In the Unlikely Event (23 page)

Visitation

It took days to find the remains of the Sewing Machine Man and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Galanos, who’d lived in one of the houses that had been destroyed. They’d been listed as missing and presumed dead. When they finally were able to identify them Christina didn’t want to go to the church or the funeral home. She didn’t want to see the son, who was staying with friends. But she had no choice. “We’re going,” her mother said. “Fix yourself up.”

They waited on line to express their condolences. First Christina’s grandparents Yaya and Papou, then her parents, then Athena and finally, Christina. “I’m very sorry,” she said to the son, who looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

“Do I know you?” he asked Christina.

“Christina Demetrious,” she said. “My family knows…” She hesitated, then changed what she was going to say to, “My family knew your parents.”

“Thank you, Christina.”

That was it? She was free to move on now? Instead, she said, “My sister, Athena…you went to school with her.”

“Thank you, Athena,” he said, confusing her sister’s name with hers. He didn’t know what he was saying or what anyone was saying to him. By then the next person on line was grabbing his hand and blubbering about what good people his parents were.

He’s in shock, Christina thought. Everyone is in shock. Maybe she was, too. She thought about telling him she’d been there, about how she’d seen the plane before it crashed. And then the flames…but why would he want to hear that? Athena reached in and pulled her away. “What were you telling him?”

“Nothing.”

“It looked like more than nothing.”

“Why do you care?”

“Just don’t go saying too much.”

“What would be too much?”

Athena didn’t answer her question. Instead, she said, “You didn’t even want to come, remember?”

“I thought I was supposed to be nice.”

“Okay. So you were nice.”

“I don’t think anyone told him about me,” Christina said. “That I’m the girl he’s supposed to marry.”

“Oh, so now you want to marry him?”

“I didn’t say that. I just have the feeling no one mentioned Mama’s plans to marry me off to him.”

“I never knew you were in such a hurry to get married.”

“I’m not.” She felt like shouting at Athena, who was turning everything around. Where was Dopey when she needed him? She’d like to smash Dopey over her sister’s head.

“I have to sit down,” Athena said. She was pregnant again and starting to show. “I thought you were in love with Jack McKittrick,” Athena said, tugging at her skirt. “So it’s good to know you’re keeping an open mind.”

Christina was taken aback. “You know about Jack?” she asked Athena.

“Everyone knows about you and Jack McKittrick.”

“Mama?”

“You better hope she doesn’t. But I’m warning you, Christina, you’re skating on thin ice.”

Shiva

Steve went to Kathy Stein’s house in Perth Amboy, where her family would be sitting shiva for seven days. Phil was already there, reciting the prayer for the dead with the other men. They had more than enough for a minyan without Steve and he was glad. He didn’t know the Kaddish. He’d never been in a position of having to recite it.

Kathy’s mother couldn’t speak. She looked half dead. Her skin was gray, her eyes rimmed in red, her hair wild. Kathy’s younger sister couldn’t stop crying. She was surrounded by girlfriends, all of them crying, too. A group of boys stood around looking uncomfortable.
A nightmare
, Steve heard over and over. Yeah, it was a nightmare, all right. But you wake up from a nightmare, and this time there was no relief because when you woke up, the nightmare was still with you.

Steve didn’t want to be there. He hoped Phil wouldn’t stay long. Phil’s mother was in the kitchen, helping with the platters of food that had been sent to the house, all wrapped in golden cellophane and tied with curly ribbon. Sandwiches, baskets of fruits, coffee cakes lined up in a row, like at a bakery. Surprisingly, Steve found himself hungry. He helped himself to a Sloppy Joe, potato salad, a pickle, then went back for more. He stuffed himself on coffee cake, slices of cantaloupe and pineapple, a couple of chocolate candies.

