Flight Dreams Read online

  Williams sits silently for a moment, weighing what he has heard. He already knows the outcome of this discussion. “I suppose you’ve talked this through with Ruth?”

  “As a matter of fact, we’ve discussed it at length.”

  “Mm-hm. And what’d she think about it?”

  “Well, Josh, I must say that she didn’t seem to care much about the public-service angle. I believe she made some reference to ‘a rat’s ass’—you know what a hard woman she can be. But then she mumbled something about doing wonders for circulation, or words to that effect. Ruth seems to think our readers are getting tired of Ethiopia.”

  He leans back and looks Williams in the eye. “In short, Josh, she says we’ll do it.”

  Saturday, October 3

  90 days till deadline

  BARE CEMENT FLOORING MEETS Manning’s bare feet. Sitting on the edge of his bed, squinting at the sun rising over Lake Michigan through expansive east windows, he stretches, rubs his eyes, and brings the room into focus. “I’ve got to do something about this place,” he tells himself aloud, albeit hoarsely.

  The condominium loft, spacious and new, boasts an enviable address. But it is still unfinished and mostly unfurnished, its down payment having taxed Manning’s finances to the limit less than a year ago. Rising from a restless sleep, troubled by the sudden insecurity of his job, he wonders how long there’ll be money for the mortgage—let alone decorating.

  With the day’s first uncertain steps, Manning walks to the back wall of the loft, where a spartan row of cabinets serves as kitchen, and switches on the coffeemaker, loaded last night with bottled water and freshly ground beans. Listening to the machine start to gurgle, waiting for the first drop to appear in the glass carafe, he remembers the old admonition about “watched pots” and decides that it’s a good morning for a run along the lakeshore.

  He pulls on a pair of bright yellow nylon shorts, a faded Illini sweatshirt, and socks that crumple at his ankles. Putting on his Reeboks, he eyes them askance for a moment, then relaces one of them—just so. He grabs his keys and heads for the door, glancing back at the coffeepot, which is beginning to fill.

  He’s out the door, down the service elevator, and suddenly on the quiet side street that turns onto Lake Shore Drive. It’s Saturday, still early, and traffic is light. The chilly air smells barely of fish—the spring influx of alewives has long since washed away. No wind blows, and the lake is placid. Gulls glide low over the water, their random calls breaking the stillness. The only people in sight are a few other runners headed up and down the shore. Some wear headphones, but most are content with nature’s own pristine music on this waking autumn morning.

  This will be an easy run, Manning decides—nothing serious today—so he skips his usual warm-up and takes off at a leisurely pace, headed north.

  The intensely blue sky reminds him of fall afternoons more than twenty years ago in high school when he was a member of a ragtag running team. All students in the small school were expected to participate in at least one sport each year, and for Manning the obvious choice was cross-country, which stressed personal achievement more than team spirit. He overcame his initial dislike for running—the inevitable aches and pains of getting started—and eventually learned to enjoy it, taking quiet pride in his slow but steady progress, setting new goals. Regimented during high school, the discipline followed him into college and beyond as a matter of choice. Now approaching midlife, Manning takes greater satisfaction than ever from running. It assures him that he’s not drinking too much, that he’s not smoking too much—though he knows, of course, that he is. Most important, it simply tells him that he’s still able to do it.

  Having found his stride, he pushes harder, adjusting the rhythm of his breathing. Suddenly aware that he is clenching the keys in his hand, he loosens his grip, making an effort to relax every muscle but those in his legs. As he picks up speed, the rushing air makes beads of sweat feel icy against his brow. It parts his hair, as if with fingers, into damp, clustered strands that bob in unison with the pounding of his feet.

  Manning feels his second wind, the renewed burst of energy known to all runners. His shoes seem to glide at a microdistance above the pavement. His throat begins to burn. Every muscle, every tendon, works and pulls and releases and pulls again like a machine thrown into high gear, straining beneath a sheath of taut, elastic skin. He feels the muscles of his calves and thighs bulging. The light-headed euphoria of overbreathing reminds Manning that he has always found something vaguely erotic about running, about the confusion of pleasure and pain.

