Comfort and Joy

To find a hiding place. Close the front door and lock it,
click.
At the end of the driveway, Dan's luggage sat amid foliage that was still green in December. He had locked the blue door; the house beyond lay empty and silent. Now the journey was beginning, and he needed to find a hiding place. Shelter. But beginning, and he needed to find a hiding place. Shelter. But instead he headed to the street where a taxi was waiting. The driver, in dreadlocks and yarn hat, stepped out of the car and loaded Dan's bags into the trunk. He dipped his head politely, highhat and dreadlocks shivering. Danslid into the back seat.

"And where do you go?" the driver asked, settling behind the steering wheel. Dan answered and the driver shifted the taxi into gear. The house vanished, obscured first by interlaced limbs of cedar, later magnolia, a deep greenveil.

To the airport. Dan counted the bounces of the driver's hat, ballooning against the roof of the car. Dan to the airport. With suitcases. The driver had understood everything, what more to do but sing? So he sangsoftly, ina baritone, some snatchoftune Dan sometimes heard plainly and that at other times was lost in other sounds. Dan watched the dark column of the taxi driver's neck, hearing the low song like a purr, and answering even more softly with singing of his own, as the shadows of bridges and sweeping curves wheeled over his face and arms. They rode through Atlanta in a cocoon of glass and light, orderly traffic surrounding them on all sides, the stately proceeding of many lanes of highway south through the city. Moving away from the towers and canyons ofdowntown.

"Youare home for the holydays,"the taxidriver said. "Oh, yes,"Dananswered.
The man grinned and nodded his head. "Every body is going

to the airport. Allday. I drive back and back."
The car swept down the road, encountering less traffic than
Dan had feared. Once the vehicle raced a commuter train
moving unimpeded along its track, the train vanishing as the
curve hurled it out of sight. Dan had a feeling, matching the
gradient of asphalt to the gracefulneck of the taxidriver, that the
whole world was in motion all at the same time; that it was good
to travel along slashing inclines; that it must be good, sometimes,
to travelat all.
Sometimes. But this was Christmas, and Dan was going
home.
home.
At the airport Ford had already arrived and was waiting in the
zone where automobiles let off passengers and luggage. Ford
stood on the walkway, somehow calm, wrapped in his black
overcoat, tall and bareheaded. Black hair shining. Already
standing at the curb, already waiting, when Dan had guessed he
would be late.
Dan lay his hand on the door latch. The driver opened his
door and got out. Danopened his door and got out. The cold air
chilled his face as he waited for the driver to open the trunk. The
driver lifted the first of the bags and Ford reached for it; the
driver looked at Dan, who said, "It's allright."
So Ford grinned and took the luggage to the curbside
baggage check, and Dan paid the taxi driver but watched Ford,
moving so easily in the crowd. Ford had already tipped a porter
to help him with the bags and this transaction was completed
with such dispatch that he had the claim check stapled to his
ticket before Dan had pocketed his taxi change. Ford folded the
tickets and slipped them in his coat. He stood serenely waiting.
"Youdidn't think I would be here, did you?"
"No. I was sure you'd be late."
They plunged into the airport, through the hiss of electric
doors into the echo of North Terminal, where a gallery of
unfortunates, who did not have Ford to arrange their travel, had
stillto stand inline, check their bags, and fiddle with their tickets.
Ford steered Dan by the elbow through a crosscurrent of offduty Marines who were wandering through the ticketing arena,
bewildered in tight jeans. The flight was an hour away, no hurry.
Ford removed his gloves. Wandering, Ford calmly surveyed the
crowd, the midway of the Hartsfield aerodrome. Dan kept
beside himand studied themas well.
Ford said, as theywere walking, "I liked his hair." "The taximan? So did I."
Ahead, lines were forming at the security checkpoint. Ford
directed him toward one of the lines, then stopped. Dan placed
his bag, flat, on the belt. He pictured his underwear, files, pens,

his bag, flat, on the belt. He pictured his underwear, files, pens, lozenges, comb and gumwrappers under radiologic illumination. Beyond the gate Ford lifted the bag and touched Dan's elbow again. With the drone of voices and near collision of bodies on allsides, Ford guided Danforward. Dansaid, "Ford."

Danwatched Ford's hand. Now, descendingonthe escalator, the fine hand gripping the black rubber railing. "Nothing," Dan said. "I said your name."

"Did youforget who I was?"
"No."
The voice closer, uncurlinginhis ear. "Sayit again." "Ford."
Ina plushscarlet bar theyfound a table overlookingthe whole

panorama. The bar itself was pleasantly crowded but not full. Dan slipped neatly into a silver-armed chair. Ford spoke to a waitress, thenjoined Danat the table.

