The Fearsome Particles Part 3

"...I don't know whether I'm going to be able to make it on Tuesday," h.e.l.la was saying.

The two Meissen candlesticks, each with its own cherub-like putto standing upon a mound of leafy green seaweed, embracing a long, vertical eel-like fish whose tail splayed over the putto's raised knee and whose mouth opened wide to accept the base of a taper, were laid on their sides at the bottom of the box. Each of them, at least 150 years old and now worth $740 apiece in the unlikely event Vicki would ever sell, was wrapped in a single, inadequate layer of bubble wrap. And each of them, precious thing, was snapped in two.

"...Wednesday should be fine, though," h.e.l.la was saying.

"h.e.l.la," said Vicki, light-headed and reaching down to the dusty floor for support, "when you packed the Meissen pieces with the treen bowls, did you happen to lay the candlesticks on their sides?"

There was silence on the line as apparently h.e.l.la was sending her mind back to the hurried moment of packing, and Vicki, sitting tilted on the floor now with one leg bent underneath her, laid the top halves of each of the candlesticks on the floor and slid the useless bubble-wrap blankets from the bottoms.

"I think so, yeah. I thought it would be safer."

"Hum." Vicki pressed the heel of a hand against one eye. "Well, that's my mistake then." She spoke through a roughness in her throat. "I should have told you it's always better to keep tall, fragile things standing upright. I thought I had."

"Why? Is anything wrong?"

"Hum," said Vicki. Her voice felt squeezed; she found it hard to catch her breath. "Well, it's just that" she held one of the candlestick bases in her lap, and she folded herself over it, pressing the putto, the child, against her stomach "they seem not to have survived the trip."

Nothing came from h.e.l.la for a moment, until she offered a soft "Oh, no."

7.

The Trenton airport wasn't much of an airport, as far as Gerald could tell, and he regretted that nine months ago, when Kyle had been heading out, he hadn't driven his son here himself. He'd wanted to, but Kyle had insisted on finding his own way because he wasn't a child who needed to be driven around by his parents any longer.

KYLE: I'm not going to a school dance or something, Dad; this is a life decision. I don't need a lift to my life decision. I'm not going to a school dance or something, Dad; this is a life decision. I don't need a lift to my life decision.

If Gerald had managed to convince Kyle to let him drive, he'd have had a chance to see the Trenton pa.s.senger terminal and know that Kyle was about to place himself in the hands of an organization, the military, that invested no effort or attention whatsoever in moments of transition. Kissing one sort of reality goodbye, heading off to another it was no big deal, apparently, as far as the military was concerned. Gerald didn't know what exactly the components of a transition-friendly pa.s.senger terminal would be, but a gathering area with a dozen or so anch.o.r.ed seats, a grey departures counter the size of a lectern, a lone conveyor belt for luggage, a beefy, unhappy-looking man standing with his foot propped up on the rung of a stool, in a building imbued with the character of an unused garage, clearly missed the mark. He was looking for decorous. He was looking for grateful. This wasn't a place for honouring the decision to put everything you held dear at risk, this was a place for slipping in and out unannounced.

That it was small, though, with a minimum of doors and pa.s.sages, made it hard to miss whatever new arrival soldier, government official, casualty one might be looking for, and for this Gerald was thankful. He'd managed to make the trip in just under two hours; not bad given the consecutive slowdowns on the highway east of Bowmanville, the first caused by a man changing the rear tire of a Toyota, the second by a dark-blue van stopped at the side of the road for no discernible reason, which made people think it a speed trap and slow to an ooze. (It wasn't a trap, though; Gerald had made a point of staring into the window as he inched past and saw the driver, mouth open, asleep. He'd banged on the horn out of frustration at that point and the driver hadn't moved, so there was a chance, Gerald realized, that he was dead. Which didn't lessen his irritation.) Once he'd arrived and determined that Kyle's plane had not yet landed, he'd staked out his waiting area, at a broad window with an un.o.bstructed view of the tarmac, not far from the door through which the deplaning pa.s.sengers would come. There he stood as one quarter-hour pa.s.sed, and then another, and a jumble of images, s.n.a.t.c.hes of Kyle as a child, flew past him like brown, blown leaves. He saw three-year-old Kyle building a castle with flowerpots, twelve-year-old Kyle peeing algebra into the snow, Kyle in a bulky diaper dipping his cookie in mud, and his child at eight, motionless on a swing, pondering mysteries. He saw scenes unfold, and felt his body seize at the memories, as when, at the Elora Gorge, one of Kyle's cousins s.n.a.t.c.hed the pebble Kyle had been examining out of his hand and hurled it into the chasm and Kyle, five, tried to chase it over the edge (not dying only because Vicki's brother Arthur caught him with an arm as Gerald, vitrified, watched). He re-witnessed his six-year-old son absorbing the horror of his baby rabbit, dead from overfeeding because Gerald, not trusting his son to feed the animal as instructed, slipped it carrot sticks in the night. And, finally, as a grounds crew worker in short sleeves drove a stubby vehicle across the tarmac in front of him, he saw his son at seven, on the ground, not moving.

