The Art of Crash Landing (3 page)

I shrug. “I don't usually answer when I don't know who's calling.” This is the truth, but not the whole truth. There's more coming.

“You don't usually answer my calls either.”

And there it is.

Bracing his hands on the table he pushes himself up. I grab the other side to hold it steady. At the edge of the concrete slab he upends his beer, pouring the last half into the weeds.

“You should at least set up your voice mail.”

But then I'd have to listen to messages
is what I think, but I don't say it. Instead I say, “You're right.”

“The lawyer wouldn't tell me much, Mattie, but he did tell me that your grandmother is dead.”

A quiet space opens between us. He's watching my face for the reaction I'm struggling not to show.

“Your mother's mother,” he adds.

I don't know what he wants me to say, so I just nod. For years Queeg has been after me to contact my maternal grandmother, and for years I've been putting him off.
Ignorance is bliss
, I'd remind him.
Sometimes it's just ignorance
, he'd reply. I guess now it's too late to find out which one of us was right.

He tosses the bottle at an oil-drum trash can, and it goes in even though the can must be thirty feet away. “With your mom gone, it leaves you as the closest relation, so I think you've inherited something. Maybe you should give them a call.” He steps down off
the slab and starts toward his trailer. “I'm going to bed. The spare linens are in the cabinet under the TV. Don't forget to lock up when you come in.”

The light is fading but there's enough reflecting off the clouds to make out some seagulls in the distance. They're so far away that they look like little checkmarks, the way I used to draw them when I was a child.

“Hey, Cap . . .”

He stops and turns back. “What?”

“What was her name?”

“Tilda Thayer. Her name was Matilda, too.”

I feel a prickle as the hairs on my arms stir, and I shiver, just a little. I'm wondering if this is the first time he's told me her name, or if it's just the first time I've listened.

“Where is area code 918?” I ask.

“Gandy, Oklahoma. Where your mom grew up.”

“Seriously? Who grows up in Oklahoma?”

He tilts his head to one side, and even though it's too dark to really see his face, I can imagine the look of exasperation that's surely there.

“Everybody grows up somewhere, Mattie.”

I can't resist the setup. “Growing old may be mandatory, but growing up is optional,” I say, even though Queeg and I both know that's not completely true. Not everybody gets a chance to grow old.

He nods, a little sadly it seems to me, then climbs into his trailer and he's gone.

T
wo years ago, I came and stayed with Queeg for a couple of days over Christmas. At the time, I was living in a crappy duplex with two almost-strangers who rented me their couch for a-hundred-fifty a month. One of my roommates had finally gotten visitation rights, and her two kids were coming to spend a few days, so she needed the couch. She offered to pay me ten bucks for the two nights, but I told her not to worry about it. But later, when I noticed that I was out of cigarettes, I rounded up and slipped a couple packs of her Camels in my suitcase. I figured that was the best of both worlds—she felt like I was being generous, but I knew I wasn't, so there was no resentment on my part. Win, win.

It was the first time since I was seventeen, when Queeg left my mom, that my stepfather and I had spent more than a couple of hours together, and at first it was awkward, the two of us breathing the same air. Then we both got drunk and opened presents. We laughed about the crazy shit my mother used to pull. His only Christmas music was a Lawrence Welk album, and I wasn't about to let that happen, so he put on an old Gordon Lightfoot cassette
tape and we sang “The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald.” Looking back at that Christmas Eve, it may be one of my favorites ever.

The next morning, my head still thumping, we drove down to Fort Pickens and parked at the last public beach lot. He pulled a big plastic tablecloth and a couple of old blankets from his trunk, and I followed him with the thermos of coffee down onto the sand. He'd slipped his loafers off in the car and was wearing socks, but I'd left on my sandals and wished I hadn't. Three steps, and the cool sand had worked its way between my skin and the leather. By the time we'd spread out the plastic and sat down, my feet had an angry pink outline of every strap.

