Monday, January 24, 2011
Life and Death
Monday, January 17, 2011
Lukewarm Hotdogs... (Part VI)
Marc shook himself and looked up.
Slap---wurrr
The lights in the stadium turned on dimly and began to brighten.
Slap, slap, slap.
One by one the dark rectangles at the top of the stairs disappeared like black curtains being lifted, revealing the dull grey concourse on the other side.
Someone was here! Marc saw a man walking behind one of the entrances.
Marc stood up, his ankle feeling better, and climbed into the stands where he had jumped down. He walked up the stairs and found the manager. After explaining the situation he asked to use the phone. Marc called Kim who was in hysterics. After his friends at work had called to see how he was doing and didn’t find him they feared the worst and Kim had called the police. Marc apologized and took his well deserved berating.
The manager walked him out and Marc sat down on a bench waiting for Kim to drive over and pick him up. The daylight felt strange today, he thought.
While he waited people began to show up for the day’s exhibition game and in no time a line had formed in front of him to get to the ticket stand. Folks tried not to stare at him but he knew he must’ve looked ridiculous.
Marc’s stomach growled and ached tremendously. He was so hungry, even warm water would’ve felt like a feast. Directly in front of him was a young boy, probably 7 or 8 years old and his father. The young boy had a hot dog that was too big for his small hands. After a couple of bites, which Marc watched agonizingly, the hot dog jumped from the bun and down to the concrete below.
It started rolling. Rolling towards Marc.
The boy and his father watched the hot dog as it rolled across the concrete, every 3 inches leaving a lighter shade of yellow where the line of mustard slowly wore down. It rolled and rolled until it landed next to Marc’s dress shoe. Marc looked down at it and up at the boy. The boy looked at Marc in terror and curiosity. Marc’s stomach growled loudly. Marc looked up at the father who, in the slightest of movements started to shake his head. His eyes wide with fear. The father, already in shock from the site of the one shoed man, wearing pink warm ups, a torn shirt, grass stains traversing his body and what was hopefully dried cheese sauce in his hair, knew the inevitability of the situation and put his hand in front of his son’s eyes.
The young man dipped down to look under his father’s pinky.
Marc looked down again at the pink hot dog round and smooth on one end and jagged from a small bit on the other. His stomach roared so loud the entire line stopped talking and looked at him. Marc reached down and picked up the finger sized treat.
Whispers of “no” came from the line and Marc squeezed the morsel slightly. Grease rose to the surface of the bitten end and Marc’s eyes glassed over with hunger. He had no shame anymore. He felt no conscience in the situation. Where had little Jiminy gone? I think I ate him, Marc thought.
His hand slowly rose to his mouth and Marc pushed the dog in and bit down. Screams and wailing went up from the line with each subsequent chew. Marc’s stomach bubbled and squeaked with delight and a woman near the front fainted into the arms of her husband. The young boy turned and hid his eyes in his Dad’s leg and the Dad, unknowing of his open mouth and wide eyes stared incomprehensibly.
An alarm sounded. A loud alarm. The cops maybe? It was so loud Marc swallowed and closed his eyes.
…
Marc opened his eyes and was lying in bed; his pajamas on and his wife next to him. He leaned over and turned off his alarm which was making the noise he heard.
A dream? Was it all a dream?
He rolled to his wife and shook her. She shoved him off with a shoulder move and he insisted.
“What is it?” Kim asked.
“What day is it, Kim?”
“You’re going to work today, Marc. You’re already in enough trouble as it is, you know that. You can’t skip a day today.”
“What? You mean I didn’t quit?”
“Huh?”
“Nothing…nevermind.” Marc jumped out of bed. It had all been a dream. He ran to the study and saw the paper in the typewriter limped over with his notes on the Man with No Style. He had never woken up. He had never quit his job and walked to the stadium. No cheese sauce, no twisted ankle. No horrifying blackness or underground nightmare. And especially, there was no hotdog.
“Oh, my God! Thank you Jesus!” Marc exclaimed and ran downstairs to make some breakfast for his growling stomach.
