Before the Fall

Scott wakes up in the middle of the night in an all-white room in an all-white apartment; the lack of color is beginning to threaten his mental stability. As he gathers everything he can find to produce color—some highlighters, a lump of coal—he wonders whether he might be a ghost. After all, it would make more sense if he had drowned, like his sister in Lake Michigan, than swam for miles with JJ. He smears the charcoal ash across his white t-shirt. Then, he begins to sketch on the walls.

Layla enters the apartment and watches Scott work. She tells him about the party that she attended that evening and muses about how she never knows whether people are interested in her for more than her money. She tells Scott how she once ran away from home to live in a tree in the backyard, and mentions news reports that say JJ hasn’t talked since the accident. Scott says that he talked a lot less when he got sober. When he turns around, Layla is naked on the sofa. When she moves to the bedroom, Scott goes to the study and calls Eleanor. JJ has had a nightmare, so they are awake. Scott talks to JJ and offers to visit. He manages to pry a few words from JJ, which impresses Eleanor. She agrees that Scott’s visit would be welcome. Exhausted, he climbs into bed and falls asleep as Layla tries to seduce him.

Scott’s fourth painting appears, at a distance, to be a blank canvas. When the viewer gets closer, however, they can see the “topography” of the image. If they choose to run their hands over the canvas, they discover the outline of a burning building.

When Scott wakes up the next morning, the news media is outside Layla’s brownstone. On television, he watches Bill Cunningham’s coverage of the scene. Cunningham exaggerates Layla’s funding of left-wing causes and claims it can’t be a coincidence that, after the death of a conservative network head, Scott is now “shacking up” with her. Layla manages to escape in her car, leaving Scott in the building. While he thinks he could manage to stay there for nearly another week, he instead calls Magnus to ask him to rent a car so he can visit JJ. As he prepares to leave, he stops to examine his wall art: a charcoal and lipstick rendition of the farmer’s market with Maggie and her two kids.

The chapter imagines the inner life of fitness guru Jack LaLanne as he rises to prominence as a national icon of health and well-being. After he invented the leg press in the 1930s, LaLanne began to focus on how best to display his body. He attracts the attention of a local access television network, developing an exercise show that within six years is being broadcast nationwide. At the height of his prominence in the 1970s, LaLanne’s energy and strength acts as a tonic for a nation burdened by the loss of the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and an ongoing economic recession. He preaches the gospel of individual development and freedom through physical discipline. He comes to function as an American answer to French philosophies of meaninglessness: Through energy and repetition, he comes to symbolize American innovation and fearlessness.

Scott is hit by a barrage of questions from journalists as soon as he steps out of the brownstone. He speaks at length with ALC’s reporter, Vanessa Lane, who is being coached by Bill Cunningham’s voice in her earpiece. Scott attempts to answer questions about the crash in a nuanced way, but the questions turn accusatory. Claiming to speak on Bill’s behalf, Vanessa asks Scott if he was on the plane because he was having an affair with Maggie, also assuming he is now sleeping with Layla. Vanessa relays Bill’s invitation for Scott to appear on his show, but Scott walks away from her. As he sits in a cab, he wonders how the press found out where he was.

The story of Gil Baruch, David’s bodyguard, is a combination of fact and legend. An Israeli expat whose father was a close advisor to former Israeli military leader Moshe Dayan, Baruch has survived numerous tragedies, including the deaths of his siblings and several assassination attempts. His capacity for suffering was legendary, as was his sexual prowess. People claimed that he must be immortal—until he died in a plane crash.

As head of the Bateman security detail, Baruch follows a litany of protocols to deal with potential threats. He keeps a detailed security log of the family’s activities. On the day of the flight, Baruch briefs David on the daily threat assessments—nothing too close to home.

Baruch recalls Rachel’s kidnapping. Frankie had been taken and “coerced” into revealing details of the Bateman’s routine. She was killed, and a “single perpetrator” took Rachel from her bedroom, holding her in an abandoned house across the street. She was missing for three days before the security team recovers her.

