I still have time. Boarding was almost an hour away. I looked around at the collection of usual suspects at the airport, the single mother looking as if she had forgotten what a mirror was or perhaps she was too occupied, feverishly corralling her own herd. The always focused business man for which nothing seemed to move quickly enough; like he was functioning at a different speed than everyone else. I walked slowly to the lounge, dodging the sugar high kids playing a mock up of hide and seek. I was not really concerned about time. Time for now could hold its breath and I would not have known the difference. I opened the large double glass doors leading to the lounge and began scanning the people inside, looking for a seat at the bar off in a nondescript corner where my back could be at the wall and I would not have to deal with the inevitable talk of bored and drunk travelers. The bar, as my luck would have it, was full save for a seat next to what looked like a walking scarecrow. Desperately I looked for another available seat. There were none. I sat down unhurriedly next to him; the smell of the cheep vodka rolled off of him moving with streamlined efficiency found its way into my nose. He was a sorry excuse of a man who looked more like he should have been begging off of Freemont St. in Las Vegas than sitting in an airport lounge. He wore a tattered old army surplus jacket and a pair of corduroys that were unquestionably part of the wardrobe from the film West Side Story. His clothes and his whole appearance resembled something akin to an old carpet that your cheap aunt would have bought at the Flea Market bragging how she had only paid a nickel for it.
The man broke his apparent trance, shifted in his seat, and gingerly swung around his stool until he faced me; before our eyes could meet I quickly averted my focal point in an obvious attempt to avoid his gaze.
“Hey there young man how do you do?” He asked in an academic Oxford accent that caught me off guard. The shock must have registered on my face. He immediately raised his hand, spun back around in his stool, and waved it off as if to apologize for inconveniencing me. I did not want to talk to anyone; I was not in the mood for idle chit chat, much less with an inebriated bum.
“Bartender, double jack and give me a bottle of water, too.” I said to the brawny mustached bartender who I had just noticed had viewed my whole exchange and wore what looked to be a rather amused expression.
“Sure thing kid. Got some ID?” I stood up and reached to my back pocket to gather and present my identification, and still thinking of my exchange with the British bum and how I had been so rude. I thought of an idea how I could make an apology and a quick exit without having to say anything.
“Bartender, give this man another round of whatever he is having.” I sat down and knocked back the shot. The spirit warmed my throat and my stomach. I was playing catch up to my roommate Terrance. He and two random girls had already left town for our weekend trip to L.A. to see Tool. Terrance and I had met in my one year at Bishop Gorman High School . He was tall with long brown hair, a crooked smile, and a John Lennon like allure that had melted the cloths off many an unsuspecting female. In the days before we were legally allowed to do anything in Sin City , he and I used to roam the college campuses, trolling for a good party to crash or a good fight to immerse ourselves in.
As one might suspect, we found our share of both. More often than not we would find ourselves running back from the bus stop after a long night of drinking and BSing our way in and out of parties, bruised and beaten, bloody but obliviously racing the sun to our apartment. Still mildly buzzed, we would stumble up the stairs to brew a pot of coffee, sit on the porch and recount everything we did the night before.
But those days were long gone. Now all I ever did was to wake up at ungodly hours for a job I despised and spent days catering to the needs and whimsical wants of the lower end of the Las Vegas tourist pool. My one solace was my daily ritual of rolling down the windows while patrolling the suburban streets of Vegas to crank up the volume loud enough that Hades surely heard and came to know the blaring sound of Vicarious, Opiate. Come to think of it, I would blast any song with a strong beat and melodramatic lyrics.
“Thank you, sir.” The dignified British accent with its military precision and its strict enunciation; the voice once again caught me off guard.
“Oh you’re...You’re quite welcome” I said a little shook up I wondered at the difference between the withering appearance and the dignified sound of the man. I looked him over and for the first time noticed his eyes. I was shocked and I did not know why.
“Are you quite alright young man?” He asked, with a quizzically sincere look, his deep blue eyes were impossible to look away from; I don’t know why I was drawn to them, not like I hadn’t seen hundreds of people with blue eyes before. But his eyes, those eyes, were something else. I could see the ocean in his eyes and in that ocean the depth of theMariana Trench.
