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Before Flying (Ayers Rock)

I always wait to pack until the last minute. It's not something that I enjoy doing nor is it something I look forward to. It's one of those necessary evils we all deal with like a stop sign on a desert highway. You don't want to stop. You don't see why you should stop but there's always that question lingering and nagging little voice whispering in your ear. It's really more annoying than anything else and I get annoyed at it for annoying me. Of course, this only aggravates the entire situation and ends with me yelling at the luggage, myself and anything that's foolish or oblivious enough to get in my way. Today, it was a phone call. Just a friend calling to say goodbye but it was as welcome as a ham pizza in Mecca. Small talk. Feigned interest. Pretending that I don't want to hang up. It's over.

157 seconds but it sure did seem like a lot longer. A test of my patience and sincerity was met successfully and I would have given myself a B+. Not too bad overall but the stress of that ordeal required a mental and physical break. After crashing onto my futon mattress like a Boeing from the skies, I slowly turn my head past the glaring TV showing pictures of a plane crash in Oregon. I slowly turn back to the TV. It's intriguing stuff. A CEO is dead. A plane is gone. Good thing for him it was a slow news day or else he would died completely unnoticed. I never knew he lived but now I know he died. He never knew I lived nor will he know when I die. But I saw the site of his death going up in smoke through a pine forest. It seems a tragid death is the only way to get noticed these days. Fire is one way to go. It's how a monk once went and he lived a good life and died a good death.

To keep things fair, I should mention that it was quite an unremarkable fire. To my untrained eye, it looked like nothing more than a bonfire gone out of control. I saw a fire like that once in Our Dreams Went to Asia or ODWA as I like to call it. Odwa is a sad, pitiful place run by a half-blind, sex-crazed man of the people. A place that once defined the American dream through sheer brilliance and fortitude but stands today only as a reminder of what should have been and a gateway to high taxes and under-age drinking. It's impressive to the naked eye in the sense that a name of such magnitude has successfully belittled itself to the point of utter despair and depravity. An old tower stands alone in the sky with broken windows and graffiti that mock it's own grandiose features. Barbed wire keeps out the people from touching this massive monument to a better era before whiskey met coke and Elvis shook his hips. It stands in Odwa in defiance of the present years and taunts the city to come closer. Come closer to the era when men shot buffalo from train windows. Come closer to the era where gold rushes were in vogue and the presidents wore top hats. Yes, those were good times.

Speaking of the time, it's 11:12 in the morning and I've watched this story for an entire minute. It was fascinating if only in the sense that i can't figure out why it should be fascinating. And there are the suitcases. Not one suitcase, mind you, but two. One inside the other. I'll take it out later but not now. I've placed one inside the other for a very good reason even if i can't remember that right now. But it was a good reason and until further evidence presented, it shall remain that way. One is old. One is new. One holds stories of Beijing nights, trips to southern resorts and secrets that were never meant to be spoken or seen. The other lies slightly used with it's most remarkable feature being a small tear in the hounds tooth fabric. It's right above the left wheel. Well, right wheel if you're looking it from the front but why would you look at it from the front if the tear is in the back? It bears some knock-off brand name that doesn't make sense in any language but for $15 and a trip to Chinatown, who can complain? Right now, they lie beneath a mound of clothes, food, gears with big teeth and three bottles of raw, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar. Don't ask about the vinegar. All in all, it resembles a discount shopping mart's super sale bin. The only thing it's lacking is the yellow, orange and red stickers plastered everywhere with signs involving percentages and confusing math. But that'll come later.

11:29 and the concierge calls to inform me that my limo has arrived. And before we go any further, there is something I need to explain about that last sentence. Well, two things. First of all, there is no concierge. I think they found the word in a dictionary and put it on the sign for the elderly security guard to make him feel better. After all, if I was 62 and my career had taken me as far as sitting behind a security desk for a mid-range suburban condo complex, I'd prefer concierge as well. Secondly, there was no limo. It was a black taxi that had been recently washed. And it's the little things and statements like that which have helped me to understand why the guard is 62 and still working security. Poor guy. I bet his grandkids think it's cool. I bet his grandchildren will grow up and realize he was a dork. Regardless, the taxi had arrived so I hauled my 56 lb. suitcase onto the elevator, pushed the button for Lower Lobby, hauled the suitcase off the elevator, out the doors and threw it into the trunk with such vigor, it awoke the driver who'd apparently had drank a bit too much the night before. The red eyes always give it away which is why I suspect he wore his Catani shades.

Yes, there was a place called Catani. It failed. Not gloriously either, but in a slow, fitful state of manic depression that overcame it like a junkie taking a bad trip. The kind where dreams become kites and the kites turn into planes before you realize you've never left the ground. Then the whole world comes crashing down on you like a neon light waking you up at 6AM. Cold, empty, cheap - a modern marvel that never realized it's full potential but still managed to overachieve. It happens every day but we just can't see it. There's fog in the way. And a lot of booze.

