Thomas Disch - On Wings of Song

It seemed ironic to Daniel, and a bit of a defeat, that he should be having his first flight in an airplane. He had sworn to himself, in the not-so-long-ago heyday of his idealistic youth, that he would never fly except on his own two transubstantial wings. Now look at him — strapped into his seat, his nose pressed against the postage-stamp of a window, with four hundred pounds of excess baggage, and a track record of absolute zero. For all his brave talk and big ambitions, he never tried — never tried trying — once Grandison Whiting had laid down the law. It was Daniel’s own fault for mentioning that he meant to smuggle in a flight apparatus from out-of-state, his fault for believing Whiting’s stories about friends of his right here in Iowa who flew. Pure bullshit, all of it. Not that it mattered, awfully. It only meant he’d had to postpone the big day for a while longer, but he knew that time would fly even if he didn’t.

Now the waiting was behind him, all but a few hours. He and Boa were on their way. To New York first, where they would change for a jet to Rome. Then Athens, Cairo, Tehran, and the Seychelles for a winter tan. Economy was the official reason for changing at Kennedy rather than going direct from Des Moines, since everything, including travel bookings, was cheaper in New York. Daniel, despite his every extravagance, had established a reputation as a pennypincher. In Des Moines he’d wasted one whole day fleeing from one tailor to another, horrified by their prices. He understood, in theory, that he was supposed to be above such things now that he was nouveau riche , that the difference between the prices of two equivalent commodities was supposed to be invisible to him. He ought not to itemize bills, nor count his change, nor remember the amounts, or even the existence, of sums that old friends asked to borrow. But it was amazing, and dismaying, what the smell of money did to otherwise reasonable people, the way they came sniffing and snuffling around you, and he couldn’t stop resenting them for it. His character rejected the aristocratic attitude that money, at least on the level of “friendly” transactions, was no more to be taken account of than the water you showered with, much as his body would have rejected a transfusion of the wrong blood-type.

But economy was only an excuse for booking the honeymoon through New York. The real reason was what they’d be able to do during the twelve hours between planes. That, however, was a secret. Not a very dark secret, since Boa had managed for a week now not to guess despite the broadest hints. Surely she knew and wasn’t letting on from sheer love of feigning surprise. (No one could equal Boa at the art of unwrapping presents.) What could it be, after all, but a visit to First National Flightpaths? At last, sweet Jesus: at long, sweet last!

The plane took off, and the stewardesses performed a kind of pantomine with the oxygen masks, then brought round trays of drinks and generally made an agreeable fuss. Clouds rolled by, revealing checkerboards of farmland, squiggles of river, plumblines of highway. All very disappointing compared to the way he’d imagined it. But after all, this wasn’t the real thing.

First National Flightpaths was the real thing. First National Flightpaths specialized in getting beginning flyers off the ground. “All you need,” the brochure had said, “is a sincere feeling for the song you sing. We just provide the atmosphere — and leave the flying to you.”

He had been drinking steadily all day during the wedding and the reception, without (he was pretty certain) letting it show, even to Boa. He continued drinking on the plane. He lit a cigar, which the stewardess immediately made him put out. Left feeling abashed and cantankerous, he started — or rather, restarted — an argument he’d had earlier that day with Boa. About her Uncle Charles, the Representative. He had given them a sterling service for twelve as a wedding present, which Boa had insisted on cooing over privately, as they were driving to the airport. Finally he’d exploded and said what he thought about Charles Whiting — and his brother Grandison. What he thought was that Grandison had arranged their marriage for the benefit of Charles, and of the family name, knowing that Charles was shortly to be involved in something approaching a scandal. Or so it had been presented in some of the more outspoken newspapers on the East Coast. The scandal concerned a lawyer hired by a sub-committee of Ways and Means (the committee that Charles chaired), who had caused a stink, no one knew precisely what about, since the government had managed to clamp the lid on before the actual details became public. Somehow it concerned the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization concerning which Charles had made several intemperate and highly publicized remarks. Now the sub-committee lawyer had vanished, and Uncle Charles was spending all his time telling reporters he had no comment. From the first inklings in the Star-Tribune it was obvious to Daniel that the wedding had been arranged as a kind of media counterweight to the scandal — weddings being irreproachable P.R. It was not obvious to Boa. Neither of them knew more about it than could be gleaned from papers, since Grandison Whiting refused, categorically, to discuss it. When, only days before the wedding, he realized the depth of Daniel’s suspicions, he became quite incensed, though Boa had managed to smooth both their tempers. Daniel had apologized, but his doubts remained. From those entanglements had issued their quarrel in the Whiting limousine (a quarrel further complicated by Boa’s panicky concern that the chauffeur should not overhear them); this was again the subject of their quarrel en route to Kennedy; it promised to be their quarrel for ever, since Boa would not allow any doubts about her father to go unchallenged. She became Jesuitical in his defense, and then strident. Other passengers made reproving glances at them. Daniel wouldn’t give up. Soon he’d driven Boa to making excuses for Uncle Charles. Daniel reacted by upping the level of his sarcasm (a form of combat he’d learned from his mother, who could be scathing). Only after Boa had burst into tears, would he lay off.

The plane landed in Cleveland, and took off again. The stewardess brought more drinks. Though he’d managed to stop arguing, he felt rotten. Balked. Resentful. His anger turned everything good that had happened into something equally bad. He felt cheated, corrupted, betrayed. All the glamor of the past nine weeks evaporated. All his posturings before his friends were wormwood now — for he knew they’d be making the same calculations and seeing his marriage in this new, less rosy light.

And yet, wasn’t it possible that Boa was right in a way? If her father hadn’t dealt with him in a manner wholly truthful, he may at least have limited himself to half-truths. Then too, whatever motives Grandison Whiting may have concealed, the result was still this happy ending here and now. He should, as Boa suggested, put the rest out of mind, relax, lie back and enjoy the beginning of what looked to be the endless banquet ahead.

Besides, it wouldn’t do to arrive at First National Flightpaths feeling any otherwise than mellow.

So, by way of thinking of something else, he read, in the airline’s own magazine, an article about trout fishing written by one of the country’s top novelists. When he’d finished it, he was convinced that trout fishing would be a delightful pastime to take up. Would there be trout, he wondered, in the Seychelles? Probably not.

The nicest thing about New York, Daniel decided, after being there five minutes, was that you were invisible. Nobody noticed anyone else. In fact, it was Daniel who wasn’t noticing, as he found out when someone almost got away with his carryon suitcase, which Boa rescued by a last-minute grab. So much for patriotic feelings about his old home town (For he was, as he’d many times pointed out to Boa, a New Yorker by birth).