Crusty eyes open to a blank memory and my dark empty room. No idea if I hooked up or drove home. Expecting the worse, I went to the window and looked for the car but I couldn’t see it through the garage window. I wrangled a robe and went out into the autumn morning to look. The car was in the garage and not a scratch.
“That will be the last of my four leaf clovers.”
I didn’t go out the next night and just drank by myself in my room with watered down liquor. Then the day pounced upon me when I had to take a flight back to school. The distressing part was I had to ride with my Uncle Randolph and Patty to the airport. I said goodbye to my mother and she told me I was moody. We took a limo-service and I ended up sitting next to Patty. She was a wind up doll with a long string. When my uncle fell asleep, she turned to me and asked, “Did you like what you saw in the dinning room?”
Nausea bubbled.
“Uh, just saw for a second,” I replied and she laughed and said, “Well, didn’t think you’d be embarrassed.”
“I am not embarrassed. No big deal. People walk in on people.”
“Come visit us any time, we’re family now,” she said.
The nausea and the pressure began to build.
The rest of the ride was silent except for the sounds of the city traffic and only twenty miles until La Guardia airport.
We reached their terminal first and my uncle brushed the slumber away as they exited the van. He touched his forehead with one gnarled hand as the other skimmed his itinerary.
“Goodbye Keen,” he said and waved from the sidewalk as the Skycap rolled a trolley up to him and took his bags.
Patty blew me a kiss as they crossed through the automatic glass doors of the terminal.
There was no need for me to check my bags so I breezed through security and waded through the crowds to my gate. Then I remembered my ID. A few cocktails would lubricate the motor. I figured there were so many people from different countries that it would be easy to get served and I went to the closest bar. It was a glass window-box jutting out over the tarmac.
Figured I’d give my Scottish accent a go but the guy carded me right off.
“Me girrrrlllfriend has ourrr passports at de gade and she didna want to come wit me. I will go get herrr and bey rrrright bachk,” I said and walked off to a crowded restaurant.
The bartender in her flight attendant costume didn’t even look at me. The pints of ale were expensive but four beers went down and confidence filled my pores. I watched ESPN right up to my boarding call. The only pressing problem was my bladder but there was no time.
I boarded the small jet. The cabin cinched around me getting tighter and smaller as I stowed my bags in the overhead compartment the size of a pillbox.
The plane was half empty.
The flight attendants gave their sermon and we began to move but only for a short time.
We were taxiing.
The internal pressure expanded the seams of my bladder. I hoped the flight to take off soon so we could reach cruising altitude and I could pee.
A woman’s gentle voice spoke behind me, “Sorry, sir but it will be twenty minutes until we reach the runway. Would you like a pillow or a blanket?”
The man behind me responded in the negative. I raised my hand and she came to me and asked, “Is there anything you would like sir?”
“Yes I need to use the restroom. I do not think I can wait until we get up in the air.”
She leaned over and whispered into my ear, “It smells like you have been drinking. A little young aren’t you? Well, you’re going to have to wait.”
I said nothing.
She attended to the woman in front of me.
The pain ballooned and shrank. I couldn’t hear the pilot’s announcements before we took off and the G-forces pressed the pee behind my eyes as we lifted off. My ears popped and chewing without gum didn’t work. We leveled off at altitude and the seatbelt sign went off. I was free to move around the cabin but I was afraid I would wet my pants. Three shallow breaths propelled me out of my seat. With crossed legs I shimmied to the lavatory.
OCCUPIED.
It was coming out if I liked it or not so I grabbed my crotch and rocked. From inside, I heard a guy blowing his nose. Then the faucet went on. My fist flew without warning and I said “Hey.”
The door crept inward as an elderly man shrunk away from me and headed down the aisle.
When I got back to my seat a liter lighter, the little red dots popped into existence and danced on the ceiling. A patch of turbulence couldn’t shake them free. The shaking stopped and my ears popped. A jet of cool air flowed past the regulating nozzle and purged my panic.
The red dots passed through the fuselage.
A near miss, I had felt as if tragedy had been averted. The flight attendant raised an eyebrow as she pushed the drink cart to my row.
We began our descent and we would be at the first stop on the connected flight. The engines screamed for help and in a blink we fell. A flight attendant in the front was sucked up to the ceiling and dropped like a coin. The red dots flashed back into my realm of freefall and rolled along the ceiling.
The air strangled me.
My eyes imploded and the blood vessels of my skin stretched.
The pilot regained control but I did not.
He apologized.
I hated him.
I started panting, an exhausted dog in the humid summer heat, and bit the inside of my cheek. Emptiness entered so I gave up. I was ready to die. My weighted eyelids fluttered as my eyes burned. The red dots grew to the size of plums.
I was pulled deeper.
We descended faster.
We bounced.
We screeched to a halt.
The elderly man walked by as he departed and I contemplated following but I didn’t have enough money to take a train to Wessex. The plane filled up and I figured another attack was unlikely.
The duration of the flight was longer than the first leg but the red dots didn’t return. I needed a smoke and had to figure out how I was going to get back to the dorm.