They had overbooked the flight to Vegas. It was a Thursday night, and a busy time at work. Bad time to be calling off sick. I forefeited my middle seat in favor of a free round-trip ticket and sat with four others who had done the same.
There was plenty of time to leap at shooting stars, plenty of time to be judicious and practical.
Just before closing the doors they announced there were two seats left in First Class. Damn the torpedoes. I muffled the pragmatic voice in my head as best I could, grabbed my gear and ran down the gangplank.
I ended up seated next to a gentleman I saw invoke the ire of the gate attendant earlier. His nasal voice broke into the cacophany in my head:
>>ISHOULDHAVETURNEDAROUNDANDGONEHOMETHATFREETICKETWOULDHAVEGOTTENMEDOWNTOSANDIEGOFORCHRISTMAS<<
He continued to talk, telling me that he was a six-time entrepreneur, that he lived on a cabin on public lands in Georgia and had three--no--five Alsatian dogs. He persisted in sharing, despite my curt answers, despite attempting to absorb myself in the in-flight magazine. When they announced cruising altitude and the chinstrap-sporting flight attendant drew the curtain behind us and began taking orders for free drinks, I took a deep breath, smiled at Chatty McChatterson, ordered a whiskey and Coke and then began to answer his question as to what brought me here.
. . .
Three weeks earlier I was visiting Ohio for the first time since I had moved to Portland. I was taking pictures of the pier at Edgewater Park on the shores of Lake Erie when an older man struck up a conversation.
I'll call him "J.R."
(Just swap the ten gallon hat for sweats and orange-tinted Hunter S. Thompson specs and you've got it.)
I figured he was a lonely, friendly fellow and I had some time to kill before meeting my friend and former colleague for Vietnamese lunch at Number 1 Pho.
He told me about his glory days, of money and success in the music industry in Hollywood, of the life he had lived.
I expressed my frustrations at the process of growing up, of being overeducated and underemployed, of feeling like I was trying my hardest and getting nowhere and so I picked his brain about his achievements and advice. Before I knew it, I had become his project.
When lunch was over he had already left a message on my voicemail, said he had some ideas and wanted to discuss them with me during a run by the lake the next day. I had another lunch scheduled in Cleveland, this time with my former editor, so I agreed.
The next day J.R. started throwing wild ideas at me, naming connections and contacts he had, and the run culminated in a nebulous offer to wipe out my debt and underwrite a travel/photo expedition.
"What's the catch?" I asked.
"No catch," he said. "There's no way I could pay back what has been given to me in my life. It's my responsibility to help others."
And so began my latest adventure.
Three weeks and numerous phone conversations later I was on a redeye flight to Cleveland, downing my free First Class drinks in an attempt to make my seatmate tolerable/sleep on the flight and wondering what the hell I was doing.
"Have you heard of the microchip? The IBM Thinkpad? Liquid crystal?" Boozy McBoozerson asked as he attempted to pat my arm and steadied his fourth glass of Pinot.
"Sure," I said, eyes narrowing. I was a Kent State grad, and liquid crystal was one of the school's less bloody claims to fame.
"My father," he said.
"Really?" I asked. "He taught at Kent State?"
"No," he said, then proceeded to explain that he worked at IBM for years before going on sabbatical to take the family on a months-long grand tour of the U.S. before settling into teaching. And that he was a disapointment to his father. We exchanged cards disembarking in Vegas and I ran to catch my connecting flight to Cleveland.
Mentally I was clutching to the hope of the two fortunes I cracked open from a PF Chang's lunch earlier that day:
Taking a chance at something new in the near future will pay off.
An important business venture may soon develop for you.
I landed, picked up my rental car and got to JR's apartment, a standard flat in a big complex in Lakewood. He had a blown-up photo of Elvis on the wall, with chipped corner. He sat me down at his folding card table kitchen table, gave me coffee in a tea cup with saucer. We talked. He had been feeling ill. Perhaps it was because he didn't like washing his pans. He pointed to a cast iron skillet. He liked the "memory" of the foods all mixing together, he said. He urged me to read the paper while he walked down to the market for cigarettes.
When he returned, he wnt into a cupboard and gave me a watch, $160 in cash and a crdit card in his name - the watch was his, had been on his hand when he gripped palms with Mandela and Gorbachev and a lineup of famous musicians.
"Consider it a good-luck charm," he said. The battery had died; the date read 24.
My lucky number.
