Each One a Nation, page 15
He knows that the man is gone from the home and has been for a number of hours. He has sat in his small boat and watched the lights diligently for a week, noticing their patterns of turning on and off until they stopped turning back on. His plan is to approach the home the same way he did before, scaling the yard and sliding across the pool deck to enter through the sliding glass doors. He is dressed in all black, with a utility knife clipped to his belt loop and a ski mask to shade him from the cameras he’s picked up through his scope. He does not intend to take anything, he just wants to see.
He ties off his vessel on the catwalk of the boathouse and climbs the stairs to the pool deck and sneaks quietly to the sliding glass door, where he uses the screwdriver on his utility knife to pop the lock and slide the door open. Inside, he is taken by the smell, a cool and uncaring scent cleaner than any home he’s smelled before. His first thought is of Eddie’s place, and of all the other rooms where he has slept on couches and floors, and how none of them have ever smelled this clean. He wonders what makes the difference so striking, if it is simply a matter of cleanliness or if the type of purity he sees within the man’s home is something only obtainable within certain circles. He decides to venture further in to understand for himself.
Since he knows he is already on camera, he decides to limit his movement inside of the home, believing that somehow the break-in will occur to the man as less, so long as he doesn’t steal anything or make a mess. He investigates the pantry, finding it fully stocked with snack foods, some of his favorites, and takes a bag of Funions for himself. He sprawls out on the couch and tries to navigate multiple remotes. The level of comfort he feels surpasses any that he’s ever known, and in the warmth of the tight leather and the low pleasant light of the television, he dozes off and begins to dream of the place being his house, of being able to simply pull into the driveway and walk in, to lay down on the couch and work the remotes seamlessly, to go upstairs and bathe in a warm bath, to lay by the pool with a sense of ownership. I have never owned anything, he thinks. This man owns everything around me, and I don’t even know what it feels like to own a thing. And it’s true, he has never owned anything significant, nothing beyond petty purchases like tools or clothes, even his small dinghy only stolen and repaired. In his dreams, he connects to the man and becomes him, imagining himself around his friends doing things like paying for meals and giving gifts without worry. He lets himself disappear into the dream, to go to a weightless place where all of the strife and the hardship, all of the decay and the trouble that has stacked up and become his life is gone, and in its place shines a life of ease and luxury, a dangerous sort of dream, the type of dreams that make young men take drastic action and to show the world their worst.
He becomes so immersed in the dream that when his eyes cringe open, and he finds himself in the room once more, with dusty onion-flavored specs covering him, sweating from the midday heat of the leather he begins to feel an absurd brand of emotion, somewhere between rage and restlessness, and makes a decision that he will have what the man has by any means necessary, and that if he has to sacrifice himself completely to get it, he will.
Reality comes with each step back down the lawn and into the small boat, which feels to him to have shrunken. He idles it for a moment and then opens up, pushing the engine as furiously as it can go to feel as though some sort of power is within him. In a moment, he realizes that the machine has a capacity, and that he does too, and that strange emotion returns to him knowing the limits to be what they are, and it makes him want to scream. But what would that do? Nobody would listen anyway.
II
Part II: The Nation
“You can either surf, or you can fight!”
Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore, Apocalypse Now
ONE
No sooner did the FAA arrive on scene and begin their investigation than did Eric Del Rio and Desmond Pirado begin implementing their narrative. They recorded statements and manipulated timelines; they slanted witnesses with cash payments and procured jobs for the guilty who would play ball. Desmond Pirado, a sweaty, constantly moving, bug-eyed man with broad shoulders, long arms, and tightly-pulled tan skin had been sitting in the terminal when Eric and Ian arrived in Atlanta and stayed with the two for weeks until finally Eric returns to Atlanta, stooped and sober to his wife and child to tell them that things were going to get very difficult, indeed.
“Please,” Darlene had said, “I just cannot know.”
Eric has berated her for hours about how she would find out from him or from somebody else, and that he was adamant that it would be him. Resisting, she replies that not only does she not want to know, but that she will lock herself in the home until the appropriate time, however long that may be, so to not be subject to it should she one day need not to have been.
Devyn watches from the kitchen as Eric chases Darlene around the home, up the stairs and down them, across the pool deck and around the pool itself, screaming that she must know but for some peculiar reason never coming right out and actually telling her. Devyn eventually leaves, quietly containing herself to her room, not to return until dinner. She watches them from her window as they tag and run from each other like children, but she turns away when they collapse on the lawn in a heap of laughter and begin to kiss each other in ways that she hopes to never see again. It is the first happiness she has seen or heard from her father in months, and although she knows that he needs it, she is sick to see it happen in such a way.
Devyn’s body has changed in the dense heat of the springtime and the long extra hours spent with Bobby Catman Jr. The core of her back has hardened, centering her now like a stud does a wall, correcting her posture and erecting her neck to make her seem as though she is always looking at something slightly above somebody else’s head. Her hair, though still a stiff pitch of black, has lightened at the roots from progressive exposure to sunshine and chlorine, making it appear as though she is already graying.