“I said, are you alright young man?”
“Oh yes sir, I’m alright. I just thought I recognized you.” He laughed a quiet, almost knowing chuckle and continued to look at me. His eyes gave me a feeling like they had penetrated my mind without my consent or foreknowledge; like he was downloading all my thoughts and placing them in a well organized easy to read manuscript.
The man waved his hand in the air as if he was literally pulling down inspiration from on high. Eventually he began, slowly, deliberately, emphasizing each word as if his very soul was at stake and the conveying of these words would also be his emancipation.
“You know I startle most people. I’m quite shocked by your buying me a drink. Quite out of character from what I have seen of you Americans.” I didn’t know what to say and for some reason the only thing I could think of was the truth.
“To be honest, I only got you the drink because I felt very rude for having offended you earlier.”
“Offended me?” he laughed a hearty laugh and in doing so shook the whole bar and brought
questioning glances from everyone in the lounge.
“Oh, how kind of you, but I’m quite past the point of other’s opinions becoming offensive. I mean, look at me. What could you possibly have done to offend me?”
“I’m sorry…” I started to say but he cut me off. He raised a hand and one finger on that hand as if he were pointing to God. I was so scared that he was going to touch me with his obviously filthy hand that I must have flinched.
“Do not apologize to me for gestures of kindness. As the Good Book says, do unto others as you will have them do to you.”
“Do unto you.” I corrected, a little agitated that this apparent bum, a man with Salvation Army as his fashion guru would attempt to quote the Bible to me.
“Now sir it is I who must apologize, I did not realize that I was in the presence of such a scholar!” He said, in a deeply sarcastic tone. Again the agitation must have registered on my face. This guy was too much. He reeked of alcohol and here he was trying to read my face as if it was a New York Stock Exchange ticker. And now what? He was mocking me?
I was now visibly angry. I could feel the sweat beginning to gather around my forehead and neck. He, apparently seeing no further amusement to gain from tormenting and mocking me, turned slowly back to the bar and let his gaze wander to and lock on the television! I was still a little unsettled. Why, was I concerned with how I treated this man? I could not decisively figure out why I was bothered. Well, that’s not entirely true; I knew that his quotation of the King James Version of the Bible did not help our encounter go to well.
“Whatever”, I thought to myself. I did not need to worry about this guy. I guess Vegas really does bring out the worst in people! I thought about how this man had become so oblivious to the world around him; its customs and social graces that he had obviously disregarded. I wondered if he had come here with a small fortune and gambled it away. I wondered, if it was his very evident love of the sauce that led him here or if it was being in this condition that led him to become a lover of the sauce. I wondered why he was in the airport to begin with. He must have been traveling somewhere. You could not get into this part of the airport without a ticket. Perhaps he had family back home that cared for him that wanted to see him again. Lost in my thoughts, I hardly noticed him getting off of his bar stool and simultaneously place a bar napkin in front of me. I did not see him exit but I knew he had left, his unmistakable scent chasing after him, seemingly reluctant to leave the spring of its inception. I looked around the bar and noticed more than a few questioning glances directed my way. Obviously, I was not the only one who thought the man was a little out of place. As I looked down and picked up the overturned napkin, a little bit of morbid fascination swept over me. What could this guy possibly have scribbled down?
“Once was a boy strong and keen kept from a world he never had seen, nursery rhymes he never learned save for those void of worldly terms. Cast off to see his fate, all alone with bills to pay, his dawning was what some would say, void of truth in every way. Our boy now became a man, filled with a fear he did not understand!”
“Once was a boy strong and keen.” I had always had a perception of myself as strong and what the hell, I was probably a lot smarter than most others my age. “Kept from a world he had never seen.” This was certainly not me. I had been all over the world. I was born in Japan, I had traveled to Korea, Taiwan, and mainland China before most people had even walked around their block! “Nursery rhymes he never learned save for those void of worldly terms.” It was true I had had a strict Christian upbringing, but what was that to mean void of worldly terms? “Cast off to see his fate, all alone with bills to pay.” I could defiantly relate to that. I sometimes felt alone but I was not so much cast off as I had run away. I reasoned with myself.
