Beware of Flight Attendant

by Cactus Moloney

  The snack cart bumped against Buckeye’s leg, jarring his left arm. He was able to keep a firm grip on the Coke can held in his sizable hand. The can was for spitting the chewing tobacco fluids into.

  He noticed the middle-aged couple sitting five rows up. They had boarded toting a small dog in a hard carrier. He had heard the little dog let out a shrill yip several times during the flight. Now he watched its owner, a salt and peppered ponytailed man, dressed in white paint splattered carpenter jeans, stand in the aisle to reach for a bag he had stored in the compartment above his seat. Buckeye admired the man’s white t-shirt, showing a print of a tarpon jumping in front of a sunset across his back. The man shifted his stance to reveal his half missing, disfigured face. Thereupon, Buckeye spit the remaining tobacco chew from under his bottom lip into the coke can he gripped in his hand. The tin cracked under his finger pressure. The missing jawbone was a tell-tale sign the man had been a tobacco user. Buckeye had lost his appetite for leaf—at least for the moment.

  A gorgeous flight attendant, Carmen was on her nametag, walked past him with her heeled shoes tapping against the carpeted floorboards. He couldn’t help but admire her defined tan calf muscles.

  He returned his attention to the big dog. It had started panting. He wondered if having two dogs in such close proximity was a good idea?

  The first-class flight attendant closed the curtain separating the sections, ending his line of sight to the senator. Buckeye tilted his head back and shut his eyes.

  19 Max Martin

  Max looked down at his ridiculously fuzzy Pomeranian. The spoiled dog, Bruno, sat in the small dog carrier between Maxine and himself. The little dog was exceptionally poufy from his wife Maxine obsessively brushing its long yellow fur. The hair formed

  yellow sunbursts, popping through the holes of the carrier from all directions.

  His wife spoke endearingly to Bruno in her singsong baby talk.

  “Brunny baby, soft little bunny, bunny, Brunny boy,” her pretty pink lips smacked kisses at the kennel. “Did Bunny see the big scary dog? Don’t be scared, mama has you.”

  Max observed his surroundings, embarrassed that someone might hear her ridiculousness. Then he noticed the big dog that was sitting a couple of rows behind them that Maxine had been alluding to. The big dog smiled at him from ear to ear, its tongue resting between its teeth.

  “I feel bad that Bruno scared that teenage girl,” Max said, referring to when they had boarded the plane. “She was behind me and Bruno yipped at her. I thought she was going to have a heart attack!”

  “That’s foolish,” Maxine said. “The girl’s father should bring her around dogs more often. Brunny wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  She baby-talked to the pooch, kissing at his cage.

  “No Brunny you wouldn’t, would you baby?” Turning back to Max she said, “Plus he’s tiny and in a cage for goodness sakes.”

  Maxine and Max had been some of the last passengers to board the flight to Miami. Behind them, the final two passengers to board the aircraft were a rumpled looking, beefy black man and his rail thin teenage daughter. It was when he was trying to find their assigned seats that Bruno terrified the girl by barking aggressively at her. Max could see the father and his daughter were now sitting in the front row of the coach section.

  His mind kept returning to the start of the flight.

  “And, remember how that messy haired woman pointed to Bruno because she had an allergy?” Max was feeling frustrated traveling with the little dog. “And then she was removed from the airplane!”

  “The dog is an emotional support animal...” He prodded Maxine for confirmation.

  Then Max locked eyes with the redheaded man in the red shirt sitting across the aisle, he explained, “We have the paperwork to back it up.”

  The paperwork actually assigned Max the emotional support dog, however, he felt he was mentally grounded at this point in his life. It was his wife Maxine who suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Max being diagnosed with stage-four squamous cell carcinoma. The cancer had originated on his tongue.

