Dallas/Fort Worth international Airport (DFW)

June 2005, Flying While Black

I'm returning to Tucson from PA, happy to be halfway home and sipping wine. To my left are three characters who engage me some mild chit chat.  At the far end of our cluster is a large woman with a south Philly accent.  She has a loud laugh which feels generous. She's going to Tucson too and we recognized each other from the bar in PHL. Beside her is a classic Dallas blonde bombshell who is already tipsy and wiggles her manicured fingers over her red zinfandel when she talks. Between Dallas-gal and me is a black man named Derreck with an African-sounding last name. Without Derreck the rest of us would never have become a grouping.

Derreck, who fascinates us all, tells exciting stories about his success that combined with the generous laugh of Philly-lady and the wiggling red nails of Dallas-gal makes me feel incredibly optimistic. 

I order my merlot and Derreck asks the waitress for a napkin.  I get my drink, but no napkin appears for Derreck.

Derreck tells us about how he worked for a small internet company that was bought by Yahoo!! He tells is it so enthusiastically that Dallas-gal actually says "Yaaa-hoo!" and would have waved her cowboy hat, had she been wearing one.  Instead, the fingers wiggle a little faster than normal and don't fold into her palms when she's finished.

"Now I get to travel ALL OVER," Derreck actually beams as he says this. I'm grinning too.  There is something beautiful and refreshing about the way he makes us all feel successful.

He tries to flag the waitress again, and is ignored again.  I notice the frustration on his face. The waitress asks Philly-lady how she's doing.  Derreck leans across Dallas-gal to get the waitress' attention.  I am shocked as the waitress appears to actively ignore him, yet slaps the napkin he was requesting onto the bar without looking his way.  Derreck takes a deep breath while studying the napkin. Then, he seems pleased to have the napkin and shows no indications of anger.

Derreck proceeds to tell us the ins and outs of traveling all the time for work.  Dallas-gal is especially interested in learning about valet parking at the Dallas airport.

"Such a time saver!" Derreck proclaims. Then excused himself from conversation to make a rental car call to Los Angeles. When he hangs up, he drains his beer.  The waitress is refilling Dallas-gal's zin and Derreck asks for a refill, "Please?".  The waitress walks away without acknowledging that she hears him. "Hey!" He calls after her. "Excuse me!" He's standing on the rung of his stool leaning over the bar.  Amazingly, his tone is not angry.

She returns and pours him a beer, saying nothing.

"Thanks!" Derreck chirps. 

I am impressed with his control, and wish I had some of Derreck's characteristics.

Dallas/Fort Worth international Airport (DFW)

September 2004, Who Were Those Masked Ministers?

I squeeze myself in at the end of the bar at the TGIFriday's in terminal C.  I'm standing on my toes, leaning and stretching to shout my drink order to the bartender. Beside me is an older man and a younger man.  The younger man looks too young to drink, but he's holding a beer. Our luggage is piled together in such a stack that I briefly ponder crafting my own bar stool out of it.  I decide it might be dangerous.  I hover over the pile instead.  

The men are talking about "the service." I'm only half listening because I'm distracted by their demeanor with each other. I wonder if they are father and son.  Doesn't seem like it. They have too much familiar ease (Was that an ironic statement?). Maybe they are uncle and nephew. Maybe lovers. I settle on lovers. Older man keeps leaning in to make another point. Younger man nods, looks over, makes a brief response and reverts to gazing at the TV behind the bar.  They are very comfortable together.  Enough to hold a friendly conversation while barely paying attention to each other.

"We're getting ready to leave." Older man says to me, "Do you want this seat?"

"Sure." I say.

"We're headed back to Vermont." Older man continues.

I nod.

"We were here for my mother's funeral." Older man says.

"I'm sorry," I respond.

"Been coming for a long time," he says and finishes his beer. "We're ministers," he tells me.

I nod again, this time adding a "Hmm." to note my mild interest. I note that I was right to suspect they were not related.

"He came down to do the service." Older man indicates Younger man.

I'm dying to ask why, but they are suddenly occupied with slinging luggage on to their shoulders and bustling out.  I watch them go, still filled with questions, and order a quesadilla.

Dallas/Fort Worth international Airport (DFW)

March 2004, Cowtown Bar, I Hope Michael Moore Reads This

"It's not as good as you think." She tells me, taking a big swig of her Molson.

"Really?"

"No. A lot of Canadians come to the U.S. for surgeries."

