All This Pavement

All This Pavement A Novel by Benjamin Schwartz Chapter One “Excuse me, ma'am? Can I get another gin and tonic before we land?” I spread my thumb and pointer wide when I say 'gin,' touch them together for 'tonic.' She sucks her face into a smaller face. “The captain is about to turn on the fasten seat belt light.” “Maybe you could unbuckle some gin for me?” “You're about to enter some turbulence. I'm sorry.” She scurries away, her hips bump each seat down the aisle. “That's why I wanted the gin,” I explain to the sleeping Japanese man beside me. He seems to understand. I reach over the empty seat between us to pat his tiny knee. He stirs and I pretend to reach for the emergency landing instruction sheet. The plane drops, pushing everything close to my heart. Before me, heads grouped into threes bounce and loll in unison. Mine does the same, though I'm pulled in tight. I don't fit in these seats, the tray table jams against my knees, the head rest pushes between my shoulder blades. My face feels stretched and dry beneath my sweaty hands. I regret shaving my beard for this trip home. It was a New England country beard I thought I could pull off in San Fran, but now, finally returning home, I want to appear a little citified, as if anything had made a difference. Around me, the plane doubles its shaking. A few small screams are swallowed, a baby cries. My small seatmate continues sleeping, and I'm glad to not be seated beside a panicky woman. Think of the pale face with wide eyes, a sudden hand grab, clinging tight to a stranger until the shudders cease, leaving only awkward embarrassment. No gin. Another sudden drop and rise, a high whining, some shaking sounds, and I picture Dad. I see him at the terminal dutifully staring at the arrivals screen. He waits for the green 'On Time' to turn red. 'Delayed.' Dad knows it will, they always do. My Mom would've told him to relax and wait, what's the big deal? This not said out of any true sense of calm, just to point out his ridiculousness without actually saying it. For a moment I'm glad she's dead, thankful for the excuse to quit my job, to leave. Since college ended, with its scheduled breaks, I haven't been back for more than Christmas or a Thanksgiving long weekend. I realize the guilt that should come with this, but it's a guilt I can't quite summon. Maybe I should have come back sooner. I thought I had more time. If she were alive, she would be sitting next to Dad at her funeral tomorrow, quietly instructing him to either 'pull himself together' or to 'show a little emotion,' depending on how he's handling the whole thing. I'm predicting stoicism and quiet awkward questions about what I plan to do now that I'm back. He'll point out that I don't need to stay for him, you know. He's fine. He's drinking again, I hear. It will give us something to do. Our plane falls from the sky, and this guy next to me is curled into his seat without even a wrinkle on his suit. Maybe it would make me feel better if I could grab his hand. If we were all Siberian yakmen on a ramshackle steam engine sliding over a mountain, we would pass bottles and smoke, catch some last camaraderie before plunging into a ravine. Like people. Instead, we dutifully sit. Strapped in and separated even as we fly over a nation to land at a mother's funeral. God, why couldn't that stewardess have slipped one last drink off the cart before strapping into her escape pod by the lavatory? I imagine Dad hearing the announcement of his only child's plane crash. A scurry of breathing and cell phones all around. Him sitting. Experts from the airline rushing in to calm everyone, him walking through them to an airport bar where the drinking has become even more cheerless. Dad ordering a drink by pointing, wondering whether it would be a good idea to hold off on his dead wife's funeral until they drag my burnt carcass from the blackened fuselage and prepare it for burial. Make it a double. The Japanese man awakes, which I take as an omen. I motion to him, making a little plane with my flat palm, thumb and pinky spread and shake it around, fly it into the empty seat. He straightens up and stretches. He looks back over his seat, out the window. Bending straight to the floor, he reaches into his carry-on and pulls out a selection of miniature bottles. He offers them to me, one small bottleneck between each finger. I take the Tangeray. He smiles and separates a Jack Daniels, replaces the rest, and makes the international sign for drinking, his hand cupped and sipping from his thumb. We unscrew the caps, clink bottles, and throw our heads back, draining the tiny bottles. He smiles at me, raising his empty. I say, “Thank you,” clearly and nod, make an outward gesture with my hand. The plane lurches and the engines change pitch. Someone is crying, then silence but for a low hum. There's that familiar ding, and 140 heads look to the ceiling with its comfortable absence of warning lights. A staticky voice says, “Sorry about that, folks. Your stewardess will be around with complimentary drinks shortly.” And at the terminal I imagine Dad feels a vague sense of dissatisfaction. My seatmate barks and cranes around me to peer up the aisle. “Where the hell is that bitch with the drink cart?” Oh. I smile wide-lipped at him and shrug. “Good question.” He almost stands in his seat, head crooked against the low ceiling, both pinkies in his mouth, and emits a vibrating whistle which turns heads in unison. “Another round over here!” he shouts, then settles back into his seat. “Can I offer you gentlemen,” a pause here, “a courtesy drink before I serve everyone else?” My seatmate reaches across me, waggles a few fingers, and leaves his hand in front of my chest, never taking his eyes off the wing. “I'd love that gin and tonic now,” I say. She places a brown drink in the small hand at my chest, which is immediately retracted. I take my drink and she bustles away. The gin is at my mouth when I hear, “Mmm, mmm, not yet. Hold on.” The carry-on bag reappears with a wind chime's clinking. He slips me another Tangeray and pulls out a Jim Beam, quickly adds it to his airline cup. After I top off, we tap plastic and drink. His cup is tossed over my lap into the aisle. He folds into his seat and appears to fall immediately into sleep. Dad still sits, beard jutting out. His crossed flannel arms create an uneven grid begging to be filled in with logical answers to one of the thousands of math tests he's presided over, frowning the same look he wears now. In the same way he knows that someone in his classroom will cheat, he knows planes never land on time. I smile at the carpeted ceiling, thinking back to the days after my high school graduation, when I couldn't leave town fast enough. I'm in the passenger seat in our driveway; my then girlfriend Corny in the driver's. I think I had the teenaged audacity to call her my fiancee. Mom tries to smile through her goodbye, her hand rests on the rolled down window. I thought I was done. Corny reaches across me to wave like mad at Dad. “Don't bother,” I told her. “Oh, please, Norm,” she said and continued to wave. I looked behind us, down the smooth pavement to the road beyond. That was nearly twelve years ago. I'm crying and wiping clean my unfamiliar smooth skin before that stewardess can come by and see me. We land. Everyone is anxious to get off. They all stand and open hatches, heave bags, and herd children. The rows empty; my seatmate rises gracefully the moment it is our turn to enter the line. He slips past, the clanking of his bag his only farewell. As the last family passes, I wrestle my bag out and head down the aisle, breathing in. Holding it. The stewardess offers no goodbye. I feel a brush of natural air leaking into the flexible passageway, I breathe again. In the terminal, everyone is hugging, pointing over greeter's shoulder through huge airport windows, back toward the sky, reenacting their fear. Dad's nowhere to be seen, so I just stand there. Until it's clear that everyone around me is waiting to get onto their own plane, I stand there. I have nothing to claim and head into the airport proper, scanning the magazine shops and small versions of chain restaurants advertising lobster and chowder. I spot him in a bar the size of a men's room. Plaid arms crossed, he hovers straight backed above a glass of ice with a crushed lime wedge. His beard has increased. Behind him now, I'm not sure what to do. I reach for his back, but stop. I begin to speak, but don't. The stool beside him is empty and I pull it out, expecting him to ignore anybody else, but he turns to me, teary eyed.

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