He wandered through the house, stopping to look at a tinted photo of Kathy on the piano, her bright eyes looking directly at him.
Happy New Year, Steve
. He would kiss that photo if no one were watching. Those sweet, warm lips, cold now, buried in the ground. Except he wasn’t sure how much of a body was left to bury. Maybe just that arm with the charm bracelet. Her uncle had identified her by that bracelet, a high school graduation present from her parents.
Jeez
. He had to shake off these thoughts before he made himself puke. He could already feel the Sloppy Joe trying to decide whether to stay down or come back up.

Elizabeth Daily Post

SECRETARY PATTERSON TO LIE IN STATE

JAN. 24 (UPI)—The body of former Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson, who died Tuesday in a plane crash, will lie in state today in the 107th Regiment Armory at 66th Street and Park Avenue in New York. He once served in the regiment.

The body will be taken to Washington tomorrow for burial at Arlington Cemetery, with full military honors. President Truman and other high government officials will attend funeral services at the National Cathedral there.

Mrs. Patterson Writes a Note

In her Park Avenue apartment, Margaret Patterson, wife of the former Secretary of War, sat at the small French desk in her bedroom and started a note to Laura Barnes, widow of the pilot of the plane, inviting her and her children to spend a day in the country with her family. But she wasn’t able to finish. Instead, she put the note in her desk drawer, closed her pen, took off her reading glasses and sipped the brandy she’d poured for herself. She didn’t blame Captain Timothy Barnes for the loss of her husband. She believed he’d done everything he could to get that plane to Newark Airport. She blamed the weather.

Her thoughts went to Captain Barnes’s young widow and those two little girls who probably wouldn’t even remember their father. At least her children were older. They’d have their memories. And so would she. Not that memories were enough—they didn’t keep you warm on a cold winter’s night. They couldn’t hold you when you were frightened or sad. But they were better than nothing. She was a professional wife. She would go on because that’s what he would want. Maybe in the spring she’d send the note, inviting Laura and the girls to spend a day at their farm upstate.

Elizabeth Daily Post

THE LAST THREE MINUTES

By Henry Ammerman

JAN. 24—At 3:41 p.m. the American Airlines Convair had been circling for 10 minutes, waiting for another transport to land at Newark Airport. With the runway now clear, the tower told the pilot he was free to descend to 1,500 feet, instructing him to listen to radar advisories to aid his instrument approach in the rainy, foggy weather. “Roger,” replied the Convair.

Five and a half miles out, the pilot was informed, “Coming up on glide path but you’re 900 feet to the left of course.”

At four and a half miles out he was “Nearing the course now, you’re 400 feet left.”

By four miles out, “You’re on course now. The Elizabeth Court House is one mile ahead of you.” He was coming over the center of town.

At three and a half miles out, the radar controller issued a warning. “You’re drifting 900 feet to the right of course and you’re a half mile from the Court House.”

Four or 5 seconds later, the reassuring orange blip disappeared from the radar scope.

“American 6780, this is Newark radar. We’ve lost your target, sir.” There was no reply.

“American 6780, this is Newark radio. Do you hear?” Again there was no reply.

As the tower anxiously tried to make contact on other frequencies, calls came in from both the Newark Evening News and the Daily Post. A plane had crashed in Elizabeth.

Now they understood. There would be no reply.

Interviews

LAURA BARNES AGREED
to talk with Henry Ammerman. “You know when you marry a pilot, it could happen,” she told him. “You know, but you never expect it. He had so much experience. He was so smart and he always kept his head, never angry or quick-tempered, and
on a milk run, of all things. I blame Newark Airport. Something has to be done about that airport before it happens again.” She was red-eyed but composed, Henry wrote. He didn’t tell her that her husband’s wrists had both been broken from trying to hold the controls steady.

“Was it true what you wrote in the paper about the last three minutes?” Laura asked.

“As far as I can tell.”

Days later Laura had a miscarriage, brought on by stress, the doctor said. The house down the shore was put up for sale. Laura never wanted to see it again. She mourned her lost baby but not the way she mourned Tim. She would never love anyone the way she loved him.

Henry requested a meeting with the pilot’s mother. He was told by her remaining son that she was prostrate with grief and could not be reached.