Conclusion
As Marc ate his eggs and toast he flicked on the TV. He took a sip of his coffee and flipped to the morning news. He coughed when he turned to channel 8. On the screen was the fat man in the pink warm ups. Still chewing something as his lips curled under his nose. His Texas shirt still perfectly pressed and tucked in to his pink warm ups.
Marc’s mouth dropped.
News Woman: Hi, Maurice, thank you. I’m here at Houston Hobby International Airport with Evan Smith who has probably had the worst holiday traveling fiasco one can imagine. Evan, can you tell us what exactly happened?
Evan: Yes, thanks Claire, due to the weather closures in the north east I couldn’t make my connecting flight. In an act of shear idiocy I packed all my clothes and toiletries in my checked baggage which did make it to my final destination, Atlanta, Georgia, but I got stuck here in Houston for 3 days.
News Woman: So you’ve lived in the airport for 3 days?
Evan: That’s correct, Claire. I promise I don’t normally dress like this but because of the standby nature of things I couldn’t get a hotel. I could be called to leave at any time. I bought some close from a few of the local stores and tried to wash my face and hair in the men’s rooms. Some nice woman kid felt sorry for me and gave me his Jeff Foxworthy album and CD player. Southwest Airlines gave me these batteries from their lost and found in case mine died. That’s just about the only thing I’ve had to keep me going.
News Woman: Wow! And I notice you’re wearing one shoe?
Evan: Yes well, I was running to a gate because I thought I was being called for a standby flight to New York and then to Georgia but tripped and slid into the desert tray at the Chili’s Too which is also how I got this lovely looking chocolate stain down the side of my pants. I twisted my ankle so I’ve been trying to let the swelling go down.
News Woman: Well I hear Southwest feels so bad about the matter they’re flying the CEO out to visit you in Georgia.
Evan: That’s right, they want to talk to me about my experience.
News Woman: Someone else wants to talk to you to I hear.
Evan: Yes, actually Barbara Walters is doing a special on holiday travel and I’ll get to talk with her tonight.
News Woman: That’s right and you can watch Evan’s interview with Barbara airing tonight at 8:30. Thank you so much Evan and I hope you make it home safe and sound.
Evan: Thank you, Claire.
Lukewarm Hotdogs and the Man with No Style
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Lukewarm Hotdogs... (Part V)
Marc hobbled down the concrete steps of the arena to a seat where he planned to rest for the night. It’s kind of funny having to pick one seat from thousands because the mind actually has some preference in the matter, Marc noted. He stopped about 20 rows up from the field and walked in a few seats from the aisle. The seat came down and he sat and sighed. The sigh disappeared into the silence. The white noise of the air conditioner was the only thing running.
Marc’s eyes looked across the darkened arena at the seats opposite him and the stairs separating the sections rising up from the field and disappearing into the blackness of the concourse.
Marc felt that feeling again. The feeling he had to stare. Something wasn’t right. He would once again regret this feeling.
He looked across and into the blackness. He looked deeply into one of the black rectangles and the stairs rising up into it. He felt blood rush up to his head and heart pick up a bit.
It was so dark.
“Just don’t worry about it, Marc. Don’t dwell on it. Get some rest you’ll get home in the morning.”
Marc closed his eyes and felt the beaming cold presence of the black rectangles. He opened his eyes again and whether it was a trick of his imagination or something else he thought he saw a shadow move in the blackness of the rectangle. Something somewhat darker than its surroundings and it was gone.
His heart beat faster and he didn’t notice his hunger anymore. His vision widened and he noticed all the black concourse entrances at the tops of the stairs. And a shiver went up his spine as he remembered there was one right behind him.
His hair stood on his arms. He was well aware that there was such a thing as the opposite of claustrophobia. He felt all the air around him as one massive space. It was huge and horrifying and black. He had too much room. Some ancient instinct to avoid open places and hide in caves was rising in him.
