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I shook my head. “Old family name.”
“Well, at least you weren’t named after some stupid song on the radio.”
I squinted to read her name tag: Layla. My eyes bounced over to Big Red’s, too: Vivian. That’s the tricky part about women and name tags: to read them is to check out the frontal real estate. Which I was doing when Vivian caught me. “Well,” I told Layla. “You could do worse than being named after a Clapton song.”
“Picture ID, sir?” Viv said.
I nodded. Fumbled for my wallet. Handed her my driver’s license. Layla asked me if I was traveling for business or pleasure.
“Neither,” I said. “Sick relative.” Freshman year, Rocco and I had had four classifications for the girls we scoped out from afar in the BU cafeteria: wouldn’t screw her blindfolded; would screw her blindfolded; wouldn’t throw her out of bed; and, for girls of the highest order, would screw her grandmother to screw her. Rocco and I were both virgins back then, of course—huddled together, eating our turkey à la king and room-temperature Jell-O and rating girls we were too chicken-shit to approach.
“My son’s sick, too,” Layla said. “Four ear infections in one year. Wanna see his picture?”
Viv’s nostrils flared. “I think what Mr. Quirk wants is to get to his gate,” she said. She gave me a professional smile. “This is her first day on the job.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “And actually, I’d like to see her son’s picture.”
Viv’s smile became a grimace. Layla produced her purse. Her son dangled from her key ring, in a little plastic frame. Nappy hair, coffee skin.
“He’s cute,” I said. “How old?”
Three, she said. His name was Shabbaz. Vivian asked if I was checking any bags with them today.
“Uh, no. I just have the one carry-on.”
“And has anyone asked you to hold anything for them since you entered airport property, sir?”
Only the heroin smuggler, Viv. “Uh, no. Nope.”
“And has the bag you’re carrying on board been in your possession at all times since you packed it?”
Pretty much, except when I left it with the Unabomber. “Uh-huh.”
She looked up, concerned. “What?”
Had I just said Unabomber? “Yes. Yes, it has.”
She nodded. “Aisle seat? Window seat?”
“Window, I guess. Better for sleeping.”
“Try sleeping when you’re a single mom,” Layla said. “Last night—”
“Well, then,” Viv interrupted. “You’re all set. Concourse B, gate thirty-six.” She handed me my boarding pass. “Have a nice flight.”
“Have a nice flight,” Layla echoed.
Ten or twelve steps toward the security gate, I looked back. Layla was getting chewed out in spades.
AT GATE 36, I JOINED my fellow sojourners: guys with laptops, guys on cell phones, tanned retirees in jogging suits and gold jewelry. A college-age couple leaned against each other, napping. A Mexican dad passed out churros to his kids. I caught a whiff of the fried dough and started thinking about the Mama Mia Bakery. Maybe I’d stop by, check in with Alphonse while I was home. Or maybe not. Alphonse’s e-mails were depressing: all those politically incorrect jokes, all that silent salivating over some latest counter girl he’d just hired. Pushing fifty, Alphonse was still afraid to approach women. Still searching for his holy grail, too: a 1965 yellow Mustang hardtop with 289-cubic-inch engine, four-barrel carburetor, and solid-lifter valve train. He belonged to something called the Yellow Mustang Registry. Checked eBay five or six times a day. Phoenician Yellow, his dream car had to be, not the paler Springtime Yellow, also available back in ’65. “Eat your breakfast now,” the Mexican dad said.
“Whoever don’t finish theirs don’t get on the plane.” One of the kids began to cry.
I got up, grabbed a seat closer to the TV. CNN Sports. Tim Couch had gone number one in the NFL draft. The Eagles had nabbed McNabb. Darryl Strawberry was in trouble again.
I watched the approach of a freaky-looking couple. Early twenties, maybe. She was fat, her hair a bunch of pigtail stubs. He was rat-faced. Nose ring, tattooed hands and fingers, missing teeth. She was eating a churro, too. They plopped down across from the napping college couple, whose eyes cracked open, then opened wider.
“Hi,” Pigtails said.
“Hey,” College Guy said.
“What are you guys going to Chicago for?”
They answered in unison. “Back to school.”
“Guess why me and him are going?” The college kids both shrugged. “We’re gonna be on Jerry Springer.”
“Really?” College Girl said. College Boy leaned forward.
“They’re picking us up in a limo and paying for our hotel. The chauffeur’s meetin’ us at the baggage pickup. He’s gonna have a sign with my name on it.”
“That’s awesome,” College Boy said. “What are you going to be on for?”
Pigtails smiled at Ratso. Her fingers grazed his chest. “Me and him are lovers. And first cousins. Which is fine, because he got fixed.”
The airline rep announced that boarding would begin, small children and passengers with special needs first.
“Acourse, what’s fixed can get unfixed,” Ratso assured College Guy. “You know what I’m saying?”
