Straight On 'Til Morning

I did not follow her.

I was devastated, but I did not follow her.

I did not sit by her on the shuttle back to campus. I did not sit by her at dinner that night, nor by her in classes that next day. I did grow dark and despondent, and alarmingly so, I think. My roommate asked probing questions and my house mother came and talked to me, asked if I was feeling okay, if there was anything she could do to help.

There wasn't, I said. And I think she understood. I think everyone on campus understood. My Tink had flown away, and I was undone.

But high school is high school, and teenagers are just that and simply so. As Jen's new friend went to a school in nearby Concord, New Hampshire, he drove over on weekends and they went out to lunch and I watched and knew we'd run into the end of that particular future. I subsequently tried out for the ski team and blew out my leg in our first race; when I got back to campus my right leg was in a massive cast and that put an end to skiing for a while. Dad showed up the next day and we sat by a roaring fireplace in a nearby inn and we talked about life and women and all the confounding choices people make, then we talked about Aspen and skiing and all was right with our little world again.

He barely mentioned Jen that day, yet he had brought bad news about the doc.

He was back in Galveston, now sicker than hell and the word my dad had was that he wouldn't make it another month. And his boat, the Sirius, had been, in effect, abandoned somewhere in the BVI.

"I called him last week. Offered to buy the boat," my father said. "What do you think?"

"What? Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe I just hate to see something of value go to waste."

"What would you do with it?"

"Sail it up to Maine, I think, then get her fixed up and sold."

Yes, Maine. That made sense. My mother was from Maine – Camden, Maine, a mill town on Penobscot Bay; lots of boat builders, wealthy people from Boston coming up – looking for a nice schooner. And if there was one thing in life my mother enjoyed, it was sailing.

I saw my father was looking to make a few repairs of his own, I think. Fix things before rot settled into the wood.

"So? What do you think? Feel like sailing up to Maine this summer?"

+++++

A few days later I was sitting in study hall when a girl came over and sat across from me. I knew her, of course; we'd known each other for three and a half years, but I didn't know her well. Her name was Mary Ann Oberon, and she was from Louisiana, her family Acadian French and desperately poor. She was dark haired and dark eyed and she had the brightest soul, the kindest heart of anyone on campus, and everyone loved her kindness of spirit. She wanted to become a physician, and everyone knew she would. She was, I think everyone knew, meant to be a healer.

And she had come to sit by me that night with purpose in her eyes. She had come to heal me.

And she did, too. It took her, maybe, a half hour to complete the job.

"What'd you do to your leg," she asked.

"I tripped, on my stupidity."

She laughed. "And?"

"I've been skiing a couple of times, so of course thought I'd enjoy racing."

"Ah."

"Yes, that's exactly what I said, right when I noticed I was sliding into the trees."

"What are you reading?"

"Celestial Navigation."

"Oh – going sailing?"

"This summer, yes. I think so."

"I love the water."

"Oh?"

"My father used to take me out, and he taught me things. I've been on the water since I can remember."

"My parents have. Not me."

"You're the flyer, right? I remember you standing by an airplane."

"Yup, that's me."

"Not much difference between sailing and flying," she said. "Both involve wings, both involve navigating through currents, avoiding rocks and other hard things. It's all just Time Speed and Distance."

I looked at her like I was looking at a kindred spirit – which of course she was.

Study hall was up and it was time to head back to our dorms, and she asked me to walk with her. She stopped at one point and pulled me close, looked me in the eye. "I've been wanting to do this for ages," she said, and she pulled my face to hers and let slip the wettest, most tongue-laden kiss in the history of kissing, and it was like an electric charge went off in my feet and roared up my legs like a three alarm blaze. By the time it hit my face I was all conflagration, all crazy emotion lit up and out of control.

She pulled away a moment later and looked into my eyes, and I think she wiped a tear from my face. "You needed that," she said, and then she kissed the tip of my nose. "And you may not know it yet, but you need me, too." Then she skipped off to her dorm, leaving me breathless and completely confused – almost unsure of my footing. Which was, I think, her point, the strategy behind the moment – but even so, not really a nice thing to do to someone in an almost three foot long cast on a snowy sidewalk.

