December 15th, 2011 21:31

Smirnoff's Trip to Nevada : Part Two

February 2003, Chesapeake Bay, Virginia.

So we made it to the airport. This is post 9/11, so I've had to spend hours weighing my duffel bag and carry ons to make sure they fit both the size and weight regulations now imposed by the airlines.

I was using my brother's duffel bag that he was issued by the Marine Corps. Olive drab green, string-tie at the top with his last name and squad number emblazoned on it. It's a huge duffel, and in it was packed exactly 65% of what I would be taking with me on my cross-country journey to start a new life in Nevada.

I brought two carry-on bags, two checked bags, and the clothes I was wearing.

The first checked bag was the duffel, I think it weighed around 75 pounds, and it contained nothing but clothes and in fact a few weapons. Knives and spiked gloves that I had been gifted over the years. Strange medieval weapons and artwork that held sentimental value.

Memories of some people perhaps best left forgotten.

Mementos of a life I would never live again.

The second bag, another, smaller duffel, contained more of the same. Including CDs and some electronics. I brought my hard drives from my computers, since I couldn't fit the computers themselves. I brought simply data.

The third bag was my carry-on backpack, which carried my portable cd player, some books, magazines, and other things to entertain me on my cross-country flight.

The fourth bag, was in fact, The One Carrier.

The pet carrier that I bled for, the bag that was zippered and closed and tight and contained my only companion... Smirnoff.

I chose Smirnoff over Gato because Smirnoff was younger, smaller, and seemed to deal better with travel.

I had many cats over the years, and a lot of them had met untimely deaths and/or mysterious disappearances.

Midnight was a black cat, and the very last sighting I had of her was of her sitting on the bottom steps of the staircase leading to our basement. She was vomiting violently all over the place, noisily emptying her guts.

I was 14 at the time, I think, and looked to my father.

"She'll be ok, son, just got a bug. We have to get you to school now, though, so hustle."

Never saw that cat again.

Thunder was slate grey, and she purred like an engine. You could hear her from the other room. She vanished.

Yappinz was probably one of my favorites, a gray tabby, and he disappeared in a snow storm. I spent hours, literally hours until I was frozen and numb, looking for him.

Gato was a long haired black cat, and I rescued her from a ‘friend’ of mine's doorstep, after he kicked her down a flight of stairs.

Then we have Smirnoff. My girlfriend at the time, who, to protect the innocent, shall be henceforth referred to as "Natalie Portman", took me down the country lane (that's what we kids called it those days) to a neighbor's house to get the runt of the litter.

Smirnoff was a great cat, very loving, but smallish and skittish. Up to the day that he narrowly escaped getting munched by a Rottweiler and most likely became coyote-fodder instead, he was still a smallish guy.

He and Gato got along great for the few years they spent together. They travelled with me from small town Midwestern USA to the hustle and bustle of Cleveland. They never got out, they never complained.

Then I moved to Virginia Beach.

I drove from Cleveland Ohio to Chesapeake, Virginia with all of my earthly belongings, in an early 90's model Dodge Daytona Hatchback. Not a huge car.

Keep in mind all my earthly belongings included two cats, a litterbox, my computer system, tower, keyboard, mouse, monitor and all.

A full on Sony stereo system including receiver, 200 disc CD-changer, four foot tall floor speakers, an incredibly fascinating 5 cassette-changer, and 5 surround speakers plus subwoofer.
Oh, and all my clothes.

 Anyway, long story short, Gato spent 9 hours screaming uncontrollably and shitting all over the car, between trying to cram herself behind the gas and brake pedals and jumping out the windows as I sped down the highway at 70+ mph.

I arrived in Virginia unscathed.

Less than a year later, I left. Pretty genius move on my part. Chesapeake was a 15 minute drive from the beach. The beaches along the coast there are fantastic. Really spent a good many summers driving down there for a long weekend here, a week there.

Really nice beaches.

Sooo... I relocated to Virginia Beach, essentially, at the END of beach season, and moved away at the BEGINNING of the next beach season. I moved to the beach and didn’t go TO the beach. Genius.

Anyway, the airport. My departure from Virginia...