  Did it start in high school, with the sights and smells of the locker room, or did an unspoken fascination take root in his subconscious long before then, during those misty prepubescent years of youth? Is it possible to explain the pleasure derived from the sight of a man’s ankles, the tick of white laces slapping his shoes?

  Can those old preoccupations (preoccupations he has never knowingly pondered, for they would surely seem ludicrous, even embarrassing, if his mind would allow such questions to gel, to take on the rubbery yet distinct form of words that are actively thought) explain the indifference that has marked his sporadic intimacy with women?

  His sexual history, the history that can be recalled as actual events, did not begin until college—his sophomore year—when he knew he could no longer make the excuse, to himself or to others (particularly his mother), that he was “busy.” The pressure to lose his virginity in those days of liberation was intense, so he lost it. Mission accomplished.

  She was pretty and loving, sufficiently more experienced than he. He performed just fine—nothing traumatic befell him—and the physical release was admittedly pleasurable. But it was not the stuff of dreams, not the culminating end-all event he’d been led to expect. And it never would be. Subsequent couplings were equally ho-hum, even with Roxanne, who was easily the most feisty and energetic of his partners.

  So he never got much involved. He’s been content to be wed to his career, a commitment that has brought many rewards. Earlier, in college, he preferred to concentrate on his studies, and that, too, had its rewards. That’s how he explained things to his mother.

  Then she died before he graduated. He grieved, of course. She was too young—lung cancer. But he felt relief (and he felt no guilt because of this) that he would no longer need to make excuses to her regarding the direction of his life. At her burial, he also felt relieved that issues of intimacy were never discussed with his father, who died when Manning was three.

  An uncle, his mother’s brother from Wisconsin, a wealthy printer, was at his mother’s funeral. Manning hadn’t seen him for—how long?—at least ten years. His uncle kissed him on the lips once as a boy, then again at the funeral. Manning wondered, standing near his mother’s grave, if the man was gay.

  The sun has inched higher into the sky. Traffic on the Outer Drive is brisker now, and the path along the beach is filling in with bicycles, dog-walkers, and many more runners.

  Far ahead through the crowd, Manning glimpses a couple running toward him. The guy is a few years younger than Manning; his girlfriend, younger still. Even at a distance, they exude an air of vitality and playfulness that sets them apart from the others trudging by. The guy has tousled blond hair, teeth that flash white as he laughs at something. He’s well muscled everywhere, as is the girl; their spandex running togs are both skimpy and flattering.

  Handsome couple, Manning tells himself. I’ll bet they work out together.

  “Morning!” says the girl as the couple draws near.

  Manning returns the greeting as they whisk by. Glancing over his shoulder for another look, he realizes with dismay that his gaze has been fixed squarely on the guy.

  Sunday, October 4

  89 days till deadline

  MANY MILES AWAY, AT six in the morning, the heat is already oppressive. Incense fills the air. The pungency of burning spices and gums wafts through the little church and hangs as a blue-gray cloud above the he
ads of the faithful, slowly shifting strata with the meager whiffs of air admitted through ventilating windows cranked wide at the base of each stained-glass Gothic arch.

  October sometimes brings relief, but not today. The early sun pierces the eastern windows, making brilliant the colored shards of martyrs’ blood and fishermen’s robes. The filtered light seems to magnify the heat rather than quell it, causing both flesh and clothing to stick to the varnished pews. Many in the congregation choose to kneel rather than make contact with the benches. The combination of heat and the midnight communion-fast can cause the less hardy to faint during the Sunday service, but that prospect is least likely at the first Mass of the day, so the church will be filled.

