JUNE 7, 2000. 3:00 PM. O'HARE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. CHICAGO.
I have learned a valuable lesson today. When traveling to foreign countries, leave for the airport early and wear a chastity belt. Otherwise, you're going to have to grit your teeth and bend over, and the airport uses dildos the size of babies, so you'd better grit your teeth hard.
Yeah, we were off to a bad start. The main parking lot was closed, and so were most of the auxiliary lots. Gramps and I drove around like fiends, trying to find a place to leave the car because he wanted to see me off at the terminal. When we finally found a spot, we raced to get to the bus. But does the bus take us to the terminal? No, it takes us to a tram, which then takes us to the terminal. Then, we spent about 40 minutes just waiting to check my luggage. When it was all done, we had ten minutes to make it through security and run down to Gate L5.
We made it, and I found my grandmother, who was funding this trip because I'd just graduated from college. She had just flown in from Arizona for this, and she seemed pretty tired, but all seemed to be well, especially now that I'd made it in time.
Oh wait! The flight's been delayed an hour. Isn't that peachy? It's too windy in New York City. In fact, as we wait, the wind is so powerful that they tack on another half-hour to the delay.
All that racing around for nothing. I hate airports.
JUNE 7. 7:00 PM. SOMEWHERE OVER INDIANA OR OHIO.
We've been in the air for a while, and anyone who has ever taken a plane trip in coach knows how difficult it is to stay sane. I'm six-two, and I weigh close to 260 pounds. Coach was not built for people my size.
Thankfully, I have the whole row to myself, which means I can stretch my legs out. Unfortunately, all the people in front of me have their seats back all the way, which doesn't give my upper half a lot of room. At least the food wasn't too bad, for a stale turkey sandwich. It would have been much better without that creamy mustard crap, but I don't expect much from these people.
Aside from that, I've been passing my time reading Irish ballads. Drinking, fighting, love, and war; these are all wonderful subjects, and the Irish know them well. At least it's satisfying to know that no matter how miserable a person is, other people have it worse.
I like "A Nation Once Again" best so far. It starts out with, "When I had fire within my blood," which seems like a pretty good way to look at this trip. A youthful excursion to a foreign land. I approve.
JUNE 7. 10:00 PM. LEAVING NEW YORK CITY.
There I was, sitting at the window as the plane started its descent in New York, and I'm keeping a frantic eye out for the Statue of Liberty. It's the one thing in NYC that I actually lust to see. It's always been a symbol of America, a sight you see when you've escaped an authoritarian country, or a famine, or whatever else could go wrong. Sure, the Land of Opportunity bit is a myth, we all know that, but still, here's this magnificent French woman standing on an island holding a torch aloft, and for a moment, maybe the American Dream is more than just a dream. Granted, there's not much opportunity here (not to say a word about streets paved with gold), but compared to a place like, say, Rwanda, America is a gold mine.
So I kept an eye out for Lady Liberty. We flew over the Hudson River. I saw the George Washington Bridge. I even identified the Empire State Building and the Twin Towers while we landed. I did not see Lady Liberty.
I found her, however, in JFK's gift shop, with a hundred of her twins in all sizes. She sold herself not like a cheap whore (they were anything but cheap) but a cute call girl, maybe Julia Roberts in PRETTY WOMAN.
After eating terribly expensive Burger King slop, we waited around JFK a few hours until we got on the plane (gasp!) early. Of course, that meant we were doomed in another way. There was, indeed, a delay, a two-hour one, and we were stuck on the runway the whole time. Nothing good ever comes from airports.
I must say that I've never been on so big a plane before. However, coach is still as small as ever. The pain quickly set in, and it fought fiercely within me. Luckily, there was another seat free, and my grandmother moved to it to give me more space so I wouldn't die. The attendants fed me painkillers which mercifully helped me doze for a while. Not long enough, though. When I woke up, we were still on the runway, and it was only an hour later.
When we flew out of America, it was pitch black outside, and the only thing I could see were the city lights. Again, I looked for Lady Liberty. I think I might have actually seen her, but it was too dark to tell for sure.
A word on the Atlantic: I have never seen an ocean before, but when I finally did, it was amazing. I couldn't believe how supernatural it seemed. It didn't look like water from the sky; it looked like the scales of an impossibly big creature. As you get closer to this eerily still beast, you can see the writhing chaos of it. Now, I can't see anything out the window. It's the darkest depths of night, and they've begun to serve the food.
The beef is revolting, but the Jack Daniel's . . . well, it's free, and it helps deal with the pain of being in such a confined space. Why not hit Ireland as drunk as possible?
Now that I have eaten the Thing that Should Not Be and have drunken quite a few of those mini bottles, we've hit turbulence. Note to self (or whoever finds this): NEVER DO THIS AGAIN.
JUNE 8. MIDNIGHT. SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.
I don't know. Maybe it's the Jack, but I'm getting kind of spooked.
The movie with Richard Farnsworth and Sissy Spacek is over, and the FASTEN SEAT BELT sign is off. Everyone is asleep, and all is quiet. Outside is nothing, or so it seems. The moon hovers outside my window like a splinter, and occasionally, there is lightning. What if we passed over the edge of reality, and we're in some kind of other world? If so, what lurks in the darkness below? It must stop moving when the lightning flashes, so we won't see it.
THE TWILIGHT ZONE has occurred to me, but there's nothing on the wing (at least, not on my side). That would be too obvious.
JUNE 8. 1:15 AM. SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.
Watching the sun come up like that was glorious. It was so bright and red and gooey, it was truly like the birth of a new day.
The strange thing is, back at home, it's 1:15 am. It's supposed to be dark as hell out, yet here's the sun, shining brightly enough to burn the air. I can see the world isn't a monstrous landscape now; it's a long chain of mountainous clouds, parting occasionally to reveal the scales of the beast . . . AND LAND! Holy hell, I see land! Could we be flying over Ireland at long last? I hope so.
Maybe I should fix my watch now.
TO BE CONTINUED!
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