I took with me this time only the aforementioned duffels, carry-ons and The One Carrier. All my electronics save my cd player, and again, my hard drives, were left behind. I moved to Cleveland with an apartment full of stuff, I moved to Virginia with a carload full of stuff, and I moved to Nevada with a few bags worth of stuff.

Aunt Barb, my Cousins TJ and Lauren (all of whom I miss terribly, and I realized the other day that the telling of this story is now a decade old), and I shared a lot of hugs, tears, handshakes and "May the Force be with You”s.

I checked my bags, tightened the carry-ons, picked up The One Carrier, and journeyed down the ramp way to my flight.

It wasn't a huge plane. I believe it was one of those that had two seats along the left hand side of the plane, and three along the right.

A few short hours later, we had landed in Chicago.

Chicago O'Hare.

It seems anytime I fly from one end of the country, I inevitably end up in Chicago.

I got to learn my way around the airport in time, the way the many shuttles work, and the vast layout of the place. It's like a Star Wars level in the Knights of the Old Republic games. Just vast and... huge, in a vastly huge manner.

But I didn’t learn my way around the airport until I’d been there a few times. This was only my second, so I was still learning.

As Lady Luck would have it on this day, I landed in Chicago with roughly 11 minutes to get to my connecting flight to San Francisco.

In the case of an apocalypse, whether it be nuclear, zombie, or the latest and greatest form of bio-terrorism, there are few choices.

Choice #1 is the most instinctually relied upon, and, usually, the very best and most reliable.

Choice #1 is to RUN, DAMMIT!

So I did.

I just took off. I ran as fast as I could, as fast as my pre-obese legs could carry me. For like 40 meters. Then I stopped, not for breath, not due to cramps, but to stare at the “You are HERE” map kiosk in the central aisleway, to find out exactly where it was my future-pudgy body needed to run TO.

Mouth agape, silently mouthing the syllables of every word my eyes saw, I looked to my left, looked to my right, and wondered exactly HOW this ‘map’ made any sense in regards to my physical environment.

It was like have scenes from Season 3 of Lost interspersed with the mid-Season 2 Walking Dead while watching a cutscene from Portal 2 after looting a Forsworn Briarheart in Skyrim. Amd SUDDENLY, Hiro Nakamura! In other words...

It was FUCKED, and so was I.

I was running. I was running late. I knew I was running late. Not because I had a firm grasp of numbers, time, and language, all of which my rather developed adult mind could grasp and translate in a manner that could relay electrical impulses to my muscles in a fight-or-flight instinctual reaction...

But because the airport-wide PA speaker system was hailing me not unlike a Federation Cruiseship. A disembodied female voice was pleasantly and incessantly reminding me that I need to get to Gate B22 as fast as fucking possible. I was THAT guy. I was running as fast as I could, bewildered, eyes focused everywhere but where my feet were propelling me, albeit in skittish, backtracking spurts of activity.

I had my backpack straps tightened, yet still I was a racket of clicks, clacks and thumps as I ran and my backpack jostled from shoulder to shoulder. I stopped here, I ran over to there, I ran back. I was in my early twenties, and I was moments from my first heart attack, I was certain. I couldn’t see from the map how to get from Concourse C7 to B22. You’d think the numbers made sense. You’d think they’d be waiting for me. My flight was delayed and THEY KNEW IT. I had a connecting flight and THEY KNEW IT. I need to get on this plane RIGHT NOW. AND THEY KNEW IT.

But they did nothing.

So I ran some more, and on my mind was a hundred things.

Not a single one of them was that I wasn’t alone.

I had a travelling companion.

In my right hand this entire time was The One Carrier.

After 11 minutes that lasted two hours, I approached Gate B22.

The TicketMaiden’s kiosk was tended by a rather uptight middle-aged woman with a tight, yet pleasing smile. She called me by name as I approached, and I breathlessly nodded . She took my ticket, summarily and professionally stamped it with her somehow digital, yet archaic time-card machine, and gestured towards the ramp door.

The door was being held open by a weird guy wearing not only the vest of the male flight attendant, but the eyes of a star-nosed mole and increasingly disturbing short arms. He was holding the door half-open, as if threatening to close it ANY second, and I nodded as I sidled past him uncomfortably.

