A crowded bus from the terminal to the parked airplane.
Early morning. Dawn is spilling over the horizon and rushing across the desert
and busting brightly through the bus windows. I don’t really notice the groggy
silence settled over the be-suited businessmen and headdressed Saudis and
blacked-out women as we slowly bounce over the blacktop toward the plane, but
then a lonely cell phone rings somewhere toward the front of the bus, and I
realize it’s the only sound in the world. The phone’s owner must be reluctant
for dozens of strangers to hear his phone conversation, because he doesn’t
answer, and the phone rings, and a weird tension builds with each ring. And we
all stare out the windows at the runways and airplanes, trying not to listen, silently
glad it’s not our sad and lonely phone ringing, embarrassing us. But then,
after staring outside for a minute, listening to someone else’s phone ring, we
all discretely check our own phones, wishing someone would text or email or
call, because that would mean we weren’t all alone on this sterile little bus
bound for a sterile little airplane.
 |
| "Wow! Duct tape! Thanks!" |
An old man in a dark thobe shoos me out of the way on our
way up the stairs to the airplane. I’m kind of annoyed for a second, but then I
see he’s clearing the way for his completely burka’ed wife, who moves with
something between a waddle and a limp, like an big, ancient duck that you threw
a black blanket over. Then the old man steps aside and with a gentleness that
surprises me, he reaches back, touches the small of his wife’s back, and
gestures her in front of him on the stairs. I’m embarrassed that I’m surprised
at the man’s thoughtfulness toward his wife, and I realize that I wrote volumes
about him in my head the moment I saw his wife wearing a small black tent. The
man mounts another step and his thobe lifts for a moment, and his Achilles
tendon lifts out of his loose left shoe as he flexes his foot. The heels of his
socks are held together with duct tape. And suddenly the old man and his tent
are people. And for just a second I wish I could spin him around and say,
listen, I’m sorry for the way the world is, sorry that there are bullets and
shrapnel and rich and poor and derivatives and bailouts and bonuses and oil and
stereotypes. But the next second I’m ashamed for assuming that he’s poor and
miserable just because he has duct tape on the heels of his socks – maybe he
likes the way the tape feels, or maybe he’s super rich precisely because he
doesn’t spend his money on stuff like new socks, or maybe he is poor but is
perfectly happy and doesn’t need my pity. So I pause on the stairs and look off
toward Mecca and wonder how I’m supposed to feel about people with duct-taped
socks.
