Up in the Air Read Free

lyrics share a theme: the migration from the village to the city, the disillusionment with urban wickedness, and the mournful desire to go home. The idea held up through dozens of examples and stayed with me when I returned to work, worsening the low mood and mental fuzziness
that ISM had ordered me to correct. I saw my travels as a twangy ballad full of rhyming place names and neon streetscapes and vanishing taillights and hazy women’s faces. All those corny old verses, but new ones, too. The DIA control tower in fog. The drone of vacuum cleaners in a hallway, telling guests that they’ve slept past checkout time. The goose-pimply arms of a female senior manager hugging a stuffed bear I’ve handed her as we wait together for two security guards—it’s overkill; the one watches the other—to finish loading file cubes and desk drawers and the CPU from her computer onto a flat gray cart whose squeaky casters scream all the way to an elevator bank where a third guard holds down the “open” button.
    I pulled out of it—barely. I cut that song off cold. It took a toll, though. Because I seldom see doctors in their offices, but only in transit, accidentally, my sense of my afflictions is vague, haphazard. High blood pressure? No doubt. Cholesterol? I’m sure it’s in the pink zone, if not the red. Once, between Denver and Oklahoma City, I nodded off next to a pulmonary specialist who told me when I woke that I had apnea—a tendency to stop breathing while unconscious. The doctor recommended a machine that pushes air through the nostrils while one sleeps to raise the oxygen level in one’s blood. I didn’t follow up. My circulation is ebbing flight by flight—I can’t feel my toes if I don’t keep wiggling them, and that only works for my first hour on board—so I’d better make some changes. Soon.
    I’m talking too much. I’m dominating this. Are you interested, or just being polite? Another bourbon? I’ll have another milk. I know it’s been discredited as an ulcer aid, but I come from dairy country. I like the taste.
    Anyway, I should wrap this up—we’ll land soon. You’re meeting me in the middle of my farewell tour, with only six days and eight more cities to go. It’s a challenging but routine itinerary, mixing business and pleasure and family obligations. There are people I need to see, some I want to see, and a few I don’t know yet but may want to meet. I’ll need to stay flexible, disciplined, and alert, and while it won’t be easy, there’s a payoff. Every year I’ve flown further than the year before, and by the end of this week, conditions willing, I’ll cross a crucial horizon past which, I swear, I’ll stop, sit back, and reconsider everything.
    A million frequent flyer miles. One million.
    “That’s obsessive,” you say. Because you care for me, not because I’m annoying you, I hope. “It’s just a number. It doesn’t mean a thing.”
    “Pi’s just a number,” I say.
    “It’s still obsessive.”
    The engines reverse thrust and here comes Denver.
    “It’s a boundary,” I say. “I need boundaries in my life.”
    They open the doors and seat belts start unsnapping. Maybe I’ll see you again, though it’s unlikely. Next Monday the boss gets back from chasing marlin and the first thing he’ll do after sifting through his in-box will be to cancel my corporate travel account, which he’s often accused me of abusing, anyway. I need my million before then, and on his dime.
    Deplaning now. As we stride down the jetway toward whatever’s next for us, two lottery balls tossed back into the barrel, a mini cassette tape falls out of my coat and you see it before I do, and bend down. It’s the last favor you’ll ever do for me and it occurs in slow motion, a tiny sacrament.
    “Thanks,” I say.
    “Have a good one.”
    “You too.”
    “I’ll try.”
    You’re gone, a fast walker, off to see the family. I hope you’re not mad that I kept you from your book. I didn’t