Finally on the ramp, all by myself, I was able to take a deep breath, and as I rounded the curving hallway of the ramp, I saw something a little different. It was a flight attendant, this time a female.

She had a smile like honey and skin like alabaster, and her striking green eyes didn’t yet hold the pitying and embarrassingly shameful gaze I would see later.

Raising my eyebrows and smiling large with a comical ‘So sorry’ shrug, I was ushered into the plane.

It was like walking through a graveyard. Yet a graveyard three-quarters full of zombies that want to eat you. They are sitting up, and staring at you, and your every move is being mathematically calculated and dissected, and every little nuance of your behavior, and every SINGLE THING about you, they can see.

They just aren’t yet aware that you are food.

I proceeded to my seat, G9. After unshouldering my backpack with at least 35 pairs of eyes watching me, I squeezed past Fat Sweat Betty #1 (who was a dude with too many tits), and sat down next to him on my left and on my right Fat Sweaty Betty #2 (who I hope and pray to this very day WASN’T a dude with too many tits, because somehow the addition of a penis would have made this creature something seriously undefinable). I crammed The One Carrier beneath the seat in front of me, buckled in,  and gripped the book I chose to read on the flight as a child grips candy.

I had a moment then. I could sit and relax. Not only catch a single breath but take a second. Regardless of the totally United States Symbols of Freedom on my immediate left and right (both of whom exhibited quite Marxist-supporting displays in their not-sharing-of-the-armrests) I was able to actually inhale, and exhale. Slowly, calmly, and with something passing as thinly veiled relief.

In pure yoga style I inhaled and exhaled deeply through my mouth thrice, expelling the negative energies and bringing my body, heart, and mind to an equilibrium.

Moments later, I realized I would forever view my next action as a mistake, not only epically but monumentally.

My next action was simply to breathe, not using my mouth and stomach, but my nose and lungs.

Just one single deep inhale, eyes closed, lungs and chest expanding with fresh clean recycled and recirculated air.

My eyes snapped open.

My lungs held the breath, refusing to exhale,

My heart took up its recent harried pace, as I could not only smell, but verily taste upon my tongue, the pungent and tart ammoniac odor of cat piss.

I suddenly found the armrests decidedly void of flab, as the inhabitants of both seats C8 and C10 strained to gather their corpulent mass in a direction the exact opposite of my physical form.

Horrified, I realized that these fleshy bags of gristle and McDonald’s induced plaque were disgusted with ME. Here I was, early 20’s trim and svelte, surely the desire of all women ever, anywhere. Yet now I had amoeba-like, rippling puddles challenging gravity itself in an effort to escape me. I could HEAR their noses wrinkling in disgust.

I exhaled slowly, I gripped my book, and I tucked my elbows into my sides. Looking up, not into the heavens, but into that tiny sphincter-like aperture that blows stale air into your eyes as an airline’s excuse for ‘fresh’ air, I waited patiently as the plane taxied, held its place in line, and eventually rocketed down the runway.

Finally, the journey was underway, and everyone on the plane (for a few minutes, at least) forgot why they hated me.

Upon reaching cruising altitude, I literally unbuckled and found myself standing as the low “ding!” of the seatbelt light reached my ears. I waved down the afore-mentioned green-eyed goddess who up until this point had forgiven my being late on the account of someone else’s failures. Failures which were then, and will somehow always, be mine.

I flagged her down, waved her over, looked around the half-empty plane, and asked her with my sincerest look that “If there is any way I could switch seats....?”

She smiled even bigger, putting her hand on my outstretched arm, giving a faint squeeze. “Of, course Sweetie! Pick a seat!”

The fact that she touched me and called me Sweetie was lost almost immediately, as I grabbed my book, my backpack from the overhead compartment, The One Carrier from under the seat in front of me, and literally back-flipped out of seat C9 into the aisle and fled to the rear, and least populated, portion of the aircraft.

I could almost pretend that split-second where her smile had faltered and her eyebrows twitched had never occurred.

