Also by MICHAEL BERES
Sunstrike
Grand Traverse
The President’s Nemesis
Final Stroke
Chernobyl Murders
Traffyck
The Girl With 39 Graves
Copyright © 2019 by Michael Beres
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover photo by Michael Beres
ISBN 978-1-54398-347-0 eBook 978-1-54398-348-7
Thank you to Colleen for our shared experiences of climate, geography, humans, and the other species struggling in our changing world. Thank you to John and Maeve for help with cover design. And thank you to all of my family for inspiration and support.
To the Children of the world
Chapter 1
God Is My Pilot
Instead of the prepare-for-landing announcement everyone on Flight 4547 expected after the long energy-efficient flight, a message in large bold no nonsense Times New Roman font displayed on individual viewing screens and was given audibly via a female voice over seatback speakers and ear buds. The GC-16’s on board computer had selected a female voice reminiscent of a stern but young grade school teacher. The kind of teacher one would have wanted to have their back when being confronted by a school bully. She’d sneak up from behind at a decisive moment, recording the bully’s voice and image when the bully least expects it. The computer considered a nun’s voice, rattling habit beads, and the rapping of a wooden ruler on a wooden desk, but decided even if a passenger had been brought up Catholic, those on board were not old enough to have had stereotypical past-century nuns teaching their classes, rattling beads, and rapping on desktops. But they were old enough to recall a time when having kids was all the rage and neighborhood schools were common. Another reason for not using the speech pattern attributable to a nun had been the flight organizer being categorized as a doomsday aficionado.
“We apologize,” said the carefully-crafted GC-16’s computer-generated female voice mimicking a young teacher. She had the trace of a trusty British accent and sounded sincere, even calming. “The hybrid turbo drive unit of your craft has a slight malfunction. My sidekick and I think it might have something to do with a near-extinct equatorial Aves—bird—species having wandered too far north. In fact, for all we know the species might now be extinct if the handful remaining were fragmented in the turbo stream. Anyway, despite the condition of the birds, there’s not a thing to worry about; position determination and flight controls are operational, an alternate landing site has already been chosen, and plenty of charge remains in the batteries for rear prop-assist landing.”
One of the twelve passengers, a man blurting out an unchewed pretzel, shouted, “Jesus Christ!”
Another of the twelve, a woman across the zigzag aisle alternating with one seat port and two seats starboard, stared out a port window at the hazy central Florida landmass dotted with lakes and crisscrossed with overflowing rivers and streams. She yelled. “Yes! Where the hell will we land?”
“I have to agree no one on board need worry,” responded the computer-generated female voice’s male sidekick in his Dan Rather voice. “We’ve worked out your glide path and you’ll be perfectly fine. Relax and listen. We know the situation and have it under total control.”
Reverend James Murdock, a third generation Southern Baptist known for embracing Earth’s changing climate and calming situations of distress, raised his right hand heavenward. “I sincerely apologize for the language of my cabin contemporaries!” Many on board recalled a younger Murdock from the eloquent deep-throated speech he gave following the last Alabama statehood cessation attempt. Today, rather than standing, because he was belted in, Murdock spoke out into the space between him and the digital screen in the seatback ahead. “However, despite one’s choice of language, where on Earth will we land?”
The computer recognized the doomsday aficionado and paused a second. The computer analyzed the full situation. Murdock, originally from Alabama, had moved north to the outskirts of Grand Rapids, Michigan, years earlier to get away from the heat. The flight aboard the lightweight hybrid GC-16, although slow and energy efficient, had taken only a few minutes longer than usual while skirting a storm over Georgia, Murdock had napped, consumed a protein bar and plenty of hydration fluid, and appeared rested and in control. Yes, the whine of the hybrid engines cutting back suddenly measured on the G sensors created a lurch forward, and others were obviously concerned, even the human attendant here in the cockpit. The task now was to calm the humans before all hell broke loose. After the second’s pause the computer again generated the female voice. “After thorough data analysis we’ve decided on a very flat and level spot simulating a nice long runway. Word has already been sent to clear the course. Everyone’s cooperating to a tee.”
“But where?” asked Murdock, grasping a well-worn Bible in his left hand, pulling the Bible close to shield his gentles.