I'd always loved an empty winter beach, and it was nice sitting there, wrapped up in a blanket, listening to the waves, my face to the wind. The seagulls swung overhead, their paths tracing lazy ellipses. As I watched they tightened their circles until we were the center. We had nothing for them, but they didn't know that.

After a few minutes Queeg broke the silence. “Penny for your thoughts.”

Since my thoughts at that moment were of the kids sleeping on my couch and how much I hoped they weren't bed wetters, I felt confident replying, “You wouldn't get your money's worth.”

“I was thinking about your mom,” he said.

Of course he was. This was her favorite spot on the beach, the one she always used to pick if we got here early enough: just far enough over that the noise from the parking lot wasn't obvious, but not too far for a woman and a little kid to drag a cooler and an umbrella. Later, when Queeg was with us and he carried the umbrella, we could easily have gone further, where the sand was cleaner and the crowds thinner, but my mother still stopped here. She'd turn her back to the ocean and lift her towel, letting the wind straighten the stripes, before lowering it onto the sand.

“I always felt a little funny about how few people came to her memorial service,” he said.

“I know.” It hadn't surprised me it was just the two of us, her doctors, and the staff of the funeral home. But it had surprised my stepfather.

“I don't know that she would have wanted me to,” Queeg said. “But I called and told her family.”

I looked over at him, confused.
Her family
, I remember thinking,
is sitting right here
.

“I talked to her mother,” he added. “But she said she couldn't come to the service. She didn't tell me why.”

I turned my attention back to the sea, hoping he hadn't noticed my surprise. Whenever I'd asked my mother about her parents, she'd said they were gone. It was clear that my asking about them made my mother unhappy, so at some point I stopped asking. Eventually I stopped caring. Or at least that's what I told myself.

I didn't turn to look at him when I said, “She told me her parents were dead.”

He paused so long before replying that I thought the wind had taken my words before they reached him, but finally he said, “She was wrong.”

I remember thinking that was an interesting way to say
she was lying
.

He put his arm around me. “That August, it was so hot and so crowded . . .”

I smiled. I knew what afternoon he was talking about—
the
afternoon, the last time we would ever come to the beach together. Mom and me and Queeg—we'd finally finished fixing up the old Malibu, and we came out to celebrate. The day had been perfect. We'd filled the cooler with cans of Orange Crush and brought the old umbrella even though it had gotten too rusty to lock open.
We propped it up, leaning on the sand, to provide a tiny puddle of shade where we could crouch, drinking from the icy cans.

But Queeg was still talking. “I had to wait until dark.”

And that's when I realized we were remembering two different August afternoons. Mine was the last truly happy memory I have with my mother. His was a last memory, too.

“It was windy so I couldn't really scatter her or she'd have ended up in the dunes. I had to carry the bag into the ocean and open it underwater.”

Watching the waves rolling on the sand, I imagined the scene, Queeg easing out into the water, plastic bag clutched to his bare chest. I closed my eyes, but the imagined memory was still there. “She died in December, Queeg,” I said.

“I kept thinking you'd come down so we could do it together.”

My heart broke a little when he said that, and I whispered, “Sorry.”

It was partially true. Although I wasn't sorry I'd missed dissolving my mother in the salty waves, I really was sorry that he'd waited for me, that he had depended on my help. He should've known better.

We were quiet for a minute, but Queeg was watching me, at least I think he was. I made sure my eyes stayed focused on the horizon, where I watched . . . something, bobbing in the waves. Was it a boat or a buoy? It's hard sometimes to tell the difference. I knew Queeg was waiting for me to say something, for me to explain why I wouldn't drive three hours to watch my own mother laid to rest.

A gull landed near the water's edge and picked its way up the sand to only a couple feet from where we sat.

“Shoo,” Queeg said, waving his hand at the bird. “Get out of here.” It hopped back a few feet, but continued to watch us with one flat eye, unblinking and as gray as the water.

“Flying rats,” Queeg mumbled. I still wasn't looking at him, but I heard him sigh.

The bird heard it, too, cocking its head to one side and taking a hopeful hop closer.

