“Classy in First Class”

“Classy in First Class”

It was in June of 1995. Sandra and I had been dating since the twenty-fifth anniversary of Woodstock. She had gone, and returned with pictures of herself and lots of other young ones butt-ball naked and covered in mud. She drove a neat little white VW Golf that smelled of concert urine. Some acid tripping man-child had mistakenly micturated on her Birkenstocks during the “two more days of peace, love and music reunion” I was rocking a cherry, ’73 Gold Duster; no pee smell. We were a fun fit; even if only for a half-year or so. Most of that scene was during cold weather, and she had a big, warm bed. After my grandma died the following spring we decided to take a trip down south. The words once uttered by my old friend and Jamaican home owner Todd rang clear in my head; “you really wanna take her to Jamaica? You know, it is a make or break thing. Once you get there one of two things happen. She will both adapt and love it as we do, or you will be broken up after the trip.” I thought he was a fool. We set the timeline for two weeks down there.
We were flying out of Raleigh so we drove the four hours to get there the night before, staying with a friend of a friend whose name I can’t remember, but she was cool. She took us to the airport for our extremely early flight, eight in the a.m. I think it was. This is when things got a little hairy, but still fun. We stayed up drinking until the wee hours of the morning and then hit an all night Taco Bell. That was the fuel for the eventual fire, now all we needed was a spark. That spark came at the ticket counter when we arrived and tried to sign in. The clerk told us that the flight was over-booked, and that she wasn’t sure she would get us on the flight, but if we decided to take a later flight, we could each have a round trip ticket for anywhere in the continental U.S. This wasn’t sufficient to me. I was hung over, and I had a guy that I couldn’t call waiting for me in Montego Bay. I needed to be on that flight. To make matters worse, my stomach was CHURNING with the un-digested meal from just hours before. It has always been my worst enemy- late night eating. Unless I get a full eight to ten hours to sleep through the process, I awake to some fairly decent cramping.
Sandra dragged me to the bar for a Bloody Mary, and to get me away from the nice girl at the desk. I was beginning to act ‘entitled’. A few moments later we were back at the gate, seated in those hard plastic chairs. My name was called and I approached the counter once again. “Well Mr. Butler, we have got you guys on this flight, and you will be in FIRST CLASS!” she said with a smile. She was very proud, or at least it seemed so. She probably just wanted us out of her way. Nevertheless, in fifteen minutes we would be boarding and accepting the free champagne. I guess the tomato cocktail and the bubbles kind of combined and the slow burning fuse was lit, within weeks a conflagration would ensue. The next three hours however would prove to be the most gut-wrenchingly funny I may have ever lived. The napalm was now sinking from my hollowing gut, down towards my rectum. It felt warm in first class all of a sudden. I felt trapped.
I did that thing where you try and suck your stomach in, and hold back the anal air, trying to reverse pucker a sphincter muscle or two, but it wasn’t working. Each passing moment brought the contractions closer together and I knew I wouldn’t make it the next three hours without some relief. I made the toughest decision a twenty-five year old half hippie could make in that situation; I had to let it out. I had to let them out, the ghosts two tacos bell Grande, minus tomatoes, pinto’s and cheese with sour cream and a regular order of nachos. That and Heineken mustard were creeping down the lower part of the inside of my back. I glanced feverishly around the cabin. It was shiny and new looking. The flight attendant was working us with the cart and the rest of the passengers weren’t even done boarding. There were three couples besides us, and they all looked like happy and conservative newly-weds. This would not end well, I thought. Turning towards the window to stare at the men packing our bags beneath our airship, I made the terrible decision to let one slip. I really had no choice. I thought I was about to pass out. My shoulders were tingling, my mouth was getting dry, and my stomach was turning into a quite unfamiliar knot. If I didn’t let it go then I may have not seen my beloved Jamaica again, so out it came; the heavy-warm and silent flatulence. I felt like I had just given birth, although it was really just the beginning, the would-be mucous plug to my boiled egg-impregnated belly. Sandra was the first to get caught in the web. It took a minute, as these types often do. They hang near and then expand slowly. She leaned over to me and whispering softly in my ear she asked “was that you?” The only correct response in this case, gentlemen, is always “HELL NO!” She spoke further…softly now, but with more volume than a whisper, “well, somebody needs to go to the bathroom.” She intended for whomever had “dealt it” to hear. Three or four minutes must have passed, it couldn’t have been more than five when I felt the second sortie leaving the hanger; into the hatch went the munitions. I struggled again, but not with such vigor, and then I let go of a good one; a proper, phantom “one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three Mississippi count.” Seconds later she nearly erupted, but she still kept the majority of her anger close, her chin to her chest as she said quietly, but audibly now “Damn, somebody is sick or something, ‘bout to make me sick!” I started to laugh a little inside. It was like the old joke about a guy in a chair with a dog underneath. I was getting away with it. By this time, we were in the air. The pilots were making the announcements and behind the curtain over my shoulder a woman pushed a slightly different cart to the well mannered passengers back there. I thought about it, but not really. I was twenty five and slightly high. I finished the second free champagne baby and moved onto another cocktail. Bloody Mary number three had me feeling slightly normal again. I was waking up.
I thought I was done with the trench fighting, but that was only because my buzz increased at a slightly more aggressive rate than did the awareness of my situational flatus. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves; Sandra was looking around, out all of the windows and smiling. I was smiling. We soared through the clouds, almost above the sun it seemed. I had never seen the clouds from there before. They were golden about the edges and it was almost like flying through some manmade tunnel of shape-shifting cotton candy clowns. I could almost taste the fresh squeezed juice at the bar around the corner of my boss’s house; the view from the cliffs, and the goats tied up as nature’s lawnmowers. In that instant I was in heaven, flying high in the friendly skies. I was proud, I bitched us into first class and here we were, and then it happened. The pick of the litter came up from the pig’s teat and I had to struggle to keep from squirting myself. As I clenched, one last fireball rolled slowly through the tube and out from under my lap, into the magic air of a first class honeymoon. Sandra was pushed too far. She jumped to her feet and began to rant. “Somebody in here needs to control themselves! I didn’t say anything the first couple of times!” she yelled “but one a y’all is NASTY! GAAWWWD!” and I was now fighting another urge. I wanted to laugh out loud. I had her, and she was now screaming at six perfect strangers. I chewed on my tongue to avoid laughing. There was absolutely NO WAY that I could let her know it was me after her explosion. Sandra was great, I really liked her, but she had a reputation for these types of outbursts, but so what? I had a reputation of leaving a job before I started. We were young and sexy…well, she was sexy. I smelled like a sulfur mine.

