January 13, 1985
New York City
Upper West Side
The Crack Palace
Unsteady, nearly reeling from the impact of at least two toxic drugs, I shuffle away from the barred window and into the center of the dead-end brick alley. On one side, a chain-link fence. It’s endless, up and up even more. I lean back, too far, lose balance, fall.
I lie there, the gun in my hand, one inch from my head. I can see the barrel, the smallest of holes in the muzzle looking like the Grand Canyon.
The drug peaks. Not the cocaine, not my friend cocaine. The other drug, the one they added to kill me. Kill me? Can’t be. Why do that? Confusion. Sweat.
Heart beating so fast.Images crawl into my mind, then out from it, paste themselves against the brick wall, on the snow, on the sky. My personal graffiti. The laugh comes out as a cross between a gasp and a screech and shocks me. I blink, the gun moving up and down in my field of vision, blurred: double-gun, bubble gum, trouble drug. I want nothing more than to shoot the crawling things inside me. My mouth is dry, dry like the pocked surface of the moon. I shiver crazily, think someone is shaking me from head to toe. “Stop!”
My heart races, but at a distance, a wild horse careening far away over an endless plain. My full awareness focuses now, inches in front of me or miles away, on a beautiful giant sculpture of shining edges and scary wire curves. I try to breathe, but suddenly spasm and flop like a fish. “Ohhhh…”Surprise at the pain and cramping, even through the shield of cocaine. The cocaine is like home.
But something is underneath, something is clawing through the cocaine. That is my home invader, coming to destroy me. Is there something, anything, I can do? More cramps in my stomach: sharp, unbearable. A retching sensation, but no sound, like death in a silent film. Finally, a gasp, exhalation but no release.
Lying on cold freezing concrete. In front of me, a raised crack in broken pavement… or a range of mountains. Beyond that, something! (Desperate concentration, must break through!) Something important. Floating patterns, what? What to call it, it seems incredibly important, key to my survival. I know this, can’t name it. A maze of words, visualized words, threatens to engulf me: amusement park, beach, bomb fragment, playground. Metal. Metal wire. Fence. Eureka! I rub my eyes, try to move. Why move?
A sudden moment of clarity hits like an arctic blast. I remember. One thought: fence. Get away! The building, right behind me, is bad. I did something, not good. I must leave. The drug hits again, a sudden squall of insanity. I fight back, feel my arms, dead on the ground. Weightless, uncontrollable. I think energy into them, waves of energy, see the waves building, set an arm down by my face. Push! Nothing. Got to move! Then resistance! A scrape, gun on pavement. Standing!
I look around, triumphant, Hillary on Everest.Turn my head, wavering, unstable. Ahead of me, around me, all brick, all around me, brick. I turn to the fence, fence! I start to fall, catch myself. What to say to the me who is falling, failing? I don’t want to die!Why not? The question, like a cartoon’s balloon text. Is death so bad? Die and you’ll see Ellie. She’s already there, waiting!“Ellie?” I growl out the word, think: To see her, yes! Bad thought. Need to survive. Chris, then, my son! You have a son. No dying! I shake again, harder, as some uber drug devours me inch by bloody inch. I hold on to the thought of my son. Concentrate, hard as I ever have. I stand, doing the junkie waltz.
Swaying and panting and muttering and grinning. The drug fighting me like an army corps, advancing on all fronts. Sending me shooting through bizarre parodies of the simplest physical motions: Elementary Standing 101!I laugh, keep laughing. Laugh while I look at the endless fence. Miles high. So high!
Look for any other escape, one more time. Nothing. Look again at the building wall, stumble to it, thwack my head against the brick, so hard! Crack my hand against the wall. A metallic twang. I look, see the gun in the hand. Still holding it? Good! I like it, this gun. Tuck it into my pants, feel like a badass. Ready to roll.I push like a swimmer from a seawall and move slowly through waves of resistance and incompetence toward the fence. Other side of the fence, a… playground. To my right, no, the other right, I see the edge of the building, right over there. Beyond it, reflections of lights: blue and red and white, bright, colorful. They blur and run like paint over mounds of… snow?Of course!