"Why?"

"Because they don't have to wait," she raises her eyebrows.

"But do they pay for American surgeries?" I ask, picturing the bills for thousands and thousands of dollars.

"Yes."

I gasp. "The cost beats the wait?" This is very hard to believe!  I thought Canadians loved their healthcare!  

"Yes."

"Wow. That's pretty bad."

She is a short haired women in khaki pants and a plain white t-shirt.  She appears to be neat and orderly and wears burgundy tinged rectangular glasses.  She is sitting alone at the corner of the bar when I join her. She starts the conversation by asking, "Where ya headed?"  I respond and ask her the same question.

"Montreal."

"Are you Canadian?" I ask.

"I live there, but I grew up in San Antonio.  I was there for my mother's funeral."

"I'm sorry," I say.

"She was old," She says, shrugging and gulping her beer.

We talk about old age, retirement and nursing homes, which leads us to the topic of socialized healthcare.

I take away two morals: 1.) The grass is always greener, and 2.) If you've got the money you can get the services, but you might not want to get them in Canada unless you've got a lot of time on your hands and you'd prefer to spend the money on jewels or trips to expensive places like Moscow.

Tucson International Airport (TUS)

June 2004, Last Chance Saloon

"Do you remember me?" I ask.

"Yes, she says.  "You'd like a merlot." My heart sinks.  "How's your granddad?" She asks.

I could cry.  "Fran," I say, "I feel just terrible."

"Oh!  I'm so sorry!" Her eyes wet with sympathy.

"No, no, my grandfather is still doing OK.  I feel terrible because the last time I was here I asked you to break a twenty so I could tip you and then I left without tipping you!" I'm begging for forgiveness.  I hate the thought of kind and good Fran holding bitterness in her heart toward me.  It would be like Mother Teresa spitting at you.

"You did?" She asks, putting on that sweet smile and lowering her eyes to watch my glass fill.

"Yes!" I proclaim, "So take this, please!" I hand her a twenty dollar bill.

"No!" She says, humbly, waving a napkin at me, "Oh no!"

"Yes!" I insist, "This has been on my conscience ever since it happened. Please. Help me out."

"Well, OK." She blushes as she takes the money and I am released. Still loved by Fran! From then on, when she saw me coming, the merlot was in the glass waiting for me before I even got to the bar, and she always asked about my Granddad.

Tucson International Airport (TUS)

May 2004, The Last Stop Saloon

"My grandfather is dying," I say to the bartender. She tells me her name is Fran.

"I'm so sorry." she says.

Three merlots (my flight was delayed) and a chicken quesadilla later, I ask Fran to break a twenty, "so I can give you a tip," I say.

She counts out five, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen seventeen, eighteen nineteen and twenty and pushes the bills toward me. Fran has the kindest face.  I could fall in love with her. That's not the merlot talking either.

"Thanks!" I say and proceed to shove the cash into my wallet with great effort.  Somewhere over Las Cruces the flight attendant hands me a plastic cup of water, and I realize it.  Of shit! I didn't tip Fran!

Chicago O'Hare (ORD)

July 2004: Out-living My Expectations

My sister calls.  "How's Poppy?" I ask without saying hello. I expect the worst. 

"He's sitting up.  Reading the comics." She says.

"WHAT?" I raise my voice, "he's supposed to be dead!"  

I'm at PF Changs in O'Hare.  I'm drinking Merlot and eating squash soup. Just five hours earlier I was relaxing at home in the hammock with a book, the dog asleep on the bricks below me. The monsoon clouds were roiling along the mountains and some distant thunder rumbles were sounding promising.  Then I got the call, bought this ticket, re-arranged my whole life and left for the airport in less than 30 minutes. Poppy's dying, my sister told me. This is it. Get here now. 

The guy next to me at the bar looks over. 

"Well, that's good, but I can't believe it." I say, lowering my voice.

"I KNOW!" My sister sounds incredulous "We really thought this time was it."

I am suddenly filled with guilt.  I'm glad he's not dead.  He'll still be there when I arrive tonight. I am a little angry though.  The hammock, the book, the pooch and the thunder...not to mention the simple pleasure of being home for a weekend with nothing to do.

"I'm glad I'm coming home." I say.

"I know." She says.

"I'll be glad to see him," I say.

"You will," She says. 

Chicago O'Hare (ORD)

June 2004: You say merlot?

