Down the Aisle (Part One)

I wasn't  planning on sharing this little piece of fiction anytime soon, but seeing as my life has been overrun by a horrendous cold for the past week, I figured now was a decent time to bring out something I wrote a while ago.  Let's just say that when a cold decides to nest with my EBV, it not only takes me twice as long to get over, but it adds twice the brain fog and a whole new batch of symptoms to my already long list.  New posts should be coming soon, but as I haven't done anything for the past week but eat soup, bagels and episodes of "Battlestar Gallactica,"  I'm at a loss for new material right now. 

One more disclaimer:  I don't pretend to be even remotely capable at writing fiction, but it was a fun exercise for me and here is the fist half of what I came up with.

The cabin was overheated.  This was the first thing that crossed Jeremy’s mind when he boarded the Boeing 747 on his way to Salt Lake.  Perhaps he wouldn’t have noticed it, had the frigid temperature outside not propelled him down the hallway toward the plane like a penguin darting for the ocean.  Now that he had arrived in the cabin, whose ceiling pummeled the top of his 6’ 3” frame, he slouched his way down the aisle toward his seat, cheeks flushed, with a ring of sweat beginning to form around his collar. 

A glance down at his ticket reminded him of the aisle seat his wife had procured for him-- the only form of comfort on an otherwise laborious flight toward his in-law’s.  It was a journey he took, at most, twice a year, and one for which he usually treated himself to a joint beforehand. 

Earlier that morning, he had nicked his chin while shaving and had to abandon his plans in order to blot the blood continuously seeping out of his freshly shorn cheek.  The spot was now but a faint scab hidden beneath an already forming five-o-clock shadow. 

Traveling without his wife scared him.  Due to the restrictions of his job as a modern dancer in New York City, he was forced to face the travel day on his own.  Normally his wife would be there to massage his thigh as the plane took off; a comfort that only she could bring. 

Gone were the days when they would try to shuffle down the aisle and sneak their way into the lavatory together-- marriage and two kids will suck the life right out of that one.  Now he could barely stand to brave the bathroom on his own, and it always left him wondering how he had managed to accomplish any comfortable position with another person in there.  Still, having her as a travel companion was a comfort that hadn’t waned in their five years of marriage. 

She was a vixen of sorts at 5’ 11”, with a body as long and smooth as a flagpole, hair that seemed to carry it’s own personal breeze, and a laugh that never failed to melt him, even in his sternest moments.  When she had called him earlier in the day, he felt his body surge for a moment.  But between juggling the tissue blotting his cheek, and eyeing the joint on the nightstand, he hadn’t been able to focus much on the voice coming from the other end.  All he knew was that after four days without her, he needed to see her face, even if that meant seeing his mother-in-law’s too.  The tone coming through the other end of the receiver indicated a crisis of sorts between his two children, but in his distracted state, that was all he had caught. 

As he nudged down the aisle, his bag caught on people like subway turnstiles.  He felt the hand of God (who he didn’t believe in) at work as he walked past a mother whose breast was out nursing a child.  The bald baby, much younger than either of his own, was treating it more like a needle, shrieking in horror, than anything of nutritional value. 

Next came an obese man whose waist overtook the middle seat, and whose wheezing cough spewed out germs large enough for the naked eye to see.  Past a few more toddlers, a teenager playing a portable gaming device, and a couple already wrapped together like a pair of parenthesis, asleep while the groaning of the luggage loading bellowed underneath their feet. 

The sole of his boot crushed the paper thin carpet lined by lighting tracks, and Jeremy began to realize that while he may be on the aisle, it was one of the last rows on the plane.  Between the smell of bathroom freshener and flight attendants buzzing with false importance by the coffee pots, he knew there would be little sleep.  He began craving his forgotten joint more than ever. 

46-C.  He had arrived.  After craning his head underneath the overhead compartments to scan the poorly aligned row assignments, he realized there was a sleeping woman in his aisle seat. 

The culprit was dressed in a coral shirt, the collar of which appeared to have been tugged at repeatedly by a gremlin of sorts.  Sandy blonde hair, either covered in dust or flirting with grey, fell down her forehead before revealing her face, which was a collection of bulbous shapes that had also been manipulated by a gremlin of sorts: time. 

The young man knew that he didn’t want to give up his aisle comfort easily, so he removed his hand from his pocket and tapped the sleeping woman’s hunched shoulder. 

“Excuse me, Ms.” The sound of his own voice made him jump as if someone had popped gum in his ear; he hadn’t used it since his phone conversation that morning.  However, it was clear that it was a bigger surprise to the awoken thief. 

