The Man Who Ate the 747 - By Ben Sherwood Page 0,4

the losers in the kissing contest. He knew that grim scene all too well. By now the crowds were long gone, the bright banners rolled up, and the street sweepers had cleaned the last litter from the road. Under the shadow of the drooping bridge, the doctors had finished ministering to the man still lying doubled up on the ground. The chronometer was frozen in time.

30:44:56

The crumpled man and weeping woman were four seconds shy of the world record. Four seconds from global recognition in one of the best-selling books of all time. Four seconds from history.

Over the years, he had comforted thousands of the defeated, men and women who spent long nights muttering “what if?” In The Book, winning was everything. Second place was oblivion. The worst was the inconsolable Pakistani Air Force pilot who desperately wanted recognition for the longest fall without a parachute. Sucked out of his cockpit in a freak midair decompression, he had plummeted 33,301 feet, landed in a lake, and somehow survived. J.J. traveled to Islamabad where the aviator, mummified in bandages, was bedridden with 37 broken bones. Upon careful investigation, though, there was no new record. The pilot had come close—within 30 feet—but the place in history still belonged to Vesna Vulovic, a Yugoslavian flight attendant who fell 33,330 feet when her DC-9 exploded over Czechoslovakia. Learning of his defeat, the Pakistani pilot wept so hard on J.J.’s shoulder that his prized blue blazer was soaked through.

No, there was no point hanging around, or even looking back for that matter. He had gotten involved too many times, stayed too long, cared too much. He learned the hard way. In the end, there was nothing he could do. He was simply there to authenticate. Sentiment only slowed him down; there was always another record somewhere up ahead.

“Monsieur, what airline are you flying?” the driver asked.

J.J. checked his ticket. Headquarters pinched every penny.

“Dollar Jet,” he said. He was seven long hours from home.

TWO

The building on East Fourth Street was crumbling brick by brick. A homeless man was sprawled in the entryway, arms and legs splayed, a copy of Martha Stewart Living open across his bare chest. J.J. stepped over him carefully, saw that the elevator hadn’t been fixed, and trudged up the grimy stairs to his apartment on the fifth floor.

New York, the greatest city in the world.

His door was cracked open. The light from the hallway threw a fuzzy white rectangle onto the dusty parquet floor. He set his bags down and hung his jacket carefully in the hall closet. He called out, “Hello?”

The place was still a mess. A little pagoda of Empire Szechuan carryout containers stood in one corner. He squeezed past the stove and refrigerator jammed against the wall in the entryway. When he first moved from the Midwest, the real estate broker convinced him that many Manhattan homes had kitchen appliances in hallways, even living rooms.

The walls of the apartment were tired Benjamin Moore white, ringed at imprecise intervals with photos in spare black frames of people so familiar that they were almost family. There was Henri Pellonpää in Finland, who killed the most mosquitoes in the five-minute world championships; Alan McKay of New Zealand, who made the world’s biggest soap bubble—105 feet—with a wand, dishwashing liquid, and water; and Joni Mabe of Georgia, who owned one of Elvis Presley’s warts, officially the world’s strangest body part keepsake.

“Mrs. Bumble!” J.J. called out. “I’m home!”

Down at the far end of the narrow living room, stooped beneath the dreary curtains, his elderly neighbor from upstairs watered sunflowers in a window box. She wore a frayed winter coat, a fedora, and headphones.

“Mrs. Bumble?”

The woman didn’t waver. She continued watering. He touched her shoulder gently, and as she turned around, he could hear the tinny sound of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.”

“Hello, love,” she said, big red dots of rouge crinkling on her cheeks. “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon. How was your trip?”

“Can’t knock Paris. I brought you something.” He handed her a bottle of good duty-free Chardonnay.

“Aww, thanks. I came down to get your mail and give my friends here a little drink.”

Mrs. Bumble turned back to the sunflowers. They were made of plastic, coated with the black grit of the city. With a soft rag, she wiped the filth from each synthetic leaf, then sprinkled more water on them. “So? Did you meet any girls?”

“It was a business trip,” J.J. said. “The records require all my concentration.” Actually, he had deflected