  His entire life as he had known it had come to a screeching halt one Saturday morning, the year before. He was washing his fifteen-year-old, white Chevrolet pickup truck, using the power washer in the sun-drenched front driveway of his Florida home, when his cell phone rang. His world became the slow-motion option on his iPhone. He watched his wife Maxine walking towards him, with the phone to her ear. Her electric blue, gingham dress fluttered around her, turning her into a small hovering blue bird, flitting in front of him, darting about to not make eye contact. He inhaled her soft wispy fine hair, smelling of Johnson’s Baby shampoo.

  “It’s the doctor, Max,” she whispered into his chest after handing him the phone.

  Damned if the doctor wasn’t calling on a Saturday.

  “It isn’t fair!” she chirped to him after the doctor had given the devastating news.

  “Life is not fair Maxine,” he replied, holding her tight in his strong arms.

  He had never smoked cigarettes or chewed tobacco. The doctors thought he could have the HPV virus, a major cause of cervical and oral cancers, but he tested negative.

  A few days later he lay naked under a warmed white blanket, vulnerable and shaved, with a catheter up his dick. Several faceless masked nurses, each with nametags claiming the same name Melissa, wheeled him to surgery. The doctors were set to remove his lower right jaw and three quarters of his tongue. While he slept, they took the muscle from his chest, threading it through his neck, and into his mouth to fill the empty pocket.

  “The pectoral muscle is now partially filling the empty place where the jaw once was,” the surgeon had explained.

  Max had zero sensation in the newly filled space in his mouth, nor could he feel what was left with his mostly absent tongue. This was a good thing, because the hair from his chest was now like the baleen of a whale, filling the inside of his right cheek.

  The radiologist made a Darth Vader face mold to fit his head, bolting him to a hard bed to keep him perfectly still while they radiated his absent jaw. Later he lost most of his remaining upper teeth. After being radiated he would walk across the hallway to the oncology department; a gymnasium size hospital room, with an assembly line of cancer patients lined up in leather recliners. The sickly people were connected to IV’s pumping chemo poison into the ports, surgically installed in each of their chests. The cancer patients were warmed with crafty, handmade patchwork quilts and knitted caps, donated by the Lutheran Quilting Club.

  Maxine reached out to a high school friend, who had married a marijuana grower when it was still illegal in Colorado. The friends had made a good living with the illegal drug, but with it becoming a legalized medicine, the competition had become fierce and new regulations proved too strict for the old hippie. Maxine’s friends continued growing marijuana, but now focused their attention on processing Rick Simpson Oil.

  “RSO is made from the whole cannabis indica plant,” the marijuana farmer Olli had explained over the phone. “It contains lots of both THC and CBD, great for cancer patients and general health maintenance. Studies have shown the oil can help one-year survival rates by up to thirty-percent.”

  Max began taking the (illegal in Florida) black tar-like liquid.

  “Mix it with warm coconut oil to dilute it,” Olli suggested. “Then Maxine can inject the warm medicine into the feeding tube in your stomach.”

  “Max you need to avoid using the doctor prescribed morphine and oxycontin,” Olli told him. “It’s highly addictive. And with the RSO you won’t need it and you won’t get sick to your stomach.”

  Max was given a prognosis of three to five years life expectancy. He was on a deadline. Literally. But, with the cancer diagnosis came a gift; Max now lived in the present and planned for Maxine’s future.

  Like his partial tongue's unfamiliarity with his mouth, Max no longer recognized the Florida he grew up in. He was a builder by trade. He couldn’t h
elp feeling guilty for his participation in covering the wetlands with drainage ditches and canals, replacing the green preserves with concrete strip malls and suburban housing developments, claiming conventional names like Lakeside Vista, entangled with Pelican Estates.

  He understood it would no longer be sustainable to continue living in the Florida Keys, after their home on Grassy Key had been severely damaged in the last hurricane. The surge completely tore through their older 1940’s ground level Keys home, taking all their belongings out to the ocean. The beautiful hardwood walls had been destroyed and the hand crank panel windows swept away. He could rebuild, but he was a smart enough man to know the oceans were rising, and the hurricanes would return with increased ferocity each coming year. The new weather patterns were obviously not his problem anymore, with death knocking at his washed away door. The problem was his little bird Maxine would be left behind.

