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In which our hero reluctantly partakes in the miracle of flight, and later enjoys some cashews.
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“Welcome aboard, Mr. Green,” a flight attendant said while examining my boarding pass. “Seat 72K, you’ll be in our upper deck. Please take the staircase ahead on your right.” Walking up the steps I heard Garland growl behind me, “No I don’t need any help getting to my damn seat.”
Confession time: Before this I’d only flown once in my life, a two-hour flight from Birmingham to Orlando’s Magic Kingdom when I was seven—I only had a passport because we drove to Canada to visit Carl’s weird sister three summers ago. The one plane I’d been on was small, no more than eighty people on board, all going to see a giant rodent. But now I was on a Boeing 747. A plane so big it (1) had an upper deck, and (2) had more than enough seats to accommodate everyone at J. P. Hornby, and (3) would surely never get off the ground. I realized 747s had, at some point in the past, flown, but I was struggling to picture this particular behemoth soaring into the sky, and I may have freaked out a bit.
By the time we made it to our seats I was sweating somewhat heavily for a cool day in April, and after I stood up and sat down for the sixth time in less than a minute, Parker asked, “Are you okay?” I was in the single seat on the front row, Parker and Garland had the two seats behind me. Well, the word seat doesn’t do them justice. These were private thrones in the sky that at the push of a button transformed into private beds in the sky. They even gave us those nice noise canceling headphones and a little kit with a toothbrush, socks, an eye mask, and some body lotion. This was a nice touch, but what I really needed was a tranquilizer.
“I think so,” I said. “I just haven’t flown much.”
Garland reached over my seat, squeezed my shoulder, and said, “Son, these things hardly ever crash, but if it does, odds are it’ll be right here at takeoff.”
I turned around and gave Garland my best “what-the-hell” look and Parker asked, “Is that supposed to make him feel better?”
Garland shrugged and said, “I just wanted him to know the suspense wouldn’t kill him.”
“Sir, can I offer you a predeparture beverage and snack?”
The flight attendant was standing in front of me with a tray full of drinks and nuts and I wanted to ask her who could eat at a time like this, but instead I took a Coke and some cashews and heard Garland say, “Excuse me, miss, I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
The flight attendant flashed a Pan Am smile. “And what can I offer you, sir?”
“I’m not in a hurry to get my damn cashews. I’m in a hurry to get to Paris.”
She laughed and rolled her eyes and said, “I’ll go talk to the pilot and see what I can do.”
Garland gave Parker and me a triumphant look, but our flight still backed away from the gate ten minutes late.
We were on a Delta flight operated by an Air France crew, so flight attendants made announcements in French first, then English. This was when I noticed another glaring hole in Garland and Parker’s plan—they were counting on me to translate. I caught Bonjour in the welcome announcement, then the flight attendant began speaking so fast I only understood every eighth or ninth word.
“What’s she saying,” Garland barked from the seat behind me.
“It’s the welcome message,” I said, though I couldn’t be certain. I looked back and tried reading the facial expressions of our fellow first-class passengers, because if the flight attendant was saying something like, “We’ve just received word from the tower that an elderly gentleman on this flight has escaped from his nursing home with the help of two young people who skipped school today. We ask that everyone remain seated while the air marshal Tasers them unconscious,” it would have been obvious on their faces. But everyone looked bored, so I figured it was safe to assume they were listening to instructions on how to use a seatbelt.
“Son, aren’t you going to translate any of this?” Garland asked again, but Parker said, “If you can wait ten seconds they repeat everything in English.” I could hear them arguing like an old married couple behind me, but now I was less concerned about translating and more concerned about losing my lunch. The plane bumped across the tarmac, and the flight attendant said something about an emergency water landing, and I experienced all the symptoms of a full-blown panic attack. Mom and Carl didn’t even know where I was, and when this plane crashed into the sea, how would they ever know I was on it? Would the airline call them? Would they be compensated for their loss? This whole thing made so much sense last night, and now it was suffocatingly obvious I’d made the biggest mistake of my short life. I gasped for air and unbuckled my seatbelt. The pilot told the flight crew to prepare for takeoff, and I noticed an emergency exit behind us. The door looked complicated but if I could get back there and open it I could jump out before the plane took off. Yeah, that would work. I stood up and a flight attendant shouted, “Sir, return to your seat immediately!” She didn’t have to say anything though because just then the thrust from four Pratt & Whitney 4062 engines shoved me back against my seat. We were now hurtling down the runway at speeds I had not anticipated, though speed I suppose is a crucial element in lifting 364,000 pounds of aluminum alloy off the ground. Either way the emergency exit was no longer an option, so I put my seat belt back on, and shut my eyes tight, and when the rattling stopped I opened one eye and peeped out the window and watched Atlanta shrink into miniature. My ears popped, and as Georgia disappeared below the clouds I felt my heartbeat slow, and my muscles unclench, and at some point I realized oxygen was entering my lungs at regular intervals again. Playing it cool, I propped my feet up and enjoyed a few cashews and tried to forget I’d just strongly considered leaping from the upper deck of a rolling 747. Twenty minutes later, when the pilot turned off the seat belt sign, I stood up, stretched, and looked back at Garland and Parker. They both smiled.
We were going to Paris. Our terrible plan had worked. It had actually worked.