Case of mistaken identity
Delta flight 937, seat 39A afforded a perfect view of Manhattan as the old 737 lurched away from the earth. Central Park looked like a hayfield lost in a sea of cement. Down inside that endless cluster of buildings, taxis raced, sirens blared, and herds of people stampeded like buffalo. Soon I'd be among them, so I'd promised a man who was just then probably fighting traffic somewhere near the Empire State building. 39B was dressed all in black except for a little white eclipse at the neckline. He was handsome, tall and delicate. He held a Dover-Thrift edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets and a small, beat-up cardboard box in his lap. I watched the city get small, happy and sad to see it go. The Big Promise sat a little easier when I was on the ground, arm in arm with the promised one. Now I was wringing my hands and cursing myself for doing it. "I memorize poetry in my spare time," said 39B with an ever-so-soft Southern drawl when I pointed to the book. He was Travis from Knoxville, Tenn., he said. There were a bunch of guys dressed like Travis on the plane. I took them for Jesuits. Memorizing poetry seemed a fitting endeavor for a Jesuit. New York was turning into little green rectangles, more like the flat plains where I grew up. The promised one grew up in a housing complex where 65,000 people lived within three square miles. There weren't 65,000 people in my county. We couldn't be more different, the promised one and I. I favor Wordsworth, I told 39B, who replied, "'For oft, when on my couch I lie, in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon that inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude; and then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils.'" I wondered how many men were left on earth who could recite poetry. 39B inquired after my travels. I told him of the Big Promise. He smiled, Tennessee polite, eyes averted, and said it sounded like an interesting twist in the journey. That seemed a very Jesuit thing to say. I leaned against the window, remembering that's really all it is. Life is just a journey. I could either hand-wring and turn circles for the rest of mine, or get on with the adventure. When 39B wasn't concentrating over the Shakespeare paperback, he was fiddling with the cardboard box. Again and again, he carefully opened it and pulled out what looked like an ordinary hairbrush. He'd caress the handle, run his fingertips over the bristles, then return it ceremoniously to the box. Sometimes it takes a stranger to say exactly what we need to hear. Friends and family have too much invested. If we go down, they go down. Strangers have that unobscured perspective that hits right in the gut, makes you say, "Oh, yeah." In fact, I'm not altogether convinced these people are strangers. I think they're angels. I've met them at work, on airplanes and mountain tops, in bars and next door. They hush my wringing hands, slow my racing mind and lead me for moment through Wordsworth's daffodils, that quiet place in each of our hearts no one can take away. "Tell me the story of the brush," I said. It was a Mason-Pearson, one of the finest in the world, he said. He scored it for $75 in a little Manhattan drug store. Why so much for a hairbrush, I wondered. "I'm a hairdresser," he said. Next time I'm in Knoxville, I believe I'll get a haircut. Monday, March 23, 1998 |