Gerald had come home from work on a seething mid-August day to find Kyle lying at the edge of the lawn, near the sidewalk, his legs still wrapped around his bicycle, as if he were a plastic soldier on horseback, knocked over to signify death. He was half whimpering, half talking to himself, in a voice too soft to make out, and it took a while for Gerald to piece together what fragments he could get. It seemed that after day camp, hoping to play, Kyle had biked alone to the house of his sole friend, Li Wen. This was something Gerald would never have allowed, yet Vicki had given her permission it was only a block and so Kyle had trundled off. When he arrived, Li Wen's parents told Kyle the boy was playing with another friend just down the street; go and find him. Li Wen, however, was nowhere to be seen; he was inside, out of the heat. And Kyle had pedalled desperately, for more than an hour, down one sidewalk, up the other, until his legs had finally given out.

Gerald stood at the window of the Trenton airport, looking out toward the tarmac, defenceless against the leaves, until a drab-green Polaris jet that surely held his son screamed down onto its haunches. And there he continued to wait, telling himself this was how military flight crews operated, as the plane sat in the middle of the runway, unmoving, with no one coming off for what approached six minutes. Seven.

At eight minutes, Gerald went to look for someone.

He found only the unhappy man behind the counter in the departures area. "Is that the plane coming from Dubai?" Gerald asked, pointing at a wall but in the direction of the tarmac. The man, whose flat features suggested to Gerald an unfathoming density within, though he knew that was probably unfair, looked first at the wall and then at a small screen in front of him.

"Uh-huh."

"Why is it just sitting there?"

"What did you want it to do?"

Gerald stared at the man for a moment, rea.s.sessing, then reached into the breast pocket of his suit, pulled out his wallet and from his wallet a business card.

"My name is Gerald Woodlore," he said, showing his card. "My son is supposed to be on that plane."

"If he's s'posed to be then he probably is."

"Oh?"

"That's generally the way it works."

"But he's not getting off," said Gerald, pointing again. "No one is." He backed up and out of the way so that the man could go and see for himself. When the man failed to move Gerald made an usher-like motion with his hand. This way to the inanimate plane This way to the inanimate plane. Still the man stayed at his counter. His counter was his protection against the intrusions of the outside world's needs for service, and he was not about to let go.

Gerald straightened. "Is there anyone else who could help me?"

The man shrugged. "We're short-staffed at the moment."

"Are you?"

"Unfortunately."

Gerald nodded.

He returned to the window.

One evening nine months before, as Kyle was packing to leave, Gerald had tapped on his bedroom door. Given permission to enter, he'd sat at the end of Kyle's bed and watched as his son stuffed his two bags. The military had e-mailed a list of the things COF-AP COF-AP employees were advised to bring, among them a certificate of vaccination, a wide-brimmed hat for sun, a warm hat and gloves for winter, st.u.r.dy walking boots, hiking socks, shower sandals, ear plugs, sungla.s.ses. Gerald drew his thumb down the list of protective barriers looking for anything the military might have missed. He didn't see any mention of bulletproof gear. Bulletproof gear, presumably, was supplied as a matter of course, like a bed, but he would have preferred to see at least some reference to it. He was the father of a boy who liked watching complicated movies and subtle chemical reactions, whose chief threat should have been some unnatural resurgence in the career of David Spade, and he was worrying about whether his son would, in two days, be supplied with armour. "Sunblock," he'd eventually said, looking up at his son. "Did you pack sunblock?" Kyle said yes, he'd packed some employees were advised to bring, among them a certificate of vaccination, a wide-brimmed hat for sun, a warm hat and gloves for winter, st.u.r.dy walking boots, hiking socks, shower sandals, ear plugs, sungla.s.ses. Gerald drew his thumb down the list of protective barriers looking for anything the military might have missed. He didn't see any mention of bulletproof gear. Bulletproof gear, presumably, was supplied as a matter of course, like a bed, but he would have preferred to see at least some reference to it. He was the father of a boy who liked watching complicated movies and subtle chemical reactions, whose chief threat should have been some unnatural resurgence in the career of David Spade, and he was worrying about whether his son would, in two days, be supplied with armour. "Sunblock," he'd eventually said, looking up at his son. "Did you pack sunblock?" Kyle said yes, he'd packed some SPF SPF-30. And when he sighed as if he were impatient for Gerald to leave, Gerald had pushed himself off the bed and toward the hallway, moving through a sense of something-left-undone that hampered his feet like snowdrifts.

