That would destroy him, Regis was already having a tremendously hard time. His world crashed again with the death of his father, now he not only was on a plane filled with nervous soldiers, he was seated between two of them.
Internally it was a lot to handle.
When he first was seated between them, Regis struck up a conversation with the soldier to his right.
“You boys out of Lewis?” Regis asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you being deployed?”
“You uh, can say that.”
“Godspeed. My son was out of Fort Lewis. Seventh infantry division.”
“So are we. Does he still serve?” the soldier asked.
“I suppose in another way. He was killed in combat,” Regis said. “A few years back.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”
“Thank you. So…” Regis took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to control the emotions that always took over him when his son was mentioned. “You take care of yourself wherever you’re going…”
The conversation caused Regis to sink into thought and sadness. He adored his son and loved him more than life. When Phillip died, so did a part of Regis. He felt for the soldiers, especially since they all seemed tense.
That was evident as the flight progressed. He guessed it didn’t help that in flight services such as wifi and movies went out an hour after takeoff.
That didn’t bother Regis. He had that book to read. His father had given it to him when he visited four months earlier for Christmas. He never recalled his father reading it, though his father claimed it was his favorite. It was an old book, the pages thick, rigid and brown, original cover. Regis wanted to read it, not because of the subject matter, but because his father wanted him out of all the siblings to have it. Handing it to him wrapped like a present like some sort of secret father son gift. He made Regis promise to read, Alas, Babylon, before they saw each other again. Regis tried and made some progress, but as the flight continued, the continuous tapping was a distraction.
The young African American soldier next to him didn’t sleep. He didn’t relax at all, he sat almost at attention, eyes forward as his hand tapped continuously in nervousness on the armrest of the seat. Was the young man scared of flying, or was he going somewhere that scared him to death?
About the third time Regis looked at the nervous fingers, he noticed what caused the tapping. The young man held a cross in his hand.
He was scared.
More than anything Regis wanted to ask the young soldier if he wanted to pray with him, but he didn’t want to be viewed as some weirdo. Instead, Regis tapped his hand fatherly and asked. “You alright son? Can I buy you a drink to calm you?”
Almost automated, the turned his head to Regis and stared.
His eyes held horror.
“What’s wrong?”
“What… what time is it?”
Regis looked down to his watch. “Two minutes after one.”
He shut his eyes tight and swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple moved. “Oh God.”
“Dalton,” the soldier to Regis’ right softly scolded.
Regis kept his focus on Dalton. “What’s wrong?”
Dalton shook his head. “Just… thinking of my mother. My brother. I didn’t… I didn’t say goodbye.”
“Dalton,” the other soldier warned again.
“There’s time.” Regis said. “You can call when we land. If that’s not possible, give me the number, I’ll call for you.”
At that second, following a blurted, “Excuse me”, Dalton stood up.
“He’ll be fine,” the other soldier said.
“I’m sure,” Regis replied. “I think I need to use the rest room as well.” He stood, placed his book on his seat and had every intention of finding Dalton. Something didn’t sit right. If it was something official, then Dalton couldn’t, nor wouldn’t say anything.
Mid way down the dark aisle, Regis spotted the reading light in the middle of all the dark. That light illuminated his brother.
Regis planned on nodding at Mark when he passed until he noticed what book Mark was reading.
Alas, Babylon.
Seeing that the seat was empty next to him, Regis took that book and that seat as a sign from his father.
“This seat taken?” he asked Mark.
Mark blinked long and placed the book on his lap and smiled. “Act… actually it is. She went to the restroom I think. Lady in a red sweater. See her?”
Regis looked to the line of people waiting to use the rest room. “She’ll be a while. I’ll just…” Regis sat down and placed his hand on his brother’s leg. “I see you’re reading.”
“Yeah, Dad gave it to me. How about that?’
“How about that.”
Mark trailed his fingers against it. “Don’t get mad. Dad gave it to me. He wanted to me to read it. It was his favorite book.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I’m not much of a reader, but Dad made me promise to read it.”
“Then you should.”
“I am.” Mark put his hand on the cover. It was a newer version of the book, a later edition.
“How are you doing Little Brother?”
“Not good, Big Brother.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be. Dad’s gone. We didn’t even get to say goodbye. We didn’t say goodbye.”
Surprising Regis, Mark leaned into him, seeking comfort on the shoulders of his older brother.
Regis absorbed that moment, he loved it and it felt good, right. Every bad word, argument and negative thought over the past few weeks seemed to disappear. There was an unspoken truce at thirty thousand feet. He knew his time with Mark on that flight would only last until the red sweater woman returned, until then he’d make the best of it and he vowed to continue once they landed. If he could, Regis would find time to talk to Kit before the end of the flight, as well.
It was what he had to do. It was what his father would want them to do.
Not long before Regis was thinking about how his dad had the ability to pull everyone to father, and for some strange reason, through some old book, he was inadvertently doing it again.
FIVE – Brothers
At first, Mark wished the woman in red would have taken the bribe. He offered her fifty bucks to switch seats with his brother. It had been weeks since he and Regis spoke and it just felt so good to him to be sitting with his brother. During Red Sweater Woman’s extended bathroom break, they talked about being kids, going fishing with their father and other childhood memories. They didn’t talk about the recent events that caused the horrible riff.
They did however, talk about the book.
Mark could have talked to Regis the whole flight, but the red sweater woman returned. She refused to give up her aisle seat for a middle one.
“Even to sit between two hot soldiers?” Mark asked.
She grumbled.
Regis apologized for using her seat and told Mark, “Read up. Dad would want that.”
“I will,” Mark said. “And Rege… thanks.”
Regis nodded, winked and walked back to his seat.
Mark, after giving a smug smile to Red Sweater woman, opened the book.
“Thank you,” Regis told Dalton as he slipped back into the row, lifted the book from his seat and sat. “Are you better?” he asked.
“Somewhat.”
“Me, too.”
Dalton the soldier looked at him with curiosity.
“My little brother.” Regis pointed. “He and I, well, have been having some issues as of late and I just went over and talked to him. I just… I just… I’m glad we spoke. I feel much better.”
“Good. You’ll need each other, especially now.”
“Did I tell you our father passed away?” Regis asked. “Because that is really intuitive of you.”
“Not intuition. “ Dalton peered across Regis to the other solider who was sleeping. After lifting a finger, he took the book from Regis’ lap, lifted a pen from his own front pocket, opened the cover and began to write on the first empty space he saw.
Regis waited, he thought Dalton’s behavior very odd. First quiet, then nervous, now talkative and sharing some sort of message. Then again, he thought, the poor kid was going off to war. Things made a bit more sense to Regis after thinking about that being the case. Dalton was nervous. Perhaps it was some secretive deployment, and Dalton was rushed out before he could bid his family goodbye.
A deployment, a prelude to some sort of conflict wouldn’t surprise Regis. After all tension had been high between US and Russia. Even his father made mention earlier that it was unprecedented and the worst he had ever seen.
Dalton needed to share something with Regis. Something the other soldier couldn’t know he told him. He probably was giving Regis the contact information for his mother.
After he was finished, Dalton slipped his pen back in his pocket, closed the cover of the book, handed it to Regis and stared forward.
Regis flipped open the cover. He expected to see a name, a number, maybe even an email address, what he didn’t expect to see was the first sentence.
‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you’ll know soon enough…’
That sentence was followed by a passage that not only took his breath away, it made every fiber of his being freeze. He closed the cover of the book, shifted his eyes once to Dalton and ran his hand over his mouth to hide his heavy exhaled.
‘Dear God,’ Regis thought.
Then after making the sign of the cross, he closed his eyes and prayed.