“His dawning was what some would say, void of truth in every way. Our boy now became a man, filled with a fear he did not understand.” Dawning? Void of truth? Incomprehensible fear? This was not me, I reasoned to myself not completely convinced. Again, I had a tangible impression that he had read my mind. I slowly snapped out of analyzing his silly rhyme and jumped up, moving hastily. This was too weird! I barreled through the door of the lounge and began to zealously search for him! I looked, spinning around in every direction. I ran to the gate inspecting the faces of the occupants with the efficiency of a hard pressed agent of the Gestapo. There was no man there in a tattered army surplus jacket with deeply penetrating blue eyes, no bum trolling about neither in the terminal nor the trail of his alcoholic scent to follow. He was simply gone. How could this guy, who I had only just met, know so much about me? How was it that he decided to quote the Bible to me, the one thing that was sure to get a reaction from me? Did he know? How could he have?
No, I thought trying to convince myself that nothing special happened here, nothing immeasurable and certainly nothing supernatural. I would have known if it had, like in the olden day movies when the wind starts blowing and the clouds part and the hero’s hair fluttered in the wind. That was how revelation was supposed to occur; that was how you were to come to profound conclusions and new understandings of yourself. If at that moment some extraterrestrial being, on an exploration and discovery mission had been able to view and understand my thoughts he would have most certainly turned around and left this world to us crazy humans. I brushed the disturbing thoughts aside. I was going to see Tool.
I was here for that one purpose and that purpose alone. I was here to become rejuvenated and to feel invigorated again! Purpose in hand and mind set in stone, I walked feverishly to the gate as if a pack of ravenous dogs were on my tail waiting for me to slow my gait so they could feast on an easy meal, the likes of which they had not often come across.
As I neared the gate, I felt a gnawing in my stomach. A tidal wave of never before felt confusion crashed over me. Conspicuous views of my personal life and agenda began to emerge, as thick as a San Francisco morning fog; feeling like a tidal wave breaking on solid land and the earth crumbling as a result. I could not shake it; the feeling was as if something or someone had latched on to my shoulder and would not let me get far enough away to see what was behind me. This old bum had shaken me to my core; I did not believe that miracles happen. I did not even believe in a god, much less an omnipresent being benevolent enough to come down and bestow some random gift of knowledge upon me. If there was a god, I was quite sure he was the kid on the ant hill or the booming voice to Moses in the wilderness, most definitely not a smelly old British bum who climbed his soap box to preach to a crowd of one! Somewhere in my subconscious I heard the announcement over the loud speakers informing me that it was the last call for my flight. I sat down confused. I wanted to get up and forget what had just happened. Why had this drunk made such an impression? I had pushed away thinking about my beliefs, about God, and about my life for too long. I sat and I watched many different people coming and going that day; families saying hello to long lost loved ones and saying good bye to those who they cared for.
I never did make it to the concert; it seemed to me that I had more important things to think of, and much more important things to do than to join a mass of humanity screaming and clamoring for a better position to the stage. I missed my flight, and I never did find the old man. But he had broken through my outer wall, stirred in me a questioning that I had not felt in a long while.
As I sat there in the airport I became lost in a maze of thought. I thought about life, and after the life, I thought about what had led me to where I was now. I thought about God, and how my lack of any belief system had affected me. I thought about all that I knew, and all that I wanted to know. I gained a sense of rejuvenation that day, one that I had not anticipated; the kind of rejuvenation that comes only with a sudden stirring of goals and dreams, expectations long forgotten, and deeply buried. There was no wind in my hair, no parting of the clouds, no triumphant “eureka” moment. Instead, my catalyst was a quiet voice urging, to never be content with what I had done, to always expect more of myself and to never accept things at face value. There are some things I know I will never comprehend and some things I’m happy to leave a mystery. But I now know that it’s never too late to admit you were wrong, there is never a “heaven” that is too far above and there is never a way that is too long, I had time!
