Flying Leap

When I tell my mother the news, she cries a little, and smiles, and says, “Oh, I didn’t expect it. Oh, not for a minute. I wouldn’t expect such a sacrifice from you, Arnie, I wouldn’t dare even to mention such a thing. It’s more than any mother could expect of her son. I’m so proud of you. I guess I did a good job raising you after all. You’ve turned into such a fine, good person. I worried that I may have made mistakes when I was bringing you up, but now I know I didn’t.”

On and on she goes.

And the aunts. They cry, and clutch my arms, not so tightly as before. They say they doubted me but they never will again. “What a good son,” they keep saying. Looking at them now, they seem smaller than they did before, shriveled.

I call Mandy, and she dashes over to the hospital. She kisses all over my face with her cherry-flavored Chap Stick, and she hugs me and presses her ear against my chest. She tells me she knew I’d do the right thing. I’m feeling pretty good now; I light up a cigarette. She takes it away from me and mashes it beneath her heel. “That belongs to your mother now,” she says.

They all give me flowers. I feel like a hero. I kiss my mother’s cheek.

I hop on a stretcher. They wheel me out. They sedate me slightly, strip me, shave me.

And then they put the mask on and knock me out good; it’s like I’m falling, falling down a deep well, and the circle of daylight above me grows smaller and smaller and smaller, until it is a tiny white bird swooping and fluttering against a vast night sky.

How does it feel to have no heart? It feels light, hollow, rattly. Something huge is missing; it leaves an ache, like the ghost of a severed limb. I’m so light inside, but so heavy on the outside. Like gravity increased a hundredfold. Gravity holding me to the bed like the ropes and pegs of a thousand Lilliputians.

I lie at the bottom of a pool. Up above I see the light on the surface. It wavers, ripples, breaks, and comes together again. I can see the people moving about, far above, in the light. I am down here in the dark, cradled in the algae. Curious fish nibble my eyelashes.

After a while I see a smooth pink face above me. The doctor? “Arnie,” he says. “The operation went very well. Your mother is doing wonderfully. She loves the new heart.” His words begin far away and drift closer, growing louder and louder, until they plunk down next to me like pebbles.

“Arnie,” he calls. The pool’s surface shivers. His face balloons, shrinks to a dot, then unfolds itself. “Arnie, about you—we’re having a little trouble. There’s a shortage of spare hearts in this country right now. We’re looking for some kind of replacement. But don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

Later I see Aunt Fran and Aunt Nina. They lean close; they’re huge. Their faces bleed and run together like wet watercolors. “Your mother’s doing so well!” they call. “She loves you. Oh, she’s so excited. She’ll be in to see you soon!”

And later it’s my mother gliding in, her face pink, her hair curled. “Arnie … Arnie … you good boy …” she calls, and then they wheel her out.

They leave me alone for a long time. I lie in the deep. It sways me like a hammock. There is a deep, low humming all around, like whales moaning. My mother does not visit again. When do I get to go out and play?

Alone in the dark, no footsteps, no click of the light switch.

Then the doctor looms above me. “Your mother,” he says, “is not doing well. The heart does not fit as well as we thought. It’s a bit too small.” He turns away, then leans over again. “As for you, we’re working on it. There’s nothing available at the moment. But don’t worry.”

And then Fran and Nina are back. “How could you?” they scream, their voices shattering the surface into fragments. “Giving your mother a bad heart. How could you? What kind of son are you? She’s dying—your mother’s dying, all because of you.” They weep together.

For a long time no one comes. I know without anyone telling me that my mother is dead. It is my heart. When it ceases to beat, I know. A high keening rises from the depths.

The doctor comes to tell me how sorry he is. “She was doing so well at first. But then it turned out the heart just wasn’t enough. I tell you, though, she was thinking of you when she died. She asked for you.” He sits quietly for a moment. “We haven’t managed to find a heart for you. But you’ll be fine. We’ve shot you up full of preservatives. You’ll stay fresh for a while yet.” He goes away.

Aunt Fran and Aunt Nina no longer visit.

Mandy? Gone.

I lie listening to the emptiness in my chest, like wind wailing through canyons.

These days the doctor comes in often to chat with me.