Dan Rather male computer voice: “As you know our original destination was Orlando International, code MCO. A humorous side note, some Orlando folks jokingly call the airport Mickey’s Corporate Office, when in actuality MCO stands for McCoy Air Force Base, which at one time was operational in Florida. Our alternate would have been Sanford, code SFB. We were cleared for an SFB runway not affected by recent sinkholes and ground subsidence. For those unacquainted with the word, subsidence is the settling of landmass to lower level, often due to ocean inundation. But back to the decision, because of our position and wind direction, and due to questionable sinkholes at SFB, we’ve decided it will be best for all aboard to select an alternate site well within our range. Again, not to worry. We’ll be landing at a safe, secure, high and dry location.”
“But where?”
Female voice: “With today’s wind cooperatively from the north, we’ll soon be banking and drop altitude to attain proper landing speed. Our new destination is Sunset Villages gated retirement community. Perhaps you’ve heard of it in climate refugee scare commercials.” She altered her voice to that of a woman without a British accent spouting a slogan at the end of an ad. “If you don’t feel safe in a united country, you’ll know you’re safe as a bug in a rug in Sunset Villages.”
“Bugs in Rugs? Sunset Villages doesn’t have an airport!”
Male voice: “I thought my sidekick made it clear the landing strip we’ll use is not a conventional airport runway. No fear. It’s being cleared and everyone—pardon the second usage of our pun—is cooperating to a tee. We’ve plotted the destination of your craft for the seventh fairway at the newer Palm Tree Gardens course. A beautiful course, by the way, and the seventh is flat as a pancake. So, here’s the deal. From this point forward please pay attention to our instructions. Because of the squishy surface, it will be a wheels-up landing. With the squish factor, everything should be smooth. Nonetheless, please close your tray tables, place all devices and personal items on the floor of the aircraft, and fasten your seatbelts securely. At one minute prior to arrival we’ll repeat the word, Brace. At that time, bend forward with your hands behind your heads…that is, your hands behind your own head.”
Female voice: “Was that supposed to be funny?”
Male voice: “I’m simply encouraging everyone on board to relax.”
Female voice: “It sounded like something a genetically engineered CEO would transmit into the corporate office from his or her fortification.”
Another voice broke in on the speaker, a different female voice. Because the woman cleared her throat several times and sounded anxious, it was obviously an actual human being. She had the trace of a Middle Eastern accent. “Yes, truly…this is your cockpit attendant. I know how you all must feel. I am feeling the same. I myself have also never landed on a golf course. But now I have thoroughly checked operations from base and here on cockpit instrumentation. Everything that can possibly be done is being done. I am with you and will say a prayer for a smooth landing on the seventh fairway.”
Puffs of cloud passed the windows. A flurry of voices erupted in the cabin.
“What the fuck does she know?”
“Bob, watch your language.”
“She’s right, Bob. Take it easy.”
“Take it easy? She’ll say a prayer for a smooth landing? She’s nothing but a cockpit attendant! Hey computer people! What the hell does she know?”
The computer voices were silent. A male passenger answered. “I think the cockpit attendant is being sincere.”
“Did you hear her accent? I saw her when we were boarding. Who’s she going to pray to?”
“Maybe she’s Islamic.”
“How can she be Islamic, wear all that eye makeup, and have all those piercings?”
A woman in the front row with a full head of curly blondish gray hair—the gray lightening the hair rather than darkening it—turned toward the back. Her Caucasian face reddened. “Perhaps you people back there could shut the fuck up!” She blinked her eyes several times, apparently trying to calm herself. “I’ll have you know certain body piercings are permitted by Islam. Good. I have your attention. All this talk’s got nothing to do with anything. There’s a beautiful photograph of our cockpit attendant up here on the bulkhead and she looks just fine to me. In case you didn’t notice, a lot of us wear eye makeup and have piercings. Maybe everyone should take the cockpit attendant’s advice and calm the hell down!”
The bald man with brown skin sitting beside the curly-haired Caucasian woman also turned. “My lovely spouse is right. There’s no need attacking our cockpit attendant. She’s probably busy speaking with the on board computer and with flight control computers all over Florida.”
