By Devdas Kumar

I had a two-week vacation from medical school in Portland, Maine, and I used that time to vegetate in Florida and then attend a wedding in Toronto. It wasn’t until my return trip to Portland that I realized I was going to be waiting in Atlanta for five hours.

08:50 AM ET – Terminal A – Sunny, 71F

Seated at Delta’s Gate A19 with the nose of a 747 staring right at me, I’m reminded of the profession I longed to pursue as a youngster: International Man of Mystery (IMoM). As I remember, there were a number of perks inherent with being an IMoM, including: the intrigue associated with espionage, the ability to change the geopolitical landscape, and the promiscuous, guilt-free sex (i.e. doing it for your country).

But I always viewed those “Cowboys and Indians” aspects of the job as boring chores with no real appeal. No, I was more interested in the daily mundane task of walking around knowing that I was a bad-ass double-agent. Picture yourself having a conversation with a random person, or allowing yourself to be frisked at the airport security check, or even walking into a public bathroom.

Now combine that boring reality with the fantastically absurd notion that you are a secret agent who can kill at a moment’s notice with one of Roger Moore’s patently absurd karate chops. All of those slices of daily living have more sex appeal all of the sudden, don’t they? For me, being a secret agent would have been more of a lifestyle choice than a profession.

I logged a lot of frequent flyer miles at a young age, and during a lot of those empty moments waiting for a flight, I vaguely remember imagining that I was a spy. Ahh, the curse of being an only child and having a hyperactive imagination. Now you’re probably snickering to yourself, ‘this guy watched way too many spy movies.’ And I would agree with you. When I think of my early childhood experiences flying, I’m reminded of what it was that I loved about traveling and being in different airports all over the world. It’s that fresh sense of curiosity about the world. It’s that hunger to explore every inch of the earth and to not leave even one pebble unturned.

So in honor of all that is juvenile, I will spend the next few hours wandering through every gate at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport rekindling that youthful sense of play. In the process I will indulge my infantile urge to be a secret agent. I’ll do a little people-watching, and I will spin a stream of consciousness so random, Dennis Miller will be shamed into shaving down to a mustache. The plan is to hit terminals A, E, B, and C before winding up at terminal D for my 2:07PM (ET) departure to Maine.


09:10 AM – Terminal A

Dr. Sanjay Gupta can be overheard on the in-house CNN feed deliberating over back to school health issues – heavy backpacks, an Atkins friendly diet at the school cafeteria, using condoms in the back of your school bus. Travelers scurry to their “now-boarding” gate as their 5-year olds lug the Samsonite carry-on with mommy and daddy’s “special” toys.

I stop to peer into one of those smoking lounges. I can’t help but think that those poor souls in there were on parade for all passersby to watch. It’s one of these rooms with a big, silver ventilating shaft. The windows seem specifically designed so that everyone inside can be seen and openly mocked by travelers sauntering by. It’s a subtle form of anti-smoking propaganda: “yeah, we’ll give you a place to smoke but you have to do it in front of all of Atlanta.” The smoke and dim fluorescent lighting colors them as if they are cautionary tales, as if they are lepers clumped together and shunned from polite, non-smoking society.


09:20 AM – Terminal A

As I pass by gate A24 I overhear breaking news concerning the capture of a group of men who had designs on bombing a subway in Manhattan. Naturally, everyone’s neuronal memory throttles back to the experience of 9/11 and no amount of grooming or Westernization can shade my brown pigment any lighter. I instinctively assume a guilty countenance, as if my father drove one of those dastardly planes, and I rush to the next gate, temporarily avoiding eye contact…

That’s the problem with being brown and wanting to be 007. I have to be in a region where I can blend into the background at a moment’s notice. If I wanted to infiltrate into the Grand Wizard ranks of the Ku Klux Klan hierarchy, I’d have to pull a “White Chicks” number (or never take off the white hood).

If I truly wanted to be an International Man of Mystery, surely I could be a spy in Pakistan or somewhere in the Middle East, right? True. But have you seen any of those recent episodes of “Al-Jazeera’s Bloodiest Home Videos”? Yeah, that’s what I want: my head and U.S. passport mounted on some Jihadist’s wall of sand as he kicks back in his Lazy-Boy and slobbers over a Ron Jeremy flick. In a million years I would never work the Middle East. On a separate issue, how many strip clubs are these guys allowed to pillage and plunder before they default on their whole “Land of 1,000 Black Eyed Virgins” incentive plan?


09:25 AM – Terminal A

As I passed by Gate A19 once again I overhead a man with a thick Tennessee twang bark into his cell phone, “I don’t want my President to ruin my country! I don’t want my President to be an asshole!” He said it so openly and awkwardly that I was half-convinced it was all a part of some elaborate hidden camera show.