One day he tells me a story: “You know, when your mother died, we managed to save your heart. It was still healthy. We thought about giving it back to you. But there was a little girl here, about eight years old, and she needed a new heart, too. Cute little blond girl. One time a basketball star came here to visit her and there were TV cameras and photographers and everything. She was in the papers a lot. Kids were always sending her cards. Anyway, we decided to give her your heart. She’s only a kid, after all; she’s got a whole life ahead of her. Why should we deny her that? I’m sure your mother would have wanted it that way. She was such a caring, selfless woman. I’m sure deep down you want her to have it, too, don’t you?”

Of course I do.

SCENES FROM THE FALL FASHION CATALOG

Our new fall collection has something to suit every woman. We’ve reinvented the fashions of the past to create clothes that never go out of style. Our catalog contains everything today’s woman could possibly need, from lingerie to shoes to jewelry and accessories, as well as an easy-to-use order form on the back page.

I. PRAIRIE DRESSES

Choose from among several colorful prints in washable wrinkle-free fabrics.

The woman lies spread-eagled across the tracks, beneath the noonday sun in the middle of the prairie. The sage ripples in the breeze. Her breasts heave; the sweat trickles down between them. Her dress is lace-trimmed, scattered with flowers. The skirt rises, and falls, and flaps in the wind. A bleached steer skull leers in the grass nearby. Above, a vulture circles and stares with red eyes, cocking his bald head. His shadow passes over her face. Her eyes are closed; she doesn’t notice.

The land fades into the distance, rolling and overlapping, like giant tangled bodies under bedclothes. The sky: baked, hazy. Thunder rumbles far away. It rolls like smoke, thick and uncoiling. A mosquito buzzes and lands, drawing a perfect drop of blood from the smooth inside of her arm.

I should add, I suppose, that her hair is golden, her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes are blue. But I think you know that; you have seen this picture before. You know already the way her hair blows, and her neck arches, and her body writhes against the tracks.

The metal of the tracks is warm against her wrists and ankles. The tracks stretch out unbroken on either side of her; they lie snugly against the ground’s curve, a belt holding the earth’s fat belly.

The splintery wooden ties prick through her petticoats. Her mouth is firm and resolute, but her brows are drawn and her lashes tremble. Flowing tresses, trickling sweat, relentless sun, woman trussed to the tracks. And finally a tremor, the slightest sizzle in the hot metal touching her wrists.

There. In the distance the column of smoke appears, like a tornado leashed and dragged forward by the great engine. There are whistles and snorts, the grind and pulse of machinery, metallic thunder and lightning. She hears the noise and raises her head.

The train approaches; its cowcatcher and round one-eyed face loom ever larger. The noise engulfs her; the tracks rattle beneath her. The engine man, with mustache, striped cap, and bandanna, peers ahead and spots the obstruction. Heavens! Word spreads quickly through the passenger cars. Frantic heads pop from windows on both sides; the news even reaches the heaving, bleating livestock car, where one cow is groaning in labor, a calf’s hoof dangling between her hind legs, swaying with the motion of the train.

The train hurtles forward at breakneck pace. She stretches her neck in silent entreaty, but everyone knows brakes are useless at such a speed. The train roars onward. The engine man throws up his hands, then hides his face in his bandanna. The passengers must look on helplessly as the train approaches its doomed target. She stares up at the sky, resigned, expectant. Children kneel on the train seats to see better. The monstrous engine snorts and squeals and rears. Grisly death is moments away. The wind again lifts her skirts; her fair legs flash in the sun.

But wait! Far in the distance, there is an answering flash of white!

The passengers shade their eyes and hold their breath.

Here he comes, on his silver steed, galloping twice as fast as the train. He emerges from clouds of dust: broad-shouldered, graceful, impeccably dressed. Tanned cheeks, strong chin, a smooth shave. Bright teeth flashing—they fill his mouth neatly as bathroom tile. The eyes are far-seeing, surrounded by squint lines. Thick curls show between the buttons of his shirt; he is blessed with a full head of hair and none on his back. His boots are expensive, his gun large. These qualities are apparent even from a distance; all the spectators murmur in relief. The circling vulture spots him, sighs, and flaps away.