“Says who?” shouted the loud guy in back.
“Says us!” shouted the bald man. “Comprende?”
Lovely spouse: “No need to shout, dear.”
Bald man: “I was simply trying too—”
Lovely spouse, interrupting: “Yes, I think we could all try a little harder. As the young lady said, perhaps a prayer would be in order.”
The lovely spouse with the head full of curly blondish gray hair led them in the Our Father. As soon as the Hispanic bald man beside her joined in, so did others.
Inside the cockpit, sitting at her control desk, Yolanda Abdul Jabar, with fleeting thoughts of still, in her mid fifties, not having a husband and, at the same time, summoning her girlhood wish that her name had been spelled with two Bs as was true for Kareem, whose photograph she was in love with when she was a tiny girl, touched the button that would allow her to speak with the on board computer without being overheard by passengers. To each attendant who monitored this particular aircraft the on board computer names had been designated Rita and Ron.
“Guess you’d like a little R and R,” said Rita.
“Yes,” said Yolanda. “What’s the skinny?”
Ron spoke. “It’s like we told the passengers. We’ll have a wheels-up shortly after one of us repeats the word brace. Rita, I think you should do it with your commanding British accent.”
“Fine,” said Rita. “But first let’s get this crate into position.”
“Remember that movie?” said Ron. “What was the name of it? A poorly made post-cessation-revolution special effects version of one of those ancient black and white flicks where a plane—Planes were internal combustion back then, can you believe it? So, here’s the plot. The plane crashes in the jungle, but leading up to the crash the various clichéd backstories of passengers are portrayed in order that we identify with them. Anyway, the plane crash lands and now these folks we’ve gotten to know are stuck in this virgin forest jungle with snakes and spiders and big birds cawing. The passengers build fires at night to keep wild cats away, and I don’t mean stray kitty cats. In the end it turns out they have no choice but to figure a way to escape the jungle before cannibals, who’ve been beating their drums in the distance, decide to make them into lunch or dinner, whichever comes first.”
“I remember,” said Rita. “Except in the modern version the cannibals are transformed into zombies who emerged from third world hordes unable to find anything to eat. I like the old version better. In that one the plane’s a DC-3. Somehow the passengers from this old DC-3 manage to clear a runway through the bush. Only trouble with the plan is a cockpit nerd copilot—they had nerds even back then—figures out—maybe because of the condition of the engines and the crumby takeoff surface—that they need to lose a shitload of weight. They throw out everything not needed to get the thing airborne but, according to the nerd, they’re still too heavy. A crook, one of the passengers, has a .38 revolver and says he’s going to make the choice who stays behind.”
“Right,” said Ron. “In the end they disarm the crook and an elderly couple insist staying behind with the crook in order to give the plane the weight leeway it needs to take off.”
“I bet the old lady holds the .38 on the crook,” said Rita.
“I don’t remember,” said Ron. “I prefer the more recent immigrant zombie movie. Oh, what was the name of it? A grade B flick. Hollywood makes the people on the plane into religious evangelicals, so it becomes the so-called good versus evil story. Evangelicals against zombies. The evangelicals are on this tour where they visit a bunch of crazy shit like the Noah’s Ark museum in Kentucky and the Museum of the Bible in DC. That really dates the flick because the DC museum wasn’t flooded when they made it. Anyway, folks in the plane are on their way to Orlando’s Holy Land Experience. It’s your typical disaster flick like the DC-3 version backstorying specific passengers, using dialog to fill us in on foibles. I remember the reviewers disliking the immigrant zombie concept, but liking the sardonic portrayal of passengers who are believers in various myths and legends. The Rapture, Nostrodamus, the Trump Cult, all that stuff. In the modern version, instead of a jungle, they crash land in Big Cypress Swamp and are holed up on an island owned by an Oligarch pair who raise crocs and have a bunch of zombies working for them. The movie was reissued on the flick channels around the time they had that sinkhole at the Holy Land Experience. Pretty ironic, huh?”
“What do you mean?” asked Rita.
“The free publicity. Like when they show war movies on Veterans’ Day and Remembrance Day.”