Snow. I see that everything is covered with white. It’s Magic, big M! My son’s bestie. Know! Beautiful, dangerous, snow!
I am climbing. (What? What?) Clinging to corners of chain-link. One hand grabs a bar, iron bar, pole, iron pole going up, up, up. Body leaning back now in deathly relaxation. No! I fiercely pull back in. Climb, climb like a stupid monkey. No monkeys this stupid! Arms pull up, let go, pull up. Legs follow, toes looking for traction.Mindless, foot after foot, hand after hand. I feel the crossbar in my hand, my feet jammed through fence openings. Reach up again. Nothing above it. The top? How high? Where am I?
A second blast of clarity, drug fog recedes like the sea before a tidal wave. I see the fence, the playground, the swiveling lights of police cars, snow, snow everywhere. Down so low. Me. So high, see so much. Too much. I look straight down.My God, so high in the air, so hard down there.Ohmygod!
Ohmygod!The drugs surge. Wait! How did I get here? Why am I here? What is this? When did it start? My mind tries to answer everything at once: One month ago.
Just one month ago! And I see the person I’ve seen so many moments, waking and sleeping, ever since the crash. Ellie… My god, Ellie!
The drugs counterattack, a blitzkrieg of charged particles driving straight through me like a lance. My mind whirls away into the night, just one of the snowflakes driving past. I hold on to the fence for dear life. Hapless, hopeless and freezing in the slicing north wind.
One Month Earlier
December 13, 1984
New York City
Upper West Side
Outside, a jackhammer cracked concrete. The early afternoon light filtered through the bedroom window and mixed with the desk lamp’s yellow glow.
On the desk, a large manila envelope, wrinkled from its passage through the mails. Sent from my wife’s old office, with deeply felt condolences.
Spilling from the flap end, smaller envelopes, each addressed to Ellie. Sent to me, as if I could forward them to her. Two letters proposing new film projects came from independents in Pittsburgh and Dallas. News of Ellie’s death had not yet reached them. An official-looking response from a New York state agency informed Eleanor Bigelow that there had indeed been an inquiry regarding her credit status. To obtain a full listing of disclosed information, the form suggested contacting Credit Worthy Inc. There was a reference to the Freedom of Information Act. That notice was dated a week before Ellie’s death.An expensive beige envelope from Beverly Hills looked like it should be perfumed, but it wasn’t. It contained a quarterly bill for a storage space, a Class C locker in a secure corridor. The bill was surprisingly hefty, but it was not clear that it related to the size of the locker or more to the level of security. The envelope and paper quality had the feel of a company dealing with the ultra-rich. Not us, last time I checked. A formal thank you note was auto-signed by a Ms. Logan, Deidre. Deidre added a cute personal note: “Hope you are satisfied with your security!”I wasn’t even aware we needed security; so no, satisfied was not the right word.
I looked again at the small pile of letters, each with its strange message, almost as if they were all written in a foreign language.
Would this ever get easier?
Today was five months to the day since the formal announcement had gone out to the press.
Also Lost, Eleanor Bigelow
In accord with the guidelines of the Federal Transportation Safety Board, AmAir Ltd. confirms the loss of Eleanor Bigelow on AMAir Flight 234 on June 15, 1984. We regret the cautionary delays associated with analysis of flight operations and the ongoing investigation at the accident site. In cases where remains are not immediately identified, these delays are essential to the integrity of the process. Ms. Bigelow is survived by her husband, Philip and son Chris. Loss of life from the incident now totals 224. Three cases remain unresolved. AmAir remains committed to the integrity of this process and to the ongoing support we offer the families of our passengers.
The release followed a week of intense back and forth conversations with airline staff and their legal counsel. If you can call what happened conversations.
The back and forth concerned the fact that they could not identify her body. Five days in, they were down to not identifying ten bodies, a fact they shared very reluctantly. That, they then explained, was the wrong way to put it. They didn’t have the bodies to identify. Just body parts… and ten names on the manifest.
All this followed the message left on my answering machine late the night of the crash, asking me to call the airline. Urgently, but with a false-positive kind of approach. Like there was a prize awaiting the lucky first caller. “Rush to your phone!”
