Seventeen Hours and two days later...

I awoke amidst the engine roar.  A tequila sunrise over the pacific--viewed through an oblong window filling up like a shot glass.  Above the cloud reefs, and we are nearing our destination.  Tip the wing down and sunlight pours into the cabin--a champagne shower--rosy and washing over us all.  "Please return your seats to the upright position and stow your tray tales."  We're swinging in.

This after seventeen hours in the air.  XOXO LA, and we have lift-off.  I was seated in the very last row of the pot-bellied flying machine, the cabin sized double or triple anything on which I'd flown before.

We economy-class shifties were seated nine across, an aisle between every three seats.  Nestled among a crew of bearded and mustachioed Auzzie bad-boys who had just completed a Harley Davidson tour of California was the Mother Goose of flying fortresses: Marjoram Bigsby, and the bright-eyed southern-fried ding-a-ling Nate Dixon.  We were seated together--between two aisles--on the very last row of the plane, as I said before, the only empty seat on the whole flight wide open in the middle of us.

Margie was a plump 50-something-year-old woman who sat with her hands crossed one over the other in her lap, making it appear--for some reason--that she was nesting atop a batch of eggs.  As we took to the skies she proceeded to plan our seventeen hours together.  When to eat, what items of food I should save for later, what time to sleep, what beverages to take advantage of, what movies to watch, and so on, and so forth, right down to a schedule of when we would trade off using the empty seat between us.

And how was the epic air time?  How did the seventeen hours tic-toc away?  How was the flight into the future?

Like butter in a skillet.  Slide into the groove.  Two movies to start, after dinner with Marge.  The cabin aglow with the digital squares set into the back of each carpet-covered head rest.  Pale faces washed in the otherworldly light.  Stare into the nothing, all of us adrift in that digital sea, boring holes into the back of the heads in front of us.  The constant thunder of the engines on the other side of our earphones.  The reverberations trembling through to our toes.

Then a six hour nap.  Mask the eyes, plug the ears and it is good-night to the world as I dash at high speeds over the open ocean.  Sporadic wakings, shift the head, uncross the legs, Margie wants a turn at the open seat between us.  Etc. Etc.  Until a bit of turbulence shakes the sleep from my eyes, and the pillow from beneath my head.

Now time for another flick.  I decide to go with the unlikely classic: The Color Purple.  I mention this one specifically because of the two awkward interactions that it brought about with the flight attendant.  Just for the benefit of those that haven't seen The Color Purple, here is the beginning of the synopses from IMDb: "This film follows the life of Celie, a young black girl growing up in the early 1900's. The first time we see Celie, she is 14 - and pregnant - by her father. We stay with her for the next 30 years of her tough life..."  Needless to say, this is not a "feel-good" film.  Well... the flight crew began the breakfast service when I was about three-fourths of the way through the movie.  With tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat, I graciously accepted my eggs and potatoes.  The flight attendant asked me what was wrong three times before she finally caught sight of my movie screen and realized what was going on.  She walked away smiling, surely to tell the rest of the flight attendants about the "sensitive boy at the back of the plane."  She walked away, only to return ten minutes later for another bout of embarrassment.

You see, there is a scene in the movie where a Jezebel jazz-singer who has been estranged from her preacher-father because of her flashy-ass-shaking lifestyle, marches to the church, with her crew of less-than-savory characters, singing a gospel anthem which they heard leaking out of the church windows.  The re-uniting of father and daughter takes place amidst a welling up of soul-filled singing, and just at the climax of the scene, the flight attendant taps me on the shoulder and asks me to please stop tapping on my tray-table, as several other passengers have complained about the noise that I'm making, not to mention the orange juice that I've spilt all over the floor.  FAIL.

Another nap--dreaming of the south--and then the tequila sunrise out of oblong windows.  A round of shots for everyone.  Welcome to the bottom of the world.  Rubber wheels squealing, a jolt on impact, and we are safe in Sydney.

I am here only to wait for another flight, seven hours later.  But the long-haul is over and done with.  Goodbye Margie.  I'm headed to the land of the long white cloud.