Wednesday, August 04, 2004

 

ENTRY 138: FLIGHT


Since moving to New York, I've found it difficult to rid myself of that "prodigal son" feeling--not because I'm at all a big spender, but because I spirited myself many miles away to a mysterious glowing city into which I've seamlessly vanished. It was a feeling that kept cropping up uncomfortably, like a T-shirt tag that wouldn't stop rubbing the back of my neck, when I reunited with my family this past weekend in the land of pickup trucks and Koozies.


The occasion was the Niece's baptism. Being comfortably agnostic, I don't go in much for the religious stuff, but I knew it was an important occasion for everyone else. My mom sent me a free plane ticket, which was certainly nice, but would have been much nicer had it not been from Southwest Airlines.


For those not in the know, Southwest doesn't fly to LaGuardia or JFK or Newark. The closest it comes is the dinky little airport in Islip, way out on Long Island. The train ride from Penn Station is a little less than an hour and a half long, and then there's the ten-minute shuttle ride between the train station and the airport. Needless to say, flying Southwest is a fucking pain in the ass. But my parents wanted me to use the free ticket, so there you go.


I ended up taking a cab to the airport this time, since the taxi driver yelled across the parking lot that he would charge the same fare as the shuttle. He had long hair and a mustache, and looked something like a vintage Sonny Bono. As we set off, he took out a plastic purple brush and started sweeping it through his hair, before putting on a cowboy hat and cranking up the radio ("Pinball Wizard" being the highlight, for anyone who's curious).


Other than an hour's delay and a screaming toddler seated in front of me, the flight was unremarkable. Oh, there was also the cute little flight attendant who kept asking me, with his crotch unusually close to my face, if I needed anything.


I didn't.


Mom picked me up at the airport. Her car was full of things she'd driven down from Tulsa to Houston; she and Dad are moving there this month, marking an official return to their beloved home state. I knew they'd be happy to live near Marc and Cleo and their new granddaughter, and I also knew that I might reasonably expect them to start hatching a plot to return me to the fold. I was the only one now who wouldn't be in Houston, and, as the old pitch goes, "Collect all four."


I managed to squeeze my luggage in, then opened the passenger-side door and saw, in the dim light of the parking garage, what looked almost like a bowl of tomatoes sitting on the floor.


"What's that?" I asked.


"A bowl of tomatoes," said Mom.


Ah.


Fortunately, I did not get the Houston Chamber of Commerce lecture, but rather her pleasant droning about the move and various relatives. She then asked me to accompany her to a grocery store that was "in a not-so-nice part of town." This could mean only one thing: we would be shopping with minorities.


Race issues are subtler these days. My parents would never use certain offensive terms to refer to nonwhites, or claim that minorities are inferior. But there are minor incidents that give one pause.


For instance, in my freshman year of college I had to deal with a viciously homophobic roommate in the dorm who had threatened my physical safety. One of his many charming traits was his affinity for playing "nigger/bitch/faggot" rap very loudly. I was talking to my parents on the phone one night when my dad said, "He's not just against you; he's also a racist."


"What do you mean, a racist?" I asked.


"That music he listens to with words like 'nigger.'"


"But Dad, he's black."


Mom spoke up on the other extension. "Why didn't you ever tell us he's black?"


I frowned. "Why would I?"


Why would I, indeed? Hey, Mom and Dad, guess what?! My roommate is African American! Just thought I'd share. 'Kay, bye!


It's weird how complicated all these issues are, how whites sometimes brand one another racists more readily than a nonwhite would. I've looked back at that somewhat ambiguous conversation with my parents and wondered what it really signified, not just about their own prejudices but about my own. Had I gone out of my way to avoid mentioning the color of my roommate's skin because of my own sensitivity about coming across as racist?


Anyway, I'm losing the thread here. Mom and I arrived at the grocery store. The neighborhood wasn't exactly the Upper East Side, but it looked completely innocuous at 5 PM. But when we went inside, I tested my theory as to why she'd said the neighborhood was sketchy. It turned out we were the only white people in the entire store.


It makes me uncomfortable to write about things like this, especially when it involves my own parents. But I think talking it out is one of the few ways to bring real healing when it comes to loaded, tense topics.


When we reached Marc and Cleo's house, I saw that the Niece had grown a lot since I last saw her. She sat there plumply in her vibrating seat, and when Cleo commented on her daughter's expanding girth, I started calling the Niece "Jabba." When she was down to just her diaper, I shifted from Jabba to Sumo.


Houston, for the record, is incredibly humid.


