A MAN in his thirties. Looking at us.
MAN … I was on a plane recently. I was going to someplace—obviously … I mean, I know that’s obvious, but—I was flying there and I read most of the way, a book I had, and some magazines that they’ve got there in that pocket … but for about the first hour of the flight—I don’t even know if it was that long … 45 minutes, maybe—I turned my laptop on. I realized they had wi-fi and I thought I’d catch up on a few emails, look at the news, whatever … and at some point I hit one of those ads that pop up on your computer without you doing anything to make it happen. You know what I’m talking about, right … for insurance or Viagra or, like … I dunno, a bunch of stuff … but they come on when you happen to roll over them and that’s it, nothing you can do, they just come on and blast out their product at a really high level of volume. You have to click ’em off to stop ’em … you know what I’m saying, I know you’ve seen ’em before. Everybody has. (Beat.) Anyway, this happens and I let it play for a second—I’m serious, it’s like a few moments when a guy is talking about this and that, asking me to sell my gold for cash, I don’t know, something stupid like that—and a voice next to me rings out, I get this tap on the shoulder. Some woman looking up at me with this long, straight hair and a really plain face—not unattractive but plain—you know exactly the kind of girl I mean when I say that … she’s asking me to turn it down or if I have earphones or something. The look on her face is like—and this is absolutely our first moment of interaction onboard the plane, she’s never once given me the time of day since we sat down next to each other. Not once. I’m not saying I was super-friendly with her, either—it’s the first flight out in the morning, like, 6 a.m. or something like that—but still, I smiled at her when I got in my seat, a nod at least, but this wall of silence from her. The whole time. She’s working on her computer from before we take off until we land—had kind of a little thing with the flight attendant as we’re getting set to go, a bit of “I HAVE to send this email first …” or that sort of deal, bags all over the floor in front of us, and she’s clacking away on a Dell computer doing pie charts and all these growth reports for some fancy make-up or hair products company—none of which she seems to use, mind you, she really is not beautiful, this woman—but she’s got the gall to say that to me: “Do you have any headphones?” Over something I didn’t even do! I mean … people are funny sometimes, aren’t they? I think so … (Beat.) Right after she knew I was unhappy with what she’s said because I turn and look her over, a couple blinks, before I say to her: “Is this bothering you? It’s just a commercial … it’s not like I’ve got a movie on or something … sorry.” And not another word in return. Nothing. Just a look from that face of hers. Staring up at me. (Beat.) Whatever. (Beat.) I don’t even know what it was about her that I found so annoying, but something … her face, I guess. That face of hers. Just so … you know? Annoying … (Beat.) So I do the work I’m doing, just few little things, being careful not to bother my neighbor again—I even turn the volume down and, I mean, I’ve never done that for anybody, NOBODY, ever—and at some point I nod off. I fall asleep. In my dream I have this elaborate fantasy in which this woman next to me, the plain one I was just telling you about … in my fantasy I see what my life would be like if we ended up together. It’s a bit like one of those VISA commercials where you see everything passing before your eyes: dating and marriage and a few kids and all that, I’m seeing how things would go if me and this woman became husband and wife … but at the same time, because of what she’s done to me and, you know, her looks … I’m also imaginging—or dreaming, I guess, the whole thing’s really a dream and not some lucid thing that I should be feeling responsible for—but I imagine all the bad stuff I’d do to her as well. All the women I’d cheat on her with and the late nights out with my friends and how we’d end up divorced so many years later and all that. (Beat.) That’s the dream I have about her, because of the way she treated me. (Beat.) There’s a period there where apparently I sleep with some friends of hers from the sub-division we move into and … I dunno … a few times it seems like maybe I don’t come home at night, not straight home, anyway … she drives me to drink is what it feels like now, when I think back on it … I am forced to become a bit of an alcoholic due to our lousy relationship and I also gamble a bit, I feel like that happened, too, now that I think about it. I kinda go to pot, if you wanna know the truth. I do … but, see, it’s all because of her! This woman I never said one bad thing to and then she acts like that to me because of who she is and this sort of chip on her shoulder—I mean, that’s what the whole problem seems to be, if you want to hear my opinion about it—she’s got a chip on her shoulder toward the whole world due to her face, the one that God gave her. Not me. Not anybody else. God. Well, I suppose her parents, too, but a lot of it is God or Fate or whatever else you believe in. That’s the problem but she’s going around taking it out on people like you and me and so both of us—her and me, I’m saying, not you—we end up having a kind of pretty crappy life because of it. (Beat.) Now, I guess that really isn’t a fantasy, per se, is it? Not technically. Fantasy would seem to have some sort of a more positive spin usually … at least that’s how I think of it. Right? A “fantasy” is like imagining yourself with Marilyn Monroe or winning a baseball game, that kind of deal … and this is not that … it has nothing to do with that. Heroics or sleeping with some hot girl. This is my mind getting back at this woman who has a shitty attitude and made me feel bad for no good reason, that is what this is. (Beat.) Anyway, I wake up a little later, she’s still chugging away on those pie charts and graphs and shit … does the same thing with the flight attendant as we’re getting ready to land: “I’m putting it away right now, I am, I just HAVE to finish …” blah-blah-blah. Unbelievable, this one is. I mean, seriously. And the second the wheels touch the ground, she has two phones out—a Blackberry plus a different one, an iPhone, maybe—and she is clicking away and checking messages. Funny thing was—and this is what they call Karma or Kismet or one of those—she gets out of her belt and stands up before we’re even parked at the gate … I mean, we’re there, but not settled, you know what I mean? Not stopped. She gets up and opens her bin—one of the attendants is starting to say something to her but she’s up and opens the thing and BAM! Her little Tumi bag, one of the over-the-shoulder kind, drops right out and on her foot. WHAM! Like a falling rock in a nature video from television. Right down onto her foot—and yes, she’s got her shoes off, for comfort, no doubt—so the thing lands squarely on her toes. SMASH! She sort of screams or whatever, kind of a yelp or something—I wouldn’t be surprised if it fractured a bone, hairline or otherwise—but what’s funny is, she looks straight at me when she does it. Not down at her foot or up at the bin where it came from or for help from the flight people … no. She looks right over into my eyes. Like she knew this was payback for how she’s treated me. And I don’t say a word. No, not one thing. I just smile at her. The tiniest little grin and that’s it. A faint little smirk that says, “How do you like them apples?” (Smiles.) And you know what? I don’t think she did … I don’t think she liked ’em at all. Not one teeny bit … (Beat.) Funny how life works things out like that … right there in front of you sometimes … isn’t it? I think so. (Beat.) Yeah. It’s funny.
He stops talking for a moment. Looks at us. Nods. Looks away.
THE END.