“If only your mom were here,” Queeg added. At the time I thought he was talking about how my mom always brought food for the gulls, but now I'm not sure. He might have been talking about everything else.

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?”

Again, I nodded, keeping my face turned toward the sea. I didn't want him to see how the wind was making my eyes water.

I
'm awake by six fifteen. The light coming in from the edge of the curtains hits me right in the face, and the Herculon upholstery on Queeg's couch is itchy right through the sheet. There's no point in trying to fall back asleep. When I step outside, I see a few other residents up and about, but Queeg's car is gone—either he's already left to pick up Minnie, or he's gone to get doughnuts. I hope it's doughnuts.

I drag the lawn chair that's next to his trailer out into the sun and sit down. Then I turn on my phone to see how many missed calls came in last night from Nick.

There are many.

I call him, smiling as I listen to his phone ring and ring and ring. I'm waking him up. He hates that.

He answers with a groan.

“Good morning!” I use my most annoyingly cheerful voice.

I hear another groan and the rustle of bedsheets. I can imagine him sitting on the edge of the bed, sheet puddled in his lap, the morning light shining on his freshly waxed chest.

“Where is it?” he asks.

“Where is what?” I already know but don't want him to know that I know.

“The guitar strap.”

“Which guitar strap?” I know this answer, too. Nick owns two guitar straps, but only one of them would make him call me fourteen times in one night. I'm asking because I want to make him say it.

Nick makes a soft angry-animal sound and then says, “My collector's-item-near-mint-condition-brown-leather-guitar-strap-signed-by-Jimmy-Page-and-Jeff-Beck.” As always, he blends the description into one long word.

He's extremely annoyed. Excellent.

“Oh,
that
strap. I haven't seen it in a while.” This is true-ish. I haven't seen it since I tossed it in my car yesterday afternoon.

“Bullshit. I know you have it, and I want it back.”

“Why would I take that sweaty old thing?”

“Because it's worth a bundle.”

“Really?” I took the strap to mess with him, but now I'm wondering how much, exactly, is a bundle?

“I'm gonna call the cops.”

I laugh. “You'd better hide your bongs and air out that apartment before you let a cop inside.”

There's a short pause during which I picture Nick taking an experimental sniff, and then he says, “You're at your stepfather's, aren't you?”

“Nope.” Even as I say this, I see Queeg's white Toyota approaching slowly from the north. He's not alone in the car.

“I know you are. I'm getting in my car right now.”

“Don't bother,” I tell him. “I'll be long gone.” It's three hours from his bed in Tallahassee to this folding chair in Pensacola.

He switches tactics. “Don't be that way, baby. You know you belong here with me. Come home.”

My throat tightens. There's comfort to be found in the familiar, even when the familiar isn't all that great. But the thing is, once you've lived with someone, you learn their little tricks. Nick can do a pretty good
nice
, but it's not the real deal. His is a thin, watery nice, a niceness-au-jus drizzled over a great big asshole sandwich.

“I don't think so,” I say.

He starts some name-calling, but by now Queeg has parked his car, so I end the call before Nick has a chance to get warmed up. I stuff the phone back in my pocket, and my loneliness back wherever it came from.

Min He is in the car with Queeg. This is going to get interesting.

M
in He and Queeg were an item before he met my mother, so when he broke it off with Min He to date and then marry my mom, Min He, rightly I suppose, thought of my mother as a man-thief. And since I borrowed two hundred dollars from her three years ago and never paid her back, she thinks of me, rightly again, as a regular thief. Queeg has tried, on several occasions, to pay her back on my behalf, but she won't hear of it. I haven't given her the money either, partly because two hundred bucks is a lot of money, and partly because it's kind of fun having this miniature Asian lady so angry with me. Her skin is wrinkled and dark like an apple that's been left out in the sun, and she must wear dentures, because when she frowns—and around me that's all the time—her face folds up like a little brown fist.

As she climbs out of Queeg's car, she looks everywhere except at me. She's holding a box of doughnuts and when Queeg walks
around the car to take them from her, she resists him for a second before letting go. He must have told her they're for me. He's carrying one of those little cardboard caddies for drinks in which there are three large Styrofoam cups. He holds it up and Min He pulls one out, then he walks to me holding the doughnut box in one hand and the drinks in the other.

