The plane was pleasantly cacophonous. The noise was incredible, crowding out all thought and order. J. Junior Inferior Sr. loved it. He was sitting in the plane, on the floor, knees up as if in a toboggan. Behind him was Tripp Montana, distant cousin of Joe and Inferior Senior's three-time sky-diving partner.
Inferior Senior had not wanted to jump in tandem -- attached to a sky-diving expert, one parachute for the both of them, as opposed to jumping alone, as he'd done in WWII -- but on this point he couldn't find anyone willing to collude with him. No one, no plane, no outfitters, would allow him to jump alone at his age, so he'd conceded the point. He lamented that jumping from a plane at 75, at 80, at 81, was a great deal less dramatic and stunning and prop garnering if done while attached to another, younger man. He'd seen pictures of himself from the last few times, and attached to the belly of Tripp Montana, he looked a bit like an oversize infant in a mother's Baby Bjorn, or like one of those children's backpacks in the shape of a teddy bear or --
Whatever. He couldn't quibble and now he couldn't turn back. As the plane climbed to 14,000 feet, he could only picture the adulation awaiting him, from the world's media and their constituencies, in only a few minutes, when he would land in the parking lot of the Manchester Marriot, seconds before the GOP debate would begin. His heart burned with pride at the thought of it, and when he imagined his wife's reaction -- oh lord, finally dear Bunny would be sure that she married the right man. Finally and forever she would be certain that Morey Amsterdam, whom Bunny had dated in the '50s and whom she had spoken to occasionally over the decades, was -- even with his great wit and nice suits and famously prodigious endowment -- nothing next to J. Junior Inferior Sr. She would be sure that she'd made the right choice when she'd chosen Inferior over all others. While J. Junior Inferior Sr. soared through the sky and descended from the heavens, where was Morey Amsterdam? Dead, that's where. Ha! Dead for a good long while, to be exact.
It was always so quick, the ascent of these tiny planes. Could it be that they were already ready? So soon? Montana, with his calm eyes and full beard, was now nudging Inferior, tapping his shoulder in their agreed-upon way, pointing him toward the plane's open door.
Inferior inched his way to the exit, and Montana hooked up their carabiners and ran through a series of safety checks. The sky through the open door, at just before 6 p.m., was a rusty pink, the color of a sunburn, and the clouds swam past like the faces of a carnival shooting gallery. Inferior's heart seemed to be all at once in his shoes, in his throat, bursting through his sternum.
And now Montana was nudging them the last few feet, and they were at the door, and, though he had not planned it -- and hadn't gotten this sensation on his previous two jumps -- Inferior suddenly felt 22 again. He was soaked in memories of his G.I. days, the men-children he knew, the clean-scrubbed faces of his fellow pilots, the briefing tent near Dover, and oh god, the way McCallister used to listen without blinking, taking notes without even glancing at the paper! And then, unhappily, into Inferior's mind leaked the sight of McCallister's plane exploding over Draguignan in one quick gasp --
And now they were in the sky. Knowing they had to jump immediately to have any hope of hitting their target, Montana had pushed Inferior at the last moment, and now they were free-falling. The sky was cold and dotted with dirty gray clouds, but it was a magnificent night. Inferior drew a deep breath of the wind coming toward him, finding himself shaking his head at the beauty everywhere. The lights of Manchester were orange and seemed to pulse like actual flames, shrinking and growing, twinkling like underwater lanterns.
After 40 seconds, Montana, again not seeming to trust the timing or reflexes of Inferior, yanked the rip cord and they shot upward. Inferior sank into his jumpsuit, completely relaxed, content to be falling, still in a reverie -- so many faces from 1944, none of them diminished in the least! -- but also knowing that he had to focus soon, for they were falling at 120 miles an hour, and even now the buildings of Manchester were growing beneath their feet, the roofs, dotted with retreating snow, distinguishing themselves, the roads oozing with the Christmas-colored lights of cars shooting every which way.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
On the ground, there was mild to middling interest in the falling ex-president. The networks and local affiliates planned on running a few seconds of the jump later, prerecorded, though CNN and MSNBC were covering the jump live, cutting between it and shots of the arrival of the GOP candidates -- Alexander Washington Hamilton, Carol O'Mealy, J. Junior Inferior Jr. -- all of whom were now inside the hotel, getting made up and miked. A few of the European and Japanese camera crews had their lenses fixed on the sky, their producers and consumers singularly amused by the lengths to which Americans would go to prove themselves to their country, how virulently they fought off old age and death.
And for a while the sight was spectacular. From the darkening sky nothing could be seen, but as their legs broke through the purple-black band of sky and entered the still-sunset-besotted stripe below it, the four-limbed silhouette of Inferior Senior and Montana became clear. There was a collective gasp of admiration from the media gathered, and from the small contingent of Senior's family and friends who had made the trip. Senior's previous jumps, in Arizona and Indiana, had each been during the daytime, and while impressive on some level, neither took place against such a dramatic backdrop. This was something else altogether, completely cinematic, almost too perfect in its quiet drama, its soundless grace. The white parachute above the men, looking somehow like an angel's unfolded wings, turned this way and that, as Montana guided them toward their runway with perfect control, with impossible ease.
Quickly the duo seemed to be a mere thousand feet away, coming slowly toward the large parking lot, a patch the size of a football field that had been cleared for their landing. As they approached, two floodlights, placed on either side of the parking lot, clicked on loudly and immediately caught the jumpers in their crisscrossed illumination.
Inferior and Montana were now close enough that their faces could be discerned -- or at least Inferior's, for Montana had been told to make himself as invisible as possible. Inferior's arms were extended, his hands each in a thumbs-up gesture. When he got close enough, he planned to do a Sammy Sosa two-fingered double chest thump and then point to the sky. The kids would freak.
But just as he was arranging his fingers against his heart, he felt jerked to one side, as if they were on a roller coaster that had suddenly banked hard, left, without warning. All of the faces that had been, seconds before, perfectly arranged beneath him, lining the runway to his left and right, were now far to his right. The spectators' hands, which had been clapping ecstatically just moments before, were now on their heads, covering their mouths. There were screams.
Inferior and Montana were flying sideways, and they both knew enough to realize they'd been struck by some kind of powerful updraft, that they were being taken away from the runway at about 40 miles per hour, and that this would not turn out well. Everywhere around the hotel were trees, roads, highways, buildings made of bricks, and it would be only a few seconds before something solid ended, with painful finality, their sideways motion.
Montana's voice came into Inferior's good ear, and when Montana spoke, Inferior had the presence of mind to think, to resign himself, to the fact that the last voice he might ever hear would be Montana's, and the last word would be the one Montana muttered into Inferior's good ear: "Oops."
