Fearless by Rafael Yglesias Page B

head cold. Max nodded. “What the hell are you doing here, man? You walked away from that crash, rented a car and drove here? Why?”
    Max’s eyes filled. He tried to hold the tears back, ashamed to cry in front of these very grown-up men. The image of the end had returned: twisted metal and lifeless bodies carried across the runway. Under the bright sun, the colorless concrete had pained his eyes. “They were starting to line them up,” Max mumbled. “They line up the corpses and tag them—” And they gather the scattered body parts, such as Jeff’s head, until all the broken pieces are put together again. He knew from watching CNN, he knew from the harsh magazine photos, he knew from years of accident voyeurism. “They didn’t need me anymore,” Max said.
    “Mr. Klein,” Smith said softly. “Why don’t you come with us? We’ll get ahold of your people and get you home.”
    “You’re not going to arrest me?”
    “You haven’t done anything,” Agent Parsons said.
    That’s what they think, Max answered silently.

7
    He was taken to a hospital first. “I’m all here,” he told them, but they made sure anyway, X-raying and poking, evidently amazed by his wholeness.
    “No concussion.” A woman doctor who looked as if she were only slightly older than his ten-year-old son. “But he’s definitely suffering from some sort of posttrauma reaction.”
    “He’s in shock?” Agent Smith.
    Max listened. While they discussed him his legs dangled on the examining table. His behind crinkled the light blue sanitary paper that covered it.
    “No,” the child doctor said low, trying to whisper. “He’s having a stress reaction.”
    I’m still high, you dummy, Max thought and giggled. The doctor raised her eyebrows to Agent Smith about the giggle with the air of a lawyer who had established the proof of his case.
    The government men phoned the airline. Why the airline? Max wondered. It made the company seem very important, as if Transcontinental Corporation were the highest authority in the United States. Agent Smith asked him whether he wanted to call home.
    “You do it,” he said. “Tell my wife I’m free.”
    “What?” Agent Smith asked.
    “I mean, fine. I’m fine and fancy-free.”
    They put him in a darkened area, with a curtain drawn all around, something in between an examining room and a hospital bed. There was classical music playing through a speaker in the wall. He lay down and slept.
    “Hello,” a freckled face said and smiled brightly, mouth wide, teeth showing white for a few seconds and then going out, like a camera’s flash. “Sorry to wake you. It’s about three-thirty now. You’re still at the hospital in Pittsburgh. I’m Cindy Dickens from Transcontinental Air. I’m here to help get you home. How do you want to go? We’ll arrange any flight or transportation you like. I’m sorry. You look tired. Can I get you some coffee?”
    He felt much better for the nap. She got him coffee. Cindy watched him drink. When he was done he felt he had his brain back in residence. He asked Cindy if his family had been informed.
    “Oh yes. We had someone from the New York office go personally to your home and give them the good news. We offered to fly them here but they said—”
    “That it’s time for Max to come home,” he completed the statement for her.
    For a moment Cindy’s performance of a human being was paused; she peered out into the audience like a puzzled actress wondering who had heckled her. She seemed about to ask a conversational question and then switched back to her efficient checklist: “Should I get you on the next flight to New York?”
    Max waited for his terror of flying to appear in his head—but it didn’t come. His thoughts were merely practical. For the first time in his life he considered only how to get somewhere quickly, not safely. “Sure. Do I get to go first class?”
    Cindy cocked her head to one side and a smile appeared briefly, but she answered in