The Flight of the Pickerings

PROLOGUE

JUNE, 2007

FIFTEEN MILES DUE EAST OF DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA

Damn! Guy glanced sideways out his cockpit’s left window and winced at the roaring chop of a Navy Seahawk helicopter keeping pace at an aggressive distance. High above the blue-green waters of the Atlantic, Guy’s stalwart but aging Beechcraft Bonanza four-seater fretted forward like a nervous mackerel beside the efficient shark-like chopper. The helicopter’s pilot miraculously maintained the threateningly close distance between the weaving aircrafts while glaring back at Guy from behind dark wrap-arounds and steadily jabbing a finger at his earphones. Over the Beechcraft’s radio, an insistent message shrieked. "November Niner Niner Seven Zero Two, do you read me? Repeat! Do You Read Me?"

Further back along the fuselage, the chopper’s cargo door window framed the contorted face of a uniformed man waving and bouncing as if he were on a mini trampoline.

Guy’s hand reached to flick on his microphone, but hesitated in mid-air and instead pounded the steering wheel. Shit! he yelled out.

At this same moment, in this same space, the living song of a different, but not so different reality/paradigm also is heard…

From beneath the sound of the humming engine, in a voice that saints, shamans and angels can clearly hear, the Beechcraft airplane's essence spoke from the depths of its soul. I’ve never seen Guy like this. He doesn’t know what he’s doing! Every rivet in Guy’s long-trusted aircraft, the stout-hearted nineteen-sixty-nine vintage Bonanza, shuddered with the reluctant embrace of the inexplicably complicated situation. Those helicopters are so close! Just keep going…This is terrible! Nothing to do but keep flying. Keep going.

The sound of another chop-chop-buzz blindsided Guy’s attention, and he craned his neck over the right wing. Trailing behind and two hundred yards off to the right, flew a second helicopter: a Bell 407. A bold red logo announced Channel Seven News, your local On the Spot Source. The words On the Spot were cleverly arranged around a circular side window. Framed inside this window were the screaming faces of his daughter and his grandson. No need to hear their words, Guy already knew the message. Shit! You’ve got to be kidding me. He slapped his forehead.

Guy Pickering! What are you doing? Where are we? Dorothy’s voice skewered him from the passenger seat, mere inches away. This certainly seems to be taking a long time to get there. Grimacing, he turned to face his wife. Random tufts of grey hair stuck out from under her headphones. On her forehead, a lopsided red blotch marked how hard she had pressed her head against the window in a vain attempt at seeing any form of land below. Her left brow arched high over a piercing eye and her lips were slightly pursed. After nearly fifty years with Dorothy, Guy well knew the signs: time was running out. She waited. He didn’t have an answer.

The thin metal skin of the Beechcraft rumbled and vibrated as the impatient navy pilot, intent upon recognition, maneuvered even closer. Guy patted Dorothy’s thin knee and with his other arm swiped the sweat from his forehead. We’re fine, Honey, he called out above the din. It will all be…uhh, we’ll be there soon. Guy stared straight ahead and his voice dwindled under the steady thrum of the Bonanza's engine. A grey haze on the horizon mimicked his thoughts, obscuring the thin edge between sky and water and intent and reality.

Oh…good. Dorothy settled back into her seat, pulling the shawl tighter around her shoulders. She pointed over to the navy helicopter and nodded in their direction. Are they coming too? she said while wagging two fingers to the pilot who remained motionless and grim behind anonymous mirrored lenses.

As if a puff of otherworldly ethers startled him awake, Guy turned and with innocent wonder beheld the face he had loved for so long. Dorothy’s eyes softened, a trace of a strained smile. She reached across and laid a hand on his thigh.

Guy sat transfixed, confused by his swollen heart. For a brief moment, the intense presence of the navy helicopter and the Channel Seven newscast helicopter faded away, right along with the whole damn plan.

