Emergency Exit

by Leah Bailly | Sep 3 2008

Las Vegas flash fiction

Tonight, a puncture in the air-conditioning unit above the third turnstile, a slow drip of chilled water into the stack of plastic trays. Like a miracle rain, delivered to Vegaboy of the Desert, but they can't see the miracle. Instead, the monsters waiting in the security lineup nervously complain: my wallet's soaked, my alligator belt, my laptop can't get wet, dammit, dammit, dammit.

Vegaboy doesn't give a shit. Lately, he's been smoking crack for work. Bosscat doesn't mind, figures he can be as stoned as he wants to hand out plastic trays to passengers waiting to have their personal belongings x-rayed and their bodies sent through metal detection. They grumble to him, he stares back, glassy-eyed.

Once, and only once, Vegaboy flew out of Las Vegas. A class trip to Chicago, and Vegaboy couldn't believe the green squares of farm he looked down on from the little plastic oval of plane window, how organized and wet. It was 69 degrees when he landed at O'Hare, but he almost didn't disembark with so much happening onboard, with the click of the seatbelts, the little chutes of air, all those legs wrapped in pantyhose marching up and down the aisles, that giant wing out his window with its stenciled warning: DO NOT STEP HERE. He could even summon the taste of scrambled eggs in the tinfoil dish served by the polyester blue army. They don't serve breakfast on the Vegas-Chicago flight anymore. The lake is still there though, its thousands of miniaturized boats and docks and the texture of trees and squares of farm getting more and more real on the descent. The bargirl, Slots-a-fun, says so. Says: Chicago's still like that, green and whatever.

Tonight, Vegaboy's gonna get Slots-a-fun to smoke with him, maybe at his place, maybe with her in a couple of pieces of lingerie, licking up his body with her little cat tongue. Maybe she'll grow a little bunny tail, or her tits will inflate like the oxygen masks that fall from the overhead compartments.

Hey kiddo where you goin'? Vegaboy looks around, has drifted away from his post in front of the plastic trays. Bosscat noticing. Vegaboy chewing his lips. Every night after his shift, he and Bosscat smoke the pipe and play $10 worth of video poker at the Cockpit, the beer bar over in departures. I wanna die in an airplane, he'd tell Slots-a-fun, the bargirl. When it lands, I want the whole thing to come down.  Slots-a-fun won't even look him in the face lately, instead sweeping up the beer labels and coasters and napkins Vegaboy has shredded into little hills all over the bar. Vegaboy's topography. It isn't that she hates him, just hates Las Vegas. It's like that for everybody, they either don't care or they fucking loathe the place.

Get back here dammit. Vegaboy keeps drifting. Bosscat slams a refill of plastic trays on the stack in front of Vegaboy, like a warning. The drip has morphed into a steady trickle, and won't stop pouring into Vegaboy's hair, his face. Dammit, dammit. The monsters in line grow more indignant. This purse is leather; do you even know what that is? Tonight, six turnstiles open, 12 on the metal-detecting and seven on rub-downs, six on x-ray, five doing rotating plastic tray duty. The crack edgier than usual. Vegaboy mumbles to himself. Slots-a-fun is getting closer, Vegaboy feels like he's about to take off, that he has located her emergency exit, that he can get down on her oral directions and hand signals, that he wants so badly to stow and secure his escape slide and pass expeditiously through her exit door. Excuse me sir, there appears to be water in my tray.

There was turbulence on that flight to Chicago – only last year, before he dropped out, after he sold his first baggie to Captain Rick. Flight attendants, take your jump-seats. Vegaboy unflicked his seatbelt even then, hoping the plane would lose sudden altitude and he’d lift up for a suspended moment, floating, before his head would crack against the overhead bin and his neck would snap. The first time he sold Captain Rick that coke, he'd told him the story, how it had happened on a flight to Miami – the plane dropping and the stewardess breaking her neck on the roof.

My fanny-pack! You'll get moisture on my fanny-pack! Vegaboy throws a furtive look at the monsters, the flight schedule picking up, the video warnings chiming overhead, the lineup growing. Tonight, planes scheduled for Atlanta, Newark, JFK, Raleigh. The greenery alone makes him shiver. The water pouring from the roof, a near deluge now; Vegaboy lifts his face to it, a wash of cold, chemical water staining his uniform dark, down his neck past his collar and down the line of his back. It was the only thing they could agree on, all of them, the crashing upon landing. Even Captain Rick admitting it, confiding: It's everything I can do to keep it on the runway.

Tonight, a passenger busted with a pen-knife, a cell-phone toy with traces of gunpowder, sewing scissors. The weapons accumulate in a pail behind the x-rays; Vegaboy calls dibs on switchblades, has a collection. Dark outside, the thick August weather would dry him out in seconds, but the monsters won't let him leave, so eager for the quarter-slots on the other side of the glass. The monsters love that, cheap Wheel-of-Fortune in the airport. Vegaboy needs out, needs Slots-a-fun. Because finally she agreed about the landing: It's the only moment we're all thinking about our mortality. Her nipples pointing out of her shirt like buttons you could press. There's just a difference between those praying to crash and those praying to land.

Vegaboy palms Bosscat a baggie, unhooks his collar. Break time. He is soaked, dripping with it, the storm easing off now. Vegaboy feels clean, washed-up. Nothing but a puddle where Vegaboy was standing. Slots-a-fun waiting for him, more like manning her post at the Cockpit, introducing him to her girlfriend perched at the wood. Vegaboy is back to shredding his coaster into a mountain, the sweat from the bottle a river beside it. Back to chewing on his lips. Slipping his $10 into the video poker. The girl says: What do you do here at the airport? And Vegaboy says: I fly.

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