Broke and traveling to Los Angeles for work. Missed my flight and now it's storming. Could've been sunny by now. The terminal lights reflect white tile floors
and matte grey walls all sterile and clean except for a few rogue Starbucks
cups and wadded wrappers. There's a kid, maybe twenty-two, with cowboy hat and
electrical tape, which fastens little Styrofoam cubes to his forehead and
forearms. He rocks rhythmically to the
incantation of his own voice. He reads
with eyes closed from pen-written Sanskrit, which looks to be a pocket Qur'an,
four inches thick. Frayed hemp strings dangle from his pockets and I watch out
of the corner of my eye.
Water
speckles and streams down the windows and the sky is so grey that runway and
buildings blend right in, blobbing in the distance. A baby in a green tank and white shorts
stares in amazement at the waves of precipitation blowing in, hands and cheek
stuck to the glass. Others, much older,
watch out the window with legs crossed on the carpet, phone in hand; coffee in
hand. All transfixed and hypnotized by
the ultimate magnet; the derailleur of sprockets lodged deep within their
skulls, water is shifting the focus from what is now to what could become and
what has been into what we want. Storm
doesn't worsen, but stays steady and true and shuttle buses break through,
trailing spray past the window. My
friend rocks, to and fro, back and forth to the hum of his voice and they stare
quizzically, searching for answers, but finding contempt and wrinkles for their
foreheads.
The hub of
America; the heart that pumps to more glamorous capillaries, Chicago has a pace
attracting even those from the East and even those from the West, all stopping
for a connecting flight, whether for work or for play, but to travel; to go; to
leave; to depart.
Weird,
rectangular and geometrically shaped objects pull wagons in the air yard. And the water pools and ripples and reflects
the dead, grey sky. Big plane of blue
and white with monochromatic shading scales in between has its cargo door flung
open wide and water streams off the edges.
My mom is worried. She's working
tonight at six. A big yellow gas line
connects to the underside of the plane like an umbilical cord, fueling the
machine for its big flight in this big world and only if they'd just put a
little more.
I'm
starting to rock with my friend, but it's not to his voice, it's to the thought
that I'll never come back; that I'll never speak to anyone again, but not
because of a fear for death, rather, the fluttering excitement for the mystery
of future. The rain's letting up.
And the
sky's a little brighter. LA's a
different pace. You can feel it just
waiting to board, or, hoping to board. Most of the minds are in their own
worlds living their own lives without any regard or care for the other minds
sitting in the adjacent galaxies around them.
It's kind of refreshing. And all
I can care about right now is leaving Chicago.
A fat,
younger-looking guy shovels three layers of pancakes into his mouth feverishly
and without a pause even for air. He has
a guitar with him, but he doesn't look artistic. He holds his biscuit tight between thumb and
forefinger and chomps down on it with crumbs cascading off his lips. It disappears after three. Pathetic. I start rocking harder with my
friend and he makes me comfortable because he's not afraid. He's holding the electrical tape tight and it
squeezes his hand, making it balloon around the black stripes in bubbles of
white.
Big grey
plane crosses the air yard, must be going far.
Rain is streaming lightly now, but it's still somewhat speckled. The men in the yard are wearing neon
green-yellow jumpsuits and they scramble to throw luggage on rolling wheels of
conveyor systems. The baby in the green
tank screams as the water lessens, but maybe that's not why. In the distance, it looks like it has stopped
raining, but up close you can tell it is still sprinkling. Little brown girl with dark hair and black
eyes stares and fingers at the speckles of water dotting the glass. Her brother in the green tank stops screaming
and does the same. His eyes widen in
fascination when he realizes that he can't touch what he sees and he smoothes
over and over, every so often searching for moisture. Their mother comes over
and picks up the boy. She's a pretty mom
with eyes that look deep into the distance and she rocks the tank and his curly
head falls.
Dorsal fins
of large planes stick over the dock extensions, which look like
accordions. Black man shovels pancakes
in his mouth like his friend and coughs every two or three minutes. Every grunt breaks my mood and I want to bury
my fingers in my head. Thankfully, after four minutes, the black
man's fat white friend comes wobbling back to the gate with the large guitar
case sprouting behind his head and he explains that their flight is ten gates
down. So, they gather their things and
breathe hard down the hall and I exhale and let my shoulders fall.
And I look
at my friend who has tucked away his electrical tape and neatly closed and
banded his important text and his eyes meet mine beneath the black brim of his
hat and we exchange a half-smile and a quick look away and that was all that
was needed to make the connection; to understand and to comfort. As I stare at my feet, I feel relaxed and
composed with the energy to do anything, like all restrictions have been
dissolved.
Just need
to get on this plane.
Rain still
patters but the streamers are slower and speckles are hanging on for dear
life. The grey sky opens to show some
blue and a tiny plane rises slowly to meet it.
Here, I sit in a cove of a Long Beach harbor, the sunset
pink and orange, all palmy silhouettes and fishermen in casual clothes wipe
down the cabins of their boats, carrying poles to the deck. It must be night fishing. An open condom wrapper sits next to me,
half-buried in the sand… must be night fishing.
There are a
lot of birds swooping around the sky with one grey pelican gliding softly over
the water and another one curving high.
The water is smooth, but still ripples a bit. Half of the boats have American flags hanging
and the moon sits directly above a lighthouse.
A woman takes photos of it. In
the distance, a helicopter hangs motionless in the sky with a flaming red
beacon for a tail, pulsating like the lights on a heart monitor. And I resonate, feeling my chest rise and
fall with the red gleam.
The harbor
is pretty much empty and I'm in complete awe of its beauty. No longer does it matter that my wallet is
flat, but I guess you can attribute that to the fact that my company is paying
for every meal that I devour in the dim lights of the hotel bar every
night. The other side of the harbor has
many more masts and with all of the hanging white lines, it looks like a dead
forest. Not really, though, just a bunch
of white poles and ropes hanging from them.
I think I like romanticizing sometimes.
The pelican
flies low again and the helicopter hasn't moved in a good fifteen minutes. I'm leaving for Big Sur in the morning so
this will be my last night in the LAX area; an area that, much to my chagrin, I
have actually enjoyed. My dark-rimmed
eyeglassed friends built this city up to be hell on Earth and despite the fact
that the jeans are loose and the shirts and are even baggier, it has been
anything but. The hipness competition is
nonexistent. Thus, I don't have to
listen to anyone preach about the cleanliness of the food industry or the
atrocities on the other side of the world or the best hole in the wall bar in the
coolest uncovered neighborhood in the city and it makes me breath easy to not
see another soul in the entire three-mile square of the harbor. Exhale.
The sun is
leaving and in its ever-growing absence, neon lights replace it; blue ones
circling the edge of the water and red-orange-yellow ones lighting up
restaurants and Ferris wheels. There's a
decent breeze and it hisses through the palm trees. I love how still the harbor is and how quiet
it feels. Very relaxing. Not like Chicago. Less bustle.
More freedom of movement. And as
I look around, the helicopter hasn't moved and the boats sit still and the
people have gone home and the birds and pelicans glide around effortlessly
reflecting dimly off the smooth water.
The skyline is a series of hotel buildings and fishermen fumble, firing
up their engines and the sky darkens as they retreat into it. And I walk back home to the hotel, smiling at
no one at all.