  “I’m not leaving you in a dilapidated house, centered in the bull’s eye of the next hurricane,” he told her.

  After researching climate change, he gained a clearer understanding of the ravaging effects the new weather changes would have on the coastal communities. The Florida Keys and Miami would become submerged after being relentlessly pummeled by stronger and more intense storms each year. The south Florida population explosion would add to the pain caused by the loss of homes from the storm surges, diseases from unsanitary conditions, and lack of food to supply the humanitarian crisis.

  “Where will climate scientist head with their families?” Maxine had asked.

  It might have been the little bird's more brilliant moments.

  Scientists were heading north to the cooler Scandinavian countries. The overall weather change could have positive impacts on the northern climates; with longer growing seasons and a more comfortable living environment. Although, the rising temperatures would release large amounts of carbon from the permafrost ground cover. An increase in forest fires and deadly insects would also be something to be concerned about.

  Max flew Maxine north to Alaska. Because it was in the United States, it would be easier to relocate to, unlike Canada and Norway, with visa requirements proving too strict for a simple carpenter and his artist wife. In the spring they traveled to Fairbanks to scout out the terrain. The Alaskans avoided the term “spring,” instead renaming the season “break up.” Floating miniature icebergs jammed the colossal size puddles engulfing the parking lots.

  Maxine had wrapped herself in a blue down parka and stood in Xtratuf rubber boots in a foot of water. On her head she wore a red knit hat with a rainbow pom-pom. She wasn’t smiling. Her cold nose was shining red like Rudolph the reindeer. In her shivering arms she was holding Bruno. The dog’s mud drenched fur stuck to its teeny quivering form.

  “I’m not moving here. I’d rather die in a hurricane. And neither is Brunny.”

  Max started scouting out more temperate areas. He wanted to stay away from coastal locations. He wanted to stay away from large population centers. He needed a place that provided long growing seasons and substantial wild animals for food.

  Maxine, Max and Bruno flew into Vegas, rented a car and began exploring the surrounding smaller Nevada and Utah communities.

  Maxine agreed Castle Valley, Utah, was her favorite place they visited while traveling the western states. It was in the desert foothills of the La Sal Mountain range. Red sandcastles towered over spectacular windblown arches and canyonland vistas. It was centered among national parks, Utah state parks and BLM land. After that it was encompassed by endless desert. The nearest cities were either four hours north by car to Salt Lake City, or six hours northeast to Denver, with the Colorado River acting as a moat, separating the fertile land from the hordes of people who would later attempt to escape from the cities. It was six hours south to Albuquerque or six hours west to Las Vegas; both were separated by the endless yellow sand buttes of the Navajo and Ute reservations.

  Luckily for Max, the value of their property in the Florida Keys was exorbitant, making it easy for them to afford the three-acre, four-hundred-thousand-dollar property they had purchased in Castle Valley.

  “How much longer do you suppose insurance companies will find it financially feasible to keep paying out for new Florida beach houses?” He asked Maxine after receiving the insurance settlement.

  “Make sure we don’t forget the baby food mill,” he reminded Maxine about packing for the move. “So I can still eat after the electricity goes out.”

  Maxine placed her knitting paraphernalia in the middle seat pocket in front of Bruno and was staring out the window at the green waters of the Gulf of Mexico below to focus on the millions of crescent shaped white caps rippling in the endless ocean water.

  She sighed.

  “I don’t much feel like finishing the llama wool doggy sweater for Bruno.”

  20 Maxine Martin

  The last thing Maxine wanted to think about was packing the baby food mill. She quietly listened to Max’s wild apocalyptic doomsday tirades. She followed along on his insane prepper’s journey. She didn’t understand why prepping mattered so much to him, if he wasn’t going to be around for the end of the world anyway.

