j.modjeska

“It sure wasn’t a win-win situation,” said the bleached Texas blonde two rows back in heavy drawl, “for either side.” Everything in the sticky-sweet accent sounded like a question with extra emphasis on the last word. As if the speaker was checking for comprehension before proceeding to the next part of her story. Dog looked back between the seats, irritated like he always was after spending any time in Dallas. Decided at a glance that she must drive a Lexus — one of those with the annoying paint job you think might be white with gold microglitter enthusiastically sprinkled on but really it’s called “champagne” or “pearl” or some other fitting archetype of patrician excess. He looked at her some more, curious about her immovable largesse of hair and the mathematical function of product flammability that must accompany it. He induced that she was the source of the rank chemical-sweet perfume he could smell when he had boarded the 737 just under four minutes ago. Perfume, from parfumare, means “to fill with smoke”. Dog parsed the etymology and felt like lighting up a cigarette — far less offensive than the overpowering Lexus bitch odor and yet infinitely more a violation of federal aviation laws. He turned away, resentful of the direction society was headed, and went back to reading the Times by the personal halogen in 2D as the chalkboard-scrape of FAA-mandated flight attendant safety-babble droned on and 6am liftoff rattled the molded plastic above him. His eyelids were heavy.

10,000 feet later: “something to drink, sir?” Jack and Coke. Two if you wouldn’t mind.

He pulled his Dell out from under the seat. Momentarily he entertained the thought that 3G would work up here but he reasoned that if there was any merit at all to the notion that cellular communication interferes with airplane radios he didn’t want to be responsible for some colossal high-casualty disaster, or worse, marooned in Kansas with the crazy Lexus bitch. So instead he jacked in big Sony phones and maxed some French rap music. He smiled slightly, triumphantly content in drowning out the screams of a demon spawn baby and the pilot, whose flight plan was mistakenly deemed interesting enough to read over the PA system. Dog had enough digital music to slingshot Jupiter and enough backup juice to last a week, but DFW to SEA isn’t that far. Sitting back, he closed the lid and put the rig on the floor at his feet, little black wire trailing up from the port, across his black leather shoes and up the outside of his faded dark olive overcoat into the phones. Twin jets hummed a steady background and Dog lost himself briefly in the thin newsprint pages of the world before drifting to sleep with incomprehensible lyrics permeating his brain.