road and into the grass. Biddy followed, dimly aware of the occupants of the car, a young girl and her boyfriend. “I feel just awful,” the girl said.

  Mr. Fraser disappeared and returned with his pickup. He lowered the tailgate and dropped Lady in like a sack.

  When he’d driven away Biddy had sprinted back to the house, past his mother running the opposite way, ignoring her questions. He’d run up the stairs and had climbed into the bathtub and pulled the shower curtain closed behind him and lay, face down, crying into the hard surface of the porcelain.

  They didn’t find him. No one looked. There was an uproar when his father came home, slammed doors, a glass smashed against the back of the garage. His father had gone up and down the street barefoot and talking to himself. He’d finally gone into the garage and rolled the door shut to sit in the dark. And until very late that night that was the way the Sieberts had remained, Kristi and Judy in the kitchen, Walter in the garage, and Biddy upstairs in the bathroom.

  He was hapless, an unspoken embarrassment. He was batting 1000. He had not reached base. And yet he was still there, still digging in, still unwilling to give up. He leaned in against Goose Gossage, clearly hearing over the crowd DeCinces’s admonition to wait him out. Gossage stood erect and slit-eyed on the mound. Behind him Bumbry edged crablike off second, alert. Protect the plate, he thought. But don’t go for a bad pitch. Gossage reared, growing larger as he uncoiled toward Biddy, and the ball was on him and he lashed at it way too late and struck out, staying where his swing had left him, the roar of the crowd filling his ears. Gossage walked free from the mound in one direction, Bumbry from second in another.

  On the bench he was given undeserved support and encouragement. Don’t go for anything on the corners, DeCinces told him. Make him work for it. What’re you going to do with Gossage out there? Know what you can and can’t do. In this situation the best you can hope for is to draw the walk. They shifted, watching Murray bat. Patience. That ball was tailing away even before it broke in on you.

  Biddy relived it and closed his eyes, trying to learn.

  Ah, it’s easy for me to talk, DeCinces said. You’re scared. It’s a lot to face. Yankee Stadium, Goose Gossage, and the whole bit. But you’re gonna have to hang on because you’re not going to hit him. Not now anyway. You’re going to have to hang on because things don’t always work out that easy.

  In the ninth Bumbry tripled and Singleton was intentionally walked and DeCinces, batting in front of Biddy, worked the count to 3 and 2 and fouled off three straight pitches before drawing a walk to load the bases. There were two outs and the Orioles were down by one run, and all he could think as he advanced from the on-deck circle, swinging his bat in tight little circles, was: Why don’t they pinch-hit for me?

  The scoreboard flashed his batting average. The crowd roared. He could see his parents in the stands, having to look at those bright yellow numbers.

  He hoped the first pitch would miss and it didn’t. The crowd’s roar intensified. The second was belt-high. He was down no balls and two strikes. The stadium shook with the anticipated strikeout. He couldn’t look out toward first and DeCinces. Gossage reared, teetered, and lunged and the ball curved in and he swung, even as it dipped out of the strike zone.

  He crouched beside the plate, head down. His ears filled with sound. Cerone and Gossage and the other Yankees crowded into the dugout accepting congratulations. The fans danced and gesticulated in their seats. DeCinces tapped the plate with a bat. C’mon, he said. This is just one time. You can feel as bad as you want but it’s not going to change anything.

  Every year there was a spirited debate about whether walks should be allowed at the Sikorsky father-son baseball game. A compromise was finally settled upon: the fathers would alternate pitching each inning with their sons. When the fathers pitched, they’d just lob it over and walks would be disallowed. When the sons pitched, things could get a little more serious.

  Biddy’s father stood on first base after getting a hit, looking hopefully at his son, who was up next. Biddy, he’d been telling people, was still wandering around like he was on Queer Street—like a punch-drunk fighter—and it had been a week and a half. He had stopped crying that same night in the bathtub. He’d shown no interest in the upcoming father-son game. He hadn’t shown any interest in anything. It had been hoped that the game would help, so they had gone. As Dom had added, how could it hurt? Biddy ha
d played so far as though he were in a coma.

  The first time up he had taken three called strikes; the second, he’d been hit by a pitch and then picked off first. Now it was his third and final at bat, with men on first and third and the score tied, and he looked for all the world, stepping up to the plate bat in hand, as though he didn’t care. The pitcher, a big kid, reared back and fired one in for a strike.

  “Time!” Biddy’s father called, and trotted in from first.

  “Time?” the pitcher said.

  “Time,” he repeated. He stood close to Biddy. “You’re not going to hit this kid,” he whispered. “This kid could go bear-hunting with a switch. Try and draw the walk. Okay?”

  Biddy nodded, bat on shoulder.

  He worked the count to 3 and 2, and took a sixth pitch that was almost in the dirt.

  “Strike three,” the umpire called.

  His father rushed in from first to argue the call but stopped and looked at Biddy, uncertain whether to let it go or to argue all the more fiercely. Biddy closed his eyes and swung the bat gently to the ground, the noises and smells and feel of an unusually hot day in September on a baseball diamond dropping away, to be replaced by Lady’s eyes, averted from the car bumper at the last instant, and her tongue, in the gravel by the side of the road.

  II

  Thanksgiving

  MOM

  Stopping the Sweep

  Walter is not an alarmist. By no means is Walter an alarmist. He wants that made perfectly clear. If the kid’s arterially bleeding, everyone remain calm; if he’s slowly turning into someone we’ve never seen before, wait it out, watch and see what happens. Above all, do not overreact. His wife, you see, overreacts. I overreact. I scream and rant and ask questions and worry. I set a bad example. I get the kids all worked up. I give the kids ideas. I’m never satisfied and I’m always wrong. That might be a good rule to keep in mind here all the time: Judy is always wrong. Judy does not support this—mania for sports, one after another, season in, season out: Judy is wrong. Judy thinks we should talk a little, that we have to talk a little, to try and make the kids a little less impenetrable: Judy’s wrong. Judy wants to do some of the things normal families do: Judy is a pain in the ass. But I’ll tell you this: I saw trouble coming with these two long before I spoke up, and I spoke up a hell of a long time ago. I love these kids and I’ve loved them and agonized over them every step of the way and no one’s going to tell me at this point that I’m the only villain in this thing. Judy might’ve made some mistakes, but I’ll be goddamned if she made all of them.