Billy Bob’s insightful commentary reminds me of the issue concerning John Kerry’s war record. I always assumed it was sacrilege to question a veterans’ service in Vietnam. In fact, I find great horror when the talking heads of American media are blabbing in great detail over what Kerry was or wasn’t doing in skirmishes that took place in Vietnam over 30 years ago—as if Bill O’ Reilly was there. When was it ever kosher to look back 30+ years in hindsight on the physical movements and decision-making of a combatant in the midst of war?

As far as I’m concerned, Vietnam veterans have always been the untouchables in the political sphere. But Team Bush has compiled an interesting list of Vietnam vets whom they’ve gone after with great zeal. I’m referring to John McCain and Max Cleland. Who has the guts to question the patriotism of a triple amputee? Team Bush, that’s who. But for Team Bush to actually question Kerry’s war record—knowing that their dog wasn’t exactly GI Joe—well, that takes some brass balls right there.

And Kerry’s desire to not defend himself is positively Dukakis-esque. Imagine if you went through the hell that is the Vietnam war, you lived through it, you talked about it on the Dick Cavett show, you recovered from it (as much as you can recover from war). And then some self-entitled, coke-snorting, silver-spoon wearing, trust-fund-baby has the temerity to question whether or not your service had any merit. How do you not get a little ticked off? Getting ticked would probably help the guy.

Should we punish or applaud a young John Kerry for having the conscientiousness to question the nature of a war he had just participated in? (And to do it on the Dick Cavett show no less?) It was a right of passage for every young man in his generation to do so, but his case is more remarkable because he wasn’t some random hippy who hooked up with ten birds between the Santana and Janis Joplin sets at Woodstock. No, he was actually in the damn war. And not as a photographer with orders not to be put into harm’s way, but the guy actually had a gun and walked through rice patties. And he took shrapnel. Shrapnel!?


09:27 AM – Gate A16

Where are all the Indian people? I’m going to make sure to drop by the Toronto, Newark, and Montreal gates….there are sure to be some Indians there.


09:30 AM

I walked back to the departures/arrivals monitor only to discover that there was a Toronto flight boarding out of Gate A33—the gate I had just left. Forget that. Toronto is but a bitter memory in my past. Last week I returned to Toronto for the wedding of my final remaining cousin in Canada. It was my third visit to North America’s better half in 12 months. On my first visit in August of 2003, my other cousin got married and it was during that trip that I met a girl. But more on that later…


09:43 AM – Gate A12

I just walked by a woman who had what looked to be a bad breast enhancement: the cleavage had an unusual partition to it. Strange how E!’s “Dr. 90210” has permeated so readily into mainstream consciousness. I’ve never been a breast man and I don’t think I ever will be, but I’m starting to move beyond the elementary skill of distinguishing fake boobs from real boobs, and I’m graduating on to an understanding of what makes one boob job of lesser quality than another.

Before that damn TV show, I never thought twice about thin women having the bosoms of women 5-10 times their weight. But now I can truly appreciate how unnatural the defiance of gravity is in a fake breast. And what happened to the shame that was associated with having had plastic surgery? “Fake boobs” used to be a derogatory phrase, and now it’s a status symbol for 15 year-olds everywhere. These days everyone has them, the only question is, which side of Rodeo did you get yours done at?
And apparently the plastic surgeon will get irked if you don’t get a large enough implant, as took place in a recent episode of Dr. 90210. Dr. Reyes was practically brow-beating his attractive female client to avoid the modest implant and step into something more eye-catching. Dr. Reyes astutely observed, “the world loves big breasts”. Yeah, and last Lewis and Clark checked, the world consisted exclusively of Rodeo drive.

By contrast, he was gushing over another breast enhancement patient who had the good sense to go for ultra-mega-bazooms instead of the dainty super-watermelon size. Dr. Reyes’ motivation revolves around his reputation as the man who gives great cleavage; pay no mind to what the patient desires. It’s considerate of Dr. Reyes to have the foresight to know that after the drugs and after the divorces, many of these women will desire to debauch themselves at their friendly, neighborhood, San Fernando valley porn shoot; and lucky for them, their 800cc’s of saline are right there waiting.

I know I’m only a med student but last I checked Hippocrates’ rule of rules went along the lines of “Do no harm,” not “The patient doesn’t really know what she wants: Up-sell the big ones.”


09:58 AM – Terminal E

I’ve entered Terminal E which is the terminal for international arrivals and departures. I passed by a gate which had a group of mildly attractive, loud and obnoxious 40-something couples bantering together on their way to Jamaica. It got me to thinking: First, I wonder how many people in the airport right now are swingers. Second, is the wife really into it or is she just doing it because: (a) she doesn’t want to break up the marriage since they all ready have a child or two, (b) he has one helluva temper and she doesn’t want to go back to stripping. And for the male partner, does he really believe any of that mumbo-jumbo about the utopic benefits of swinging or is he just in it for the guilt-free sex?


