In the Unlikely Event

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.”

“What does sick sound like?”

“Okay, I get it.”

No you don’t, Steve thought.

Coffee Cake

Miri brought one of Irene’s coffee cakes to Mrs. Stein once the Steins returned to their regular routines—Phil at school, Mr. Stein at his office, Mrs. Stein reading in her favorite chair. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Miri said.

“I still can’t believe it.” Mrs. Stein teared up. “My niece was a wonderful girl. And such promise. Even though we buried her and sat shiva, none of it feels real.”

When Fred barked Mrs. Stein scooped him up and her mood lightened. “I’m so happy to see you, Miri, and Fred, too. Look at this cake!” she said, taking it from Miri. “It looks good enough to eat. What do you say?”

Miri nodded.

“And how about a cold glass of milk to go with it?”

Miri nodded again.

Elizabeth Daily Post

Editorial

BARKING AT THE MOON

JAN. 25—Elizabeth’s second air disaster is now three days old. Our commercial airline death record has taken first place in the whole world. Show us, if you can, an official act or an official decision made that offers assurance there won’t be more slaughter.

The governor, who is a lawyer himself, hides behind the opinion of another lawyer. The mayor calls for removal of Newark Airport “bag and baggage,” which he should know is barking at the moon.

The Port Authority sticks to its old reliable routine of patterns and improvements to come, while crash experts give us an answer to everything except why the airport keeps expanding.

Let the governor order expansion work at Newark Airport stopped NOW—TODAY! That would be a gesture of sincerity which would reassure an aroused and grieving people.

Public Indignation

A few days after the crash, a “Public Indignation” meeting was held at City Hall, demanding authorities shut down Newark Airport. More than a thousand people came, not only from Elizabeth, but other towns along the flight paths.

Irene didn’t want Ben Sapphire to go. “It could be too much for you, Ben.”

“My wife died on one of those planes,” Ben said. “I’m not sitting this one out.”

“Then I’m coming with you,” Irene told him.

“Take your pills just in case,” Rusty said. But Irene ignored her.

“Come, Rusty,” Ben said, “we’ll give you a ride.”

“Me, too,” Miri said. She’d made plans to meet Mason there.

“You’re not coming,” Rusty told her. “You have to be eighteen.”

“You didn’t have to be eighteen to die,” Miri argued. “Penny wasn’t even eight.”

Henry said, “I think she can come.”

Rusty shrugged. “I hate this.”

“We all do,” Henry said.

—

MASON WAS WAITING for her with Christina and Jack, in front of City Hall. Miri still hadn’t met Mason’s older brother, but just as Mason started to introduce them a bum approached Jack, and Mason pulled Miri away, hustling her up the wide steps. It was the first time Miri had set foot inside City Hall, an impressive red-brick, white-columned building. She’d imagined it would be quiet, even serene, but not tonight. The noisy crowd spilled out into the lobby, leaving standing room only at the meeting. Rusty fought her way through the crowd to Miri and told her to keep to the side with Mason, away from the entrance. “I’ll be over there,” she said, pointing to a bench where Irene and Ben were already seated. “I want to keep an eye on Nana. I’ve got her pills in my pocketbook. If it gets to be too much, go outside.”

“If it gets to be too much?” Miri said to Mason once Rusty was out of earshot. “If it gets to be too much?” As if two crashes weren’t already too much. Mason nodded but Miri wasn’t sure he’d heard a word she’d said.

The meeting started with Mayor Kirk saying something about umbrellas, but Miri couldn’t hear well enough to understand. Then a representative from the airport promised the new runway, under construction, would keep planes from taking off and landing over Elizabeth. No one believed him, and when the crowd started booing, a police escort rushed him out of the building. After that tempers escalated quickly. The crowd wanted to blame someone or something.

Eleanor slipped in next to Miri. Miri was glad she wasn’t the only one here from her class. “They don’t understand it’s sabotage, that we’re a city under siege.” Eleanor had to cup her hand and speak directly into Miri’s ear, it was so noisy.

“Are you going to tell them?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“My uncle says they were accidents, that it was a coincidence.”

“Sorry, but I don’t buy that.”

“I know it’s hard to believe but—”

“Your uncle’s a reporter, right?”

“Yes. He’s sitting up front with the other reporters.”

“They don’t want us to know the truth. If we did, it would result in chaos.”

“My uncle is an honest person.”

“I’m just saying our government doesn’t want us to know the truth.” Eleanor walked away then, maybe looking for someone else to listen to her theory.

There was wild talk of blocking runways at the airport with a caravan of cars. Steve and Phil and Jack McKittrick were among those who volunteered to participate, sitting in their cars on the runways, preventing planes from taking off or landing.

Someone shouted that the pilot was at fault. “The first plane crashed into the riverbed, thanks to the pilot’s skills. He didn’t kill anyone on the ground. But this time…”

Mrs. Barnes’s son stood and in a shaky voice said, “My brother was the pilot of the second plane. He was the best pilot in the world. You want to blame someone, blame him,” and he pointed to Joseph Fluet, the investigator from the Civil Aeronautics Board. “He could have closed down the airport after the first crash. He had the power to do that. But he didn’t, and now my brother is dead, his little girls are fatherless.” His voice caught. “How many people have to die before something is done, before more families are torn apart like ours?”

As the crowd chanted, “Close down Newark Airport or we’ll close it for you!” Fluet was rushed out of the hall by a police escort. Two down, Miri thought.

A woman stood on a chair, stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out a whistle so shrill Miri was sure a taxi in New York could have heard it. “We have a petition right here,” she shouted into a bullhorn. “We urge each and every one of you to sign it. Tomorrow we’re sending it to President Truman and other federal and state officials in vigorous protest—calling for the removal of Newark Airport.”