Don't look into the Sun...

The right thrust engine has gone completely insane, actually, it’s gone, caput. I sit in my seat as the passengers go into a panic and remember something my father once told me about flying on airplanes. He said to me:

“Don’t fly on airplanes.”

I should’ve heeded his advice, but he’s dead and buried, and his words never had a peculiar meaning to me. The right flap has caught fire and continues to erupt and cause dismay to the passengers who watch and stare with amazement.

I’m reading a book, it’s a good book too, something by Steinbeck; Winter of Our Discontent. It’s a marvelous story, but not really compelling in the sense of an airplane crash. I close the book and store it in the spot in front of me and lean back in the seat. When the fuselage goes, I’m going to lose all hope. Not to waiver from my current non-caring attitude, but I still have some hope of survival, because a) we’re not that high, and b) I just have to see Spider-Man 3 before I die.

A woman grabs onto my arm, latches actually and says, “We’re praying, come with me.” And I look into her green eyes, her frightened eyes, and tell her, “I’m not interested in prayer, but thank you.” She gives me the sort of reaction you’d expect from your mother if she made you dinner and you didn’t touch it.

She unlatches my arm and stands up in what I assume is a huffy-panic-riddled-sigh; she storms off down the aisle only to trip and fall on her face. I can feel my eyes widen in my face, but I don’t do this, it’s an immediate reaction to stupidity. I look at my watch, which is wrong, because the batteries are dead. How could I not remember to replace the batteries on my watch. The plane drifts a few miles lower as my thoughts race. I’m actually saying a Hail Mary, but the words aren’t coming out right. I’m actually beginning to panic, but then I realize that death is only another step in my life. I’ll come back as a cheetah or an ostrich; preferably the ostrich, they’re a marvelous little creature.

I stand up in my seat and the stewardess yells from her seat, “Buckle Up, Sir!” What I find Ironic is that she called me Sir, who in this apparently impending doom would go out of their way to make you feel important. Thoughts race through my head about my father, and the first time someone called him Sir in front of me.

We were in PC Richards I believe, and the man was showing us a television, it was Toshiba (my father preferred Sony), but the guy was persuasive and he was ranting about the television, and raving about the picture quality. He had me sold on the contraption, but I was just a twelve year old kid with about six dollars in change in a plastic red piggy bank. I couldn’t help, but feel bad for the guy when my father went for the Sony model, after all the work the guy did to sell us on the Toshiba; “You know, Sir, with the extra ports in the front you can plug in your Son’s favorite video game system and remove it when he’s acting up!” My father aptly replied, “My Son doesn’t play video games.”

I would’ve spoken up, I really would’ve, but I didn’t want to get that look from my Dad, and the cold shoulder for the rest of the day. I did play video games, fact is, my eyes were killing me right then and there from staring at the bright screen of Sonic the Hedgehog. Instead, I stood as my father made this guy pick up the hundred pound box by himself and place it in the car. My Father didn’t give the kid any money, or a even a ‘Thank You’ he merely said, “John-Boy, you ready to see the Knicks on this big boy?” to which I replied “Yeah!”

So I sit here wondering what happened to this guy in PC Richards from about fifteen years ago. The plane plunges, and spins out of control. I grip the arm rest and feel like my brain might explode, but what happens is far worse. I’m brought with memories of a past love. A past love that destroyed my heart and put me on this plane to begin with.

I keep thinking ‘If I get off this plane alive, I’m going to buy a lot of fucking cocaine’ then I shoot back to my thoughts about Laura Westman. Laura was supposed to be the love my life, but turned out to be the torture, which led to the downfall of my life. She died. She died a long time ago actually, which is why I can’t believe I’m even thinking about this right now. She’s what drove me to drink, her death, her lack of life; drove me to pollute my body with booze and drugs. Cocaine and endless White Russians flew through my system like water and left me feeling comatose nearly half of the time.

One night, back in eighty-five, I was arrested for lewd conduct. I stood outside her old apartment, drunk and stoned, singing the lyrics to the song In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel; and holding an ‘air-boom box.’ In jail, I called her number and some guy picked up and I berated him, yelling that Laura was a bitch for cheating on me. He asked, “Who’s Laura?” and I hung up.
I was released when my brother finally came from Chicago to bail me out. I tried to give him the money back, but he refused.
“You need to get help, John. Listen, go into rehab, no one will think any less of you,” he said.
“Why would you say that? Now I’m going to think you’d think less of me,” I responded dryly.
“Jesus John, you’re fucking killing yourself. Laura is gone. She died,” he says; sounding cold and uncaring.

“Laura’s not dead, Michael. Laura is not dead.”
On the intercom came The Beach Boy’s hit In My Room and the captains voice: “This is your captain speaking, since I believe our fate is inevitable, I’m going to sing the words of this song. This is because I have a vicious fear of people and I always wanted to sing.” My eyebrow nearly quirks by itself, and I sit up in my seat as this guy spurts the words to In My Room through the planes multiple speakers.

In the back of my mind, I’m laughing at this, but since we’re all going to be dead in the next four minutes, I might as well grin and bear it. The mention of the Beach Boys reminds me of my brother’s love for the ocean. His love for surfing and lounging on the beach in Los Angeles, he would lay back wearing his Wayfarers and hum the words to the Beach Boy's California Girls and Blinded by the Light by Bruce Springsteen.

Then the captain halts his song to say that he apologizes, but he has to take a call, and silence fills the plane. Pissed, I start humming Growin’ Up.




Yes, another post, that's 3 in a row.