I am one guy out of several billion you've never heard of, yet I've had an direct effect on your lives unbeknownst to anyone other than perhaps ten or so people. Close friends and family at that. What that essentially means, or translates to "..Hmmph. Yeah? Wow. Okay. "
The following account is true.
It's about timing and it's about gut instincts. Many of us already know that to ignore your gut instinct is something to be met with regret. Once? Anyone who has ignored it once already has a story. Twice? A show of hands? I didn't think so.I was working contract sales and training sales agents in the UK for a Canadian based company in Crawley West Sussex. The CEO had me stay a little longer than was originally planned. I rolled with the punches as I could but when the first glimpse of opportunity was seen, I rang him from Liverpool where I was based and insisted that he book my flight back to Toronto. My stay was a little longer than I planned to be away by nearly a month. The back and forth across the pond was nothing new to me at this point, the flights were generally budgeted for as the travel days they represented, grueling, both coming and going, with one direction usually taking longer than the other by roughly an hour. The tail winds always got me home with that saved hour and that was good. The company used one travel agency regularly that usually involved one airline that flew regular charters out of Canada , known as Air Transat . Troy called me back and informed me of my itinerary, a red eye flight scheduled later that night from Manchester to Philadelphia with a short layover before connecting to Toronto. Progress was made. A Philly cheese steak suddenly came to mind along with the relief that I would soon be home. I was missing my family like mad. Daughter, four. Son two. She was thirty one and I had just recently turned thirty three.
Standing 6'6" and weighing in at 250 lbs , 21 years ago I carried a few more and weighed fairly solid 285.Early background for me was in night club security. Cabarets, strip clubs, - Halifax to Toronto - I performed every role in a bar except pursuing any idea of owning one, which meant that as a doorman tending bar, or slinging a tray, the club had extra interest in the added value. Always an outlier, I began school the day I quit at the age of 16 and school as always, is in. Very rarely did I have to resort to the use of force in any of the daily tasks of that industry, however, a few crazy situations are never far from recall when I think back. I could size up whom I was talking to fairly easily. Given the choice, talking is far preferable to the use of force, especially if the subject of my attention is interested in my best efforts to make the case. If one can successfully carry the forward and the grounds for it are sufficiently made, it’s a bit like telling someone to go to hell, but with the added segue that they need not fear the trip. What resulted, more often than not, was their reasoning or reconstruction of the events that would result in our conversation. Occasionally, though rarely, there would be information offered that would add to, though not excuse the issue. They felt better in process, I took pride in making no enemy in the process, and tomorrow, would just be another day. That guy returns at some point later that week and poses no problems. There exists an unspoken respect and maybe, at some future moment, he’s even ‘got your back.’ Manchester U.K. May 18-21? 2000. As usual, I wait until the last moment to board. Moving six inches at a time down the aisle to get my seat is not my thing. The flight staff at the boarding gate give me the raised brow which I acknowledge and rise to my feet, present my boarding pass, and lumber down into that final stage of travel before boarding the plane.
A glance to my left, while maintaining a fluidic pace of motion revealed that business class was half empty, ( thanks for thinking of me Troy !) as I swung my attention in the opposite direction as one does when reading any scene with the eye for the simple purposes of navigation. Headroom, clearances, obstacles, sight-lines ; all of these autonomic processes which we rarely, if ever, think about, unless of course, something stands out that either doesn't belong, or might be witness to an anomaly as it unfolds which is read, gauged, and so forth. A short fat man reaching into his overhead compartment, fails to safely seize his briefcase and it spills open into the aisle and startles a few of the seated passengers nearby.. as an example. We see and assess anomalies like these fairly quickly and are not generally excited about results that joined at the hip to their respective causation(s), Shit happens, 'hey look.. it's happening, it's over, We move on. The inanities of any given day become the white noise through the open window to the street outside. It is only when something juxtaposes the scene so much, yet at the same time, offers no accompanying explanation for it, that causes a sudden change of gears that demands a whole new level of assessment. A salad bowl made of opaque glass, its size, correlating to something you might see at a large dinner party, floating unaided, and moving slowly and silently towards you, in an airplane. No time to rig trick wires or other means to disguise its apparent defiance of physics and even more interesting? No one really even sees it. Their heads are already scanning their reading materials, and it's a 'red eye'; some are planning to doze off just as soon as the staff go through their life vest routines. You cannot see something like that without an internal and involuntary fear response. This response serves as the explanation that seems about as equally old as it is an understood explanation for the phenomenon turning 'white as a ghost'. Our own sensibilities repeatedly tell us throughout our lives, that reality, however anyone attempts to define it, is nonetheless, subject to rules.