+++++

So within days Mary Ann and I started sitting next to one another at meals, and in class. She helped me with latin, I helped her with calculus. We held hands, looked deeply into each other's eyes, and soon I was curled up beside her – with my head in her lap, with her fingers drawing little arcs through my hair. She always wore black tights and I loved to tickle behind her knees while she twirled-away through my hair, I loved the way she giggled and whispered "stop it!" And I remember turning over once and looking up into her eyes.

"I love you," I told her one snowy February afternoon.

"I know," she said, then she smiled and leaned forward, then bit my ear. "I love you too, smart ass," she whispered.

And that, in a nutshell, was Mary Ann. All warm and cuddly, everything wrapped in layers of impenetrable joy. And the thing is, I could see she was perfect for me, that we'd make a good team, and that we'd be happy together – forever.

Which was, of course, why I knew we'd never last.

+++++

Jen came and sat next to us a few weeks later, and she looked at Mary Ann with something akin to regret in her eyes, then she turned to me. "I'm flying home tomorrow," she said. "Dad wants you to come, too. I think your father is arranging things with the Dean's office this morning."

"How is he?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I think he wants to say goodbye."

Then she got up and walked away.

And I could it in Mary Ann's eyes. The fear. I would be out of reach, out of her control – so the story in her eyes was a simple one: was love enough to keep me in her stable orbit?

But who knew what currents were waiting out there. Waiting to pick us up and sweep us along.

+++++

When we got on the shuttle the next morning she looked bright, almost happy.

"Is your boyfriend going to meet us at the airport?" I asked.

She shook her head. "We broke up a few days ago."

"Oh." And I saw Mary Ann in my mind's eye one moment, my mother the next.

Yin and yang. Opposites pulling me to their uncertain orbits, Jen a distant supernova on verge of collapse, her imploding gravity threatening to consume everything. We boarded a shiny new Delta 727 and flew to Dallas, and dad was waiting for us on the general aviation ramp at Love Field in his Baron. He helped Jen aboard, then sent me up next.

"What?" I said, suddenly concerned by the tired note I picked up in his voice.

"You take the left seat. I don't feel like flying today."

So, I taxied out to 13 Right – with two Braniff 707s ahead and a Delta DC9 just behind the Baron, and I'd have felt a little like a flea on an elephant's ass if I hadn't been so nervous about flying for the first time in months. Dad ignored me completely, of course; he turned and talked with Jen all the way out to the end of the taxiway, left me to it. I had to leave a lot of space ahead for the 707s; their jet-wash – even from a few hundred feet – was making the Baron tremble like a leaf in a gale, but then it was our turn.

"Baron triple two niner five, you're clear for take-off. Be aware of wake turbulence and contact departure on one one eight decimal two five."

"Two niner five, wake turbulence, departure eighteen twenty-five." I finished the run-up and pulled onto the active, looked at the clock and made my countdown – then advanced the throttles and started watching the gauges as we ran down the runway. We rotated well before the area where the 707s had, and I slipped south immediately to put more distance between the Baron and all that roiled air, then confirmed our flight plan with departure control. There were already heavy storms near Waco, my father said, and that's why our flight plan was taking us east towards Lufkin. I was reading the NOTAMs and looking over the weather when I felt her hand on my shoulder, then in my hair.

I turned, looked at Jen.

"You belong up here, Spud. You know that, don't you?"

"And where do you belong, Jennifer?"

And I think I saw my father look at me for a moment, then he turned and looked out beyond the wing – at the towering anvil-headed thunderstorms brewing over central Texas.

And Jen looked me in the eye. "I belong to you."

I turned back to the instruments, of course, tried to focus for a moment – until dad tapped my leg.

"My airplane," he said.

"Your airplane," I recited, then I turned to look at her again. "I don't get you, Jen. Not one little bit."

"You don't have to Spud. Just understand what is. Okay?"

And dad started whistling that little ditty John Wayne did at the end of The High and The Mighty, and he had the biggest shit-eating grin on his face just then. He saw me looking and turned away, and I could tell he was trying his hardest not to laugh – and then the dam broke. He laughed so hard I thought the door was going to burst off it's hinges, then I started laughing too.

"Uh, I hate to ask," Jen said. "But who's flying the airplane right now?"