You turn the glass upside to be sure and it's only then you realize it's too late. That also happens to be the perfect time to stop caring and they fit together nicely like a pair of sunglasses on a hot day. Not the designer shades produced in a small,Italian factory...no, these are the cheap pieces of crap you bought from the Rasta man on the corner of Cherry and Rutherford. The ones you never expected to last a day in one piece but there you are. Standing in the middle of the desert and those sunglasses are the only thing keeping your sanity as earth and sky melt together in a warm, gooey kind of way. So you keep going...past the houses, past the soccer field, past the tents and into the desert. Right through to the last palm tree planted by the local neighborhood organization as a way to make their environment more hospitable. But it only stands there to mock you because it's the last living thing you'll see and the first piece of death you smell.

And it sticks to you as you take your first step out. The smell settles in your clothes like a cheap cologne and then you realize you're a marked man. There's no turning back now. You head out to that place where the sun and heat and sand and sky all mix together. It looks warm. It looks nice. It's stared that palm tree in the eye for 22 years. 42 steps later and you realize you're not getting any closer. It's the same distance it was when you took your first step into the scalding sand. So you take 42 more steps. It's still not closer. 42 more. Same. Same. Same. You look back. The palm tree has become a memory fueled by the smell still lingering on your jacket. You turn all three hundred and sixty degrees and see one thing. That warm, gooey blend of sand and earth and sky and heat. it surrounds you. Becomes friendly. Embraces you. Closes your eyes and steals your breath. Silly tree, you finally say, there's no sand in the desert.

It also appeared on this particular morning that there were no lines on the road or signs alongside to instruct drivers on the operation of their vehicles. Fear gripped my heart as I gripped the car door. It was irrational and completely unnecessary but it made me feel better and I like to feel better. So much so that I often hide pieces of candy around my apartment so I can find them later and eat their sugary goodness. That helps me feel better and right now thoughts like that help take me away from this wretched car smelling of pine tree air fresheners, mint gum so strong it could choke an elephant and a hint of tobacco. I suspect the driver indulges himself in a cigarette or two when he's by himself. I wouldn't put it past him. He looks like the type to whip out a cigarette when no one else is watching and enjoy his dirty habit and dirty secret all at the same time. When I see people like that, I wanna take a fork and poke them in the side of their head from time to time and keep them on the straight and narrow. Just like the road were on now. Not like his driving abilities. Perhaps if we were on a crooked road, he'd drive straight. Perhaps, if he was a pirate on the stormy Caribbean in a dark winter's night he'd have an excuse to steer in a non-straight line. But not here, not now. Oh, thank goodness, there's the airport.

I asked the disinterested girl at the information booth if there was a donut shop located beyond the security checkpoint. I almost felt guilty for disturbing her endless text message she had been working on for quite some time but it was an emergency. I needed a donut and she needed to tell me where they keep them. Which she did. They do sell donuts after the security checkpoint. I thanked her despite her belittling stare which looked more like a dead cat staring at the pavement of an Illinois highway on a July day than an insult. Next I proudly check my bags, get my bording pass and force small talk with the check-in counter attendant because it apparently takes 10 minutes to scan a passport and match names to tickets despite the fact I'm one of seven people with white skin taking this flight. Finally, I reach security which always reminds me of a wet dog running through a Victorian manor and inevitably knocks over the antique Ming vase. I take off my belt, place it on the conveyor belt followed by my bags and step through the metal detector which removes a few more days from life expectancy. I suppose I will have cancer someday but at least my film isn't being ruined. You win some, you lose some. I do value my life and would prefer to enjoy a long healthy one but that's not a hill I'm going to die on. Kilimanjaro would be a good hill to die on. Or Ayers Rock but I don't think that's a hill. I think it's a rock. A really big rock. Like Kilimanjaro.

I finally get to my donut. I take the first bite and am reminded of the time I was sitting in the Sydney airport for a few hours and ate ten and a half donuts for breakfast. I felt bad throwing the remaining donut and a half into the trash but I felt much worse about eating them. My body tends to function like a democracy. Each part gets a vote and the majority rules. It's not common sense but it makes sense. And right now, there was an overwhelming majority to return for a second donut. Five careful bites later and the second donut is running with me to the gate where we enter the airplane together and take our shared place together next to a smelly Chinese man. Today has not been a good day for the nose.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I am going to China. The next two weeks will include chopsticks, the Great Wall, Tibetan mountains, the Gobi desert and a lot of Chinese people. Many of them will be tipsy, inebriated, drunk, smashed, three sheets to the wind or entering new states of consciousness thanks to the levels of alcohol needed to conduct business in the world's largest country. I will chance to encounter a few sober ones to which I can relate but I fear those moments of shared sobriety will be far and few between.

In the meantime, I will share a few laughs and inside jokes with myself. At times like these, I know what a little baby feels like when he laughs. I don't know because it's a secret. The baby's not going to tell us why he's laughing nor can he. In his own language inside his own head, he is having the time of his life and telling himself he's never going to forget this moment. There is nothing greater in the world to him than what is making him laugh at that very moment yet he will die with that secret. I think this baby and I would be good friends for I live in a land that few men have dared to enter, fewer survive and fewer yet speak of. I stand as an anomaly much like Ayers Rock. Indeed, it would be a good hill to die on. One day, I shall march up Ayers Rock wearing my Catani shades. I will carry a glass bottle of Coke in my right hand because that's where I prefer to carry it and it tastes better in glass and share a final joke with myself as the metal detector takes its final toll. Yes, that's a good hill to die on.