Calling in was a long, sad process. Long because no one wanted to talk to me and everyone shuffled me along. I needed to call a hot line. Oh, the hot line was not yet activated. But call this number. But not that particular one, because they would only deal with reservations, not disastrous loss. Sad because I had a terrible wrenching feeling about what was going on. I was less clear than I should have been about my wife’s itinerary. I would have happily picked her up at the airport anytime she came home from a business trip, but Ellie had this thing. “Phil, I’m taking a cab and then you’re going to look up and surprise! Princess Charming has arrived back home.” That very first message on my answering machine: “Your wife may… um… we have a question. Please call us at…” The sick feeling. Another message, from one of my wife’s associates. “Was Ellie coming through Dallas like last time? There’s some kind of news flash about something… bad. Is she there with you? Have you heard from her?”
And downhill on and on, but so agonizingly slow. Just a little clearer each day, in the worst possible way. Until the day the announcement went out. And the flood of sympathy, empathy, condolence came rushing in like a tide, like a tidal wave. “The waste, I can’t believe it.” “Heartbreaking, she was a shining light.” “You were so fortunate.” Washing over me, pushing me along in its unstoppable current. Making me wonder, how could I have let her go?
The jackhammer was long silent and the harsh streetlight slashed panel after panel of white stripes on the bedroom wall and floor. The dream came to me even though I was desperate to stay awake.
***
The house stood on a hill. Trees surrounded it: eucalyptus, scrub oak, grasses that made dry sounds in the wind like miles of prairie. It was quiet there, serene even, overlooking Hollywood but high enough for the sounds to drift and die.Inside was the master bedroom where Ellie and I slept. Across the hall was Chris’s room, with the angled ceiling he loved so much. The living room had a stone fireplace and a picture window with a view of city lights. The log siding spoke of a history as a hunting cabin back in the 20s. The small and steep backyard held a patio and a cleared patch of red earth in which Ellie grew vegetables. From the front yard a path led down the hill to a quiet dead-end street. Right at the bottom was the kindergarten Chris would soon attend. We lived a perfect life. All of us were happy. Sometimes we had problems, sometimes we argued. That morning, it was about her traveling: Chicago, New York and Dallas earlier that month, New York again that day.It was early morning. She still wore her favorite nightgown, an old flannel shirt of mine. The soft fabric ended at slim tan thighs. Her cobalt eyes sparkled even though she was barely awake. She pursed her lips, the dark red lips that never needed lipstick. “Philip. It is okay, isn’t it?”I could have told her not to go, right then, or when she went in to pack, or later as she paused at the door. Standing there, I felt my resentment fade away. Of course it was all right. And anyway, what could I say that she wouldn’t have an answer for? Ellie had always been the faster one, she’d always burned a little brighter. She looked back once from the door, waved and walked out.In the dream I always yelled after her: “Ellie!” In the dream she never heard.
Suddenly, I am Ellie. I am entering a plane. A steward smiles and looks at my ticket. “Ms. Bigelow. Good to have you back. Have a good flight.” He gestures down the aisle to a seat. I put my hanging bag on the rack and proceed to 11G.It is the seat I always ask for on a DC10, the first row of coach. There is leg room, better service, sometimes children to play with. There is a child on this flight, sitting next to me. Two years old, younger than my son. As we take off, she looks out the window. In fascination. We enter a steep banking turn to head west towards our stopover in Dallas and she comes to some sudden appreciation of our position, hanging in mid-air in this strange metal room. The child’s eyes open wide in a second’s panic and she wails. Her mother looks surprised, glances to see if I have done something.
I smile sympathetically. “She just realized where we are, I think.”The mother shakes her head. “Not at so young an age.”
I think the girl understands precisely what is wrong about flying. Her face squinches. I hold out my arms.
The mother regards me and with a little sigh of relief hands her youngster to me. I circle the girl and make flying noises. Not the wave of noise surrounding us, the harsh antiseptic sound of forced air and loud growl of engines, but the magical ones we imagine, the sounds of freedom and surprise. The girl relaxes and then smiles.