Which only made things worse. Thank God for autopilots, right?

So, for a while we drifted on the smile, dreading the day that waited beyond.

+++++

We declared VFR near Beaumont and I arced out over the Gulf and made a straight in approach to runway 36, and once we were on the ramp Dad had the ground crew tie the Baron down and gas her up, then he went off to rent a car. We drove to the hospital in silence, the enormity of the looming confrontation no longer something in a once distant future – no, the moment was on us now, and we parked, went up to the Doc's room flying low and slow.

Which was quite unnecessary, as it turned out. The Doc was going to die, that much was certain, but he was going to go out with a bang.

"Which one of you brought the goddam dancin' girls?" he asked as we came in his room.

"Uh, that slipped my mind, Harry," my father said.

"Well, dammit, go get a bunch of red headed gals with hairy pussies. I feel like eating something red today!"

And then Jen stepped into view.

"Well, shit," Harry said sheepishly. "How you doin', muffin? You fly down with this raggedy lookin' bunch?"

Harry's skin was deep orange that afternoon; he was in liver failure and the cancer had metastasized throughout his gut and chest, but if he was in pain it wasn't showing just then. Jen went to him and held onto his arm, looked in his eyes and started crying.

"What's the matter, muffin?"

"Oh, Daddy," she whispered, and he looked up at my father, shook his head just a little.

"Let's go find us a few dancin' girls, Spud," my father said, and we went and stood in the bustling corridor for a while, let the world walk on by while they talked, and we looked at one another for a long time. I guess, without saying a word to one another, we were thinking ahead. About, maybe, the day we'd have such a conversation. I guess most fathers and sons eventually do, but we'd never crossed that bridge before. Maybe we never would.

She came out a minute later, then asked me – and only me – to go in. "He wants to talk to you, Spud," she said, and I went to her and held her when our tears came. After a while she whispered "Go..." in my ear, and I went.

The doc was quiet now, more subdued as I came in, and he looked at me as I closed the door and walked to his side.

"Don't be afraid of all this shit," he said, sweeping his hand around at all the IVs and instruments. "It ain't gonna bite you, and neither am I."

"Yessir."

"Spud? I'm glad I got to know, even if it was just for a little bit, and I think I'm gonna miss you, miss watchin' you grow up."

"Yessir. I know what you mean."

"What are you going to do about Jennifer?"

"Sir?"

"Jennifer. What the hell are you going to do about that girl?"

"I don't know, sir."

"You want some advice?"

"Yessir, I guess."

"Get away from her, son. She's just like her mother, in every way. She'll make your life a living hell, and try to tear your world apart every chance she gets. And all the while she'll tell you how much she loves you, how you mean everything in the world to her."

"Sir?"

"That blond haired freak, as you call him? Over Christmas? That's just a taste of what she has in store for you, so you think carefully about what you want out of life. Okay, Spud? 'Cause she'll suck the life right out of you."

"Sir, why are you telling me this?"

"Because I happen to love you, kid. I never had a boy, never had a son, and I've come to look at you that way. Sorry, but there it is. Now, don't start cryin' – I've had enough cryin' to last two goddamn lifetimes. Jen's mother was nothin' but one heartache after another, and Jen's turnin' out just like her. Nothin' I can do about it, never has been, and that's just the way it is."

"Yessir."

"I'm leavin' everything to her, by the way, everything but Sirius. She's yours, and a little money to help you look after her until you're on your feet."

"Sir?"

"The boat, Spud. She's yours now. You take her and follow your heart – straight on 'til morning – and you see what there is to see out there. I wanted to and can't, so it's your turn now. I want you to go out there and live, and when I see you next time you can tell me what you found." He held out his hand just then, and looked up at me. "This is goodbye, Spud. No tears, and none of that other horse shit, just think about what I said, and take care of her as best you can."

"Yessir."

"Go now, Spud. Please, and send Jen and your father in, would you?"

I had a hard time leaving, couldn't let go of his hand, you see. A pause, a sigh passed between us, then he smiled and we let go. I nodded my head once, then turned and left that room, passed them in the hall on my way outside, told them to go in.

I went outside and watched billowing, anvil-headed monsters forming north of Houston, lightning flickering in their gray bellies, and some time later my father came out and joined me.