I chose the seat in the very rear of the plane, on the left side, as that was the furthest seat from anything resembling what I could describe as a life form. I was at least 5 seats in any direction from anything human, so I simply tossed my backpack on the seat two to my right, and The One Carrier on the seat to my immediate right. I unzipped it and reached in to pet Smirnoff, and was repulsed by the sweaty, hot and wet urine smelling feel of his runty, hairy body.

I looked at him and he looked at me, and he exhibited the barely mentionable ability to voice a near-silent, pitiful and somehow Sinead O’Connor-esque yowl.

He stank of piss and fear, and my nose was horrified. I hurriedly zipped up The One Carrier, and began to stand up, with the intent of going to the lavatory to do some cleaning, when I realized there were three people walking down the aisle towards me. They were headed to the lavatory themselves. And they all three inevitably had an unquenchable interest in what was in the pet-carrier on my lap.

“Awww, whaddayagot there, buddy?” “It’s my cat.”

“Oh how sweet is she?!” “It’s a he.”

“Awwwww, poor guy looks sc-...“ “...”

My fellow passenger would then get a noseful of what this particular Rock was cookin, and, not unlike those movies where an unsuspecting person happens upon the horribly mutilated corpse of a loved one, they would invariably stumble away from me, gagging and retching as the unfortunate aroma entered their bodies, and thusly indelibly stained this day for them, forever.

My purpose in choosing the seats next to the lavatory were two-fold.

The first, simply, was, being able to get into there, clean my mess, and keep my face off of the nightly news. The second was maybe, just MAYBE, some gelatinous blob would enter the lavatory, totally WRECK it, and somehow overpower the deadly chemical cocktail my poor sweet kittie had terrifyingly  unleashed upon us all..

I bided my time, I breathed through my mouth, and my fingers sought some portion of my cat’s body that I could rub and massage to comfort him that WASN’T soaked in piss and fear-sweat.

Turns out I got half my wish. Some fucker DID destroy the lavatory, so when it was my turn, my nose had to pretend to not notice the thick, peppery and nauseating aroma of someone else’s ass. Luckily I brought my own form of chemical warfare to the battlefront, and thankfully some strange form of chlorine gas was not created in the resulting mixture.

I gave Smirnoff a bath in the airplane bathroom sink, much to his dismay. He pitifully and silently took it all, I’m sure he felt his death was near. I then scrubbed The One Carrier, and the only problem was that the soap you find in the bathroom of an airplane is definitely a few steps below the quality of the soap you find is Motel 6 bathrooms. It’s hardly soap, it has no hygienic or germicidal properties. It doesn’t even kill hookers if they are submerged in 164 gallons of it in Detroit for in excess of three hours. I, uh... saw that on Mythbusters once, I think.

So after a good 15 minutes of bathing, scrubbing, and cleaning, The One Carrier and it’s dejected inhabitant still smelled of cat piss. I trudged back to my seat and sat down, then inspiration struck!

I dug in my backpack, and removed a pouch of an herb I had brought along just for the specific purpose of ensuring a nice cozy ride for all.

I liberally sprinkled the catnip all over the inside of The One Carrier, getting a little bit ‘accidentally’ up the nose of my beloved Smirnoff, and using the heel of my hand ground it into that faux-fur lining of The One Carrier.

My efforts were entirely useless, nothing changed, and I, the genius who chose the seat nearest the lavatory that EVERYONE ON THE FIVE HOUR FLIGHT WOULD NEED TO USE, and would stop and ask about what kind of critter I had, got to personally embarrass myself approximately 3 dozen times.

Five hours. I was able to read like four pages of my book.

Suddenly, San Francisco!

I sat and waited until the entire population of the plane had disembarked. It was just me and the green-eyed beauty. She had rejuvenated her smile by now, after most assuredly blowing chunks into the sink in the ‘kitchen’ of the aircraft.

Regardless, her smile was back in force, yet her eyes held the dead gaze of a concentration camp survivor, and I again sidled past her uncomfortably in my exodus for this accursed flight.

I now had at least a 45 minute layover, here in San Francisco. I made my way through the airport, giving everyone else a wide berth, avoiding the shops and food courts entirely. I made it to my departure gate, still with a half hour or so before the boarding process.

