IT WAS A WET MONDAY morning in mid-autumn when Bruno
Boylan finally set foot in the land of his forefathers.
He was traveling on a four-hundred-dollar return fare that
he’d purchased just days beforehand from the comfort of his own
home. A couple of clicks of the mouse and a sixteen-digit credit card
number. No ticket, just an e-mail printout and a magic code. No delays, no stopovers, no adverse weather conditions for the crossing.
He’d stayed awake through the drinks cart and the meal. He’d read
his book for a while. Then he’d popped a Xanax, slicing hours off the
flight time in one fell swoop. He was traveling light. All he had with
him was a small backpack and a canvas bag in the hold. There was
nothing whatsoever to suggest that this was anything in the nature of
an epic journey.
The ping of the PA system woke him. He opened his eyes to find
himself curled pathetically towards the wall of the plane for comfort,
his face squashed against the window blind.
He hauled himself up to a sitting position, leaning his head back
against the head rest. Closing his eyes again, he sat there without
moving, waiting for a voice to come.
He became aware of an overwhelming physical discomfort. His
back ached, and his knees were locked hard, they cracked when he
tried to straighten them out. His butt hurt from sitting for so long.
He needed to pee. The detritus of the journey was scattered around
him. The thin blanket across his knees, the tangled earphones in his
lap. His book was wedged somewhere underneath him, but he was so
numb he couldn’t even feel it. His shoes were under the seat. Soon he
would have to find them and get his feet back into them. He allowed
himself one more moment to savor the luxurious feeling of his socks
on the carpeted floor.
Another ping and the pilot’s voice spread over the cabin. Bruno
could hear him only in snatches, but he could guess what he was saying. He could fill in the gaps. They would shortly be beginning their
descent. Something about the weather in Dublin, Bruno couldn’t
catch it. He nudged up the blind and looked out at thick white cloud.
All he could see was the wing of the plane, strangely still.
He turned his attention to the little blue screen on the back of the
seat in front of him. A moving map, all it showed was a blunt outline
of the East Coast of America, the huge expanse of the Atlantic, and
then the outline of Ireland and England up in the right-hand corner.
A sweeping arc traced the trajectory of the flight, the dotted line ending
in a virtual plane. The model plane was almost on top of Ireland
now. It was so far out of scale that it was about to block out the entire
country.
Bruno’s mind shifted a gear. He experienced an unexpected moment
of panic, a sickly feeling that he should have prepared himself
for this arrival. He wasn’t ready for it. He shouldn’t have slept. He
should have stayed awake the whole time. He should have been present
for the journey. He remembered something he’d been told once:
that American Indians sit in the airport after they arrive somewhere,
that they like to give their spirits a chance to catch up with their bodies.
Suddenly, that made complete sense to Bruno. His body was out
of whack with his spirit, and he needed time to catch up.
The screen in front of him changed. Now it was showing a list of
statistics. Time to destination, 0:23 minutes.
He had to use the time. He had to straighten it all out in his head.
Three weeks since he’d lost his job, three weeks that seemed
like three years. Or three days, or three hours. It made no sense. It
seemed like a lifetime ago and yet it was all so fresh, the wounds still
open and raw.
A month to go to the election. The wait was unbearable. You had
to convince yourself that time was marching on like it always does,
that any day now it would all be over and you would know the outcome.
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