"He's gone," he said quietly, and I looked at him.

"What? So fast?"

"Morphine," my father said, looking down at the ground. "I think he'd had enough."

"Jesus."

Jen came out a few minutes later and she walked up to my dad and hugged him for the longest time. Somehow, for whatever reason, the Doc and my father had become friends over the past half year, really close friends, and Jen grounded herself in that sudden reality. I suspect the Doc told her how he felt, maybe even what he wanted of them both, but if so that remained something between them, and that something remained unspoken, and unbroken – for all the years to come.

But his last words to me lingered. What did he mean by "take care of her as best you can?" Jen? The boat? Both of them?

+++++

We were his family by then, the three of us, and we concluded his business, had his friends over to the house after services at the local temple, then the three of us got in the Baron and flew to Northampton, Massachusetts. We drove up 91 and to the Inn in near silence, lost in our respective thoughts, I guess, and we had a last supper together. There wasn't much to say that hadn't been said by then, and we talked about sailing one last time.

My mom and dad wanted to make the trip, but Jen still wasn't sure.

Because she still didn't know where she stood with me.

Because, perhaps, I didn't exactly know how I felt about her.

Yet I was pretty sure how I felt about Mary Ann, and I thought that strange – in a way. Strange, in a way I didn't quite understand yet.

+++++

So, graduation. The big change. When you go from having no control over your fate, to having about ninety-nine percent control – even if all control is an illusion.

In other words, there comes a point where you own all your fuck-ups, and that time usually comes about two days after graduating from high school. Before you graduate, you can at least pretend to blame everything bad on your parents, and hell, who knows, maybe there are a few times when people actually believe you when you try.

But probably fewer times than you think.

Anyway, I got home, to our old house on Belclaire in Highland Park, and surveyed life as I knew it.

College was next, but I'd been rejected by Harvard and Stanford, my two favorites, and I'd been wait-listed by Dartmouth, my third choice – so that one was a 'maybe' but it was already June so time wasn't on my side. Columbia was a go, and so was NYU, but the idea of living on an island surrounded by eight million New Yorkers made me ill. That left two schools in California in contention: Claremont College near LA, and UC Berkeley. I chose Berkeley.

And right about now I need to re-introduce you to my roommate from that last year in Purgatory. A kid named Paul Anderson, and I've left him out of the story up to now for no good reason other than he didn't play that big a role in my life until I came back from Christmas break – when I found out that Jen had moved-on to the blond headed freak. Paul was an interesting sort. Almost inert, like a gas at low temperature – before it changes – Paul had the demeanor of, well, a rock. Perhaps even the Rock of Gibraltar. He was solid. And not just physically so, though come to think of it he was built like a brick shit-house and went on to play linebacker at USC. No, Paul was a rock of a totally different texture.

Paul played the guitar – when he wasn't reading Socrates or bench-pressing Volkswagens – and he wrote his own music, his own lyrics, as well. And interestingly enough, his stuff was good. Real good. That October Jen and I had gone down to Boston to hear him play, and he was approached by a couple of record producers – yet he of course turned them down, walked away from all that nonsense – because it wasn't in his plan. He liked music, he told me once, because it kept him centered, kept him focused on what WAS important.

For Paul Anderson, medicine was important. He was like a heat-seeking missile, locked on and closing fast, when it came to medicine. He eschewed team sports, especially sports that embodied conflict, and took up skiing and rock climbing – and he was Hell with a bow and arrow. He was, too, the most compassionate human being I'd known up to that point, and a genuine empath, as well. So, the picture you should have in mind is a huge Zen rock, climbing mountains and playing his guitar when he reached the summit. Maybe shooting the moon with a arrow, and hitting it dead-center.

That fall, one night when he was playing coffee houses in Cambridge, he met a girl. She was a 'cliffie, a senior at Radcliffe College, and her name was Sara Keaton. She was a brilliant musician, and she fell in love with Paul's playing and struck up a conversation with him during a break that evening.

We were with him at the table just then – Jen and myself – and I watched as she approached. Dark eyed beauty, I said to myself, locked on and tracking, and she lasered in our table and sat down by Jen. Paul looked at her and smiled – and it was like he'd been waiting for her all his life.