I surveyed the seating arrangement with trepidation for only a moment before realizing I was in fact, in luck! All the seats were to the left of the departure gate, and for some reason, all the people were seated towards the left end of the arranged seats. The seats on the right end were mostly vacant. I hurried to the seat all the way to the right, all the way in the rear.

I sat down, slid The One Carrier under my seat gingerly, my backpack next to it, and proceeded to breathe deeply and read my book in earnest.

About 1547 words later, I was interrupted by a certain clicking and clacking noise. I looked up and admired a troop of not one, two, or three, but SEVEN flight attendants, walking past. They were all prim and proper in their form-fitting suits, skirts short and hats perched just off of center on their heads. I enjoyed the spectacle for but a moment before they turned and headed my way.

Eyes wide with terror, I looked around for an escape but to my left was a crowd of people and to my right the door to the ramp that soon would lead to my departing flight.

I sunk down in my chair, trying to become as small as possible, as the bevy of beautiful babes stopped walking and stood less than seven feet away from me. Just on the other side of them was the Ticket Maiden’s stand, and the rampway to freedom.

All seven of them were speaking over each other in their lilting, elvish singsong voices so fast I could barely understand a word of it. I hoped and prayed the doorway would open and the boarding process would begin. I sat and stared into my book, not seeing or comprehending a word.

These women were hot, and even though I myself was a strikingly handsome young and virile symbol of masculinity, I was graciously invisible to them.

Until...

All speaking ceased, all seven of them frowned in unison, and they all turned towards me.

“Eeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww!”

Great.

All seven of them began walking away, as if their legs were all part of the same octopus-like creature.

Shunned now, by nearly every single person I came in contact with, the boarding process began and I shuffled onto the plane eventually.

San Francisco to Reno was also a small commuter flight, and I was crammed again into a smallish fully seated plane. Luckily, the flight was only about an hour, if that.

I’m pretty sure everyone on the plane held their breath for the entire flight.

And they all knew why.

And I knew why they all knew why.

And I wanted to die.

Would it ever end?

After landing, of course, I realized that the answer to that question was simply “No.”

Again, waiting for the passengers to disembark, I was the last one off the plane. I followed them at a distance to the baggage claim area. I wandered to the far end of the baggage carousel and waited there sullenly until my bags finally made their way to me. I shouldered them, gathered them up with The One Carrier, and walked towards the exit.

Halwaay across the room, I saw my mother, who had come to pick me up from the airport upon my triumphant (!) arrival. I set my bags at my feet and waited for her to catch up to me. She came over, her arms wide and her smile huge. She leaned in and gave me a hug. “Hey sweetie, how was your flight?”

I said nothing.

She stepped back, still smiling. “What’s wrong?”

I said nothing.

Four things are necessary to the survival of humankind. These four things are shelter, food, water, and air.

Without proper shelter, a person can only expect to live a few weeks or months, being exposed to the elements. Unless they are lucky enough to live somewhere that the elements aren’t too harsh.

Without food, that time is shortened to a few weeks, max. Some form of nourishment is needed, or the body will simply live off itself and will slowly wither away.

Water is claimed to be by many the most important of these things necessary for survival, as without water, those weeks become days. Weak with exhaustion, the body will just shut down slowly, and the thirst will be the death of you.

Oxygen (luckily found in our atmosphere), is often overlooked by most, yet it is truly the most vital life-giving substance. Without oxygenated air to breathe, a human shall surely perish in mere minutes.

My mother had obviously no worries at the moment for shelter, food, or water, as she seemed to be breathing calmly.

For a few seconds.

Then her smile faded. She took a step further back. She looked down at The One Carrier at my feet. Then back to me.

I just stared.

“Oh,” she said. She bent and took one of my other bags, making sure to not pick up The Odiferous One Carrier, and I followed her out of the concourse and to the parking garage.

Two hours later, upon finally getting home, I gave Smirnoff and The One Carrier a proper bathing, brought him into what was now my new bedroom, and I set Smirnoff down. He bolted under the bed and didn’t come out for weeks.