Feeling fairly chastened. Fairly cleansed. The mercy of a few more days, I guess that was something.
Thought for once I was going to luck out seat-mate-wise but the person looking out the window turned out to be a guy with long hair and I opened my Newsweek. Pictures of the Prez sorting out the Middle-East.
But wait a minute! This whole thing was my fault, wasn’t it? I could go to her! I could tell her from the heart! I’m such an asshole, I’m sorry!
That is the formula of sincerity, isn’t it? Isn’t that how we beg? Isn’t that how we pray? Oh God, I’m such an asshole, I’m sorry! All over the world people prostrate themselves in the holy places, kneel before altars and strike their breasts, the silent cry going up in a chorus, Oh God, I’m such an asshole, I’m sorry!
I had found my sin! Now I could confess it and save everything! I wanted to run off the plane before they closed the door.
But, no that wasn’t it either. I read the computer ads.
The fellow-passenger now spoke. “Goin’ to L.A.?”
That was in fact where the flight was pointed. “M-hm.” I read the movie reviews.
“Gonna stay long?”
“Changing planes,” I said, not looking up. I just wanted to sit there and savor the sad wisdom of experience, guy wouldn’t leave me alone.
“Too bad. L.A.’s the place to be.”
I turned to the obituaries. Don’t give a rat’s rectum about the obituaries but I turned to them.
“Better’n this place. People here are cliquey. Treat you like shit.”
I let my silence pass for agreement and read the warning on a cigarette ad.
There was an empty seat between us, fortunately. He leaned over it towards me. “Some people won’t even talk to you.”
“And then you die,” I said.
The seatbelt sign went on, the p.a. lecture started and he maintained resentful silence through take-off. When the tension of being hurled from the ground diminished and it felt like we had a viable grip on the sky I relaxed a little and was troubled by a tiny wisp of shame. Not enough to do anything about but his radar must have picked it up.
“You should grow your hair,” he said, forgivingly.
By now openly annoyed I leaned on my elbow and looked at the back of the seat in front of the one between us. “Why?”
“Women like long hair.”
I could not allow this to go unrejoined. “Women like short hair,” I was able to inform him. “Shortish. Shorter than longish, to be precise. Like mine.”
“Women always go for long hair.”
I shook my head, pointed at it. My finger, an arrow in a diagram.
“Bet.”
“A hundred.”
“Five hundred. I got it right here.”
“A thousand.” I showed the little AmEx bundle.
“Done.” He stretched upwards, searching for the random sample. “Up there.”
She was in the middle section in an otherwise empty row. We came in on either side.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” I said, sitting.
Guess who. Legs crossed in perfect parallel. L.A.’s eyes almost fell out.
I massaged the bridge of my nose.
“We want to ask you something,” he said.
She blinked at us both and let her glance linger on me. Darling, it said, how precious of you. How much did we bet?
THE END
Contact
Also by Robert MacLean:
Mortal Coil: A Comedy of Corpses at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon DE, AmazonIT and AmazonES and Smashwords .
and the Toby books:
Foreign Matter at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon DE, AmazonIT, AmazonES and Smashwords.
Total Moisture at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon DE, AmazonIT, AmazonES and Smashwords.
The Cad at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon DE, AmazonIT, AmazonES and Smashwords.
Will You Please Fuck Off? at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon DE, AmazonIT, AmazonES and Smashwords.
And they're at Sony, Nook, Kobo, Diesel, iTunes—the whole street.
To contact Robert MacLean visit his blog, The Devil’s PleasureGarden.
Ebook design by 52 Novels www.52novels.com
Cover by Peter Ratcliffe www.peterratcliffe.com
Table of Contents
Now It Can Be Told
Also by Robert MacLean
Dedication
Epigraph
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Coda
Contact
The President's Palm Reader: A Washington Comedy Page 32
