There’s an hour left in the flight.No longer able to stare out the window at the ever-changing landscape of cumulous and cirrus cloud formations, I turn to my laptop, desperate for a bit of music and the gothic ambiance of The Cure that might drown out the screaming child four rows behind me. …It’s not working.
The sky is dark now, and only a few spotted lights of small, rural American towns are visible in-between the porous pockets among the clouds below me. I find myself wishing that I were actually passing through them, and not above them, to explore their diners and their traditions as I traverse westward along lost roads towards the Pacific. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again, and hopefully a bit sooner rather than later. The lights have disappeared behind the darkening clouds of dusk now, and the window becomes pitch. There’s an hour left to the flight, and although my eyes are heavy from the drone of the engines and the lack of sleep I obtained last night, I’m getting restless. So, I write.
Six and a half hours ago, I grabbed my pack and suitcase and walked six blocks from my office towards Tower City Center, where I would board the RTA train straight into Cleveland Hopkins Airport. It was a 30-minute straight shot on the Red Line, for those that have never taken it, offering passage through the dismal and rusted landscape of Cleveland, Ohio. The ride is speckled with gutted buildings and boarded up windows, a sad glimpse into what used to be an extremely strong industrial Mecca…a time that has long passed, and one we may never see again. There are beautiful, breath-taking parts to Cleveland. The Red Line avoided each and every one of them.
Another break in the clouds and I see lights! An enormous city in the midst of nothing. For a second I hope that it’s Phoenix and I look for Shaw Butte, the mountain that my uncle’s house sits at the base of. Then I realize I’m looking at Vegas. My enthusiasm drops exponentially. Back to work.
Back at the airport, I check in relatively quickly and make it through security with no problem. They didn’t search me or strip me down to my skivvies like they did in Cincinnati, nor did they pigeonhole me as a terrorist because of my darkening beard. No, this time they let me pass without question. However, I did see the man that gave us all the hassle about Lisa’s luggage only two weeks ago and charged her $100 for checking a snowboard bag…because she padded it with clothes. (It should’ve only have been $15, like the rest of us had paid) He was wearing a red vest this time, an obvious compliment to his superiority complex, separating him from the rest of his peon agents that sadly have to report their duties to him. I contemplate running up and kicking him in his shin. Images of handcuffs and the prospect of cavity searches fill my brain. I move on.
While waiting for the call for boarding, I pass the time holding conversation and small talk with a woman sitting next to me in the terminal. She’s going to law school and is going out to LA for business. I tell her I’m out there visiting friends, when I get the call from Sarah that Kino is alive and well, riding comfortably in her car towards Medina where he’ll stay for the rest of the week until I return. She claims they’re best friends now and I smile, knowing full well that he’ll trust anyone that offers him a ride in their car. Just as I get off the phone, they call for my row and I wish Law-school woman (who’s name I never got) a safe flight and I board the plane.
Five hours, a ham sandwich, two glasses of tomato juice and a miserable game of computer chess later, the captain announces that we’re starting our descent. Thirty minutes left in the air and I’m anxious to stretch my legs. My ears are popping and I think the man next to me just farted. I hope he’s not reading this as I type.
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