He gallops hard to the lucky damsel. The show is nearly over now. He leaps from his loyal horse; he bends over her and drizzles her with manly sweat. The train passengers are treated to a view of his muscular hindquarters in tight leather pants. He snips her bonds and tears her limp body from the tracks in the nick of time. The engine screams past with a defeated roar. She reaches for his face; he cradles her in his protective arms; they share a hearty but tasteful kiss.

And they are surrounded suddenly by hundreds of cheering spectators. It is uncertain whether they jumped from the train or sprang spontaneously from the empty grasslands, but it does not matter. There is much cheering and cap tossing and backslapping. The man is borne aloft as a hero. The woman in the flowered dress is borne to the marriage altar. She is speechless, seems bewildered by her good fortune.

So they are married right there with much fanfare, amid the jostling good-natured crowd. He holds her tightly—a bit too tightly, actually, making it difficult to breathe—and his gun digs into her side. But everyone tells her how lucky she is, and what a handsome couple they make, and many pictures are taken. In the pictures her head hangs down, hair hiding her face. His smile is dazzling. What big teeth he has.

People find the whole affair so fine and romantic that they try to imitate it. All over the country, women are tied to every available stretch of track, usually by an obliging gentleman in black with a curling mustache. Then, in quick succession: sunset, train, white horse and rider, fade-out. The scene appears in novels and on movie screens, and all the viewers relish the heroine’s horizontal wiggle, the train’s shuddering approach, the happy union drenched in surging music, kisses for everyone.

Everyone knows the ending of this scenario. The funny thing is that almost no one knows the beginning of the story.

The beginning—you can imagine it if you retrace your steps through the story, rewind the film so that horses gallop backward, the sun rises in the west, and people’s mouths open and close as they swallow their words. Backward to the time before she came to be lying on the tracks.

Our woman with the flowered dress and golden hair lives in a small town. She wears an apron. She cooks; she sews. She makes butter. You’ve seen pictures of this in your history books: the butter churn, and the heavy dasher, which the woman holds in both hands and jerks up and down until the cream breaks. She knits socks; she quilts. She smells clean. She is wonderfully domestic. Her mother has trained her well.

One day her father calls her outside and introduces her to the man who has asked for her hand. This man has a round, low-slung belly and a shiny wetness all around the mouth. He has brought three cows as a gift. These stand in the yard, ignoring the conversation. They are dull-eyed, coarse-haired animals. The udders sag; the teats are raw and chapped.

Her father looks pleased. Good milkers. He runs his hands over the heavy heads.

That night after her suitor leaves, she tries to speak to her father. He raises his voice and slams his fists on the table. She goes to bed sullen but not cowed.

In the dark hour before dawn she leaves her home and runs away across the fields.

She runs to another town, but it is not so different from the first. She finds work baking and churning and pickling. But the town’s women all tell her to pinch her cheeks rosier, fasten her corset tighter. The men all talk of trade and domestic animals. One day while sewing she is startled by a man’s groping hands. She pricks her finger, and the drops sprinkle on the cream waiting in the churn, so that the butter is pink that day.

During the night she runs to another town, but it is more of the same. She moves from place to place, like a pencil following a connect-the-dots picture. With each town there are more horses and cows and dogs, and chickens wandering the streets. You might picture the swing-door saloons, the piano player, sneering men and shiny guns. Clouds of dust. Men who proposition her, who press and prick.

You can call her Caroline—that is a nice name and appropriate for the time period—but you could just as well call her Virginia or Evangeline, or Mary Lou; she doesn’t care. You can stare at her, but her face will not come into focus. She would rather be left alone.

Eventually she tires of the faded towns, the men who bellow for their dinners and a back rub. She leaves the latest town and walks the grasslands. Here she comes: hopes dashed, battered, bitter. She stumps along until the train tracks cut snakelike across her path and give her an idea.

High above, the vulture with the sunburned head circles and watches her arrange herself on the tracks. She fastens herself to the rails with shoelaces and stay strings, tightening the knots with her teeth. Then she lies back to wait, sun warm on her face.