'I don't know with any real certainty that my grandmother saw a ghost. What i can tell you however, is that her sympathetic nervous system obviously failed her, she was a proud woman, and it was there in the hallway, where she was standing at the point she claimed to have seen it, that she would evacuate her bowels.'
I did not see a floating glass salad bowl as my eyes led my navigation routine that would allow me to locate my seat. Neither did I see a ghost, but as for three distinct sets of dark brown eyes who were seated together, what they saw was shared equally. Such was their immediate and simultaneous degree of concern the moment they experienced the visage of the ghost, that was me.
Perhaps 15 rows ahead of me and to my left sat three men together. Their eyes all registered the same fear. The fear that needs not confirm with the other, the gravity of it. The fear that is so utterly real that their minds might be considered fused. "Oh yeah ?" says I with a penetrating look as I stood for just one split moment, the kind of pause that says "I was informed you'd be here and this little pause in my stride is just to size you all up and let you know, not today motherfuckers". The reaction was instant. The reaction was equally divided among them. When my eyes went from one mans to the next, what was directly perceived remained indirectly preserved. I was a silver-back gorilla. It was primal, how their fear would feed me. I advanced towards them and then took my assigned seat about five rows directly in front and on the same side of the aisle the three guys are now seated behind me, but there is plenty of room on the plane. I decided to play it cool. I already know at this point that I will take a strategic seat of my choosing from the many empty options that are available. My wife and my kids are waiting for me at home and I'm going to surprise them with an earlier than expected return. I’ve just had an experience that, for a very significant reason, could place all this in jeopardy. I’m calm. I’m thinking it over. I’ve been through plenty of security checks in airports. These guys look too anomalous to me to be likely candidates for bringing explosives on board. Three guys. Middle Eastern for sure. They look educated, and easily present as businessmen. Two have shorter and well kept beards and one is mustached. They are of average height and weight and appear to be in their late thirties or early forties. Anywhere from five to ten years older than myself. So why are they afraid? What do I represent? This is between the four of us. The plane hasn’t even disconnected from the boarding platform. Think. Three dudes. Busy International Airport. I just had security go through my briefcase a week earlier flying RyanAir to Gatwick from Belfast. A mitt full of stylized ball point pens made as promotional giveaways for American Express proved to be of acute interest. “Why all the pens ? “ the security personnel asked as they dismantled a portion of them to make sure there was nothing sinister concealed. “Uh.. well the trade show ended and the girls bestowed them to me. They said I was ‘good luck.’ Apparently when birds defecate upon you, it’s a very special thing”. The boys laughed and nodded as if to confirm. Superstition is a thing in Ireland. North and South, that seemed cultural fact that transcended the politics. It was no different earlier in Dublin. I wondered if that wasn’t sufficient enough, a hint.
The show ran a total of two weeks. The 2000 edition of the Belfast Home and Garden Show.
What an experience. Belfast. Sunday Bloody Sunday and thoughts of U2. A city steeped in history where binary murals seemed to confirm that coins have but two sides. There was an ‘understanding’ at that time. The unexpected gave way to a sense of stability that was rather novel, rather recent, rather new. The vibe seemed very cautious, as if one could jinx it, if it were celebrated too fast, or taken to soon, to heart. The show was fun for the first week, but the second began to feel like work. Mambo No5 was the chart topper at the time and one of the exhibitors had it playing loudly upstairs and it was looped. By the second week, the song was too constant and too loud to be white noised or back dropped. When talking to people, you could focus enough that would blend but only during those moments. A little bit of Rita is what I need. The name of my mother in law would be invoked each and every loop, and each and every loop, I would quietly wince. It was a long contract. Spring in the UK and a product rather new to the market, the hot tubs and red cedar gazebos would prove to be a curiosity before they would become a hit. My peripheral vision is a well honed asset to all I do, my vision at that time, until virtually turning forty, was 25/20. When reaching forty and to the day almost, my eyesight was a quality that spoke to an internal thought of my own exceptionalism. It was a simple enough theory I guess, harmless and at the same time, quietly humble...but that day, with my visiting out of province parents no less, I would struggle to read the fine print on my father's prescription. Type2 Diabetes, my dad and both younger brothers, it was I who would prove the outlier ..so largely was I spared. That day was a bummer. At forty I had to reconcile this halfway point in life as a significant day in school. Acceptance? Yes.. get over yourself buddy. Everyone gets older. No one says you have to get old.Ten thousand feet, the inner ears acclimating nicely, the 'ding' arrives. I unfasten my seat belt and rise then turn and our eyes, once more, though briefly, would meet enough to say, "the conversation ain't over" and five rows behind them and with no one in between us, would take my seat of choice and settle in. A