Russell Banks - Continental Drift

“That so? From up north?”

“Yeah. New Hampshire.”

“Your wife knows about her, this woman you’re comparing me to, this old girlfriend of yours?”

“No, she never knew. It wasn’t a real big thing anyhow.”

“But you’re telling me about her now. Because I remind you of her.” Allie has large, sad, dark blue eyes that turn down at the corners, a narrow-browed Irish face with tight mouth, long jaw, pale skin. “Did she look like me, or what?”

“No, nothing like you at all. I don’t know, it’s just something about the way you talk, how you’re so relaxed and easy, maybe. Actually, you’re both kind of sexy in the same way,” he blurts. “It’s hard to describe,” he adds, almost as an apology, wondering suddenly if she is in fact, as Elaine wants to believe she is, a lesbian, wondering if therefore she finds his compliments offensive, because after all, he tells himself, he’s not propositioning her or anything, he’s not asking her to fuck him, he’s just complimenting her, that’s all, which he is sure doesn’t happen to her every day, since she’s not what most men would ordinarily think of as attractive or sexy. Still, to him, she is sexy. So why not tell her so? Even if she is a lesbian. Hell, it’s better that way; it’s better if she’s a lesbian.

Allie’s eyes are wide open now, her breathing is tight and quick, and leaning forward toward Bob, her hands clasped to her knees, she says, “Well, I think you’re pretty sexy yourself, mister. If you want to know the truth.”

“You do?” Bob smiles.

Allie stands up and looks around the yard with care, at the faded gray trailer next to hers, over at Bob’s salt-pitted, lemon-yellow trailer, into the trees and shrubs and out along the sandy lane. A pair of egrets with gray bodies and rust-colored heads and serpentine necks, eyes like agates, legs like bamboo stalks, stroll watchfully along the shore. Allie says, “You want to come inside, Bob?”

“What?”

“You want to come inside awhile? With me?”

Suddenly he understands what he’s done, and at first he’s ashamed of himself. He’s not surprised, however, by anything that’s happened, by anything he’s said or she’s said, and he’s not surprised that now she’s inviting him inside so he can fuck her. But he feels the way he did an hour ago, when he brought in the Belinda Blue and ran for his car, though he cannot fully explain to himself why he feels that way — like a liar and a fool, a man who has ruined his own life and has no one to blame but himself.

A moment before, talking to Allie about Doris Cleeve, flirting a little, sure, and curious, he’d felt good, a normal man chatting up the woman across the way, nothing serious, nothing dangerous to either of them, certainly nothing cruel. But now he’s got to say no to her, and he’s never said no to a woman before. He asked for something, and now he’s received it, and it’s turned out to be undesirable to him. The problem lies in asking in the first place, he suddenly realizes. Not that he can’t imagine fucking Allie Hubbell; he could do it if he had to. But he knows, perhaps for the first time in his life, that he’s supposed to want to fuck her, and her in particular. Jesus, he thinks, if you can control what a man wants, you can control everything he does. “Listen, Allie, I … I’m really sorry. I better go on home, okay?” He turns and steps away, looking back over his shoulder, as if a little afraid of her.

“Yeah,” she says. “See you later.” She sits back down on the stoop, places her elbows on her knees again and watches Bob make his retreat.

3

It’s hot and stuffy inside the trailer, and in Bob’s dream he’s aboard an airplane, a long, narrow commercial jet. He’s seated alone, somewhere near the middle, with seats on both sides, and the interior of the plane is hot and moist, almost as if he were underwater. He struggles with the overhead controls, trying to turn on the fan, but nothing happens, and he gives up. There’s no evidence of a crew, no attendants and no other passengers. He’s waiting for takeoff, he knows, though there’s no reason he should know this, no particular indications of it. He looks out the rain-obscured window along the wing to the engines, which are silent, cold. Suddenly it comes to him — everyone’s abandoned this plane for another, the crew, the attendants, all the other passengers. This plane has mechanical problems, faulty wiring, a fuel leak, trouble with the hydraulic systems, and in fact it may blow up any second. No wonder they swapped it for another. He smells smoke. Sweating, terrified, he struggles to get out of his seat, to flee the plane and join the others. But he can’t get out of his seat. It holds him down, hugs him around the waist, where he’s clamped by a seat belt. He laughs at his own stupidity and unhooks the seat belt, tries to rise, but as before, he can’t move. The smell of smoke is stronger now, almost like burned wiring. He knows the plane is about to explode. He wrestles the belt loose a second time and lurches away from his seat, but he still can’t get free of it. He calls out for help, Help! Help ! He fiddles with the belt buckle, twists and yanks at it, zips down his fly, feels his penis, a prick, erect, large, and a flash of pride and relief passes through him, when he remembers that he’s got to forget his prick, he’s got to get out of this plane before it explodes and tears him into a thousand bits of flesh and bone. He lets go of his penis, pats it back into his underpants and zips up his fly. Calmly, rationally, he unlocks the seat belt, and it comes free. The smoke and heat are now dense, heavy, dark, and he gropes his way forward, feeling his way along the aisle between the seats, when he is aware that, as he passes each row of seats, he’s patting people on the shoulder, a man, a woman, another man, all of them dressed in Sunday suits and dresses, the men with neckties, the women with hats. He’s in church, St. Peter’s in Catamount, and it’s a funeral service. He sees the white coffin in front of the altar, the lid raised, and as he nears, he knows that he will look in, and he’ll see his mother’s face, her dead face. He can’t imagine what she will look like. He did not look into the coffin when they had the funeral in Catamount, though he pretended to. He just dipped his head and kept his eyes closed. But this time he will look, as he’s very curious now, and also he knows that everyone wants him to look — his brother Eddie, who wasn’t afraid of looking, and his father, who died the year before his mother did but was given a closed-casket service, closed because of his wife’s wishes, for she insisted she did not want her memory of the man alive tainted by the sight of him dead. Elaine wants him to look into the coffin too. She’s right behind him in line, prodding him, nudging him on, saying, Go on, Bob, you can do it. You should do it. He smells smoke again, a foul, acidic smell, an electrical fire somewhere, he knows, probably in the coffin, in the wiring of his mother’s body, put there by the undertakers, the Webb Brothers that Eddie insisted on hiring for the job. Fire! he shouts, and he grabs at the font to the right of the coffin, lifts it and empties the water into the coffin, pours holy water over the maze of smoldering wires and wheels, cables, shafts and belts, putting out the fire and saving everyone on the plane. His father comes forward and pats him on the shoulder. Good work, Bob, he says in his gruff voice. Eddie comes up behind him and catches him by the elbow. Way to go, kid. Way to go. Elaine and the girls and little Robbie look up at him from their seats, their eyes wide with love and gratitude, their small, delicate bodies strapped tightly into their seats. There’s still a foul, wet, smoky smell coming from the coffin, and Bob reaches out and brings down the top of the coffin with a bang.