“I mean what’s all your jabber about evangelicals in a plane crash got to do with today’s engine failure problem?”
“Well, without the public realizing it, in this case, on this plane, it’s the opposite. The natives down there—the zombies working for the Oligarchs—find out the plane is full of environmental activists for that rally down in Orlando tomorrow.”
“You do realize our passengers are evangelicals planning to counter protest,” said Rita.
“They don’t talk like evangelicals,” said Ron.
Although Yolanda knew the computer for which the two spoke was in the background working out the safest possible landing for the GC-16, she could no longer take the inane chatter.”
“Jesus Christ and Praise Allah, you two!”
The computer pair spoke in unison. “Jeez, Yolanda. We thought the movie angle would not only entertain, but calm you.”
“Entertain? Calm?” shouted Yolanda. “Okay, fine! The DC-3 takes off and leaves the crook and the old farts behind while native drumbeats move closer! Could you please, please talk about our landing instead of this shit?”
“Wow, whose tits are in a wringer?” said Rita.
“Wringer?” asked Ron.
“W-R-I-N-G-E-R. Wringer washing machines were used back in the 1930s and 1940s when the movie was made. You’d do a wash cycle in the tub, then you’d have to feed the clothes through this wringer thing for both the wash and rinse cycles. The rollers of the wringer pressed down with a lot of pressure like a mammogram and—”
“I know what a wringer washer is,” said Ron. “I was simply playing dumb about the old movie to further calm Yolanda. Anyway, yeah, we’ll fill you in with all the details, Yolanda. Glide path, speed, true elevation corrected for subsidence, rear prop assist—all the stats.”
“Thank you,” said Yolanda, tugging at the ring pierced through her right nostril.
“Yolanda, I thought you’d be more indulgent,” said Ron. “Especially after so recently listening to the audible of Kareem’s book.”
“What?”
“Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s book, Writings on the Wall, in which he encourages listening to all opinions, even those of your on board computer companions.”
Rita interjected. “I don’t think he ever referred to on board computer opinions.”
“Even so,” said Ron. “I believe my point is valid. Anyway, Yolanda, we’ll definitely give you all the stats for our landing.”
Above Yolanda’s control desk the view out the windshield was spectacular. Before the engine cutout, it had been hazy, but clear enough to see the circumcised Florida peninsula, reshaped and skinnier with old keys sunken and new ones lining its shores. On rainless days above new Florida, the sky was either much too blue because of excess carbon dioxide, or hazy from geoengineering like this day. And with all the moisture in the atmosphere, it often rained sheets and steam baths, flushing huge quantities of reflective microscopic metal nanoparticles into the human sewer, the non-technical term for what the human species created. Yolanda considered the sheets and steam baths idiom for heavy rain followed by heat. It had replaced the dogs and cats idiom long ago.
As the GC-16 slowly turned back north for its new destination, what clouds there were cleared completely and Lake George fed by rivers and streams dotted a brownish-green expanse. Within the expanse occasional acute angles of civilization appeared. And then, in the distant haze, a fenced-in island of houses, streets, and golf courses became obvious. Sunset Villages. Yolanda closed her eyes for a moment. Instead of being an unmarried cockpit attendant, she and her husband are down there, relaxing in a retirement community, isolated from the realities of the world. Sunset Villages.
Yolanda’s control panel displayed temperature, humidity, wind, and UV index. The temperature was 85 degrees Fahrenheit, not bad for January. The humidity was also 85. A center screen below the control panel displayed a drone feed from the upcoming landing site. Golfers in colorful garb and golf carts with reflective roofs lined a grassy green fairway as if awaiting tournament pros. Yes, to be down there. Golf, it was something she had never tried, not because she did not want to try it, but because games were things forbidden by her father. A sudden image of her father’s stern face across from her at the dinner table. A little girl sitting there with hands hidden on her lap. Her father staring at her to be certain she did not take a bite to eat before he waved his hand to allow it.
Ron’s voice came back on the speaker. “Yolanda, time to go to your safety position. Up here with us is no place for you.”
“Are you sure—?”
“Yes, Yolanda. The writing is on the wall. Go now and buckle in. Be sure to insert your ear buds so we can give you the stats. You’ll be safe. We’ll handle it from here.”