few moments go by before I would see who it would be, that would buckle first. The guy closest to the aisle. He spots me, that fraction of a moment where he finds my gaze waiting, locked and registered, not the moment he preferred, for I enjoyed, as if he knew it, spotting his regret.6'6" & 285 lbs at the time or so, sleeping on planes rarely happens for me. Emergency exits, business class, leg room, even when its available, at best, I might manage 20 minutes where I can rest my eyes. This flight is no different in that respect, except in that we are on red eye heading East and we're chasing the sun. And yes, there are three guys who do not know me, but for some reason, would immediately perceive me as such an enormous challenge to their plans. As I had mentioned, I had worked in a number of strip clubs or 'peeler' bars, as they were/are often referred to, back in my early days doing security. When the feature dancer would appear on stage the gentlemen seated around it, awaited her arrival with a level of expectation that was neither ashamed or even at all self conscious, In the early 90's the feature dancers were often working in porn in or were just damned gorgeous and were gifted communicators. In fact there wasn't much comparison when I think about it between the feature with the notoriety of a career in adult films and the feature who was in touch with something else that was no less important in terms of the fantasy connection for which her fans were already well versed. That latter having something about it, something deeper and not the easiest to articulate, but a level of connection that is as meaningful as perhaps it is, illusory. She enters the stage and all you need to see the moment she does, is the look in their eyes.
When she steps onto that stage, that look, she's seen before. She knows.
She has cultivated with them a secret covenant, She's been with them in many a discreet place, she can probably just imagine. At the conclusion of her set, she will most likely call on me to hold her camera, and take the Polaroid of herself posing along with that hard working and plain looking fella, who for the sum of twenty dollars, waited patiently in line. It is interesting to see these 'windows to the souls' as one does though, with respect to variation among the boys buying the Polaroids, generally speaking, there isn’t much to note, for they tend to look much the same. In some cases, these regulars seemed as enthused as the day you’d imagine them turning nineteen and proudly presenting their ID as their pinnacle rite of passage. I found it curious at one point, how some of these dudes, middle aged and seated around the stage along with new initiates, share the enthusiasm as though it was still brand new? Working in this environment, it might have taken at most, two to three weeks before a relative immunity or acclimation to nudity, would naturally take hold. I was twenty three when my work in security would travel into or along that avenue. In some respects, it was easier. The rules were self evident. No touching the girls. Behave yourselves. The fact that more than a few of the patrons had vocations that fell somewhat outside of the ‘take your kid to work day’ scenario, I would half guess, is worthy of a set or two of parenthesis. Most of the guys worked largely in the trades. Blue collar or white collar. Occasionally, but not so often, a mix of both. In general, these distinctions were due largely to the locations of the clubs. Industrial areas at around or near the airport? A fairer mix though still proportional to the rents paid by the leaseholders. The first gig I landed took only two days after moving to Toronto, The House of Lancaster. House One as it was known, located at Bloor and Lansdowne. I had no idea. Welcome to Toronto. You’ve just landed a gig in one of the roughest clubs in the city. Unbeknownst to myself, just a day or two prior to my unsolicited offer to the manager whom I met within moments of my arrival, there had been a police raid on the club. Of course I had already taken the job before discovering that German Shepherds were involved. The club had open the safe and there were a few arrests made. Apparently patrons felt that openly snorting cocaine from the tables they were seated at was par for the course. That level of over confidence had to have been rooted somewhere, and it took no time to understand at that point as to why they were interested in having Tommy open the safe. Tommy was a heavy set man who wore expensive suits, enough gold to compliment the same and was a known guy in his native neighborhood in the Danforth. Bloor St Toronto turns into the Danforth the moment it crosses Younge. The souvlaki and Greek cuisine in general along the Danforth is a well known and historical neighborhood in Toronto. Tommy was outside the box a tad with this job but he kept one foot in as I would later come to understand it, running underground after hours gambling joints to be exact. He explained the raid just earlier to me on my first night at work. The club had an image problem as he would go on to explain it, though in retrospect, I think it would be fair to say that it had a facet problem. Its image was set long before the drug raid. It was the facet for which the precinct known as 51 Division was most concerned about. I had arrived in Toronto just two days earlier, on January 1st, 1990 from Halifax Nova Scotia. I had no direct connections with anyone in the club, anyone aside from my friend John whom I had grown up with in a few parallels who had moved to Toronto earlier before I would take the offer and opportunity to break from the East Coast. John was a long haired musician with a Hammond B3 (which I had helped carry more than once) and fleet of keyboards.
