eliskaAs the rays of the pale afternoon November sun hit the small windows, the Boeing 757-200 slowly began rolling on the runway.
Charlie closed his eyes and leaned his head back, resting it against the faux leather seat. He had an aisle seat, as always, carefully picked during online check-in according to what he believed to be the safest seat on the plane.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please pay attention …”
Only a few more hours and he will leave all this behind.
“My name is Juliett and I’m your chief flight attendant. On behalf of Captain Mike Sanchez and the entire crew, I would like to welcome you aboard the United Airlines flight 886 … “
“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” a mumble came from his left. Charlie followed the sound to inspect his fellow traveller. Dressed in a battered suit and worn out jeans, he had the disheveled look of someone who had more on his mind than to dress appropriately for air travel. He was shuffling through a large pile of papers on his lap, full of messy scribbles and faded lines.
“Excuse me?”
The man looked up, pushed his glasses further up his nose and gave Charlie a grin. “Juliett? As of Romeo and Juliet?” He tilted his head.
“Oh, I see.”
“Guy loses his virginity, sanity, dignity and then life in an overly dramatic fashion for a girl he just met and whole generations think this is what we should strive for in our relationships?”
“Actually, I enjoyed the play.”
The man shrugged and returned to his paperwork. “Well, bravo Shakespeare.”
Charlie suddenly felt slightly uncomfortable. What was it with strangers who felt like they could randomly talk to you?
“…oxygen mask will automatically appear in front of you. Place it firmly over your nose and mouth, secure the elastic band behind your head, and breathe normally.”
Charlie took a deep breath. There. Maybe if he just focused on his breathing…
“You know, I once heard there isn’t enough oxygen in those masks to last any significant amount of time, anyway.” The man was talking again.
Charlie spun round, involuntarily. “What?”
“Fifteen minutes, tops.”
“Right.”
“But don’t worry. You wouldn’t really know anything’s wrong, since, you know. Would be unconscious and all. Funny how the brain works, huh?”
Charlie realized the stranger seemed to be talking mostly to himself now, his head down, still flicking through the papers.
“I’m not worried.” Charlie tried, and failed, to keep his voice steady.
“You look a little worried to me.” He looked up, and fixed Charlie with his eyes, narrowed, and then after a while, gave him a reassuring smile.
Charlie felt annoyance wash over him. He really was hoping for a calm and undisturbed flight. Perhaps he should have flown with Delta.
“… a few moments now to locate your nearest exit …”
“So what are you so happy to get away from?” The man stopped searching for whatever he was searching for and gave Charlie his full attention.
“Excuse me?”
“You seem happy to be on a plane. You going on a holiday to Lima?”
“No. It’s my papa… I mean father. He had a hip injury a while ago.”
“I am very sorry to hear that. Are you two close?”
Charlie considered this for a second. “Reasonably.”
The man chuckled. “Nothing better than a reasonable relationship.”
“Yes. I suppose so.” Charlie wondered if this was a joke. He wasn’t sure, so he turned forward, and closed his eyes again for some privacy.
The stink of the hospital room was still vivid in his memory, as well as the scary-looking x-ray of his father’s hip. Even in his frail state, he lectured Charlie on his golf swing, asked him why he isn’t married, how much money he’s making and whether he eats properly.
His Yankee cap was on his bed stand, next to the ridiculous amount of medicine bottles, but he never complained once. His father the hero.
Charlie opened his eyes again, and wiped the sole tear that ran down his cheek, so that the man wouldn’t see. The flight attendant was six rows ahead of them, passing out refreshments.
“You know, She reminds me of someone.” It was the man, again, looking in the same direction. Suddenly, Charlie was happy for a distraction. “Oh yeah?”
“My first love. She was a dancer. And the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She had raven black hair that curled to her waist, and the most amazing eyes, oh, those eyes.. I could stare into them for hours. We met one night in a hotel lobby in India. I was there on a trip around the world, poor as a church mouse. She was there for her first competition. She taught me how to foxtrot in our tiny hotel room, I taught her intervals. She thought I was cute, I thought I had landed on the moon.
“Later, she got a partner.. a dancing partner, I mean. A Spanish guy, Oscar. She told me the guy was gay; I never really questioned it. She often came home from rehearsals really late, sometimes slightly drunk, and we would have these dramatic fights, but then she told me I was the nicest man she had ever known and she wanted to be with me and I wanted to believe her.
“I begged her to go back home with me, but she said she didn’t want to leave her career behind. I told her there are dancing schools in Quebec, competitions as well, she could teach little kids there, but she always had excuses. She wanted to prove herself in the big world.
“And then finally, she agreed. But the night before we were due to leave, she had this dance, and they won. It was a Latino night, they were dancing the tango, and the audience loved them, the jury loved them… and she loved him. I think that’s when I realised, watching her on that stage that night, from the way she was looking at him …”
He paused. He turned to look out the window.
“They ran off together that night, took an overnight train to Granada. Went off to live in Sierra Nevada. No dancing schools there, but apparently, that was not a problem anymore.
“He died eight years later. They found a kilo of meth stuffed in the drawer among his dance clothes.”
Charlie stared at him, stunned. “You don’t seem…”
“It is a long time ago, my friend. I was young and in love. I threw myself into music afterwards, and it helped. Every piece I wrote I wrote for her, about her, about us, and then I started writing for myself, and then one day, she was just an echo in my heart and I was whole again.”
For the first time, Charlie looked properly at the papers on the man’s lap, and realized that they were probably musical notes.
“So, did you um… compose this?”
“This? Oh no. It’s an old Zulu thing, Siyahamba. Very catchy. You sing?”
“No. I’ve never been the artsy type.”
“Everyone is born the artsy type. But not everyone manages to hold on to it. They ought to, though. It’s the only way to stay sane.”
They were interrupted by a female voice. “Would you like a beverage from our inflight menu?”
The men looked up. Juliett, the flight attendant, was smiling at them. Charlie noticed she had extraordinarily beautiful eyes.
“A soda for me, please.” He said quietly.
“Oh no. No soda. We’ll have two whiskeys.” The man gave the flight attendant a playful wink. “It’s Victor, by the way. Nice uniform.”
“It doesn’t do to play it too safe, my friend. It really is a beautiful world out there.” He smiled at Charlie again, and somehow, this time it wasn’t so annoying.
Charlie looked past him into the setting sun and listened to the hum of the plane’s engines.
He smiled, the first smile in a very long time.
He took a sip of the honey-colored liquid.
The whiskey burned his throat a little.