CHAPTER ONE

MONDAY

FIVE DAYS EARLIER

ORLANDO, FLORIDA

Guy pulled the aspirin-colored Ford Fairlane into the parking lot and eased into a space near the entrance at exactly 1:55 p.m. Guy glanced at his wristwatch, then focused through the glare of the windshield on the whitewashed walls of the Orlando Medical Outreach office as they shimmered in the early summer heat. The plainness of the squat, dull, building gave off a distinct sixties aura: temporarily modern and cheap to build. Dusty green-brown juniper bushes laced with spider webs ringed the office while scattered clumps of defiant weeds revealed minimal efforts at landscaping maintenance. The middle layer of Florida’s sick pressed into these facilities with their hopes and dreams for health eternal.

When standing straight, Guy Pickering measured over six feet. Most thought he was handsome in that mid-western craggy way, but judged him too lean. His silver hair showed thin at the top and looked to be in need of a trim. He adjusted his jeans over a pair of cowboy boots, his preferred type of footwear. Okay, Hon, let’s go, Guy said, unbuckling his wife’s seatbelt. She sat next to him, taut, muttering and squinting with considerable displeasure at the surroundings. He paused and managed to catch her eye. The eyes that had nailed him to the wall so many times with such a fierce sparkle now appeared distant and glassy red with nearly formed tears.

Dorothy coughed and cleared her throat. I don’t want to go, she said flatly. Guy gulped and patted her knee. He knew better than to argue. He’d merely wait for a moment, this would pass. Dorothy was even thinner than Guy, her frame bordered on boniness and spoke of illness. However, in a typically Dorothy-style act of defiance, the skin on her face maintained a smooth beauty that seemingly defied the ravages of age. She wore a wrinkled floral print dress, scented with the musty overtones of a seldom-used dresser drawer. It was a long forgotten garment, rescued that morning with vague recognition and a triumphant smile. Her white collar curled upward over the miss-matched buttons of a pale, sheer sweater. Guy waited as she scowled into the depths of her purse, finally fishing a semi-desiccated lipstick from a tiny pouch. She carefully painted her lips with a wandering smear. You look fine, Honey, Guy said, checking his watch again.

Guy settled Dorothy into one of the clinic’s wheelchairs and rolled her up to the front entrance. The automatic glass doors swung open with a whoosh, and a familiar antiseptic smell smacked Guy’s nose. A generously-hipped black woman, dressed in sparkling white, pushed a wheelchair with a bone-thin figure slumped against one side, out of the air conditioned interior and into the sun. Guy pulled Dorothy back to let them pass and silently recoiled at the stark sight of the man’s disease. At least Dorothy doesn’t look that bad.

As the gaunt man glided by on silent wheels, he lifted his chin and squinted into the intense light. His watery red eyes reeled toward Guy, looking for someone, something, anything.

Thank you, sir. The nurse nodded, but her smile faced directly ahead. The exiting pair rolled on, the withered figure scowling at his nurse as she steadily guided her cargo toward the idling van parked in the handicap space. The van’s driver glanced up from the perpetually scrolling screens on his phone. Guy bit his lip with the realization that this John Doe was headed to wherever someone had designated the old man to die.

Guy hated this place. Always had.

Guy leaned down and spoke through the hole in the glass. We have an appointment with Dr. Berger.

Do you have your card? The woman on the other side waited with one palm casually extended. Guy pulled a bulging leather lump from his hip pocket, wrinkled his nose and began fumbling through the stack of plastic and bits of paper. What is your name? she sighed, peering over the top of her glasses while a half dozen lights blinked incessantly on the phone console.

Pickering. It’s Pickering, just like last time…Sasha. Guy glared at her nametag. Only been three years we’ve been coming here.

Please have a seat, Mr. Pickering, she said, her immaculately ornate finger pointed to a corner. Orlando Med Center, she drawled into her headset, eyes straying off as the earphone brought a fresh medical plea.

