Puddle Jump

You sit down in your seat, listen to the stewardess or steward, or better yet, flight attendant, tell you how to put on your seat belt, pull on drawstrings to activate your life preserver — but wait, you think, I’m flying from Des Moines to Chicago, am I going to land in water somehow? Can’t hurt to listen, you think. You study the safety pamphlet. You obviously never want to crash, but those big yellow emergency slides look fun, don’t they? You buckle, you read, you adjust the knob of air above you, scan Skymall — oh yes, I could use that, a garden gnome that picks up my newspaper and makes eggs and bacon each morning. How much? — then the man next to you begins to chat. You’re happy it’s a short flight, as the longest possible conversation you can have with this man, whose sweater reminds you of a motel bedspread, will be twenty-six minutes, according to the captain, who continues to point out corn and rivers and a bunch of other topographical scenery that makes you wonder what on earth the earth could have eaten to vomit up so much farmland. I sell trailers, the man in 13C says to you. He’s got patches of red skin on his face, and you can’t help but wonder if he’s okay, if he’s been to the doctor, gotten a recent cancer screening; you’d certainly get that thing checked out. He asks you if you went to Ohio State, and you remember telling your wife not to buy you T-shirts with anything on them, that you just want white, tagless Hanes. When he asks you what you do, you lie, you can, you’ll never see this man again. And there’s something beautiful about that — a serene transience, knowing that nothing you say will get you into trouble: a lion tamer, you think of saying, a firefighter, you want to shout, but you don’t have the jawline for it, or the body, or the ability to even grill steak at temperatures over 350 (it takes too much charcoal, you tell your wife). A doctor, you say, and it feels good — right, even. He looks at you, impressed. A doctor? Yes, you say. And it feels even better the second time around. Of what? he asks. Of psychiatry, you say . . . yes, that’s it, a psychiatrist; you have the wardrobe for it: knit ties, V-neck sweaters, and herringbone blazers. As well as the smile — and the soft-yet-solid voice — that’s always accompanied by a pensive squint and gentle nod. Then the man tells you he’s having trouble with his wife, that he’s lost the spark. The flight attendant comes by with the drink cart; he’s got a tattoo of Calvin and Hobbes on his forearm, and that makes you wonder if he’s qualified. You ask for a tomato juice, but you don’t know why . . . it’s just something you’ve drunk on planes since you were fourteen because your mom got it and you thought it sounded good, and now you stick with it because it’s never made you sick. You sip and sip, and the man continues on about his wife. He’s not attracted anymore, he says, and you think that you should have said that you didn’t speak English, that you are recently retired, that you work as a light-bulb salesman or an OBGYN. How much was that garden gnome again?