The trip to Austin for a speaking gig was strange and beautiful. Here's the voyage home...
Cab to the airport: driver is from Senegal via Nigeria via
got his MBA and and engineering degree in Austin. Keeps getting laid off as the
economy tanks. Bought a cab. Great guy. Does he like driving? "To tell you
the truth, I'm bored stiff." We almost hugged when we parted.
Seatmate on the Austin-Detroit leg arrives down the aisle,
raring to chat. OK. He's a young guy; 38. In retail; a store manager at a
luxury Burberry outlet. We talk clothes. He mentions he's moved to Austin for a
"fresh start." First alarm bell.
He's headed back to Jersey to close
on his house, which sold in 7 days (small house in a great neighborhood). Likes
Austin? Loves it. We talk about tailors, how they make all the difference. He
mentions "Mixed martial arts," a new category of fighting where
basically there are no rules except you cannot, absolutely not, use a chair to
wallop hell out of your opponent. This guy's into it. Kids? 3. "And my
beautiful wife, drop-dead gorgeous. She's 6 feet tall. Blonde. Blue eyes."
He's 5'8". Mentions the starting-over thing again.
"My big problem is
my jealousy." Heritage: Italian and Spanish. Okey-dokey. Starts talking
compulsively about this young (22) co-worker of his wife's. She's trained the
kid. Who's also a volunteer fire-fighter (think physically fit) and funny
(think enraged husband).
Turns out my seatmate is undertaking
his third starting over. In my world, guys who are jealous are jerks. But there's something about this one: he's in serious emotional pain. "You sound like every wife-beater I've ever known," I say lightly enough for him to escape if he wants to. We're chasing a new perspective, him and me. He's a motorcycle racer. He's given up his skull T-shirts, he tells me, because he's trying to look mature to an audience of one: his wife, who despises him and his act.
He
is desperately afraid, he tells me, of losing her. I see it. They've been married 15 years,
but everything out of his mouth these days drives her farther away. He's repeating to me
(total stranger) verbatim conversations with his wife that turn swiftly into nasty
arguments. He has a knack for the inquisition, in turns out. Missed his calling: litigator. (Footnote: he admits he's in the wrong in every instance.)
He says, "The only person you can really change is yourself, right?" They've
had a row so loud already in Austin that the neighbor has come over with some
friendly advice about chilling and such, "you don't want to bring the
sheriff down around your head." Three hours of this, him and me, chatting
away about his extreme marital problems. His wife's having anxiety attacks.
He's having anxiety attacks. I tell him about my anxiety attacks. The kids are acting out. The 22-year-old co-worker
comes by for sleep-overs when the husband's out of town; but totally platonic
everyone swears. Yikes carumba!!!
That was leg one of the flight home. Leg two was just as
weird; LA-based email marketer starting a music foundation plumped down next to
me. Another young guy, late 20s maybe, high-school drop-out who made good. He
purchased the drink cart's entire supply of Jim Beam and proceeded to get
sweetly plastered; the drunker he got, the nicer he got (except for the
plentiful f-bombs he was dropping in the ears of nearby flyers). On his laptop he's playing a horror movie about a paranormal Connecticut house. "New England," he says, "I mean, really, it's all blood land. Soaked in it. And energy can't die. So it lives on somehow." Like in hauntings. We had a great
talk until he slid into incoherence.
L-r: All that fits in my tiny Baggallini carry-on, the luggage of choice for 1-2 day speaking gigs. Good BBQ at the airport, cut the brisket with a plastic fork. Whoop whoop at the fabulous Stephen Austin hotel downtown. Sign on a cabbie's door, from my perspective. Speaks for itself. The Detroit Airport, tunnel scored with original music and a light show. The 6th street music scene tourist office.
