"C'mon, I got a plane that leaves in a half hour. You guys gonna get us in or what?"
The elder gentleman standing in front of Richard was fuming. He had been stepping nervously from left foot to right for the past hour or so, pausing every few moments to glare at his watch, then at his wife. She appeared more at ease, possessing a gentle face topped with masterfully-dyed strawberry blonde hair, a very pretty lady in Richard's judgement. Too bad she was stuck with the vicious Mr. Magoo, who was currently spitting questions at a camouflaged National Guardsman standing near the terminal entrance.
"Breach in security. We're taking care of it. It'll be a little while longer, sir." The lad could not have been older than twenty, yet he spoke softly and prestigiously, giving the impression that all was well, nothing to worry about, you'll soon be on your plane. The confidence and sobriety expressed in his face helped ease the sight of the M-16 rifle which hung from his shoulder. The young man's right hand graced its grip gently, never once leaving its post. Richard had noticed several minutes earlier that the soldier had scratched his right cheek with his left hand. Well-trained indeed.
"Must be some loon who cracked a joke about having a bomb or something." The man returned his angry gaze to his wife. "Happened in San Francisco last week, ya know. Some stupid sombitch shut down an entire terminal 'cause he said he had a gun in his bag." He tapped his hairless head ferociously. "No common sense on some people!"
His wife cracked a slight smile and continued to observe the faces passing by.
Richard watched the man amusedly. Left foot -- right foot -- left foot -- right foot. If Richard had been more alert, the man's nervousness may have been contagious. As it was, however, Richard's eyes were glassy and red. Cueing up for just over an hour in order to gain entrance to an airline terminal at four in the morning had a sedative effect on him, especially as he had not been able to achieve more than three hours of sleep before his backup alarm so rudely interrupted his radio alarm not two hours ago. Richard's eyes hung at half-mast, trying to keep the chilled morning air at bay before his right eye began tearing up as it usually did on cold mornings.
The line began to move in baby steps, and Richard gave the young sentry a modest nod of respect as he passed. The soldier returned the nod before he was distracted by the synthesized Bach which emanated passionlessly from his cell phone. Richard passed through the terminal doors and into the immediate warmth of heated air. The man in front of him seemed to be regaining his composure.
"You see, Mrs. Trumbo," the man said, smiling at the strawberry blonde, "We're moving faster now."
Richard sat in a corner aisle seat, waiting for the attendant to announce the general boarding call for his flight. This was one of his favorite times, when he could settle down in a quiet corner of the terminal and watch the opposing streams of faces as they drove, raced, rambled, ran, wheeled, sauntered, scuffled, skipped, and strode by. There is no better place to people-watch than the airport, and Richard took full advantage of his time.
Sitting watching the faces, he was reminded that the airport is also the loneliest place he knew. So many women, so many couples, so much beauty, the likes of which Richard rarely saw -- or recognized -- anywhere else. Why don't I see this many gorgeous women on a daily basis?, he thought as yet another attractive brunette walked by.
"Maybe I do." He surprised himself and looked around to see if anyone had heard him whisper this. He was safe. Every so often, he found himself speaking his thoughts. Bad habit, must try to correct it, he thought.
A young woman sat down in the seat opposite him, perched on her leg while she rummaged through her bag. She withdrew a dense hardback and began to read.
Richard looked over her features. Shining auburn hair which fell loosely over her shoulders. Young, white skin, cheeks red from cold. Small mouth, tight lips open to allow her perfect teeth to tenderly and playfully bite the end of her thumb. Large, walnut eyes, her most striking feature. Cat's eyes, really. Eyes guaranteed to be noticed.
These eyes were currently noticing Richard. He quickly broke contact, gazing away at some unimportant object.
It was the contact which made him squirm. Although he loved the opposite sex, he was quite inept when it came to any association with them. This timidity had plagued him all of his twenty-five years, and he found that the worst part of it was convincing his family that he wasn't gay.