The bartender, a small asian woman, doesn't appear to speak much English, but she winks a lot. Big exaggerated winks that crinkle up the side of her face and end with broad grins and a quick head nod. Real Liza Minelli winks. I order a merlot.  It arrives with a wink and smile. I begin drinking and take in the surroundings.  I'm in a bar called Prairie Tap, which I think a nice name.  Wholesome sounding.  Makes me think of amber waves of grain, big wooden barrels and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Nice logo too.  I'm staring at it across the bar.  It's very Frank Lloyd Wright. The glass is about two-thirds empty when the bartender walks past.  She stops and gapes at the glass.  

"You say Merlot?" she asks in her heavy accent, pointing at the glass and giving me a look of horror.

I nod. Maybe the accent is Korean.

"Oh shit! This cabernet!" She grabs the glass, dumps the remaining wine into the sink with a violent twitch of her wrist and gives me a new glass of wine. "On house! on house!" She cries and gives me the wink.

A few minutes later as she walks past, I order a salmon burger.  She winks, produces the merlot bottle from behind the bar and sloshes my glass full without speaking. I hadn't indicated that I wanted a refill, but I accept it and think its good prairie-hospitality. She winks again, leaning pretty far over the bar this time.  It's a wide bar, otherwise I might have thought she was being rather forward.

A variation on this event happens five times. One other time she does the "Oh shit! You say merlot!" thing.  Four other times she simply grabs the bottle and gushes wine into my glass without words.  I never protest, eat my salmon burger, and eventually remember that I'm in the airport for more than wine and salmon burgers.  I frantically check my cell phone for the time. I haven't miss my flight yet, but I might have to run for the gate. I ask for a check, suddenly considering that a glass of  wine in an airport costs between seven and nine dollars a glass. This bill could be more than I paid for my rental car. As I try to shake the fuzziness out of my head so that I can do some tip-math with the check, I think, "Damn!  This bartender is good."  I wonder how much 15% is going to be. She gave me good service, but can I afford 20%?

She slides a check my way, leaning in and giving me the wink.  It has one glass of wine and a salmon burger. When I ask her about it, she says nothing. Just winks.

Now that's good prairie hospitality! I tipped significantly more that I anticipated.

Dallas/Fort Worth international Airport (DFW)

June 2004: The Cowboy Couples go to Vegas

One seat left in the crowded TGIFridays in terminal C between two ten-gallon hats. I take it, but feel small and cramped.  I order a merlot. To my right is a beaming cowboy and his big-haired blonde Tammy Faye traveling companion. They're headed to Vegas to get married Smiley Cowboy tells me.

"Ever been to Vegas?" he asks me.

"Not really," I say.

"You can't believe the deals in Vegas," he says into his beer, shaking his head (which is dramatic because of the hat!)

To my left, a more somber cowboy and HIS big-haired blonde Tammy Faye. He stretches his back in order to sit taller and talk over my head. "Chew say y'all 'er goin' to Vegas?"

"Yup. Y'all too?"

"Yeah. Same flight?"  They compare times, gates and finally flight numbers getting increasingly excited by this discovery.

Smiley Cowboy say, "We're gettin' married!"

"Well, hell! Us too!" Somber Cowboy is really loosening up.

Soon the two couples and laughing and hooting over me, slapping me on the back and buying drinks (even for me!). 

"Y'all want to be our wedding witnesses?"

"Hell yes!"

I'm caught up in the excitement too.  I'm even mildly disappointed that I won't get to see the big event(s).

"Where y'all stayin?"

"Stardust."

"Hot damn, us too!"  There was a literal "yee-haw" at this moment. I swear to God I'm not making this up. I'm slapped on the back again and nearly spill my merlot on the way to my mouth.  I grip the sloshing juice glass in both hands and offer a controlled toast.  More toasts come.  Soon I'm given another round so I continue to be involved in the toasting.

I not really a part of the conversation this time, and yet I am. I feel like the catalyst.  The link in this joyful meeting. Had Smiley Cowboy and I not started talking, Somber Cowboy would never have known to ask about Vegas and destinies would have been completely changed.  I sip my merlot and think, wouldn't it be cool if these couples become life-long friends?

It's time for their flight and they exit whooping, their snakeskin books clicking on the tile, the ladies huddled as they walked, finally able to girl-talk.  I take a deep breath and stretch my arms into the wide open spaces left by their absence.

