Memory of Wings

I suppose it got to be too much. Everything and all of it. I probably didn’t make things better, but I couldn’t handle it anymore.

I pulled the stairs down and went up to the attic. If that was an attic the house was a mansion. It was little more than a goddamn crawl space. Shit, the floor up there wasn’t even finished. I had to jump from joist to joist as I looked for the suitcase. And if I slipped, my foot would have gone through five inches of fiberglass insulation, and then a quarter inch of plaster, straight into one of the kids’ rooms. I couldn’t leave then, could I? I would have had to get the ladder, cut out a piece of plywood, nail it in place, and then put down some primer and paint it. But we both know the son-of-a-bitch paint wouldn’t match the rest of the ceiling, so I would have had to fix that, too. That’s why I was careful while I was up in the attic.

Once I found the suitcase and laid it out on the bed, I started throwing my things into it. I started with my brush, makeup, toothbrush, and that stuff, then went on to my bras and underwear, and then the rest of my clothes. I even thought about packing up a nice blouse and a skirt, but then I decided I probably wouldn’t need it. I thought about packing a picture of everybody, but I couldn’t find one that I liked. There was that one of me, Jason, and the kids all at the zoo that I liked, but I couldn’t bring myself to take it. I’m not sure if I wanted them to keep it or if I just didn’t want a picture with me. I don’t know.

I realized it was about noontime, and I was beginning to feel hungry, so I left the bag by the door and went into the kitchen. I had fixed the kids turkey sandwiches for their lunches, and I knew there was some leftover deli meat in the fridge. I took two pieces of bread out of the bread drawer and made myself a sandwich. I know the kids like white bread, but I like the wheat. Jane, at least, likes the white. She thinks it’s pretty and enjoys ripping out little bread circles, pounding them into flat wafers, and pretending they’re communion. I tell her that’s blasphemous and that she should stop, but she keeps doing it anyway. I don’t know if Emily actually likes the white bread. I bet if she’d never had white she’d like the wheat just as much. But now that it’s what she’s used to, she can’t change. Even if she didn’t like the white, even if it was the worst thing in the world for her to eat and she absolutely hated it, I’d bet she’d still rather eat it then try something else, something she’d never had before.

I jammed the sandwich down my throat as fast I could; I just wanted to get out of the house. I took little drinks of water to help me swallow it all down. My mouth was dry, and I needed the water if I planned on finishing the sandwich. I did plan on finishing it, but got full, and couldn’t take the last two bites. I know it was only two bites, and I really wanted to finish it, but I couldn’t. I stared at those last two bites for maybe ten minutes, just trying to work up the courage to finish it off, but I couldn’t. After I decided I couldn’t finish the sandwich I grabbed the suitcase, threw it into the back of the car, and took off.

The car only had a quarter tank of gas. I had to stop to fill up before I even hit the freeway. I stopped at that Exxon on Main, across from the movie theater Jason and I used to go to. The one where the first few rows of seats were torn out and piled up by the stage. I think they only had one Doobie Brothers tape that they would play every night before the movie actually started. Every Tuesday night they had a three-dollar special. All tickets were three bucks. It didn’t matter what movie they were showing. We saw some real shitty movies there. I don’t think we ever missed a single one that came through, at least not until Emily. Baby-sitters for Jane were always easy enough to find, even on a school night. Hell, for eight bucks an hour to watch a sleeping kid, eat free food, and watch free cable, what goddamn teenager wouldn’t take the job? Emily was a little harder. We must’ve seen over a hundred pictures in that theater over the years. Even if the movie sucked, Jason and I would just go to the back of the theater and start fooling around like a couple of teenagers. Christ, it was so easy then.

While the gas was pumping I wiped off the windshield with the squeegee. That squeegee amazes me every time I use it. I can be driving for hundreds and hundred of miles and never even notice the windshield is the least bit dirty. It’ll look clear as can be, but once I use that squeegee, I see how wrong I was. The glass becomes crystal clear. It amazes me. I suppose small things amaze me sometimes. When the gas shut off I gave it one more pump to make sure it was full and then hung up the hose. The tank came to twenty-four bucks and something. Christ, gas is expensive. I went inside to pay, picked up a small bottle of soda to take in the car, and it all totaled out to just under thirty bucks. I hated having to spend more than twenty. I didn’t have anything small on me, so the cashier gave me ten singles and some nickels and dimes as change. What the hell do I want ten singles for? That’s why they make ten-dollar bills. The cashier was one of those old ladies, though, so I didn’t want to give her a hard time. You know the kind I mean. She was probably sixty years old and was wearing too much makeup, especially mascara. She had to wear a cheap blue vest and get chewed out by some goddamn teenage manager every time sixty cents was missing from the register. I didn’t feel like giving her a hard time about the ten singles.

