Амброз Бирс - Flight or Fright - 17 Turbulent Tales

“Ms. Worth,” Dixon said.

She looked up and smiled. “Hello, Mr. Dixon. We survived, didn’t we?”

“We did. Is someone meeting you? One of your chums?”

“Mrs. Yeager—Claudette—was supposed to, but her car won’t start. I was just about to call an Uber.”

He thought of what she’d said when the turbulence—forty seconds that had seemed like four hours—finally eased: I knew we were going to die. I saw it.

“You don’t need to do that. We can take you to Siesta Key.” He pointed to the stretch limo a little way down the curb, then turned to the driver. “Can’t we?”

“Of course, sir.”

She looked at him doubtfully. “Are you sure? It’s awfully late.”

“My pleasure,” he said. “Let’s do this thing.”

“Ooh, this is nice,” Mary Worth said, settling into the leather seat and stretching out her legs. “Whatever your business is, you must be very successful at it, Mr. Dixon.”

“Call me Craig. You’re Mary, I’m Craig. We should be on a first-name basis, because I want to talk to you.” He pressed a button and the privacy glass went up.

Mary Worth watched this rather nervously, then turned to Dixon. “You aren’t going to, as they say, put a move on me, are you?”

He smiled. “No, you’re safe with me. You said you were going to take the train back. Did you mean that?”

“Absolutely. Do you remember me saying that flying made me feel close to God?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t feel close to God while we were being tossed like a salad six or seven miles up in the air. Not at all. I only felt close to death.”

“Would you ever fly again?”

She considered the question carefully, watching the palms and car dealerships and fast food franchises slide past as they rolled south on the Tamiami Trail. “I suppose I would. If someone was on his deathbed, say, and I had to get there fast. Only I don’t know who that someone would be, because I don’t have much in the way of family. My husband and I never had children, my parents are dead, and that just leaves a few cousins that I rarely email with, let alone see.”

Better and better, Dixon thought.

“But you’d be afraid.”

“Yes.” She looked back at him, eyes wide. “I really thought we were going to die. In the sky, if the plane came apart. On the ground if it didn’t. Nothing left of us but charred little pieces.”

“Let me spin you a hypothetical,” Dixon said. “Don’t laugh, think about it seriously.”

“Okay…”

“Suppose there’s an organization whose job is to keep airplanes safe.”

“There is,” Mary Worth said, smiling. “I believe it’s called the FAA.”

“Suppose it was an organization that could predict which airplanes would encounter severe and unexpected turbulence on any given flight.”

Mary Worth clapped her hands in soft applause, smiling more widely now. Into it. “No doubt staffed by precognates! Those are people who—”

“People who see the future,” Dixon said. And wasn’t that possible? Likely, even? How else could the facilitator get his information? “But let’s say their ability to see the future is limited to this one thing.”

“Why would that be? Why wouldn’t they be able to predict elections…football scores…the Kentucky Derby…”

“I don’t know,” Dixon said, thinking, maybe they can. Maybe they can predict all sorts of things, these hypothetical precognates in some hypothetical room. Maybe they do. He didn’t care. “Now let’s go a little further. Let’s suppose Mr. Freeman was wrong, and turbulence of the sort we encountered tonight is a lot more serious than anyone—including the airlines—believes, or is willing to admit. Suppose that kind of turbulence can only be survived if there is at least one talented, terrified passenger on each plane that encounters it.” He paused. “And suppose that on tonight’s flight, that talented and terrified passenger was me.”

She pealed merry laughter and only sobered when she saw he wasn’t joining her.

“What about the planes that fly into hurricanes, Craig? I believe Mr. Freeman mentioned something about planes like that just before he needed to use the airsick bag. Those planes survive turbulence that’s probably even worse than what we experienced this evening.”

“But the people flying them know what they’re getting into,” Dixon said. “They are mentally prepared. The same is true of many commercial flights. The pilot will come on even before takeoff and say, ‘Folks, I’m sorry, but we’re in for a bit of a rough ride tonight, so keep those seatbelts buckled.’”

“I get it,” she said. “Mentally prepared passengers could use…I guess you’d call it united telepathic strength to hold the plane up. It’s only unexpected turbulence that would call for the presence of someone already prepared. A terrified…mmm…I don’t know what you’d call a person like that.”

“A turbulence expert,” Dixon said quietly. “That’s what you’d call them. What you’d call me.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I am. And I’m sure you’re thinking right now that you’re riding with a man suffering a serious delusion, and you can’t wait to get out of this car. But in fact it is my job. I’m well paid—”

“By whom?”

“I don’t know. A man calls. I and the other turbulence experts—there are a few dozen of us—call him the facilitator. Sometimes weeks go by between calls. Once it was two months. This time it was only two days. I came to Boston from Seattle, and over the Rockies…” He wiped a hand over his mouth, not wanting to remember but remembering, anyway. “Let’s just say it was bad. There were a couple of broken arms.”

They turned. Dixon looked out the window and saw a sign reading SIESTA KEY, 2 MILES.

“If this was true,” she said, “why in God’s name would you do it?”

“The pay is good. The amenities are good. I like to travel…or did, anyway; after five or ten years, all places start to look the same. But mostly…” He leaned forward and took one of her hands in both of his. He thought she might pull away, but she didn’t. She was looking at him, fascinated. “It’s saving lives. There were over a hundred and fifty people on that airplane tonight. Only the airlines don’t just call them people, they call them souls , and that’s the right way to put it. I saved a hundred and fifty souls tonight. And since I’ve been doing this job I’ve saved thousands.” He shook his head. “No, tens of thousands.”

“But you’re terrified each time. I saw you tonight, Craig. You were in mortal terror. So was I. Unlike Mr. Freeman, who only threw up because he was airsick.”

“Mr. Freeman could never do this job,” Dixon said. “You can’t do the job unless you’re convinced each time the turbulence starts that you are going to die. You’re convinced of that even though you know you’re the one making sure that won’t happen.”

The driver spoke quietly from the intercom. “Five minutes, Mr. Dixon.”

“I must say this has been a fascinating discussion,” Mary Worth said. “May I ask how you got this unique job in the first place?”

“I was recruited,” Dixon said. “As I am recruiting you, right now.”

She smiled, but this time she didn’t laugh. “All right, I’ll play. Suppose you did recruit me? What would you get out of it? A bonus?”

“Yes,” Dixon said. Two years of his future service forgiven, that was the bonus. Two years closer to retirement. He had told the truth about having altruistic motives—saving lives, saving souls —but he had also told the truth about how travel eventually became wearying. The same was true of saving souls, when the price of doing so was endless moments of terror high above the earth.