Eight Miles High

Dumplings of small white clouds hung in the sky. The familiar tone signaled and Jack’s gaze turned back to the plane’s interior. The Fasten Seatbelts sign flashed on. The cabin shook. I’ve felt a lot worse than that on the shuttle, Jack thought. Puke bad on the shuttle. Roller coaster bad. This was nothing. On the international flights you were always on a big jet, though—a 747 in this case. They were hard to shake. Jack scanned his fellow passengers on the upper deck. None of them seemed particularly bothered by the small kick in the pants Mother Nature had just delivered.Jack smiled at the pilot’s announcement. "Ground Control has informed us that we’ll experience some turbulence up ahead. Nothing to worry about. The 747 you’re flying on is perfectly safe, but I do ask that you return to your seat and fasten your seatbelts. We’re currently flying at 40,000 feet. That’s eight miles high."

And when you touch down, Jack thought.

Again the tone signaled. The Fasten Seatbelts sign went dark. The predicted turbulence had not materialized. Or if it had, the 747 had sailed right through it. Patroni would’ve been proud, Jack thought. Somehow, thinking of the "Airport" movies at a time like this must represent some kind of perverse, black humor, Jack thought. He grimaced, wishing the pilot sounded more like Charlton Heston.

They were still more than an hour away from Boston. Jack sighed. He shifted his seat back down and leaned back, closed his eyes and dozed.

Suddenly, Jack was awake. The captain was warning again of more turbulence but Jack was thinking that maybe it had already hit. The cabin shook. Down, down and then sideways left-right. Down once more, harder this time. The brunette attendant struggled up the aisle, checking that passengers’ seatbelts were fastened. The curtain was open so Jack could see the two blonde attendants checking first class. They finished and moved to the jump seats and buckled in.

The plane slewed hard to the left. Jack’s head whipped in a horrifyingly equal and opposite direction. The engines howled.

Jack thought, Where’s that bastard Patroni when you need him?

The intercom was quiet and the attendants in their jump seats looked nervous. The one on the right seemed to be studying the exit door. Jack did not see these as good signs. He had always been afraid of flying out of proportion to the statistics indicating he was more likely to be eaten by a shark—or struck by lightning—or whatever it was that was more likely to kill him than a plane crash. But unlike the imagined suddenness of a car crash, Jack found that his life was not flashing before his eyes so much as unspooling like a movie.

While spinning out of control in his Camry Jack might’ve had just moments to consider one or two mistakes and make a sudden conversion to a non-specific theism—God! Help me! But at something less than eight miles high there was time to consider his sins; to categorize them by relationship: child, sibling, spouse and parent. Had he disappointed his children the way his parents had disappointed him? At least he would not live to see his children disappoint him the way he felt sure he had disappointed his…

He considered the humiliations and regrets of childhood, deconstructed his early sexual history and found that he still wished he had punched Laura in the face. He wondered if everything would’ve been different if only he’d spoken to that girl on the bus to Syracuse when he was seventeen. He imagined the vacation that he and Kate had always planned but put off in favor of other priorities. Perhaps the roof should’ve waited in favor of the trip to Italy.

Perhaps?

As he occasionally did while drinking his second cup of coffee in the office, he decided that he was not much worse than most of the people he knew, though not much better. He ticked off the names of those he would gladly sit next to if there actually was a Hell of fire and brimstone.

And when he ran out of names he had still more time…

Jack looked around the cabin. The older couple two rows up and across the aisle embraced, each grimly determined to be strong for the other. The young man in the seat behind them wept. He made eye contact with Jack briefly and quickly looked away, embarrassed by his lack of courage. Jack felt nothing but sympathy toward him and reflexively smiled reassuringly but the gesture passed unseen. It was too loud and too late to tell the young man that it would be all right.

Having computed the sum of his life and double-checked his math, Jack realized his presence in seat 74C would not generate much buzz in reports of the crash. He would simply be one of the one of’s. One of however many passengers and crew flying on Flight 11. One of however many Americans. One of however many New Englanders. One of…

Jack startled awake to the attendant’s face just inches from his. A dream, Jack thought. He exhaled slowly. It was time to choose between the beef, the chicken or the mushroom risotto. That’s all.

The cabin shuddered and then shook violently. The attendant clutched at the seat in front of Jack, regaining her balance. She grabbed the yellow plastic cup that hung from the open overhead compartment and held it in front of Jack’s sleepy, uncomprehending face. "Please put your oxygen mask on now!" she shouted above the rising whine of the jet turbines.

The plane heeled over and down. The attendant tumbled along the aisle stopping just short of first class, Jack’s oxygen mask still clutched in her hand.
—May 15, 2005