Tears were beginning to flow down my face, but she didn’t
notice I was crying until the dam broke and my entire being
shuddered from the impact of the last six months. Like the ending of
an epic stage production, I was now watching the curtains close in
the very same manner that they were opened.
We are born by old ladies, and we are buried by old ladies; they
are the bookends on the shelf of a man’s life story. The old lady on the
plane to Ireland, and the old lady sitting next to me at that moment
were bookends of a sort too: they framed a series of oversized
volumes that forced my shelves to be rebuilt deeper and sturdier than
ever before. For their little parts, I am thankful to those women. I am
all the more thankful that they only had little parts.
As I sobbed, the lady tried to comfort me, and when it became
apparent that my outburst was deep and fundamental, she called in
for back-up.
She had been on a senior-citizens group vacation, and there
were now many similar old ladies sitting all around me who were
quick to offer me a handkerchief and some good old fashioned
advice.
I cried and I cried, like a newborn baby I cried. The old lady
slipped me a valium, and after a while my sobbing died down into a
muted sniffling and I nuzzled up against her bosom and fell asleep.
We entered the decompression chamber of the LAX airline terminal
sometime in the early evening. I bid the old women farewell and one
of them gave me a handful of Kleenex just in case I broke down again.
The familiar pollution-laced Los Angeles sunset called me over
to the giant glass windows of the terminal. It was gorgeous. No
matter how vulgar home can seem, it’s always beautiful around the
edges. I put my hands to the glass and rested my forehead against it.
At that moment, being home felt less real than the unreality of the
exotic overseas Utopias. As I turned around and scanned the
terminal, I saw another improbability striding towards me.
“Excuse me, don’t I know you?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Did you happen to be in Europe last summer? I lost a close
friend of mine there.”
I put down my carry-on baggage. The airport disappeared. We
didn’t even hear the sniggers of passersby as we kissed. We were not
listening to them.
BIG AMERICAN BREAKFAST
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