So that’s me and Oscar, right there: a collective zombie, rotting and putrid, coming apart in chunks. Stumbling forward, mindless, moaning. With our nice town house and Camus our golden retriever and our lefty friends, their progressive hearts and well-groomed opinions. Their weekend non-profit work, saving third-world kids and feeding street people. Their fucking hybrids. Most of the women consider anything other than missionary to be the pinnacle of kink, and I’d bet my life not one of the men has ever been in a fistfight. Somehow these people are the only numbers in my cell phone.
A question I ask myself a lot lately: Am I so pathetic that to avoid being alone I’ll surround myself with people I loathe?
I’m not pathetic, I keep telling myself, for clinging to Oscar and our life for so long. I wanted to make something work, for once. I’m tired of failing with people all the time, tired of worrying that I’m broken. But as I stand here waiting for a cab to take me away to a plane that will take me farther away, it’s starting to seem like I do have an answer for the question Oscar won’t ask, and it isn’t the one he wants to hear, and maybe at the end of the day it’s me who’s the zombie, all by myself. Maybe I am broken, and maybe there’s nothing to be done about that.
A car horn sounds outside.
I turn and pick my bag up off the floor. I look at Oscar, and when I see the sorrow he’s not trying too hard to hide, I’m surprised that rather than contempt, I feel genuine pity. Not that pity’s any better for a relationship than contempt, really.
“Oscar, listen,” I say. “It’s me, okay? I’m the zombie.”
“What?” He takes half a step in my direction, and for a moment I think he’s going to wrap me up and try to physically prevent me from leaving. “I don’t understand what that means.”
I take a step back and place my hand on the doorknob. “Never mind. I’m just saying you shouldn’t feel bad. It’s not you.”
He pushes his hands back into his pockets and tries on a righteous expression that neither of us is buying. “Which is your way of telling me you’re not returning.”
I sigh. “Does it seem to you,” I say, “that I have any idea what I’m doing, Oscar? That I’ve got a solid plan, here?”
He just stares at me. Like that, the mask of righteousness gives way, revealing the sadness and fear of a child abandoned at a highway rest stop. He is so weak. Be a man, I want to tell him. But being told by a woman to be a man is not likely to work out, so I just leave, and as I close the heavy ironwood door I hear the first undignified sounds. He’ll never understand that what makes me hate him is not that he’s crying, but that he wants me to hear him cry. It strikes me as sad for both of us that at the end of four years the best wish for him that I can muster is that he will grow a backbone. Not that he have wealth, or love, or achieve his goal of becoming America’s foremost authority on French Rococo and Neoclassicism. Just dignity. Start with dignity, Oscar, and work from there. Is the best my heart can offer you.
Next thing, I’m on a plane. When we take off it doesn’t feel like I’m lifting into the sky, but rather as though Oscar and Camus and our friends and the whole of the city are falling away from me, like the San Andreas has, praise Jesus, finally split open and sucked everything down into the Pacific. I didn’t just leave San Francisco, I think. San Francisco disappeared. Fourteen years of my life here, minus the two I spent with the Peace Corps. And the only thing I’ll miss is the dog.
When the flight attendant asks me, in heavily accented English, if I want something to drink, I tell him yes. He says that’ll be five dollars, and I tell him it’s a small price to pay.
He stares at me, nonplussed.
“Just keep them coming, please.”
I don’t drink much or often, so by the time we’ve been in the air for three hours I’m pretty well lit, having convinced the flight attendant, whose name is Alfredo, not to cut me off. He even gives me a freebie. Which is odd, because I’m something like 90 percent sure he’s gay. It could be because I’ve got a good fag hag vibe. It could be just because we’ve found common ground in our mutual love of the San Francisco Symphony. Regardless, what’s important is that he’s kept the bad Chardonnay flowing. I’m feeling better about everything, which is nice even though I know it’s artificial cheer, cheer-in-a-bottle. The only problem now is I want a cigarette, bad, and it’s a direct flight to Bangor, so I’ve got another three-plus hours to wait.
