The Hour I First Believed. Wally Lamb
GATE 36, I JOINED my fellow sojourners: guys with laptops, guys on cell phones, tanned retirees in jogging suits and gold jewelry. A college-age couple leaned against each other, napping. A Mexican dad passed out churros to his kids. I caught a whiff of the fried dough and started thinking about the Mama Mia Bakery. Maybe I’d stop by, check in with Alphonse while I was home. Or maybe not. Alphonse’s e-mails were depressing: all those politically incorrect jokes, all that silent salivating over some latest counter girl he’d just hired. Pushing fifty, Alphonse was still afraid to approach women. Still searching for his holy grail, too: a 1965 yellow Mustang hardtop with 289-cubic-inch engine, four-barrel carburetor, and solid-lifter valve train. He belonged to something called the Yellow Mustang Registry. Checked eBay five or six times a day. Phoenician Yellow, his dream car had to be, not the paler Springtime Yellow, also available back in ’65. “Eat your breakfast now,” the Mexican dad said.
“Whoever don’t finish theirs don’t get on the plane.” One of the kids began to cry.
I got up, grabbed a seat closer to the TV. CNN Sports. Tim Couch had gone number one in the NFL draft. The Eagles had nabbed McNabb. Darryl Strawberry was in trouble again.
I watched the approach of a freaky-looking couple. Early twenties, maybe. She was fat, her hair a bunch of pigtail stubs. He was rat-faced. Nose ring, tattooed hands and fingers, missing teeth. She was eating a churro, too. They plopped down across from the napping college couple, whose eyes cracked open, then opened wider.
“Hi,” Pigtails said.
“Hey,” College Guy said.
“What are you guys going to Chicago for?”
They answered in unison. “Back to school.”
“Guess why me and him are going?” The college kids both shrugged. “We’re gonna be on Jerry Springer.”
“Really?” College Girl said. College Boy leaned forward.
“They’re picking us up in a limo and paying for our hotel. The chauffeur’s meetin’ us at the baggage pickup. He’s gonna have a sign with my name on it.”
“That’s awesome,” College Boy said. “What are you going to be on for?”
Pigtails smiled at Ratso. Her fingers grazed his chest. “Me and him are lovers. And first cousins. Which is fine, because he got fixed.”
The airline rep announced that boarding would begin, small children and passengers with special needs first.
“Acourse, what’s fixed can get unfixed,” Ratso assured College Guy. “You know what I’m saying?”
“See that fat cow sitting over there?” Pigtails said. “That’s my mom. She’s gonna be on the show, too.” College Boy, College Girl, and I followed her gaze to a sad, puffy-looking woman with dyed black hair, seated by herself in the otherwise empty sea of chairs at gate thirty-seven. She was glaring back. “He done her, too. When we get on Springer, there’s gonna be a showdown!”
“This so rocks,” College Boy said. He raised his fist and punched the air. “Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!”
“She had sex with her own nephew?” College Girl said. “Eww.”
“It’s gross, ain’t it?” Pigtails said. “I don’t blame him, though. She was always strutting around our apartment half-naked. Throwing it at him like Thanksgiving dinner. His mom? Her sister? She disowned her.” She shouted across the walkway. “What are you looking at, slut?” Now she had everyone’s attention, the gate attendants included. Her mother stood, turning her back to her daughter. The boarding of first-class customers began.
“If she flashes titty, they give her a bonus,” Ratso said.
“Not money, though,” Pigtails added. “Restaurant coupons. I may do it, I may not. Depends on how I feel. They blur it, so no one sees nothing.”
“What about the studio audience?” Ratso said. “Ain’t nobody blurring nothin’ out for them.”
“So?” she said. “Shut up.”
Rows thirty through forty were called to board. I was both relieved and disappointed when the Springer guests stood up. There went Mexican Guy and his brood, too. Pigtails’ mom was in the rows-twenty-to-thirty group. I found her strangely sympathetic. Well, pathetic, I guess. What, other than dim-wittedness, would have ever motivated her to go on that show?
My row was among the last called. I grabbed my breakfast tote from the self-serve cart, got through the tunnel, and made it to my window seat, 10A. This morning’s flight was a full one, the intercom voice told us. Would we please be seated, seatbelts secured, as soon as possible?
Through the magazine and blanket distribution, the headset sales and overhead baggage jockeying, the seat next to mine remained empty. With any luck, I’d be able to flip up the armrest and stretch out a little, the better to sleep my way to Chicago.
I heard him before I saw him. “’Scuse me. ’Scuse me, please. Oops, sorry. ’Scuse me.” He negotiated the aisle with the grace of a buffalo and stopped dead at row 10. “Howdy doody,” he said. “Hold these for a sec?”
I took his coffee in one hand, his pastry in the other—a catcher’s-mitt-sized cinnamon bun. His suitcase was cinched with leather belts. As he jammed and whacked it into the overhead space, his shirt untucked, exposing a jiggling, tofu-colored stomach. Mission accomplished, he crash-landed into seat 10B.
“Whoa,” he said, adjusting his safety belt. “I think an anorexic must have had this seat before I did.” He buckled the belt, flopped down his tray table, reclaimed his coffee and pastry. “Oh, geez,” he said. “Forgot to take my jacket off. Do you mind doing the honors again?” He folded his tray, unbuckled his belt. Struggling out of his sleeves, he whacked my arm, sloshing coffee onto my shirt. “Oops, me bad boy,” he said. His giggle was girlish.
He was Mickey Schmidt, he said. I told him my name. We shook hands. His was sticky. “And what does Caleb Quirk do for a living?” he asked.
It’s Caelum, douchebag. “I teach.”
“At Colorado State? Me, too!”
I shook my head. “I teach high school.”
“High school!” He groaned. “I almost didn’t survive the experience.” I nodded, half-smiled. Told him a lot of people remembered it that way.
“No, I mean it,” he said. “Freshman year, I tried to kill myself. Twice.”
“Gee,” I said. I mean, what can you say?
“The first time, I filled the bathtub and climbed in with my father’s electric shaver. It kept shutting off. I thought it was God, willing me to live. But come to find out, it had a safety switch.” That giggle again. He took another slug of coffee, another mouthful of cinnamon bun. He talked and ate simultaneously. “The second time, I tried to OD on my mother’s Kaopectate. She used to buy it by the case. I drank five bottles. I was going for six, but I couldn’t do it. You ever have your stomach pumped? I don’t recommend it.”
I fished out the in-flight magazine. Thumbed through it to shut him up. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small vial of pills. Popped one. “Flight anxiety,” he said. “Takeoffs and landings, mostly. Once I’m in the air, I’m calmer. Want one?” The pill vial hovered in front of my nose. I shook my head. “Well, Mickey, how about you? Would you like another to help you fly a little higher through the friendly skies? Why, yes, please. Don’t mind if I do.” He took a second tablet, a slurp of coffee. “So what do you know about chaos-complexity theory?” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Chaos-complexity theory.”
“Uh…is that the one where a butterfly flaps its wings in Africa and—”
“And it triggers a tornado in Texas. Yup, that’s it. Sensitive dependence on initial