Dallas/Fort Worth international Airport (DFW)

September 2004: Florida Hurricane Bitch

I mean that with the greatest respect, love and kind wishes. She has been my favorite bar-pardner thus far!

Sitting in the TGIFridays when this thin blonde lady already holding a martini walks up to the end of the bar, beside me.  She is talking loudly on her cell phone.

"Do you think I'm attractive?" she barks at me.  I'm momentarily confused about whether she's talking to me or to her cell phone.  She stares me down, says, "Hold on" to the phone and commands me to respond,"Do you think I'm attractive?" My merlot actually ripples and I hold the glass with both hands.

"Of course" I respond.

"HE thinks I'm attractive," she says, proving her point into her phone.

The lady, the phone and I continue to hold a three-way conversation.  I'm never quite sure whether she's talking to me or the phone, but I find enthusiastic or sympathetic head nods and an occasionally "of course" satisfy her and we proceed.  I order another merlot.

She tells me that the west wing of her house--her son's wing--has been destroyed and double destroyed by the two hurricanes that hit Stuart, Florida this summer, Francis and Jeanne. They are fleeing to LA to recover. 

"The servants are in a tither," she tells me with a wide arm flourish (actually using the word servants), "but they'll handle the clean-up, contractors and reconstruction." She nods at me knowingly.  I nod back.  She orders a 3rd martini (3rd since I've been with her, at least.)

She is a tennis pro. "Maybe you've heard of me," she says pulling the new martini's olive off with her teeth. 

I had not. 

"I'm also an underwear and swimsuit model," She says, "among other things.  You've seen me" She pokes the empty toothpick toward me, "Really, when people ask what I do, I say, GOD! What DON'T I do?"

I nod.  She's well over 50 and looks it. She has an I-picked-oranges-in-the-sun-when-I-was-young-but-hide-it-with-surgery look. Her facelifts have not held.  Yet she repeats after brushing some of her spilled martini down onto my luggage, "I'm a swimsuit model." in present tense, "you've seen me."  She winks.

I suppose that possible. I'm falling in love with her energy.  She is so bold and brash!  In normal circumstances I'm sure she's be awful to deal with, but in the DFW TGIFridays, she's fabulous!

Her son, an overweight, slovenly young man with greasy black hair slouches in.  He is dressed entirely in black.  He had wires sticking out out of his ears and his hips. He is holding a GameBoy. He orders a beer. She pays. He slouches back out.  I wonder if it's legal to take your beer into the terminal, and I ponder how some folks are amazing confidant breaking rules.

"He's so torn up about the loss of the west wing," she tells me, talking a bit more quietly than before and shaking her head side to side. We watch him lumber back to the gate area with his beer and GameBoy. Suddenly her phone is ringing and we're off on a three-way again.  "It's my agent in LA," she tells me. Soon she is pacing and yelling.  He apparently did not arrange for their limo at LAX.  "Incompetent bastard!" she screams into the phone and dumps the remains her 4th martini onto the bar.

Tucson International Airport (TUS)

April 2005: The Joy of TUS

A contractor named Reeves with bright white teeth is going to Vegas to turn 40.  His family from Massachusetts is meeting him there.  His wife and two kids are standing in the Southwest airlines livestock line-up while he and his buddy (Who says at three times, "I LOVE this guy, but I'm not his wife." Then slaps Reeves on the back.) drink and schlep chicken sandwiches back and forth to the wife and the kids.  

"Vegas!" says Reeves and slaps the bar, "Great deals on southwest airlines to Vegas!  Four people, two nights under a thousand bucks! Love Vegas!" 

His enthusiasm is contagious.  "Right ON!" I have to add.

His kid had an earache coming home from Mass last time and fuckin screamed the whole God-damned trip. He walked up and down the aisle at least a hundred and fifty times. Everyone on the plane hated them so much that they decided to take a taxi to the parking lot instead of the shuttle bus.

He leaves and Fran the bar-maid serves me another merlot.

I love Fran.  I'd guess her age at ealy 50's.  She has permed, salt-and-pepper hair and glasses. Down to earth, calm and friendly, Fran represents the quintessential tucsonan to me. She may be hispanic, or she may be simply old-tucson but she has that native american/mexican accent, so subtle it could be overlooked.  I find the rhythm of that speech lovely and soothing. She never, ever neglects a glass-half-empty. She's going on vacation next week.  She's staying home, but going to finish some projects she started a long time ago.  And she's going to the movies. 

Another merlot? 

Sure.

Fran, I miss you.