The Lady at the Airport

I'm going to write about this fast to get it out of my head. A crack addict who was talking about just having gotten out of jail started harassing me in the security line today. In the midst of her rantings to her traveling companion on another subject, she suddenly looked at me and said, "You should smile more."

I ignored her. I smile a lot; the fact that I wasn't smiling then was none of her goddamn business, I thought to myself (I hadn't had my tea yet). She repeated her advice. I felt my eyes glaze over as I looked elsewhere. "Did you hear me?" she said. "You should smile more!"

I find this particularly annoying. People never tell men to smile. When men look serious, it's a good thing. But women have to smile whether they want to or not. And (this point can't be emphasized enough) I hadn't had my tea. I looked down at my suitcase and started unzipping it to get the laptop out. I could see the woman's muscular arms, tattooed like a man's. She raised her voice and repeated the admonition. "I'm just giving you advice!" she said. I was a bit surprised. She was escalating the conflict despite the fact that I hadn't engaged with her. Thinking to stop her, I finally said, "It's none of your business."

Mistake.

"Oh!" she said, "Here I am, just giving you advice, and you give me an answer like that!" She advanced on me. I had been taking off my shoes, which was weird while this scary person was breaking my space bubble. I glanced around. No security personnel. How could that be? This was a security line!

"You're a bitch," she said. "Bitch! Look what you done now. Here I was, all ready to be friendly to you, and you act like a bitch! A bitch! An ugly bitch! That's right--you're ugly!" She had raised her voice, and as I looked around again for a security guard I could see a lot of stressed travelers, mostly kind women showing their sympathy with furtive looks. Not a single ex-Navy Seal among them. Unlucky. I was happy for the sympathy but would have preferred to see a man who looked like he'd been through hand-to-hand combat training.

"You know what?" Tattoo-woman went on, unbelievably raising her voice even higher and waving her hands around. "I think I should call you cunt. Cunt! Cunt! How do you like that?" She looked around at all the (faded, pudgy, and otherwise non-heroic type) onlookers. "She's a cunt! An ugly cunt!" she announced. Then she turned her attention back to me, shoeless and with my belongings spread out for security (where are they? I thought), feeling very small. I have stepped between warring stallions without a qualm, without even a pounding heart, but just then I felt myself begin to shake, whether with anger or fear I'm really not sure.

"You are going to be sorry," she went on. "Now you've made an enemy out of me! I hope you get bowel cancer!" I flinched, feeling like I'd been hit with a true curse. In that odd way that sometimes happens right in the middle of the action of life, an instant froze itself and took on new meaning. This woman and I faced each other in a spiritual place, her curses hurling at me as she became more and more vituperative, more and more evil, channeling her energy from a place of utter horror, a place of chaos where darkness and power combine to destroy souls. Her words were black shadows of viscous disease and they were going to obliterate me. Her curses continued, and now she said, "And you know what? You can't get away. I have cursed you with my power—and I am very powerful, don't you think that's not true—and my curses will follow you forever."

I blinked. Ridiculous.

I left my things and walked down the line until I got to the security gate. She couldn't steal anything—too many people were watching. I said to the guard, "A woman back there is harassing me and she is out of control. She doesn't belong on an airplane." The guard looked doubtfully at me. "Back there," I said.

"All right, I'll send an officer right over," she said.

"Do your worst!" I heard Tattoo-woman scream from way back in the line. "You will still die of cancer, and you'll die alone, because I've cursed you!"

Three security guards appeared and moved my stuff ahead so I didn't have to go back near Tattoo-woman. They got me through quickly. A police officer came over on the other side of the gate and asked me what happened—what exactly the woman had said to me. I didn't want to repeat it, but I gave him the high points.

Then a quiet voice said, "I saw the whole thing." It was a faded traveler, one of the nice women. The officer asked her what she had heard, and she confirmed what I had just said and added a few details that I had left out. Then another officer brought Tattoo-woman over. I turned and started packing things. Really, I was thinking. Life is so short to spend it on stupid stuff like this. Life is for things like... like tea.

But by now the officer was telling the woman to apologize to me. "I don't need that," I said quickly. "No—no," the officer said, "She owes you an apology." Tattoo-woman quickly said, "I'm sorry," and the officer faced her. "What you did is against the law," I heard him explain as I walked off. "It's called harassment and you can go to jail for it."

I walked fast and left them behind, wishing I could stop shaking. What in the world had I done to offer a foothold for her aggression? I wondered. Obviously she was spoiling for a fight. But what made me, out of all the people around her, the target this morning? Whatever it was, it was probably the same thing that another bully in my life draws energy from.

I think it was because I was afraid of her. Like any animal, she sensed it. And despite all the trappings of legal and civic life, the other bully senses it too and attacks in just the same way, feeding on my fear and making himself seemingly stronger by continuing to inflict pain. My aunt, who is in fact a powerful woman, named this dynamic, calling it a spiritual battle that can only be won in the spiritual realm; she said that the details of courts and legal pleadings and witnesses and the law are not the proper realm for this fight. She encouraged me to focus on strengthening my spirit through joy and happiness and laughter and adventure and passion.

She's right.

And now the plane is descending as I write, out of the sun, under the clouds to Burlington and home. Elizabeth will be there, and we will go get Mikey, and then be home in time for Danny, and we will each in our own way ground ourselves and enjoy our time this afternoon and evening. Probably Danny and I will take a short ride on Bella and Dante.

And the power in our connections will obliterate all curses; the happiness and love that I breathe in my everyday life leave no room for them.