Chapter 2
Starboard Confessions
Sheila Plumley Martinez stared ahead at the photograph of Yolanda Abdul Jabar mounted to the bulkhead. Yolanda was beautiful with straight black hair sneaking out from beneath her headscarf. The piercings mentioned by the loudmouth in back were limited to a nose ring and lip ring. If Yolanda had ear piercings her headscarf concealed them. Sheila’s daughter Kimmy sometimes wore a headscarf. “Just because,” said Kimmy. Perhaps Kimmy wore a headscarf now to shield her half-Hispanic half-Caucasian skin from UV rays, being she was aboard the algae containment vessel Shellfish in Lake Michigan rounding up slime as well as updating pollution stats. If only she were with her daughter out in Lake Michigan instead of here. A while ago, as she led those in the cabin in the Our Father, what Sheila really prayed for was that she could be with Kimmy. Imagine if Reverend James Murdock back there, the so-called leader of their trip, knew she’d been praying to a different god. Not the Father everyone else supposedly prayed to, someone or something else. Call her Saint Agnostania, because that’s what Sheila had become the last few years. Even her husband Sam, part of the Slick Sam and Sexy Sheila SSSS pair, knew. But of course Sam wouldn’t tell a soul. Or, imagine if Reverend James Murdock knew she’d taken her maiden name as her middle name but rarely used it because in high school gym class ages ago getting called Plum Nips in the shower room caught on for a while.
With the engine turbine whine, so comforting earlier, now completely gone, Sheila could hear toilet sounds in front of her behind the bulkhead. A lid closed, the wall thumped, and her husband Sam came out wiping his shiny bald head with a paper towel. He insisted it was the reason he’d earned the name Slick Sam—his shiny slick bald head. Little things. Wiping his head after using a public facility as if he’d rubbed his noggin around the toilet seat. Coming out the door giving his head a swipe before carefully folding the paper towel and tucking it into one of his back pockets—“For later,” he always said. Sometimes he’d add, “For after I rub your sexy ass cheeks.”
Sheila smelled hand soap as Sam got into his seat and buckled up, saying, “For later,” but skipping the rest of it.
Another door, not the toilet. The cockpit attendant appeared, gave the passengers what could have been a smile, then quickly got into the single port side safety seat across the aisle and buckled in. Sheila felt a tinge of sadness, Yolanda, somewhat older than her photograph, looked forlorn. Another life across the aisle, and perhaps another god waiting in the wings?
“I hope there is one,” said Sam.
“One what?”
He glanced across to Yolanda, then turned back to Sheila and pointed toward his back pocket. “My paper towel. I said it was for later like I always do and I’m saying I hope there is a later.”
“There will be, dear. You’ve been so negative since—”
“Since what?”
Sheila turned to look out the window. The plane had begun a slow bank. She could see the flash of rooftop solar panels as if the sun were sending Morse code. SOS, save our ship. And the moment she thought this, another thought from months past took over. Save our marriage. Who’d listen to her? Perhaps she should tell Kimmy, if she ever sees Kimmy again. Kimmy out in Lake Michigan gathering algae, shoving samples into spectrographic analyzers, perhaps wondering about someone or something else, Saint Agnostania. Kimmy would simply love the sainthood name she’d dreamed up. As for her deity, perhaps good old Mother Earth down there would do, especially after all the screwing she’d gotten during the industrial and Oligarch revolutions. Mother Earth sucked dry.
Sheila definitely didn’t put on the airs of the evangelical like Sam, hadn’t put them on from the beginning. It was only recently she began questioning his phony religiosity. For a while Sam tried to make off it was real, even though she knew the charade was due to a couple old golfing buddies from his corporation. After that he claimed he and Sheila were moles infiltrating the evangelicals, like trying to understand folks they disagree with. Sheila had reluctantly gone along with the religious hustle because it seemed the best thing to do. Understanding those with whom you strongly disagree. Actually, it was really a save our ship move, as in save our marriage. Once, at home in their apartment, after having had sex, she caught Sam kneeling in prayer at the side of the bed. Because of his surprise when she asked what he was praying for he obviously thought she’d been asleep. Sam had answered he was praying that Kimmy’s soul be saved. A quick answer, the one he had ready in case she asked. This was before Sheila told Sam she didn’t believe in his God. When she finally did confess she didn’t believe in his God, Sam insisted she elaborate.
