Airport Literature: The Lie (472 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.54 on 13 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Grownasskid (View user info) at 2007-06-26 10:02:17 EDT
Part One: Introduction http://www.ubersite.com/m/109346
15 minutes from Newark, I begin to notice some things on the plane. Nothing like a man with a bomb or a cabin fire, but little things that just serve to remind me that I am not nearly as observant a person as I would like to think that I am; the little sort of things that a man paying attention would have noticed right away. Mounted on the wall directly above my head and behind me is a black flashlight. The flashlight is about a foot long, and it is the kind of light one could buy at a grocery store, the sort with boxed, rectangle-shaped ridges all over it. Not as sleek as a Maglight or my stolen pen. Maybe it's a Coleman. This flashlight possesses the rare attribute of seeming both keenly practical and overwhelmingly useless at the same time. The inner conflict I am experiencing at the hands of this flashlight is mind boggling.
If I lean forward in my seat, I can see one of the jet engines mounted under the wing of the aircraft. In this position, I would be the third person to know if the engine were on fire, and the first person to know if a passing bird got sucked in. Because I am sitting in the last row of the plane, I have got a very good view of the backs of everyone else's heads. Only one man on board appears to be losing his hair; this flight has very good genes.
The plane begins to descend, dipping, circling, weaving, and upsetting my stomach in that way that can make a person not sick, but profoundly uncomfortable. "Take us down, goddamn it" I think to myself. "I don't care if we crash, just get us down." My mind begins to wander, and I wonder what the pilot would do if the plane were actually going to crash. Would he tell us over the speaker? Would he apologize? Would he cry and beg for our forgiveness? And what about the passenger? Would they pray and scream to God and cry and beat their chests? Would complete strangers begin to perform sexual acts on each other, so as to die feeling good, even if it is a hollow and fruitless joy, a squirt gun trying to put out a blaze? I wonder what I would do.
I would like to think that I wouldn't do anything. I like to pretend that I would sit and smile, or read a book, content in the knowledge that I can do nothing, nothing to prevent this from happening, and that I never could. The whole thing would give my damning, ugly sense of superiority weight and meaning, instead of me just being a pretentious, superficial asshole.
But of course this is a lie. If I go to the dark part and look, I would be praying and crying like all the rest.
The plane lands and I am the last one to get off of it. As I walk to the front of the cabin and exit the plane, the stewardess asks if I need any help with anything. "No" I say, smiling as I lie to her face.
*****
The next train for Philadelphia doesn't leave for 4 hours, so I will be stuck in the airport until at least 2pm. The one good thing about being stuck in an airport terminal is that there is always, ALWAYS a bar to go waste some time in. Airport terminals are where misfortune and alcoholism meet at a frustratingly beautiful intersection. I buy my train ticket online, close my laptop, and set off through the scattered travelers to find a drink. At 10am. On a Monday.
I have done my fair share of flying. Enough so that I have a list of the top five airports I have visited, and perhaps if I took the time to think about it, a bottom five. Newark airport was always just on the cusp of being in the top five, but now that I have found an airport bar that is willing to serve me beer at 10:30 in the morning, it has jumped into the top five. Sorry, O'Hare. Plus, Newark Airport has a hat store, which is just as perplexing to me as the mounted flashlight on my plane was.
Every great writer in the history of the written word, from the first cave dweller to etch that first exploratory scribble on to a stone wall to the most modern post-graduate typing his thesis on a laptop, has all shared the same Shakespearian quality of having a vital and primal flaw that both fuels their progression through this failed tragicomedy plot and becomes the undoing that will consume them. And, like in those great Shakespeare plays, everyone in the audience can see it coming, everyone knows what will happen. Everyone can see Romeos and Hamlets of the world running blindly into their own oblivion, ejecting brilliant, shimmering judgments along the way. And, to further this destructive paradox, the close to the brink the character gets, the more profound and beautiful their tragic lives become, until the end, in which they are remember not as miserable addicts and junkies, but as bastions of thought. Stunning, shocking titans of the human condition with a depth of scope that they great unwashed masses can only marvel at.
And so, every great hero has their weakness, every Hamlet their sense of inaction, every great artist their insane, destructive muse that serves as an inspiring, hateful nemesis that will eventually consume and kill.
This is why I wake up five times a week with alcohol on my breath and thunder in my head. This is why I am drinking at 10:30 in an airport in northern NJ. This is the lie I wish I could believe. This is also my greatest fear.
It's not enough to be flawed unless I've got the talent to give it weight. Otherwise, what am I but just another drunk in an airport?
User Reviews
Submitted by strwbryfanatic (user info) at 2007-06-28 11:12:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
HEY...if you want to get into the contest, you need to email: UberContest.at.gmail.com with your email address you will be checking often.
http://www.ubersite.com/m/109611
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-06-27 11:12:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by Zebra (user info) at 2007-06-26 17:05:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2007-06-26 15:22:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Grownasskid (user info) at 2007-06-26 15:07:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
it's probably better that way
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2007-06-26 14:46:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
didn't read it.
Submitted by Grownasskid (user info) at 2007-06-26 13:50:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I guess its up to my peers and relatives to decide if i am a drunk.
but i am not the main character of the story
Submitted by Slash (user info) at 2007-06-26 13:10:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like your writing style.
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2007-06-26 13:08:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Susie_Derkins (user info) at 2007-06-26 12:59:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DancingOtter (user info) at 2007-06-26 10:33:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well written dude. But I get the feeling you aren't really drunk, you're just writing about being a drunk from a drunkards point of view?
Submitted by Maddog (user info) at 2007-06-26 10:31:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Charlie: Ray, all airlines have crashed at one time or another, that doesn't mean that they are not safe.
Raymond: QANTAS. QANTAS never crashed.
Submitted by PioneerBill (user info) at 2007-06-26 10:21:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Ever try an AA meeting?