I'd Never Hornswaggle you, Mate!

A creative essay.

I'd Never Hornswaggle you, Mate!

Northwest Texas is not an easy place to get to from New England. You first have to fly four hours to Houston or Dallas, then wait at least two hours for a small, rickety plane with a logo on its side that you've never seen, to take you, very unsteadily, the last few hundred miles. Assuming a tornado or lightning storm doesn't reschedule one of your flights, which is more likely than you might imagine, you arrive at your destination an entire day, and four hundred dollars, later. There's nothing simple, comfortable or efficient about it, to the extent that it almost seems intentional, a way of dissuading people from subjecting themselves to such an offensive part of the country. A place that, when the wind is just right, stinks of cow s**t; where the most common type of roadkill are cats; and also, where I decided to transfer to school.

I became all too familiar with this punishing expedition the years I studied there, flying home as often as possible to see trees, hills, and my family. On my way back to school after one such visit, I deplaned in Dallas and upon reading the flight board, learned that my 10:00 P.M. flight had been postponed until the following afternoon. I stomped off to the customer service desk, eager to tell Linda from United Airlines all about how her and her company were ruining my life, yet again. Scores of passengers were already in line babbling with one another, bonding over their shared tragedy. As I approached the back of the line, I overheard one passenger telling another that she had heard that mechanical issues were the reason for the delay. “I can't imagine that it could take an entire day to fix the problem,” she added. “I need to be in town as soon as possible for my niece's wedding tomorrow. This is ridiculous.” I can't imagine that you know a single goddamn thing about plane engines, and your niece will probably get divorced, I wanted to say. I'm not a mean person, I'm just of the understanding that airports are one of the few places left in which it's acceptable to wear your frustration on your sleeve. They're like highways in that regard. A fellow driver who commits even the slightest infraction is an a*****e and can f**k off, and in giving him the middle finger you're simply adhering to societal norms. Plus, my thoughts seemed pretty rational. The woman was clearly from a divorce-filled family void of plane engineers. Her skin was leathery and tinged with yellow from decades of smoking, and her cotton t-shirt reading “greetings from AREA 51” and picturing a UFO was three sizes too large, as were her white-stitched jeans that led down to plastic, teal colored thong sandals. If that doesn't scream “I'm on my fourth husband and know absolutely nothing about the inner workings of complex machinery,” I don't know what does.

I'd soon feel bad for judging her though, as she instilled in me hope with her next comment. “At least they'll have to put us up for the night. I couldn't fathom having to sleep in this God forsaken airport.”

Wait, what?

Of all the complications I've encountered while flying, this was the first time I was stranded overnight and the airline, instead of the weather, was culpable. Despite the divorcee's matter of fact tone, I was skeptical of their readiness to accept responsibility. I'd always thought of them as the proverbial lawyers of the transit industry. You never hear of people complaining about train, bus, or ferry companies -- only airlines. I've never traveled by ferry but I'm confident that if I did, and there was a problem with the boat, a guy in a fun hat would cheerfully reimburse my treasure. Then I'd thank him for his integrity and he'd say, “Yo ho ho! I'd never hornswaggle you, mate!” An airline though -- they'll hornswaggle you every chance they get -- hence my doubt that I was about to spend a night in a Dallas hotel on their dime.

After a few minutes of waiting, I was close enough to the front of the line to eavesdrop on the interaction between the United representative and the customer she was assisting. The passenger was waiting patiently as the the rep typed away on her keyboard. With a final emphatic pressing of a key, the printer to her right began spewing paper, which she handed to the customer with her best obligatory smile, saying, “Enjoy your stay, Sir.” As the customer, a lanky middle-aged man, thanked her and turned to leave, she called him back. “Sir! I forgot to give you these.” She handed him a few more slips of paper. “For your meals, sir.”

