“Where Brian Went” by Jack Kaulfus, page 2
The woman next to him shut her phone off and slipped it into a pocket of the bag at her feet. She glanced at him.
“Emergency Exit, Row 12,” she said, leaning over to tap the door in front of them.
Brian retrieved his boarding pass from the pocket of his shirt, wondering if she thought him incapable of handling an emergency. He studied the pass down beside his knee. The past few months, words and numbers less than an arm’s length away had become difficult to see without his glasses.
“Are you prepared for the worst?” She asked brightly.
Brian nodded. “You?”
She shrugged. “Don’t know. But I’m liking the leg room.”
The plane taxied for almost fifteen minutes, during which time the woman retrieved her cell phone and sent another text. This time, Brian only caught the second half. It was longer:
3 feet from door. Opn the drwr near tble and look undr hndkrchf.
She caught him looking. “Spy,” she said.
“I’m sure it’s just my age,” Brian said. “but for me, one of the great things about planes is that nobody expects me to be available.” He offered the woman a piece of gum to protect her ears against the sudden pressure in the cabin, “Don’t people know you’re on a plane?”
The woman put the gum in her mouth and shut her phone off again. She tightened her seatbelt as the engines came to life. “None of your business,” she said.
Fair enough, Brian thought. He settled back into his seat, considering mildly that the conversation he just had could have been his last. The plane lifted, swung wildly to the left. Brian felt his heart quicken as he raised his eyes to the window, but the plane righted itself and all he could see were the checkerboard fields disappearing smoothly beneath the plane. Something like disappointment settled in his chest.
It wasn’t a death wish, exactly, he told himself. It wasn’t. He was, perhaps, prematurely preoccupied with the next thing. He couldn’t be sure what the next thing might be. For now, he understood he was loved, though maybe somewhat painfully, by his daughter and his unhappy wife. He knew this was lucky. He watched his cholesterol and wore a seat belt. But death, perhaps an accident or the sudden end of an organ – the moment, then the afterward - was a private, desperate yearning that pulled at the edges of his days. It didn’t worry him anymore, really. Upon uncovering this predilection as a teen, he’d immediately recognized the need to protect himself against the shifty desires of his subconscious – in case his limbs got together one day and decided to throw Brian off the Talk Box at the top of the school stadium. He designated himself the sober driver for his baseball team, sometimes dodging punches while prying keys from drunken fists.
And now, it was locked securely away behind the doors of obligation. Sometimes, he was grateful for the weight of his daughter’s routine, grateful for the distraction. Without it, he sensed there would surely be kind of untethering beginning at his feet and ending at the top of his head. He’d rise like Gulliver. He’d float like a weather balloon. He’d burn like the Hindenburg. He opened his book to a page about three quarters in. Maybe it got better.
Within a few minutes, the woman beside him was fast asleep. Her head lolled first against the curve of the window and then gently against her flat chest. In this state, she looked a bit older than he’d first guessed. She reminded him of his daughter, only older. A bit of hair, longer in the front than the back, fell over her right eye. He wondered if this is how Janie would look like in fifteen years – unafraid, distinctly unfeminine, caught in a state of semi-permanent adolescence.
This was closer than he’d been to anyone outside his family in years. He listened to her breathing, strangely moved by the rhythm. He leaned in slowly and slipped his hand into the opened pocket in her bag between her feet. Her phone was so small it fit snugly in the palm of his hand. He pressed the red button and the screen sprang into a festival of treetops. Brian cupped his other hand over the screen. When he uncovered it again, the trees had been replaced by a list of names beginning with A. He scrolled through the names, stopping at his own. Before he could think, he pressed the call button. He imagined himself at his desk at home on any other Friday afternoon, flipping open his phone, lowering his voice just a little to greet the caller.
“Hello, Brian?”
“Plane’s going down.”
“Brian?”
He shut the phone down while it was still ringing on the other end and gently set it back in the girl’s bag. He hoped the Brian he had called would not call back. The flight attendants were pushing the drink cart down the aisle.
**