Oh yeah, Halloween, that reminds me. I rush to the bathroom to get changed and I reemerge as Michael Douglas from Falling Down. It was a summer movie about a laid-off defense contractor who goes on a rampage in Los Angeles. I’ve got the crew cut, the short-sleeved white collared shirt with pocket protector and assorted pens, the blue necktie, the black-framed glasses, the black pants, and the shiny black shoes. The only thing I don’t have is a weapon, but Band-Aid said he’d bring a baseball bat to D.C.
I’m excited to be in America, I haven’t touched its soil in three years. But I’m not excited about this airport at all. There’s another delay announcement for my D.C. connection.
The athletic blonde in the seat next to mine is getting bored. “Are you on that flight too?” she asks.
“First I get laid off at the weapons plant and now this,” I say, squeezing and wrinkling the knees of my black trousers. She says no more. It might be that she can’t understand me. I have a powerful voice, but it isn’t the clearest. I drag my words when I speak and everything comes out in a low, slow, mumble. My voice defines me better than any of my other physical features do, and some people like it and some don’t, but most agree it sounds like bricks being dropped into an industrial crusher. I put my face in my hands for what seems like five minutes.
When I lift my head, the athletic blonde is gone. A lot of characters I remember are gone. I walk up to the counter. “When’s the flight going to D.C.?”
The lady stares at me. “That’s loaded and on the runway, sir.”
“When did that happen?”
“Where have you been?”
“Right here!”
“Whoa,” she says. “Must be one of those Halloween things.”
What did she mean by that? She calls out to a guy in a doorway. The guy opens the door for me and I’m standing out on the Tarmac. It’s dark out already. A bus sweeps by and picks me up. “Go, man, go!” cries the guy in the doorway. The driver is flooring it. “See that plane,” he says, pointing to a tiny one rolling away. “That’s the one.”
“It’s taking off.”
“No,” he says, narrowing the gap. “He’s just going to the runway.” Now we’re rolling right next to the little propjet, about four feet from the wing. The plane’s not slowing down and I’m not as sure as my driver seems to be that the thing isn’t trying to take off. Does this guy have any idea what he’s doing? I think he’s winging it. He’s too sure for a guy whose only instructions were: “Go, man, go!” He cuts in front of the wing. Not a cautious, wide drift around, but a hard jerk of the wheel leaving no room to spare between bus and plane. I can see this driver acts only on impulse. If his mind even thinks about crashing into the plane, he’ll do it. As it is, a propjet engine is right behind us. If we stop for any reason, the wing will saw this bus in half and we’ll be sucked into the turbine like seagulls.
That’s how these airline disasters happen, right on the ground. Engines rarely start smoking four miles up like in the movies, planes thrown into roaring earthbound spirals, pilots tugging helplessly at sticks and levers while instrument panels spin and click like children’s crib toys before failing altogether. The bad crashes are always something like this, a hothead driver taking his shuttle to the edge, smashing into a plane trying to take off.
Oh, help me, that engine is right behind us. I close my eyes. Please don’t touch those brakes, man, please let us live. When I hear the brakes squeal, my body goes numb. For what I guess is my last second alive, I ask myself why I ever got on this bus.
“Here you go.”
The driver is looking at me. We’re not moving, but neither is the plane. I’ll never know who hit the brakes first. The crew and passengers stare at me in wonder as I board. I regard them eerily through my black-framed glasses and I take my seat next to the athletic blonde. I finger my pens neurotically during the flight and she says nothing.
A nervousness rises in me as our wheels leave the ground. I’m flying in the direction of The Band-Aid Man, and I know too well the energy spikes in a dangerous direction when he takes over. This airport incident was the baseline. Almost as soon as this jet touches down, everything will go next-level — I’m not ready.
And I wouldn’t be ready for the surprise the Army would have in store for me a decade later. As much as any other part of my story, this should bring into focus just how ludicrous it was for the Army to recall me when they did. The Pentagon had some nerve sending me back into action in this era of cellphones and social media, even though the last time I’d worn the uniform had been in the time of hothead shuttle drivers chasing down planes on runways to make sure the depressed man with the crew cut made his flight.