This can't be. The hotel rumors are true, AND they're paying for my food?! What had been an annoyance was now transformed, at least in my mind, into an all-inclusive one-night vacation in the sumptuous, magnificent city that is Dallas, Texas. As I waited my turn in line, I plotted out my evening: first, I'd unwind in the hotel. Swim a few laps in the pool, then relax in the steam room for a bit. Once my pores were clear, I'd mosey up to my room where I'd enjoy some complementary HBO, and rouse my palate before dinner with some mixed nuts, which I'd wash down with Fiji water from the mini-bar. Next, I'd phone the concierge to inquire about Dallas' most acclaimed steakhouses -- nothing too, too lavish though -- there's something to be said about understated elegance. With my dinner venue selected I'd get ready to step out, choosing the finest garments from my luggage so as to blend in with the trendy urbanites. I pictured my hotel being walking distance from the heart of the city, but for the sake of being practical, I acknowledged the possibility of a quick cab ride to get to the center of things. En route to the restaurant I'd stop off at the grassy knoll to pay my respects to President Kennedy, then, with the cultural activity required of every vacation out of the way, it'd finally be time to enjoy some quail medallions and a medium rare prime ribeye, courtesy of United Airlines.

Satisfied with my plan, I slipped out of my daydream just in time to receive my hotel and meal vouchers, as well as the first indication that my blueprint would need some adjusting. On the two meal coupons handed to me, worth a dispiriting fifteen dollars apiece, were lists of participating restaurants and the terminal in which they were located. “So I can't use these outside of the airport?” I asked, flaunting my reading comprehension skills.

“Actually you can, sir, all IHOP locations will accept them.” Hearing IHOP and sir used in the same sentence was peculiar. Sirs don't eat at IHOP, they eat quail medallions at steakhouses of subtle elegance. I was determined, though, not to let this ruin my vacation. I still had the sights of Dallas as well as the hotel amenities to look forward to. I thanked the woman behind the desk and started for the exit, where a shuttle bus was to pick me up and bring me to the La Quinta Inn in Irving, Texas, which I figured was the name of one of Dallas' trendy boroughs -- the Brooklyn of Dallas, if you will.

Looking around as the bus pulled out of the airport, I was surprised and disappointed by the flat and barren surroundings. This was my first time in the Dallas area, and having gathered the notion that it's a major city, I expected its skyline and liveliness to rival that of the northern cities I frequented growing up. Dallas appeared to be more of a cluster of suburbs than a city, with small clumps of buildings separated from each other by flat stretches of highway and plains. A few minutes ago I had hoped that my hotel would be in a hip downtown section of a city that looked like New York or Boston, my only hope now was that I would be somewhat close to a few buildings. My vacation was slowly falling apart, one dismaying revelation at a time.

The bus exited the highway and rolled into a sad, dark town that looked as though its finest restaurant option was the IHOP I'd be eating at later. Even with the windows of the bus up, the town reeked of vodka, broken dreams and fatherless homes. Praying an escape might be possible, I asked the driver how far we were from downtown Dallas.

“It's 'bout a thirty minute drive from here.”

“Do buses run there from here?”

“Naw.”

“Well, do you know how much a cab might cost?”

“A whole lot, I reckon. Prolly take an hour for 'em to get to you, too.”

This hotel better have a f*****g steam room.

After a few more depressing miles, the driver put his blinker on and turned left into the hotel parking lot. I'd stayed at a la Quinta a few years prior in Santa Barbara, but my memories of the trip consisted only of exploring the beautiful California coast. I couldn't recall much about the hotel we retired to at night, which is how I knew that it must've been comfortable enough. Things that are acceptable and decent are typically unmemorable to me, but far be it from me to forget something that I found detestable or inconvenient. It was with this logic that I determined that the La Quinta in Irving would be a palatable place to stay. The problem, I'd later realize, with this reasoning is that it naïvely assumes that a company's establishments are uniform from place to place when in fact, each location tends to parallel their respective city in terms of opulence and cleanliness. In an affluent town, even a Big Mac can be enjoyed in front of a decadent fireplace.

This particular La Quinta Inn was perfectly suitable for Irving, its mournfulness identical both to the town in which it sat, and to the drug addicts whom undoubtedly sought an elusive blissfulness inside most of the rooms. As I got out of the shuttle bus, I knew I had no choice but to succumb to the sadness. There would be no semblance of a vacation.

After I checked in, I bought a Snickers bar and a bag of chips from a machine in the lobby to serve as my dinner in lieu of IHOP, which I learned from the hotel employee was a few miles away; a distance I just didn't have in me. Walking to the elevator to get to my room on the third floor, I passed a door with a sign reading POOL. I hadn't even considered the possibility of this grungy, bare-minimum establishment boasting a pool. The fact that it did felt like a thoughtful consolation gift from the universe.

