NOW it was late evening as they sped north on Interstate 55, pretending
it had never happened. Later, having seen the wreckage, he would write:
After
the echoes of the impact faded, the forested hillside fell silent again.
As silent as before. As if nothing happened. To the land, almost nothing
had happened. A flesh wound. Five crippled oaks, two uprooted pines.
The land was healing itself even now. As if the Cessna had made a vague
attempt to pass through the tarry mud back to the center of things.
Of course
it would be gutted by his editors, but he had to write it truly once even
if it would never see print. He would write:
By
the time the first human witnesses reached the crash site, the drizzling
rain was beading on the smooth metal of the single remaining wing. Droplets
wormed down the slope to the jackknifed aileron. Smoke twisted from
the fuselage, from the vinyl-upholstered seats absorbing the rain. The
smoke reeked of burnt plastic and cooked meat. It leaked apprehensively
as if the wreckage could not decide whether to spark flames. Eventually
the creek mist would rise from the ravine to merge in layers and obscure
everything. A turbine wound to a stop and died in the darkness.
McInnes
glances at Kasaka, who is riding shotgun. He checks the interstate, which
is unfolding before the headlights as it should. He turns to her again.
He asks, St. Louis
Air Approach lost the Cessna at 7:32, right?
She eyes him suspiciously.
So let's say a
minute later the plane blew up. You know what I was doing at 7:33? I just
figured it out, he says. I was listening to a Phil Collins song in my
apartment. I was listening to this song and was taking it way too seriously
the second Carnahan died.
Which?
You know the one.
Would've called to say I'm sorry, didn't want to waste your time…?
Kasaka looks at
him. She snaps a strand of chestnut hair, dyed highlights, out of her
eyes. Her eyes are bored, Asian princesslike. She grunts, noncommittal.
I was thinking how I too would have called Deirdre to apologize, had I
not wanted to waste her time. And then I thought, I'm taking this Phil
Collins song way too seriously. Don't you see? I was thinking this as
Carnahan died. Like the exact second he died. He looks at her. See?
Nobody… Kasaka
begins, then turns away, pausing, choosing her words carefully. She momentarily
considers the rhythmic squeak of the wiper blades. She says, Butch, nobody
likes hearing a guy whine about a lost fuck. It's awkward.
She wipes her button
nose. Kasaka was barely out of school and already has that fierce competitiveness
of the veteran photographers, McInnes thinks. The kind of competitiveness
that could slit a throat for a better shot.
McInnes decides
except for her height, she looks like a Hollywood version of some Asian
despot who has just run out of prisoners to execute.
The headlights trace
the broken yellow line and phase into the curve, stabbing into the blankness
and drizzle. The Saint Genevieve exit flashes past. Lightning flares on
the horizon.
Voices, she
says. And you're driving too fast.
Voices?
The name of the album. Voices.
No no, McInnes
says. Kasaka sighs. It's got a cover photo of Phil like this, artistically
shaded. He's wearing a black turtleneck and gazing pensively into the
camera. He's gazing like, I feel you and I'm thinking about that.
Some good work, for what it is. And you are driving too fast. I can't
see ten feet.
That's Invisible
Touch, McInnes says.
That's Genesis.
Disintegration?
Kasaka rests her
forehead on her palm. Jeez that's the Cure. She looks down at the digital
camera with the armored zoom lens in her lap. She runs her finger over
its edge. Loser, she says to the camera.
Ri-i-ight, he says.
That's right.
I went through
quite the Robert Smith/Souixsie Sue phase in high school, Kasaka says.
Lots of hairspray. Lots of mascara. I'd listen to the same album over
and over for hours.
I'm only going
fifteen over the limit.
Tried to kill myself
when I was sixteen with a bottle of Prozac and a bottle of vodka. Vodka
was in this big, uh, jug I guess you'd call it. This big. She holds up
her tiny, moisturized hands. It was drugstore vodka. I think it was Osco-brand
vodka. I did not think anybody would love me anymore.
I loved Disintegration,
McInnes says. Liked Kiss Me Kiss Me too. I liked the guitars on
that first track.
They pumped my
stomach. Filled me with a charcoal syrup that if I recall correctly tasted
like pencils.
Would've called
to say I'm sorry, didn't want to waste your time…, McInnes sings.
A news break comes
on the radio. He tunes the channel knob. The green numerals of the volume
display jump to twenty.
The newscaster
reports Palestinian terrorists are calling for another 'Day of Rage' against
the Israelis. A Sikeston boy was eaten by wild dogs in a St. Louis park.
When contacted by police, his mother did not know he was missing. Authorities
have located the governor's plane wreckage outside Hillsboro.
Hillsboro, McInnes
jumps. He air-jabs at the Rand-McNally atlas with a thumb, too excitedly.
Kasaka hits the
overhead light and scans the map.
The Peverly exit,
she announces.
Peverly, McInnes
mumbles to himself. Pee-verly.
The Mazda speeds
over the wet coal surface of the interstate, spinning rain off its wheels.
It occurs to him really he is driving too fast for conditions. He considers
slowing down but then decides to take his chances. The car has at least
a driver's side airbag, he remembers.
This car is decent,
he thinks, but I do not have the money to fix it if it breaks. I am old
enough I should be able to afford to fix my car if it breaks… no. Focus.
You must get past all this temporal shit and write this as good as you
can.
Now a word from
our sponsors, the newscaster says.
I wonder if we're
going to see any remains? Blood and vertebrae and twisted ropes of flesh?
Kasaka says. The governor's remains. Jesus.
