Chapter 3: Snakes on a plane.
I hear that the actor Samuel L. Jackson (you know, the black dude with the Jheri curl from Pulp Fiction?) agreed to star in the movie Snakes on a Plane only if:
(1) The movie continued to be titled Snakes on a Plane, and
(2) He got to have a line of dialog saying, “I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!”
No shit, true story. Google it or whatever.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen the movie; it was a little before my time and my dad was overprotective with anything rated R, but I think the whole concept is perfect, right? I mean, what could be worse? You’re thirty-thousand feet above the Earth’s surface, trapped in a confined area, surrounded by aggressive, lethally poisonous creatures. What a fucking nightmare.
Do I need to point out here that it sounds pretty much exactly like my upcoming trip to Ohio? I have to keep remembering that I’m doing it because it’s important, because it’s Mom and it’s cancer and I might not be a great daughter, but even a crappy daughter knows to go home when her mom gets cancer.
Anyway, by the time I finally make it to Toronto, go through customs, go through TSA pre-check for the good ol’ US of A, and make it to my gate for the final flight to Cleveland, I’m whipped. I eat a sandwich, watch muted CBC, wait for my plane to board.
When it does board, it ends up being one of those itsy-bitsy puddle-jumper planes, the kind where you don’t even get the dignity of walking down an enclosed ramp but have to walk out onto the tarmac and up a flight of stairs. It’s starting to drizzle by the time I’m climbing up the stairs, and I have to admit that I kind of glare at the propellers like they’ve offended me when I see them, because, God, the only thing I hate worse than fucking airports is leaving an airport in a fucking propeller plane.
They’ve given us a “the plane’s super full so if you have a large carry on you’d better check it at the door” speech, so I give up my gym bag without even grumbling that much, leave it on a damp cart with a guy wearing a bright-orange safety vest and a gap-toothed grin.
I follow the crowd and start looking for 8B, an aisle seat, and do you want to guess who’s sitting in 8A, the window? I’ll give you some options:
(A) Samuel L. Jackson
(B) Jane Lane (not the cartoon version, but the one who ran into my gym bag in the Manchester airport)
(C) Peanut the poisonous cobra
(D) All of the above
If you said D, all of the above, you’re wrong. The correct answer is B, Jane Lane, and when I stop in front of my seat, she looks away from the window she’s gazing through and glances up at me.
She kind of does a double-take. “Oh,” she says, and for the fourth time in this long-ass day, she smiles at me.
I do my best to return her smile (and the one she just graced on me was actually like a real smile, and I don’t know how she manages it, given that I know how far she’s traveled), but like I said, I’m whipped, and so I’m sure my return smile makes me look like a gorilla baring its teeth.
I settle into my seat, which is difficult when you’re scraping six-foot-four. My knees press against a tray table for the third time in this endless day, and just as I start to stretch one foot out into the aisle to give myself some relief, a heavyset guy holding a briefcase in front of him picks charges down the aisle towards his seat. I barely pull my foot back in time to avoid disaster.
“I bet you’re ready to be finished with flying,” Jane Lane comments after watching me nearly trip the fat guy and tuck my knee back against the tray table. She looks downright cozy in her seat, being Tinkerbell-sized and all. Like a kid curled up in daddy’s armchair.
I shrug like it’s no big deal, like my knees and back and neck aren’t all screaming at this point. “Yeah,” I say. “I bet you are, too. Weren’t you on my Basel-Manchester flight?”
She nods. “And Manchester to Toronto. I thought we were never going to board that plane!”
I chuckle — and it’s not quite so gorilla-like this time. It’s actually nice to have someone to chat with, given that I haven’t really spoken to anyone all day, unless you count exchanging texts with Dutch, Dad, and Gerry.
Speaking of which.
I pull out my phone, send Gerry a quick text:
About to leave for Cleveland.
See u in an hour or so
and put my phone back in my pocket.
“Is this your last flight for the day?” asks Jane.
I nod. “Thank God, yes. You?”
“Yes.” There’s a pause, the kind that always comes when two strangers strike up a conversation on a plane but don’t really have much to talk about. “Are you from Ohio?”
“Yeah, south of Cleveland. But I haven’t lived there in a long time. Since high school.” (I leave out the fact that I moved back to Ohio for a few short-lived months nine years ago, because it’s not relevant and because I don’t want to have to explain.)
She cuts her eyes away, nods, seems to think about this. It looks like she hesitates for a second, but finally, she says, “Must be something big going on at home, for you to leave Switzerland in the middle of the basketball season.”
Now I’m the one doing a double-take. She already knew I was a basketball player?
“No shit — oh, sorry, I mean… you follow women’s basketball? Nobody follows basketball in Switzerland. Hell, I don’t follow basketball in Switzerland.”
Her smile turns shy. “Well, not quite nobody. I follow women’s basketball. When I first moved out there, I was channel surfing one night and came across a game. It reminded me of home — and I was so homesick. So I started watching and… I guess you could say I’ve become a die-hard fan over the last few years. Which, actually — ”
A staticky voice crackles to life overhead, cutting her off. They start talking about the safety demonstration, please pay attention to the stewardess, blah blah blah, put your devices into airplane mode.
I pull my phone out to switch it off and see that Gerry’s texted me back.
Stuck at the restaurant, can’t
leave
reads his reply.
Probably going to be an hour
late. At least.
I want to chuck my phone down the aisle in frustration.
“Should I get a rental car?” I’d asked Dutch when we were putting all this together.
“No, no, no, of course not,” she’d assured me. “We’ll all be home, and Mom’s not driving her car right now anyway, so I’m sure you’ll — Nathan! Put that down! — I’m sure you’ll have no trouble getting around.”
“Because I don’t want to be stuck in Marcine for an indefinite length of time without a — ”
“Will you stop it? It’ll be fine.”
Oh, it’ll be fine. Sure. Mom just has cancer, the bad kind, but no big fucking deal. And the fact that Dad’s flipping out? He’ll be fine. And that that PJ’s probably coping by reverting into workaholic mode? Also just fine, Dutch. Fine like the fact that you’re managing Mom and Dad, and let’s not forget that our junkie baby brother Gerry is home for some reason, don’t know what that’s about but I’m sure it’s fine.
And you know what else is fine? The fact that Gerry’s going to leave me stranded at the Cleveland airport for at least an extra hour.
Why didn’t I trust my gut and book a rental car? Maybe I can still get one when we arrive.
I’ve had it with these motherfucking siblings in this motherfucking family!
The announcement overhead finishes up; the plane lurches backward.
Jane Lane takes in my face, which is apparently pretty all screwed up in frustration, because she gives a concerned brow-furrow and asks, “Are you okay?”