“Alright, this is fucking ridiculous!” Marc stood up and walked up the stairs into the concourse, which wasn’t as dark as it looked from inside the arena.
“Is anyone here?”
He looked the other direction.
“Hello? Is anyone here?”
He felt a little calmer, but he didn’t think it would last. A cave is what he needed if he wanted to get some sleep. He saw the dull glow of a light illuminating a black menu with white plastic letters and a big red Coca-Cola square next to it. His stomach rumbled. Hot dogs did sounds pretty good right about now.
Around the corner from the concession stand was a doorway market AUTHORIZED PERSONELL ONLY. He thought there might have been something useful in there or perhaps a cozy place to sleep. The door was open, surprisingly, but Marc made sure it didn’t close behind him as he stepped in.
The room was dark and he found a light switch next to the entrance. He flicked it and the stairs down in front of him illuminated. He looked down into the black hallway one story down. He walked down.
Above him was a spider web of rusty pipes running down the length of the hallway occasionally cutting left or right and into the wall. The steady dripping of water could be heard and even in the dull shadowy yellow light of the stairs he could see the puddle were reddish brown with rust, like a steampunk nightmare. Far ahead of him was another staircase. But it was pitch black. He could see the stairs but to the side of the stairs was a wall of blackness.
Marc’s heart began to pound again as he stared at the blackness.
“Don’t look at it Marc, just look away.”
He couldn’t, of course and stared harder at it.
“Get some guts you ninny!” His voice shivered.
He slowly stepped forward, his footsteps echoing quickly off all the walls around him. Tingles went up his back and his arms again and he took a breath in and in a loud voice yelled, “Alright! Get out of there whoever you are!”
At first just his voice scared him. It was so loud. Then in an instant something shifted in the black behind the stairs.
“Shit!” Terror grappled Marc’s brain as he ran on his busted ankle, flying up the stairs with the feeling something was right behind him. Don’t turn around, don’t look, he thought to himself. He flew out the door, slamming the door behind him.
“Shit, shit, shit!” his frustration with each step on his busted ankle.
He ran out into the arena, down the stairs and reached the railing. He climbed over the railing and caught his new shirt on the pole as he climbed down the 8 feet to the field below, tearing it. He hobbled out onto the grass and straight to the middle of the 50 yard line.
He sat down and grabbed the grass between his fingers. He stretched out his legs and rubbed his sore ankle. He looked around and didn’t feel anymore fear with the black rectangles at the top of the stairs. He’d seen much worse than them. The grass felt good and he felt better.
Part VI coming soon…
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Lukewarm Hotdogs... (Part IV)
“Sir?”
“Oh did I say that out loud?” Marc looked at the pimply kid behind the counter. School must not be in session yet, this kid couldn’t have been more than 16.
“I’m sorry sir, we’re closed.” His voice cracked as he reached up for the gate and pulled it down in front of Marc.
“Oh but! Just one sec… I…”
Mr. Pimples pulled the jogging hot dogs from their treadmills and shoved them in a drawer below the gym and walked through the side door.
“Oh well, probably shouldn’t eat that crap anyway.”
Marc wandered down the concourse and out to the stands. The teams had left the field and a few maintenance workers were cleaning the seats. Marc sat down and looked around the expansive stadium. Its patchwork of rows and stairways looked like concrete-plaid. The tough plastic seat was painful but Marc was so proud of himself for allowing this tiny moment of insanity into his life he didn’t mind stretching back and letting out a sigh. The sigh of a man who felt freedom.
Marc’s stomach growled loudly again.
“I better get going, I’ll grab lunch then head on home and … “ He remembered he had to tell his family he quit his job. “… Maybe I’ll stay here a little longer; there might still be a concession stand open.”
Marc walked back out onto the concourse and looked around. He heard Mr. Pimples and some similarly cracking voices laughing around the next corner.
“Dude, you gotta check out my new Xbox. That shit is so sick!”
“Ah man you poser, I bet your Mom only let’s you play Mario. You know Medal of Honor is where it’s at.”
Marc saw them up ahead and Pimples was eating some nachos.