At the door, he did the only thing he could think of. He handed Kyle a business card with his office number and asked him to put it in his wallet. The inadequacy of this effort made him sick.

In the first days after Kyle had told them about his plan to spend a year as a water treatment technician at a Canadian Forces base camp in Afghanistan, and then in the months after Kyle had left, Gerald's main concern, after his concern for Kyle, had been for Vicki. He sensed, though there was no way of knowing, that a mother's attachment to her son rendered her somehow fragile and therefore vulnerable in the event of some all-too-imaginable misfortune. And he was worried about that for her sake, and for his own. Because after twenty-one years of marriage and a quarter century in the workforce, Gerald was becoming attuned to the limits of what he knew to be his character; it was obvious to him that he was a man incapable of dealing effectively with calamity or any of its serious repercussions. And so there was a moment, after he'd received the news of the "off-camp event," when he had considered its implications. And one of them had to do with Vicki, and whether he'd be up to managing whatever there would be to manage, re: her.

"Mr. Woodlore?"

Gerald looked away from the window and the motionless plane to see that the man from the departures area had left his counter and was headed toward him.

"Excuse me, sir. You're Kyle Woodlore's father, correct?"

"Yes."

The man came right up to him and leaned in close enough for Gerald to detect the lunch-remnant smell of onions. "You're asked to go out onto the tarmac to meet a COF-AP COF-AP manager by the name of" the man checked a scribbled note in his hand "Michael Oberly." manager by the name of" the man checked a scribbled note in his hand "Michael Oberly."

"Oberly."

"That's right, sir."

"Is something wrong?"

"Mr. Oberly will explain, sir."

Gerald headed out the incomer's door.

"Mind that you keep wide of the wings, sir."

The sudden preponderance of sirs, like machine-gun fire at his feet, sent him hop-walking toward the plane. And as he made it into cool air, and sunlight that seemed absurdly bright, Gerald watched a mobile staircase being wheeled up to the rear door of the plane. By the time he was halfway there, the door had popped open and a white-haired man in a flapping blue wind-breaker had started down the steps.

One of the grounds crew started waving and pointing and shouting over the whine of the turbines and it made no sense to Gerald until he realized he was being told again to keep clear of the wing. And so he had to divert from his arrow's path toward Oberly and go wide, wide each extra step a delay around an invisible no-tread zone, as if the threat to him from above was greater than any other.

He met Oberly at the base of the stairs.

"My son," he said.

"You're Mr. Woodlore?"

"What's happened? Where's Kyle?"

Oberly held up his hands; his arms seemed to be an incorrect length for his body. "I'm sorry, sir, can you confirm that you are Mr. Gerald Woodlore?"

"Yes!" Gerald pulled out his driver's license and held it for Oberly to see.

"All right then, well, your son has been involved in a situation on this airplane." Oberly gathered in his hands and zipped up his windbreaker.

"Is he hurt?"

"He is not hurt. But we have had some difficulty getting the situation under control."

Gerald was beginning to eye the metal stairs behind Oberly. "What situation? What are you talking about?"

"Mr. Woodlore, I need your full attention on this matter."

Gerald took a step sideways. The COF-AP COF-AP man moved to block him. "Why won't you let me see my son?" man moved to block him. "Why won't you let me see my son?"

"We are bringing him off the airplane." Oberly had small grey deep-set eyes, an acorn-sized nose, and thatches of white bramble for eyebrows. The sun sparkled, the air swirled and smelled of fuel. Gerald took in everything. If he needed to recall the facts of the day he was delayed in seeing his son, he would be able to do it. "I wanted you to come out here, Mr. Woodlore, so that Kyle could see you immediately, and so that you could take him directly to your car. You have a car here?"

"Yes, of course."

"I do not want him going into the terminal. I want our official liability for your son to end and I want you to take responsibility from this point." Oberly jabbed down with an index finger. "Is that understood?"

"Yes."

"You can take him around through there." Oberly pointed toward a gate to the side of the building, leading to the parking lot.

"But what's happened?" Gerald pleaded. "What happened over there?" there?"

