An Ornithologist's Guide to Life by Ann Hood

Author:Ann Hood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

DROPPING BOMBS

JIM TOLD HIS mother everything. He explained every detail, every reason, every step. How Aunt Dodie could drive her to the airport and wait with her while she picked up her ticket. How to pack in a small bag that she could take on the plane with her so she wouldn’t have to worry about her things getting lost. How once she boarded, she did not have to worry about anything at all because the pilot would do the rest. “Once you take off,” he told her, “just sit back and relax.” He even sent her some paperbacks and a stack of cooking magazines to read en route. “You’ll be in Los Angeles in time for lunch,” he said.

But still she couldn’t handle it. With increased airport security he couldn’t meet her at the gate, so Jim told her to wait for him at baggage claim. “But you said not to check a bag,” Eve said, and Jim could hear the shrill panic rising in her voice. “Just follow the signs to baggage claim. Hell,” he told her, “follow all the other passengers. Then just stand there. I’ll find you.” Instead, she stood at the gate, frozen there in her new mauve pantsuit, clutching her bag to her chest, eyes wild like a trapped animal.

Jim got to the airport almost an hour early and stood watching each new planeload of passengers arrive and claim their bags. Even after everyone left, the luggage carousels kept spinning, sending a few unclaimed bags around again and again. Jim kept wondering who owned those bags. Wasn’t that unsafe? Couldn’t some crazed terrorist check a bag with a bomb in it and then not board the flight at all? Those bags worried him, circling endlessly like that.

A redcap passed him.

“Excuse me,” Jim said, and he pointed toward Carousel C. The same two bags had been going around on it since Jim arrived, a small brown leather one that looked like a mail pouch and a beat-up, dusty blue duffel bag.

The redcap looked at Jim like he didn’t trust him. The whites of his eyes were yellow. They reminded Jim of eggs.

“Those bags,” Jim said, wagging his finger,” whose are they?” Slowly, the man turned and studied the circling luggage.

“Well,” he said, “how am I supposed to know that now?” He pointed too, at Carousel B, where a fresh group of passengers jockeyed for position. “Whose bags are those?” he said, and he wagged his finger at the luggage cluttering the carousel. “You think I go around, matching up bags with people?”

The man wore his hat far back on his head, revealing a short, military-type haircut. For an instant, Jim pictured him fighting a war, in Korea maybe, rushing forward, angry and mean.

“You think I got nothing better to do?” the man was saying.

“It just seems dangerous,” Jim said. “That’s all.” He was aware that he was still half-pointing, his wrist drooping slightly, his finger pointing downward.

“Yeah,” the redcap said. “Them bags are real dangerous. You keep your eye on them.

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