Noah Hawley - Before the Fall

A dozen news vans are parked outside the hospital, camera crews assembled and waiting. Police barricades have been erected, half a dozen uniformed officers keeping things orderly. Scott spies on the scene from the hospital lobby, hiding behind a potted ficus. This is where Magnus finds him.

“Jesus, man,” he says. “You don’t do anything half-assed, do you?”

They man-hug. Magnus is a part-time painter and full-time ladies’ man, with just a trace of Irish lilt in his voice.

“Thanks for doing this,” Scott tells him.

“No worries, brother.”

Magnus gives Scott the once-over.

“You look like shite.”

“I feel like shite,” Scott says.

Magnus holds up a duffel bag.

“I brought some skivvies,” he says, “a fetching frock and some panties. You want to change?”

Scott looks over Magnus’s shoulder. Outside, the crowd is growing. They are there to see him, to get a glimpse, a sound bite from the man who swam for eight hours through the midnight Atlantic with a four-year-old boy on his back. He closes his eyes and pictures what will happen once he is dressed, once he steps through those doors, the spotlight and questions, his own face on TV. The circus of it, the blood frenzy.

There are no accidents , he thinks.

To Scott’s left is a long hall and a door that reads LOCKER ROOM.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Scott says. “But it involves you breaking the law.”

Magnus smiles.

“Just one?”

Ten minutes later, Scott and Magnus walk out a side door. They are both in scrubs now, wearing white lab coats, two doctors going home at the end of a long shift. Scott holds Magnus’s cell phone to his ear, talking to the dial tone. The ruse works. They reach Magnus’s car, a seen-better-days Saab, with a sun-bleached fabric roof. Inside, Scott reaffixes the sling over his left shoulder.

“Just so you know,” Magnus tells him, “we’re definitely wearing these out to the bar later. Ladies love a medical man.”

As they drive out past the press line, Scott shields his face with the phone. He thinks about the boy, hunched over and tiny in his wheelchair, an orphan now and forever. Scott has no doubt that his aunt loves him, no doubt that the money he inherits from his parents will insulate him from anything close to ruin. But will it be enough? Can the boy grow up to be normal, or will he be forever broken by what has happened?

I should have gotten the aunt’s number , Scott thinks. But as he does, he wonders what he would do with it. Scott has no right to force his way into their lives. And even if he did, what does he have to offer? The boy is only four, and Scott is a single man approaching fifty, a notorious womanizer and recovered alcoholic, a struggling artist who’s never been able to keep a single lasting relationship. He is nobody’s role model. Nobody’s hero.

They take the Long Island Expressway toward the city. Scott rolls down the window and feels the wind on his face. Squinting into the sun, he can half convince himself that the events of the last thirty-six hours were just a dream. That there was no private plane, no crash, no epic swim or harrowing hospital stay. With the right combination of cocktails and professional victories he could erase it all. But even as he thinks this, Scott knows it’s bullshit. The trauma he suffered is part of his DNA now. He is a soldier after an epic battle, one he will inevitably return to fifty years from now on his deathbed.

Magnus lives in Long Island City, in a condemned shoe factory that’s been converted into lofts. Before the crash, Scott’s plan was to stay there for a few days and commute into the city. But now, changing lanes, Magnus tells Scott that things have changed.

“I’ve got strict fecking instructions,” he says, “to take you to the West Village. You’re moving up in the world.”

“Strict instructions from who?” Scott wants to know.

“A new friend,” says Magnus. “That’s all I can say at this moment.”

“Pull over,” Scott tells him in a hard voice.

Magnus gives Scott a double eyebrow lift, smiles.

Scott reaches for his door handle.

“Chill, boyo,” says Magnus, swerving slightly. “I can see you’re in no mood for mystery.”

“Just tell me where we’re going?”

“Leslie’s,” says Magnus.

“Who’s Leslie?”

“Geez, did you crack your head in the crash? Leslie Mueller? The Mueller Gallery?”

Scott is at a loss.

“Why would we go to the Mueller Gallery?”

“Not the gallery, you tosser. Her house. She’s a billionaire, yeah? Daughter of that tech geezer who made that gizmo in the ’nineties. Well, after you called me I maybe shot my mouth off a bit about how I was coming to get you and how you and me were gonna hit the town, get some ladies’ numbers — you being a shit-you-not hero and all — and I guess she heard, ’cause she called me. Says she saw what you did on the news. Says her door is open. She’s got a guest suite on the third floor.”

“No.”

“Don’t be stupid, amigo. This is Leslie Mueller. This is the difference between selling a painting for three thousand dollars and selling one for three hundred thousand. Or three million.”

“No.”

“Perfect. I hear you. But think about my career for a minute. This is Leslie fucking Mueller. My last show was at a crab shack in Cleveland. At least let’s go for dinner, let her rub up against that giant hero boner of yours, commission a few pieces. Maybe throw in a good word for your boyo. Then we make excuses.”

Scott turns to look out the window. In the car next to them a couple is arguing, a man and woman in their twenties, dressed for work. The man is behind the wheel, but he isn’t looking at the road. His head is turned and he is waving one hand angrily. In response, the woman holds an open lipstick, half applied, and jabs it in the man’s direction, her face lemoned with distaste. Looking at them, Scott has a sudden flash of memory. He is back on the flight, seat belt on. Up front, at the open cockpit door, the young flight attendant — what was her name? — is arguing with one of the pilots. Her back is to Scott, but the pilot’s face is visible over her shoulder. It is ugly and dark, and as Scott watches the pilot grabs the girl’s arm tightly. She pulls away.

In the memory, Scott feels the seat belt clasp in his hand. His feet are flat under him, his quads tensed as if he is about to stand. Why? To go to her aid?

It comes in a flash and then it’s gone. An image that could be from a movie, but feels like his life. Did that happen? Was there some kind of fight?

In the next lane the furious driver turns and spits out the window, but the window is up. A frothy rope of spit runs down the curved glass, and then Magnus speeds up and the couple is gone.

Scott sees a gas station ahead.

“Can you pull in here?” Scott asks. “I want to get a pack of gum.”

Magnus digs around in the center console.

“I’ve got some Juicy Fruit somewhere.”

“Something mint,” Scott says. “Just pull over.”

Magnus turns in without signaling, parks around the side.

“I’ll just be a second,” Scott tells him.

“Get me a Coke.”

Scott realizes he’s wearing scrubs.

“Lend me a twenty,” he says.

Magnus thinks about this.

“Okay, but promise we’re going to Mueller’s. I bet she’s got scotch in her cabinets that was bottled before the fecking Titanic .”

Scott looks him in the eye.

“Promise.”

Magnus pulls a crumpled bill from his pocket.

“And some chips,” he says.

Scott closes the passenger door. He is wearing disposable flip-flops.

“Be right back,” he says, and walks into the gas station convenience store. There is a heavyset woman behind the counter.