f-stop
©2008 Gordon Highland
I slide the latch to occupado and twist my bloated torso to dwell in reflection. Bilingual warnings crowd the edges and frame this household face with federal offenses. Stick figures and iconography dignify the illiterati, each strikethrough pre-empting another lawsuit. Turbulent bowels bought me a momentÕs reprieve, but they now cower before the stainless-steel shitter.
We call these commercial breaks.
I tousle saltwater hair into its trademark thatch. Lips audition variations on the brood IÕd been working since Sea-Tac. Quick inspection reveals no nostril powder residue, but conditioned vessels inflame them all the same. TheyÕll have to wait for Denver. Pearl buttons strain to hold the remnants of my vintage western shirt together. I pocket the loose ring orbiting my wedding finger.
Fluorescents bathe all in the clinical green tints Vlad always bitches about.
A suicide-proof lavatory permits no sharp corners. I white-knuckle the handle next to the mirror when the floor drops and leaves my heart weightless. Red- and blue-labeled taps overstate the temperatures within. Both dribble tepid. ItÕs a flawed palette; every stoned hockey fan has once awed at red ice and blue flame. I think I record a cell phone memo to blog about this later, to argue for orange and white instead, but my pressurized eardrums dampen all tones below the threshold of the twin Rolls-Royces on the wing.
The toilet lid warns not to flush illustrated combs or maxi pads or infants. It mentions nothing of careers. I blow my fiending nose on the last of the single-ply and defy the posted two-handed waste disposal procedure. The stewardess-call button tempts my finger to test her in the can offer.
I tongue my porcelain veneers, switch to vacant, and prepare to act natural.
VladÕs handheld camcorder captures my exit and trails me back to my seat, then settles across the aisle and frames me in profile. With his head buried in the viewfinder, his thinning pate betrays his youth. That asymmetrical grin climbs his face again and suggests either nerve damage or a cast model for tragedy/comedy masks.
His copilot editor draws the window shade enough to snuff laptop glare yet still pass oblique rays onto the blurs of his hands. Headphones cancel cabin noise and flood his Korean canals with my weekend, depriving all but the two requisite senses. He trims. He juxtaposes. He composes the gospel according to demographic ratings. In shadow, sweat streams from his flat-topped temples.
I lean forward to finger the seatback pocketÕs propaganda and the headrest LCD lunges for my face with three hundred pounds of force as its hippo reclines. A U.S. trajectory map loops on the screen. Our California-sized Airbus gains maybe one eastbound pixel per minute at 455 miles per hour.
Her life story fades in from my left, projecting tales of county-fair royalty and lecherous casting agents onto her calves and thighs in my peripheral. Certainly a personal trainer tones them to perfection daily. A precision scar near the anterior cruciate ligament goes taut as she plays those gams like a tranquilized cricket. Their song fuses with notes of almond, possibly vanilla, and now my constricting jeans rewrite the previous scenes. Her hand grasps mine for emphasis and I ease into eye contact.
A prismatic earring blinds me in a rainbow before I adjust to her rebuilt nose and heat-seeking eyes. Each drills through one of my own. She shrugs the shoulders of an ex-tomboy. Above her rugged clavicle, a lump bobs with each syllable now silent as I tune elsewhere.
An alert chimes, and our descent accelerates the urgency of her pitch. I gurn and yawn my jaw as the altitude outpaces the electronics and crushes my inner ears in its vice.
VladÕs lens targets my perpetual agony.
The ingˇnueÕs denim skirt inches up her thigh while her hands paint ambitions I cannot enable. Muted laughter dies in the valley of our shared armrest, oblivious to the air pressure.
We taxi to the jetway and seatbelts unhinge with symphonic timing. The aisle surges with pessimists late for connections. Bags and baubles from overhead bins tumble onto the unsuspecting.
The editor slams down his laptop lid and wipes his leaking eyes with his sleeve. His lip trembles and nostrils flare as he shields himself and turns to the window to unveil only the twilight tarmac crew. He releases a valve on his case and its concave sides return to their preflight shape.
Vlad reaches up for an aerial view as I shuffle without baggage through the still-packing loiterers in this clogged artery.
