Standing against the wall, next to the entrance, is an airport security guard. He looks right at me as I walk to the sink to wash my hands. As I head out past him, he moves from the wall toward the stalls and our arms brush lightly against each other’s as I pass into the terminal and away from security, toward the escalator.
I try to keep calm as I descend into the baggage area. There is no doubt in my mind that the security guard has headed straight for the toilet dispenser. I don’t look back, but I can feel the eyes of a hundred cops and agents on me as I move past the carousels and up toward another escalator. I wander for twenty minutes or so before making my way back to the security area. I stand next to the stairs going up to the third floor and watch the long line of tourists and businessmen and students waiting to take their belts and shoes off before passing through the metal detectors. I see a man wearing gray slacks, a nylon pullover, and plain shoes. He’s one of the JCPenney guys from the hotel lobby who got in the car, and now he’s here, several feet away, looking right at me. Just past him, back toward the check-in counter, is an older woman, walking slowly, pulling a suitcase on wheels and talking into a cell phone. I notice the blandness of the suitcase, her shoes, her jacket. It’s kindred somehow with his. And then, in the minutes that follow, like seeing one water tower in a city skyline and then suddenly seeing them all, I see dozens of these people. Blandly dressed, middle-aged, suitcase-pulling, cell-phone-clutching zombies whose slow, deliberate movements all appear choreographed in response to mine.
I wander the airport for what seems like hours before getting in the line for security. I occasionally get brazen with some of the people I think are following me, look them squarely in the eye and smile, even joke several times that this must be a tedious assignment. They usually respond with a smirk or a rolled eye. At one point, when the tension is great, I imagine jumping from the third-floor balcony next to the escalator to avoid the arrest I know is coming. But the height looks too meager, not capable of causing more than a broken leg or two.
Later, bone-tired from hours of pacing the airport in a state of sustained panic and crashing from nearly a week of getting high, I finally turn to one of these guys, a younger one, and ask, Why don’t you just get it over with? to which he chuckles and says, It’s much more fun later, once you’re somewhere else. Just wait. I am certain he says this. I freeze at these words and decide finally to get in line, take my shoes and belt off, and go through the metal detector. It’s not possible that I will make it to the other side, and I’m now so wrung out that I just need it to be over.
But I make it through. I make it through and feel, briefly, cautiously, elated. Maybe it’s all in my head. Maybe it’s just the drugs, whose good effects have all fled, leaving the body that held them shattered and its mind delusional. I make it to the gate and the flight is already boarding. I hesitate a few times as I see, again, a few of the JCPenneys wandering around the seating area near the gate. The words of the younger Penney ring in my head but I am desperate for a vodka and somewhere in my bag are over-the-counter sleeping pills. If I can just crash in that big plush seat and pass out, I will be okay. If I can just get on that plane and away from these goons, I know I will be safe. So I march over to the check-in, hand the ticket agent my boarding pass, and get on.
My seat is on the aisle, in the second row to the right. Never has anything looked so welcoming. I sit down and begin to feel the high panic of the last two and a half hours slowly fade. I exhale and look out the window to the tarmac and ground crew loading luggage. This is the first time I realize that the bag I checked the day before was on a flight I never boarded. Worrying about a lost bag now seems like a lucky luxury and I decide not to think about it until I get to Berlin.
I stow my tote bag under the seat, sit back up, and close my eyes for a few minutes. Finally, I think, safe. And then, when I turn around to find a stewardess, the wind knocks out of me. I see them. The Penneys. One, two, three, four, at least five of them are sitting all throughout the cabin. At just this moment, one of the stewardesses leans down toward one and speaks softly. About me, no doubt. About the arrest about to take place in Amsterdam or Berlin. Or right here. Right now. The entire cabin suddenly seems to me like a set, like some elaborate stage prop created to replicate the first-class cabin of an airplane. The napkins seem to be flimsy fakes, the stewardesses actresses, and the Penneys androids — half human, half robot, emotionless and menacing.
One of the stewardesses is suddenly at my side. She asks, in a tone that sounds mocking and insincere, if I’d like a drink. I’m frightened by the Penneys, but I’m agitated by her. Angry, even. I ask her if the plane is, in fact, actually going to be landing in Amsterdam. She looks confused, but not as confused as I think she should look, so I ask, Don’t you think this is an awfully complicated piece of theater for just one person? She looks at me for a few seconds, excuses herself, and walks away. Moments later she returns with the captain, who politely asks me to gather my belongings and follow him off the plane. I can barely move. And even though I know this is the long-awaited arrest that’s been coming since I got in the car at the hotel, I am relieved when the captain puts his hand on my shoulder and says, Let’s go. Like a scolded kid, and with everyone in the cabin watching, I grab my bag and follow him off the plane.
But there is no arrest. Instead, the captain explains to me that after 9/11 they need to be cautious and that what I said to the stewardess alarmed her enough that they don’t feel comfortable having me on the flight. I notice his jacket, its hokey military mimicry — epaulets, stripes. Like everything on the plane, his uniform — shabby compared to the memory of my father’s — looks like a flimsy, slapped-together costume. He asks if I have been drinking, to which I answer yes, that I get nervous before flying and drank some to calm my nerves. How I form these thoughts and words, I have no idea. I apologize for alarming the stewardess and just as I am about to make my way back toward security, a man in a white shirt with a binder filled with papers arrives. He says he is the head of operations for Continental at Newark and instantly apologizes to me for the confusion. He asks the captain to reconsider and it’s immediately clear that, for some reason, this guy really wants me on the flight. The captain respectfully declines and begins to get visibly annoyed when the operations guy presses him further. I stay very quiet as this plays out. The operations guy finally gives up and the captain wishes me luck and heads back to the cockpit. I watch him disappear into the jetway and have to suppress the sudden urge to call out to him. I have no idea what I’d say if I did, but I know that when he’s gone, I want him to come back.
The operations guy asks to see my passport and continues to be apologetic. I tell him it’s fine, that I’ll just go home and fly out tomorrow. He tells me not to worry, that he’ll have me on another plane tonight. He steps away, makes a few phone calls on his cell, just out of earshot, and comes back to say that he’s booked me, first class, on an Air France flight that goes to Berlin through Paris. It’s all taken care of, and the flight departs in forty-five minutes from a nearby gate. Another person with binders arrives. The little group escorts me to an Air France counter, where a ticket is produced, and then to the gate. I am there for less than ten minutes when the flight begins to board. At this point things have moved so swiftly that I’ve barely been able to keep pace. I do, though, have a strong sense that someone — not just the operations guy from Continental — wants me on a flight tonight.