Well, I Had to Get Down Somehow

Well, I Had to Get Down Somehow

So there I was at 41,000 feet and in the dark. Not too dark. The seat-back monitors gave a little light. The psychiatrist and I visited beneath the roar of the engines. I asked him about Moslem women’s covering vs. not covering. Some of the ladies were as conventionally dressed as any woman walking down the aisle of a supermarket in heartland America. One was swathed in scarves and clothes, head to foot. The only part you could see of her was from the bridge of her nose to her eyebrows. If you travel in Pakistan and Iraq, some women totally cover themselves, looking like black ghosts. All that breaks the black on black is a bit of white mosquito netting covering the window, allowing a way for her to see out. He explained that to what degree a person was to follow the Law was up to the individual. Outside Iran as well as the other more conservative parts of the Islamic world, there is less stress on public taste. Before the revolution in Iran, I remember Tehran in 1967 as being a very liberal way of life. The women were Fifth Avenue fashionable. Your main concern then was getting across the street and living to tell about it.

He was good enough to tune me into my choice of movies, Pirates of the Caribbean, the first in the series. The sell there was a presentation of what the public wants to think about rather than what the public has to think about. When people are stressed they revert to child-like choices. Shirley Temple and the Dionne Quintuplets were the stars of the Thirties. “Everything I Ever Needed to Know in Life, I Learned on my Way to Kindergarten” and Jonathan Livingston Seagull came in the later part of the century. There has always been a sector of the entertainment market for MGM and Bollywood. The choreography and effects were good. After a while I got the agendas confused but I wondered if any of it could hold my interest, which it did. I watched till the kiss and the parting.

There were “classics” to choose from. Father of the Bride for one. My seatmate watched Roman Holiday. Having seen it a half-dozen times, I passed but would glance over at his screen from time to time remembering what was happening.

Of course I tried to sleep but don’t remember losing the train of events which amounted to little more than waiting. Then the psychiatrist and the fellow who wrote the essay, decided to switch seats. The essayist had two seats to himself to the right of the aisle and since the armrest can be raised, the two seats made a bed, albeit a short one. So the trade was made and I found a young man dressed in traditional black with an over smock-like cassock covering him down to about his knees. In India many women wear an over covering much the same but out of lighter material and in every color there is.

The new fellow was clever electronically. He checked on Makkah’s direction then rubbed his face from top down as if washing up. He listened to some music – parts of the Koran sung. Then he checked if we had changed our direction in relation to Makkah and then he watched a snatch of a movie all the while changing his position in his seat. He “washed” his face again as he recited beneath his breath. After which he curled up, put his head on my shoulder, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep. No drooling. But in order to go to sleep, he needed to be still and that he couldn’t do. He read papers. The Koran was no where in sight. And these activities he repeated randomly over and over. After several hours, the psychiatrist awoke and traded back.

The psychiatrist scored a thick beefsteak with potatoes. I asked him where he got it. He said the essayist gave it to him. I think that once he went back to his seat, he decided that he was hungry and bugged the stewardess until she gave him something to eat…which happened to be the food overage for first class. Of course he wasn’t that hungry so he gave it to the psychiatrist. About forty-five minutes later there’s a row, starboard, aft. The psychiatrist reported that the essayist had dropped off to sleep and the stewardess asked if he still wanted whatever is was that he last requested thereby waking him up. He quieted down after a while and we looked at the map of Europe and saw that we had clipped the lower part of Norway, had flown over Jutland, and were heading for Prussia. Makkah had slipped more abeam. And the cheering thought was that this night would not last much longer.

I had been told by the public health lady in New York to flex my legs, to get up and walk around. The distance to the lavatory wasn’t really a hike and when I looked over the faces of the other passengers, that really didn’t make me feel any better. If you traveled long distances by bus before the advent of air conditioning, the company looked something like that. Travel weariness has its own cosmetic kit. I didn’t look any better. When I took my seat again, I looked out that far window to see if I could see the wing. Dark.

I asked the psychiatrist how he happened to choose psychiatry. He liked the hours. I asked him about some illness or another and he fished out a well-worn little book that described at least the more common maladies. First was the name. Then came a brief overview of the illness. No treatment was prescribed. To the left of the name was a number. He explained that this was the problem’s id number and they entered that code into the computer and the health workers were paid by the time and code they entered. I had one ailment in mind but as usual when I look up anything, I get distracted to the point of wondering what it was I was going to look up. In this case, I checked out the sex problems to see if there were any that I had not experienced and then afterward I read up on ADS. I thought I had got it about right and showed him the book. “Have you encountered any of this lately?” I asked. He grinned but said nothing. That diagnosis would not go into the data bank.

Day did light the airplane wing and with a breakfast, I tuned into the view from the plane’s nose. The belly camera malfunctioned. And not surprising I saw cloud and while the map was not all that detailed, I think were over the western part of the old USSR. Somewhere down there was the Caspian Sea. The inland sea would fall into a like classification as Newfoundland but the clouds get in the way.

Then the announcement came and the pressure built in the ears and I watched the clouds on the monitor. The lower we flew, the more individuality the cloud formations displayed and between the breaks another color of blue – the Persian Gulf. We wouldn’t have to watch it in the gauche colors on the map. When the land showed up, the water looked even better. Color went from a deep blue to a turquoise to a sandy gold. Looked like a good place to go swimming unless there was something down there that bit. We all looked forward to getting off the plane.

Having left New York late and not picking up enough jet stream help, we still ran well behind time. There should have been a two hour plus layover in Abu Dhabi. I wondered if the flight to Mumbai had already left. The thousand dollar a night hotels are famous but I’m not and I have no expense account. In another life. Both the psychiatrist and the essayist would be changing planes and going on to Karachi. I think that most of the passengers were Pakistani. And so we tried to remember what we brought with us a day or a night ago or whatever you refer to this 18 hours of living in the tube that chopped into two days. I watched the monitor. We flew past the beaches and I could see the runway ahead.

Dubai can’t grow fast enough. I can’t say what was happening downtown but the airport is still in the shell. There are buildings but little is finished.

What happened next was almost a walk down memory lane. We came down a ramp which had been pushed up to the fuselage and walked across the tarmac to a waiting bus. We were walking on the ground like we did in the pre-security days. I don’t think that they let you put your foot on the ground in Nome.

They divided Karachi and Mumbai passengers and the planes had waited. I took a quick look around the horizon. Midland/Odessa has had a wet year and so there is more mesquite with foliage than what was supposed to be growing around the airport. You want trees? Somebody in Abu Dhabi will surely sell you some trees. The more pressing matter was re-boarding. Then up and away and in a short time, pressure again built in my ears and this time, I looked out again a far window at a shanty town. No doubt about, subdivisions do not allow Beijing blue tarps to stop rain and sun or to become a permanent part of the structure. The edge of the settlement reached into the haze on mid-afternoon.

Then the jolt of touchdown and there endeth the longest flight in miles and duration that I’ve ever experienced. I was most happy to deplane. I would pass through a utilitarian air terminal, Socialist gray walls with money changers’ desks stationed along the baseboard. I’d buy a prepaid taxi ride of at least a dozen miles, maybe more. But for the moment I lugged a pack and briefcase toward some glass doors that could use some Windex. Just on the other side of the glass was where what I remember and what is real at this moment meet head on. From my point of view, just beyond the doors lay “the Real India.”

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