Ventilator Blues

The alarm at the Nana went off at 2:45 a.m. He'd slept for an hour. He dressed in the clothes he'd put out the night before and dragged his luggage to the 8th-floor elevators. The reception area of the Nana was chuck full of whores and old men waiting for them and some old men waiting for drugs and maybe something else, anything else. He took a taxi to the new airport and checked in for the flight to Tokyo. He bought a bottle of flavored vodka in a duty-free shop but Northwest wouldn't let him take it on the plane because the airport was new and didn't yet have a bonded area. He handed the vodka over but a Thai guy with Northwest wrapped it in a box and said he could get it on the plane as checked luggage. He thanked the guy and handed him 20 baht which was shaken away with a firm no. He boarded the quiet but full 747 at 5:30. A Laotian woman was in his seat. She had tickets for the center seats but wanted the aisle seats. He called over a flight attendant and said look if you can seat me somewhere else then that will be great because then she can have her seats and mine and I can have my aisle seat somewhere else. The attendant said the flight was full but she would see what she could do. He stood in the aisle. The plane was quiet and cool. A man sitting in the aisle seat across from him said, "Just let her have your seat so we can get out of here." He leaned over to the man and said, "Why don't you just shut the fuck up. This has nothing the fuck to do with you."