Providence

Welcome to a new thing. Inspired by Yard Dragon's Tiny Essays (yarddragon.substack.com) I submit my own version.

Instead of wearing the black t-shirt with the sarcastic joke about an esoteric sub-genre of a rock genre no one has heard of, I wore a black polo shirt for the one-way, two-flight trip. 

Old white guys love wearing collard shirts when they fly and the business man always has his uniform on. I enjoy seeing priests fly. Something about the ancient robes swaying in the air of a modern airport, where they don’t seem to belong, is interesting. Most modern fliers dress way down. Pajamas. Shorts. T-shirts. Stretchy pants. Comfort has replaced formal dress. When I used to fly with a basketball team, we would wear three-piece suits. We stood out. And that was sort of the point. It was a business trip. We were in uniform. But I’ve definitely worn pajamas on an airplane. I also once smuggled drugs through an airport bound to my crotch with electrical tape. But that’s another story. And another life. 

After following a family of new travelers through security, I eased my bag onto the long, silver table past security. I always pack all my items in my carryon bag before approaching security. I like to go through the scanners clean. Like passing through a mechanized rebirth. After putting my shoes on—wondering why we still must unshod for security that has advanced far beyond 2001—I find all my necessary items and meander down the concourse. (Seriously, you can see my fucking bones in that machine, you can’t see what’s in my god damn shoes?!) 

You can always spot novel travelers in airports. They are a little bit terrified and a little bit excited. A feeling I still share, but have learned to hide. They are completely unaware of their surroundings. They leave electronics in their bag when passing through security, fumble with massive carryons and mostly just seem nervous. It’s a deep, primal fear. The probing triggers a flight or fight response at security and anxiety about the sorcery of flying feeds the lizard brain. And then there is time—a stopwatch in their head ticking away. Can’t miss the flight. In America, “Stranded Passengers…” is the most devastating headline. Almost as bad as “Another School Shooting…”

While the family in front of me rushes down the concourse for a flight that leaves in an hour, I get a text telling me my flight is boarding. I check my watch. Plenty of time. It’s a small airport. I stop for a bottled water. Stop for a pee. And pause to get my headphones out of my bag. The family is probably already bored at the gate they rushed to. As I casually approach my gate, they call my boarding zone and I walk onboard. All my waiting was spent getting there. 

Time can be commanded and flight is sorcery. 

Clouds have strange thoughts. Here is one: 

We should prefer the celebration of the nature we were born into. The old gods have passed on. They left humanity alone on its quest for whatever the end will be. In the beginning, no god existed. In the end, the same will probably be true. What happens in between, well, that’s the good stuff anyways. Humans are the architects of their own demise and the gods they wish would save them. 

The only privacy you get in an airport is in the bathroom. Which is why I always choose a stall. 

Never in my years of connecting flights have I ever arrived in the same concourse where my connecting flight was scheduled to leave from until today. B33 to B20. With plenty of time for lunch sitting next to a priest—who eats way healthier than me. Providence. 

If I had to guess how many flight hours I’ve logged, it would be a big number. Not as big as some people. But possibly impressive. I love airports. Structures for transient passing are always full of exciting and nervous energy. 

On the phone, Scott’s voice sounds like a natural born New Englander. They have a rich set of accents those folks. We plot the evening while I wait on my chicken fingers and the priest waits on a fork to eat his healthy meal while watching something on his phone. (I would like to guess here that he was watching a sermon by the Pope. But maybe it was something dumb like Survivor or that show about bachelors.) 

Want to command time? Set your watch fast. 

Connecting flights always seem longer. Maybe it’s an illusion. But we are delayed none the less. Something is broken on the plane and they are fixing it. Less than 24-hours before this moment, I was sitting on my comfortable couch watching the news. For at least the third day straight there was a report about a malfunction on an airplane. Of course, I had to say something dumb to my wife like, “Yeah, we aren’t flying anytime soon.” 

It’s always in life when you say something like that, when you take a definitive stand, that stand is immediately tested. Minutes later there is a phone call. Minutes after the phone call, I am booking a flight. 

After a short nap, a movie and a whiskey drink, we have landed and the flying part is over for me. There is a particular feeling of relief that happens when the door of an airplane opens at your destination and everyone starts to stand to a symphony of seat belts unlocking. No more anxiety. No more stopwatch. No more sorcery. Just the ground and whatever you are heading towards, thousands of miles from where you started. 

There is another feeling. It’s a weird one. But it comes just before you hear about something big that has happened. And as soon as you hear about it, you forget that feeling. 

While remaining pinned to my seat by the group of quick risers in the aisle and the people in my row, waiting on the huddled masses to start disembarking off our magical tube, a row mate says something quite extraordinary: “Trump has been shot.” 

Before asking for details, I find the video on Twitter. It was posted two minutes ago. No breaking alerts have been issued by news. I show the video to everyone in my proximity. They show their sympathy. I give no comment. I am only here to tell the story. 

True to his word, Scott and his cousin John are waiting in a blue SUV outside the most adorable little airport you’ve ever been to. (There is a sail boat near baggage claim!)

Kenneth R. Dooley is famous in Rhode Island. He’s in the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame. At 92, he’s sharp upstairs. But his body is beginning to fail him. He likes to wear collard shirts when he travels. He has written a lot of books. As he tells it: at 4-years-old, he wrote a play for class. His teacher praised him and he decided he would be writer. We call him Poppy. 

Parts of New England are really beautiful. Most of America is a shit hole.

We pull out of Lincoln, Rhode Island at 8 a.m. on a Sunday, after I overslept in the hotel. Sundays are a good day to drive. When Poppy makes this drive, which he has done many many times, he likes to leave around 6 a.m. 

We make good time. Poppy keeps telling me how we are making good time as we push south, south, south, through all the tiny little states full of founding history. Connecticut drivers are really the best drivers. Very considerate with their signals. By the time we make the GWB in New York, Poppy is impressed with the good time we are making. Once we reach New Jersey he tells me he’s never made it over the GWB that fast. The traffic was light and moving. I see the Statue of Liberty, off in the hazy distance, a tiny little symbol. Diminished perhaps, in the moment. We share stories of love and appreciation for Manhattan. He tells me how he comes alive in the city. I tell him about the first time I stepped onto the island’s streets, out of the subway station at Madison Square Garden. And then we are onto another story. He has a lot of stories and they are all pretty fantastic. We pull into a rest stop named after Vince Lombardi. I joke, “I bet you knew him too.” 

“Actually, I did work with Vince one time…” and he trails into a story about the time he worked with Lombardi on a movie. He’s crossed paths with a lot of American legends. Total fucking legend, himself, Poppy. We suspect he was in the mob at one time. 

Between naps and long conversations about the state of the union, we find ourselves in accord on the politics of the day. While he naps, I think a lot about my grandfather. He passed last year. We used to have the same conversations all the time. We millennials share a lot with the Greatest Generation. It’s those folks in between we need to talk about.

We stop in Richmond. Twelve and a half hours on I-95. I cook him dinner in the kitchen of his hotel room and wish him goodnight, heading for another sleepless night. He’s excited about the shower. I wake up late, again. He’s packed and ready to go. We hit the road, Starbucks and muffins in hand, and only a few hundred miles to home. The Carolinas are pretty and boring. Good on a Monday. 

2,342 miles and 53 hours after volunteering for a rescue mission, I pull Poppy’s Lincoln into the driveway, under the oaks where I married his granddaughter. I usher him in the house. He quickly settles on the couch. He’s weak in body but strong in spirit. And happy to be home.

Clouds have strange thoughts. Here is one: Divine providence is just a command of time.