Myself, I arrived with hair nearly as long and a nylon string guitar.
I was exploring my love of music and what I believed to be the proper centre for which this interest in music would be better served by a closer proximity to it. Having no connections to the city, much less the club, and looking the part that was not yet quite written, it seemed I was the right fit at just the right time. The job was straight forward. The facet and specific challenge associated with it, well, everything being so new, I was set to impress. Tommy sized me up before I even knew the half of it.
I can see that now.
We are about an hour into our flight, actually I'll say less. Let's assume that in general all airlines keep to a fairly consistent set of protocols, Seat belt signs go out, the staff begin rummaging and organizing the refreshment carts - and depending on occupancy, one group fore and the other aft. They pour the soft drinks into plastic glasses unless one asks for the can to which they are generally happy to oblige. So the refreshments are handled easily enough and the carts are returned to their stations and a flight attendant, a woman perhaps my own age, smaller in stature, and pleasant in demeanor, starts walking from the front of the plane to her own seat at the far end in the back. I'm somewhat slouched but am leaning out just enough so that she can easily meet my eyes as she draws closer, I motion her to lean in. Softly I say "Those three guys in front of me, I don't want to alarm you, but they are a potential issue. I will not take my eyes off them for a moment. In the event there is anything resembling a commotion, understand that I know basically as much as you do, but what I do know, more than warrants this quiet conversation". Her relief was willfully understated. She, would then relate she, along with the other staff, were very much on edge, regarding these guys. They too, are in the business of spotting nuance. That level of poker can be a real instinctual mechanism. The pot in this game is nothing like the guys and the Polaroid's or heap of money on the table. It is a phenomenon that considers the worst outcome and one that acts as though it is directly at the door. She quietly thanks me with a level of relief , informs me that she will appraise the staff of our conversation and most assuredly, they too will be comforted. We're covering the bases. I’ve got the added brawn that is generally not in the budget. Just as importantly, I made the point of reaching out to her. It couldn’t work the other way, an airline staff member sharing a gut feeling regarding her unease with a passenger regarding other passengers. That card could only be played in the event that professionalism and social graces were the least of her concerns. I, like Homer Simpson, just wanted a peanut, or to put it better, just wanted to go home. Her eyes and mine would connect from time to time throughout that flight. The three gentlemen took no refreshments, and by about hour four, I took mental note of their bladder control. I had by that time, gone to the toilet once, easily and discreetly, keeping the door slightly ajar with one shoulder so as to keep watch. Aside from the guy who met my gaze when looking over his shoulder to see if had taken a different seat, nary a backward glance followed. This was shaping up to be, by this point, something of a non event. There would be no argument from me if that were the verdict. My attention would be on the backs of their heads until we were parked and the hatch door was opened. There’s always that subtle and downward tilt of the nose that tells you you’re getting ready to land soon. The engines are softer now, the seat-belt sign isn’t on yet either. The landing approach is underway, but there’s time to stand or organize your overhead bag and so forth. The announcement from the captain is soon on the way and with our flight times, anecdotal things about tail winds, ground temps and a cheerful thank you for flying with us and so forth. Sometimes if there were periods of turbulence or other agitations for which a few quiet Hail Mary’s might have been faintly overheard spoken or not, the captain’s announcement might have been followed by a round of enthusiastic applause, though of course, were it to happen, it would wait until the plane was safely on the ground and slowly making its way to the gate. This would not the case here as turbulence wasn’t an issue. Oblivious to the any thought of a security concern, the passengers for the most part, slept or lounged as best they could. In my assessment of the other passengers, there stood no one that struck me as a potential asset; in the straight physical terms the average guy was perhaps 5’10” and under 180. You never know who the 3rd degree black belt might be though either. That particular set of talents would present itself in due time I figured anyway, if there were any on hand. The nose lowered a little more and the teeter was now the corollary to the totter where you could imagine a well placed melon rolling down the aisle and slowly gaining speed. She would emerge from the front from her station and head towards me, but not past. Discretely she leans in and says "We are making our approach to Philadelphia. Do you think we should have security meet us on the ground?"