57. The Travails of Travel

         

Ahead of me, a haggard frump bounced up and down in her seat laughing uproariously and waggling her plump hands in the air. Her friend, or sister, or old school chum or whatever that sat across the aisle from me on the plane chortled and giggled and jiggled back. They both were apparently completely unaware that they were in a confined metal tube full of angry strangers. The ladies laughed and talked and slapped hands and-I kid you not here-even had a tickle fight at 32,000 feet, likes they were gunning for the Senior Citizens discount into the lesbionic Mile High Club.  

Crammed into my tiny horrid airplane seat, unnerved by the altitude and the whole craptastic experience that was modern flying, I cursed the 9/11 terrorists for making previously uncomfortable air travel so much more blatantly unbearable. The harridan ahead laughed loudly and reached back to slap her friend of the leg; her friend responded with a hoot. I hated them both; hated them with a burning passion akin only to what the public currently felt for that Floridian baby-killing woman who OJ-ed it and got away scot free.  

Looking around the plane, I realized that I was not in the worst possible seating configuration, but it was bad. At least I wasn’t directly between them, which would have been worst besides being sat anywhere near a baby or a precocious child, or even worse a bored, talkative businessman.  And, yes, I could have switched seats with one of the woman so that they could be next to each other to talk and whisper and tickle, but I chose not to, as the present scenario gave me something to do on the 4 ½ flight from Dallas to San Juan: hate them incessantly instead of worrying about the plane bursting into flame and breaking apart midair and me falling, falling, falling to my doom-while on fire-trapped, as I am unable to get my seatbelt unfastened.

 Ah, travel.

I had left home this afternoon after a weird crying jag to Thad. It wasn’t that I was that afraid to go on the trip, I mean, Puerto Rico was in the United States-how scary could it really be? I was just sad to leave him. I had asked him to go, and he had refused. His fear of travel was something I had decided we would work on now that we had hopefully chucked the problems with the bottle and were entering our 4^th year of near-matrimony. But I had no idea if I could ever pry him out of Norman.

Actually in all of our 20+ years of dating, we had never even left the state together; the farthest he had ever let me take him was Tulsa, with the Gaga debacle being one of those trips. And maybe I didn’t ask him pleadingly enough to go with me to this conference, as spouses were invited. But maybe that was because he was such a pain nationally, I had no idea what havoc he could wreck on me internationally, and this was a business trip anyway.  

Whatever the case, this morning I was the one to lose it. I had grown very comfortable lately, settled into our conflictless life of the last year or so quite happily, aside from his moving in with Bettina and the possible threat of Spandex Hair Mane, that is. This was the first time that I would be leaving him while being actually happy. Previously I had always traveled to get away from my life, to run, to try and find myself; but now, for the first time, I knew who I was, and that was next to Thad. So I had blubbered some version of this to him this morning and he had just looked at me like I had sprouted a fern from my head and said, “You’ll be fine. We’ll talk every day. Bye.” But I could tell he was moved; he just hid his emotions.   

Driving myself to the airport, I had cried until I was about halfway there. I had forced myself to calm and readopt my 42 year old university faculty mean that was necessary for civilized travel: I was an adult, I could do this.

Having already changed flights in Dallas, I was now on a direct flight to San Juan. Besides the talkative bouncing matrons to my front and left, the girls sitting next to me were more like slight muses. They were about fifteen or sixteen, just coming into their womanhood with make-up and daring lace tops and ipods. They were clearly Puerto Rican nationals, as they rattled back and forth to eat other in machine-gun Spanish, but then would address me in broken English such as, “Yes, hell-O. Do you have the time?” They were charming and pretty and non-bouncy which made them nice seat mates. But they sang.

At first I thought it was music being pumped into the cabin, as it was soft, lilting, and melodic. But then in my periphery I noticed the lips of the girl closest to me were moving. It was not an unpleasant sound being barely pianissimo, or whatever that is in Spanish. But as the voyage drew on, and I continued to entertain myself frowning up a storm at the bouncing aged women, the girl’s voice grew slightly louder, now not loud, but louder. And it still was not unpleasant, more like church music, or the song from an adjoining garden, or the theme of a sad movie you liked. And as we neared their home island, the other girl joined her in all I can assume was some sort of Puerto Rican song of assumption, and their soft fragile voices guided our plane in to a safe and sound landing.

As the tires bounced once, twice, and then a third time, to then stay down, everyone on the plane burst into applause, and I felt like I was the surprise winner of a 1950’s game show.

Once into the San Juan terminal, I grabbed my luggage and taxied in to my hotel, finding it adequate. It was a redone 1960’s Best Westerny styled place, my room up on the 5^th floor with an ocean view, which was always startling for someone from a landlocked state. The room had a mini-fridge and WIFI, my only two real requirements in a modern hotel room. The bedspread had a mysterious Rorschach stain that I chose to ignore, yet I kept staring at it as it seemed to move.

I called Thad immediately, who was staying at the house while I was gone. He answered upbeat, but I could tell taken aback by my disappearance.

“I miss you!’ he said. “I really do.”

“I miss you too, honey.”

  Since we had gotten back together, the only other time we had been separated for more than a day was when I went to this same conference in Milan two years ago, and he had not handled that well at all. Suffice to say, the bottle had been his comfort during my absence. During that trip I had to fend off a number of drunken, “I miss you…I can’t believe you left me, you bastard!” phone calls. Yeah, charming. I just hoped this went better. It really was his Sword of Damocles moment; if he could stay sober through this-40 and all-I think he could make it through most anything.

“I’ll call you tomorrow…” I said, just wanting to settle in and go to bed.

“Oh, just one more thing…” and then he told me a silly story about Charlotte Bronte and her adventures with a toy mouse she had found in my Study. It was nice just to hear his voice, to hear him laugh.  

“Okay then…” I said, not wanting to cut him off, but really weary from the stupid flight.  

“Bye!” he said abruptly and the conversation was over.

He sounded okay, I think. I hope. Was he drunk? Did he sound drunk? I don’t think so. Maybe. Probably not.

I don’t handle situations well where I have no control –situations such as this. And in those situations Paranoia very quickly becomes my friend. And then Mania comes and sits down beside me, with Panic on the other side holding my hand. I looked over and was sure the Rorschach stain moved again.

I’m almost sure he was sober.

Almost.