I couldn’t remember falling asleep after boarding United Flight 518, yet was awoken by the unmistakable jostlings of United Flight 518 landing in Los Angeles. The gap in my memory was curious for sure, but I was grateful to have slept through air travel. Not only that, but I had also slept through my entire shuffled library of music, ending, I was groggily amused to note, on ‘ghostin,’ a song by the pop star known as Ariana Grande. I pondered the significance of the coincidence as the plane shuddered toward its complete stop.
It was May and I had come to the mythical city of L.A. to see Gloria, who lived there now. The girl was more of the draw than the city, my impression of which derived solely from popular media. The city, not the girl. Based on what I had gathered, Los Angeles was a place where the images were familiar but the action was terribly wrong, like reading the alphabet backwards, a state of being that had never appealed to my natural propensities for living. If not for the promise of seeing Gloria again, I could have happily gone my whole life without booking a stay. Gloria was my first romantic partner, a very special girl who’d traipsed in and out of my mind since we’d separated two years prior, broken up, partly, by her graduating from our college and me still having to attend one more year, but mostly as a consequence of some terrible, baseless things I’d said to her the day before she shipped off. I didn’t like thinking about it in any more detail. But through dribs and drabs in the ensuing years, heartfelt apologies first ignored then generously accepted, discourses requested and indulged, I had accumulated enough good will to merit this chance to officially bury the hatchet in person. Getting back together was out of the question for a multitude of good reasons, but it'd have been a gross lie to say I wasn’t itching for some affection from the pretty girl who used to supply me with it all the time.
It was a bold move on my part to suggest a vacation between exes, usually a faux pas, but in addition to things being so copasetic between us, an odd occurrence had moved me to propose the idea. What happened was I had a poignant dream wherein Gloria was the star. Even though I couldn’t remember a single other thing about the dream, it didn’t impede the implantation of an emotion that choked me up when I awoke, a heavy, melancholic feeling that haunted me until late in the day, moaning for resolution. That night I introduced the idea of a visit with utmost delicacy, a measure that turned out to be unnecessary, as Gloria was surprisingly receptive to the idea. So maybe she’d had a dream, too.
The captain formally welcomed us to LAX, transforming the energy in the cabin from subdued to pent-up. Passengers shot frantic looks up and down the aisle and monitored their seatbelt light, pupils vibrating as exit-plans were viciously calculated. From my middle seat I glared into the seatback in front of me, my mantra being that I would get off when I got off. That’s when my nose began to bleed.
“Your nose is bleeding.”
The men on either side of me had not said this; I didn’t even have to check. Those grouches had airpods lodged firmly in their ear holes and were spitting rapid whispers. From what I could hear, one was selling hats and one was threatening heads. Heel-of-hand to nose, I craned my neck back to counteract my oozing and identify my commentator. She was peeking at me from over the seatback, a little girl with long dark hair that brushed the pink shoulder straps of a dress I couldn’t see the rest of. I met the gaze of wise watery brown eyes set above a cleft palate. I could see the entirety of her front teeth.
“Your nose is bleeding,” she repeated as I fumbled for the tissues lodged at the bottom of my pregnant backpack. After a few excruciating seconds, I located them and stuffed some in my right nostril. The little girl tracked my movements with intense focus.
Keeping my head back, I responded, “Thank you, I got it now.”
She said nothing to this and we kept looking at each other. I was waiting for some adult force to turn her around, but it wasn’t happening. Peering up and around, I saw this child was flying alone with three seats to herself. Fascinating.
“I’m Mexican,” she offered.
“That’s great,” I assured, settling back in. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Rosemarie and I like Ariana Grande.”
Ah, I thought, noting the serendipity. Very nice.
“It’s nice to meet you, Rosemarie. My name is Seth. Are you flying alone? Do you have parents here? Or in general?”
“Ya ya ya,” Rosemarie sang, shaking the seat in time with her chanting. Despite the lack of an upper lip, I could understand Rosemarie well enough to keep up a conversation, a relief, since I figured that dysfunctional communication was already an unfortunate staple in her young life and didn’t want to be a contributing factor to an existing angst. But watching Rosemarie as she jumped about her row and babbled into the air, comically thrilled, I felt hopeful about her quality of self-esteem.
“So yes, your parents are here in L.A.?” I tried.
“Mmmm, I think so!”