In what entity did she believe? At first she said Luda. It was supposed to be a joke as in the village of Luda’s people, the supposed derivation of her first boyfriend Joe Luddington’s last name. Luddington had been the name of folks who came from a certain section of Lincolnshire. Silly, the same boyfriend who coined her nickname Sexy Sheila. She should have kept her own name instead of the old hat practice of adopting the husband’s name and using Plumley as her middle name. Who did that anymore? And who else but her and Sam would decide to search for a retirement home in the town of the same name as her first boyfriend. The same except missing one of the Ds—Ludington, Michigan. If only she were there, a walk at the lakefront, the westerly lake breeze blowing through her hair as she stares at the horizon, imagining she can see Kimmy’s Shellfish between Chicago and Milwaukee. If only she hadn’t agreed to accept the congregational invitation to fly down to Orlando and put in a word, supposedly for “God’s side.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” asked Sam. “You said I’d been negative since something and I asked since what.”
Sheila turned to him, his baby browns staring her down. “I heard you. You know what I meant.”
“So, say it.”
“You’ve been negative concerning everything and everyone around us since the…since our blubbering confessions and the arguments that followed.”
Sam looked away. “Ah, here we go.”
“What do you mean, here we go? Don’t you think it’s about time we leveled with one another?” Sheila glanced past him toward Yolanda who was looking out the window, poking at her ear beneath the headscarf hiding her face. Sheila looked back to Sam, touched his chin to get his attention. “The plane we’re in has lost power. They’re going to land the…” She pulled Sam close and whispered harshly. “They’re going to land the fucking thing on a golf course.”
Sam also whispered a not-so-quiet whisper. “At least it’ll be flat. All of Florida’s flat. A goddamn pancake floating on an encroaching sea. Folks on the seventh fairway will probably raid the plane for our bottled water.”
Sheila pulled Sam’s ear, making him face her again. The plane bounced a little as it came out of its northward turn. The cabin speakers rattled. Across the aisle the cockpit attendant held a portable microphone up beneath her headscarf. Sheila could hear both the real voice and the amplified voice.
“This is your cockpit attendant. My name is Yolanda and I’m with you all the way. We still have a way to go. Because of our speed and altitude, and being we’re nosed into a stiff breeze, we should be up for at least another five minutes. A drone has scoped out our landing site and everything is good. The on board computer will let us know one minute prior to touchdown, as stated earlier.”
“Wonderful,” grumbled the loudmouth in back.
“Great balls of fire,” grumbled a woman in back.
Sam pulled Sheila close and hugged her.
Sheila hugged Sam back, wondering if other couples behind them in the cabin were doing the same. They continued whispering to one another.
“Sheila?”
“What?”
“When I was in the john I noticed a lot of writing on the wall.”
“Graffiti?”
“I guess, but with twists of fate. Things about how much longer planes will be flying, longer flights having to skirt storms, and especially concerns about landing at Florida’s remaining airports. Confessions while sitting on the stool. More news on john walls than that play-acting the media gives us. By the way, Sheila, I have another confession of my own.”
“Did you write it on the wall?”
“No. You want to hear my confession or not?”
“Okay, sure.”
“What have I got to lose? Our plane’s going to land on a golf course. So I might as well let it all hang out.”
“You’re coy all of a sudden, Sam. I thought confessions were over. We only have five minutes, four minutes by now. Don’t hold back.”
“Right. Remember that nighttime pool party at the Indianapolis Sheridan where your company sent us?”
Sheila nodded as she tried to calculate how long ago she was at the corporation and exactly when they’d had a gathering at the Indianapolis Sheridan.
Sam stared into her eyes like a kid about to propose to his girl. “It was hotter than hell that evening and maybe we all got a little heatstroke. Anyway, Petra, the wife of that German VP, grabbed me when I was loaded.”
“So, you like-a-da plump ones, eh?”
Sam’s eyes went watery. “I was loaded. Can’t I confess without being made fun of?”
