Airplane Rides by Jake Alexander Read Free Book Online Page A

appreciation.  I
turned back to the aisle and caught Katie’s attention with my eyes.
    “Did you see that sunset?” I asked her.
    “I did!” she responded with surprise.
    “Is that the first time anyone has asked you that?” I said
sarcastically.
    “No, I’m sorry. You just don’t seem like the sunset type,” she
replied honestly, embarrassed the moment it emerged.
    Raymond snickered in delight as she rolled her eyes to
acknowledge her own clumsiness and apologized again.
    “A fair presumption,” I said shrugging it off.  “My friend here
can use another and I’ll follow along,” I said to her.
    Raymond nodded in agreement and thanks, wrapping both responses
efficiently into a single gesture.  Katie blinked her eyes to register the
request and scampered off to fill it.
     
    I quickly wrote out a few sentences that I hoped would make
sense, praying I would get them down before being interrupted again.
    “They pay alright,” said Raymond coolly.
    I heard his words but they didn’t register for a few moments,
as if there were a translation delay in my mind. At first I thought he might be
making reference to deserved prison sentences.  I looked up at him in
confusion, searching for clarity in his expression, and found him gazing out
the window, exactly where I had left him, searching for a sunset that had since
disappeared.  I mentally backtracked the conversation and realized he was
responding to my earlier statement that for whatever reason had lingered with
him.
    “As long as they pay their bill,” I repeated, to establish that
I was back up to speed.
    “They pay big,” he continued. “Once a guy sent me a Ferrari for
getting his kid off.”
    “A drug dealer?” I asked.
    “That’s right. Paid my fee, sent me a car. Case closed.”
     
    Absent the sun’s rays that had danced across our faces, the
horizon was slowly turning metallic gray.  In the safety of the twilight,
Raymond removed his own armor, gave his eyes a rub and, for the first time,
demonstrated signs of fatigue.  Katie returned with the fresh drinks, clearing
the empty glasses as she set the new ones down.
    “You lay over in Miami, young lady?” Raymond asked her.
    “We do,” she replied, still polite and unassuming of the
proposition that to me seemed the only possible reason for posing such a
question.
    “Come back later and I’ll give you some suggestions on where to
go with your girlfriends tonight,” he said presumptuously.
    “That would be wonderful,” Katie replied graciously.
    A twitch of her brow told me she had no such intentions.  Maybe
Katie from the Midwest wasn’t so naive.
     
    Raymond nursed his third scotch while I tried to focus again on
the pad that I held idle in my lap. What I had finished of the two drinks had
settled my apprehension a bit, and I began to make some more notes that,
enhanced by the alcohol, seemed more insightful than they probably were.
    “What do you do?” Raymond asked, interrupting the minor
progress I was making.
    “Finance,” I replied, intentionally vague.
    Raymond shook his head in understanding, not possibly having
the slightest notion of what I was referring to.  I relaxed my writing hand and
waited for a follow-up question that didn’t arrive.  I couldn’t help but take
in his face.  He had finished his third drink, and the sharp expression I
remembered at our introduction had been replaced with a less brilliant one.
     
    I looked at my watch and realized we would be landing in an hour
and forty minutes.  Charged once again by the fear of embarrassment, I took a
last shot at assembling my speaking notes. Undisturbed for about 30 minutes, it
was enough time for me to at least to get my thoughts in order.  The main
points were clear, but I needed to figure out how exactly to make them.  I
began to run through opening lines and key sentences in my head, listening to
my inner voice and admitting the awkwardness.  Like everything about me, it was
going to need a