Cute. I killed my investigation there, not wanting to get too entrenched in a problem that could completely upend my trajectory. It was a selfish decision, but one informed by the certainty that someone trustworthy would assist Rosemarie sooner or later, whether by design or out of necessity. In the meantime, however, I would watch out for Rosemarie to a reasonable extent because I recognized my basic responsibilities as a citizen of the world; and, more importantly, I thought she was funny and intriguing.
The fabric in my nose was getting soggy, so I swapped it out for a fresh set. Unable to find an appropriate place for my used tissues, I held the bloody wad in a dainty pinch in front of me, eliciting disgusted looks from the men on either side of me, though neither were perturbed enough to break from their call. I thought very little of them and was glad to be an annoyance.
“What’s your favorite Ariana song?” I asked Rosemarie.
“‘no tears left to cry,’ I sing it at soccer. What’s yours?”
I thought about it for a second, then for shits and giggles replied, “‘ghostin’ is my favorite.” Rosemarie’s face dropped dramatically into a mask of severe concern, a very disconcerting switch, and I regretted not just agreeing with the weirdly opinionated child. Between dealing with a busted nose, listening for disembarkment instructions, and babysitting, I was growing more uncomfortable by the second, and Rosemarie looked like she was about to demand answers.
“‘ghostin’ is sad,” she pointed out. “Why would you like something sad?”
“Well, Rosemarie...let’s see...have you seen Finding Nemo?”
Eyebrows furrowed and air whistled through exposed baby teeth. Rosemarie nodded hastily, urging me to get to my point.
“You liked it, right?”
She did.
“But when Nemo and his dad are separated, that’s really sad, right? But by the end of the movie you’re really happy because the dad, uh, finds Nemo.”
Rosemarie nodded slower, rapt, which was relieving since I wasn’t making much sense to myself.
“So, sometimes we choose to make ourselves feel sad so that we can feel better later. I listen to ‘ghostin’ and feel sad, but usually feel better after. Does that make sense?”
Did it?
“Mmm, not reallyyyy,” Rosemarie whined dismissively while rolling her head back and forth across her forearms. The friction rose her dark, wispy arm hair, which then swayed towards her staticky cheeks like a coral reef does towards the bacteria it aims to consume. I was about Rosemarie’s age when I learned that coral reefs are alive. For me at four, the prospect of living the life of a coral reef seemed so thankless and lonely that I’d stayed up many a night worrying about it, feeling depressed. But if Rosemarie knew this fact I doubted she’d be as perturbed. She’d already moved past the issue of “ghostin” and was happily dancing again in her row G playpen. Then all of a sudden she stopped. I made a playful look at her like what? and before I could stop her, Rosemarie snatched the used, bloody tissues from my hand and popped them in her mouth like cotton candy, swallowing defiantly like I’d expressed skepticism towards her capacity to do so.
A plain-looking lady a row up saw this and asked me whether that was such a good thing to be in a little girl's mouth. I was about to express my own doubts about it when the captain announced that we could start disembarking. Everyone rose simultaneously and set about rummaging and jockeying the best they knew how, their own worst enemies of efficacy. The guy in my row with the window seat set about glaring at me; the one closest to the aisle stood to a hunch and remained like that, as stoic and pointless as the British Royal Guard. All the while, they continued their respective calls.
A wave of sweat broke out across my back in a cold sweep as I fell into utter agitation, but I couldn’t turn my attention away from Rosemarie, who looked like she was thinking about starting to cry, not from eating the bloody tissue but in response to a newer and more pressing issue, though what it could be I couldn’t fathom. Small, erratic gasps escaped from her nose that made my heart move a little. Rosemarie wanted to tell me something that I wanted to know. I put on a patient face so as not to fluster the struggling little girl, but it was getting near her turn to get off the plane and I needed to start getting my things together.
None of this turned out to be a problem. Rosemarie squeaked out her remark just as the flight stewardess arrived to escort her off the plane:
You already know! Gloria choose!
Rosemarie said this and flashed me a wide, toothful grin, satisfied like she’d finally managed to pass gas. Which might’ve been the case. She took the hand of the flight attendant and cheerfully toddled away, blabbering about cute perros. I thought the woman who’d seen Rosemarie eat my bloody tissues would make a move to rat on me to the flight attendant, but she instead went for her overhead luggage. With Rosemarie having departed, I checked on the tissues still in my nostrils. The bleeding had stopped, so I yanked them from my nose and stood to leave, waving around my dirty mass of cotton indiscriminately as I contorted my body to pocket the tissues and retrieve my light suitcase from the overhead. Making my way down the aisle, my bags thumped against every seat. I thanked the stewardesses and the captain and mulled over Rosemarie’s prophecy, lugging myself up the ramp. Her choice of words was not meaningless to me–they’d struck my gut and were clinging there like cold mud. The last person to tell me I “already know” was Gloria, and what had followed were a series of truly awful events that were all my fault.
