The night before my journey to Portland, my friend Lyn cooked a send off dinner for me. We ate and drank and watched “Son of Rambow” (great movie by the way). As is usual for us, the movie was paused many times for little vignettes of talking. We rarely get through a film, and if we do it is usually in the wee hours of morning. This evening was no exception. We didn’t finish the film and I passed out around 5 am. This was extremely foolish behavior as I had a lot to accomplish the next day for my trip to Portland.
I rose wearily at 10:30 am mildly but persistently hung over. I took my cat to my Mom’s house and jumped in her pool hoping that I could shake the mind fog to no avail. Getting back home and washed my dishes and cleaned the house up a little. I finally succumbed to the urge to catch a catnap before packing. I figured I would be ok when I got to Portland because I would just catch up on some sleep on the plane ride.
Sitting in front of me on the plane to Portland is a man in his sixties. His big melon noggin bald save for a small square soul patch on the back of his head; a small plot of soft short white hair. The kid next to me points it out. I joke that he probably doesn’t even know it’s there, but almost in answer to our query his wife’s hand slides up to the back of his neck and begins to stroke the small arid patch delectably.
The bald man also has two earrings in his left ear. One is the standard gold diamond stud. The second is a tribal black curly-q, like a sharp worm impaled in his fatty lobe. He wears glasses and has a generous goatee. He smells like an old-time barbershop.
The kid sitting next to me is named Kyle. I guess him at about 14. He is a friendly.
“Hey bra, what kind of music do you like?”
“I like lots of different music, how about you?”
“I like lots of different music too, you like Eminem?”
“Yeah some of it.”
“What about Green Day?”
“Yeah I like Green Day.”
He flips open his CD wallet and starts digging.
“Which album do you like best?”
“I don’t know…’Dookie’, ‘Insomniac’, whatever.”
He pulls out ‘Dookie’ and put it in his CD player. He messes around with his ear buds, stretching them out and straightening the wires. He hands me a bud.
“Here bra.”
“Oh no, that’s ok.”
“Come on bro, it’s better when you share music with someone.”
How can I refuse such and invitation? He isn’t making this offer the guy sitting on the other side of him. I put the bud in my ear and the volume is full blast, all the sounds distorted. I decide to endure it. I hadn’t listened to ‘Dookie’ in probably nine years. I don’t think this kid was born when it came out. Soon we are both nodding our heads and drumming on our tray tables.
After six songs I’m done. He is done too. I pull out my notebook and start writing about the bald guy in front of me. He pulls out a notebook and starts drawing. As I glance over at his picture I can see that he is completely engrossed in drawing this tribal design with a large eye as its centerpiece. After a few minutes he stops and admires his work for a moment.
“Awesome!”
He continues to draw, stopping occasionally to look and verify its coolness. When he is finally done he proudly shows it to me. The final product looks like a giant eye with wings and claws.
“What do you think?”
“Pretty cool, I wouldn’t want to meet it on the street.”
“It’s just a design dude.”
“Yeah well I still wouldn’t want to meet it.”
“Tell me a design you would like me to draw.”
That’s a tough one. How do you tell someone a design to draw? I sit and think on it for a while. His eyes are upon me and I can tell his patience is wearing thin.
“I don’t know man, why don’t you make a coat of arms for yourself”
“I had to do that one time in my history class, I hated that.”
“Well that was an assignment, this is just for fun.”
“That was supposed to be for fun too.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, my first suggestion and you hate it.”
“Ok.”
He goes back to drawing and I go back to writing. After about five minutes he pushes the picture my way. He has drawn a literal coat and put symbols on it. I recognize musical notes, a game controller, and a key.
“Tell me about this.”
“Ok so it’s a jacket, you know a jacket of arms, I thought that was funny.”
I smile encouragingly.
“So this is a key because every coat of arms has to have a key for some reason. This is game controller because I love to play video games, and these are musical notes, because I love to listen to music, play music and compose music. I compose music.”
“Really, what do you play?”
“Piano…want to hear one of my original compositions?”
“Sure that would be great.”
He shuffles through his CD wallet again and produces a CD with a picture of him playing the piano printed on it. I listen through one ear bud to a simple little song with a drum machine, cheesy strings and piano. He explains as we are listening that the strings and the piano are playing against each other to make it sound more realistic. I nod and smile and listen. The song is over in two minutes.
“That was good, I liked it.”
I never mention that I used to make music or that I ever played in a band. I figure I will let him be the man of the hour.
The stewardess comes by to get our drink orders. He orders a ‘Monster’ I order club soda. The stewardess tells him its $3 and then goes over payment options, cash not being one of them.
“Wow.”
“I’ll come back for the payment later.”
“I don’t have any money!”
“Ok then.”
Ten minutes later she comes back with our drinks. Sure enough she gives him a ‘Monster’.
“I bought it for you hon.”
“Thanks!”
The kid is a charmer and he doesn’t even know it. Thank goodness for that. I think it is his still child-like response to the world. We became friends in only about two minutes. Adults don’t do that. I usually smile at my travel mates, pull out my pillow and fall asleep. Even with my friendly companion I wanted to sleep. Something about plane engines makes me almost unnaturally sleepy. But that wasn’t going to happen on this flight.
“You wanna play a game?”
“Sure, what kind of game?”
“You pick a letter from the alphabet and then you pick a subject like ‘animals’ and then you try to think of the most ‘animals’ that start with that letter.”
I get out my notebook and pick the letter D randomly from pointing my finger in a book. We start with animals. After naming about 14 animals we are stuck.
“What about a dingbat?”
I laugh.
“I don’t think so.”
We move on to my specialty, band names, and we are really tearing it up. Do you know how many bands start with the word “death”? We get up to 24 band names and he tells me this is record number that he has never been a part of before.
The captain comes on to tell us that we are landing and I can’t believe how fast time has gone by.
Stay tuned for the next installment, “Fear and Sleep Deprived in Las Vegas”.
