03.25.2002
When the airplane landed in Dallas, having arrived from Northern California, Phil felt himself take a sharp breath as the bump and screech of the wheels hitting the runway awoke him from a dream he had been enjoying. He glanced over at his rowmate and business partner who was no longer talking to him and sighed as he reached under his cramped seat to check that his carry on bag was where he left it. Fingering its canvas exterior and tracing the plastic Hawaiian shirt luggage tag to make sure that it was his, Phil leaned back against his seat and breathed in and out calming himself from the panicked awakening.
He ran his fingers through his short hair he'd just had cut the day before and tried to remember his dream but found it to be fading away quickly. He remembered that it had something to do with microchip design and a blond but the details became more hazy as his head became more clear, the sleepiness dissolving away like clouds into a blue sky but with it the shapes of animals he had imagined. Staring straight ahead, Phil avoided direct eye contact with the man next to him in fear that such an act might provoke a violent confrontation.
The plane that had been taxing quickly along a series of runways and overpasses suddenly stopped and the entire cabin lurched forward in their seats from the inertia. One passenger who couldn't wait to stand up and start removing their luggage had to pick himself up off the floor with the help of his wife who spoke at a pitch that usually only dogs could hear but at a volume that would have put most rock concerts to shame. Above him, Phil heard the intercom crackle as the captain started to speak.
"Uh," the captain began. "Ladies and Gentleman, we have arrived at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport but it would seem as though we landed in the wrong county."
Phil cracked a smile at the small joke but it faded as he looked at the sullen man next to him.
"We're awaiting directions on how to get to the terminal," the captain continued. "We'll be moving shortly as soon as we receive them."
A chorus of moans sounded through out the aluminum fuselage as the passengers realized that it was going to be a little longer until they were able to stretch their legs that cramped during the two hour flight. Phil looked around for his headphones that he had put on before falling asleep, found them on the floor, placed them back on his head, and pressed play on the disc player that contained a mix he had put together the night before, content that at the very least they were on the ground again. Using only one finger on his second hand, he could count the number of times he'd flown and, unlike some, it never seemed to get any easier. His partner, on the other hand, seemed to prefer to fly. It was fitting, he thought, given the line of work he had chosen.
After a while the plane began to move again, but only after several other had passed it and who obviously knew the way. The pilot had obviously decided to play it safe because, rather than following another jet, he merely kept all his passengers on waiting until precise instructions were given on how to reach the terminal. Once it began rolling again though it parked in less than three minutes which Phil figured meant that either the terminal had been lost in the pilots blind spot or he just didn't know what the big building was with the other planes sitting snuggly up next to it was.
"Get your bag out," Sam hissed at him, speaking the first words since the runway in Oakland.
"What," Phil asked, surprised to hear his business partner's voice again.
"I don't want to wait all day to get out of this tuna can," Sam said. "Get your bag out so we can get out of here as quickly as possible."
Phil glanced up at the reading lights and air holes that were labeled by row and seat numbers. Theirs was labeled twenty-six. Row one was where the exit door was. It didn't matter whether or not his bag was out unless Sam had plans to bum rush the aisle, but he reached under his seat to retrieve his bag anyway, not wanting to inflame the situation from before. Sam held his next to his chest as though it were a baby he wanted to protect and not the laptop it contained, looking ready to leap up and knock down old ladies if necessary to get out. Watching him, Phil remembered an article in American Scientist – a magazine he kept around for bathroom reading – about a test group of mice that had been stuffed into a cage. The mice, needing more space, ended up killing each other until the number was reduced to a comfortable level. It was supposed to be a study of what happens to animals in an environment that is over populated but, looking at Sam rocking back and forth in his seat with a crazed look in his eyes, it seemed oddly pertinent. The Portishead on his disc player kept Phil calm, though Sam's mental state was infectious and made him antsy about getting off the plane himself.
When the seatbelt sign blinked off with the soothing ding of an electronic bell, chaos ensued. All of a sudden, people who looked like they had been asleep or nearly so, leaped up and began pulling at the luggage carriers above for their bags and personal belongings like wolves at a freshly killed lambs skin. A sense that was not entirely new to Phil began to creep over him: a fear that he was perhaps the only sane man in a room of insane people. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the eruption of motion around him but it was impossible with people in the rows before and behind him participating in what he figured had to be a mass form of hysteria. Even Sam was in on the act as he tried to crawl over Phil to join the rest. Phil began to think of the European soccer matches he'd read about where the crazed fans over ran a family who was just trying to make it to their cars but were just in the way.