So, I couldn’t stop myself from wondering: Who was Rosemarie that she knew Gloria’s name? And what does Gloria choose? These were spooky questions, and after surveying the myriad of miserable dead ends such questioning would take me, I decisively dropped the matter. If the answers were worth my attention, they would find me and I would deal with it then. For now, it had to be one thing at a time.
Shaking my head, I finished my journey up the ramp and made my triumphant arrival to the terminal, taking a moment to survey LAX’s churning interior, which did not strike me as very distinct from the churning interiors of other airports I’d passed through. I still recognized what I respected most about airports, their unspoken attitude that patrons should be grateful simply for having the option to fly, and that anyone requesting anything beyond the airport’s core functionality should do so with the expectation of paying for it at the highest price. There was no argument being sold that airports were cool or trendy or popular or your friend. I found them to be, in a word, honest.
I set off in the direction of baggage claim with nothing to claim, intuiting that the exit would be nearby. Stepping upon a moving walkway, I became immediately dizzy, put off by the sudden dissociation that comes from moving at two different speeds at the same time; the speed of my walking on top of the speed of the machine. I paused to grip the plasticky railing, my fingertips draping over the edge and dragging along the glass installment the railing rode upon. The friction of flesh on glass produced an excruciating squawking sound, so I adjusted my hand to make it stop, and someone behind me said, “No, don’t stop, I actually liked that sound.” It was sarcasm, brilliant and necessary. Then again: “You ever been on one of these before, young fella? You’re supposed to keep walking.”
I turned around to see that I had been blocking the path of an enormous woman wearing a cowboy hat and a red/white plaid shirt tied in a neat bow at the same place on her waist where her bluejeans began–high. Bountiful, golden curly locks spilled down her head to frame a face that looked like Shirley Temple all grown up, and she shared the child star’s playful twinkle in the eye. She’d only been teasing.
I apologized and explained that I had gotten inexplicably dizzy.
“Oh, it’s quite alright honey,” Shirley Temple replied. “That's just fine; I was just trying to be funny. But I do need you to keep walking, is all.” So we did; together now, in silence. Then completely unprompted she burst out, “But you don’t need help do you, dear? Getting to where you need to go? I can be your girl, but know that I am in a hurry, for I am just dying to get these puppies treated,” gesturing down to her tiny feet, the flesh of which was spilling out like squeezed putty from her sandals. “I’m going to see my sister and she has just purchased her own pedicure parlor, and I don’t know if I’m happier for me or her!” She laughed gaily to herself and gently patted my back.
“Uh,” I checked my phone, taking it off airplane mode. My phone buzzed and it was two texts from Gloria sent two hours ago, which I scanned while sustaining my uh. She couldn’t pick me up and now I had her address. “...Uhhh, okay, yes, actually: Is there anything I should know about taking an Uber from the airport?” We were at the end of the walkway and apparently the hilarity of what I had said was so immense that the Shirley-alike guffawed and shoved me to the ground, a recently polished linoleum that extended my slide to ten feet at least. I scrambled lamely to my feet, ignoring the glares of pedestrians who huffed and skirted around me.
“Oh you are just the sweetest thing,” she cooed, catching up and dusting me off, “That settles it: You just stick with me, mister! We’re going to the same place. Come, come.” The woman linked her arms with mine like I was the Tin Man, and we were off. She was much stronger and faster than me, so it wasn’t easy to keep in step.
“We should formally meet now, no? My name is Barley Hoof and it is a pleasure to meet you young man,” Barley Hoof said, looking straight ahead and bellowing her introduction down the long halls of the airport. She crossed her opposite arm to shake my hand with sincere vigor, which was effectively endearing. Being so close to Barley Hoof also introduced a key element of kinship between us, being that she, too, was soaked in sweat. The point where our armpits conjoined was unreasonably damp, practically dripping, and I feared that bacteria would start being born in the time it took for us to arrive at baggage claim.