My aunt and uncle and my grandparents arrived the next day, and by Saturday night the house had filled with people from both our family and Cleo's. Dinner for thirty, coming right up. My dad had been busy making fajitas on the grill, and it was good to eat copiously and communally, in a way I almost never do these days.


The slight drawback was that everyone seemed to ask me the same thing: How are you liking New York? I guess they couldn't think of anything else to ask, and it's a difficult question for me to answer. But here's the template I'd developed:


"It has its ups and downs. It's an interesting city, but it can be pretty difficult when it comes to making lasting friendships, for the same reasons that dating is tough there. People can be very into their jobs and themselves, and don't always make the time to reach out to others in a very meaningful way. But I love the museums and the park and good theater, when I can afford it. There is always way too much to do, which is good. And it's gotten easier. But sometimes it's still really hard. It takes time."


Clearly this was a John Kerry answer in a George Bush milieu. But for the most part it worked okay.


Sunday morning, we headed to the church for the baptism. It had been a while since I'd set foot in a house of worship, and a slight unease settled over me. I amused myself by signing my name as Benjamin Affleck in the guest register, and became oddly fascinated by this one guy in the choir who was, I swear, wearing blush and lipstick.


One issue that comes up in these situations is that I don't feel right participating actively in religious worship. For example, I'll stand and hold a hymnal, but I won't actually sing the words. Of course, every single other person sitting around me was singing. Thus, I can hear how bad everyone's voices are. It bothered me slightly that my grandmother, seated next to me, seemed to notice that I wasn't singing. But no one said anything about it.


Did I mention that Houston is humid?


After the post-baptism luncheon at Cleo's parents' house, my own parents took a group of us to see where their new house is being built, in a new development on the outskirts of Houston. We're talking the boonies. I wandered through a couple of thoroughly uninspiring model homes. They were nice enough, certainly, but completely not what I would ever want for myself. Yet this must be the American dream for a significant number of people: a plot in their own particular Levittown with dreary cream walls that somehow express a depressing finality.


As we drove my parents to the airport that evening I thought about all this, about all these physical anchors the rest of my family had embraced. A baby girl. A tasteful, inoffensively offensive house. Attics full of things. A job my dad hates so much that he almost wept one day when I called him at work and sat there horrified, listening.


Dad had given me the pitch that afternoon as he finished packing his suitcase. Not the dreaded Christianity pitch that I have heard any number of times (I eventually learned to avoid being alone with him for too long), but the foreseen Houston one.


He had an odd look at his face, which prompted my "What?"


"Nothing," he said. "I--just wish we could all be together."


"But we are, aren't we?" I said.


"I mean living in Houston," he said.


"Oh. Well, jeez, what would I do in Houston?"


My mom chimed in. "You could work for the Chronicle, or that magazine they have. The Houstonian?" She looked at me quizzically, seeking confirmation, but I simply shrugged.


"I just don't think it would be right for me."


"I know," said Dad. "When I was your age, I probably would have wanted to go looking for excitement in New York, too."


He made it sound vaguely as though I'd run off to Las Vegas to become a prostitute, although I doubt it was intentional.


The next evening, my last in Houston, it was Marc's turn.'


"Thought about moving down here?" he said, as we drove home with takeout.


"I knew Mom and Dad would try to hatch a plan to get me to," I said, "but I honestly don't see myself living here."


"Why not?"


"I just don't think it's a place I'd feel comfortable. There are things Houston just doesn't have."


"Like what?"


I hesitated; Marc had a definite affinity for this place. "I know there is a cultural scene here," I said, "but not of the scope and variety of New York's. I like that I can go to all these amazing museums, and never run out of things to see, even if life is a lot harder up there."


"Well, that pretty much rules out any other place," said Marc, sounding, perhaps, faintly exasperated.


I looked away, at nothing. "Maybe so," I said. "Maybe it does. But maybe that's all right."


I could live in New York, or I could move to a carcinogenic concrete greenhouse with a Republican majority.


No, wait. Give me a minute.


Of course there are a million other options, and who's to say whether one of these days I'll realize that the misery I sometimes feel in this not-always-human place outweighs the hard-won rewards? But I did know that Houston would never feel much like home to me, despite my family's being there, that home has always come to me in moments and isolated pockets and memories of things and people and places and events that are irrevocably gone.


And I knew that a plane would carry me away tomorrow, leaving Houston behind like a strange dream and bringing me back to the city of immigrants, where I would again be allowed to struggle after my own dreams, to fuck up, to be lonely and sad and uncertain and authentic. I could once again be a refugee, endangered and saved and transcendent all at once. And the green woman would wait patiently for me to arrive, as she always does, as she always will.

9:59 PM

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