My Best Man by Andy Schell (unputdownable books .txt) 📗

in front of my eyes. In the yard, skeletons of oaks stand shaking, their bare arms raised, as if Donald has open the door and yelled, “Don’t move or I’ll shoot!” Beyond yard, the brown dormant fairway grasses of the golf course like huge straw mats large enough for Donald to wipe his big feet on. I can’t help wonder how much money Donald will from my dead father.

The moment is dying for conversation, so I tell them both my horrific flight into Wichita today. “The turbulence was so that the flight attendant was knocking into seats and s against the sides of the overhead bins, but she refused to sit She just kept serving watery drinks and those Hello Kitty-size of peanuts. I was waiting for her head to hit the ceiling and off and go rolling down the aisle, smiling.”

Donald doesn’t understand my sense of humor and looks at as if I’m callous.

“They shot three approaches,” I continue, “before they able to land the plane. Every time they tried a different the wind would change again. I thought we were going to

into bits and pieces in some wheat field bordering the airport. And stewardess was so perky, I’ll bet she would have trudged through the rubble with a beverage tray embedded in her forehead while she offered decks of playing cards to the survivors.”

“It couldn’t have been that bad, or they wouldn’t have landed the plane,” Donald says staunchly, a glass of Glenlivet dwarfed in his simian hands. The TV is broadcasting the Olympics in Sarajevo.

At the moment, no one is watching.

Curling competition.

“It was the worst flight I’ve ever been on,” I state emphatically, feeling my status as an airline attendant gives me authority.

“I’ll tell you about a scary flight,” he says, stretching out, more comfortable still.

Here we go. A war story. I’ve only met this guy twice, but both times he was full of war lore. The first day we met, my mother insisted he tell his land mine story. The one where a recruit gets his arm blown through the air, and when it lands in the tree, it salutes the guy’s own dying body. The curling competition is starting to look good.

” “Nam,” he says, shaking his head. “It was mission number 742. Hying out of Vung Tau.”

“You go ahead with your story,” my mother says to Donald. “Harry and I will be listening from the kitchen.” She nods for me to follow her.

I’m shocked. The other two times I was around them, she doted on him relentlessly and hung on his every word …. even when he was reading closing shares from the New York Stock Exchange aloud.

“Just another ordinary day for a Caribou pilot…” I hear him say as my mother and I step into the kitchen. His voice is muted by the TV.

“I want to tell you, I’ve got a little lump,” my mother says,

adding more vodka to her gimlet with one hand, patting her with the other. “And I’m going in next week to have it looked at.,

Oh, my God, I survived my flight, and now it’s my mother, feet on the ground, who’s in danger. “What do you think, I ask, knowing she must have some kind of intuition.

“It was June. The Tet Offensive, which had started in was over. The flight was routine to Saigon…” Donald from the living room.

“Yes,” my mother calls to Donald, “The Tet Offensive!” if it’s a wonderful Broadway play. She whispers to me, “I told Donald. He’s been through so much, losing his wife

I’m sure he’s had enough cancer for one year. Besides, it’s a job having to step into the shoes of your father and all. Botter has completely snubbed him. She won’t even mention in her column nothing about us as a couple either.”

Barbie Botter is the society columnist for the local paper. married to a banking executive who’s been having a Ion affair with a blond TV news anchor from a local affiliate of of the national broadcasting companies. Barbie and the news were once pictured at a Wichita charity event giving each kisses, and if you looked close you could see Barbie’s fingers around the anchor’s waist, were curled back and positioned so Barbie was flipping her the bird. “Forget about Barbie Botter. what do you think?”

“I’ve had lumps before. Many times,” she says, sipping drink. But then her brow wrinkles and she looks slightly a terrible sign coming from my mother because she’s the woman who’s cheerful even during televised executions and tornadoes. “This time, I don’t know.”

“The commander said they wouldn’t last another night.

all be killed if we didn’t scoop ‘em up,” Donald proclaims.

“So what did you do?” my mother calls out, before turning ll me and saying, “This really is one of his best stories.”

“Mom,” I tell her, reaching out for her tight-skinned hand, “I can’t believe you’re telling me this. What if you have cancer?”

I’ll beat it!” she sings as if it’s as simple as beating an egg. “Your father wasn’t right to do what he did,” she adds with very little judgment.

“I agree,” I say, smiling gently. “Are you going to tell the general about the lump?”

“When we landed on that little dirt airstrip, those young Vietnamese boys were waiting for us proud little shits, they were.”

“Well, Donald!” my mother yells, pulling her hand from mine and putting it to her throat. She keeps it there to cover the wrinkles. “Of course I’ll tell him,” she quietly tells me. “But let’s have a nice visit while you’re here. I’ll tell him after you go.”

Donald’s voice grows louder. “… catastrophic left engine failure!”

It makes me sad to see her nirvana shaken, to see her faced with a decision she cannot surrender to Donald. “Mom, I love you,” I tell her.

“And I love you,” she says, setting her vodka gimlet down. She pulls me to her damaged breast and hugs me close, whispering in my ear, “Right or wrong, I have to carry out