  Four altar boys—ruddy-faced Indian brothers garbed in scarlet cassocks and fine lace surplices—busy themselves in the sanctuary, preparing for High Mass. They light six candles at the main altar and many more at the side altar that enshrines a painted statue of the Virgin Mary. Wide-eyed, a child in the congregation points toward the waves of heat that rise from the candles and cause the plaster saint to hula on her pedestal.

  From its cramped loft, the choir sings Gregorian chants a capella. The climate, joined by what the members of the little parish term “the dark years of neglect,” has rendered the organ irreparably silent.

  The congregation is now gathered, all facing reverently forward. Though they don’t look like rebels, they are, united in purpose from many walks of life. Most are either quite old or very young. This place was chosen as a new home by the older members of the community because it represents something familiar, something that was once part of their lives, but lost. To the young, this place represents something they never knew; they yearn for the “purity” of older ways, finding it more compatible with the idealism of youth. Conspicuously absent from the crowd are the middle-aged, the mainstream, the people who shape and inhabit the world at large.

  There is a girl of about twenty with long straight hair. Beaming a smile that makes her plain face pretty, she struggles with an infant who is annoyed by the heat.

  An old black man kneels near the back of the church. He has a proud bearing that belies the poverty suggested by his worn but spotless clothes. He fingers a rosary, its beads clicking against the slick surface of the pew in front of him.

  There is an Indian woman with a weathered face topped by a braided crown of jet-black hair. She keeps a stern eye on three children who sit silently, wagging their legs.

  A young man kneels piously with his wife sitting next to him. He is bookish-looking with freckles and wire-rimmed glasses. Sunken cheeks and a long horsey chin amplify his humorless features. He prays to a wrathful God.

  His wife, by contrast, seems almost amused by his sobriety, harboring secrets about him that these other people could never guess. He brought her to this place, and she has maintained a girlish cheerfulness—while anyone else might have left him.

  In a pew near the front of the church, center aisle, is a woman who neither kneels nor prays, but sits reading a popular novel, waiting for the service to begin.

  The choir stops.

  Silence is broken by the bell that hangs in the doorway from the sacristy to the sanctuary. The first of the altar boys has pulled its tasseled cord once, sharply, and the clang brings the congregation to their feet. An odd noise fills the church—the sound of damp clothing peeled from the pews.

  The little procession approaches the altar. Behind the four boys walks the priest, a man in his late fifties, perhaps sixty. The zeal that flashes in his blue eyes reflects a lifelong dedication to his calling. The same dedication, though, has worsened the toll of his years, and the flash of his eyes is tempered with an aging milkiness. His hair is still a radiant gold, touched with lighter strands of gray and white. He wears it long and full, revealing a streak of vanity in his austere mien. The effect of his hair is all the more pronounced against the lavish brocade of the chasuble he wears. His walk seems too slow, even for the stately procession; the boys measure their steps carefully so as not to leave him behind.

  The five now stand at the foot of the stairs that lead to the altar. They genuflect, the priest with more effort than the boys, then recite the opening dialogue of the liturgy, bowing in turn, striking their breasts as they confess their mortal weaknesses.

  The priest mounts the stairs and opens the huge leather-bound altar missal. He turns to face the people, stretching out his arms in a gesture suggesting the crucified Christ. “Dominos vobiscum,” The Lord be with you, he sings in a monotone.

  The liturgy continues with the expected regularity of an ancient, never-changing rite, the Tridentine rite. The priest turns to invite the congregation to pray at intervals specified by the rubrics, the red print, of the missal. Each time he turns, his face is more heavily beaded with sweat. After reading the Epistle and Gospel in Latin, the priest descends the stairs and approaches the pulpit. While the people seat themselves to hear his comments, he studies the faces that stare back at him.

  A pearl of sweat glistens at the tip of his nose. It hangs there for interminable seconds, then drops. The people watch as another shimmering bead begins to form in its place. The priest deigns neither to mop his brow nor to brush the tiny salt-pool from his page of handwritten notes. Minuscule veins of blue ink grow at the edge of the pool.