When the scramble is over, Eric takes her to one of her weekend sessions at the GAC where he sticks around and fills his friend in on the situation and how it pertains to their plans for a new program. The official culprit, according to their alliance, is Zurig, whose poor mental health and alcoholism finally forced him to do something terrible. Much to the delight of Pirado, it had been determined via subpoenaed credit card statements that Captain Zurig had spent a considerable amount of money at an airport bar the day of the accident, although toxicology was impossible, due to a lack of recoverable body. This was enough for the FAA, who quickly ruled the accident a pilot suicide and washed their hands of it quicker than they’d dirtied them. The question became, once Pirado wrestled it to his liking, not whether Astra was responsible for the crash or not, but whether or not they acted negligently by having hired and retained Zurig in the first place. By the end of the first wave of legal and jurisdictional woes, Pirado had congealed, if not solidified, enough data points to create an ugly mass that he had labeled “truth.” What was pending, they both knew, was a class-action suit, one possibly big enough to bankrupt the company, but Pirado had sworn on some dear relative that their truth was stalwart, and that the waves may crash as they may.
Eric has grown dull and robotic from months of careful counsel and has taken to bouts of complete silence in the presence of his family and friends, no longer wishing to speak, even about pleasant and familiar things. In the Catman office, Eric does this. He sits facing Bobby, who is seated at the business side of his father’s desk recording measurables from the day’s training. It’s late April, the evening dirty with stars, but from the windowless room the two feel safe to speak in a world of their own. When Eric finally checks in again, he clicks his mouth a few times through his teeth, holds a finger up to Bobby and says, “I’ll tell you, Bobcat, I am royally cooked.”
Bobby puts his hand across his chin and scratches at his five o’clock shadow. He is worried about his friend, but more worried about his friend’s ability to uphold their deal, which has settled onto Eric’s backburner until further notice. He feels confident, however, that Eric has come to him not to cancel the arrangement, but to adjust it.
“Pirado seems confident you won’t go to jail.”
“Go to jail? Of course not, I was never going to jail. We don’t go to jail for stuff like this. It’s the company that’s in real trouble, Bob. The FAA is a done deal, but there will be a class-action suit any day now and it’s going to be a meaty one.”
“You’ll get a payout, though, won’t you?”
Eric draws rings with his finger on the chair’s armrest.
“I’ll have to get creative,” he says. “I’ll have to work with people within the industry that generally I tried to avoid but…”
He shrugs and disappears into another bout of silence.
“You’ll figure it out,” says Bobby, “you always figure it out.”
Eric’s affliction remains until he snaps back into it and hold out his palms and tells Bobby, “But we’re still on, Bobcat. We’re still good with the building and all of that. Like I said, we’ll just have to get creative.”
Bobby, understanding that he doesn’t have a choice, but not truly understanding what creative is set to mean, nods his head in agreement.
“No doubt, E.”
Eric again ponders for a moment before rushing back, saying, “I don’t know what you did with Devyn, but it’s working, and I need it to continue working.”
Bobby Catman Jr feels the weight of the chair he’s sitting in. Convinced that he is at the mercy of forces that could either lead him to it or make him lose it, he says,
“She’s easy to work with. She’s a champion.”
Eric stands, tapping the table with his cast and turning for the door.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” he says, “I’ve got us on an Astra plane for Junior Nationals. We need to fill planes anyway.”
The two sit in the reality of the statement for a moment, before Bobby looks at his friend with a grin.
“Can you keep this one in the air?”
…
Downstairs, Devyn and Peyton sit on training tables with stem machines hooked to their shoulders. Something animal has come over them both since the spring. Both are beating all of their local and regional competitors and beating them handily. Devyn’s growth has not been lost on Peyton, who has watched eagerly as her face’s features have sharpened into the alien sternness of a young woman’s. Embarrassed by her father’s situation, and exhausted by the rigor of her crippled friendship with Sloane Streeter, Devyn has become parochial and self-absorbed, and has like most children, taken to channeling her suffering through extracurriculars and love. Peyton himself has grown as well, with his shoulders having lengthened and his core solidified. He now towers above even Seth McWhite and has gained full stride in his belief that he can do whatever he wants to do and wiggle out of the consequences. Devyn has noticed all of it, but unlike everyone else has decided to poke fun of him about his newness rather than fawn over it. Peyton, of course, has taken this as a sign that his moment with her in the Caribbean had left something lasting upon her. He himself has not forgotten the moment and to him it lives between them as a third presence, but to her it only exists as a funny memory. Another thing, something more unshakeable and unsinkable holds his attention too: she has qualified for Nationals and he has not.
Devyn’s father mopes down the metal stairs and motions to the parking lot before disappearing behind the entrance doors. Devyn turns off the stem machine and pulls the tabs from her skin.
“He’s been in this thing since the thing,” she says.
Peyton rubs his hand over his own chest as if mapping his new body in his brain. He doesn’t see most of Devyn’s movement but he tunes in when she begins speaking.