"Richie, honey, when are you gonna bring home a nice girl for Christmas?" his mother would pester him. "Every year you come off that plane all alone. You do like girls, don't you? Baby?"
Absolutely demoralizing. It happened every year.
He looked at the new flux of passengers which filed into the waiting area like an exhausted mob. They had probably been held back at the security check station as Richard had. For fifty-three minutes, he had stood in yet another line while the security officers exhaustively checked and re-checked the X-ray machine, unnerved and baffled as to why it had suddenly gone dead. It had taken them an additional thirteen minutes to get the adjacent X-ray scanner and metal detector up and running, and by the time Richard had passed through the checkpoint, the two-and-a-half-hours he had allowed to get from the airline check-in to the gate had been exceeded by almost twenty minutes. Three hours. What used to be a thirty-minute process now took three grueling hours.
"Freaking terrorists," Richard chastised the responsible parties aloud.
He crossed his legs and sighed heavily, gazing at the weary holiday travelers who swooped and fell about him.
Richard never watched television, nor did he think of watching it. Waste of time was all it was. As a child, he had watched it mercilessly, spending hours upon wasteful hours after school slouched before the nineteen-inch Zenith. Life had revolved around the blessed television set until the age of eighteen, when he had discovered the magic of reading while attending the university. TV had not had a place in Richard's life for almost eight years.
As he boarded the plane, then, television was the furthest thought from his mind. Perhaps this is why he never saw it coming, never thought to look for the nearest set, never wondered where, in case of sudden entertainment deficiency, he might look to catch a few minutes of M*A*S*H.
The sound of Richard's head connecting sharply with the television monitor was voluminous enough to arrest the attention of the flight attendant.
"Oh, dear, are you alright, sir?"
Richard, dazed and confused, looked around for the owner of the foreign voice. "Oh. Yeah, I guess so." He already felt a lump forming over his left temple.
"Gotta be careful of those monitors. They're killers! Anyone over six feet has to duck. I'll get you some ice." She disappeared into the wall as Richard continued his way to 25C, making sure to dodge his head around each of the four additional monitors which hung precariously from the low ceiling.
Although someone already occupied 25A, Richard was relieved to see that no one had yet claimed the seat between them. He knew it was the holiday season and the flight was most likely full, however he allowed himself the pleasure to dream transiently of a few extra inches of aura during this flight. He stowed his bag overhead -- not bothering to retain his book in pursuit of rest -- fell into the seat, and closed his eyes.
"Here you go!" Richard's eyes flitted open to reveal the flight attendant's clothed breasts lingering within inches of his face. He didn't know quite what to say.
After the passenger had passed behind her, the attendant was able to stand up in the aisle without blocking the way. She returned her attention to Richard, holding out a cluster of ice cubes wrapped in a napkin. "This'll help ease the swelling. Looks like you've got a welt forming already." Richard took the gift with a smile and applied it to his forehead. Once she was gone, he removed it and tossed it into the seat pocket in front of him, then closed his eyes once more.
"She's cute," came the voice beside him. Richard again cracked his eyes and looked over at the boy in 25A. Rustled hair, acne-infested skin, layered peach fuzz decorating his face, the boy's voice cackled with the height of puberty. "Hope she knows what she's doing. Can't stand this flying crap. These things go down. Can only hope the stewardesses know how to land this thing."
Richard tried to hide his amused smile. No need letting the boy think he was laughing at him. He grunted a response of recognition. "Mmmrph…"
"Where you headed? Denver?"
"Aren't we all?"
"Naw, I mean ultimat…ultim…finally. What's your final destination?"
Richard's weariness battled nobly with his sociable niceties, but ultimately lost. He shifted his position in the seat and angled himself toward the boy, opening himself to the impending conversation. "Aspen. You?"
"Eagleton. Kansas. I was born there, ya know. Gonna spend Christmas with my Pop. I wish Mom was coming, but she can't stand the place. I guess I understand, it's pretty creepy. Nobody ever died naturally there."