Watching Dan, he stripped off his overcoat, laying it across the table's third, empty, chair. Ford wore no jacket, only the white shirt and tie. The waitress brought drinks and Ford sprawled in the chair. "Just as well you stayed home from the hospital. The place was dead today."

Danfingered his glass. "Always is, at Christmas."
The two men touched glasses and sipped. Ford yawned, letting his head hang back. He closed his eyes. "I do feel like I'm gettinghere,"he said. "AmI?"
"Youare."
The young man smiled. The boy inside himdid the same. Eyes stillclosed, throat stilllonging to be touched, there, on that pulse. Danasked, "Did youget anysleep last night?"
"No. But I got a shower."
"I thought yousaid the place was slow."
Ford yawned again. "Was. But I had this sick kid." "Bad?"
"Yeah."Sipping. The tone said,
Don't ask.
"Little guy. Nine years old." Ford met his gaze, briefly. "I'm okay, just tired. The kid's goingto pullthrough."
The bar itself was filling up with servicemen heading home for the holidays, young couples, husbands taking a break from families to gulp a beer. Two accountants were discussing the end-of-fiscal-year procedures at their places of employment. On the television over the bar flickered the comforting images of intensive Christmas marketing.
"You run around on me last night?" Ford was still slumped in the chair.
"Well, no, I stayed home packingjust like I said I would. Why do youalways check onme?"
"I don't always check on you." Ford lifted his empty glass. "I'mstillthirsty. Youthink I have time?"
"I doubt it."
Ford rolled the empty glass on the tabletop and leaned over the table. They stood to go. Ford left money and so did Dan; Ford saying, "You could let me buy you a drink."Dan pretended not to hear, laying bills in place. They crossed the concourse as the gate attendant announced that the flight to Raleigh-Durham was readyto beginpre-boarding.
Ford, being a McKinney, had bought first-class seats. Dan had a suspicion that the McKinneys of Savannah, Georgia, had bought first-class and only first-class tickets on every form of conveyance since the Ark, and that no McKinney had ever so much as walked through coach. In Ford's case, since he was not merelya McKinneybut a McKinneythe Third, and a doctor, the questionhad simplynever come up.
Whereas the Crells of North Carolina had only recently taken to air passage at all, and were in fact unfamiliar with most forms, and eventhe idea, oftravel.
Ford settled Dan by the window, himself on the aisle. The spacious first-class seat always surprised Dan at first, and he settled back with a sigh into its soft embrace. He was feeling the warmflushofliquor, a slow creepingofcomfort throughhis arms and legs. Fromclose bycame Ford's mellow voice. "Here's your boarding pass. I'mgoing to callthe hospital. Don't let these folks take offwithout me."
Dan closed his eyes and waited. Ford was gone until the last moment, the plane full, final boarding already called, Ford slipping through the cabin door and sliding into his seat, smelling of the cold wind in the jetway. "I got through," Ford said, as the flight attendant blinked. Ford rubbed his hands together. "It's gettingcold outside."
He was happy. Meaningthe phone callhad gone well, and the child was probably okay. Dan had learned only to ask when invited to do so. But this time, Ford leaned close again. "The kid's doinggreat. Just great."
The doctor settled his head back against the seat and closed his eyes, grateful for any moment of rest. The jet lurched backward, and the flight attendants began their demonstration of seat belt function, oxygenmask protocol, and the paths to exits.

Lights were dimmed for evening takeoff. The fasten-seatbelt sign glowed overhead. In the forward cabin, one reading lamp poured down its tinted cone of light. Beyond the windows, below on the murky tarmac, glowing lines of blue and orange paraded past the taxiing aircraft. The jet rolled forward more or less smoothly. Nearby, on the interstate highway, rivers of red and white lights traced sweeping arcs beneath the soupy clouds into which the jet would soon hurl itself. Beyond the runway, parking lots unfurled in bluish haze. The jet lumbered toward its point ofdeparture, engines flaringand subsiding.

The pilot turned the nose into near-darkness at the end of the runway. With some pilots there was a pause here, a moment of runway. With some pilots there was a pause here, a moment of stillness before the jets rose to takeoff pitch. With other pilots— like the one tonight—there was no such pause; there was only the jet turning, creaking weight quickening forward, faster, down the slight incline of the early runway and then lifting. Into the sky stepped the machine, the groan of metal subsiding, wheel carriages lifting into their beds. The aircraft tested the air, found that its ungainly shape made sense at this speed, and climbed. Over the roofs ofEast Point into heaven.