I'm going to bed. I'm tired.
No, wait.
Not yet.
I think I have something to say. I think I have something inside me tonight.
Out the door, into the bright of evening, the dawn bossing the moonlight, beams of luminous wash on the dim of my sometime-green front lawn. Walking out on the domestic, leaving the playbook behind, I step over Christmas cards and Valentines & birthdays in my bare feet but I never leave a print. The warm is here and I'm lost in the pulse of it, my strongest Spring, maybe my last, and it’s already Summer.
Behind the wheel of my car and down the highway fast, like a liar making time, shadow of sunshine down the open road in the darkest hour of night: escapees left two lanes. To the life I’m supposed to lead.
I left a ransom note for my wife on the kitchen table: sue me if you have to, take me to court and to prison and to Hell and beyond if that's what it takes. I understand and I love you still. I don’t blame you for hating me… I keep making promises but this is the only choice I leave you. I had to get away tonight. I had to go to the grocery store for cling peaches. You will understand… someday.
Moon lights the road as I pull into the airport parking lot, the first of several spiral strips, centrifugal force, pulls my beating heart closer, deep into the vortex of departure, where logic takes a holiday and everyone gets a brand new name. This place above the clouds: you will take me there, the planes landing just above my head, fucking with reception and my ability to feel.
Calling my son as I cruise through Lot B... and the phone just rings and rings and rings until I get to his voicemail message, which is just him saying Fuck You.
In the terminal the passengers walk with tropical cocktails, a preview of what’s to come, and an actress that I recognize passes by, flanked by cameras and mics that she despises but cannot go without. She’s dripping babble talk about leading a balanced life and part of me pities her lack of scar tissue. I know her face but I'll never remember her name. I say a silent prayer out loud that she’s not on my flight and that her plane crashes into the ocean.
On the phone with my daughter while I buy my ticket... I can hear her masturbating to this call, getting wet on my weakness and making cream on my poor performance as a Daddy. She will file this in the book she’s been writing since the day she was born: “How My Father Failed Me (In Every Single Way)” & I know this will make Chapter 1.
The hijacker next to me at the safety gate, saying hey & grinning wide & assuring us he's done all this before, and I believe him. They frisk me down lovingly, all part of the pantomime, and I board the plane with everyone else trying to get out, to get away before it’s too late. I’m stuck in the middle: a bitter widow in the window seat, a longtime bachelor on my right.
We taxi on the runway, and as passengers there is nothing left for us to say. We take our mutual desire not to die, tuck it beneath our seats, and prepare to defy gravity.
The flight attendant down the aisle, nicotine miles on a brown paper face. There used to be glamour in this sham, and I wouldn't mind paying extra for the good old days to be here again, to reach out and slap her ass just to show her that I could, to remind the whole of us that we're still alive and about to take flight.
The terrorist stands up and rips his trench coat open, exposing his bomb beautiful strapped around his neck. Now we're in this shit together, and the passengers & crew give him a warm round of applause, a standing ovation, and he's basking in his moment, dismantling his bomb and slitting his wrists now that his workday is done.
The stewardess staggers smiling as we pull back on the runway, comes out with our vials of cocaine & passes them out pretty. We barely have time to snort as the pilot starts to fuck with speed and electromagnetics as we gain momentum down the tarmac. The plane shakes, the woman in the seat next to me: “I think it's a fucking disgrace these days,” her nose white with powder nice. But I nod along because I feel the G's and what the fuck… I know what's coming next.
The stewardess unzips her shirt & buckles herself in, her breasts tremble in turbulence, comforting, hypnotizing us. I take my napkin and jam it in the mouth of the woman next to me, still trying to talk, to befoul the air with ugliness. The aircraft awake, now, tired of the pavement & the boredom of the land. Our bodies are forced back in our seats in respectful observance of the laws of the universe. The vibration is tearing the hull apart, our souls too, or at least it feels that way, and I remember you have to die to be re-born. And I doubt my son will ever call me back.
The skyline is the sunset, the clouds soaking up sinfully rich pastels of red, blue and orange, the white light blinding the pilot who decides to ram on against the odds. And we lift off, breaking up with planet earth & leaving the ground as we know it, against every rule of physics, into the blue, above everything else, sailing off into a better tomorrow or the joy of not having one.
And the stewardess, my cock in her hand, a gleam in her eye, on the PA, her fuzzy voice crackle static over the plane: “Thank you for flying with us...”
I lay back, relaxed, and ready to glide, and I think to myself, “You're welcome.”