  Maxine looked at the clear plastic cup, and the two empty mini bottles of white wine, dry on the tray table in front of her. Keeping her hands busy, she was knitting a sweater for Bruno.

  Maxine was an artist. Her life’s work was seeking out beauty and then recreating it. Her preferred art form was acrylic nature scenes; painting oceans, lighthouses, bridges, islands, trees, shells, birds, and fish swimming through the mangroves, and older, stilted shiplap island homes with brightly colored hibiscus and bougainvillea flowers. Maxine had constrained herself to paint only realistic nature scenes in perfect symmetry. She loved to paint close-ups of great herons, pelicans, and osprey. One side of the bird’s face would line up in mirror form to the other side of its face—nature’s harmony.

  “It is scientifically proven that both animals and people are more attracted to faces with balanced profiles,” her art coach explained.

  She wondered if she needed to change her art to represent a more abstract Picasso-like Cubist style, now that Max’s once handsome face had been mangled. It seemed the whole world appeared distorted to her now. Trees that once stood stable and firm appeared weak and hunched over; desiccated and disfigured by the dark green vine tendrils grabbing them from below.

  What had once made her giddy with excitement now bored her. When the manatees came to visit in the canal behind their Keys home, she stopped feeding them the tasty lettuce and fresh water from the hose. Ignoring the gentle giants. Staring blankly at a white canvas.

  Life seemed awry—off balance. Yet she felt more alive than ever. Awakening to the concreteness of an inescapable death hadn’t made her happy—it made her aware.

  Maybe I feel more alive because my Max is deader, she thought.

  Bruno noticed Max had cancer before anyone else did. Max would lean in for a kiss from Brunny, and the little dog would back up, repulsed by his rank death breath. The pooch’s miniature body of yellow fur would begin to quiver as he squatted to tinkle over the tile floor.

  After the cancer was removed, Bruno stopped sprinkling the floor. While Max was recovering from chemotherapy the little dog slept between his feet, reclined high on the Lazy Boy chair with the football game playing in the background. Maxine would find Bruno licking at Max’s feeding tube while he slept. Not wanting to wake Max, or to scold Bruno, she would let him lap away at the connection.

  “Dogs mouths are cleaner than humans...right Brunny?”

  Maxine knew she had signed on through sickness and health when they had married, she just hadn’t anticipated him losing half of his mouth. Now he stumbled over his words with garbled slurs and ate pureed food.

  “He is such a survivor,” friends would comment. “He is the greatest guy and so strong for your family.”

  He used to be strong. She wept alone.

  She pictured his
once defined brawny build, rightfully earned from his backbreaking labor as a building contractor.

  Maxine was a passionate woman. She dreamed of kissing. She would wake with her soft mouth open, still wet from the sensation of Max’s lips, only moments before hard against her own—his taste lingering on her tongue. A knot would form in her throat from the overwhelming desire for the impossible—she didn’t want to open her eyes. In the middle of the night she would suffer panic attacks. Waking to the pitch-black darkness, sure she had died. Going to bed was like sleeping in her tomb.

  She was an artist who lost her paintings to a hurricane: her art, her passion, and her enthusiasm, washed away with the tide of apathy.

  “Maxie, get me another wee bottle of white wine when the beverage cart passes pretty please,” she drawled to her husband. “I’m feeling a bit peckish; how about the cheese and cracker snack pack too.”

  A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING

  21 Buster

  My mouth salivates from puncturing the man’s skin. I swallow his blood like a warm drink down my throat, the rest of the hot liquid mixes with the saliva drooling from each side of my wide mouth. Shaking my head, I whip the foaming pink strands to circle my velvet snout, forming a bloody muzzle.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Morgan speaking, if you look out your window you will see we are currently flying above the Gulf of Mexico. We are scheduled to land in Miami in just under one hour from now. Your flight attendants will be coming through the cabin with the final beverage service. Enjoy the rest of the flight.”