CARNAHAN
died and there is no good way to do that, McInnes thinks. But he got it
quick and did not linger through senility or a prostate rife with polyps
milky like blisters. That's better than some.
Carnahan was, sadly,
a capable governor. He did not deserve to die like that.
But deserve has
nothing to do with the when and how of dying, McInnes thinks. The Nazis
showed us that.
Josef Mengele,
whose passions included sewing the flesh of separate children together,
died of natural causes long after the war. He would nick their spinal
cords. He would remove their sex organs. He succumbed to a stroke in the
surf off the Brazilian coast, a coffee-skinned mistress waiting at home.
Hermann Goring cheated the hangman at Nuremburg with a suicide pill.
No, deserve has
nothing to do with it, McInnes thinks. Deeds have nothing to do with it.
And if deserve has nothing to do with the method of death, then surely
the universe is indifferent and there cannot be a Hell.
Aspirin, he says.
Glove compartment.
Don't oink at me,
Kasaka says, the words peaking in a soprano warble. Kasaka opens the glove
and the tiny automatic light spotlights the Ziploc filled with goodies:
pills, orange and blue packets of Rizla rolling papers, one thin joint,
and a little bottle of Tylenol. She takes the Ziploc, opens it. Don't
be so needy, she snips.
No, one of those,
he says, pointing to a pill the color of a perfect summer sky. Give it
here. Do it.
Kasaka picks one
out and hands it to him. He pinches it, brings it to his lips, and realizes
during the transfer the tiny larvae picked up the smell of her perfume.
Soapy clean and sort of floral. He wonders where she applied the perfume
to her smooth Mandarin skin. He slaps it into his mouth and dry-swallows
it.
What's in this
joint? Kasaka asks, picking up the white onionskin roll gingerly like
handling a holy relic.
He looks. Marijuana,
he says.
Just marijuana?
she asks suspiciously. She cocks her head.
Light it if you
want.
As you wish.
Wait. There may
be cops at the crash site. State patrol. They may have dogs.
The flame from
her Bic kisses the paper tip, shrinking the edge in its warm, nurturing
glow. He sees the corona flare like a sympathetic orange star in his peripheral
vision. Then for an instant the interstate disappears. It fades out in
a world of orange swirls.
Too late, Kasaka
says, exhaling a plume of maple syrup-scented smoke. The thin epicanthic
folds of her eyes somehow go thinner. What are these blue diamonds? she
asks, holding one up.
Xanax?
Kasaka pops the
pill into her mouth and helps it down with a sip of Evian.
Wow, he says. Was
she trying to impress him?
Are these Prozac?
she asks. No, lies McInnes. Why should Emmy Kasaka get his Prozac? She
knows how to use the Internet. She knows how to type in her credit card
number.
This is quite the
treasure trove you have here. He shrugs. So have you got any Prozac, McInnes?
If I don't get some soon, I may go back to thinking normally. Unacceptable.
No no, he says.
We both know what you do with Prozac.
She looks at him.
She says: Go. Fuck. Yourself.
He surfs the radio
dial. A newscaster reports that the Bush-Gore Presidential debate in St.
Louis may be cancelled out of respect to Carnahan's death. A flu outbreak
has claimed three thousand lives and rising in New Delhi. Madonna told
Larry King she has decided not to name her second baby and instead will
let it be identified by a lack of a name. Age perfectly with L'Oreal's
anti-sagging and rehydrating cream.
Madonna's kids
are going to grow up to be so screwy, Kasaka announces. She takes another
hit off the joint, holds it, coughs a little.
The tires make
a steady rhythm against the interstate, a subharmonic drone. If they were
going to crash, McInnes thinks, would it be anything like the Cessna?
Shrieking, twisting metal then the earth flipping?
He has covered
enough car accidents that, like some involuntary search engine, now all
those scenes of ruined metal play a montage in his head.
A billboard for
Marlboro Country flashes past. Then a billboard for a paternity testing
service: 'Because your baby deserves to know'.
You know, I like
seeing dead pets on the road, Kasaka says. Not deer or coyotes, not wild
animals, you know, but domestic pets. She says coyotes like ki-yotes.
It strikes him funny to hear an Asian talk with a Missouri accent.
My lead will be,
dateline Hillsboro: Missouri government changed forever with Governor
Mel Carnahan's plane crashing in rural Jefferson County, south of St.
Louis, he decides aloud.
No, I have to cut
away the fat, he thinks. Have to trim the words until they are lean. Until
they are lean and clean and holy and truthful.
The exception of
course would be your dog, McInnes. No greyhounds, Kasaka continues, bored,
Asian princess-like.
What do you think?
Huh?
That, he says,
nodding at the joint leaking a trail of smoke. What do you think? I buy
it off a darkie who lives off Indian Park--
A 'darkie'?! Kasaka
interrupts. I'm one-eighth darkie, you racist. His insides sag anticipating
the hours of driving in brooding silence, then when she breaks into her
crooked smile he feels alright again. She offers the joint to him. Want
some?
Not on the job,
he says. This dealer, he climbs into the car and deals while I drive around
the park, McInnes says. He's very secretive. Really a good dealer, I guess.
Wrists like twigs. He told me once he's dying of AIDS, I think.
McInnes had discovered
the park while covering a story on a 17-year-old killed there in a gang
shooting. Two centuries before, the park had supposedly been the site
where the original colonists parlayed with the local Osage. Now it was
the sort of blocked-in, decaying public space within low-income housing
that seemed destined to host a gang shooting sooner or later.
Continued
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