play by play: part 2, airplanes
It started going downhill on the second plane of my three plane journey, sitting on the tarmac in Phoenix, bound for Charlotte, NC. The guy in the seat ahead of me was flirting with the girl next to him. He had a thick, South Carolina accent, the slick, almost syrupy voice of the ball-capped good ol' boys I could never stand. "You went to Clemson?" He said. "Of course, you did, sweetie. All the pretty girls go to Clemson." I listened to him patronize her and condescend to her for fifteen minutes. When she told him her dad wanted her to be an engineer, but she hadn't been interested, he said, "Of course not, sweetie. Most girls' minds just don't think like that." That's when I kicked his seat.
What I wanted to do was say, "Shut the fuck up before I stand up and vomit on you." I wanted to explain to him that he was being an asshole. I wanted *her* to say "hey, leave me alone, you're being an asshole." I wanted to take away all the fucking privelege that dude had ever been handed that told him it was ok to talk the way he talked, to say the things he said. Instead, I kicked his seat and said "oh, sorry," and then sat feeling frustrated and angry, dreaming of some kind of revenge. That was the beginning of the end of my empathy.
I officially lost my voice on the next plane, the one that would take me from Charolotte to Asheville, NC where my family would pick me up and drive me an hour and half back down to Georgia. I didn't lose my ability to speak. My normal voice was just hijacked by the Southern Me who lives hidden in me like an absorbed twin and who comes out sometimes to carry me through these visits home. I sat next to a guy wearing a Western Carolina polo shirt who asked if I was from Asheville and explained that the old, white man at the front of the plane, bumbling around with the overhead compartment, was a state senator and he'd just seen him at a conference in DC.
Like a snake that unhinges its jaws to swallow enormous prey, something in my mouth came unhinged and when I started talking to the man beside me, I sounded like him. I asked about his work at the university his shirt advertised and, in a very southern way, was able to say, "My cousin Alisha went to Western. I went to ASU." This was good, familiar and Southern because 1.) I got to mention a cousin, 2.) I got to bring up a college rivalry, and 3.) I was talking to somebody who knew I meant "Appalachian" not "Arizona" when I said ASU. And I said it all in the disjointed and rolling lilt of the mountains I was born in. For that moment, I felt only mildly like I belonged.
What I wanted to do was say, "Shut the fuck up before I stand up and vomit on you." I wanted to explain to him that he was being an asshole. I wanted *her* to say "hey, leave me alone, you're being an asshole." I wanted to take away all the fucking privelege that dude had ever been handed that told him it was ok to talk the way he talked, to say the things he said. Instead, I kicked his seat and said "oh, sorry," and then sat feeling frustrated and angry, dreaming of some kind of revenge. That was the beginning of the end of my empathy.
I officially lost my voice on the next plane, the one that would take me from Charolotte to Asheville, NC where my family would pick me up and drive me an hour and half back down to Georgia. I didn't lose my ability to speak. My normal voice was just hijacked by the Southern Me who lives hidden in me like an absorbed twin and who comes out sometimes to carry me through these visits home. I sat next to a guy wearing a Western Carolina polo shirt who asked if I was from Asheville and explained that the old, white man at the front of the plane, bumbling around with the overhead compartment, was a state senator and he'd just seen him at a conference in DC.
Like a snake that unhinges its jaws to swallow enormous prey, something in my mouth came unhinged and when I started talking to the man beside me, I sounded like him. I asked about his work at the university his shirt advertised and, in a very southern way, was able to say, "My cousin Alisha went to Western. I went to ASU." This was good, familiar and Southern because 1.) I got to mention a cousin, 2.) I got to bring up a college rivalry, and 3.) I was talking to somebody who knew I meant "Appalachian" not "Arizona" when I said ASU. And I said it all in the disjointed and rolling lilt of the mountains I was born in. For that moment, I felt only mildly like I belonged.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 2:16 PM
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