My cab driver works for Yellow. Says he used to work for another cab company, but lost his job on account of being a "pretty boy."

"You know how it is," he tells me. "The woman running things over there didn’t like men, if you know what I mean. On top of that, I was a pretty boy."

I’ve never heard a man refer to himself as a “pretty boy.” I find myself inspecting him in his rear view mirror, and thinking, Is he? Looks like a balding cab driver to me. And why is he telling me this? Where are the boundaries when speaking to a stranger you’ll spend 15 minutes with in a lifetime?

"She caught me with her girlfriend one night. Man, that didn’t help things. She spotted my cab outside the girlfriend’s crib and went warrior on me. I told her to lay off and take it up with the lady."

This must be what pretty boys do, chase the girlfriends of lesbian cab company managers.

At the airport I tip him more than is required, not because I like him, but because I have a fear of being disliked myself, and because of the guilt I feel knowing some men have to chauffeur fellas like me for a living.

In line at the airport security check, I’m the only one whose luggage involves wrinkled paper sacks. The zipper broke on my suitcase earlier, and it was soggy, to boot, from being stored near a leaky water heater. So it’s carry-on Lunds bags for now.

Before long I'm forced to surrender the contents of my shaving kit. I was told everything would be fine if I put items in individual baggies. But now they say one baggy per person. The rest is dumped. I move on with a lone baggy containing my shaving cream. That’s confiscated ten minutes later when X -ray monitors determine it violates ounce-quantity requirements.

Lunds bags are getting lighter.

I’m late for my flight. I’m trying to run-walk to the gate with the paper-bag luggage and two newspapers. I’d be okay sticking with that, but then I decide I can juggle a cup of coffee and chocolate banana roll. That’s when all it goes to hell. One bag rips open. Out shoot shirts, underwear, socks. I save the roll, but the coffee goes down hard; the exploding liquid pours over a young mother’s stroller in a brilliant brown tsunami. Businessmen staring at me seem not only disgusted with my imitation of a traveler, but my imitation of a grown-up.

I long to leave this airport and drive. I’d be fine as a driver. I love the trunk of cars. I pack ‘em well. I like being close to the earth. I like the feel of wheels on an asphalt roadway.

Oh, I’d love flying too, but Man can’t fly, can he. God said no. So instead Man builds massive steel-winged contraptions, and giant terminals riddled with rules, directives and uncomfortable tension. Airports are for housing what no civilized neighborhood would ever allow.

I make it to the plane with four minutes to spare. I’m seated next to a middle-aged woman who, if she isn’t a Wal-Mart door greeter, should be. She’s as bubbly as a tipsy church secretary. She takes up her own seat and a fair chunk of mine. She likes to look at me when conversing, which puts her face closer to mine than I got to my prom date in high school. Her breath smells of Listerine and denture cream.

"You look a little like my nephew, Kevin," She tells me. "He's about your age. He was in a car accident years ago and is being cared for now by in-home health care workers."

I remind her of a guy in a persistent vegetative state. Never thought I'd long for the company of "pretty boy."

The plane takes off. We barrel through the eternal sky at preposterous speeds, long-jumping eight states and landing with a thud in a world of plastic Jimmy Buffet theme parks. "Welcome to Florida" the sign reads.

I'm a long, long way from Saint Paul.
        

Posted by TD Mischke
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