As the Batemans head to the airport, Baruch informs David that Ben Kipling may be indicted for money laundering. They decide not to change their plans, to stand by the Kiplings, “because that’s what friends do” (267). After a security sweep, the Batemans board the plane. The Kiplings arrive soon after. Baruch consults with the pilot and questions the flight attendant, Emma Lightner, about her relationship with the co-pilot. Having assessed all possible risks, he gives the all-clear to depart.

As Scott drives toward Eleanor and Doug’s home in Croton, his thoughts move between the giant wave that crashed over him and JJ to the phenomenon of 24-hour news media. He thinks about the allegations invented about him and Maggie Bateman and remembers how the journalists he grew up with, such as Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace, more rigorously distinguished between information and entertainment. Now, however, he watches his own identity being repurposed to fit a preconceived narrative and feels that the whole thing is a “trap.” For this reason, he knows he must resist engaging with the media, especially Cunningham.

As Scott pulls up to Eleanor and Doug’s house, Doug drives away without acknowledging him. Eleanor emerges with JJ, who runs to Scott immediately. Inside the house, Scott and Eleanor talk about Doug’s immaturity and the couple’s competing views on JJ’s inheritance. Doug is still fixated on investments and lifestyle changes, Eleanor says, while she still gets nauseated at the idea of touching any of the money. Eleanor brings up the rumors about Scott’s affairs with Maggie and Layla, but appears to accept his word that they aren’t true. Soon, JJ wanders in, and Scott agrees to read him a story before bed.

While Eleanor gets JJ ready for bed, Scott calls his landlord on Martha’s Vineyard who reports that the police have confiscated all his paintings. With JJ ready for bed, Scott reads until he falls asleep. Downstairs, Eleanor answers the phone. The rest of the bodies have been found.

Gus Franklin and a group of government agents and airline representatives study Scott’s paintings. Although he still believes that O’Brien was driven by a “witch-hunt dogma,” Gus finds the “photorealistic” disaster scenes—and the fact that all the women in the paintings have the same face—unsettling. Some time later, Gus and his team watch a video feed as divers circle the wreckage of the plane. Gus feels a visceral dread as the divers enter the interior of the plane. The bodies of the Batemans and Ben Kipling are still strapped into their seats. Gil Baruch’s body is missing. The divers then spot six bullet holes in the cockpit door; and the body of the pilot—James Melody—floating outside the cockpit.

Although he had been raised by a mother who turned to a “spiritual miasma” to make sense of her life, James Melody sought to combine spirituality and science. He read widely in philosophy and social science. On the day of the doomed flight, he meets his mother for brunch in Los Angeles, reading an Economist article about the religious “uproar” surrounding a red heifer recently born in the West Bank and taken as a sign of the end times. He takes pains to conceal the article from his mother, not wanting her to go on a “tangent”—especially since she recently spent nine years as a Scientologist. However, she has already seen the news on CNN; fortunately, James is skilled at redirecting their conversations.

James reflects on the five years that he and his mother spent in a doomsday cult when he was a child. The leader, “Jay L.,” was convinced that the world was going to end on August 9, 1974. Darla, James’s mother, had thrown herself into the communal life of the cult. In the present, Darla interrupts James’s musings to ask about his flight schedules. He walks her back to her building, and she tells him she will be praying for him.

During his afternoon layover at Teterboro Airport, James once again thinks about the cult, while also looking at the weather conditions on Martha’s Vineyard. He has a nosebleed—a condition he has recently developed, but that his doctor chalks up to altitude and age. As he heads back to his plane, he remembers that Nixon’s presidency was the only thing that ended in August 1974.

Melody inspects the plane, and everything appears fine. He sits in the cockpit doing a final pre-flight check when he hears a commotion in the cabin followed by a slap. His co-pilot—a last-minute substitute—enters. Melody is annoyed, but the other pilot, Charles Busch, promises, “No funny business” (305). The passengers board, and they take off.