Memories of Hazey Jane – Part 4
Posted on November 14, 2008
I began to retrace my steps – just to make sure this was really happening to me. I started with the bar, staring transfixed at the LCD as the Packers and Giants were still deadlocked at twenty points each. The bartender wiped a cloudy pint glass, and was as despondent as I remembered.
“Is it really that fascinating?” It was a familiar voice, albeit with skepticism new to my ears. I might have turned around, if I could stop watching the same plays I had already seen yesterday. Or today. Today in the guise of yesterday.
“It’s the epitome of the male struggle. You and your buddies against the opposition; 22 men with only one set of balls between them-“
“Seems like an awful lot of sweaty men grabbing each other for such a ‘manly’ game.”
Whatever her regrets, it didn’t stop her from making me smile. Then I turned around and realized it wasn’t her. It was the waitress with the pained smile. Taking a few moments here and there to dust off her colorfully stained smock, she leaned on the counter, whittling away the last few hours of her shift.
“You look like you just missed someone.” She said curiously.
I looked down the row of stools, the jumble of tables, and finally, to the crowd streaming past this hole in the wall. “I think I just did. Though we hadn’t really planned on meeting.” I admitted.
“Ouch. I know what that’s like.” Tossing aside all pretensions of industriousness, she climbed up next to me, a little closer than I would have liked. Her breath smelled of Pepto Bismol. “Trust me, it’s not worth it.”
“What isn’t?”
“Watching from a distance…hoping. It’s enough to drive a person nuts.”
“You’re talking from experience?”
“Maybe.” She pursed her lips. “What’s she like? Maybe the wind’s blown her my way.”
“Thick-set…about this high?” I hoisted a hand to my nose. She suddenly frowned.
“You know her?”
“I don’t think I could forget. Yeah, she passed through here…maybe an hour ago? Should’ve seen her…you want anything?”
I was curious. And I must have looked pretty thirsty as well, because before I could answer, she went to the tap and started filling a glass. But before I could drown myself in Irish-inspired bliss, something came to me.
“How’d you know what I drink?”
That stopped her cold. She blinked, and flicked her tongue on the insides of her teeth. “How about that…I don’t really know. That’s weird.”
Not really. Not if I could wear a bandage for a wound I hadn’t received yet. I reached into my wallet to leave her a ten, but she waved me off. “I think I saw her crying. This one’s on the house – if you promise to find her.” She looked at me intently. “No more watching.”
I wasn’t sure I’d get to keep that promise, but I wasn’t sure it mattered – I’d already given her my last ten.
It was hard not to smirk when boarding the plane. Just like last time, the captain was there to greet us – a middle-aged black guy with several days worth of stubble, and a smile that said he could probably make this run with his eyes closed. You could imagine what I’d have given to see his face after our inevitable takeoff.
But before I could step on, I paused, clutching the fuselage. You might say I had a moment – or, to put it simply, that’s when it all started to hit me.
Back at NYU, the powers-that-be deemed my education incomplete, unless I was enlightened enough to take a couple of terms of biology. There are two things I remember about that class. One, the subject matter was drier than sandpaper in the Sahara. Two, my professor for both terms – an eager young adjunct, Serena Lovett, made it about ten times more interesting than it had any right to be. After a good lecture, she had a habit of clapping the book shut, looking up at us, and saying something she thought we would think was thoughtful. Granted, half the time it was as hackneyed as love at first sight, but occasionally she said something worth listening to.
And it wasn’t one of those latter aphorisms that I thought about then. Rather, it reminded me of when we got to the chapter on the brain, and how that soggy piece of meat could crunch data faster than any Intel chip. She had called it “God’s Most Marvelous Machine.” And standing there in the boarding lane, I don’t think I could disagree with her more. Machines demand order, almost as much as we demand water or air. Take that away, and what do they do? They stop; they can’t go on. As for me, I watched the same people shuffle down the aisles of the 747 the same way, with the same expressions, muttering the same banter – the effect was devastating. Do you know the word for the déjà vu that glues your feet to the ground, and makes you feel as if you aren’t really there?
If you ever find out, let me know. In any event, I’m not a machine. If I could get over the fact that I was living the impossible, I could move on.
The scent of strawberries made me freeze again. It was hard to stop watching Hazey Jane trying to force her bags into the overhead, at least until a tall man in dreadlocks stepped up to help her.
“I’ve got this one.” I insisted. Maybe he caught the wild gleam in my eye, because he shrugged and sat down. She looked a bit surprised when I had both our bags in and the overhead shut in less than a minute.
She extended a cautiously grateful hand. “I’m Jane, by the way.”
“I bet you are.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.” I thought I saw something in my seat, so I stretched my neck out. It was my copy of Deathly Hallows, right where I had left it. Or, rather where I would have left it, but I definitely was not going to leave it now, was I? I alternated between reading that and staring at Hazey Jane, who was back again in my mind.
The crowded but relatively spacious terminal affords us a little latitude in the things that we could do, and the words we might choose. It’s no surprise, then, that the density of an airliner forces fate into a narrow road, on which we have little choice but to follow.
In other words, the kid had no choice but to start up again. If this were a play, the players were very much on cue. I gave it a few minutes, then looked around to find much of what I had found before – the corners of mouths twitching between hints of conscious sympathy and unconscious disgust; heads seeking refuge between the pages of the latest Delta Sky; voices muttering what the would do if their child ever acted like that; Hazey Jane, as usual, caught my attention, as something about that wail seemed to possess her. The rise and fall of her chest slowed, and she looked just about ready to chew through her upper lip. It wasn’t long before she caught me looking, and jerked away. Then I spotted the mother, who didn’t look much more than a kid herself. All at once, I got up, and stumbled to her seat.
Up until then, she looked pretty bewildered, but when she saw me, her eyes found the steel commanded by every mother in such moments. I put on my best-looking wry grin. “Looks like you could use a bit of help.”
“He’s just had a really long day.” She justified. “You know what kids are like.”
“Maybe. But you haven’t answered my question.”
“Do you have any kids, Mr…?”
I shook my head. “But I did have a baby brother who never slept through the night.”
As if to press the bargain, the kid threw off his blanket, trying to squirm out of Mommy’s arms. Before she could say no, I swept him up in my arms and leaned back as he tried to grab my glasses. I hadn’t planned anything, so I just sang the first thing that came to mind:
Down, down baby, down down the rollercoaster,
Sweet, sweet baby, I’ll never let you go.
Shimmy-shimmy coco puff, shimmy-shimmy pow!
Shimmy shimmy coco puff, shimmy-shimmy pow!
Grandma, grandma, sick in bed,
She called the doctor, and the doctor said:
Ding dong! Let’s get the rhythm of the head…
They say I could’ve gone into radio. Maybe it’s not too late. In any event, I had the boy by the armpits, and tossed him like pizza dough; low enough for me to actually catch him; high enough to make him laugh, and his mother pretty nervous. It was either that or my voice – a few minutes later he settled in my arms; sniffing, looking around, and still trying to pry off my glasses.
My job was done. I returned to my seat to applause from the rows around her. And it felt good. Not just the wonderful sounds of silence – but knowing I had changed something. That thought set my heart racing, even before Jane turned back and thanked me. I shrugged, and told her it was nothing. “Why do you think she did it?” she suddenly asked.
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