Guy pushed Dorothy’s wheelchair down a fluorescent bright corridor. The nurse in front smelled of strong soap. She opened a door and motioned them into a cramped but spotless examination room. The expressionless nurse strode over to the room’s one window and adjusted the venetian blinds to subdue the sunshine. She spun around, appraised Dorothy up and down and, within two seconds, rejected the option of getting Dorothy out of her chair and weighing her on the upright scale. She shrugged and unfolded a plastic chair for Guy that was stacked in a corner. Dr. Berger will be right with you, she said, and immediately left.

Guy scanned the walls. "Hmm… I don’t think we’ve been in this room before, Honey, have we?" Guy leaned over and smiled at Dorothy. She didn’t respond. Guy gave a brief pulse of a smile, stretched out his long frame and scanned a side table piled with smiling-face magazines touting weight loss breakthroughs.

He idly massaged the nagging pain in his knee, and gradually the silence of the room pulled him into memories of a different appointment. That was six months ago, the worst one of all. Dr. Berger had held Dorothy’s hand and delivered the news. The treatments are not working. The cancer is still progressing. We’ll try again, he had said. The hollow promise did nothing to buffer the blatant news. Guy had felt the hand of death reaching out; Dorothy was the first to be summoned.

It’s natural, Guy, don’t you know? she had said with characteristic nonchalance when they’d returned to the car. Guy had become instantly angry with whatever forces bulldozed the destinies of human beings. How could this be? He’d always assumed he’d die before Dorothy. In his piloting days, he had never climbed into an airplane without the thought that this might be his last day. Guy was not prone to morbidity, rather his sense that death might snatch him away at any time came from the fact that he considered himself lucky to be alive. Dorothy, on the other hand, was eternal, timeless in her grace, untouchable as long as Guy was around. He’d protect her! Guy had never considered a life without Dorothy. This was just not right.

Ever since that appointment six months prior, Guy had become more and more dutiful and depressed as the attendant and witness to the slow descent of his grand airliner known as Dorothy. Yet, even on this day, shielded by sporadic denial, he remained hopeful.

Footsteps and voices from the other side of the door. Hold my calls, Dr. Berger announced as he swung open the door to the examination room. Guy liked the doctor. He was tall, forty-something, with a serious face that always showed kindness when he talked to Dorothy. For Guy, the doctor was a faint beacon in the high seas of fading aspirations. He strode over to Guy, and the men shook hands. The doctor smiled at Dorothy and grasped her hand with both his. In a minute, he turned and gently picked up a clipboard that held one mere sheet of paper. After studying the numbers and graphs for a moment, he laid the clipboard down on the counter, pinched the bridge of his nose, pushed his glasses up and studied his patient.

How have you been feeling, Dorothy? Dr. Berger leaned forward and peered into her face, hoping for a response. None came. And happy birthday to you, he said, trying another tack. It was last week, right? Seventy-five now and not looking a day over forty! The doctor waited for a response. Dorothy focused her attention on the wall. After a few seconds, Dr. Berger folded his arms and turned to Guy, How’s her pain level?"

Not good, Guy winced. The doctor listened intently as Guy detailed the worsening symptoms: the pain seemed to be a constant, cutting into them both with bayonet like depth; the nausea and incontinence came and went. Dr. Berger kept his eyes on Dorothy, but leaned toward Guy and whispered, And how is her mental cognizance?

Guy sighed, Well, uh… I had to go find her last week…a couple blocks away. She’d knocked on some lady’s door and asked if anybody knew where she lived. All she had on was a bathrobe. I felt real bad…she was scared. He swiped his forehead.

Dr. Berger didn’t ask any more questions, no sugar coating a bitter pill. He reached back to the counter, picked up the stark clipboard and again studied the row of checkmarks. It could be one month, maybe two, he somberly announced. I’m sorry. Guy sucked in his breath and peeked over at his diminishing wife, wondering if she had heard the doctor.