“Well, hello there!”  Her voice sauntered through the air, receiving a shot of molasses to slow it down on its way out of her throat.  “I hope you don’t mind, I think I took your seat.  I really just prefer the aisle,” she said, as a smile opened to reveal stained teeth. 

After a month of performances, nearly a week without sex, a morning without a joint, and the smell of urine and air freshener waltzing from the bathroom two steps away, all he asked for was a chance to stretch his limbs out for a few hours before his children started using them as a climbing rope.  He was either going to have to fight, or submit to hours crammed in a corner. 

Looking down at her, as she peered at him with her orb-like eyes blinking behind thick glasses, there was a moment where he considered acting like the crane that he was.  He could easily reach down, cradle and dismiss her to the relegated seat assignment like a piece of dismantled building.  Yet, perhaps due to the exhaustion that came with the end of his season, or the arguments he knew were coming his way upon arrival in Salt Lake, he stared blankly for a moment and then reached his hand to the overhead compartment. 

There was only a space large enough for a briefcase left.  He was carrying a duffel-bag filled with a few changes of underwear, four t-shirts, and an invisible shotgun to blow his brains out whenever his mother-in-law began talking about his inability to father a third child.  There were some battles he couldn’t win, and as he saw the navy stump walking toward him in his peripheral vision, he knew he was about to encounter another defeat. 

“Sir,” said the flight attendant, “I’m afraid there isn’t enough space for your bag to fit in any of the rear compartments.  But I would be happy to take it up front for you.” 

The tone of her voice was so benign it made Jeremy question whether, after endless repetitions, the automated safety instructions had brainwashed her.  All the while, the seat filler gazed up, breathing heavily and scratching at her nose as if the mere implication of a finger in its vicinity would bring forth its gold. 

“Looks like it’s just you and me,” she exclaimed.  “I forgot my iPod.” There came a pause where Jeremy thought the conversation was over.  “My grandchildren are always telling me how cool I am for owning an iPod,” proved that it was not.   

The guffaw that followed was better suited to a clown amusing onlookers than the woman it came from.  Before it could ring out its last note, Jeremy was digging in his carry-on bag for all available reading and listening materials.  If he was giving up his seat, he would at least cocoon himself in the corner and let U2 filter through his brain. 

While crouching on the ground, he noticed Sue Grafton’s latest novel “T” sitting on the lap of his new unwelcome travel companion.  The resemblances to his mother-in-law were coming in rapid succession. 

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to take your seat,” said the flight attendant, as if Jeremy wasn’t aware that it was a priority. 

“Don’t get us in trouble so early in the flight,” joked the voice from his seat, before being overtaken by a hacking cough.   “Dearie,” she said as her tethered hand reached toward the navy suit, “ would you be a sweetheart and grab me a glass of milk?” 

Jeremy began to fear that his book, a magazine, and headphones the size of amplifiers would be no match for the woman planted beside him. 

Already buckled in, and allowing her ass to fall into the seat like quicksand, it became clear that he was going to have to perform a lap dance of sorts in order to get to the window.  Faced with the decision of either displaying his ass or his crotch to her, he hugged the seat in front of him, tugging on it for support like a float thrown in by a lifeguard, as his ass grazed the coral chest seated in 46-C. 

The relief that came upon the completion of this task reminded him of finishing the New York City Marathon; now he knew he could rest.   

“This must be a pretty new plane,” piped the voice beside him.  “Look at the plastic!  Hardly a scratch.” 

While the woman’s eyes didn’t deceive her, Jeremy agreed that this was indeed a new plane, he felt resistant to enter a conversation, and left his response at a simple “Mmmm.”  It was the type of reaction a guest at a dinner party uses to politely disengage from boring conversation while somehow staying present; he had hardly convinced himself.   

A glance out of the corner of his eye alerted him to his seatmate’s flushing cheeks.  He felt his underarms becoming damp, and reached up to release air from the valve above.  Later, when recounting the story of his flight to his wife, he could mark this moment as the point of no return; by releasing flowing cold air onto the woman next to him, he had shown a gesture of kindness that she would latch onto for two more hours.   

“You’re such a darling young man,” she said in her lolling southern drawl.  It reminded Jeremy of librarians and cafeteria workers from years past.  To acknowledge this comfort felt like a betrayal of his annoyance toward the situation. 

He decided to leave it at a simple, “Not a problem,” and closed his eyes for takeoff.