Beauty and Misery

Originally Posted Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Touched down in the soggy south after a day of delays in airports.  I was lucky, though.  Some people on my plane home had been delayed and stuck for two days because of weather.  I had my iPad and read most of the novel, "You Think That's Bad," and was generally content.  Coming home is usually an awful experience for me, but in general I can report that I was vaguely happy and pretty content. 

I was agitated by one thing, though.  Stuck in Dallas, I saw the most beautiful girl in the world.  She was taller than she had a right to be with legs that reached her chin.  She heightened this experience by wearing coral shorts that were cut as high as possible.  They were probably illegal in twenty-five states. I saw her while I was eating a mistake at one of the airport restaurants.  She was sitting on the floor near the airline counter texting.  She made me miserable in that most terrible way that beautiful people can, allowing you to know that your life will never be as fortunate as theirs.  After the bad sandwich, I walked to a seating area to wait two hours for my flight.  I had just pulled out my iPad and began to read when she sat down two seats away.  I tried.  I really did, but it was useless.  The words in front of me kept slipping away, the letters becoming jumbles, switching places with other letters in the word.  I couldn't quit turning to look at her. 

In a little while, she got up and greeted a young boy and his parents.  He sure was a dweeb, I thought, the luckiest dweeb in the world.  But my assumption turned out to be wrong.  It was not her boyfriend but some modeling buddy.  They were models of some sort going to something I couldn't make out.  Yes, yes. . . I was eavesdropping.  It was worse.  I snatched up my iPhone and snuck a picture of her to send to my friend C.C. in order to make the complaint of my misery more convincing.  But I couldn't very well just point my phone at her and snap her picture now, could I?  C.C. of course offered me up all the bad advice he could muster in his usual, "Jump. . . the water's deep" way.  He likes to help me that way. 

In order not to go to airport jail, however, I tried to return to my novel.  Something was wrong with my neck, though.  It needed turning. 

When they announced my flight. . . well, of course. . . she was on it.  Without trying, I ended up in line behind her.  Jesus oh Jesus, she shouldn't have been allowed to dress that way.  I imagined myself saying,

"So. . . you're going to Orlando?  Heck, you should come over to my little studio to make some pictures.  That would really be something." 

That was the best I could imagine.  I guess I don't see myself as Cary Grant or George Clooney even in my most desirous imagination which is good since it keeps me from absurd acts of fancy. 

Skip ahead.  When we land, I go to pick up my luggage, and there she is.  She and me.  I try not to look, but she is looking at me.  I'm trying not to be a creep, but my neck still has a hitch in it.  It is an automatic response, I think, like moving your hand away from a flame only in reverse.  And because the weather is bad and there is a crack of thunder, the sissies who handle the luggage can't, so we have to wait for the storm to pass.  Not able to stand it, I sit on the floor leaning my back on my camera bag facing away from her.  From time to time, she walks by me and stands looking at the luggage carousel like something is going to come out.  From my vantage point on the floor, she is a fifty foot women.  She is doing this on purpose, I think, putting on a show.  It is not just me.  What use is being beautiful if you can't make people miserable?  She casts a glance at me in passing. 

Finally the luggage arrives, and I grab my bag and head quickly for the elevator to the ground floor to catch a cab.  Of course. . . she's in the elevator, too.  I figure I'll be arrested for stalking and nobody will believe me.  She looks at me with the blank model stare.  I can only turn my back and look the other way. 

When the cab dropped me off, I saw the cat sitting by the door.  When I grabbed my bags, she ran away.  I called for her to come, but she was in rebellion, I guess.  But before I could unpack, she was there, looking in the bottom pane of the glass door, meowing.  When I opened the door, she just screamed at me for a long time and wouldn't come in.  She was pissed.  But she got over all of that when I opened a can of wet food.  I'm so sharp.  She was in love again right away. 

Why doesn't it work that way with women?  I guess I know why.  Lot's of fellows have even more cans of wet food than I do and fancier ones at that. 

I must prepare now to return to the factory.  There is really no preparing for that.  There is just going.  All my bliss will be gone by the end of the day.  I will be in the place I was when I left, I assume, or close to it.  They have their special ways of breaking people.  It is what they do. 

I won't do a Google search for modeling events in my own home town, I promise.  Really, I don't think I will.  If I do, it will just be out of curiosity.  It is not like I would show up or anything.  Nothing good could come of that.  Right?  C.C., right? 

But really, I could have made such beautiful pictures. . . .