Of course the train appears, then the shining horse with its rider. The hero with the chiseled chin leaps from his steed with the train fast approaching; the spectators hold their breath. The woman on the tracks groans and thrashes in frustration. No one seems to notice her face; no one hears her scream at him to leave her alone, to just let her be. He tears her loose in the nick of time. The train crashes past, cheers and confetti pour from the windows, and as he holds her triumphantly aloft, she watches her own hands rise and reach for him, not in a grateful embrace, but to rip his eyes out.

II. CIRCUS EVENING WEAR

We took our inspiration from the circus, to bring you everything from sequined thongs to tent dresses.

One day my neighbor approaches me and says she has a date the following evening; would I mind baby-sitting her seven-year-old daughter?

Phil appears at my door on the arranged night, dressed in red overalls, scratching scabs. Her name is Phyllis, but she likes to be called Phil. She smells of childhood, of sweet milk and graham crackers. The hand she offers me is sticky. I don’t know how to entertain children, so I’ve arranged for us to go to the circus.

The circus appears not in a tent but in a large indoor theater, which holds in the smells of elephant dung and gunpowder and the sugar-tainted spit of a thousand children.

I buy Phil a T-shirt and cotton candy. It is light and feathery on our lips, and then it turns to sweet nothing on our tongues. We eat it in handfuls until the opening parade, with the elephants and clowns and stilt walkers. The Siamese Twins. The Thin Man. And the Fat Lady.

The Fat Lady reclines on a float drawn by twenty straining horses. She rolls her eyes at us, too languid to wave. Her body is all one large rippling mass, rubbery and inflated. The features are lost in the puffiness of her face. She looks so familiar; she is someone I have seen or been in a nightmare. I take the cotton candy away from Phil and flatten it beneath my shoes. Sticky mess. Phil whines.

Next are the dancing bears, the dogs jumping through hoops, the monkeys riding motorcycles. The lion tamer does his thing in the center ring. He has platinum hair, meaty pectorals, a big whip. When the tigers and lions get too close, he cracks the whip at their noses. The animals have sullen faces and beautiful hair; they are sulky and aloof, like runway models. They drag their paws the whole time. Phil yawns.

Next is the Knife Thrower. He spits on his hands while his gold-spangled assistant straps herself to the round target, which begins to rotate. Her body spins like the hands of a mad clock. She wears a smug, expectant look. The Knife Thrower sweats; he hesitates, staring straight ahead at her bare spinning stomach and the rhinestone pasted to her navel. There is an odd tension between them. He begins flinging the knives, with rapid precision. The knives sink into the target, neatly outlining her arms and legs. The knives land between each finger and toe. Knife handles form a halo around her head.

The bristling target. Her dangerous smile. Scattered applause, oohs and aahs. For the final knife, he blindfolds himself, stretches his arms at the sound of a drumroll, then kisses the blade and lets it fly—straight at her face.

The audience gasps; hands hide eyes. Her body within its metallic outline is electric. The world stands still as the knife screams through the air; her head snaps in a sudden sickening way—and then a fanfare bursts out of the sound system, trumpets and cymbals. The assistant smiles more brightly than before. She has caught the knife in her teeth.

The Knife Thrower turns and bows to the audience. We clap uncertainly. Then the target halts and the assistant steps down. The applause swells; we all rise to our feet. The Knife Thrower we applaud merely for his manual dexterity. The woman we applaud for her courage. She is brave to the point of foolishness.

The Knife Thrower has a dark look. I’m sure that in the deep coilings of his mind is the thought that he would like, just once, to see a knife veer off course. He would like this, but he will never let it happen. Without her, he is nothing, a pizza slicer in tights. The assistant knows his conflict; this is why she smiles and thrusts out her belly-button bull’s-eye.

The assistant now smiles brilliantly at the crowd. I’ve heard she once had teeth of her own, but after a few months of the act they were so broken and jagged that they tore her tongue and frightened small children. So the teeth were pulled out and now she wears false teeth like an old woman. The new teeth are flawless and indestructible; they leave little semicircles of dents on the knife blades.

The drama of the knife-throwing act has left me queasy. I stand up to leave, but Phil begs to stay a bit longer. She wants to see The Lady Who Hangs by Her Hair. I sit down again.

