Barry Hannah - Airships

The image of tennis was ruined for years in Vicksburg.

Dr. Word and the Edwards met French on the court. Levaster saw Word lift an old crabby arm to French’s shoulder, saw French wince. Mr. Edward said he had to hurry to his job. He wore a comical uniform and cap. His job was checking vegetable produce at the bridge house of the river so that boll weevils would not enter Mississippi from Louisiana. Levaster looked into the eyes of Mrs. Edward. Yes, he decided, she still loves Word; her eyes touch him like fingers, and perhaps he still cuts it, and perhaps they rendezvous out in the Civil War cemetery so he won’t have far to fall when he explodes with fornication, the old infantryman of lust.

“Mother,” said French, “let’s all meet at the bridge house.”

Levaster saw the desperate light in French’s eye.

“Don’t you, don’t you!” said Levaster afterward, driving the Lincoln.

“I’ve got to. It’ll clear the trash. I can’t live in the world if Word’s still in it.”

“He’s nothing but bones,” said Levaster. “He’s done for.”

“She still loves him,” said French.

They all gathered at the bridge house, and French told his father that his wife had been cheating on him for twenty years, and brought up his hands, and began crying, and pointed to Word. Mr. Edward looked at Word, then back to his son. He was terribly concerned. He asked Word to leave the little hut for a second, apologizing to Word. He asked Olive to come stand by him, and put his arm over his wife’s shoulders.

“Son,” he whispered, “Jimmy Word, friend to us and steady as a brick to us, is a homosexual. Look out there, what you’ve done to him. He’s running.”

Then they were all strung out on the walkway of the bridge, Levaster marveling at how swift old Word was, for Word was out there nearing the middle of the bridge, Mrs. Edward next, fifty yards behind, French passing his mother, gaining on Word. Levaster was running too. He, too, passed Olive, who had given out and was leaning on the rail. Levaster saw Word mount the rail and balance on it like a gymnast. He put on a burst of speed and caught up with French, who had stopped running and was walking toward Word cautiously, his hand on the rail.

“Just close your eyes, son, I’ll be gone,” Word said, looking negligible as a spirit in his smart tennis jacket and beret. He trembled on the rail. Below Word was the sheen of the river, the evening sun lying over it down there, low reds flashing on the brown water.

That’s a hundred feet down there, Levaster thought. When he looked up, French had gotten up on the rail and was balancing himself, moving step by step toward Word.

“Don’t,” said Levaster and Word together.

French, the natural, was walking on the rail with the ease of an avenue hustler. He had found his purchase: this sport was nothing.

“Son! No closer!” bawled Word.

“I’m not your son. I’m bringing you back, old bastard.”

They met. French seemed to be trying to pick up Word in an infant position, arm under legs. Word’s beret fell off and floated, puffed out, into the deep hole over the river. French had him, had him wrestled into the shape of a fetus. Then Word gave a kick and Olive screamed, and the two men fell backward into the red air and down. Levaster watched them coil together in the drop.

There was a great deal of time until they hit. At the end, Edward flung the old suicide off and hit the river in a nice straight-legged jump. Word hit the water flat as a board. Levaster thought he heard the sound of Word’s back breaking.

The river was shallow here, with strong devious currents. Nothing came up. By the time the patrol got out, there was no hope. Then Levaster, standing in a boat, spotted French, sitting under a willow a half mile downriver from the bridge. French had drowned and broken one leg, but had crawled out of the river by instinct. His brain was already choked.

French Edward stared at the rescue boat as if it were a turtle with vermin gesturing toward him, Levaster and Olive making their cries of discovery.

Carina, Levaster’s teen-ager, woke him up. She handed him a cold beer and a Dexedrine. At first Levaster did not understand. Then he knew that the sun had come up again, seeing the grainy abominable light on the alley through the window. This was New York. Who was this child? Why was he naked on the sheets?

Ah, Carina.

“Will you marry me, Carina?” Levaster said.

“Before I saw your friend, I might have,” she said.

French Edward came into the room, fully dressed, hair wet from a shower.

“Where do I run, Baby?” he said.

Levaster told him to run around the block fifty times.

“He does everything you tell him?” said Carina.

“Of course he does. Fry me some eggs, you dumb twat.”

As the eggs and bacon were sizzling, Levaster came into the kitchen in his Taiwan bathrobe, the huge black sombrero on his head. He had oiled and loaded the.410 shotgun/pistol.

“Put two more eggs on for French. He’s really hungry after he runs.”

Carina broke two more eggs.

“He’s so magnificent,” she said. “How much of his brain does he really have left?”

“Enough,” Levaster said.

Levaster drove them to New Hampshire, to Bretton Woods. He saw Laver and Ashe approach French Edward in the lobby of the inn. They wanted to shake hands with French, but he did not recognize them. French stood there with hands down, looking ahead into the wall.

The next day Levaster took French out on the court for his first match. He put the Japanese Huta into his hand. It was a funny manganese and fiberglass racket with a split throat. The Huta firm had paid French ten thousand to use it on the circuit just before he drowned in the river. French had never hit with it before.

French was looking dull. Levaster struck him a hard blow against the heart. French started and gave a sudden happy regard to the court.

“I’m here,” said French.

“You’re damned right. Don’t let us down.”

Edward played better than he had in years. He was going against an Indian twenty years his junior. The boy had a serve and a wicked deceptive blast off his backhand. The crowd loved the Indian. The boy was polite and beautiful. But then French Edward had him at match point on his serve.

Edward threw the ball up.

“Hit it, hit . My life, hit it,” whispered Levaster.

Unable to swim, he had maneuvered to fall off an old-timers’ party yacht in the Hudson River. His departure was not remarked by the revelers. They motored on toward the Atlantic and he bobbed around in the wash. He couldn’t swim. But he did. He learned how. Before he knew it, he was making time and nearing the dock where a small Italian liner sat dead still, white, three stories high. Nobody was around when he pulled up on a stray rope on the wharf and walked erect to the street, where cars were flashing. Day after tomorrow was his seventieth birthday. What a past, he said. I’ve survived . Further, I’m horny and vindictive. Does the fire never stop?

Out of his wet billfold he withdrew the sodden money and his government card, yellow, with his name on it: Quarles Green. His parents wanted to compensate for the last name with a fancy front one, poor dogs of Alabama, 1900. Hell of a year for dumb fornication, though, said Quarles aloud. Like all years.

He had never had a satisfactory carnal experience in his life.

What about the letters I wrote? he said as he walked to the concrete and traffic. Can I bear the humiliation of surviving after them, especially the one to Jill Jones? Won’t she see it as the last feather on the ton of boredom, my appearing, hello, I’m not dead, let’s do it again? Walk around in the nude doing house duties, cleaning, sweeping, cooking, me trailing in the wheelchair behind, taking her fathom like crazy. I’ve seen better bodies, but hers is earnest and scandalous enough. Pretending to be a crip so my lust would not disgust her from the room. Developed a real crush on her. At forty a week per Wednesday, I ought to be allowed it. Apologized for the crude sniffing episode unfortunately when I rolled in behind her as she was using the vacuum cleaner. Inadvertence of the wheel here, dear. She never heard the snorts for her vacuum.