“See that fat cow sitting over there?” Pigtails said. “That’s my mom. She’s gonna be on the show, too.” College Boy, College Girl, and I followed her gaze to a sad, puffy-looking woman with dyed black hair, seated by herself in the otherwise empty sea of chairs at gate thirty-seven. She was glaring back. “He done her, too. When we get on Springer, there’s gonna be a showdown!”
“This so rocks,” College Boy said. He raised his fist and punched the air. “Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!”
“She had sex with her own nephew?” College Girl said. “Eww.”
“It’s gross, ain’t it?” Pigtails said. “I don’t blame him, though. She was always strutting around our apartment half-naked. Throwing it at him like Thanksgiving dinner. His mom? Her sister? She disowned her.” She shouted across the walkway. “What are you looking at, slut?” Now she had everyone’s attention, the gate attendants included. Her mother stood, turning her back to her daughter. The boarding of first-class customers began.
“If she flashes titty, they give her a bonus,” Ratso said.
“Not money, though,” Pigtails added. “Restaurant coupons. I may do it, I may not. Depends on how I feel. They blur it, so no one sees nothing.”
“What about the studio audience?” Ratso said. “Ain’t nobody blurring nothin’ out for them.”
“So?” she said. “Shut up.”
Rows thirty through forty were called to board. I was both relieved and disappointed when the Springer guests stood up. There went Mexican Guy and his brood, too. Pigtails’ mom was in the rows-twenty-to-thirty group. I found her strangely sympathetic. Well, pathetic, I guess. What, other than dim-wittedness, would have ever motivated her to go on that show?
My row was among the last called. I grabbed my breakfast tote from the self-serve cart, got through the tunnel, and made it to my window seat, 10A. This morning’s flight was a full one, the intercom voice told us. Would we please be seated, seatbelts secured, as soon as possible?
Through the magazine and blanket distribution, the headset sales and overhead baggage jockeying, the seat next to mine remained empty. With any luck, I’d be able to flip up the armrest and stretch out a little, the better to sleep my way to Chicago.
I heard him before I saw him. “’Scuse me. ’Scuse me, please. Oops, sorry. ’Scuse me.” He negotiated the aisle with the grace of a buffalo and stopped dead at row 10. “Howdy doody,” he said. “Hold these for a sec?”
I took his coffee in one hand, his pastry in the other—a catcher’s-mitt-sized cinnamon bun. His suitcase was cinched with leather belts. As he jammed and whacked it into the overhead space, his shirt untucked, exposing a jiggling, tofu-colored stomach. Mission accomplished, he crash-landed into seat 10B.
“Whoa,” he said, adjusting his safety belt. “I think an anorexic must have had this seat before I did.” He buckled the belt, flopped down his tray table, reclaimed his coffee and pastry. “Oh, geez,” he said. “Forgot to take my jacket off. Do you mind doing the honors again?” He folded his tray, unbuckled his belt. Struggling out of his sleeves, he whacked my arm, sloshing coffee onto my shirt. “Oops, me bad boy,” he said. His giggle was girlish.
He was Mickey Schmidt, he said. I told him my name. We shook hands. His was sticky. “And what does Caleb Quirk do for a living?” he asked.
It’s Caelum, douchebag. “I teach.”
“At Colorado State? Me, too!”
I shook my head. “I teach high school.”
“High school!” He groaned. “I almost didn’t survive the experience.” I nodded, half-smiled. Told him a lot of people remembered it that way.
“No, I mean it,” he said. “Freshman year, I tried to kill myself. Twice.”
“Gee,” I said. I mean, what can you say?
“The first time, I filled the bathtub and climbed in with my father’s electric shaver. It kept shutting off. I thought it was God, willing me to live. But come to find out, it had a safety switch.” That giggle again. He took another slug of coffee, another mouthful of cinnamon bun. He talked and ate simultaneously. “The second time, I tried to OD on my mother’s Kaopectate. She used to buy it by the case. I drank five bottles. I was going for six, but I couldn’t do it. You ever have your stomach pumped? I don’t recommend it.”
I fished out the in-flight magazine. Thumbed through it to shut him up. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small vial of pills. Popped one. “Flight anxiety,” he said. “Takeoffs and landings, mostly. Once I’m in the air, I’m calmer. Want one?” The pill vial hovered in front of my nose. I shook my head. “Well, Mickey, how about you? Would you like another to help you fly a little higher through the friendly skies? Why, yes, please. Don’t mind if I do.” He took a second tablet, a slurp of coffee. “So what do you know about chaos-complexity theory?” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Chaos-complexity theory.”
“Uh…is that the one where a butterfly flaps its wings in Africa and—”
“And it triggers a tornado in Texas. Yup, that’s it. Sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Of course, that’s an oversimplification. It’s all about bifurcation, really. Three types: subtle, catastrophic, and explosive. See, when bifurcation occurs, a dynamical system destabilizes. Becomes perturbed, okay? You with me so far?”