“Dude I totally will school you on Medal of Honor. Let’s go right now.”
“Yeah screw cleaning up, let’s go.”
Pimples laughed and set down his nachos and headed for the exit and walked out with his friend. Marc ran up but didn’t catch them. The stadium sounded very quiet now.
“Shit, I better go.” Marc walked for the door and pushed.
Locked!
“Well, shit, okay.” He tried another door, and another. Locked still. He ran around the concourse trying all the exits. Every one locked. He ran and ran until the panic left him.
“Son of a…I’m locked in!”
Marc’s stomach growled and he looked over to the ledge where Pimples left his nachos.
“That’ll work.”
Marc grabbed the nachos and headed for the stands. He got to the top of the stairs when the air-conditioner clicked off and the silence of the stadium filled his ears. Distracted he looked up as he hit the top step and missing it completely slipped, throwing his nachos in the air above him. He spun as he fell trying to catch them, but choose to cover his face when he saw them out of their basket coming down in a web of hot cheesiness. His body hit the stairs, which hurt, but it was quickly followed by a solid drenching in yellow cheese and stale chips.
“Son of a!” Marc groaned and tried to stand up but when he leaned on his right ankle he fell again into the seats to his side.
“God! Argh!” He reached down to grab his ankle and saw all the cheese on his hands and arms. He flicked the cheese off, and it flew like yellow snot across the seats around him. He grabbed his ankle, which was already starting to swell. Marc untied his shoe and massaged his ankle grunting and moaning from the pain.
Finally when the shock subsided he looked at his clothes and decided to look around for the men’s room to clean up. As he limped down the concourse he saw the gifts stand was still open with clean clothes. “That’s what I need right there.”
Unfortunately, the stand was only for women and children but he managed to find a pair of South Dakota All-Stars pink warm ups in a women’s XXL that fit him. As he looked down at his pink warm ups he remembered the walking anomaly at the airport and chuckled to himself, “Pardon me sir, can I borrow a pen, and if you happen to have some Grey Poupon…”
He also found a shirt and a hat and left 50 dollars at the register to ease his conscience.
Marc folded up his clothes and stuffed them in an All-Stars duffle bag and with only one shoe on he hobbled over to a chair to sit down and rub his ankle and come up with a plan to get out.
As he sat, he heard large metallic slapping sounds running around the concourse and in the stadium. He stood up and looked out through the stadium entrance and saw the lights had been turned off, except for emergency lights which left the stadium a dull green-grey color.
Slap-Slap-Slap.
He turned around and the lights in the concourse had gone off.
“Hello!”
“Hello!”
“Is someone here? Hello!” Marc hobbled around and didn’t see anyone.
Part V – Living at the Stadium? How long will Marc last?
Monday, January 3, 2011
Lukewarm Hotdogs... (part III)
Marc stepped back from his typewriter. Kim and Jeanette had already gone to bed and he walked to his room in the dark. His mind continued to focus on the Man with No Style. What was this man’s motivation? The more Marc thought about it, the more he became distressed.
He lied down in bed next to Kim and tried to close his eyes. As they shut he saw the image of the man standing with his hands on his tiny hips looking out through the airport window, staring at the jet way.
Startled, Marc opened his eyes and he swore he could hear the alternating crunch-flop as the one shoed man walked towards him. It could’ve been his heart beat in his ears he told himself but he hadn’t felt like he was losing his mind his entire life until now. With all his might he couldn’t stop thinking about this man and the sounds continued.
Crunch-flop
Crunch-flop
Crunch-flop
It stopped and Marc closed his eyes. Sitting in front of him in his minds eye was the man, jaw jutted out, and upper lip curled to his nose,
“Excuse me sir?”
“Sir, Excuse me.”
“Can I borrow a pen, sir?”
Over and over, Marc shook his head trying to look away trying to think of something else.
“Excuse me, sir.”
..Excuse me!
Excuse me, Sir
Sir!
Excuse me, sir,
“MARCUS TRENTWORTHY! Excuse me!”
