Suzy Isn’t Afraid—1962
by Curtis Smith
Suzy’s flying.
Or so she thinks.
Above, a spine of lights, and no, she’s not flying—she’s being swallowed whole, and with each heartbeat, she sinks deeper. She closes her eyes, hoping there’s courage in the dark. She hears doctors, nurses. Her mother. Hears the gurney’s rolling wheels. She tries to speak, but her words die beneath the mask pressed over her face. The gurney crashes through swinging doors, and Suzy is a child again, her mother’s helper, her little hands clapped, and in the kitchen’s slanting sun, a cloud of flour. Then the same kitchen, the same hands, only bigger. A plate smashed after her mother asks if Suzy really wants to be that kind of girl. The kitchen fades. The sway of her body in Danny’s arms. The smoky bar. The jukebox’s shine, and Bobby Darin crooning “Dream Lover.” She doesn’t want to be that kind of girl—she just wants to be the girl she is right now—the world so still and Danny’s heart thumping against hers. But between their hearts, a folded letter in his shirt pocket. A notice to report. Suzy’s head on his shoulder, and she whispers another kind of news. He holds her tighter, and she closes her eyes, wanting to lose the understanding of where she ends and he begins. He says they can do this. They just can’t be afraid. She writes every night, her pen wagging as she searches for the truest words. On her fingers—a simple wedding band, nicks and scars from the factory’s sewing machines. His letters arrive every other day. She reads them alone, still in her work clothes, her bedroom door shut. His longings. Their lovers’ shorthand. His boredom punctuated by jumps from the clouds. She clasps the letters to her chest, her gut twisted as she imagines him falling, falling. An August Sunday. A drive to Fort Dix. His training done, and his unit set to deploy. Flat New Jersey, pastures and cranberry bogs and wooden roadside stands. Ahead, a purple sky. Veins of lightning. She undoes her waist’s button and lays a hand on her bulge. She talks to the baby, an assurance all is well, that they’ll get through this together. Gusts buffet the car. Leaves tumble. She sees Danny in the sky, the Earth rushing to meet him. The first drops, then more, and the echoes crowd her thoughts. She grips the wheel. A breath to calm her heart. Her foot steady on the gas. Then this morning. Water on the bathroom floor, a pain three months early. Her fist at her mouth, her knuckle bit as her mother speeds to the hospital. On the radio, updates from Washington and Moscow. The car’s speed blurs October’s beautiful leaves. A red light and a man on the corner hawks the morning paper. On the front page, a map. Circles as neat as a pond’s ripples. Their city just inside the widest ring—and much closer, Danny’s base on the coast, and for all she knows, he might be in the air right now. They’re together, in a way. Bound by the rings on their fingers and the rings on a map. Their fates surrendered. The tides she tried to keep at bay with a slow, jukebox dance hurtling them to lives unimagined. A final set of doors, and the gurney comes to a rest. The doctors lean over her, eclipsing the light. Her face wet with tears she hadn’t realized she was crying. She speaks, her voice muffled beneath the mask. “I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid.”
Curtis Smith’s stories and essays have appeared in or been cited by The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery Stories, The Best American Spiritual Writing, The Best Microfictions, The Best Small Fictions, and the WW Norton anthology New Micro. He has worked with independent presses to publish novels, story collections, essay collections, and a work of creative nonfiction. His next novel, The Magpie’s Return, will be released in the summer of 2020.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Suzy Isn’t Afraid–1962”? My son and I are history buffs, and a few years back, we watched a documentary on the Cuban Missile Crisis. One scene featured a map on a newspaper’s front page—with rings radiating from Cuba that marked the missiles’ ranges. That image stuck with me—the fear and uncertainty and lack of control one might feel when they saw their city contained within these rings. And while soldiers along the Gulf braced for an invasion, the folks back home were left to struggle with their everyday lives. Then I imagined Suzy—and as I wrote, I found both her and her husband connected in ways I hadn’t imagined. Sometimes in times of crisis, all we have left is to tell ourselves—whether it’s true of not—that we’re not afraid.
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