As it turns out, while I was in the hospital recovering for all that time, my little story had become something of a national phenomenon. It was all over the local news channels at first, giving all those stories about electrical fires and potholes a well-deserved break. From there, it picked up steam and made it to the biggies: CNN, CNBC, FOX News. People all over the place had heard about this guy whose plane went down in the mountains, and everyone else died, and he had to eat them so he wouldn’t die.
It was amazing. It was “the most harrowing tale of survival of the decade.” It was “this decade’s Alive.” It was all a little ludicrous, if you ask me.
But American society is absolutely fascinated by harrowing tales of survival, so I got to be famous. People want to know. They want to know so they can forget about their own lives for a little while. Or they want to know so their lives don’t seem all that bad.
Either way, I was everywhere. Apparently these kinds of things make for good television. The more outlandish, more gruesome, and more humorous, the more air time, more air time, more air time.
And, as surprising as this may sound, it was relatively easy to make light of the whole situation. I got a good laugh about “chewing the fat with my buddies” while I was stuck up there. And I had a bit about pulling the pilot’s leg – it had been severed, you see, and I’d found it about fifty yards from the plane. Both anecdotes were well-received on Letterman, and then again on Leno. Unfortunately, Jay’s first guest was Penelope Cruz, and she seemed none-too-thrilled with all the gory details. In fact, after the show, she took off before I even had the chance to ask for an autograph.
I did get one hell of a nice gift basket for doing the show, though. Expensive shampoos, conditioners, soaps, lotions. There was a mug and a hat. There was a box of the best chocolate I’d ever eaten (dark, smooth, and sexy – the way I imagine Billie Holiday). And there was a slew of other shit I’d never use, but which all seemed pretty pricy.
I gave most of it to the girl who had been taking care of me during my visit to the studio. She was this tiny bit of a thing with dark, dark hair, dark, dark eyes, and toothpaste commercial clean teeth. And, hidden somewhere inside of her, a nuclear power plant produced more energy than her little body could have used in a century.
“I met that guy who cut off his own hand when he was here last year,” she told me after the show. “Did you hear about him? He got his hand crushed by this huge boulder and he was stuck there, for like, days, and he was out of food and water, so he just took out his pocketknife and started sawing away. God! I couldn’t imagine, could you? He was sort of nice. Smiled a lot and said ‘thank you’ when I brought him a soda.” Think about one of those rubber bouncy balls you get from a gumball machine in Wal-Mart, and then imagine throwing it off the wall inside a closed phone booth. That’s what it was like listening to her talk, watching her run around the room doing whatever it was her job required of her.
“And I saw you on Letterman the other day,” she said. “It was funny. Don’t tell anyone, but,” she threw a glance at the open door, “I think he’s funnier than Jay.” As soon as she said it, the little walkie-talkie clipped to her belt said something to her I couldn’t understand. She unclipped it from her belt, turned away from me, and said something back.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have said that,” I told her.
“No. That had nothing to do with Jay not being funny. Brad Pitt’s coming in tomorrow, so there’s a lot of work to do. That was just my boss reminding me to get the pomegranates.” She was totally serious.
“Pomegranates? Really?”
“Yeah, really.” She said it like she couldn’t believe I was surprised. “He also likes to drink this really expensive wine. We order it from Pennsylvania, of all places. I have to make sure to get everything before I go home tonight. No time tomorrow.”
“So Brad Pitt’s sort of a diva, eh?”
“Not really. He’s actually really nice. We just try to take extra good care of all the really big guests that come on the show. That’s all.”
I couldn’t help myself. “So where’s my exotic fruit and expensive wine?”
She snatched a clipboard off the table and held it to her chest. “Oh. Well, you’re not really a star, so you only get a basket. My boss says that fifteen minutes only gets you a month’s worth of personal hygiene products. For some reason, he thinks it’s funny.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s not funny at all. Still, it is a pretty nice basket.”
“It is.” She made a quick survey of the room, but I guess she decided she had nothing else to take care of. “Well, I have to go. It was nice to meet you, and thanks for the shampoo and everything. Someone will be here in a minute to see you out. Good luck.” And it was like she vanished, poof, into the air that would tomorrow find its way into the lungs of the sexiest man alive.
This was to be my fifteen minutes. Talk shows (late night, prime time, daytime), newspaper articles, magazine interviews. People shaking my hand on the street. It was a wild ride, this fifteen minutes, but it didn’t really get me anywhere. All I had to show for my fame was a stack of periodicals, a lifetime supply of shampoos and conditioners, and quite a collection of knick-knacks, trinkets, from NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX. You know: hats, mugs, magnets. That kind of shit.
Other people get these things while on vacation in Atlantic City. Other people get these things as souvenirs. I got these things as payment, which would’ve been great, if I could have used them as legal tender. But no matter how hard you try, you’ll never convince the student loan people that this ball cap signed by Larry King is worth this month’s payment. They’ll just laugh at you.
They’ll laugh at you, but won’t accept your payment, which means you have to try to find some way to make money.
I went to publishers. I was sure that I could have written a book, and it would have sold. I did, after all, have my Bachelors in Creative Writing, and if people are going to read Liza Minnelli’s autobiography, they’ll definitely read about my ordeal. But the book people, they said no. Corporate bastards. “It’s been done,” they’d say. “Once you’ve read one book about survival cannibalism, you’ve read them all.”
Goddam rugby teams in the Andes. Goddam Donner Party.
So no book deal for me. I’d have to find a job. I’d have to go back to the way life was before all the pain and death and fame and parties. But not right away. I always made sure to have a small savings before I went on a potentially hazardous trip, you know, just in case.
I could just go home.
It was an exciting prospect.