On the takeoff of the Dallas/LA segment, the child again looks apprehensive, then peeks at me. I smile and make buzzing noises. She grins and reaches out to pull my hair.
Over the Grand Canyon, the seatbelt light goes on, joined immediately by the no-smoking sign. A jarring drop, a jolting rise. Loud static erupts from the overhead speakers. Faintly I can hear… someone yelling in the cockpit? The little girl looks at me. So does her mother. The captain’s voice breaks through the static. “Folks, folks. We have a problem. Put your seatbelts on.”
A man, a full-grown man seated twenty rows backs, screams. “Fire! The engine!” He points, people try to stand, fall back.The plane twists, nearly rolls. The little girl screams and beats at her mother, whose mouth is wide open as she strains for breath. I faintly hear the pilot. “If you pray, this is the…” His voice fades in the growing uproar: static, people, air, metal. Oxygen masks fall among small pieces of baggage and pillows and blankets. I grab for the girl as she tumbles past me into the aisle.“Jessica!” her mother screams. The plane shrieks and groans, suddenly a living, breathing, wounded thing. There is an explosion of flame behind, a screaming, sucking of air and rising heat and noise and a thundering background subsonic rumble that builds in volume like a flash flood of water in an underground tunnel, and people tumble past me in seats wrenched from their fittings as I hold desperately onto the little girl and the mother desperately holds on to me and the wave approaches. I cry and scream “Chris! Philip!”
The plane crashes, leaps, hits, slides, plows, disintegrates, sloughing off people and baggage as it slows, slows, slows.
The dream refuses to end. I am in a sylvan field, no longer Ellie. I stand under a full moon. I somehow know this is the field where the plane crashed, disintegrated. But there is no wreckage. Just a virgin field spread with wildflowers. In the middle, a large pile of wood limbs, sticks and twigs. Snowflakes are falling from the sky, the sky without clouds. Snowflakes, scattered high up, glinting, then thickening, concentrating, flowing down towards the wood pile. Not snowflakes. Images. Pictures. My images, my life. The house. The hill. The trees.Images land on the woodpile. There is a flickering light now, deep inside the pile. A flame in what is becoming a bonfire. Images begin to smoke, curl, bubble, boil. The bedroom and the bed. Stone fireplace. Picture window. Backyard. Garden. Path. Nightgown. Soft fabric. Tan thighs. Cobalt eyes. Dark red lips.Bursting into flame. Smoke rising. Ash flying. Ellie leaving. Burning up. In an empty field. Watched by one lone figure. Alone.
When I wake, I am reminded, as I am every day, by every single thing around me, by the solitude of the morning light, by the emptiness of every molecule around me: She is gone.
***
I did what I was supposed to do; got breakfast ready, tousled my son’s hair, hugged and kissed him like I meant it. Took him to school, and then returned with a copy of the Times, ready to read about NASA, Koch, Steinbrenner; even the weather forecast could act as a distraction.
As if by magnetic force, I ended up at the same desk, looking at the next message from my past. A plain white business-sized envelope, addressed in a scrawl I recognized as Ellie’s. Something she had mailed to herself. Inside was one picture, a snapshot of a girl. It was a Polaroid, flat-looking, slightly out of focus. A young girl, shot from the waist up, nude… might be nude altogether, no way of knowing. She was inside a room, looking at the ceiling? Her hair stringy and sweaty.
Around the girl’s neck, a necklace—no, a rope. No, a collar. A studded collar? Did she look in danger? Dazed, disengaged? I put the photo down, face down. Took a deep breath, got a cold washcloth, noticed my hand was shaking.The photo on the desk, face down. Almost glowing with some weird energy. Some scrawled numbers on the back. Date? Address? Mailed to herself. It seemed incredibly unfair, receiving these disturbing messages and being unable to simply call out and ask Ellie what they meant.
I put the letters and photo in the desk drawer. I looked over at the manila envelope. It seemed to be pulsing and I could see the corner of yet another envelope peeking out. It was a Pandora’s box, and its small, ugly creatures were already loosed on my world.
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