As quickly as it began, it ended as those in the back realized that their paths were blocked by the people in front of them and like dominos it continues all the way to the first row where a couple with two kids were wrestling with a piece of luggage obviously too large for the overhead bins but somehow manhandled in anyway and unaware of the hundred and fifty people they were holding up. Sam started to convulse in his seat and Phil considered for a moment, pulling out his wallet and shoving it in his friend's mouth to prevent his biting off his tongue form the impending seizure, but after a second, Sam just dropped back into his seat in a stupor to wait.
"What's the big deal," Phil asked, pulling his earphones from his head.
"The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we get to Tonya's," Sam said sulking with a furled brow.
"I'm telling you," Phil began.
"I don't want to hear it," Sam interrupted. "You just don't understand."
"I guess not," Phil replied with a shrug and then hugged his bag to his chest like a teddy bear. He hated traveling anyway but doing it with someone like Sam seemed to be all the worse. The only thing Phil wanted was to reach a phone to call his apartment to make sure it hadn't burned down, a constant fear of his that in it was wrapped a second: the idea that his dog would die while he was away. The kid in the unit below him was being paid to watch Phil's pet, so he figured that were his dog to die or his place to burn down, he would at least receive a call at the hotel he and Sam were going to stay at down in Austin. As it was, they were stuck in Dallas for at least a day and a half and Phil was silently tortured by the thought of everything he owned going up in flames and nary an owner to quench the flames.
* * *
When the airplane finally disembarked, Phil and Sam made their way down to the luggage area to wait for the giant conveyer belt to belch up their checked bags. After a few minutes of standing around with nothing to do but watch the empty steel tray sit motionless, Phil felt the distinct need for a cigarette and excused himself out to the sidewalk to indulge. Sam smirked in the way he usually reserved for customers and small children at his habit, choosing instead to sit on his bag like a child and pout until the machine began spewing out luggage.
As Phil stepped through the automatic sliding door, he could feel the dry heat that radiated off the cement outside like an oven and his skin tighten in response. He swore his hair began to crinkle as though it were near a flame but as he ran his hand through it he knew that it was simply his body reacting in shock to the sudden change in climate. He plucked his cellular from his belt and flipped it open to check the time. "Two thirty-five," it read, but he adjusted it for the two-hour time difference and looked into the sky for a falling sun. Shading his face with his hand, he saw that the sun looked like it would be there for a while and then reached into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes.
As he lit up with a lipstick red plastic lighter, he caught a reflection of himself in the tinted terminal windows and frowned at the sight. His normally short and neat hair was skewed up from behind from his nap on the plane and his dark blue shirt and yellow tie was wrinkled and in need of being retucked into his equally creased khakis. He toyed briefly with the idea of fixing his appearance but soon realized that any will he had to do so had been sucked away by the dry heat.
Phil glanced around him and saw several others like him, all standing by the curb with their vices either held between two fingers or in their mouths, and all equally disheveled. They looked like salesmen, middle managers, advertising vice-presidents, and the like, and though Phil loathed admitting it, he was one of them even if his product was slightly different from any they might have seen before. He took a final drag on his butt and dropped it to the sidewalk where he crushed it with his heel before re-entering the terminal to collect his baggage and cranky business partner.
"Did you get your fix," Sam asked as though Phil were in the bathroom injecting himself with intravenous drugs.
"Yeah," Phil said with a hint of exhaustion as he loosened his belt and straightened out his attire. "It's becoming a pain in the ass with all of those track marks though."
"Very funny," Sam replied without so much as a suggestion that he might laugh. He instead watched Phil with an expression of horror on his face as his partner stuffed his shirt into his unzipped trousers. "What the hell are you doing," Sam demanded.
Phil smirked at his friend and continued his rearrangement until a loud buzzer sounded above the baggage carrousel and it began to rotate with a slow churning sound. One by one, people's luggage dropped from an opening that led to the bowels of the airport onto a conveyer belt that carried it all of three feet to the carrousel. As more bags poured out, more people crowded around the bin and wrestled with each other over like luggage until a nametag was found or sheer strength won out. Sam leaped up and down like someone on a trampoline, unable to see anything do to his small height.
"This is impossible," Sam finally grunted.
"I read a piece in Popular Mechanics about airports developing more perfect luggage systems to make this kind of thing easier," Phil said.
"Yeah, well, I don't think these guys read that one," Sam mumbled. Having waited long enough, he forced himself between people like a human wedge and disappeared into the crowd of people. Phil wondered if he would ever see his friend again and if not, what would become of their business when the authorities finally called off the search parties. Just when he was making plans of who to sell what to, Sam reappeared, crawling between some woman's legs with three bags and pushing a cardboard box with his nose. As he rushed over to help Sam and calm down the now panicked woman who's legs he was between, Phil saw he was too late to save his partner from a sever kicking to the ribs, but was quick enough to avert the calling of terminal police. Sam picked himself up off the floor with two of the bags and stormed off leaving Phil with responsibility for the box and the other bag.