Marc opened his eyes, and his heart jumped, he was sitting in the board room at work, his boss, standing at the front of the room and everyone at the table staring at him.
“Marc, excuse me but are we interrupting your busy day of day dreaming?
Chuckles floated around the room. He must’ve fallen asleep and day-dreamed all during his morning and ride to work. Marc patted himself down and started sweating. He was fully dressed. How’d this happen? How’d I get here? Am I really losing my mind?
“Marc! I’m talking to you!” His boss’s face was turning red.
“Sorry, I uh…”
“Sorry’s just not going to cut it this time, Marc. Your performance has really fallen behind lately. I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Folks are saying they are walking by your desk and you’re just staring into space. And don’t think we haven’t noticed how you seem to have had time to write these ‘stories’ of yours. Listen here, mister, in all my…”
He continued on and Marc stood up out of his chair, turned and walked towards the door.
“…where do you think you’re going? You come back here right now, Mister. If you leave, Marc… If you leave right now don’t bother coming back.”
Marc stopped at the door way and turned to look back at his boss, “Don’t worry about it, I quit!”
Marc walked out grinning and left the stunned silence of the room behind him.
…..
“Oh my God what have I done?!” Marc walked out of the building and down to the street. He couldn’t go home, not yet. He didn’t want to tell Kim what he had done. It felt good though. It felt good to get out of there. Maybe he was trying to be like the man in the airport. Maybe he was beginning to beat to his own drummer. He could do anything he wanted today. He could be free to day dream and write all he wanted.
“Maybe I’ll work on that story about the man with no style.” He smiled to himself as he strutted down the road, hands in his pockets. It was a little chilly out but the sun was shining. As he crossed the intersection of Dakota and 5th he saw the football arena off in the distance, about a quarter of a mile down the way. He thought about his main character James Bailey, the night manager at the football stadium and thought this would be the perfect time to do a little research for the story.
Marc walked up to the stadium and was surprised to find a good number of cars in the parking lot. The local minor league team was holding a mid day exhibition game. Marc looked on the marquee and saw the game must be ending soon and decided to see if he could sneak in.
With a grin and new found confidence he walked up to the stadium and found an unmanned entrance where he hopped the turnstile, looked around from side to side, stuck his hands in his pockets and started strutting around the concourse, grinning his satisfied grin and with a soft giggle and elite British accent he whispered to himself, “Excuse me, sir. Can I borrow a pen?”
~--------------~
Next time find out what adventures befall Marc as he begins to march to the beat of this new drummer!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Lukewarm Hotdogs... (Part II)
Marc was in a dead end job as an underwriter with a local insurance business. He would sit at his desk day dream the most amazing stories. Sometimes they were so elaborate and long that if he could manage to work less than a few minutes a day, spending the rest of it in a hypnotic daze imagining the wonders of India, or the mysteries of Sherlock Holmes. After several years he started writing down his day dreams and found that they were entertaining. He’d show them to his wife and some to his friends and they enjoyed his writing. Before he wrote down a story, though, he had a ritual. He would sit at his type writer and type whatever came to his brain. He was a pretty fast typist and sometimes this helped him gather his thoughts, keeping it organized, so he could reference it later.
This unbelievably awkward looking man stunned Marc and he knew that he would be the epicenter of a perfect story. He couldn’t wait to come up with a plot but he needed to go through his ritual and let his brain dump out whatever it was that it wanted to say. After arriving at home from the airport and rushing through a take out dinner in four and half minutes flat he ran upstairs and loaded his typewriter with a clean blank sheet ready for his story.
Modern day…
James Bailey started his job as night manager of the South Dakota All-Stars minor league football arena…
The story shouldn’t be told here, this is how we will come up with the story, so who knows what the guy’s name is.
But we are going to put him in a situation where he needs to meet the most pathetic man in the world. That’s what we need him to do! This most pathetic man who I desperately want to write about is one whom you can’t look away from. Just stealing one look at him will burn his image in your mind’s eye forever.