Soon she appears—the Lady. All the little girls in the audience clasp their hands and gaze upward. The Lady wears only heavy makeup and sequins in strategic places. Her hair is knotted on the top of her head and she clips herself to a cable. She leaps from the platform and hangs by her hair; she swings with a tight, strained smile and her eyebrows inching up to her hairline. She twirls high above the floor, then swings to and fro, to and fro, toes pointed, with a dreamy, pendulous motion. Phil is kneeling on her seat, entranced.

There is a terrible accident. The Lady Who Hangs by Her Hair is swinging and then abruptly she drops out of the spotlight. In a sudden flash and crinkle and crumple of sequins she is lying on the ground. Shreds of sawdust and elephant dung cling to her skin. I hear her harsh unrehearsed cry, and then she is whisked away on a stretcher.

A murmur rises from the crowd. Children wailing. Hostile mingled voices. “Ruined the whole show,” mutters a woman behind me. “Great—now the kids will have nightmares,” says another.

Someone says, “It was bound to happen. She had split ends, don’t you know. They say she’d been putting on weight, wasn’t taking care of herself.”

A child’s voice says, “Is she Rapunzel?” And her mother answers, “No, honey. In the Rapunzel story the lady sits in a tower, and her lover climbs up her hair. This lady here, she hangs from her hair her own self.” The child says, “Why did she fall?” And the mother: “That’s what she gets for trying to change the rules like that.”

The lights switch on and I see that Phil has thrown up all over herself. The stuff is pink and smells sickly sweet. She holds her wet shirt away from her chest. Her face is teary-slick, but she twists away from me. “I want my mother,” she says with dignity.

So I take her home.

A few days later I knock on the door and ask about Phil. “Still a little sick,” her mother says, and eyes me suspiciously. She’s wondering what I’ve done to her daughter that’s made her afraid to get out of bed.

“Can I come in and see her?” I ask.

Her mother says, “No, I don’t think so, not right now; she’s very busy watching cartoons.”

She shuts the door in my face.

III. KITCHEN WEAR

Aprons for every occasion.

Do you remember: being knee-high, living in a world of pant cuffs, skirt hems, and the undersides of things?

Your mother stands in the kitchen. She cooks for your father: fondue, meringues, shish kebab, chutney. Gefilte fish, lotus, lo mein, ravioli. Tabouli, tortilla, moussaka, succotash and goulash. Your aunt wears high heels and goes out at night. She dances for men: salsa, samba, chacha, meringuee. Lambada, salome, tango, fandango, disco. Jitterbug and hokey-pokey. Your mother holds the bowl tightly against her stomach; she beats and beats with a wooden spoon. Your aunt practices the tricky steps, heels pounding the floor; sweat darkens her dress under her arms and in a long stripe down her back. Your mother’s tools are called savory, relish, and sage; your aunt’s are rhythm and a roll of her eyes. Your aunt gives you the high-heeled shoes to try on; your mother holds out the spoon. They are hunters: Your aunt’s war paint is the red on her mouth; your mother’s is a dusting of flour. They have the same smell, the smell of desire, the smell of cooking meat. The trap is set: the sprightly meal, the spicy dance. Afterward, your father pats his stomach. A man on the dance floor pats your aunt’s hip. Your mother, your aunt, neither goes to bed alone.

IV. TRAVEL WEAR

Versatile cotton and linen separates for the girl on the go.

I’ve decided to take a vacation. Someplace exotic and warm and far away. The sort of place you read about in books and see in movies where the colors are supersaturated and the focus crystal clear. Impossible fairy-tale things can happen in a place like that. I want to walk through the movie screen, enter another world through the portal of the metal detector in the airport.

I board the plane behind a troop of Girl Scouts. Their uniforms are flashy as those of dictators in South American countries. Berets and sashes, tassels on their kneesocks, pins and badges and patches for campouts and cookie sales. Handbooks, bubble gum, first-aid kits. They are fully equipped. They walk in jangling pairs—the buddy system. One girl has glasses. One has her hair done up in a mass of fantastic little braids. One looks retarded, with sleepy eyes and a drooping lower lip. Her partner drags her along by the hand.