J.T. Warren - Remains

That’s how I wound up a swim instructor at the Y. My father signed me up for boxing. I went three times. Once to watch, with him. Once on my own. The third time I walked in, and there was Kevin O’Mally. He’d been out with the flu both the other times. When I walked in that third time, and he was standing in the ring, I froze. I don’t know if he saw me or not, or how long I was there, but he didn’t say anything. I walked out. On the way down the hall, I saw Mr. Douglas, the instructor coming toward class. I told him my mother had freaked out, that she didn’t want me doing anything as dangerous as boxing. I put extra emphasis on the word, so he’d think that it wasn’t my way of thinking. He put his hand on my shoulder, said he understood. I said that I liked it at the Y, though, and asked him if there was anything else that I could do. I didn’t realize it then, but Dr. Bledsoe told me that I was equivocating. He said that I was trying to make up for the lie by offering to do work as penance. It all happened pretty fast, really. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know if he bought the lie, either, but he walked me over to the front counter and stood there with me until the lady came out of the office.

“Mornin’ Kate,” he said to the woman. I didn’t look up at her. I’d lied.

“Mornin’,” she said.

“Listen, Kate, do us a favor, eh? Mike here would like to find something useful to do around the place. We got anything like that?” he asked, putting his hand around my shoulders again. I counted the number of tiles that connected to the desk.

“Sure. We’re desperate for a sweeper. I think that Palter kid is gonna’ leave soon, too,” she said, and I felt her lean down toward me, “do you know how to swim, sweetheart?” she asked.

I nodded. I knew how to swim. My father had taught me when I was little by throwing me into the pool. The shallow end, of course. I’d felt pretty foolish after thrashing around and crying out when I was able to touch the bottom by tip toe. Since then I’d become pretty good.

“Good. When can you start, honey?” she said.

“You could start today, right champ?” he asked me.

I nodded. In a way, it felt like a beginning of something. I knew what my dad would say if he ever found out I quit boxing. Worse, though, would be what he wouldn’t say. He wouldn’t get mad or chastise me, but in his head, I just knew he’d think about what a dud he’d gotten for a son. Even that young, I knew that much.

Landing is always the best part of flying anywhere. It’s a relief to me. I feel like I can breathe again. The second the plane stops rolling, it’s like my heart goes back to beating at a steady rhythm, my eyes go back to normal size. The flight attendant talked to each person as they went by. All I wanted was off that plane. I tied not to think about how there was one more flight to get through, still. I tried to console myself with it being on a bigger plane. I tried to think about anything to keep myself from knowing that I still had another two hours of sheer panic to get through.

The airport smelled funny. New and old at the same time. I wondered if maybe all buildings had a smell. I imagined that they did, and wondered what my apartment smelled like. I walked to the lady at the counter and asked her if my connecting flight was on time and she said that it was. I don’t know why, but I also asked her what local weather was like back home. She clicked a few times on her computer screen and then said, “Rainy. Looks like it might be a little rough getting in.” I felt my stomach drop. I said, “That figures,” and she gave me a sympathetic smile. I walked to the gate and sat down, my jacket taking up the whole other seat.

Outside the windows, guys in blue jumpsuits were working on the plane. DC-10, I thought, more because it was one of the few names for a plane that I knew than anything else. The plane outside the window probably wasn’t a DC-10. I knew a few names, things my father had told me. He was a pilot back during the war. I had a sense that maybe he meant Korea or Vietnam, but I never asked. He had all sorts of funny names for planes. He was the one I got the term puddle jumper from. That’s what he’d done in the war: he and another man had flown soldiers back and forth to different islands in Hawaii. They had a puddle jumper they’d nicknamed Helga. He told me that the tattoo on his upper arm was the same picture they’d had put on the nose of the plane. When I asked him why Helga, he said that he’d tell me when I got older. He never did.

A woman with two little boys sat down on the same bank of chairs I was on. The boys were twins. It wasn’t readily apparent, though. Sometimes brothers, even twins, don’t resemble each other all that closely. I thought about Sarah. The woman doted on one, who seemed to want to stay near her, while the other went flying around the place. I tried not to let them see that I was watching, but the mother was beautiful. If you asked me why I felt she was, I couldn’t have told you. She wasn’t a cover model, that’s for sure. Still, something about her drew my eyes. Something about the way those boys were her entire world, the way she let them hold her entranced. Though the one that was running around would have annoyed most parents, she seemed to be completely taken with him. As the more mobile one would hang himself upside down across a bank of chairs, the mother would put her hand on the back of the more sedate one to say “look at your brother,” and they’d both laugh. I envied them that; a mother who wanted them, maybe even enjoyed being with them.

I wondered where their father was. At first, the slightly balding man who came over toward them seemed to be the father. Then he sat on a different row of chairs and pulled magazine from his bag. He seemed brutal, a tough. His knuckles were huge. The magazine was something with a man in boxing gear on the front.

A bit longer and a lady came over and started to unlock the doors leading down the ramp to the plane.

About fifteen minutes later, she called for us all to begin boarding. She said the flight was only half full, so there would be plenty of room if we wanted to use extra chairs for carry on items. Walking down the ramp, listening to the hollow thump of each footstep was hard to get through. ‘Just one more, just one more,’ I kept thinking. The plane smelled like a bus. I found my row and seat with dread. As I’d feared, I was just behind the wing. “Most stable seat in the house,” my father had once told me. I’d always found it the worst. Since it was the one place where motion came from, I felt it all; every turn, every change in speed. I don’t do so well with sudden changes like that.

One of the twins came by and sat on the opposite side of the isle from me. The mother followed. Before she was even in her seat, the twin already in his was chattering at her. He seemed fascinated. Just behind the mother came the other twin. He looked almost embarrassed. The mother whispered something to the boisterous one and he stood up immediately. She whispered something to the other one, and he stood up. They changed chairs. The quieter boy fell to examining the wings out the window, while the other twin got up and ran back to the restrooms, his feet thumping loudly all the way. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her smile and slightly shake her head. I leaned back into my seat.

All around me, the millions of tiny conversations of people who know they have to spend a few hours together without really knowing each other. The attendant walked back and forth, getting people stowed away neatly. “Squared away,” my father usually said.

After a while, the attendant closed the door and pressure in my ears made everything sound fuzzy. I kept stealing glances at the mother, who still had no idea anything was occurring outside the realm of her boys. Even as the attendant went through her speech, the plane backing out and then rolling onto the runway, the three of them were engaged in conversation. I wondered what they were talking about, and wished she was talking to me. I thought, they must’ve been on a lot of flights to not be scared. I wondered what it might feel like to be that cherished.