When I got on the road I didn’t really know where I was going. I didn’t care either. I just wanted to get on the road. I wanted to get moving and keep moving. The radio was playing some Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd, so I headed south for the hell of it. I guess I’m lucky it wasn’t playing “La Cucaracha” or “O Canada.” God knows where I would have ended up then. That song, the one by the Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd, is the last one I consciously remember hearing. Have you ever been driving and then suddenly you realize you have no idea what’s been playing on the radio for the last half hour, what scenery you’ve missed, what towns you’ve passed, how fast you’ve been going, who you’ve been driving behind, and what lanes you’ve changed in and out of? It happens to me all the time, maybe for five minutes or so at a time but never any longer than that. Just long enough to give me a good scare when I finally do come back to my senses and begin to question what’s happened in the last few minutes. This one lasted for a couple of hours. Suddenly I looked at the clock in the dashboard and realized it was three o’clock. I turned on the windshield wipers but then I realized it wasn’t raining.

I pulled off to the side of the road, switched on my hazards, and lay across the front seat as I buried my head in my hands. My mom would always put a St. Christopher medal in each of my cars. Even after I moved out, married Jason, and got my own car, she would bring a medal when she came to visit and stick it on to the dashboard with some double-sided tape. I reached up and started pulling at it with my bony fingers. Jason calls them delicate, but I know they’re bony. That goddamn St. Christopher was taped on pretty good, though, and I needed both hands to rip it off. The medal was an engraving of St. Christopher, hunched over and leaning on a staff, with a little baby Jesus on his back. At the top of the medal St. Christopher’s name was engraved, and it said PATRON SAINT OF TRAVELERS along the bottom. He’s not even a saint anymore. A few years ago the church did some investigating and they found out there was no historical record anywhere of some guy named Christopher helping the baby Jesus cross a river. They had to de-canonize him and everything. That doesn’t seem right to me. If they make you a saint it doesn’t seem like they should be able to take it away again just that easily. Imagine sitting up in Heaven and then being told you’re going to have to go back to Purgatory because they screwed up and let you in too soon. It’s not your fault they screwed up. It doesn’t seem fair.

I’m sure Jane wouldn’t be too worried and would be able to get home and open the door, maybe even fix a snack of some milk and a few crackers and cheese. Emily wouldn’t know what to do. She’d walk home with Jane, eat some of Jane’s crackers, and drink the little bit of milk that Jane poured for her, but I don’t know.

When I pulled myself back together I switched off my hazard lights, turned on my blinker, waited for an opening in traffic, and rolled back onto the highway. After a few minutes of driving I settled in behind a green Lexus with a license plate that read OLDMAN. I figured following him would be easier than driving for myself, so I settled in behind OLDMAN and felt comfortable following him wherever he felt like going today. I do that all the time when I drive. Not following someone wherever they go, but settling in behind someone for a long time on the highway. I find it takes some of the stress off driving. All you have to do is follow the guy in front of you. You don’t have to check your speedometer, because you’re just going as fast as this guy. You don’t have to worry about changing lanes; you just follow his lead. Christ, you don’t even have to worry about cops, because if you’re speeding it means the guy in front of you is speeding, too, and he’s going to get the ticket, not you.

I’m very proud of never having gotten a speeding ticket. That doesn’t mean I don’t speed, believe me. But there are little tricks you can find to help you speed. For one thing, spend as much time as you possibly can in the right lane. I’m sorry officer, I didn’t know I was speeding, I was in the slow lane, I was just moving with the flow of traffic. That works great. I also try to keep an eye out for cars that zoom by me on the road. If someone flies by me, it means the cops are going to be too busy dealing with them to notice me. I also figure that the cops can’t be bothered giving a ticket to anybody going less than ten miles over the speed limit. Maybe that’s not true, and I’m not really basing that assumption on anything, but it’s always seemed to make sense to me. I’ve been pulled over a few times but I’ve always gotten out of the ticket with just a warning. I don’t even have to cry or anything like all my friends do. I just stick to my script, that I didn’t know I was speeding, that I was in the slow lane, that I was moving with the flow of traffic. It hasn’t failed me yet.