  The lady with the novel flaps a silk fan. She is the only one present to take action against the heat; the others suffer passively, racking up purgatorial credits in some celestial ledger. She eyes the priest with a wry smile. Come on, Father, she thinks. You’re losing your audience. Better get on with it.

  “My brothers and sisters,” he finally says. His voice is soothing and firm. “Let us today rededicate ourselves to the beliefs, the ideals, the truths that we professed when we founded this community. Ever mindful of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was assumed into heaven—taken there bodily by her Son, our Savior—we rededicate ourselves to the truths that inspired us to name our community Assumption, a name that serves to remind us of what the world has lost, of what we have found.

  “We have come to this place for many reasons, but the shared event that unites us was a crisis of faith—a crisis generated by change, heretical change, over which we had no control. Now they wring their hands and preach against the dangers of schism, but it is they, not we, who have pushed this confrontation to the brink. Each of us present has been touched by the spirit of the Lord in a special way, and now we are reborn to that which was so carelessly lost.

  “For us, then, a major battle in the fight for personal salvation has already been won. We have known God’s saving grace, and we have seen His light. Like Christ the good shepherd, we must now be mindful of our brothers and sisters who have gone astray, of the forces that have misguided them, and of their dire need of our prayers.

  “Let us, then, remember in our prayers the troubled Church of Rome, now riddled with the heresies of change and doctrinal inconsistency. Let us pray that the Church Universal may return to the truths of which it was once sole guardian, that the people whom God has called to be His own may once again know the peace and unity that faith alone can bring.

  “Faith. It is faith alone that binds us. And it is on our faith alone that we shall one day be judged.

  “My friends, I want to relate to you an incident that took place last year as I lay somewhere in that netherworld between life and death. The heart attack, as you know, was a mild one. It was the lengthy trip to the hospital, the lack of immediate care, that complicated my misfortune. Serious damage was done to the heart, I am told, and it is unlikely that I could survive another attack. The doctors presumed that I would not come back to you, that life in Assumption was a hardship I would dare not risk. When I informed them of my intention to the contrary, they said, ‘But Father McMullen, you must slow down. Your heart has sent a message to your body.’ So I told them, ‘Then my soul will send a message to my heart.’ And that message is: Faith is the power that makes us whole.”

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sp; He pauses for a moment, then concludes, “My dear friends, I shall burden you with no more of my prolixity today—it is far too warm. May the blessing of almighty God descend upon all of you and remain with you always.”

  Father James McMullen then returns to the altar and performs the rite of sacrifice that symbolically reenacts Christ’s death. The liturgy proceeds steadily toward the solemn climax of consecration, the moment at which the sacramental bread and wine are transformed for the faithful into the body and blood of Christ. It is the moment of the Mass for which Father McMullen was ordained, the focus of all his priestly powers.

  It is the moment at which he will summon the physical presence of God.

  It is also the moment at which he will be haunted by a recurring, unshakable memory.

  He bows low over the chalice. “Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei,” This is the cup of My blood, he whispers. As he genuflects in adoration, an altar boy rings the tiny silver consecration bell. But as the priest peers into the golden goblet of wine-turned-blood, he hears another bell—a louder one, an alarm—and sees himself many years ago rushing down the long hall past a row of identical doors till he reaches the one he knows he must open. He grips the knob with fingers colder than the brass itself, then sees inside the room.

  White sheets fall to the floor from the steel-framed bed, drenched with the still-warm blood of the boy who lies there, his eyes frozen wide with terror, his throat gaping open, savagely slashed.

  Monday, October 5

  88 days till deadline

  BY MONDAY MORNING, THE long autumn rains have settled over the Midwest. Manning drives north on Sheridan Road toward the Carter estate in Bluff Shores. The pavement glistens black beneath dense trees, their wet foliage hanging low against a formless sky.