Not the kind of pathetic that has someone on the city streets dumpster diving but that kind of pathetic that only a rich American can appreciate. The pathetic man that has no style. No style is what we find most pathetic. Why? Maybe because we try so hard for our style. Why do we try for style? We want to be accepted. We want to be loved, to have sex. To procreate! So this single man’s departure from style has in effect made us all realize that while this man has the ways and means to join the group, be loved and procreate he chooses not to. This goes against our very understanding and beliefs in logic. We must look and must remember because this can not actually be happening. No, no that’s cheesy, keep going, what else…
We then jump to the first and foremost obvious conclusion about men with no style that have the ways and means to achieve it. They must be mentally retarded, or in some way mentally hindered by some schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder that prevents them from understanding reality. The reality that we, as humans, were meant to form groups. To love and be loved, to have sex and procreate. Have I made that part clear?
So this story is not about the man with no style but how the man with no style affects our average Joe. Our James Bailey who started his job as the night manager of the South Dakota All-Stars minor league football arena!
What’s a man with no style doing at this arena? Well, he for some reason has the deep and ingrained love for the team. He’s followed them since his childhood and has made an effort to actually sleep in the stadium. Kind of Rudy like! He goes to games and he also has an obsession with hot dogs. So he loves eating the hot dogs at the games, so much so that he will stuff himself up through his own esophagus with hot dogs. After the games he wanders the bleachers looking for the left over hot dog remains of fans who couldn’t finish the hot and tasty treat. He even loves them cold or lukewarm as they seem to come after the game. Their fatty grease flows a little slower off his lips when he bites into them and he actually enjoys that feeling a little more.
Did he actually have a conscience? Would he look around before picking up the morsel? Did he EVER have a conscience for that matter? Did he know the terrible importance of style and what it means to our very society? It is the very reason we are! It is what binds us like a common language. Deviating from it means you are somehow against humanity! Even those that differed did so in groups. The punks, the mods, the beatnicks. All of them in groups together leaving the larger group.
But this man
Out on his island alone.
With no knowledge of the patterns evolving from the larger herd, or perhaps complete knowledge, follows only his own drum.
At first he’s disgusting, then inspiring, and finally we find ourselves looking right back inwardly and realizing that we are the pathetic ones. We are so pathetic as to follow the styles and patterns around us because deviating from it might make life difficult? Maybe? It’s hard to say what deviating from it really would do. What would it do?!
What would it do?
~--------------~
Part III: Marc, decides to find out just what it would do!
Coming Next Week!
Lukewarm Hotdogs and the Man with No Style (Part I)
Lukewarm Hotdogs and the Man with No Style
Part I
Marcus Trentworthy and his family made it to Gate 21 at Houston Hobby Airport on their way back home from Christmas with his in-laws. His daughter Jeanette sat down first and immediately pulled out her new DS and was lost in a daze of video games. Kim fondled through her purse as she sat down looking for her compact.
Marcus sat between them, on the black vinyl chair, and realizing he had everything in place to go home, thought the last calm and serine thought he would have for some time.
At first it was a glance.
“Who is that?” He thought to himself. Marc did not say anything and looked down at his pants. He raised his eyes again and looked towards the windows of the gate. Sitting in a similar vinyl chair 20 feet away, peering off into the runway was something shocking.
He looked down once more at his pants and raising his eyebrows and blinking his eyes he tried to shake it off. That feeling. Oh, that feeling was coming on strong. The feeling that he absolutely had to stare. He had to stare at this man.
He raised his eyes again and stared, and his brain began to analyze.
The man sitting down against the window was wearing the most incredible outfit. Starting from his feet, he had on no socks and one dress shoe. The other foot was covered in a paper bag and appeared to be barefoot. It was held on by a pink fluffly scrunchy. He had on a bright pink warm-ups with a smear of, hopefully, mud down one side. They must’ve been too big for him so he hiked them up around his, protruding stomach.
“Oh he’s standing up, good Lord!” Marc thought to himself. The anomaly stood up and looking around walked closer to the window and put his hands on his hips.