“I’m Seth,” I said, “and it’s a pleasure to meet you, Barley Hoof. Thank you very much for your help.” I gave her a dapper little nod and she squealed in delight. Truthfully, I felt fully capable of navigating myself out of the airport and into an Uber, but doing it with Barley Hoof promised to be way more interesting than doing it alone.
As we walked along, Barley pointed at everything in the airport and told me what it was in infantilizing tones that I neither encouraged or dissuaded. Barley asked me if we were friends, and I replied that I supposed we were, because why not. The first thing Barley did when we arrived at her baggage claim was pinky promise that her bags wouldn’t show up because they “never do;” but they did, even if it was a bit touch and go for a bit, as Barley kept picking up other people’s bags. Barley didn’t believe in the optic assessment; she had to pick up each bag to know if it was hers. If the real owner objected, she would assure them, “Honey, I have never taken a bag that was not mine in my life.” Needless to say, tensions were hot until she finally got her own humongous suitcase, lifting it like it was nothing and leading me out into the unseasonably mild, but still beautifully bright, day, featuring wide, blue skies and air that felt like nothing.
We stood on the sidewalk for a little while as Barley gathered her wits and I overstimulated myself, reading all the signs for all the different services, watching a wide array of marked and unmarked vehicles hurtle down four different lanes of traffic, drawing what conclusions I could from studying traveling strangers and inventing qualifications that could differentiate natives from visitors.
I wasn’t able to come to any striking conclusions because, suddenly, Barley’s attention snapped up from her own phone and she started talking really fast. “Okay. Okay, Seth, we actually want to be on that shuttle that is just about to close its doors, so come with me quick quick quick, come come come,” and we made it to the doors of the UBER ZONE EXPRESS just as the last person waiting in line got on. An attendant inside the bus ordered all the passengers to make space for us. From over Barley’s broad, tanned shoulder I could see that absolutely no one was moving. “Thanks anyway,” Barley said to the attendant graciously, giving the pretty Latina a five. Meanwhile, I was barely on the shuttle, huddled on the first step inside, and when the door closed it pushed against my full-to-bursting backpack to put me in a pinch against Barley’s rear. I apologized profusely to Barley, but she was engaged with the attendant, who was telling her that we still had to find a seat before the bus could go.
“But don’t you think me and my friend could stay standing here for the ride?” Barley asked in a stage whisper, nodding at the five in the woman’s hand like we were all in on a secret.
“I’m sorry, but it is for the safety of all the passengers that you find a seat. I’m sure people will make room, they always do.”
The attendant’s tone was heartbreakingly patient, an effort much more generous than any of her customers could have deserved. Barley, I guess, disagreed; she glared at the attendant for a second, then, fast as a viper, boxed her ear in a movement that was cruel as it was precise. I watched haplessly from behind. The attendant let out a small gasp and recoiled, but righted herself just as quickly to stare stonily at Barley and inform her that she still had to find a seat before we could leave. Barley glared at her enemy, grabbed my hand, and steadily began moving towards seating. “Give a mouse a cookie, dear; it’s the same everywhere. See if I ever try to work with a beaner again. Don’t be shy now, let’s get us a seat! Now you and me, that’s a good team, I wish I could keep you, you're so cute!” My mind went back to my body and became re-aware of its sweat, exacerbated by the cramped space. Heavier misery ensued. Somehow an adequate spot materialized at the back, which I attributed to Barley’s public violence. Give a mouse a cookie, indeed.
I sat on Barley’s lap and the shuttle left the station. Three signs along the road told me the ride would be five minutes. I looked around at everyone’s faces to find expressions that implied some unique West Coast machinations, but what I saw was merely barely-bottled impatience in transit, a global phenomenon.
“Barley,” I said tentatively, looking halfway over my shoulder, “Did you really have to hit the attendant? Maybe a bit much?” If I’m being honest, my desire was less to embark on a racial equity training session with Barley and more to clear my conscience of complicity. At least I was offering a reconsideration. Barley reached from behind to pat my knee, but missed her target a few times, making it look like she was waving goodbye to a very small person beside us before finally making contact.
“Oh, sweet Seth. If only it were so simple.” And she left it at that.