Dorothy paid no attention; she wasn’t listening to the men. A plastic laminated poster on the wall held her full attention. She couldn’t make sense of this utterly graphic depiction of the human body’s entire musculature—sans skin. The poor man had obviously been skinned alive, yet incredibly, remained proudly standing as if posing for a magazine underwear ad. She raised her thin shaking hand to her mouth. How could they?

Nothing we can do? Guy inquired.

Nothing but keep her comfortable. It’s time to change the prescription.

Guy nodded his consent. So what’s to lose? Give her the good shit. He listened carefully as the doc gave him instructions on how to use the morphine patches. He then reached into the pocket of his white coat and pulled out several small vials of pills. He paused and carefully studied the crammed, tiny writing on the labels. He looked up, held Guy’s eyes a moment and finally broke the silence.

Give her two of these a day…they’re new. I’ve read up on this one in the journals. In some cases, it has really helped people who suffer from dementia. The good doctor’s mouth stretched to the left and a disconcerting shadow passed in his eyes as he cautioned Guy about some possible side effects, erratic behavior, perhaps a bit unpredictable. Guy was grateful for anything that might help his wife.

Guy, we are leaving right now! Dorothy rasped as she struggled with her wheelchair. Her eyes darted around the room as if searching for skin-stripping scalpels.

Guy rose and released the handbrake on Dorothy’s chair. Dr. Berger caught his arm. Guy, you know there is the other matter. You need to make an appointment with me.

Not now, Doc. Plenty of time for that later. With that, Guy bee-lined for the exit.

Well, that’s it for the clinic, Guy thought as he eased Dorothy back into their car. No sense in going back again. What’s his next spiel going to be?

The doctor’s voice echoed in Guy’s mind. Well, I think we’re down to nineteen, maybe twenty days. Make an appointment with the nurse out front. In a week we’ll check her out again. Guy’s eyes stayed off as he imagined Dr. Berger trying to do whatever he could.

No thank you, Doctor. I’ll take it from here, Guy looked over his shoulder at the nondescript building that hid so many stories of pain and rampant despair. This, he vowed would be the very last time. He slammed the car door behind him. The only good thing about the visit is the new drugs. Maybe they’ll help with what I got to do.

CHAPTER TWO

7501 WILLOWSIDE RD.

ELEVEN MILES NORTHEAST OF ORLANDO, FLORIDA

The drive home from the clinic took only twenty minutes, but Guy’s snail pace still managed to piss off the line of impatient cars that snaked behind him. Trancelike, he coasted through the last stop sign two blocks from home, then cut the corner too close and jumped the curb while pulling into the driveway, only snapping back to attention with the loud groan of the Fairlane’s shock absorber.

Whoa Guy, take it easy! (The conscientious Ford always carried on in his mechanically tinted voice as if Guy could hear him.) Just get me in the garage. Let’s get Dorothy back home safe and sound. The Fairlane took that morning’s trip quite seriously after the pleasing surprise: Guy slid behind his wheel. He was seldom chosen to ferry Guy and Dorothy on special outings. In truth, over time, he had developed a slight inferiority complex to Guy’s other car, the classic Olds 88 who consistently ignored everyone with a snobbish silence born of Detroit’s heyday hierarchy. A virtual second-place ribbon hung on the Fairlane’s grill. So that morning, had started out with purpose, but turned worrisome for the Ford: Guy’s driving had been erratic and sloppy. Guy! Look at Dorothy, you bumped her awake.

Where are we? Dorothy’s head swiveled around in a momentary panic. She blinked heavily and dug her fingers into her armrest, Uhh…

Sorry, Honey. We’re back.

Oh…good. She searched for the right words. Help me upstairs? I want to lie down for a while. She reached a thin blue-veined hand across the seat and grasped his sleeve.

Guy could hardly feel the weight of her arm. Of course, it’s been a big day already, he sighed.

