Richard Brautigan - The Abortion - An Historical Romance 1966

‘I really can’t believe it,’ I said.

‘They can have it all if they want it. I’m not trying to do anything,’ Vida said.

‘You’re really a prize,’ I said.

‘Only because I’m with you,’ she said.

Before taking off a man talked to us over the plane’s PA system. He welcomed us aboard and told us too much about the weather, the temperature, clouds, the sun and the wind and what weather waited for us down California. We didn’t want to hear that much about the weather. I hoped he was the pilot.

It was grey and cold outside without any hope for the sun. We were now taking off. We started moving down the runway, slow at first, then faster, faster, faster: my God!

I looked at the wing below me. The rivets in the wing looked awfully gentle as if they were not able to hold anything up. The wing trembled from time to time ever so gently, but just enough to put the subtle point across.

‘How does it feel?’ Vida said. ‘You look a little green around the edges.’

‘It’s different,’ I said.

A medieval flap was hanging down from the wing as we took off. It was the metal intestine of some kind of bird, retractable and visionary.

We flew above the fog clouds and right into the sun. It was fantastic. The clouds were white and beautiful and grew like flowers to the hills and mountains below, hiding with blossoms the valleys from our sight.

I looked down on my wing and saw what looked like a coffee stain as if somebody had put a cup of coffee down on the wing. You could see the ring stain of the cup and then a big splashy sound stain to show that the cup had fallen over.

I was holding Vida’s hand.

From time to time we hit invisible things in the air that made the plane buck like a phantom horse.

I looked down at the coffee stain again and I liked it with the world far below. We were going to land at Burbank in Los Angeles in less than an hour to let off and pick up more passengers, then on to San Diego.

We were travelling so fast that it only took a few moments before we were gone.

I was beginning to love the coffee stain on my wing. Somehow it was perfect for the day: like a talisman. I started to think about Tijuana, but then I changed my mind and went back to the coffee stain.

Things were going on in the aeroplane with the stewardesses. They were taking tickets and offering coffee inside the plane, and making themselves generally liked.

The stewardesses were like beautiful Playboy nuns coming and going through the corridors of the aeroplane as if the aeroplane were a nunnery. They wore short skirts to show off lovely knees, beautiful legs, but their knees and legs became invisible in front of Vida, who sat quietly in her seat next to me, holding my hand, thinking about her body’s Tijuana destination.

There was a perfect green pocket in the mountains. It was perhaps a ranch or a field or a pasture. I could have loved that pocket of green forever.

The speed of the aeroplane made me feel affectionate.

After a while the clouds reluctantly gave up the valleys, but it was a very desolate land we were travelling over, not even the clouds wanted it. There was nothing human kind below, except a few roads that ran like long dry angleworms in the mountains. Vida remained quiet, beautiful.

The sun kept swinging back and forth on my wing. I looked down beyond my coffee stain to see that we were flying now above a half-desolate valley that showed the agricultural designs of man in yellow and in green. But the mountains had no trees in them and were barren and sloped like ancient surgical instruments.

I looked at the medieval intestinal flap of the wing, rising to digest hundreds of miles an hour, beside my coffee stain talisman.

Vida was perfect, though her eyes were dreaming south.

The people on the other side of the aeroplane were looking down below at something. I wondered what it was and looked down my side to see a small town and land that looked gentler and there were more towns. The towns began magnifying one another. The gentleness of the land became more and more towns and grew sprawling into Los Angeles and I was looking for a freeway.

The man I hoped was the pilot or involved in some official capacity with the aeroplane told us that we were going to land in two minutes. We suddenly flew into a cloudy haze that became the Burbank airport. The sun was not shining and everything was murky. It was a yellow murk whereas back in San Francisco it was a grey murk.

The aeroplane grew empty and then became full again. Vida got a lot of visual action while this was going on. One of the stewardesses lingered for a minute a few seats away and stared at Vida as if to make sure she were really there.

‘How do you feel?’ I said.

‘Fine,’ Vida said.

A small airliner about the size of a P-38 with rusty-looking propellers taxied by to take off. Its windows were filled with terrified passengers.

Some businessmen were now sitting in front of us.

They were talking about a girl. They all wanted to go to bed with her. She was a secretary in a branch office in Phoenix. They were talking about her, using business language. ‘I’d like to get her account! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! ha-ha!’

The ‘pilot’ welcomed the new people aboard and told us too much about the weather again. Nobody wanted to hear what he had to say.

‘We’ll be landing in San Diego in twenty-one minutes,’ he said, finishing his weather report.

As we took off from Burbank, a train was running parallel with us across from the airport. We left it behind as if it weren’t there and the same with Los Angeles.

We climbed through the heavy yellow haze and then suddenly the sun was shining calmly away on the wing and my coffee stain looked happy like a surfer, but it was only a passing thing.

Bing-bong!

The trip to San Diego was done mostly in the clouds. From time to time a bell tone was heard in the aeroplane. I didn’t know what it was about.

Bing-bong!

The stewardesses wanted more tickets and people to like them. The smiles never left their faces. They were smiling even when they weren’t smiling.

Bing-bong!

I thought about Foster and the library, then I very rapidly changed the subject in my mind. I didn’t want to think about Foster and the library: grimace .

Bing-bong!

Then we flew into heavy fog and the plane made funny noises. The noises were fairly solid. I almost thought that we had landed in San Diego and were moving along the runway when a stewardess told us that we were going to land shortly, so we were still in the air.

Hmmmmmmmm…

Bing-bong!

From San Francisco our speed had been amazing. We had gathered hundreds of miles effortlessly, as if guided by lyrical poetry. Suddenly we broke out into the clear to find that we had been over the ocean. I saw white waves below breaking against the shore and there was San Diego. I saw a thing that looked like a melting park and my ears were popping and we were going down.

The aeroplane stopped and there were many warships anchored across from the airport and they were in a low grey mist that was the colour of their bodies.

‘You can stop being green now,’ Vida said.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’m new at the tree game. Perhaps it’s not my calling.’

We got off the aeroplane with Vida causing her customary confusion among the male passengers and resentment among the female passengers.

Two sailors looked as if their eyes had been jammed with pinball machines and we went on into the terminal. It was small and old-fashioned.

And I had to go to the toilet.