Unsure of how to rebuke such a vague explanation, I looked out the window to distract myself with the sight of my first palm trees, standing guard alongside the access roads winding about LAX like tangled tentacles sprouting from the head of an octopus. The UBER ZONE EXPRESS rumbled up, down, out, and around its paved path, taking all the appropriate exits and being generally unremarkable. My fellow passengers assumed the postures typically found on such unremarkable transits, all of which gave the impression that the effect of gravity had inexplicably strengthened, pulling the corners of everyone’s mouths down into frowns, furrowing brows, hunching backs, and pushing gazes to lap-level, where the phone was.
The ride was short, and I spent it getting lost in the blue expanse above, enormous and wide as the nearby ocean it mirrored. The moon was making one of its rare daytime appearances, its face startlingly in-focus, a stark juxtaposition with the fuzzy glow donned in the dark. I knew Gloria probably wasn’t appreciating the same moon because her job kept her inside (this was all I knew about it), which was a shame because she’d always had a certain affinity for it. Not in the witchy way that was popular with some of our peers; it didn’t play a role in her lifestyle or anything; it was just that, in our time together at school, I’d noticed it was always the first thing Gloria looked for when we stepped out into the night. She would keep talking, but whilst doing so, unconsciously, her neck would crane back, pulling the skin of her soft throat taught, and she would do a quick 360, or how many ever degrees went by before she spotted where the moon had nestled itself among the stars. It was only nine months we had been together, but it felt like I’d watched Gloria search for that moon a thousand times.
It was with great relief that I saw our destination crest over the horizon. Being unharnessed and barely balanced upon Barley Hoof’s crotch was taking its toll on my thigh muscles, which burned with the effort of keeping me and my baggage upright. The UBER ZONE EXPRESS came to a stop and the doors hissed open. Someone’s handbag-bound chihuahua hit me in the face and we all shuffled off the bus like souls on Charon’s ferry getting dropped off at Hell. Or, if you were feeling cynical, you could argue there was no simile at play.
Hitting the pavement, I squinted through the brightness of late morning to take account of the UBER ZONE, which could have been mistaken for a small village. Vehicles of all makes and models swarmed the hive, going in and out between four parallel platforms labeled A to D, picking up passengers and zooming off to pollinate the city. There was some system in place I couldn’t figure out that made the platforms disproportionately populated; B was hot and C was barely manned. Once I’d submitted my request for a ride to the appropriate app, my phone almost immediately informed me that José was waiting for me in Lot A.
Barley Hoof stepped to my side and rifled through her purse to locate, then slip on, a pair of gawk-worthy, white-rimmed sunglasses. Letting out a melodious sigh, Barley grasped me by the shoulders and held me out in front of her for a final appraisal. She licked her thumb and attempted to enforce law and order to my unruly mess of hair, pushing my bangs this way and that, trying to get my follicles in line with my scalp. This I tolerated with saint-like patience. Finally she surrendered and saucily cocked her hips, resting one hand on the shelf provided. This was the end of us.
“Alright honey, we must be on our merry ways. Perhaps our paths will cross once more, someday. It’s been such a pleasure, Seth, my dear.” I nodded and spoke in assent with a smile. We performed another excellent handshake and went our separate ways. I had almost reached my ride when I heard my name being called by...well, by who else? I turned and saw Barley’s pink hand waving me down. She kept yelling my name, so I signaled with my own wave that she had my attention. Barley got to her point and projected it through the land with a heavy, stirring vibrato:
You can’t always get what you want! But if you–
“Okay, great, thank you!” I called, pivoting away curtly before she could sing any more. I didn’t like ending our episode on such a sour note, but it had been only thirty minutes since I’d landed in Los Angeles and I was already sick of everyone prophesying at me. The moral of the tune wasn’t lost on me, and I could guess at its relevance to me, Gloria, and my visit to L.A., but that line of thought wasn’t interesting to me. And then I recalled how unapologetically racist Barley had been and it was an easy way to make me care even less about what she had to say.
Proud to have freed my mind from bullshit two times over, and in such quick succession, I whistled as I strolled over to José’s Toyota Matrix. José jumped out of the car, and I saw him to be a portly fellow in slacks and a red polo that exposed the liver spots on his arm. He asked me if I was who I’d claimed to be, and I said yes and returned the question, to which he answered yes. I thanked him for his service and he smiled and said it was no problem, bouncing his bushy mustache up and down, and when he offered to put my stuff in the trunk, I opted, instead, to hold it in the backseat. José already had our destination plugged into the car’s GPS, an address near Beverly Hills that Gloria had texted me earlier. Starting the car and pulling out, José mercifully only asked me one more question about myself.
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