Jason would be home at five-thirty. He’d say hello to the kids, probably not even notice anything was wrong. No, that’s not true. He’d notice the car was missing and ask Jane where I went. She’d tell him that she didn’t know and that she had to walk Emily home from school, and make Emily’s snack, and that I wasn’t home. I don’t know how Jason would react. He might get frantic and call the police or some of my friends. He might tell the kids not to worry and that everything would be all right. He might go to the bedroom to change his clothes and find the note on the bed. And it did get to be too much. How would he look at the kids? He might—he might I don’t know what. Jane—I don’t think he’d do anything. He’d look at her and tell her that everything was OK, and that they’d get Happy Meals tonight. Later, after he put Emily to bed, he’d probably sit down with Jane and explain everything to her. She was old enough to understand most of it. At least the basics. She has friends whose parents aren’t together anymore. He’d tell her that things were going to be a little different, that he would need a lot of help from her, that I still loved her, that he loved her, too, and that this wasn’t her fault. I’m sure he would explain everything very well to her, and that she would understand most of it. She’s very intelligent, she really is. I don’t know what he’d do with Emily. I pray to God that she isn’t standing in the doorway when he finishes the note, puts it down, and looks up. If she is, the look that she’ll get must be terrible. She wouldn’t even know what was going on, or what she had done wrong, and if she’s the first thing Jason sees after reading that note, I don’t know. She’ll probably start bawling, run to her room, lock the door, and stay in there bawling all night long until she falls asleep. God, I hope that doesn’t happen. I love her, I do. It’s not her fault, it isn’t. It just got to be too much.

I suddenly became very aware that the sun was going down, and I became quite hungry in a short time. I probably should have finished those last two bites of my sandwich. I gave OLDMAN a little wave and took the next exit off the highway. I didn’t feel like fast food. I hate fast food. I don’t mind chain restaurants, or getting pizza or hamburgers at a small independent place. In fact, I love a good burger from a good burger joint where the bun is piled so high with ground beef and lettuce and tomato and onions and pickles that you can hardly get the entire thing into your mouth. You can get something like that at most of the good chain restaurants, which is why I like them. You can also sit down and feel like you’re in a real restaurant at one of those places. Fast food is entirely different. The food is small and tastes like microwave and oil. It never feels like a real restaurant at a fast food place. No tablecloths, no carpet on the floor. Everything is made to be quickly rubbed down, cleaned off, and turned over so the next person can run through there, eat a little bit, and then run out. I hate having meals like that. It’s eating, but it isn’t a meal. I like making distinctions like that in words that most people run together. Differences like eating and meal, or house and home. I drove until I found a small diner, parked, and went inside.

“One?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Smoking?”

“I don’t care.”

“We have plenty of seats in both sections. You can have whichever you would prefer.”

“Smoking, then.”

She gave me a look that I could tell she reserved only for smokers and people who kill baby seals, and then took me over to my table and handed me a menu.

“Your waitperson will be with you shortly.”

“Thanks.”

A waitress came over, took my order, and gave me a glass of water. I started looking around for a cigarette.

“Excuse me,” I said to a man sitting alone at the next table, “but could I borrow a cigarette?” He had one hanging out of the side of his mouth.

“Borrow?”

“Well, have, I guess.”

He took his pack out of his shirt pocket, shook one out, and handed it over.

“Thank you.”

“Do you need a light?”

“Yes, I do.”

He returned his pack to his shirt pocket, took out a matchbook, and tossed it over to my table so that it landed six inches from my hand and slid the rest of the way to my fingertips. After watching me fumble with the flimsy matches for a few seconds, he got up from his table. “Here,” he said as he took back the matchbook, ripped two out, struck them, and held the flame for me.

“Thank you. I don’t smoke much.”

“You don’t say?” he replied with excessive sarcasm as he sat back down.

I don’t. Smoke that much, that is. I did in college, and when I first got married to Jason, but I gave it up when I got pregnant with Jane.

“My name’s Emma.”

“I’m Cody.”

“That’s an unusual name. Is it a family name?”

