Log0011
DFW to SAN – Drawing David Foster Wallace’s Parable
The crowds at an airport are often bad. Around the 4th of July they are particularly bad and at the end of a trip, there is no worse place to experience this than waiting for the baggage carousel.
With our Lyft already booked, we just had to get our bag, and get out the door. It was the final hurdle between us and home. Maybe it was the long flight, or perhaps the longer sickness I had been battling all week, but my patience was thin and my attitude waning.
I could never understand the hordes of impatient travelers waiting right beside the conveyor belt. Like teenage girls in a mosh pit, each trying to look over the other, to catch a glimpse of the passing goods. Logic would instead have everyone wait 5 meters back, so all could see, and no bag owner blocked. But logic would have to wait for we were in America. Land of the free. Land of the prisoner. Trapped in his dilemma.
Like I said, my attitude had long since devolved. There was no excuse though, as I stood here casting judgement, when likely this scenario played out the same way in every airport, every day, in every country. This curse was the unconscious default setting, seeing the world through tainted lenses, and I’m sad to say, it got worse before I caught what was happening to my attention.
At 6’4 I was too short to see over the crowd, and my calves were beginning to burn as I stood tall on my toes hoping to catch a glance of a particular suitcase. My wife had already given up. To add to the comedy, a middle-aged man had walked over to the bag entry. The overweight fella wore baggy pants and a checked button down that was two sizes too large. His bearded blank face was obscured through the crowd, but his actions were not. As any black bag fell on to the platform, he would pick it up, turn it over, and drop it back down. A number of the bags didn’t even make it back onto the belt without needing a nudge to drag them along. “What the fuck is he doing?” I heard myself ask no one. Now he was even grabbing some of the purple bags, giving them the same offhanded inspection. I cursed under my breath again not understanding the odd character.
It was only another 10 seconds before I saw his face. A face I had seen earlier in the day. A face I couldn’t not remember. The face of an almost blind man slowly making his way between gates. His particular eye condition clearly impeded his ability to navigate the airport. I felt a pit in my stomach. Not the sickness I had been battling with, a deeper self-afflicting turn in my organs. The childlike feeling of letting your mother down, of falling short, of breaking trust.
I stood here assuming him to be the obnoxious crowd member, a half blind man just trying to find his bag. While I, high and mighty, cast quick judgment, unwilling to do the work to question my default setting. There was no benefit of the doubt and no slow consideration. I was shocked how quickly my tired mind devolved back into this state. A state of laziness. A state too far gone to question, if this… if this is water.