Richard allowed himself a moment to review the boy's words before responding. "Wha?"
"Huh?"
"What do you mean?"
"What, the death thing? I mean nobody in the town ever died…you know, of natural causes. Always been accidents and murders 'n crap."
Richard's fatigue had the best of him. He sat up straighter and leaned in to the boy. "You mean," and here he tried to choose his words carefully, to no avail, "nobody ever died a natural death in Eagle Rock?"
"Eagleton. Right. Nobody. Not one person in the hundred and fifteen years it's been around. Sounds like a buncha crap, I know, but it's true."
Richard looked around to see if anyone else was listening. He began to speak, but couldn't think of a single utterance with which to follow this exchange. He furrowed his brow and returned his look to the boy, whose index finger was rhythmically scratching his armrest in a very upbeat 3/4 time.
"Can't stand flying. These things go down. All that crap they say about it being the safest way to go, I don' believe it. I hate trains even worse. They stink and they crash. Into cows, mostly." The boy looked nervously out the window. "Hey, you think we'll be okay?"
Richard gave the boy his most calm expression. "Sure. Trust me, I fly a lot. Airplanes are very safe. Don't worry about it." He settled back in his seat. "You got a book or something to read?"
The boy looked at Richard as though he had just asked directions to the Moon. "Naw!"
"Well crack open the magazine they've got in the pocket there," he said, motioning to the in-flight magazine sticking out from the seat pocket. "It'll take your mind off things."
"Reading is a buncha crap. Can't stand it. I like to talk. You going home for Christmas?"
"Pardon me, I need to find the facilities before we take off." He unbuckled and rose, almost hitting his head on the television monitor overhead.
"Felicities?"
"The bathroom."
"Oh!" The boy seemed excited. "I used it just now a little while ago. Go back, it's on this side." He turned his hand in awkwardly, indicating the starboard side of the plane. "On the…you know…on the right. Better hurry up. They lock 'em when they take off. They're kinda strict about crap like that."
Richard gazed down the narrow aisle. "Thanks."
He headed slowly aft, searching about for an empty seat. The flight attendant had begun her preliminary monologue, saying they would be pushing back from the gate within the next few minutes and would passengers please take their seats. Richard saw only three vacancies, the most appealing of which lay on the aisle in the Emergency Exit row. Coincidentally, the girl with the cat's eyes sat immediately next to it.
"'Scuze me, is anybody sitting here?" Richard tried to make his eyes sparkle, but how do you do that?
The girl with the cat's eyes was successful in this regard; her eyes sparkled almost naturally. She smiled, revealing those perfect teeth. "Not at all. Be my guest."
Richard sat, this time with more ease. He noticed the extra legroom and stretched his long legs out. "Geez," he said, "lotsa room in this row."
"Emergency Exit. Can't beat it." Even her breath was alluring.
Richard had somehow become fully alert and awake within the past several moments. He suddenly felt vibrant and turned his complete attention to the girl with the cat's eyes.
"So--"
"Ladies and Gentlemen…" The gruff voice boomed over the speakers in an unusually loud volume. "This is your captain speaking. On behalf of our flight crew, I'd like to welcome you aboard and thank you for choosing this airline to take you to Denver today." He cleared what sounded like an oriental rug from his throat at a shrill volume. "In light of recent events, we realize that air travel may seem questionable to some, but let me reassure you that this very well may be the safest period to fly in the history of commercial air flight." Again, the engines of his throat attempted to dislodge the Buick from his windpipe, sending a serpentine chill through the spine of every passenger. "The events of September Eleventh could not happen today. We are stronger and wiser now." He clicked the intercom off.
Richard returned his attention to the girl with the cat's eyes. "Are you--"
"Having said that," the captain's piercing voice interrupted, "We'd like to welcome you aboard and hope you help us all have a wonderful time during our flight here this morning. Feel free to call on our excellent crew of flight attendants to help you with anything you feel you need…help…with."
