Now, the passenger to his right was . . . smiling? . . . ”Mom!” he thought. She looked young, and pretty, like when he was a little boy. They were on the Pair-o-Chute ride at Riverview Park. He had really been too young for the ride-the sign said you had to be 12-but his mother loved scary rides. She got him on. He recalled how sick his stomach felt when the pulley lines released the army surplus silk hoisting their little seat to the top of the tower-those seconds before the big umbrella would catch air and yank them up momentarily; then float them back to earth, his mom smiling and cheering wildly as they watched the Loop skyline disappear behind treetops off to their right.
He now realized that he had never seen his mother smile so big-not so big as when they were falling over Riverview. He turned to look at the woman next to him and grimaced; it was definitely not his mother.
He thought of that 1950s Life magazine photo of the well-dressed young woman who had jumped to her death from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. If you hadn`t read the caption you would have thought the pretty lady in white gloves was simply catching 40 winks atop the crushed sedan parked on West 33rd. He wondered if he and the woman next to him would die so gracefully.
He addressed the deity he knew best: Please! In Jesus` name! Let us pass out! (He refused to think of the thin lady as already dead.) His tone grew in urgency: In Jesus` name! Please let us pass out! And immediately he was upset with himself for having used a four-letter word talking to God while only heartbeats from certain death.
Next, his eyes focused on a dark spot on the woman`s stomach, just below her navel. At first he thought it was a birthmark-a birthmark in the shape of a bird, or . . . A butterfly!, he apprised himself. He stretched his neck against incredible forces for a better look . . . Well, I`ll be a . . . It`s a tattoo! And again he chided himself, for bothering with such a trivial thing at a time like this.
He was considering what a nightmare this whole affair was when he thought that maybe that was it. That maybe this was just a very realistic dream! He screamed with all his might hoping to wake himself up. But he and the thin lady kept spinning and somersaulting downward. He felt himself lose his continental breakfast.
It was all par for the course, he reasoned; par, becuse he was speeding to his death through the stratosphere over Lincoln Park with a nearly naked woman-she still had on her underpants and Reeboks. He figured that this was some kind of poetic justice for his amorous forays back in the `70s, back before herpes and AIDS checked his generation`s ribaldry. He thought of all the people down there he might have wronged in any way. He imagined them all gathered together at his favorite lakefront cafe drinking coffee-they were looking up-laughing.
And it was taking so long. He rationalized that their momentum, along with some tailwind off Lake Michigan, was carrying them laterally, inland, as they fell, increasing their hang time. He felt her metal shard stab him once, twice, a third time in the ear. He hated, and envied, and loved, the thin woman.
His brain activity intensified. He became Icarus. . . . No!
. . . Daedalus, changing his mind hurriedly. He caught a glimpse of the Sears Tower, which made him think of his disk jockey friend, Mick Mitchells, who would be up there on the 90th floor doing his morning air shift at WLAC Radio. On a clear day Mick could easily spot Dyksma`s high-rise six miles up the coast. He wondered if Mick happened to be looking out just now.
Thoughts of his friend at the radio station made him think of the sensational news pieces that would most assuredly hit the airwaves in a half hour or so. He envisioned the local TV news stars with their wrinkled brows and twinkling eyes looking away in affected sadness from their teleprompters-they would be in for this ”news special”-as they read of the doomed airliner with 100-and-so-and-so passengers and crew aboard. And then Dyksma`s head swung into the naked woman`s skull with tremendous force. It brought him back. He looked down to catch his bearings. . . .
”Oh, my God!”, he was screaming again, ”My building! And . . . the pool!”
And it was all too vivid. Coach seats 27A and B, and their two occupants, were now plummeting in such a fashion that Dyksma had occasional and relatively lengthy glimpses of what was coming up to meet them. Now he knew for sure that the 727 must have broken apart just as they made their turn away from the lake toward O`Hare.
The two of them were moving westward between Montrose Harbor and the high-rise-his high-rise! He could clearly see the little turquois rectangle in the rec area. He grabbed at the woman`s floundering left arm until he found her hand. He squeezed her fingers tightly in his and hollered: ”Here we go honey! Let`s try for the pool!” as if they had a say.