“Good morning, Minnie,” I say. She hates it when I pronounce her name like Mickey's gal.

“I am not as the mouse. My name is Min He, stupid girl.”

I grin. There's something about this woman that always cheers me up. “And my name is Mattie, not
stupid girl
.”

She narrows her eyes. “You are both.”

Well, she's got me there.

Queeg lifts the drink caddy toward me. “There's a coffee and an orange juice.”

My mouth starts to water; the pregnancy queasiness is starting up again. I take the juice and snag a chocolate frosted out of the box.

“Did you know that orange juice and Slim Jims mixed together tastes just like Thai food?”

He looks at me for a second and then asks, “Do I want to know how you discovered that?”

“Nope.” I shove about a third of the doughnut into my mouth and manage to chew most of it and swallow before asking, “Do you have a computer and a printer?”

He shakes his head but glances at Min He. She knows what's coming and starts shaking her head
no
before I even ask.

“Oh come on, Minnie,” I plead. “I only need it for five minutes.”

“No way. You will find some way to steal—”

“I will not. Tell her, Queeg. Tell her that I've changed my ways.”

“Her lips,” Min He says, mysteriously, and then gestures with her hand holding the coffee, sloshing some onto her knuckles. “Ouch!” she adds. “This coffee is really hot.”

“What about my lips?”

Queeg removes the lid from his cup and takes a cautious sip. “These Styrofoam cups work well.”

I try again. “What about my lips?” I turn to Queeg. “Did she say,
lips
?”

“They're better than the ones at Starbucks,” Queeg says.

“There are lips at Starbucks?”

He laughs. “The cups at Starbucks aren't as good. The coffee isn't as good either.”

“Burnt,” Min He says.

“Is somebody going to tell me what's—”

“She was trying to say that your lips were moving, Matt.”

Now I understand. For years Queeg has said that he knows when I'm lying because it's when my lips are moving. I guess he shared that running gag with his girlfriend.

“Et tu, Minnie?” I ask.

Queeg laughs, but Min He frowns, pointing at the doughnut box. “I only ate one, stupid girl.”

I wolf down another doughnut while Queeg negotiates with Min He. I am finally allowed to go into the office trailer, supervised by Queeg, to use the computer. It's not until I explain that I want it to print off driving directions that she relents.

I fire up the computer and then call back that 918 number and listen to their answering machine.
Barber, Smith and Franklin, Attorneys at Law
. I plug Pensacola in one slot and their address in Gandy, Oklahoma, in the other and print out the directions. Queeg stands over me as I do this, watching but not saying a word. I'm sorely tempted to download some porn just to annoy Minnie. That's probably why he's standing there.

He waits until I've grabbed the paper from the printer, and we've gone back outside before he asks. “You're going to Gandy?”

“Yup.”

“Now?”

Min He is standing a little distance away to make it seem as if she's giving us privacy, but I see her interest pick up when she hears us talking about me leaving.

“Why not?” I reply.

“You're crazy.”

He's right, of course. I am crazy, but I need to take my crazy somewhere else. Camping out on Queeg's sofa is going to make all of us crazy.

“Nah,” I reply. “Just irresponsible. Undependable. Erratic, even.”

Min He snorts at this, and I'm pretty sure she mutters, “And stupid.”

“First you won't answer their calls, and now you're driving a thousand miles without knowing what they want?”

“Eight hundred,” I tell him.

He points to my car. “You're driving eight hundred miles in that?” Now he's getting mean.

“It's an adventure.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You complain about going to the grocery store.”

“I complain about the shopping part, not the driving part.” I am lying. I complain about both parts.

“But it's Sunday.”

“I'll crash at a cheap motel there tonight. That way I can be at the lawyer's office first thing tomorrow to pick up my check.”

“That's not how it works,” he says. “There's going to be paperwork.”