Richard did his best to suppress a giggle.
"My name is Captain John Briggs, our Co-pilot is Wayne Howard. Navigator this morning is Janet Wilkinson. Chief steward is Bruce, and our flight attendants today will be Sarah, Jane, Bill…I'm so…I'm sorry, it's Sarah, Jane, Jill, and…um…that's Susan, Jill, Janet, Bob, and…ah…" Click! The intercom went dead.
An instant later the captain's voice returned. "Never mind," he said. Click!
Richard waited a moment before speaking again, making sure it was indeed over. He looked at the girl with the cat's eyes, this time successful in his endeavor for sparkling eyes. "You going to Denver?"
She cocked an eyebrow. "Aren't we all?"
By the time the plane began its descent into Denver, Richard had grown to feel uncharacteristically close to the girl with the cat's eyes, whose name was Tatiana. "Tati for short. My mother was born in Georgia. You know, the one in Russia, not the one above Florida. My dad thought I should have a Russian name." And so she was born with a beautiful, cultured name which Richard had been repeating in his mind over and over: Tatiana…Tatiana…Tatiana.
They had been engaged in conversation throughout the flight, a quicksand exchange of dialogue which thoroughly absorbed them, he becoming lost in her and she becoming lost in him. They first spoke of the most binding topic, the attacks, about their feelings and hopes and fears. When he asked which element of the recent weeks she would remember most vividly, she replied, "The voices. For at least two weeks following the attacks, everyone's voice sounded on the verge of tears. Newscasters, my parents, friends, the president, everyone. We all had a frail quality to our speech, as though we would break down and bawl at any moment." Bonding rapidly, they next spoke of their pasts and hopeful futures, their desires and their greatest extravagances. He told of his most memorable experiences and she listened, enthralled.
For two passengers, the three-hour flight lasted a matter of seconds.
Now, as the captain finished announcing the final descent into Denver, the plane hit a roll of turbulence which shook the cabin fiercely.
"HOLY CRAP! WE'RE GOIN' DOWN!" The boy in 25A was looking madly about several rows ahead. He rose out of his seat, sat down, stood up, then sat down again, caught in a combination of hysteria, confusion, and a deep urge to leave the aircraft no matter what.
The flight attendant's voice came over the P.A. "Sir, please take your seat and fasten your safety belt. Everything's fine."
The boy was in no mood to reason. He shouted up to the nearest P.A. speaker. "Crap, lady! You got no idea what it's like! I don' wanna die in a plane! I wanna die of old age!"
A burly man sitting behind the boy spoke up. "For Chrissakes, kid, siddown. We're almost on the ground!"
Another voice chimed in, "Don't rock the boat, kid!"
The boy remained in his seat and quieted down. However, the nervous TAP TAP TAP of his foot bouncing on the thin floorboard echoed throughout the cabin for the remainder of the flight.
Once the plane had docked and the seatbelt sign had been turned off, the aisle became crowded with bodies eager to disembark. Tati averted Richard's eyes like a guilty lover .
"Well," she said, "it was nice talking to you. I hope you have a good Christmas with your family. Good luck getting to Aspen on those icy roads."
"Thanks. You, too. With Christmas, that is." He stood and eased his way into the static aisle of people.
"Go ahead." He motioned her into the tiny space ahead of him.
"Thanks. Watch your head on those TVs." She giggled.
"Righto." Richard began to speak again, then closed his mouth. Aww, he thought, what the hell? If there was one thing he had learned in the few months since mid-September, it was to be bold. Just go ahead and do it. You never know, he reasoned to himself, where life will take you, so you'd best do it now while you've got the chance.
"Listen, Tati, I wonder if you wouldn't mind walking off the plane with me."
She turned and smiled coyly. "Why's that?"
He thought of an intelligent answer, something to explain the odd request. Finally, he settled on the partial truth.
"It'll please my mother."
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