Guy pulled the window curtains inward, careful not to block the plastic grille of the air conditioner as it pumped its monotonous whine and rushed, frigid breeze into the darkened bedroom. The light from the tarnished brass lamp angled down on Dorothy’s face, accentuating the tiny lines and crevices of age. Guy was transfixed and a somewhat shocked by the sight. She had never looked so tired. Her lips pulled taut with effort as she rolled on her side to face Guy.

Don’t leave yet. She stretched out a hand. Talk to me.

Guy sat down on the edge of the bed to the familiar sound of creaking springs. He feigned a blank look, rolled his eyes to the ceiling and rubbed the stubble of whiskers on his chin. Well now, what shall we talk about? She lay expectant as a child listening to a storyteller, his voice enveloping her body with a soothing balm. Remember that night at Dee’s Diner? he said.

Dorothy’s eyes darted about the room as if the answer were hiding behind a dusty piece of memorabilia. Oh…yes, she murmured.

He knew that she loved the story. The tale had been told many times at family dinners. I’d only been back in Perryton for one day. I was on my first leave from the army. Guy leaned back on one arm and gazed beyond the bed to the nightstand that held a brass picture frame: two young laughing faces beside a lake. Time and innocence don’t dance together for long.

You walked into the diner wearing that one pretty pink dress of yours. A trace of a smile tugged at her face. Guy chuckled, I could hardly swallow the food in my mouth. Marvin was late of course, drinking himself silly down at the Lucky Aces. You didn’t see me at first. You just sat there in the booth, all prim and proper. The most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I caught your eye when that bastard walked in and… Guy clenched his fist. I got so angry at that son-of-a-bitch. Dorothy waited for him to continue, she loved the next part. Guy sighed. "Well, I couldn’t help myself. You and everybody else eating dinner in that place knew how foolish I looked. Didn’t somebody say the word gallant though? Guy said with a hint of defensiveness in his voice at the memory of marching over to the chrome dinette booth and demanding that Marvin have better manners toward the lady. Sucker punched me. That’s what he did. I never saw it coming."

I took you home. Dorothy’s fragile voice broke in. Her eyes glinted with delight.

Yes you did. And you came by the next day and we sat at the edge of the corn patch and talked. Yes, sir. Guy paused and looked toward the dull light coming from the window shades, the memory of that timeless moment, the day they had glimpsed the future.

He smoothed a morphine patch onto her hip, fluffed her pillow and sat patiently by her as she took one of the new pink tablets. She immediately closed her eyes and, within a minute, her breathing took on a slow regularity. He rose and paused at the bedroom window long enough to pull the shades, then returned downstairs to the kitchen. He pulled a beer from the refrigerator and pushed through the kitchen’s screen door, out to the farmhouse-style front porch.

Guy was only peripherally aware of the dry rot at the front edge and the ever increasing loose nails holding down the long boards that flanked the entire east side of the house. With its slightly bowed canopy covering the entire length, Guy referred to it as the grand veranda. It was where he did his best thinking. When they first laid eyes on the house, forty years ago, it had reminded them of their rural Tennessee roots. Their son, Mitch, and their daughter, Darlene, were still in high school when they refused a developer’s offer that was significantly above market value. As if to spite the Pickering holdouts, the developer had subsequently pushed through a re-zoning and hurriedly built a brand new neighborhood that immediately surrounded their wood shingled home with dozens of six thousand square foot, low maintenance lots and a sea of tile roofs tucked behind stuccoed archways. The young New York architect hired to design the homes in the subdivision had gone for an innovative Southwestern/Mediterranean blend. The Pickering’s home, a two story plain-Jane with faded paint and a vegetable garden instead of a pool, didn’t blend well with any of the surrounding five floor plans. The house stuck out like a dusty farm truck amid a fleet of new sedans.