After dropping my bags off in my room I decided I'd accept the consolation gift. The pool room had the same attitude as that kid in college who'd show up to class unkempt, with greasy hair and pajamas. It was completely empty except for two plastic picnic tables, with plain, white walls and hard, grey, concrete flooring. Hey, at least I'm here. Rather than swim, I chose to wash the disappointment of the evening off in the hot tub. Emptying my pockets, I noticed that the clock on my phone read 8:52 P.M., and I laughed thinking that earlier in the airport I'd imagined myself walking down a fancy city street in a sport coat at about this time, heading to an upscale steakhouse, right on time for my nine o'clock reservation for one. My plan hadn't quite worked out. As I picked what appeared to be a hairball out of the water, I considered the many other times in my life when my absurd expectations had left me dissatisfied.

I thought of my last girlfriend. I could vividly remember the first time I met her. Everything was black -- her lipstick, thigh-length dress, and her high-heels accentuating her long, lean frame. She had a smile so beautiful that it hurt, and a single tattoo, placed on the front of her arm halfway between her shoulder and elbow. Her look was an alluring blend of edge and class, a pronouncement that she had been through trials and hardships but refused to let them rob her of her elegance. I gathered the audacity to approach her, which led to a few dates, and to my full-fledged captivation with her. She seemed to like me too, so I decided, a couple weeks after meeting her, that one day I was going to marry her. Shortly thereafter, she expressed to me that she just wasn't in a place where she could handle a committed relationship, but still wanted “me to have my way with her.” What she was trying to say was that she was interested only in having a sexual fling with me, but what I heard her say was, “Kev, we might need to push the wedding back a bit.” I persisted, of course, and with just the right amount of coercion and manipulation, we were monogamously dating. I thought, because it felt so right to me, that I could make it feel right to her, resulting in perhaps the saddest, most tumultuous year of my life.

There was also the time that I thought I could help a homeless crackhead, whom I affectionally referred to as “Unk,” get off the streets. I was living in Florida at the time, and Unk lived on a bench behind my apartment complex. I didn't own a car, and every night walking back to my apartment I'd stop at Unk's bench, offer him water and snacks that I'd taken from the cafeteria at my school, and give him a free therapy session.

Some nights I tried to get to the heart of the problem. Where's your mom? When's the last time you saw her? You should give her a call. And your father, was he good to you?

Other nights I was more solution based. Unk, this crack stuff seems a little intense, have you considered switching to weed? Why don't we find you a job, let's get you cleaned up and pick up some applications. You can borrow my shower. Do you have any other clothes?

Sometimes he'd be calm and answer my questions thoughtfully. Those were the nights that my hope for him was the highest. We're making progress. Other nights, he'd just mumble unintelligibly, his eyes anxiously darting back and forth like he was watching the world's fastest tennis match. Those were the nights I worried that Unk needed more than to be questioned by a naïve nineteen year-old.

There were lighter examples too, not involving heartbreak or homelessness, like the time I was fourteen and home alone and decided to take my brother's car for a ride. I had never driven, but I expected it to be easy since my parents drove all the time, so casually, doing three other things at the same time. I worked at a candy store that summer and all of my earnings went toward a new front bumper, having learned that when my parents moved that knob near the center console they weren't simply distracting themselves.

And the time I expected my high school geometry teacher to pass me because I averaged seven points per game for the school basketball team. Mr. Higgins turned out to be ignorant to my celebrity.

As I pondered these instances from my past, it occurred to me that my expectations tended to be products of my desires, rather than of practicality. This “vacation” was just another example. Did it make sense that my hotel would be in downtown Dallas? No, it made sense that it would be near the airport, and airports require a lot of space and are not located in the middle of f*****g cities.

With my hands starting to prune, I got out of the hot tub, dried off, and made my way to my room. As I got ready for sleep, I thought of the idea I had earlier to visit Dealey Plaza to pay homage to President Kennedy. I found a bit of solace in the fact that my trip to Dallas hadn't turned out nearly as lousy as his had. There were no holes in my head, and I'd be able to lay it in a warm room, on what would hopefully be a clean pillow. Things could be far worse. As I turned out the bedside lamp, I hoped to myself that tomorrow would be simpler. I was careful, though, not to expect it to be.