The whirling air on the tarmac kept pushing Oberly's hair onto his forehead and he seemed to be getting frustrated. He pushed it back again as someone appeared at the door above, a burly man wearing gla.s.ses and military fatigues who came out and leaned over the stairs.

"All set?" he called.

Oberly held up a forestalling hand; his arm, as it lifted, seemed to unfurl in sections. "I can't tell you about what happened over there, sir. As soon as it's approved, but not until. That's the way the military works. There are procedures and they will be followed."

Gerald stared up at the soldier on the stairs, and at Oberly, and tried to imagine his son among these men, or others like them. He reached out and touched Oberly's elbow. "Give me something."

The COF-AP COF-AP manager squinted and his face twitched a bit. He looked suddenly to the ground, and then seemed to gather Gerald with an arm and move him off to the side, as if to make their conversation more private, though there'd been no one close enough to hear. When he spoke, his voice was no more than a murmur. "I'm not an expert, sir, but it's my understanding that when young people are in a state of..." He hesitated and Gerald watched Oberly's mouth shape itself around a word. "...when they're in a state of, uh, grieving " manager squinted and his face twitched a bit. He looked suddenly to the ground, and then seemed to gather Gerald with an arm and move him off to the side, as if to make their conversation more private, though there'd been no one close enough to hear. When he spoke, his voice was no more than a murmur. "I'm not an expert, sir, but it's my understanding that when young people are in a state of..." He hesitated and Gerald watched Oberly's mouth shape itself around a word. "...when they're in a state of, uh, grieving "

"Grieving. Someone's been "

Oberly talked over him. "When they're in that state, sir, they can sometimes become, uh, erratic. In their behaviour."

"Erratic."

"In their thinking."

Gerald, with jet fuel perfuming the bright, wild air around him, tried to grip the two motes of information he'd just been given, erraticness, and the other. "Kyle," he said, "is acting erratically."

Oberly nodded. "One thing, his work habits slipped. Tasks weren't being completed. We'd find him in the kitchen tent playing cards for money, any hour of the day. We tried talking to him. Tried fining him. Didn't work. He was a different kid. We gave it some time but after a while we thought it best to get him back to his family. This sort of thing, we're not really equipped."

The large soldier high at the door banged the side of the stairs. "Mike?"

Oberly signalled come come with a wave. There was motion on the stairs above him and Gerald looked up as his son appeared. He was smiling. He seemed healthy. His hands were tied behind his back. with a wave. There was motion on the stairs above him and Gerald looked up as his son appeared. He was smiling. He seemed healthy. His hands were tied behind his back.

Oberly jerked the zipper of his windbreaker as high as it could go and gave Gerald an apologetic look. "He went a little berserk on the plane."

TWO.

1.

For a week, until she cornered him by the photocopier, Gerald had been tenacious in avoiding Sandy Beale. He had more than enough flux in his life at the moment and to him, since the aborted meeting in his office, Sandy Beale had come to represent "crazy change." You could have asked Gerald to entertain all sorts of accelerated efforts and focused initiatives on behalf of Spent Materials and he would have been happy to do it, any hour of any day. But to "crazy change" Gerald said, "No thank you."

Then Sandy rounded the corner of the photocopier station and happened upon Gerald making copies of the latest Materials Girl column in Sheet and Screen Sheet and Screen, in which the Girl (actually a fifty-something woman wearing the sort of maniacally happy expression Gerald a.s.sociated with bake sales) offered a helpful checklist of measures for combating humidity in metal fabrication systems. He had intended to deposit copies of the "Put the Clamp on Damp" article in the mail slots of his three shift supervisors with an eye to minimizing the inventory losses that Spent suffered due to unchecked corrosion every summer, and then he planned a follow-up meeting featuring some fairly pointed questions a few days later. But all of that blew from Gerald's head when Sandy stamped around the corner clutching a black folder and came to a sudden, hair-flying halt.

"Well, h.e.l.lo there!"

"Hi, Sandy, I'm just about done." Gerald yanked out his copies and then, realizing there were only two, positioned a hand down by the output tray to receive the third. He had his body tilted forward, his face toward the hall, he was exit-ready. No one in Sandy's position would think to waylay an executive so postured.

"I've been hoping we'd meet."

Gerald was forced to glance up. "Have you?" By now the copy should have fallen into his hand. He should have been gone. By now.

"I think it's jammed," said Sandy, as the copier gave a sigh.

He straightened and looked at the panel of lights. Where all should have been green, one was yellow. "Well, it's not important. I'll get it later." He started to leave.