Chapter 2

Somewhere en route to Port Vila in the New Hebrides, for my last meal I serve dinner the way I’ve always dreamed.

Anybody caught buttering their bread before breaking it, I promise to shoot them. Anybody who drinks their beverage with food still in their mouth will also be shot. Anybody caught spooning toward themself will be shot. Anybody caught without a napkin in their lap— Anybody caught using their fingers to move their food— Anybody who begins eating before everybody is served— Anybody who blows on food to cool it— Anybody who talks with food in their mouth— Anybody who drinks white wine holding their glass by the bowl or drinks red wine holding their glass by the stem— You will each of you get a bullet in the head. We are 30,000 feet above the earth, going 455 miles per hour. We’re at a pinnacle of human achievement, and we are going to eat this meal as civilized human beings.

Chapter 1

And so here is my confession. Testing, testing, one, two, three. And according to Fertility, if I could only figure out how I could escape. I could escape being up here. I could escape the crash. I could escape being Tender Branson. I could escape the police. I could escape my past, my whole twisted, burning, miserable, snarled story of my life so far.

Fertility said, the trick was to just tell people the story of how I got to this point, and I’d figure a way out. If I could just walk away and leave my old life story behind. If I survived, she said, we could work on having better sex. We could work on making a new life together. We could take dance lessons. She said to tell my life story right up to the moment the plane hit the ground. Then the world would think I was dead. She said to start from the end. Testing, testing. One, two, three. Testing, testing. One, two, three. Maybe this is working. I don’t know. If you can even hear me, I don’t know. But if you can hear me, listen. And if you’re listening, then what you’ve found is the story of everything that went wrong. This is what you’d call the flight recorder of Flight 2039. The black box, people call it, even though it’s orange, and on the inside is a loop of wire that’s the permanent record of all that’s left. What you’ve found is the story of what happened. And go ahead. You can heat this wire to white-hot, and it will still tell you the exact same story. Testing, testing, one, two, three. And if you’re listening, you should know the passengers were put off the plane in Port Vila, in the Republic of Vanuatu, in exchange for a half-dozen parachutes and more tiny bottles of gin. And after we were back in the air and headed for Australia, then the pilot parachuted to his freedom. I’m going to keep saying it, but it’s true. I’m not a murderer. And I’m alone up here. All four engines have flamed out, and I’m into my controlled descent, my nosedive into the ground. This is the terminal phase of my descent, where I’m going thirty-two feet per second straight at Australia, my terminal velocity. Testing, testing, one, two, three. One more time, you’re listening to the flight recorder of Flight 2039. And at this altitude, listen, and at this speed, with the plane empty, this is my story. And my story won’t get bashed into a zillion bloody shreds and then burned with a thousand tons of burning jet. And after the plane wrecks, people will hunt down the flight recorder. And my story will survive. And I will live on, forever. And if I could figure out what Fertility meant, I could save myself, but I can’t. I’m stupid. Testing, testing, one, two, three. So here is my confession. Here is my prayer. My story. My incantation. Hear me. See me. Remember me. Beloved Fuck-up. Botched Messiah. Would-be Lover. Delivered to God. I’m trapped here, in a nosedive, in my life, in the cockpit of a jetliner with the flat yellow of the Australian outback coming up fast. And there’s so many things I want to change but can’t. It’s all done. It’s all just a story now. Here’s the life and death of Tender Branson, and I can just walk away from it. And the sky is blue and righteous in every direction. The sun is total and burning and just right there, and today is a beautiful day. Testing, testing, one, two–