The man was bloated to a point of looking pregnant and his pink warm ups said, LOVE on his butt which, despite the size of his rotund belly was the size of a large orange. Tucked into this man’s pink warm ups was a Rodeo-style cowboy shirt, pressed with neat creases down his arms and complete with an obnoxious rhinestone outline of the State of Texas.
His hair was a mess and his beard was coming in patchy, awkwardly longer than a shadow, and glistening with sweat along his upper lip, which was short and seemed to curl up under his nose. He was chewing gum, most likely, and with each bite his upper lip would drop and curl back up to his nose, with his whole jaw jutting forward, reminding mark of a baby animal sucking on a teat.
“Honey, did you hear me?” Kim, Marc’s wife, leaned in.
“Huh? What?” He shook his head but couldn’t look away.
“Honey, what are you staring at?”
“I, uh, nothing, nothing. What did you ask?” He turned his head so it was facing hers but his eyes stayed locked on the man.
“I asked if you wouldn’t mind if Jeanie and I went and got some ice cream.” She leaned in closer and whispered, “Marc I see you staring at that poor man and you are not setting a good example for Jeanette.”
“No, no I wasn’t, I mean, yeah, ice cream. Go for it.” Marc shook his head, blinked his eyes and smiled at his wife. As they walked off, Kim shot Marc a ‘get-your-act-straight’ look and he waited what seemed like a lifetime for them to turn the corner towards the ice cream shop.
As soon as they turned he whipped his head back to see the man now sitting in front of him, close enough to lean over and touch.
“Shit!” Marc yelped in a high pitched voice. Marc slapped his mouth and the woman sitting next to the awkwardly dressed man clapped her hands around her son’s ears. The young man smiled and chanted, “Shit! Shit! Shit!” She picked him up and carried him off around the corner where he would latter be heard crying.
The awkward man did not notice Marc’s faux pas. He had head phones on. Marc’s heart jumped but settled as he realized the man’s eyes were closed as well. On his lap was a 1990’s style CD player, and a CD case of what looked like Jeff Foxworthy’s greatest hits.
Marc leaned forward, with one eye on the man’s eyes and another on his lap.
“Yep, Jeff Foxworthy.” Marc thought to himself.
Cuddled up next to the man between his skinny ass and the arm of the chair was a bag of batteries. Not just any bag though, a gallon sized bag. And it was full too, bursting like the man’s porcine stomach, with AA batteries.
“Stop looking Marc. This poor man must be handicapped. You should be ashamed.” He chided himself
Marc felt terrible for staring and sorry for the handicapped man and managed to shake his need to stare.
“Sir, excuse me, sir?” Marc’s heart jumped, his head stayed looking at his crotch. “Sir, excuse me?”
Marc looked up, and the awkward man had taken off his head phones and was looking directly at him.
“Sir, do you happen to have a pen on you?” The awkward man spoke perfect flawless English with a non-regional accent and he looked Marc right in the eyes as he said it. His mouth then closed and began its teat sucking motion again.
“Um, uh, yeah.” Marc didn’t have the guts to look him in the eyes and kept looking down at the ground as he fumbled for the pen in his jacket pocket. Marc handed him the pen. The man rolled up his left sleeve and wrote ‘Q&A with Barbara, 8:30’ on the inside of his wrist.
“Thanks very much.” He handed the pen back.
“No, no, problem.” Marc’s hand shook a bit as he grabbed the pen and it dropped to the carpet. “Oh excuse me.” Marc picked up the pen and stood up walking away from the gate towards the restroom.
“He’s not handicapped at all!” Marc thought to himself, splashing water on his face. “Why is this man in my head? Just move on, Marc. He’s dressed silly, so what?”
When he returned to the gate the man was gone. Nowhere to be seen! Marc looked everywhere and reluctantly boarded the flight stealing looks back up the jetway as he entered the plane and flew home.
~--------------~
Part II: Marc’s life changes dramatically, all because of this one awkward man.