Who knows why I do it. I’m not exactly what you’d call impulsive, after all. Maybe it’s the giddiness that accompanies suddenly trashing your entire life. Maybe it’s the inexplicable grief I felt at hearing Junior’s dad had died. Most likely it’s just the wine. Whatever the reason, I unbuckle my seat belt and move to the bathroom unsteadily, whacking seat backs as I go. My mind is on the pack of Camel Lights in my hip pocket, and the lighter the TSA guys missed.
Both the bathrooms are occupied, so I step out of the aisle and into the galley to wait. We hit some light turbulence and I have to brace myself against the narrow countertop. Minutes go by, and neither of the bathrooms opens up. We’re well beyond the time frame for the usual quick airplane whiz, and I start to think that maybe I won’t want to go in there after all, but in addition to wanting to sneak a smoke, after all the wine I actually have to use the toilet now. So I keep waiting.
Alfredo, who’s serving drinks for the third time, comes up the aisle from the far end of the coach cabin. I worry that I look guilty even though I haven’t done anything yet. I press myself against the wall to give him room.
“Need a ree-fill,” he says, smiling and holding up an empty coffeepot. I nod and smile back. He switches the empty pot out with a full one from the hot plate, then goes back down the aisle, negotiating the bumps with effortless, practiced grace.
At the same time the door to the bathroom opens and a big man in a Giants cap ducks out. Embarrassment flashes across his face when he sees me, and it only takes a few seconds for the source of his embarrassment to hit my nose. Clearly the man eats a lot of meat. I hesitate. I could wait a while to pee. But I really, really want that cigarette. And there’s something exciting about the risk of it. Pathetic, I know, but it doesn’t take much to thrill you when you’re so used to following the rules.
Alfredo is still way down on the other end of the cabin, so I steel myself and step into the bathroom. It’s not too bad until I swing the door closed and am trapped in three square feet of space with the ghost of Big Guy’s innards. I figure the cigarette will kill the stink, or at least mask it, but I don’t dare light up until I disable the smoke detector, and of course in order to disable it I have to find it, which is proving difficult. Obviously I didn’t do a very good job of thinking this through. It occurs to me that maybe this is a sign that I should forget about it, but when you want something enough that you’ve committed to inhaling a stranger’s rotting bowels you’re pretty much in it until the end, win or lose.
By now I really have to go, so I give up the search long enough to drop trow and hover over the toilet seat. The stink is seriously bad. I try to breathe through my mouth but it’s no good; I just end up tasting it, which is even worse. The plane lurches through more turbulence and I whack my head off the wall and this sobers me up for a few seconds. I curse and rub the sore spot. By now I’m half-convinced that there’s no smoke detector in the first place, that I can just go ahead and have my cigarette and there’ll be nothing to worry about. But then as I’m finishing I look up once more and see, plain as day, a small round vent to the left of the mirror, just below the ceiling. It’s built into the wall, so the only way to access it, I’m guessing, will be by going up through the ceiling tile.
I put the toilet seat down and stand on it and give the tile an experimental push. It gives way easily, sliding up and back. I reach my hand in and feel around until I find something that seems the size and shape of a smoke detector. It’s got a few wires sticking out of the back. I hesitate, but only for a second. I give the wires a firm tug and they pop out in my han
d. To my relief the light stays on and I’m not electrocuted, so I think I got the right ones.
I’m starting to worry about taking too much time. I slide the ceiling tile back into place and get down off the toilet. I pull out my pack, remove one crooked cigarette, and light up. It’s delicious, like all things illicit, but within two drags the bathroom fills with smoke. I panic. I think about tossing the cigarette into the toilet and cutting my losses, but I’ve risked too much, at this point, for just a couple of puffs.
Suddenly, an idea: the violent suction of the toilet is probably strong enough that if I simultaneously flushed and blew a lungful of smoke into the bowl it would probably suck it right out of the room. I get down on my knees, give it a try, and find to my amazement that it actually fucking works. Unbelievable.