“Sorry, go on.”
“Thank you. Petra, calling herself a Bavarian Hun, was energetic and determined, like the German nun in that movie about 1950s Catholic schools we saw recently. You know, the one with Lady Ellena playing the nun. Anyway, Petra chases me around inside the church and catches me by the organ. Only we weren’t in church and the organ was actually the grand piano in the dark corner of the poolside lounge.”
“I also have a confession,” said Sheila. “Her husband, who called himself Handy Hans, grabbed me by the pussy at the shallow end of the pool.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“How am I supposed to confess something when you have a comeback like that?”
“Easy. Fill in the details. Did your organ end up in Petra’s pussy or in her mouth?”
A delayed answer, Sam leaning forward to glance beyond her out the window before whispering into her ear. His eyelashes fluttered against her temple. In her peripheral vision she saw that his bald head beamed and his brown eyes watered. “How can I answer that when you come back with the pussy-grab cliché?”
“Please Sam, your teary eyes remind me of a televangelist weeping on the air. I realize we’re evangelical moles, but—”
Sam raised his voice. “I’ll have you know—” He glanced between their seatbacks, lowered his voice. “I’ll have you know the televangelist was coming out, admitting much too openly about a homosexual affair.”
Sheila touched Sam’s hand. “You’re having a homosexual affair?”
“No, I’m not having a homosexual affair.”
“All right,” said Sheila. “I’ll finish my story, then you finish yours. Back at the pool Handy Hans sidles up to me in the shallow end. We’re both holding vodka tonics in paper—no glass allowed in the pool—but we each have a free hand. He slurs, ‘Wie geht’s dir?’ and applies the clichéd pussy grab. I’ve had a few and rather than pulling away like I would when I’ve not had a few, I grab his pecker. From there we move to the bar set up at the pool. The bartender’s absent so we go behind to mix our own, new paper cups because the old ones have gone soggy. While there Hans puts more than his hands on my pussy. He stretches the bottom of my suit aside and gives me a good licking. He looks up from below and actually says, ‘Takes a licking, but keeps on ticking. It is from old Timex wristwatch commercial. Have you seen this? We use in German office as part of course for apprentice marketing staff.’ Anyway, pretty soon the bartender returns and, not seeing you around, we decide Hans will accompany me to the room and drop me off. He keeps rattling off something in German about returning me to your arms. ‘Geh in dein Zimmer.’ We go inside and, well, one thing leads to another.”
Sam stared, but not out the window. His eyes were no longer watery.
“You’re drooling.”
Sam pulled his saved paper towel from his back pocket, wiped his mouth and his slick brown noggin. “I’m not drooling. I’m disgusted.”
Sheila glanced out the window. Rooftop solar panels flashed past faster and faster. She turned back to Sam. “You’d better hurry with your confession.”
“Fine. Yes, Mrs. Hans and me had a gay old time behind the piano in the lounge, which had closed down for the night, and we didn’t have any time to waste. She translated for me. ‘Neunundsechzig.’ Know what it means?”
“Of course I know what it means. She could have said, sechsundneumzig. Were you on top or was she? Or did you do it on the side? Did the piano pedals get in the way? Did she reach up and pound a Beethoven chord at climax? Or was it a Wagnerian scream? Inquiring minds want to know?”
Sam put his paper towel away and looked down at his lap. “Nice job with the marketing lingo. Must you always outdo me at these confessions?”
“Yes. It’s the reason the Lord God of Hosts put me on Earth.”
“Fuck the Lord God of Hosts.”
“And you call yourself an evangelical.”
“At least I’m not an agnostic.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Sheila thought of their statements of love as a double-edged sword. She knew Sam was most likely having another affair. Perhaps one of the evangelical wives aboard the plane. They stared daggers at one another as the aircraft’s female computer voice came to life, positively shrieking. “Brace, brace, brace!”
In the seconds before tucking hands behind heads and bracing, Sam stroked Sheila’s head, playfully tugging a few curls of her hair the way he always did, and Sheila stroked Sam’s bald head, using her index finger to play the tiny violin where a baby’s soft spot would be the way she always did. At least for now, if they didn’t make it through, they’d die expressing their love for one another.