Chapter 2

Shelley crossed the terminal of the Ontario California airport towards where I sat, carrying a cup of coffee in each hand.  It was around 6:30 in the morning and she, our other colleague Ross and I were taking the first flight out to Atlanta to attend training at a FEMA facility next door in Alabama.  We were all excited to be going there and had been looking forward to the week long break in our normal work routines. 

I looked over the edge of the copy of the backpacking magazine I was reading and smiled pleasantly at Shelley as she approached, pulling myself from the story of a kid who had gotten his arm stuck under a boulder in some Moab canyon while hiking alone.  He ended up having to cut his mangled forearm off with a dull knife, negotiate the rest of the canyon, set up and repel one-armed down a 60 ft cliff, and then hike out some 20 miles before he ran into a couple of other hikers who helped him get to safety. 

What must that have been like?

I placed the magazine on the worn vinyl of the seat between me and the armrest.  Shelley returned the smile and handed me the extra cup, then sat next to me, sipping her coffee. 

I liked Shelley.  She was one of those people who carry an nonthreatening and honest demeanor, and she had an easy and direct way about her.  With her, what you saw was truly what you got - a rare quality for anyone. 

Before that trip, I had not really had many serious conversations with Shelley other than the standard work fare, but nonetheless we got along well.  I had learned a lot about her and she was always kind to me.  She’s a good friend.  Since I had to take this trip with people from work, I was glad one of them was her. 

I trusted her - and that was a rare thing for me.

We passed the time in the terminal chatting about inane things as we counted the minutes until boarding.  Ross snoozed in the seat on the other side of me, and presently the soft voice of the gate attendant came over the speakers above us to announce our flight.  We made our way up to the jetway and boarded, shuffling through the aisle until we found our row.  We buckled ourselves to the outer two seats in the center column somewhere in the middle of the big Delta airlines L-1011 jet.  Ross had a seat in another part of the plane, but Shelley was sitting next to me.  I was glad she was.  It was good to have someone to talk to. 

I use to work on the road doing freelance audio visual production jobs for various companies.  I flew many times doing this, but always hated to fly alone.  Generally, I never talked to anyone because I always found those situations awkward, sitting trapped next to a stranger, not knowing what to say.  I read a lot on those trips.

I hadn’t told the story in quite some time, it occurred to me later.  Maybe that was why it seemed different this time.  Ever since the motorcycle crash, and in my subsequent conversations with Carol, it had been heavy on my mind.  I guess that’s why it wasn’t surprising that while Shelley and I chatted about the ins and outs of air travel the way people do while the plane prepares for the upcoming act of lurching itself into the air, fighting against gravity and the weight of a full load of passengers, luggage, and fuel, the subject of air disasters came up.

For me, I have found, this is a natural thing.  Perhaps it is a basic part of human psyche.  It comes from the belief that air disasters are never predicted and occur as a sort of surprise.  The logic following this dictates that if you talk about the possibility, it somehow spoils the surprise - and then it won’t happen. 

So you bring up the possibility of disaster of some shape or form in advance; analysis of the things that can go wrong on takeoff like that one in Chicago when the engine fell off, or landing, like that one in Dallas that was slammed to the earth by a sudden and cataclysmic wind shear during their final approach, or somewhere in between, like that one in Iowa that had it’s rear engine ripped apart in mid air, and ended up rolling in a fiery ball down a Sioux City runway. 

It was a slightly morbid line of conversation, I was aware, but it sure didn’t bother me.  To my gratitude, Shelley didn’t seem to mind either, perhaps sharing my illogical logic.  And yes, I am aware that talking about it doesn’t make it happen or prevent it from happening, but if nothing else, it was an interesting topic with which to pass the time.  Shelley seemed to share this view, at any rate. 

As if on cue the plane jerked slightly as it moved back from the gate, breaking the flow of our conversation.  I chuckled nervously, and fiddled with the emergency card in the seat back.  There was an uncomfortable pause while I thought of something to say.  Maybe the topic really had made me uncomfortable.  Maybe it was the silence I hated.  Either way, I began to speak, unable to stop the words: 

“In case you were wondering,” I said, matter-of-factly, “you are statistically much safer while I am on this plane.”

It came so casually…almost as an afterthought, like I was talking about walking a dog or reading a good book.

 “Really,” Shelley said, turning her head slightly to glance at me curiously.  “And why would that be?” 

Suddenly, realizing what I had just started, I began to feel a little uncomfortable.  I really thought Shelley was a nice person and she was a colleague and becoming a friend.  I was going to this training with her and Ross, and we were going to be hanging out for a whole week.  Beside that, I ran into her a lot at work, and I suddenly didn’t want her to think that I was…weird. 

Unsure how to continue.  I squirmed in my seat now.

“Well…” I blurted out, trying to figure the best way to put it. “I was…kind of in a plane crash…once.”