I sit on the floor next to the toilet, place one hand on the lever, and have a proper smoke. There’s a residual cloud lingering in the air over the sink, but with each flush it swirls lazily and dissipates just a little. A minute or two goes by. I hold the cigarette up and see there’s maybe three drags’ worth left before I’m smoking filter. I’ll finish this and go back to my seat, have another little plastic cup of wine and really relax now.
There’s a firm, businesslike knock at the door. “Ello?” Alfredo. Of course.
“Occupied,” I say. I try to sound natural, but my heart has leapt into my throat and lodged there, and the strain is evident in my voice.
“Amy? Choo okay?” I can’t tell from his tone if he’s genuinely concerned or just suspicious. He knocks again. “Choo flushed de toilet like twenny tines.”
“I’m all right,” I say. I toss the butt in the toilet and wave my hands around. “Just one more minute, please, Alfredo.”
“Hokay,” he says. Then, a second later: “Choo sure? Di’choo drink too much wine?”
“No,” I say. “I’m okay, really. Be right out.”
My pulse is throbbing around my scalp. I listen to Alfredo’s footsteps going away, and it takes me a moment to calm down and compose myself. I look in the mirror and fix my hair the best I can and wipe a fleck of toilet paper off my pantleg. I’m aware that even though the smoke has dissipated, the smell will be strong and plain to everyone else. I should get out of here now to give the bathroom a chance to air out while Alfredo’s off somewhere.
This was so stupid. I don’t do shit like this.
I screw up my courage and step out and say a small prayer of thanks that no one is waiting to use the bathroom. Alfredo is nowhere to be seen. He must be in the first-class cabin, on the other side of the curtain—a little blessing. I motor down the aisle and sit down and fasten my seat belt and put my seat back and tray table in their upright and locked positions. I check my posture to make sure it is that of a model passenger who observes all airline regulations and federal laws, listens to and obeys the instructions of the crew, and would never in a million years even consider committing such a serious violation as, say, disabling the bathroom smoke detector so she could have a cigarette. Never ever.
Time passes and Alfredo still doesn’t return from the first-class cabin. It’s been twenty minutes by now. Surely any lingering smell is gone, and if there’s no smell there’s no need to check the smoke detector to see if it’s been tampered with. All this is true and makes sense, I tell myself. I repeat it like a mantra. All this is true and makes sense. I actually start to believe it, and by the time Alfredo finally steps through the curtain again I’m feeling pretty good, even thinking it would be nice to have another little bottle of Chardonnay.
Alfredo stops at my seat, bends at the waist to speak to me. “Choo sure choo are okay? No problems?”
“No problems. I’m fine, Alfredo, thanks,” I say. “Listen, would it be possible to get just one more glass of wine?”
“Of course,” he says. He pats my arm and walks back to the galley. There’s a brief surge of nervousness, but I tell myself it’s been long enough, the bathroom shouldn’t smell of smoke anymore.
I hear Alfredo coming back with the wine and I settle into my seat and put my tray table down, warm with genuine relief now, it’s really over and I got away with it and while that was kind of thrilling it’ll certainly be the last time I pull anything that stupid. I’m ready to sip some wine, maybe even doze off for the rest of the flight, but for some reason Alfredo walks right past me, empty-handed, striding purposefully toward the front of the plane. It takes a second to sink in, what this means, but once it does I am very, very scared.
And oh fuck here he comes now with a tall man wearing black pants and a white shirt and a very severe expression. As they get closer I see how young the man is—younger than me, certainly, no older than twenty-six or twenty-seven, but he’s got on pilot’s wings and he looks extremely, genuinely pissed. My hands suddenly want something to do, so I set them to putting the tray table back up, but they’re shaking too much and in any event it’s far, far too late for the perfect passenger routine.
The man with the pilot’s wings stops in front of my seat and looks down on me from what seems like a great height. Alfredo is a few steps behind him, glaring, but there’s a bit of hurt in his expression, too, as though he feels betrayed. Through my fear I feel a little bit guilty for having taken advantage of his friendliness, because it’s true that if I hadn’t thought he and I were buddies for at least the duration of the flight, I never would have tried to get away with this. I guess my thinking was worst-case he’d give me a brisk scolding and make me promise not to try it again and maybe, if he were really mad, he wouldn’t serve me any more drinks.