I breach the threshold of the jetway, where a burly steadicam operator backpedals to match my foot speed, racks focus, and grunts into his intercom. We float away on the fluid steps of a dancer while my hips ache in sympathy. Behind him, his spotter tugs at his masterÕs steadi-vest and steers our pace car as he hacks a path with his arm-as-machete. Passenger footsteps boom and tote wheels clatter as we march through the tunnelÕs telescoping modules. With my view obstructed by production and the corrugated walls vignetting my peripheral vision, I lock onto the cameraÕs red beacon for guidance.
A gate agent shouts connection statuses over the terminalÕs din. She nods with a knowing grin as I pass. Beyond the glass in general population, robotic reverberations of FAA warnings bounce around the vast concrete structure. The robot no doubt conspires with the lavatory police.
The steadicam invites me to lead and arcs to my rear. Sensors trigger the doors to the real world and IÕm blasted with conditioned air for two paces in the transom.
Another lens engulfs my face, then flies away like a startled bird. It tilts and sweeps over the terminal facade, attached to a crane in short-term parking.
An African man in a maroon suit lounges curbside against an SUV limousine, cap down like VladÕs eternal head. He stubs out a cigarillo, pitches his tabloid through the window, and sprints toward us, cap in hand. My handwritten alias stares back from a sheet of landscape notebook paper, misspelled. He beams with a hundred tiny teeth and opens the back door.
A starved wrist extends a cocktail from the darkness. Though soda taints the single-malt, enough booze still mingles in my bloodstream that I donÕt barter for a bump before this rolling disco goes wheels-up.
My five new castmates peel off into guy/girl conversations and perform as if this werenÕt the show. The pursed-lip heiress tongues an ice cube and circles her cocktail rim with her middle finger while some aging headbanger boasts of his superior tour bus accommodations. She eyefucks me over his shoulder. A football player sports his own jersey and clouds the air with sweet leaf. Diamonds glint as he snickers through his gold fronts and slaps the lungs off a coughing novice. The fledgling toker clears his puka-shelled throat and inverts a bottle of domestic. He slumps in the leather bench and his bronzed, sandaled feet invade my comfort zone. The tribal biceps ink says heÕs a recent island-game-show expatriate.
Fiber-optic constellations dot the roof. Turquoise Leo dances with fuschia Sagittarius, and the Big DipperÕs handle blinks a path to the North Star, while the earthbound stars light up with drink and smoke.
My own scene partner stands bisected by the moonroof. Her famous waxed legs pogo in strappy heels. Cranberry and vodka splosh above my lap as she squeals into the windy Denver night. I press my face to the tinted window and glimpse the camera car as it passes in a flyby. It brakes for another take, and her squeals persist, enthusiasm unabated.
I scratch at the irritated spot over my heart where the taped lavaliere mic always nests, and Vlad recoils from his headphones. Two flatpanel TVs buzz with static and broadcast his feet. He spews a string of foul Russian under his breath, squats into the corner, then fills the frame with the ice queen as she nibbles at the rockerÕs jugular.
Subs woof and regulate our vitals. My guts quease in urban submission. Oncoming headlights silhouette a phone-eared producer behind the partition as he likely scrambles to license this song and schedule a dialogue replacement session for tomorrow. My pocket vibrates and I tap the stylus to confirm the appointment. Everyone echoes the move, classically conditioned, while our necks groove in rhythm slavery. Mirrored strobes fragment the walls and attentions until halations of red and blue intensify and rope the limo to a stop.
Rock Dinosaur seizes this chance to fade the music, and our nerves ramble in chatter about the trouble we presume we donÕt face. Five minutes gone, I vote to power down the tailgate window, and its frosted mountain logo disappears.
Our driver and his teeth flail cheek-down on the gravel shoulder with a uniformed forearm at his neck. A zip tie binds his wrists, and his jacket pools maroon as a thyroid-hampered trooper spits epithets in his ear.
His willowy partner raps at our side window, tips his cap to our fantasy entourage, and requests an audience with the one his notepad names Vlad.
Red and blue, hot and cold.
Our collective heads snap to the resident cinematographer. I swallow my orange-and-white lecture. Vlad latches the viewfinder and unplugs a cable. The plasmas cut to chroma blue. He collapses his headphones and dismounts with more reserve than IÕve seen in weeks.
Stunned, each of us pans to the other until the decision dominoes to me. I cradle the camcorder, replug, and find the play button. No servos whir, no heads connect, no tape in the chamber.