I wave away his concerns with my hand. I've stopped listening.
I understand that driving to Gandy today is a dumb idea, but Nick might well be on his way over here, and that's a confrontation I'd like to avoid. Besides, it's a cool, breezy morning, I'm riding a glazed-doughnut sugar rush, and I'm feeling a little loose and what-the-fuckish. Getting out of here sounds so good I can't stop myself.

“I'll be fine.”

“What about your job?” Queeg is saying. “Don't you have anything booked next week?”

I think about my almost empty calendar and how easy it's been to watch my dead mother's business die. I didn't kill it, or at least it wasn't premeditated. One day I just didn't bother to return a call about a booking, and when I realized how much I enjoyed not having to take those pictures, I ignored the next call, too. My phone doesn't ring all that often anymore.

“Nope.”

He frowns. “Your mother stayed busy when she ran the studio.”

“I'm not my mother.” This is my stock answer for any comparison to her. Unfortunately, it's not ringing as true as it once did.

Queeg sighs and then fumbles in his pocket, pulling out his wallet. I can see that there aren't many bills inside.

“Stop. I've got money.” I don't mention that it isn't much and I'll need to put it all in my gas tank.

He pulls out the bills and glances at them. “Fifty-eight. Here.”

He's holding the cash out toward me, and I'm shaking my head. “You should go shopping with that money,” I say. “You need a new cardigan. You're starting to look like some down-and-out Mr. Rogers.” I stick my finger through the largest of the holes in his threadbare sweater. “And stop smoking before you set yourself on fire.”

“Don't lecture me,” he says. “Either take this or I'm going to
throw it away.” He points to the trash barrel and Min He frowns. She's not going to let that money stay in the trash can.

I take the cash. “Fine. Thank you. I'll pay you back.” At this I see Min He warming up on a speech regarding my promises to pay back loans, but before she can get started I turn and walk to Queeg's trailer. He follows me inside.

“Is there any way I can stop you from doing this?”

“Nope.” I get my toothbrush from the bathroom and pick up yesterday's underwear off the floor.

He shakes his head and sighs. “You're a force of nature, Matt.”

“What? Like gravity?”

“More like an earthquake.”

I brush past Queeg, walk back out of the trailer and down the steps, heading toward my car.

My stepfather is right behind me. “A hurricane.”

“Oh, come on—”

“Tornado, tsunami—”

“Okay, okay. I'm a disaster. I get the picture.” I toss my stuff in the car and then walk back to Queeg. He's standing there with his arms crossed over his chest. He's acting like he's angry, but I recognize it for what it is. He's worried.

“I'm going, and that's that,” I tell him. “I know exactly what I'm doing.” That's a lie, and he knows it, but I can see in his face that I've won. Even Captain Queeg can't stop a hurricane.

Instead, he gives me a wry half-smile and says, “Your lips are moving.”

And then there's one of those uncomfortable silences where we both realize that a Hallmark-card moment is just around the corner unless somebody acts fast.

“I'd better get going,” I say. “And if Nick comes by looking for me, don't tell him where I've gone, okay?”

Queeg sighs again and shuffles his white old-man sneakers in the gravel. “I have a bad feeling about this, Matt.”

When he looks up and his gaze meets mine, I take a moment to study my stepfather, the slight sheen of sweat on his skin even though the morning is cool, the way his cheeks have gone from lean to sunken, his wracking cough that rattled through the trailer all night. Maybe he should save one of his bad feelings for himself.

“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. It's one of your favorites, Queeg.”

He's shaking his head.

“I'll be fine,” I tell him. “I'll be back in a couple days.”

He opens his arms, and I step inside. His familiar smell—wool and menthol cigarettes and Old Spice aftershave—makes my throat ache. “I'll call you tomorrow morning,” I promise.

He doesn't reply so I pull back and look up at his face. He's not looking at me; he's looking at Min He. “Make it tomorrow afternoon,” he says.

“What's going on tomorrow morning?”

“Just another damn doctor's appointment.”

I'm not worried until I glance over at Min He. For once I see an expression on her face that's something other than rage. It's fear.