J.T. Warren - Remains

From the sounds the taxi made, it had maybe a few hundred miles left on it before something major went wrong. I thought about maybe telling the guy, but decided not to. We exited the freeway and the airport stood out from everything else. The tower was the tallest building in town at that time. Since then, they moved in a bank from somewhere overseas, and the new building is bigger. Seven stories, that new bank building, all glass and shiny. The tower was rust colored, though, and mostly concrete. The blinking lights were the only remarkable feature besides its squat ugliness.

I always envisioned going to a bigger city, with a bigger airport. Pulling up in a cab and having the person ask “What terminal, fella?” There were only two here: one for people using the little puddle jumpers to get somewhere nearby, and those using the only-slightly-bigger puddle jumpers to get to a major city so they could take a real plane.

The cab pulled up to the curb and I paid him. He popped the trunk and I got my stuff out. He pulled away as soon as I closed the trunk. Inside, they took all the parts of my ticket that they needed and then handed it back to me. I never pay attention to stuff like that, really. I guess I should. The lady behind the counter was pretty at one time, but so many hours under fluorescent lights had left her faded out. She was talking to me and I was nodding and answering, but not really interested. I put my suitcase up on the conveyor belt and then walked to the gate to sit down. I watched a small plane come in from over the old wheat fields. The shimmer off the tarmac made it look like it was hovering before it touched down and began to roll forward. “That’s mine,” I said out loud for no reason.

The first time Susan and I had sex, I felt like I was falling down. I felt it the whole time. There had been a few other girls after that first time, but never anything all that special. I saw a movie once where this crazy guy asked this FBI agent if she’d enjoyed the sticky fumblings in back seats and I thought, that’s exactly what it’s like. Up to that night with Susan, it had been for me.

It almost was with her, too, but she didn’t want it to be like that. I’d made plays for her, sure. What guy wouldn’t have? After a while, she hadn’t stopped calling, so I guessed she really did like me.

That night had been pretty special. Our fifth date, and we went to this place in Turmerville. We went to this little restaurant that serves all the food on metal plates and stuff. They make it like you’re at a mining camp, and all the waiters and waitresses dress like pioneers or something. The food was okay, but I always went because I liked to watch the people who went there. It was a place that everyone went to from our town. For some reason, no one ate at places back home. They all came here. The mayor, the town council, Ed who owned the supermarket and both gas stations. You could see anyone there.

Susan wasn’t all that impressed, I could tell. After a while I got to feeling pretty bad about it. “Stupid, stupid,” I kept saying to myself. I should have thought of some place nicer. Some place up in Eukiah, maybe. About halfway through the meal, I looked up at her, my heart thudding away in my chest, and said “I’m sorry this isn’t all that great.”

She looked at me and asked, “What do you mean?”

“We can leave, if you want to.”

“Mike, stop. This is an okay place.”

“You’re not having a good time.” I said.

“Really? And how exactly can you tell that?” she asked in return, setting her fork down on her plate.

“Your face,” I said.

“Oh.” She then went quiet. I didn’t say anything either. The next time the waiter came by, I asked for the check. She kept insisting that she wanted to pay, but I wouldn’t let her. My dad would have killed me if I did.

On the ride back in to town, she asked me to pull over near this cornfield. When I did she got out and I thought, This is it. She’s about to say that she can walk from here and I’ll never see her again. She walked around the car and I rolled down my window, bracing. She leaned in and said, “Turn the car off”. I almost started into the ‘It’s okay for you to not like me’ speech I’d been preparing since she and I met. Then I realized what she’d said and I turned off the lights, and shut the car down.

“Get out,” she said and stepped away from the door.

I rolled the window back up, and went to put the keys in my pocket. She grabbed my hand and took the keys, putting them in her own pocket. She giggled, took my hand again, and walked toward the corn.

“What are we doing?” I asked, and she shushed me. My mind raced and I felt that feeling begin. The one I described before, like falling down. It crept from under my ribcage and spread upward like a fire. My feet started to feel numb. The corn rustled and swayed in the wind: it sounded like some huge thing breathing in sleep.

We got to a place where most of the corn had been taken, already. She let go my hand and sat down, relaxing back on her elbows. I stood there staring at her until she patted the ground next to her. I sat down Indian style and she giggled.

“I scare you, don’t I?” she asked. I didn’t know what to say, but before I could, she said, “Do you want to have sex with me?” I couldn’t breathe. Parts of me jumped to life but other parts went numb, dead. I started to shake.

She reached up and took my hands, then put them on her body. I didn’t dare move them, though my mind was screaming for me to. She leaned back and I could see her close her eyes. I couldn’t tell you what broke the stalemate inside me, but I moved her shirt up and began to touch her stomach. She started to sort of wiggle and breathe ragged.

Thinking back, I guess it couldn’t have been that good for her, really. At the time, though, it was all I could do to think, let alone about making it any better for her. She undressed me, then told me to undress her. She had on the softest panties I’d ever felt. To this day, that’s what I remember the most; just how soft her panties were. It went on for what seemed like hours, but I somehow doubt it did.

I was on top of her and her legs were wrapped around my hips. I could feel her feet against the backs of my thighs. I could feel my heartbeat, taste the corn and dust on the air. I heard the long rows moving against each other like a huge chorus from one of the operas. I listened to her breathing and became lost in it. I heard her heart, and felt it against me.

I boarded. We taxied, accelerated and took off with no problems. The plane was so small the four other passengers and myself could all have conversed with the anyone in the cockpit without leaving our seats. It was an hour to Mount Pilot.

The whole way the plane bumped and slid, the wings creaked and groaned. They shook, too. “Wings are supposed to do that,” my father once told me on our first airplane flight. I’d been so nervous, and that’s when I think he first got the idea I wasn’t going to be the superman he wanted. Every time there was a sound, it seemed too loud or located too close. Every movement of the plane seemed like the pilot’s last desperate attempt to keep control before we went into a tailspin. I panicked and knew that I couldn’t show it, or else my father would be embarrassed. That somehow made it worse. I sat the whole time shaking, my eyes darting around, but didn’t say anything. No matter how I tried to hide it from him, though, he knew. My mother was oblivious, but my father knew.

After that plane ride, I started to sort of, I don’t know, crack up, I guess. Things seemed too intense all the time. Every time the car bumped or moved sideways an inch, I was convinced we were all going to die. I was about ten or so, and nervous. The doctor they took me to didn’t know much about kids, really. He told my dad to get me involved in boxing.