Read Online Flights by Jim Shepard - Free Book Online Page B

Sikorsky HH-52 helicopter, some skywriters, a U.S. Army parachute team, and a smallish orange plane that stood on its tail and cut its engine and flew acrobatically. Biddy’s job was to keep the soda moving, run for beers, and change empty cheese and meat platters for full ones. Everything wavered on TV trays on uneven ground, under the shadows of the leaves. People began to fill the backyard. The meat and cheese platters, as his father had predicted, began to take a beating.
    The party was not a gathering for children, and Mickey Liriano was the only child present besides Biddy, hustling back and forth with empty or full trays, and Kristi, jealously guarding a chair in a prime viewing location. Mickey dealt with his isolation principally by throwing a rubber ball off the side of the garage with a relentless energy and fielding it, pausing only to retrieve a bad hop from the garden or let someone with drink in hand pass by.
    His father called out at one point, “Listen, Cy Young, you want to give that a rest?” but gave up soon after.
    Mickey was bored, Biddy knew. Kristi bored him and Biddy bored him and his older brother especially bored him, with his excessive patience and kindness and lack of speed in everything he did. The dog bored him, and didn’t like him, besides. The food bored him. Throwing a ball against the side of the garage bored him, and when the Blue Angels came over they’d bore him as well. He brought and wore his Reggie Smith glove in the futile hope he could talk someone—his father, Biddy, anyone—away from the Air Show for a catch at least. He’d already asked more than once and was bored with asking. The rubber ball made almost no noise in his glove, and he threw it against the garage as though it were a hard ball.
    Cindy and Ronnie stood under the big maple, talking and accepting congratulations on the engagement. She was wearing a gauzy light blue dress and he was in shorts and a tennis shirt. Biddy watched them for a short time before Ronnie called him over.
    â€œHow’s tricks, champ,” Ronnie said, sitting down. He was very close to his fiancée’s knee and her dress drifted against his shoulder. “I hear you’re finally getting the hang of second base.”
    Biddy winced, thinking of the game at the field. “Have you set a date?” he said.
    Ronnie made a face. “This May. Memorial Day. Which is perfect.”
    â€œWhy?”
    He shook his head. “Just a joke. Where’s your glove? Want to throw the ball around?”
    â€œI’m gonna go down and see the Blue Angels come over from Long Island.”
    â€œHow do you know they’re going to do that?”
    â€œMy father told me. They’re filling up at the Grumman plant over there. Doesn’t Cindy want you to hang around?”
    Ronnie shrugged and looked up at her. “I’m like you. I’m not too good at this social stuff.”
    Biddy looked at his watch. The possibility of Phantom jets, in formation, at Lordship was making him impatient with everything else. “I should go. Mickey’d want to play.”
    â€œI believe it,” Ronnie said. “I surely do believe it.” He leaned around the tree. “Hey psycho. You want to throw it around?” Mickey waved and nodded. “That’s a surprise,” he said, and Biddy left, hurrying toward the blue Sound he could glimpse between the houses.
    He didn’t wait long at the bluffs: six black specks spread themselves along the horizon over Long Island, exciting and precise against the broad blue sky, growing in size and detail until he realized the center of the V formation would be coming right over him, and he waited as long as he could, taking in the royal-blue and yellow markings, the underwing detail, the hint of clear orange behind the exhaust, before running up the bluffs and down the street as they flashed over him, huge, seemingly only a few feet above the houses,