Sometimes Henry hated his job.

—

CHRISTINA FELT NUMB
. She stuck a fork into the underside of her arm to see if the numbness was in her mind or her body. She felt the prongs digging into her skin. But she didn’t care.

When Henry Ammerman came to interview them at Battin, Christina told him what she’d seen. But unlike some of the other girls, animated and anxious to be heard, jumping up and down, giving the reporter details of how Madame Hoffman, the French teacher, had fainted at the window of her classroom when she saw the plane crash into the brick apartment house, and how they sat her up and fanned her face while the president of the French Club ran to see if the school nurse was still in the building, Christina remained subdued.

Mr. Durkee proudly told Henry how calm his students had been, how they’d listened to his instructions to duck and cover, scrambling under their desks and staying there until after the last of the explosions. Christina didn’t contradict him or any of the other girls.

“You know, Henry,” Mr. Durkee said, “just forty-five minutes
before the crash, a thousand girls were dismissed from school. Be sure your readers think about that.”

“Good point,” Henry said. As if he hadn’t thought of that himself.

—

JANE KRASNER
, in New Jersey for her roommate’s funeral, talked to Henry about Kathy Stein.
Pale, brown-haired, and slender, Miss Krasner was obviously grieving
, Henry wrote. “Kathy was coming home to see a boy she’d met over the holidays. She really liked him. She wanted me to come with her but it was too expensive to fly and there wasn’t enough time to take the bus. She said her father would pay for my ticket but I would never go for that. She was so generous and thoughtful…” Miss Krasner looked away. “I don’t think I can go back to that dorm room we shared. I may take the semester off. Maybe I’ll transfer to another school. Kathy was my closest friend. Sometimes it’s like that. You meet someone and you know you’re going to be best friends. You know it right away. Now she’s gone. I’ll never see her again. She was so beautiful, inside and out.”

Phonies

When Steve read about Kathy in the paper, when he read she was coming home to see a boy she’d met over the holidays, a boy she really liked, he got into bed and stayed there for four days. He thought about dying but he was afraid to do it himself. His only solace was reading
The Catcher in the Rye
. Holden was his friend, the one person who could understand what Steve was thinking, and the unbearable sadness he was feeling.

Finally, his mother came to his room and said, “Get up, Steve.”

“Why?”

“Because we need you to.”

“That’s not a good enough reason.”

“We know you’re sad…”

“Who’s we?”

“Your family.”

Steve snorted.

“Stop this, Steve!” His mother pulled the covers off him and just as fast, he pulled them back. “Can’t you see what I’m going through?” she cried, burying her face in her hands. She turned away from him, her shoulders shaking.

What was this?

When she faced him again she was angry. “Don’t do this, Steve. And give me that book!” She reached for it, but again, he was quicker, and shoved the book under his ass where she wouldn’t dare try to get it.

“I need you to get up, shower, put on your clothes, have breakfast and go to school. I need you to do that for me.”

Who gives a fuck about what she needs?

“Do you understand, Steve?”

“I understand.” Part of him felt bad for her, his pretty little mother. But the other part knew she was a phony like all the other so-called adults in his life. Not one of them gave a shit about Kathy. She was just another dead person. Just one of the tragic twenty-three on just another crashed plane.
And hardy-har, Mother dear, it wasn’t even a non-sked this time
. He should tell her that—tell her how he’d traveled back from Boston in a snowstorm in a non-sked, thanks to his father. What would she say then?

Maybe he would get up. Maybe he’d get up and go to school and pretend everything was okay, just like the rest of them.

He grabbed his copy of
Catcher
. “I’m not finished with you, Holden,” he whispered to the book, “or you, either, Phoebe.” Fern was his Phoebe, or could be if she played it right.

At school Phil acted all glad to see him, like nothing much had happened. “Were you sick? Your mother said you couldn’t come to the phone.”

“Yeah, sick.”

“What kind of sick?”

“Just plain sick.”

“You don’t sound sick.”