And again his mind raced ahead to an inevitable scene. He saw several of his pool friends in their bathing suits gathered around the spot where he and his fellow traveler had landed-saw them standing there gawking at the untidiness on the side of their building, not knowing that one of the freshly smashed people was their fellow poolside kibitzer, Dean.
”Kibitzer.” The word made him think of Gali. Gali had a Hebrew first name-Gali as in golly-thanks to her Shaker Heights-born mother. Gali had lived on a kibbutz! She`s fired an Uzi! Gali used that word ”kibitzer” a lot. And then it hit him: He wouldn`t have to explain anything to Gali. And his head caromed off the thin lady`s skull.
Just when he thought he couldn`t take the spinning for another second, they sort-of leveled off, and he could almost catch his breath, could focus his eyes better. He saw-”Oh, my God!”-he was screaming again. He had never seen Alex this clearly from the air before! It was a hot day and Alex wasn`t wearing his shirt. He could see his protruding stomach, could see body hair curling out the top of his shoulders. Dyksma knew they were real close. He closed his eyes tightly.
Scenes came in microseconds. He was at the Kohn School, on the Far South Side, where he saw Mrs. Coyle, his 1st grade teacher, with her graying hair and tender eyes, standing in front of the blackboard with the pointer in her hand, smiling sweetly, and saying, ”It`s OK, Dean, you`ll get it tomorrow.” He saw his older sister holding his hand in the park after he fell off a sliding board and bit his tongue and was bleeding all over. She was saying:
”It`ll be all right, Dean. We`ll go home. Please don`t cry.” He saw his stepfather walking away from him after he fell out of a tree and cleanly broke his Navajo Indian belt and his left arm. His dad`s voice was scolding: ”Quit your crying right now! It`s your own fault!”
Dyksma squinted his eyes open for what he figured was his last look at life. Everything seemed to be moving very fast. They were just over the swimming pool, the high-rise almost alongside them. He wanted terribly much to tell the thin woman that they might make the pool. He squeezed her hand as tightly as he could. They were so close that. . . .
”Gali!”, he hollered with every fiber of strength left in him.
Gali was stretched out on a recliner just underneath them. She was wearing her black two-piece bathing suit. It seemed she was looking up-her eyes were open so wide. There was no mistaking: he and the naked lady were going to hit Gali. To crush her. Kill her! And there was nothing anyone could do about it. There wasn`t enough time! He saw Gali try to move-to get clear-but it was too late . . .
”Excuse me, sir. We`re here.”
Dyksma looked up. It was the thin woman with the lipstick and stiff hair standing in the aisle fully dressed with a pack of Virginia Slims in her hand. Her gaunt face was intact. No shard of metal. No blood. Her dress, although slightly wrinkled, was draped perfectly over her slender figure.
”That was a quick little nap you had there,” she said, her purple lips smiling. ”I swear you were looking out the window just a minute ago. Well … have a nice day.”
His impulse was to follow her up the aisle and say something to her. To tell her what had happened. About the shard. About their heads knocking together so hard. About the intimacy of their shared last moments. To tell her he was sorry that he had to see her naked like that. About seeing her butterfly! Didn`t she know?
What am I saying? Of course not. He tried to calm himself. I was asleep. It was all a dream. A very realistic, very bad dream. Of course it was!
Wet with perspiration, Dyksma got up slowly and stood in the aisle. He shook the cobwebs from his head. He massaged his left arm. He determined that he was intact. He looked down at the seats. He leaned over enough to have a look at where they joined the floor. Everything seemed normal. He looked through the Plexiglas of his vacated window seat. He saw Gali. For real this time. She was leaning against a terminal window looking out at the just-arrived airplane. He thought about how stunning she looked in her
fashionable black ensemble, even from so far away.
His step was lively as he headed for the exit at the front of the plane. After smiling politely at the flight attendant stationed at the hatch, he was gripped by a sudden inner terror, the terror of a phone call he would have to make tonight! The thought caused him to blurt out loudly: ”Oh, Golly!” And then, just outside the plane, he thought exactly this: What in God`s name will I tell Linda?
