Vacationland

Disembarkation

194 O d i s e m b a r k a t i o n L ife does indeed flash before your eyes when you’ve only got minutes left, though not in any way you’d expect, not in any order that makes sense. It’s been all hop, skip, and jump from when the lightning strike cut short the question, “Peanuts, sir?” to now, as the seatbelt sign shakes itself loose to land near my shoe. It’s been no more than half a minute since the oxygen masks fell from above, and fifteen seconds since our stewardess, Mandy, has given in to hysterics and buckled herself into the fold-down seat where she now sits with her face buried, opening and closing her knees as if flashing code. The unlatched door to the cockpit swings open and shut. The pilot is stiff, possibly in shock. The copilot works furiously over the controls and shouts into his mouthpiece to the tower in Chicago. He repeats a series of numbers and one word, “Vector,” over, and over. Like the other women, Anne is screaming, her mouth stretched so I can see the crown that was replaced after the popcorn kernel incident—we’d been watching Ben with our daughter, Meg. For a month now she’s been begging for her own pet rat. Oh, that that will be the last film I’ll ever see . . . So, there is the screaming, but since time has suddenly gotten quite precious, I pretty much hear only what I want. Anne’s nails are deep into my forearm—four moons of blood, but it doesn’t hurt. Adrenaline, “nature’s pain inhibitor!” I’d probably read that in Reader’s Digest, one of those “I Am Joe’s Urethra, I Am Jane’s Adrenal Gland . . .” d i s e m b a r k a t i o n O 195 I disengage Anne’s grip, hoping she might settle down once she realizes this is out of our hands. Now she’s maniacally stomping the footrest with all her might as if it’s a brake that might stop the plane. The vibration is impressive—it’s actually hard to focus with eyeballs quaking. A Time magazine I’d read cover to cover is jiggling itself out of the seat pocket. Just minutes ago I’d finished an article on solar flares and had begun another claiming troops will be withdrawn soon along with more lies from Nixon. There was also something on Jane Fonda, and a poem by Ho Chi Minh. Some trio. Seems we are all doomed, when you think about it. Before the magazine, I’d read the Trib, also full of the sort of the crap those of us on Flight 36 are about to be spared. A woman is repeating the Lord’s Prayer for about the fifth time while someone else roars at her to shut up. There are only about twenty of us. I look around to see different reactions to identical fates. Just behind us is a couple returning from their honeymoon—sailing the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior. I know this because we stood in line at the gate together. Neither of them has made a sound, and they are holding on—forgive my saying—for dear life, wrapped like monkeys around each other, eyes squeezed shut against it all. The businessman in 8A is weeping openly. There’s an old couple, calm, tearfully attempting to talk to each other over the din. Two young women traveling together sob with their foreheads fused. The woman praying aloud sits in front of a guy about my age who is now punching the back of her seat, given in to rage. We reach for the oxygen masks, boxing at them as they dangle and sway like marionettes. I manage to get Anne into hers—it dents comically into her cheeks, filling and emptying with hysterical steam. Once we all get them on we look pretty silly. In our plastic muzzles we are Yogi Bears or Boo Boos—Meg would laugh, anyway. Anne looks at me, her horror shifting for a moment to disbelief. That’s when I realize I’m laughing. 196 P d i s e m b a r k a t i o n This is awkward. I clutch her hand and shout so she can hear over the...