Chang-Rae Lee - Aloft

I wasn't planning to e-mail him, as I figured he had plenty to do and probably had thousands of e-mails jamming his in-box, but last night, driving back from Jack and Eunice's party, and not having talked to Theresa about that (she called Paul to say she was staying out late to go to the city with Sadie and Alice), I heard on the radio that Sir Harold had entered a massive storm somewhere over the Indian Ocean. After getting into bed and tossing restlessly for a couple hours I went to the study and turned on the computer. There was no new information on the website, only that his last verified position was some six hours old, the point at which he was likely to have entered the eye of the system and his GPS signal flickered out. I didn't know exactly what I was feeling about the situation, but I found myself typing out this message:

Sir Harold! We go with you into the vortex! Stay the lofty course!

Godspeed!

— an American friend

I intentionally used the exclamation points, as I imagined the winds wickedly whipping and tossing him around, and wanted to convey the sense that our hearts and minds were truly with him, up there in his high-tech basket. As for the crusty tone, I figured what else comes naturally to such moments for explorers and their fans, and hoped, too, that he'd appreciate my lame attempt at speaking his language, as Kelly Stearns or Miles Quintana will do for me in their respective ways, and see as a note of goodwill. And all in all it was probably better than "Keep your head down, chief," which is the advice I generally dispense for most situations, no matter the weather, if I even bother to give it anymore.

My interest in Sir Harold is somewhat unusual, as there was never a time in my life when I was known to be a fan, of anyone or anything, even when I was still a bachelor and living on my own and not yet fully involved with Battle Brothers. You'd think a fairly sportive, not unconventional guy like me wouldn't mind hooking on to the fortunes of, say, a hometown team, to lend a little modulation to his days, a little virtual drama, and thereby connect with the necessary direness and commonality of this life. That and having a socially acceptable mode of publicly acting out, which is a form of pleasure that your sometimes overintellectualized types (perhaps like Theresa and Paul) and those others long cosseted by a tad too much safety and comfort (perhaps like yours truly) don't or can't quite appreciate anymore.

Sure, I tagged along a couple times with some guys on the crews to a Giants game at the Stadium, but I couldn't quite muster the flushed-neck hoorahs of my spittle-laced corn-padres, and I'd only rise halfway to the occasion, getting up on my toes for a big play and groaning in concert with the thousands and drinking maybe one jumbo brew too many. Afterward I'd just trudge down the banked exit ramp with only a syncopated tic in my gut, a half-lurch like nothing really got started, never quite feeling the pure sheer liberty that comes from stomping your feet and hollering out your lungs because some burly throwback with a digit sewn onto his shirt has just dived for and reached a certain chalk mark on the field.

I waited for another fifteen minutes, sifting through the cluttered nil of the Web, which to me feels like a flaky neighbor's junky attic, then checked my e-mail, but of course there was no answer, and I woke up this morning actually thinking first about Sir Harold rather than Theresa, wondering whether he had come out of the storm and was still floating, or else scuttled at the bottom of the seas. I then felt a grave jolt of guilt, though one I'm accustomed to, and I tried to think it was simply what Rita would deem my deeply lazy emotional response, but even I couldn't bear the thought that I could be that anemic, and so I called over to Jack's house when the hour at last seemed appropriate, meaning a couple ticks past 8 A.M.

Theresa answered the phone, catching me totally off-guard.

"What's up, Jerry?" she said, sounding fresh and snappy.

"You're up. You went out last night?"

"Yup. Alice and lathe and I had dinner at a bistro in Tribeca, and then danced at a club. It was a blast. We got back at three in the morning."

"Should you be doing that?"

"Why not? I feel great."

"Come on, Theresa," I said, trying my best to be calm. "I had a conversation with Paul."

"Oh yeah, I heard."

"You heard."

"I was going to talk to you, but I'm kind of glad he went ahead."

"You mean about you being pregnant, or the fact that you're seriously ill?"

"Hey, Jerry," she said, that old unleavened tone instantly rising. "Take it easy."

"Are you serious? Those are two pretty damn big things. I wonder when the hell you were going to tell me what was going on."

"You're the first."

"Thanks, honey."

She paused. "Of course I was going to, about the pregnancy, but it was too early. And then when it wasn't, we found out about the other thing. It got complicated, and I thought we should wait."

"Wait for what, the 'other thing' to kill you?"

"I'm sorry you're so mad."

"How can I be mad?" I said, thinking that there were probably a thousand ways I could be, though none of them very useful. And all of a sudden I had the feeling that I was talking to a much younger version of myself, she being perhaps even more like me than her brother, whom I'd always considered the one who took after me.

I said, taking a breath, "I assume Jack doesn't know yet."

"I'm going to try to talk to him today. When we get back from the doctor."

"Who is this doctor?"

"She's the wife of a grad school friend, at Yale — New Haven.

Don't worry, she's an expert."

"Look, I'm sorry I have to say this, but can you tell me what the hell you think you're doing?"

"I'm doing what I can."

"But what's the point of experts if you won't let them do anything?"

"You have to trust me, all right?" she said, quiet and serious.

"Okay, Dad?"

I couldn't answer, as the Dad part unexpectedly knocked around inside my chest and throat for an extended beat.

"Paul's already outside. We were just leaving."

"Come pick me up. I'll go with you. I'll keep Paul company in the waiting room."

"I don't think so," she said, firmly, the way I do when I believe the conversation is over. "I promise, we'll come back with a full report."

"When will that be?"

"Dinnertime. Or maybe not. We'll call. Paul and I want to shop a little in the city. But we're going to stay with you from now on, right?"

"What do you think? Of course you are.

get your room

ready."

"Thanks. Gotta go."

"We're going to talk about this, Theresa. Really talk. I mean it."

"I know. See you later. Bye."

After we clicked off, though, I began to wonder what I'd really say to her and Paul, when they came back with nothing different, to thus continue with their Christian Scientist — style plan of waiting out the "other thing," which of course is pure unalloyed madness, and exactly not what 1, or anyone else in my family line, would do, or so I'd hope; besides this, you'd think such a thoroughly hip and progressive postmodern/postcolonial type woman like Theresa, who marched on our nation's capital at least a half dozen times in her youth for a woman's right to choose and unionism and the environment and affirmative action et cetera, would do as any other liberal overeducated professional-class person would do in her situation, which is hand-wring and wallow in self-pitying angst and consult countless other liberal overeducated professionals before "finally"

coming to the "difficult decision" to cut one's losses (you know what I'm talking about) and move on, which is what most other people (like me) would decide to do in about a half minute, un-derscoring the notion that most of us (at least in this centrist Western world) are pretty much of the same mind, though we believe in and require vastly different processes in the getting there.