24 Hours in South Carolina

I got the news after the Spirit Airlines plane landed in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I barely made it on the plane from LaGuardia (pronounced “La-GWA-dia”), because apparently Spirit Airlines can just boot you from the flight even if you have a ticket. That’s the way they roll. Not very generous of Spirit, if you ask me. Okay, okay. I couldn’t resist.

Here’s what happened: I went to the gate, approximately 30 minutes before take off, and I found it empty- no sign of life. There were a few people, to be sure, staring into the abyss of their smart phones, munching on pretzels, taking long sips of water from single use plastics- but none of the typical pre-flight anticipation and hub bub. Just the nonchalant peck pecking of computer keys and some Spirit Airlines employees talking behind a counter. I thought that this whole situation was odd, so I approached the desk.

“Um, is this where the flight to Myrtle Beach is supposed to take off?”

“Myrtle? Yeah, honey,” some people still call me honey because they think I still look like a sad, lost Jew in need of help, “we already boarded that plane.”

“I’m supposed to be on that plane,” I stated.

“Hmmmmmm. Let me see if there are any seats available still.”

“How could there not be any seats available still? I have a ticket to be on this plane. I bought it months ago. I checked in, did the whole rigamarolle with security, showed up here to the gate. My only sin, I guess, was stopping to get a croissant and a single use plastic water right over there which took a few minutes. Other than the croissant and the water, I did everything right. How could I not be on this flight?”

I briefly started making up a song in my head called “I Did Everything Right, How Could I Not Be On This Flight?” It was a rap.

“Hmmmmmmmmm,” said the Spirit woman, “Alright, I think I can get you one seat.” She then spoke into her walkie talkie. “Cabin, come in, I need you to let me know if there’s anyone in 21 Charlie,” she said, speaking in a code that I could decipher.

“21 Charlie?” the voice came back, sounding faintly like the crinkling of a single use plastic.

“21 Charlie, roger. 21 Charlie.”

“Looks clear.”

The Spirit Woman looked at me and took pity on me, the lost and sad eyed Jew who almost missed his Spirit Airlines flight to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina because he decided to buy a croissant and a single use plastic water. “Alright, honey. Come with me.”

I boarded the plane. I sat in 21C in between a pilot and a bulbous man in a trucker hat.

***

I had to poop immediately after landing in Myrtle Beach. I don’t think this is uncommon. Maybe it’s the release of stress after an airplane flight which, no matter how many times one does it, still carries an enormous and unnatural risk. I wheeled my carry on bag on top of the marble floors of the Myrtle Beach airport, hearing the clickity clack of its wheels every time they ran over a break in the marble and headed to the loo. Just as I arrived in my stall and got my belongings squared away, my pocket buzzed.

It was Martha, a friend from college: “Hey guys, I thought I would let you know that AK passed away last week. I’ll fill you in on the details for having a gathering.”

AK had died.

The wind was knocked out of me. I slumped over, hearing the noises of what seemed like a thousand automatic flushers activating around me.

The last time I had seen AK was at Martha’s wedding. He had been drinking. Hard. He was his jovial self, sure, but underneath it one could not help but sense a deep despair. He left Martha’s wedding in the middle to go to a different bar, only to return to the wedding and have more. His body slowly morphing over the course of the afternoon into a rag doll in the midst of a boisterous celebration.

That was the last I saw of AK.

Now I’m getting a text in the bathroom of the Myrtle Beach Airport that he is dead.

Memories of AK flooded my mind.

I could barely focus on securing a rental car. There were complications with the paper work, in fact. I was told I would be in a Jeep. I ended up in a Hyundai.

***

That afternoon, I drove the rental car to a “SeaSide” hotel in Myrtle Beach. I had found it on hotels.com. The walls were painted creamy yellow and there was paint chipping on some of the edges. The air conditioner was being repaired and part of it sat face up on a chair in the room. The view was nice, though- rolling waves- and I didn’t have the will to complain.

I kept thinking about AK, and about the loss of his life, and yes, of course how fleeting it was but also just how sad- a 35 year old young man was no longer. His body was cold. I would never hear his laugh or see his eyebrows move up and down again in a way that he was notorious for.

I began to get hungry and searched “local bar and grill” on my phone. I briefly researched the place, hopped into the rental car and drove.

When I got there, cigarette smoke and loud country music filled the air. Apparently, you can smoke in bars in South Carolina. I’m not surprised and there is a certain carcinogenic charm to it. The man next to me wore a “Vietnam Veterans” cap and lit cigarette after cigarette with a custom lighter that had a military “Purple Heart” on it in between sips of cans of Budweiser. He stared silently at the basketball game that was playing on the television.

Midway through my burger, I gazed up from my seat at a wall of souvenir t-shirts. I noticed that almost every single one of them had the name of the bar superimposed over a Confederate flag. I was in a Dixie bar, in South Carolina, munching on some beef, inhaling a pack’s worth of second hand Marlboro’s. I missed my friends. I missed my ex. I didn’t feel the best about my life.

As I had a smidgeon of my burger left, two rowdy rabble-rousers (should I call them Rebel Rousers?) pulled up next to me at the bar. I felt a tug on my coat sleeve.

“Nice tweed, man!” the one of them said.

“Thanks.” I replied, tentative, adjusting my black bold rimmed glasses that I’m sure smacked of “Northern Intellectual.”

“You don’t see tweed around here too much!” the man shouted over the country music.

“Well, I’m from up North. New York.” At that, his eyes flickered up.

“My buddy’s from up North!” he mentioned the other rabble rouser, who had been silent. “Northern Ireland!”

The other man nodded.

The conversation subsided. I couldn’t tell whether these men- or this one man- was genuinely curious about me, or whether he had sniffed an outsider and he had other motives. I couldn’t help but feel a distinct undertone of violence. I must have looked like a sad eyed and lost Jew from the North to him as well. I couldn’t help but sense a deep despair underneath his efforts to interact.

Just then, the doors swung open and about two dozen leather clad “Hell’s Angels” walked into the place. The whole damn bar erupted in the singing of a country song. I got out of Dodge.

***

The next morning, after I had done what I had gone down there to do (it was a College Entertainment thing), I drove around the parking lot of a Myrtle Beach Mall listening to gospel music and hymns on full blast. There was some comfort there for me, going round and round the parking lot in the Hyundai and letting the music wash over me-a suburban baptism. Then, I went to the airport to get the Spirit Airlines flight back to LaGuardia (pronounced “La-GWA-dia”, don’t forget). I arrived in plenty of time and there was no issue. The entire way back, I couldn’t help thinking of AK, of my ex, of how this was a distinct season of loss and how I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined myself having any of this take place alone in a two star hotel on the beach in Dixie land with chipped yellow paint, or in a Hyundai that should have been a Jeep, in the empty, sprawling parking lot of a mall near the airport. Sometimes one person’s Hyundai is another’s makeshift church. And sometimes a room with yellow chipped paint must, of necessity, serve as some kind of a sanctuary.

So there it is. Life is unpredictable. And brief. And full of twists and turns- sometimes even around parking lots.

And the only lesson, if there is one, is to be good to yourself and others, try to eat less ground beef and consume less single use plastic, embrace joy when it comes to you even if only in the form of a view or an aimless drive, and to never, ever fly Spirit Airlines.