Worst-case has turned out to be much worse than that. Alfredo’s called in the big guns, and he is so disgusted and hurt that he won’t even come close enough for me to speak to him.
“Miss Benoit?” the tall young man says. It’s not really a question.
“Yes,” I say. I can’t look at him.
“The flight attendant has informed me that he’s found a cigarette butt in the toilet and that you were the last person to use the lavatory. Were you smoking, ma’am?”
Of course. In my haste to get out of the bathroom I forgot to flush the fucking toilet. Stupidity piled on stupidity. There’s no sense at all trying to deny it now. “Yes,” I say. “I was.”
“Thank you for your honesty,” the man says, though he doesn’t sound at all grateful. “Now I’m going to ask you a second question, and this, so you know, is by far the more serious of the two. When we’re done speaking here, I’m going to check the smoke detector in the lavatory. And I’d like to know if I will find that smoke detector has been disabled.”
The other passengers fidget and look everywhere but at me. “I disconnected it,” I say.
“Are you familiar with the laws that govern tampering with smoke detectors in aircraft lavatories? The federal laws?”
“Not intimately,” I say. I’m surprised to find myself near tears.
“Then you aren’t aware of the penalties involved.”
“No.” I watch as Alfredo is summoned by a passenger in the front of the cabin. He turns his back and walks away.
“Then allow me to tell you a little bit about these laws,” the tall man says. “After 9/11 they were rewritten. The laws were made stronger, the penalties more severe. Do you have any idea why, ma’am?”
“I’m guessing it has something to do with terrorists?”
“For your safety,” he says. “For your safety, and the safety of all the others on board. Which safety you have jeopardized, today, for the sake of a cigarette.”
“I really am sorry.” My eyes are brimming and my cheeks burn.
“I’m glad to hear that,” the man says. “Because it seems to me that someone who is sorry, genuinely sorry, for having done wrong will probably not do wrong again. Is that a safe assumption for me to make in this case, ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because this flight lasts another two hours and twenty minutes, and I don’t want to have to spend it back here ba
bysitting you. The authorities will be waiting on the ground for us in Bangor, but you can minimize any legal trouble by behaving yourself for the balance of our time together.”
“What if I agreed to pay for the damages to the smoke detector?”
“We’re beyond that.”
“What if I explained that I’m on my way home to attend the funeral of my ex-boyfriend’s father?”
“Ma’am, you should have discussed bereavement fares with your ticket agent.”
“And that I pretty much chucked my entire life in San Francisco for this? It was a good life there, too. Great job. Friends. A man who loved me. A dog who loved me more. All gone.”
“Ma’am.”
“So yeah,” I say, suddenly deflated and resigned. “I needed a fucking cigarette.”
“I’m sorry, but it makes no difference,” he says.
“I know.” I swipe at my eyes with my sleeve. “That’s why I stopped apologizing.”
He doesn’t say anything more, just gives me one last admonishing look, then wheels around and returns to the front of the plane.
The rest of the flight is quite strange. I can sense the other passengers isolating themselves from me, putting me in a sort of mental quarantine. It’s an odd feeling, because obviously nothing has changed physically. We’re all still crammed together in this steel cylinder blazing across the stratosphere, but there’s a real and palpable distance now; if I close my eyes it feels like there’s no one for miles in every direction. The one exception is a skinny kid of maybe twenty, sporting the usual hipster gear: chain wallet, ratty vintage tee, fauxhawk. He’s seated directly in front of me, and he stands and leans over the seat back and whispers in a cockney accent: “I’ve been dying for a smoke. Now I can have one and blame it on you. Cheers, missy.”
“Eat shit and die.” I don’t even bother opening my eyes. There is a peculiar comfort in being completely fucked, because there’s nothing to worry about anymore. You’re fucked, and that’s it. I’m tired and sober and feeling quite philosophical about the whole thing. I don’t even have the energy to worry about what sort of backroom cold war reception I’m going to get once we’re on the ground.