“Yeah,” he says, “what can ya do?”
He runs his hand over his shoulders.
“When are you leaving for Austin?” he asks.
“Two days before the big one.”
“That’s not the big one,” says Peyton, “Olympics is what you want.”
She watches him as he reviews his belly button and plays with his own nipple.
“Sure,” she says, “the Olympics.”
“I’m gonna be with you next year,” he says. “NYC.”
“At Columbia.”
“Hope they offer me right there.”
“I can’t even think about college,” she says limply.
“Hey,” he says, “you’re going to win it this year I think. You should be one of the best there.”
“We’ll see,” says Devyn.
Eric honks the horn from the parking lot so Devyn slings her bag over her shoulder, feeling thankful for her friend but beginning to become uncomfortable with the attention her success has garnered. She begins to walk out but can feel Peyton staring at her from behind. She turns one more time.
“You know,” she says, “I’m so happy for you and Sloane. The group’s first real, sustained relationship. Isn’t it so exciting?”
With this, she leaves. Peyton is confused by the statement, seeing it for sarcasm and traversing steps within his mind until he arrives as the one that says Devyn has not forgotten and still thinks about their night in Bimini. In this he feels as though he will own a small part of her forever, that he will live in her as a memory. He smiles at the thought and stores it for later use.
TWO
Since the incident, Eric Del Rio has maintained a unique relationship with Neal Streeter, calling him once daily, very early in the morning, no matter what he is doing, to speak with him not about the incident, but about his life. He knows that every morning at six Neal sits on the dock at the end of his boathouse with a large ceramic mug of black coffee, after he has dropped off Sloane and driven around the neighborhood a few times just dreaming, remembering. He knows that the coffee is set to brew in Neal’s kitchen when he walks through the door. He knows that Neal would just like to tell somebody what he has jammed completely up in his brain. But today he has a confession to make.
“Hey, so, uh, I gotta tell you something, Neal.”
“What’s up, my friend?”
“Look, this is kind of a bummer,” Eric says, trying to manufacture sympathy in his voice.
“Well, go on.”
“So, I used Sloane’s phone to make a few of the calls to Zurig. But Pirado says there is absolutely nothing they can do to Sloane, especially if we fess up.”
“Sloane?” asks Neal, with a steaming ceramic cup to his lips. “My Sloane.”
“Well, uh, yeah.”
Neal imagines his daughter walking on the water before him, her curly hair crowned with flowers. She smiles.
“And nothing can happen to her?” asks Neal calmly.
“We will confess everything on the spot.”
Neal thinks the situation over while he watches his smiling daughter walk gracefully over the lake. He disappears for a time before an ugly and intrusive thought intervenes.
“That’s not what I asked,” he says rather forcefully.
Neal pauses for a moment.
“That’s not what I asked,” he says again, gentler this time.
“Look, you have my word; it will be all right. Is that enough for you?
Neal looks up and watches an airplane pass overhead.
“Are y’all still flying?”
“As of a month ago, yes we are.”
“Huh,” says Neal, “you didn’t mention that.”
“You can’t just stop,” says Eric, “you can’t ever stop. If you stop, you’re dead, you’ll be bought and sold and they’ll give you some job in government or in private equity but it won’t be like this.”
“And you still like this? What, after the incident and everything?”
“Love it,” says Eric with energy. “I love every second of it.”
“But why did you need her phone though?” asks Neal, deepening his view of the lake, lowering his eyes, his pores pushing open in the early warmth. “Y’all got phones, haven’t you?”
“I asked for Devyn’s, but she brought Sloanes and well,” he pauses, clearing his throat before whispering, “you know how it was that day.”
Neal takes another labored sip, a sip that one with a quiet mind takes.
“Sure,” he says, “how are you holding up about it?”
For a moment Eric does not know but eventually he realizes this is the first time anyone has asked him about himself since the incident, and that he has spent so much time tending to a truth that he had to be told, that he isn’t sure of his answer when asked for one he doesn’t have to be.
“I can bear it for the most part,” he says. “I’m supposed to meet with Father Bowen soon enough here. It’s good to be home, at least.”
“How about Dar?”
Eric searches again and finds that this time, not only has he not been told the truth he has been asked about, but he hasn’t even thought to seek it. His wife, normally erratic, has disappeared into an odd state of calm around him, moving about the house smiling and saying very little, staying close to him, ignoring their daughter, and keeping to her usual routine.
“She’s good,” he says, “as good as she can normally be.”
“How can she be normally?” asks Neal.
“Churlish, irritating, infantile,” says Eric artlessly. “Persistently affectionate.”
“Curious,” says Neal, “I suppose I’ve only seen her as charming.”
“She’s that way in public.”
“I suppose that’s the only way I know her.”
THREE
From his office, a dark hole in the fabric of St. Louis, Ian leans on his desk with his head in his hand and phones his wife. Ian’s office, unlike Eric’s, is humble, small, functional and well-visited. Ian, more than his boss and friend, spends a tremendous amount of time at HQ seeing to the things that matter in the day to day.
