Удушье (Choke)

You say it again, 'Sorry.'

This is westbound, somewhere north-northwest above At­lanta.

'Listen,' she says, 'I work just too hard to take this kind of shit. You hear me?'

You say, 'I'm sorry.'

'I'm on the road three weeks out of every month,' she says. 'I'm paying for a house I never see . . . soccer camp for my kids ... just the cost of my dad's nursing home is incredible. Don't I deserve something? I'm not bad-looking. The least you can do is not shut the door in my face.'

This is really what she says.

She ducks down to put her face between me and the maga­zine I'm pretending to read. 'Don't make like you don't know,' she says. 'It's not like sex is anything secret.'

And I say, 'Sex?'

And she puts a hand over her mouth and sits back.

She says, 'Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry. I just thought...' and reaches up to push the little red stewardess button.

A flight attendant comes past, and the redhead orders two double bourbons.

I say, 'I hope you're planning to drink them both.'

And she says, 'Actually, they're both for you.'

This would be my first time. That first time that no subse­quent time is ever as good as.

'Don't let's fight,' she says and gives me her cool white hand. 'I'm Tracy.'

A better place this could've happened is a Lockheed TriStar 500 with its strip mall of five large bathrooms isolated in the rear of the tourist-class cabin. Spacious. Soundproof. Behind every­body's back where they can't see who comes and goes.

Compared to that, you have to wonder what kind of animal designed the Boeing 747-400, where it seems every bathroom opens onto a seat. For any real discretion, you have to trek back to the toilets in the back of the rear tourist cabin. Forget the sin­gle lower-level sidewall bathroom in business class unless you want everybody to know what you've got going.

It's simple.

If you're a guy, how it works is you sit in the bathroom with your Uncle Charlie whipped out, you know, the big red panda, and you work him up to parade attention, you know, the full up­right position, and then you just wait in your little plastic room and hope for the best.

Think of it as fishing.

If you're Catholic, it's the same feeling as sitting in a confes­sional. The waiting, the release, the redemption.

Think of it as catch-and-release fishing. What people call 'sport fishing.'

The other way how it works is you just open doors until you find something you like. It's the same as the old game show where whatever door you choose, that's the prize you take home. It's the same as the lady and the tiger.

Behind some doors, it's somebody expensive back from first class for some slumming, a little cabin-class rough trade. Less chance she'll meet anybody she knows. Behind other doors, you'll get some aged beef with his brown tie thrown back over one shoulder, his hairy knees spread against the wall on each side, pet­ting his leathery dead snake and then he says, 'Sorry bud, noth­ing personal.'

Those times, you'll be too grossed even to say, 'As if.'

Or, 'In your dreams, buddy.'

Still, the reward rate is just great enough to keep you pushing your luck.