in it, climbing, diving, cartwheeling, gliding. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It was where he belonged. The three of them made a gentle turn toward land and glided home.
Sea-Tac
And it is of the highest importance that this common meeting-place should be reached easily, almost instinctively, in the dark, with one’s eyes shut.
—Virginia Woolf
After the accident and settlement it’s decided Alfred should live at home for a while. The doctors and specialists and therapists all agree it’s the best way for him to ease back into the real world. That’s how they always say it: Alfred needs to ease back into the real world after his accident. He’s just fortunate the settlement provides for his care and rehabilitation. Alfred himself has no sense of having left the real world in the first place, but all the doctors and specialists and therapists concur and so at the age of thirty-five he finds himself parked in his old bedroom at his parents’ house near Sea-Tac Airport.
The transition is hard at first. Before the accident and settlement he had a great big house in Seattle, on Queen Anne Hill. He can’t remember for sure how long he lived there and he can’t remember what he did to afford it, but he remembers the big living room and the bedroom with the oak beam ceiling and windows that looked over Lake Union. He has a particularly vivid memory of standing on the back lawn watching the Blue Angels perform at Sea Fair, especially the part when one of the gleaming blue F/A-18 fighters with the bright yellow US NAVY emblazoned on its wings screamed 300 feet over the house with its afterburners blazing. He remembers that, and there’s a girl in the memory but for the life of him he can’t remember who she was. His parents don’t seem to remember, either.
It’s strange living at home like a kid, but at least his old bedroom isn’t so bad. His parents left up some of his posters from way back, the one from an Aerosmith concert when he was in high school, and the ones of airplanes. It’s on the second floor and he can look out of his window and see the jets taking off and landing a half mile away at Sea-Tac. Their neighborhood of Normandy Park is nestled on a small hill west of the airport. From one window in his room he can see the gymnasium and football field at his old middle school and from the other he can see almost the whole airport over a grove of evergreens. He can see all three runways and the tall cement control tower and the terminals in which he knows there are people on their way to every corner of the world. Most of all he can see the airplanes.
When family and friends call on the telephone to check on him he always tells them what airlines are taking off and landing.
Even though he’s thirty-five and living at home with his parents in his old room, no one makes fun of him. When he walks into town everyone is kind and polite. At the coffee shop he gets free donuts and the kids who work at the pizza joint always give him two free slices of pepperoni. People go out of their way to help him. He wonders if they were like this before.
Each night at dinner his mother says, We’re so glad you’re home, Alfred.
His father says, Yes, compared to the alternatives, we’re very glad indeed.
These exchanges confuse Alfred, who doesn’t remember his parents ever being glad about much of anything, much less something he did. Still, he’s happy they’re happy. Better late than never, as the saying goes.
After a while Alfred gets restless. It’s been six months and the doctors and specialists and therapists still agree he still hasn’t eased back into the real world. While they have his best interests in mind the practical effect of all their care is that they’re driving him nuts. He is a thirty-five year old man, after all, and despite the accident and settlement he still has a lot of living to do.
He decides to get a job.
The decision presents an immediate conundrum: he isn’t allowed to drive a car and public transportation is out of the question. That leaves the mall (yech!) the gas station (yawn) or the airport (yay!).
The doctors and specialists and therapists aren’t happy with the idea but if there’s one thing about Alfred, once he gets a notion in his head, as his father says, you can’t blast it out with dynamite. Besides, his parents tell them their son used to fly airplanes himself. Alfred laughs inside. He’s never even been on a plane much less flown one. Still, it’s nice they’re on his side these days.
His mother says, We should let him do at least one thing he loves.
So one Monday morning he goes to the airport. It’s a long walk, more than an hour. It doesn’t matter, because the whole time Alfred’s eyes are on the sky, watching airliners landing and taking off. Normally that distance is out of bounds but his father says, Damned if he doesn’t remember the way.
His first trip is a bit of a fiasco. His mother walks with him to the terminal and watches him walk into the huge building. He turns and waves at her like he’s going on a trip. He passes the baggage carousels and the car rental desks with long lines of people, the Information Desk and the security desk, the big wall of TV screens with the Arrivals and Departures. He takes the escalator upstairs and wanders to the Alaska Airlines gates.
Which is when all hell breaks loose.
Suddenly he’s on the floor and people are shouting at him.
How did you get through security?!
Where’s your boarding pass?!
How did you get through security?!
Have you had contact with any known terror groups in the last eighteen months?!
How did you get through security?!
It turns out his getting through security is a really big deal. They take him to a small dark room where a man and a woman in dark suits ask him more questions while two security officers stand by the door. The questions and the noise and the excitement confuse him. He just walked into the terminal like a normal person. Good grief, is the world going crazy? He says he’s looking for a job but they don’t believe him.
They keep him in the small room until his parents arrive and after an hour of answering questions themselves are allowed to take him home.
At dinner his mother says, We’re so glad you’re home safe, Alfred. I think this was too big a step.
And his father says, Yes, especially considering the alternatives you could have faced today. But we’re very glad indeed.
The next day one of the therapists comes to the house and says gravely, You see, this is why Alfred has to ease back into the real world slowly. Much more slowly.
After that it gets trickier for him to go to the airport. He’s allowed to go out again, but he just goes to the park down the street and sits on a bench under a big willow tree and watches the ducks and geese in the pond and the kids playing on the slides and swings and the people jogging, skating, and biking past. He meets a few people and it’s perfectly pleasant but it’s no Sea-Tac. His mother drives by every couple of hours to check on him. Finally after two weeks his mother and father are convinced he’s found a place to go where he won’t get into trouble. His mother stops driving by, and a few days later Alfred starts going back to the airport. He doesn’t like lying to his parents but he needs a job. He’ll go bonkers if he can’t get one soon.
The second time he visits the airport he’s more careful. He knows his mistake was not taking stock of the situation before barging in. Any old fool knows better