A crowded flight probably meant no seat-switching. And who would I end up next to if I did switch? The incest aunt?
Mercifully, the video screens blinked on and the emergency landing spiel began. At the front of the plane, a flight attendant mimed the on-screen instructions. You’d think someone with “flying anxieties” would shut up and listen, but Mickey talked over the audio. “Of course, the fascinating thing is that there’s a self-organizing principle at the edge of chaos. Order breeds habit, okay? But chaos breeds life.”
“Yeah, hold on,” I said. “I want to hear this.”
He resumed as soon as the video was over. “But anyhoo, that’s my area of expertise. I’m adjunct at Colorado State. I teach one course in math, another in philosophy, which makes perfect sense, see, because chaos-complexity cuts across the disciplines. Actually, I could teach in the theology department, too, because chaos theory’s entirely applicable to the world’s religions. That’s not a concept Pat Robertson and the pope would embrace, but hey. Don’t shoot the messenger!” The giggle. “Of course, three classes is full time, so they’d have to give me the benefits package, which would kill them. Screw the adjuncts, right? We’re the monks of higher education. How much do you make?”
I flinched a little. “Rather not say.”
He nodded. “Thank God I have another income stream. Whoops, there I go again. I’m the only atheist I know who keeps thanking God. Well, what do you expect, growing up with my mother? I mean, she made my father put a shrine to the Blessed Virgin in our backyard. Immaculate conception? Yeah, sure, Mom. So what do you teach?”
“American lit,” I said. “And writing.”
“Really? So you’re a writer?”
“Uh, yeah. Yes.” My answer surprised me.
“That’s what I’m doing this summer: writing a book.”
I nodded. “Publish or perish, right?”
“Oh, no, no, noooo. This isn’t part of my scholarly work. It’s a manual for the casino gambler. I’m going to show how the principles of chaos theory can be employed to beat the house. Gambling’s my other income stream, see? Know how much I pull in in a year? Go ahead, guesstimate.”
I shrugged. “Five thousand?”
“Try fifty thousand.”
I’d seen that suitcase of his. Who did he think he was kidding? “Well,” I said, “if you can teach people how to hit the jackpot, you’ll have a best-seller.”
“Oh, I can teach them, all right. Not that I’m going to give away all of my trade secrets. In Vegas? I’m banned at Harrah’s, the Golden Nugget, and Circus Circus.” I nodded, then closed my eyes and shifted my body toward the window. Mickey didn’t take the hint. “I get ten steps in the front door, disguised or not, and security approaches me. Escorts me out of the building. It’s all very cordial, very gentlemanly. They don’t make trouble and neither do I. I could, though, because it impedes my research. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of publication, right? That’s why I’m flying to Connecticut. To do research for my book. The Indians have a casino there called—”
I opened my eyes. “Wequonnoc Moon,” I said.
“Right. You’ve been there?”
I nodded. “It’s about ten minutes from where I grew up.”
“Biggest single gaming venue in the country,” Mickey said. “Or so I’ve heard. I’ve never been there before. Been to Atlantic City many times over. I’m no longer welcome at Mr. Trump’s venues either. Now I ask you: is it legal to ban me, simply because I’ve figured out how to beat them at their own game? If I could afford to do it, I’d sue the bastards.”
The plane lurched forward. The intercom clicked on. The captain said we’d been cleared for takeoff. Would the flight attendants prepare the cabin?
“Oh, boy, here we go,” Mickey said. He pulled the vomit bag from his seat pocket. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to puke. I use these for my breathing exercise.”
“Right,” I said. Closed my eyes.
Mickey grabbed my arm. “I was wondering if, when we lift off, would you hold my hand? It helps.”
“Uh, well…”
The plane began to taxi. “Oh, boy,” Mickey muttered. “Oh, boy, oh, boy.” Paper crinkled in my right ear. In my peripheral vision, I saw his vomit bag expand and contract like a lung. The plane turned right and started down the runway, picking up speed. “Please,” he said, his shaky hand groping for mine. Instead of taking it, I pushed it down against the armrest between us.
The cabin rattled. Mickey’s hand gripped the armrest. We rose.
With the whine of the landing gear’s retraction, he returned to his abnormal normalcy. “Fascinating stuff, though, chaos-complexity,” he said. “Order in disorder. Disequilibrium as the source of life. Can you imagine it?”
“What?”
“God as flux? God as mutability?”
His pupils were dilated. Stoned from whatever he’d taken, I figured. For the next few minutes, neither of us spoke.
The captain turned off the seatbelt sign. The flight attendants wheeled the beverage cart down the aisle. Mickey flopped down his tray table and began to play solitaire with a deck of cards that, in my peripheral vision, I noticed were pornographic.
I dozed, woke up, fell into a deeper sleep. Somewhere during the flight, I heard Mickey and a flight attendant joking about Mr. Sandman….
