— The fuck guy? says Janet with a half-giggle.
— Yes. Well, he starts saying that he’s sure, stocksure, five hundred and fifty percent, that it’s a projection, that someone is projecting it up on the sky, and maybe it’s a giant white sheet, and the image is coming from the helicopter, it’s being beamed across from some sort of camera or other, he had all the technical terms.
— A projection?
— Like a TV thing? says Jacqueline.
— Circus, maybe.
— And I tell him that they can’t do that from a helicopter. And he looks at me, like, Yeah, lady. And I say it to him again: They can’t do that. And he says, And what do you know about helicopters, lady?
— Never!
— And I tell him I know a hell of a lot about ’copters, actually.
And she does. Marcia knows a hell of a hell of a hell of a lot about her helicopters, her hell of helicopters.
She has told them, in her own house, on Staten Island, that Mike Junior had been on his third tour of duty, routine fly mission over the coast at Qui Nhon, bringing cigars to some general or other in a Huey with the 57th Medical Detachment — cigars, can you imagine? and why the hell were the medevacs flying cigars? — and it was a good helicopter, top speed of ninety knots, she said. The figures had trilled off her tongue. It had something wrong with the steering column, she had said, and had gone into detail about the engine and the gearing ratio and the length of the two-bladed metal tail rotor, when what really mattered, all that truly mattered, was that Mike Junior had clipped the top of a goalpost, of all things, a soccer goalpost, only six feet off the ground — and who in the world plays soccer in Vietnam? — which sent the whirligig spinning and he landed awkwardly, sideways, and he smashed his head awkwardly, broke his neck, no flames, even, just a freak fall, the helicopter still intact; she had played it over in her mind a million times, and that was it, and Marcia woke at night dreaming of an army general opening and reopening the cigar boxes, finding bits and pieces of her son inside.
She knows her helicopters, yes she does, and more’s the pity.
— So, anyway, I told him he should mind his own damn business.
— Indeed, says Gloria.
— And sure enough the captain of the ferry, looking through his binoculars, he says to everyone, That’s no projection.
— That’s right.
— And all I could think of, was, Maybe that’s my boy and he’s come to say hello.
— Oh, no.
— Oh.
— Lord.
A deep swell in her heart for Marcia.
— Man in the air.
— Imagine.
— Very brave.
— Exactly. That’s why I thought of Mike Junior.
— Of course.
— And did he fall? says Jacqueline.
— Shh, shh, says Janet. Let her speak.
— I’m just asking.
— So the captain swings the ferry out so we can get a better look and then brings the boat into dock. You know, it bumped against the river wall. I couldn’t see anything from there. The wrong angle. Our view was blocked. The north tower, south tower, I don’t know which, but we couldn’t see what was happening. And I didn’t even say another word to the guy with the ponytail. I just turned on my heels. I was the very first person off. I wanted to run and see my boy.
— Of course, says Janet. There, there.
— Shh, says Jacqueline.
The room tight now. One turn of the screw and the whole thing could explode. Janet stares across at Jacqueline, who flicks her long red hair, as if tossing off a fly, even a flyman, and Claire looks back and forth between them, anticipating an overturned table, a broken vase. And she thinks, I should do something, say something, hit the release valve, the escape button, and she reaches across to Gloria to take the flowers from her, petunias, lovely petunias, gorgeous green stalks, neatly clipped at the bottom.
— I should put these in water.
— Yes, yes, says Marcia, relieved.
— Back in a jiffy.
— Hurry, Claire.
— Be right back.
The correct thing to do. Absolutely, positively. She tiptoes to the kitchen and stops at the louvered door. Too much farther in and she won’t be able to hear. How silly to say I’d put them in water. Should have delayed somehow, bought more time. She leans against the door slats, straining to hear.
— … so I’m running in those old mazy side streets. Past the auction houses and cheap electronic joints and fabric stores and tenements. You’d think you’d be able to see the big buildings from there. I mean, they’re huge.
— One hundred stories.
— A hundred ten.
— Shh.
— But they’re not in view. I get glimpses of them but they’re not the right angle. I was trying to take the most direct route. I should have just gone along the water. But I’m running, running. That’s my boy up there and he’s come to say hello.
Everyone silent, even Janet.
— I kept darting around corners, thinking I’d get a better view. Ducking this way and that. Looking up all the time. But I can’t see them, the helicopter or the walker. I haven’t run so fast since junior high. I mean, my boobs were bouncing.
— Marcia!
— Most days I forget I have them anymore.
— Ain’t my dilemma, says Gloria, hitching her chest.
There is a swell of laughter around the room and, at the moment of levity, Claire moves back across the carpet, still holding Gloria’s flowers, but nobody notices. The laughter ripples around, a reconciliation song, circling them all, making a little victory lap, and settles right back down at Marcia’s feet.
— And then I stopped running, says Marcia.
Claire settles on the arm of the sofa again. No matter that she didn’t take care of the flowers. No matter that there’s no water reboiling. No matter that there’s no vase in her hands. She leans forward with the rest of them.
Marcia has a tiny quiver in her lip now, a little tremble of portent.
— I just stopped cold, says Marcia. Dead smack in the middle of the street. I almost got run over by a garbage truck. And I just stood there, hands on my knees, eyes on the ground, breathing heavy. And you know why? I’ll tell you why.
Pausing again.
All of them leaning forward.
— Because I didn’t want to know if the poor boy fell.
— Ah-huh, says Gloria.
— I just didn’t want to hear him dead.
— I hear you, ah-huh.
Gloria’s voice, as if she’s at a church service. The rest of them nodding slowly while the clock on the mantelpiece ticks.
— I couldn’t stand the mere thought of it.
— No, ma’am.
— And if he didn’t fall…
— If he didn’t, no …?
— I didn’t want to know.
— Ah-huhn, you got it.
—’Cause somehow, if he stayed up there, or if he came down safe, it didn’t matter. So I stopped and turned around and got on the subway and came up here without even so much as a second glance.
— Say gospel.
— Because if he was alive it couldn’t possibly be Mike Junior.
All of it like a slam in the chest. So immediate. At all of their coffee mornings, it had always been distant, belonging to another day, the talk, the memory, the recall, the stories, a distant land, but this was now and real, and the worst thing was that they didn’t know the walker’s fate, didn’t know if he had jumped or had fallen or had got down safely, or if he was still up there on his little stroll, or if he was there at all, if it was just a story, or a projection, indeed, or if she had made it all up for effect — they had no idea — maybe the man wanted to kill himself, or maybe the helicopter had a hook around him to catch him if he fell, or maybe there was a clip around the wire to catch him, or maybe maybe maybe there was another maybe, maybe.