She blinked and sized me up.  I now had her full attention.  I crawled in my skin under the weight of her stare.  Why couldn’t I ever just keep my big mouth closed? 

“Shut…up!” she said pointedly. 

I understood her reaction fully.  I guess it’s a strange thing to hear from someone seated next to you, particularly when you are strapped into an airplane getting ready to taxi.  I guess most people don’t give such statistics much thought. 

I do. 

In a lot of ways, the idea of statistical safety is what allowed me to ever get back on an airplane, funny as it may be.

“Yeah…,” I continued, awkwardly, “So statistically, you are safer …because I am on this plane.”

She blinked again.  I felt like an idiot.

“I mean what are the odds?” I babbled on.  “Of it happening twice, I mean…” I glanced at her and shrugged.        

Shelley's stare weighed on me as she sized me up, probably at least to some extent unsure whether or not I was just pulling her leg.  I had seen her expression so many times on the faces of others, so at least I was ready for it.  Nobody really knows how to respond when I tell them about that.  It must be a bit surreal.  I always feel like they are waiting for me to give them the punch line or something.

It is especially odd to hear when you’re sitting right there next to them, with all their limbs and parts seemingly in tact…with them alive.  People just don’t know a whole lot of airplane crash survivors, because if nothing else, they are pretty sure that not many people survive airplane crashes. 

As for us who do, it is something you shouldn’t bring up at all unless you are prepared to take some questions.  It is simple human nature to inquire about such things. 

            For now, the awkward feeling hanging around me, I turned my attention to the plastic tray table folded securely into the seat back in front of me, and wanted to smack my head into it.       

 “Wow…” Shelley said after a pause, seemingly with a lack of words.  The jet had begun taxiing by that point as we made our way to take off.  I could see her curiosity, so I told her what I knew about the incident, and how it led to ATLS.  It wasn't much, but it was like nothing she had ever heard before.  She was intrigued.

“Have you ever tried to write that down?” she asked after awhile.  I looked at her. 

“Yeah, I have,” I said.  I had thought about it, of course.  Terri had been telling me that I should for years.  So did Carol.  Lots of people had, and I really did want to. 

The problem was, I knew so little about the real story.  As I began to get the words down in a coherent and systematic form it would become just that; a story, a tall tale.  I remember nothing about it.  I only knew what I’d been told over the years, in small strands here and there. 

I really had no idea about what had occurred for those vast stretches of time devoid of information or substance, and when I would try to write about them, I would end up filling them in with fiction in the form of guesses or might-have-beens. It turned out the details I needed to make it anything worthwhile were sorely missing.

But one thing I did know for sure was that I didn’t want to tell a fictional story about it.  If I was going to write about it, I wanted to tell the entire truth.  And I didn’t know the truth.  No one person did.  It was horribly discouraging, and I would always lay my proverbial pen down and walk away after a few pages or sometimes paragraphs or even sentences.  It always left me with an empty and depressed feeling. 

I explained as much to Shelley.

“Why don’t you find some of those people, then?” she suggested with barely a pause.  “Ask them about it?”

The notion hit me, as she said it and her words swirled in my mind attaching themselves to some kind of meaning.  I was a little dumbfounded.  It made perfect sense.  Any thought I had about doing it in the past had for no particular reason been accepted by me to be futile, so I never gave it too much consideration.  Sometimes it takes another person to show us what we know to have been true all along.  That was the immediate effect of Shelley’s words right then. 

Why didn’t I ever find those people?  There was no answer.  But in the true form of a man set in the comfort of his denial, I told myself that the idea was implausible and shook it off.

“Nah,” I said, retreating once again.  “I don’t even know where to look…and even if I did, who’d remember anything? It was so long ago..”

Shelley turned to face me again. “Do you really think someone would forget that?”  She said bluntly. 

I glanced at her and in seeing the intensity of her look, faced away and stared at my lap, like I had been caught in something.  I thought about those words very carefully.

“No,” I said finally.  “No, I don’t suppose they would.”

“There has got to be someone around,” she concluded, and settled back in her seat with the confidence of someone who knew they were right.  More importantly like someone who knew YOU knew they were right.  “You just have to look.”

I cannot describe the sensation that hearing her say those words had on me, but it was akin to being struck by psychological lightning.  I tried to stoically play it off, but the thought made me squirm inside.

Could it be possible?  Why had I never given it more serious consideration?  Why did I want to believe what Shelley had said was NOT true, even though I knew in my heart that it was?? 

I was cornered.  I couldn’t deny the truth in her words.  They rang in my head the rest of the flight. 

We got to Atlanta and we didn’t crash, kind of proving my point about statistical safety.  We  picked up our rental car then drove to our hotel to rest for awhile.  An hour later we all went out for a nice dinner, followed by a visit to a bar in Buckhead to celebrate our safe arrival.

I got really drunk.