I love names. I find people’s names tremendously interesting. They can tell you so much about a person, which is weird if you think about it, because we don’t get to pick our own names. When I was pregnant with Jane I must have read about five of those baby name books looking for the right name. I love hearing new and unique names and finding out where they come from. I even like hearing about boring names like Mary or Matt, because the family history behind a name is always so much fun. You can find names that go back hundreds of years.

“No. I’m the only Cody in my family.”

“What’s it mean? Do you know why your parents picked it?”

“No. My Dad picked it. I think it’s something Indian. He always said it was something Indian.”

“It doesn’t sound very Indian.”

“I know. The closest my Dad ever got to an Indian was watching a John Wayne movie. I think he just made up the Indian stuff one night after he had too much to drink.” He looked over at me like he shouldn’t have said that last part. “Or maybe he didn’t. I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

I felt like an idiot for asking this as soon as he answered me.

“I can’t exactly do that anymore.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Well then, nice to meet you, Cody,” I said as I stuck out my hand, and he returned the shake.

He looked to be a few years older than me, but I’m never good at judging people’s ages. Besides, there are lots of things that can make people look older than they really are.

I asked him, “Are you waiting for anybody?”

“No. I’m just driving through,” he answered.

“Me too. We might as well sit at one table.”

He looked at me for a few seconds after I said that.

“No. I don’t think that would be such a good idea,” he replied.

“Fine then. Sit over there. But don’t think I won’t talk to you throughout your entire meal.”

He smiled at that, then got out of his seat and sat across from me at my table. I don’t know why I was talking to him. I wasn’t trying to pick him up. He was all right, but he wasn’t anything special. I wasn’t playing with him to see if I still had it. I don’t know. I just felt like talking to him.

“What do you do?” I asked.

He frowned, and then smiled, and then settled into a sort of neutral face.

“I’m between jobs right now.”

“What did you do?”

“I worked for a PR company.”

“Any big accounts?”

“Some. Not really. It’s kind of hard to define big and small.”

I nodded my head as if I understood what he was talking about, but I didn’t. I figured he didn’t really want to stay on the topic anymore, so I decided to change it.

“Where are you from?”

He did that frown, then smile, then neutral thing again.

“I grew up on Long Island. I lived in the City most recently.”

“Which city?” I asked.

He looked at me like I was an idiot before he said “New York.” I hate it when people treat you like an idiot for asking a perfectly logical question that they should have explained in the first place.

“Where do you live now?”

He was about to answer when the food showed up.

“Thank you,” I said as the waitress laid down my plate and turned to walk away. I looked across at Cody. “Where are you ‘driving through’ to?” I asked.

“Excuse me?” he said after swallowing down a large first bite of his meal.

“You said you were just ‘driving through.’ I was wondering where you were ‘driving through’ to? Anyplace special?” I asked.

“No. Not really. I’m just driving. It keeps me busy. I think I might drive cross-country. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

“Don’t do that! I did that back in college. That drive is insane, but it isn’t so bad if you do it with friends to keep you company and share the driving.”

“I suppose.”

He looked uncomfortable. He looked like he was lying to me, but I couldn’t be sure because he was lying to himself, too. I don’t know if he wanted me to change the subject so it would be easier for him, or if he wanted me to keep going and keep asking him questions and keep delving so he could find out what was wrong with himself. He seemed to be hiding something but wasn’t quite sure what it was. I don’t know. It seemed like he was willing to tell me things because I was a stranger to him and everybody he knew. But then he pulled back and an entirely different expression came over him and he seemed to close himself off.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

I hesitated for a long time. I pretended I was chewing my food so I could swallow, but I’ve never had a problem talking with my mouth full before.

“My Mom’s.”

“How much further away does she live?”

“About five hours south.”

“Are you going to keep driving tonight, or do you think you’ll stop for a rest?”

“I don’t know. I’m not that tired. I think I might press on and try to get in there tonight. I’ll just have a cup of coffee and I should be wired for the rest of the night, anyway.”

“Why are you going to see her?”

“It’s her birthday. She’s sixty.”

“You should have started your trip earlier. You’re never going to get there tonight.”

“Tomorrow, I mean. Tomorrow she’s sixty.”

I’m not sure if he could tell I was lying yet.

“What did you get her?”

I pretended to chew again.

“Or are you supposed to be the present?” he asked with a chuckle.

“I got her just a little thing. Just some earrings. They’re nice. I hope she likes them.”

“Will she?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said you ‘hope she likes them.’ Do you think she will?”