My dumbass boss Todd turned out to be right in the end. We were fighting an hour into the two weeks, and it only got worse. I remember the end coming at the airport in Atlanta, waiting for the final connection to get us home. We had a fight over who would get the last Bloody Mary. We only had enough between the two of us for one airport drink, not even a double for a dollar more. We broke up a couple of days after we got back to Babylon beach. We stayed friends though. Years later I revealed to her that it was me that blew up first class that time, and she nearly neat my ass. I couldn’t help it; I had so many opportunities over the years to tell that story. Every time, before I even got halfway through my listeners would be doubled over holding their guts, and I would be laugh-crying as I hyperventilated to get the sentences out. On one or two occasions I am pretty sure I made girls pee themselves a little, and when you’re growing up in a cold world that doesn’t give a fuck, the food we have is poison and our elected officials are trying to rape us at every turn; isn’t that what it’s really all about? I choose to think so.

home in sight

i railed around the rooms
like on feathers of metal and wheels
of static

adrenaline

a-
dren-
a-
len.

i spoke much
and feverishly;
and i stood,
finally
before my washer and dryer,
in the room where we keep
recyclables and
the cat eats...and i wept.

and the tears were like
a homecoming,
and the feeling that a twenty-five year
self-imposed sentence
had been finally lifted.

my shoulders dropped,
and i wept...
for the long walk, the dead friends
and the wild flowers.
i wept for the fact that
even this;
that most
magnificent
of miracles is
yet,
just a chance.

and then i sat down, and i began to write, again.

the ghosts are real after all, light is

how lovely to see
a street lamp draped
in shadow:
proof that all
we know
merits
reconsideration.


-the ghosts
are real
after all,

light is dark
and dark is
light.

both are ever-present;
effervescent.

the Mourning dove

a freshly fallen
sky and
no-one's gaze turns
up to
watch goodbye

wish upon that star
that's dead and
never understood
the life you are

the Mourning dove

a freshly fallen
sky and
no-one's gaze turns
up to
watch goodbye

wish upon that star
that's dead and
never understood
the life you are

the Mourning dove

a freshly fallen
sky and
no-one's gaze turns
up to
watch goodbye

wish upon that star
that's dead and
never understood
the life you are