subcoctions

the chopper

lunch was served on the patio. sara, tutie, their parents, ashley and i ate our sandwiches as the cast iron chairs made waffle patterns on the backs of our thighs. i had grilled chicken breast on ciabatta with lettuce, tomato and honey mustard. sara had ham and cheddar with mustard on wheat. the wind was starting to pick up, so i rolled my sleeves down. the girls struck up a conversation about clothes as i craned my neck to evaluate our surroundings. we were in irving. i could tell by the black tint on the windows of a building shaped somewhat like a pyramid, only it flattened out halfway to the vertex. i'd been to the building before. i had actually interviewed there. strange that they never called me back. oh well. hey, look. chicken.

from behind my sandwich i saw bob's brow furrow. it's fine when my brow furrows, because i control that. or when sara's brow furrows, because i know what to say to straighten it out again (usually). but bob is my future father-in-law, so i neither control his brow, nor do i have the balls to try and make it straight again. so bob's brow had me worried. because bob was worried for a reason.

tutie was worried for the same reason. i took note, amidst my uncomfortable glance in her direction, that she seemed to be mocking her father. and for a split second i thought, "how cruel." i was quick to dismiss my quiet condescension when she pointed to the sky behind me, half nervous and half giddy, and shouted "look at the helicopter!"

again with the craning of the neck. so my attempt at reading bob and his brow had been thwarted, for the moment, by a helicopter. it rose from behind the black glass like a cobra being charmed by a clarinet. swaying left to right, its propellers created black halos above the fuselage. poised above the half-pyramid, the craft seemed to stare at our table, as though our enormous metal waiter had returned to see if we needed refills.

"that chopper's coming down." bob said. and then he stood up and repeated himself, barely louder than the last one, and with a little more emphasis on "down." i swallowed the last bite of sandwich in my mouth, but it was too large and i hadn't chewed enough, and it stung all the way down. bob grabbed mary by the hand and put one arm around her shoulder. i did the same for sara, and the four of us began to flee. ashley and tutie were right behind us as we rounded the corner of the building and descended the steps from the patio onto the sidewalk.

the propeller hit first. the way it cut into the cement reminded me of ordering sausage at a barbecue joint. the blade is always too big, and they always cut at such a severe angle. but sausage lands on my plate in perfect 2-ounce pieces, it doesn't fly away in dust clouds and thirty-pound chunks of skin-piercing rock.

it was fractions of a second before the cockpit dove into the cement soup, releasing a symphony of moaning metal and glass. we were still running when it slid through our table. and into the front of the restaurant. people flew like the aforementioned cement chunks. it was hard to tell screaming patrons from iron scraping on brick.

by the time the weight of the machine had carried it as far as it could scrape along the pavement, it looked like a dead slinky. the one you had forever and couldn't throw away, even though it was bent in several places and didn't slink right anymore. the propellers simply didn't exist anymore, and the whole unit sat in a sea of glass shards and cement powder. the only sound was the breath of millions of tiny little concrete particles hitting the ground.

i glanced around to see if anyone near me was hurt, or if sara's brow needed unfurrowing. but there was no blood, only heavy breathing and wide, white eyeballs under dust clouds. a glance at bob revealed the violent rising and falling of his chest. it didn't take long to realize where all the heavy breathing was coming from. bob was furious. he released his vice grip on mary's white fingers and began to march back toward the patio, arms flailing, obscenities falling out of his mouth like teeth after a beating.

the commotion stopped. twice. the first time was so everyone could have a good hard look at bob. bob was the wreck on the highway that despite their agendas no one can bring themselves to turn from. the second stop was when the pilot climbed out of the wreckage. at this point the dust was nearly clear and the sun was bouncing off the pilot's helmet as he removed it. bob stopped dead in his tracks.

"cut!" a voice sliced through the scene from inside the restaurant, behind the shattered window.

the pilot let down his hair and shook the dust out. as he released the velcro on the neck of his jump suit, a thin man with a clipboard came shuffling out of the restaurant. he addressed the pilot first, presumably to ask if he was okay. then, with a smile he turned to the crowd and informed us that we had just landed a part in his major motion picture. he explained how his vision was to capture the natural human reaction to various disasters, and that the helicopter scene was such a pivotal point in the movie that we should all give ourselves a round of applause. and we did just that. the man was so eloquent, so moving, and he had touched us at just the right time, as our endorphines had begun to subside. although he was the macabre conductor of this orchestra of deception, his actors, who were also his audience now, had no choice but to respect him.

the stuntman/pilot put one arm in the air and took a bow as the director patted his back.

posted by ...TeamHarris! @ 8:34 PM