“I don’t know. Probably not, come to think of it. I like them. Our tastes have never been very similar. She probably won’t like them. She’ll smile, say they’re nice, and even try them on, but then put them in her jewelry box and never take them out again.”

I began to feel very depressed about not having the same tastes as my made-up mother. I pushed the food around on my plate with my fork and began to get very sad.

“Are you married?” he asked.

“Yes.”

I answered before I even realized what I was saying. I was trying to make up a new persona and I got so caught up on my fake mother that I let the truth slip out. I began to get very worried about mixing up fact and fiction, and whether I could keep my story straight.

“What’s his name?”

“Brad,” I said.

I don’t know why I picked Brad. It always sounds like the name of a teenager. I can’t even begin to imagine a seventy-year-old man being named Brad.

“Brad Pitt?” and he smiled, and I’m not sure if he knew I was making everything up.

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

“How long have you been married?”

I knew that I wouldn’t be able to remember numbers if I faked them. I can’t even remember how old I told him my mother was. Jason and I had just celebrated our anniversary.

“Eleven years.”

“Do you have any children?”

He was on a roll now. He was asking questions and he was in control now, and he was rolling. He’d probably figured out by now that the mother was fake. He probably knew there was no Brad either, but he could probably tell I was married. Christ, I still had my ring on. I think liars can always spot lies.

“Two. Ben and Evan.”

“How old are they?”

He wasn’t even giving me time to chew my food anymore.

“Ben is eight. Evan’s six.”

“Are they good kids?”

He smiled at me when he asked that last one. He smiled like he knew. I don’t know how he knew, but I swear he knew something was wrong with the kids. It was like he could see through every little thing I said and could tell exactly when I was lying to him and what truth stood behind the lies.

“Yes.”

I just wanted him to stop.

“I think kids would be too much for me to handle,” he said. “I’m surprised you don’t have any trouble.”

Goddamn him, I don’t know how he was doing it.

“No. They’re good. Ben is, at least. He’s real bright in school. He’s good at math. He’s real bright.”

“How about Evan?”

Goddamn him.

“Evan’s a little worse off. I love him just as much, I really do. I really do love him, but—he’s hard sometimes. He’s retarded. They call it Down Syndrome, but he’s retarded. It’s so hard sometimes. There’s just so much to take care of because of him. It’s trying, you know? I love him, but it just gets to be hard.”

“Has it been hard on the marriage?”

Why could he see through me so easily?

“Yes. Sometimes. It’s just added complications.”

“Is that why Brad’s not going to your mother’s birthday?”

By now I’m sure he knew the mother’s birthday was fake. He probably didn’t know that I wasn’t going anywhere. He probably thought it stood for something, that it was code for something. Maybe he thought “mother’s birthday” was my sister’s house, or sex with Jason’s best friend, or something like that. I don’t know what he thought, but I was sure he was going to keep going. I don’t know how he got in control so fast.

“Yes. That’s why Brad’s not coming. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’d prefer not to talk about it.”

He nodded his head in agreement, gave a fake apology, and sat back in his chair like he had won. He never offered another topic to talk about, and I was too broken to think. After that we just talked back and forth about passing the ketchup or the salt, or inquiring about the goodness of each other’s meals. After we ate we got our checks, paid, and walked out to the parking lot. I thanked him for the conversation. He told me he hoped things worked out between me and Brad, and he wished my mother a happy birthday. As he walked away I heard him say to himself in a sing-song manner, “A stranger’s just a friend you haven’t met,” and he chuckled to himself as he got into his car and drove away.

It was dark by now. I hate driving on highways in the dark. You can never really tell what’s behind you. All you can do is sense sort of vague lights and assume another car is nearby. If I had somewhere to go I might have tried to press on to get there, but I didn’t. I remembered seeing a motel back by the highway, so I turned the car in that direction and drove off.

It was a pretty bad motel. I felt tempted to ask for the hourly rates, just as a joke, but the man at the front desk probably wouldn’t have liked it too much, and he didn’t look like the kind of person you wanted to piss off. Anyway, I didn’t feel like doing that to him.

JOHN POWER

John Power was born and raised in and around New York City, graduated from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, lived for a year in Warsaw, Poland, and currently resides in Chicago. His stories have appeared in The New Chicagoan, The William & Mary Review, Barzakh Magazine, West Trade Review, and The Great Lakes Review, among other publications. His novel Participation is available on Amazon.com.