Guy stood behind a stained cherry wood rocking chair and stared down at the well-worn cushion. He absently ran his fingers over the high back. I can’t sit around on my ass anymore…simply worry about it, he muttered. It’s all history now, Guy mused as he embraced the ever-narrowing choices. The doctor appointments, the therapies, the ambitious optimism. All done. Guy’s thin lips mouthed the words. Now it’s down to this. It’s actually getting simpler. He whirled the Frisbee-flat beer can over the railing, across the strip of lawn and into the mouth of a garbage bin leaning open against the garage. Two points, he smirked. His eyes flared under bushy grey eyebrows at yesterday’s missed shots that lay nearby on the grass.

Guy finally plopped into the rocker with the familiar rhythmic wooden squeak. He stretched out his long legs and, rubbing his bum knee, he turned toward the kitchen door. I’ll get something later. Recently, the refrigerator was only sporadically stocked. Some nights he forgot to eat altogether.

He leaned over and picked up the plastic information packet that Dr. Berger had slipped into his hands that morning. First thing out of the bag, a brochure from North Orlando Hospice Outreach. The cover of the high gloss multi-page foldout featured a picture of a plaque mounted at the entrance to the rainforest section of the New York City Central Park Zoo. Guy fitted a pair of reading glasses to his face and tilted the brochure toward the light: On the last day of the world, I would want to plant a tree. W.S. Merwin.

Humph! Guy frowned at the paper and cast it aside. How the hell would that matter? The offending brochure with the enigmatic phrase only added another pin to the cushion of his heart. Unforeseen, but damn predictable, ruthless cancer lived and thrived in Dorothy’s frail body.

Hospice? I’m not letting a bunch of strangers take over and watch her suffer till the end. They don’t know her at all. An image of two nights before welled up in his vision. Dorothy had cried out in the middle of the night, her ever-thinning skin clammy with sweat. Thankfully, today had brought a precious break, like sunshine between violent storms and a brief peace treaty between the tissues and the tumors.

For months, Guy had sat with Dorothy every morning and read to her from the selection of magazines she had subscribed to over the years. Having never given more than a cursory look at these periodicals, this concentrated dose of attention to the glossy pages now provided a glimpse of an entire way of life that he had largely ignored. Yesterday, a magazine devoted entirely to knitting, somewhat magically speared through the thickening cloud of a life winding down and promised in that paper thin way, that all is well and life goes on as before. Guy spent hours reading out loud the unfamiliar and tiresome niceties from Ladies Home Journal and Redbook. News, gossip, household tips, interviews and recipes were often read twice and three times as Dorothy listened and nodded. After a couple of hours, she would usually drift off into sleep, only to wake with a snort, grab the colorful paper and squint at the tiny print with a ferocious intensity. Guy would patiently wait and eventually she would extend the approved publication back to him with a brief nod. Even if she had been wearing her glasses, Guy doubted whether she understood the printed words before her eyes.

An alarm clock buzzed into life in the kitchen. Guy stiffly rose and strode past the doors and pushed the button on the back of the timer. It was 4 o’clock, time for the oldies radio show. He made his way as quietly as possible up the creaky steps and peered into the bedroom. Dorothy was still asleep. It was customary every afternoon for Guy to flick on the somewhat ancient radio beside Dorothy’s bed. For an hour, the small speaker would blare the tinny sounds of fifties and sixties rock and roll from a local AM station. Fats Domino, Bobby Darin, Little Richard, Elvis Presley. The best music of all time. On a good day, Dorothy smiled. Moments of brief respite, but in these recent weeks, they were coming less and less. Today, she would probably sleep. Guy left the door open a crack and retreated down the stairs.

A minute later, he was at the refrigerator door, another beer in hand. He hesitated at the window, holding the can a few inches from his lips. Two years of exhausting decline flowed over him in a wave of emotion. His eyes filled with a watery sadness.

Guy knew this day would come. He felt it coming like an overdue train.