10:04 AM – Terminal E

I’m in line at the currency exchange counter. Pretty soon my $105 Canadian dollars will magically fetch me $69.86 USD. The man at the counter is Ole Garrison, 66, and he is originally from Jamaica. I’m in line with five yuppies blathering incessantly about the merits of Viagra and what kind of golf clubs they use. Mr. Garrison takes three minutes with each yuppie but he’s ahead of schedule and I might get my cash before 10:19.

The Canadian dollars are the last remnants of my trip to Toronto from last year when I was attending a wedding. How things change in a year. I revisited Toronto just last week for another wedding, and in a perpetual chain of déjà vus, I was reunited with the woman I fell madly in love with just 12 months ago at last year’s wedding—only to have her break my heart.

Last year she was a friend of the family, this year she was a bridesmaid. Last year we shared some laughs, this year we shared some discomfort. Last year I was on top of the world and this year I was muddled in the mire. But how things change in a year. You see, when I saw her this last time, it marked the third week of her marriage to some computer programmer in England. Last year when we met we both wore navy blue. This year I wore blue and she wore red. And that’s all I care to say about that…

10:47 AM – Terminal E

I’ve been all up and down the E terminal and I’ve seen NO Indians. Do they not fly on Sundays? In any event, I think airport security is on my trail, so I’m on the move…


11:05 AM – Terminal B

Just as I emerged from the escalator leading into Terminal B. I spotted some brown people. I noticed a 20-something Indian girl traveling with her father. They walked into a bagel shop/bookstore/café and I needed to look at the menu anyway. I played my usual spy game where I attempt to attain five usable pieces of information from the potential asset. All I can say for sure is that they’re from Washington D.C. and they have a tense father-daughter relationship. My spying technique leaves a lot to be desired but to make matters worse—in my attempt to look like I wasn’t a psycho stalker—I bought two completely useless novels, “The DaVinci Code” and some book about bank robbers. I think I’ve wasted $65.


12:07 PM – Terminal B

At Gate B30 I did see an attractive brunette with a thick textbook on taxation law and a yellow notepad similar to the one I’m using now. A law student, huh? Yeah, not a big fan of the profession. In fact Rule#13 of my personal rules for dating states, “thou shalt not be involved with lawyers, philosophy minors, or communications majors”.

But I’ve often rescinded that rule on account of Rule #5: “Beggars can’t be choosers.” My raven-haired beauty with rimmed librarian glasses bears a slight resemblance to my Toronto heartbreaker. She sits with a firm jaw completely engaged by her world of yellow paper. She has the look of a law student working her way through school as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader; and the glasses can’t hide that Van Halen/“Hot for Teacher” aura that she’s certainly aware of. She’s left-handed. She has a deft touch of Asian in her ethnic makeup. And she doesn’t look like she really needs a man in her life. She doesn’t need anyone. She’s the master of her destiny, and for that I applaud her.

The gate is busy now with traffic buzzing all around her. I could walk up to her and ask if she had a pen I could borrow or I could make some inane jab at the size of her textbook and entrée into some conversation about why she’s passionate about law. Were I an International Man of Mystery, surely I could do any or all of those things. Were I Sean Connery I could mumble any random gibberish about ‘me lucky charms’ and she would laugh with me all the way to her post-coital cigarette (and, yes, I’m aware Sean Connery is Scottish and Lucky Charms are supposedly Irish). I could do those things, but I would surely arise the wrath and ridicule of every horny, 40-60-something perv currently burning a hole into her chest. So like the beta male that I can be on occasion, I’ll wait…

01:20 PM – Terminal B

I tried in vain to approach the girl but my imaginary inadequacies triumphed in the end. As I walk back toward the center of the B terminal I sense the unmistakable stench of a food court. The very smell of the fat conjures images of my imminent Marlon Brandoization; some day I too could become another obesity statistic. My love handles stare at me like two puppies waiting to grow into their fullness as Labradors.

I openly deplore fast food joints and all that they represent, and yet the depression of another fresh self-rejection sends me into the arms of three crispy, leggy mistresses at Popeye’s Chicken with a side of Cole slaw and a Diet Coke—because obviously the Diet Coke will make a difference.

The three black ladies running the cashier refer to the customers as “baby” and “sweety” as is customary with Southerners. An aging white female shares a laugh with the cashier lady about who has the spiciest chicken in Atlanta. I wonder about this evolving dynamic that exists between black and white Southerners. How it has easily transitioned from slave-owner and slave to its present form—a modern-day caste system that separates primarily on the basis of checking account balances.

I used to think racists were simply whites who passionately hated blacks, and would sooner hang ‘em then look at ‘em. In reality, I think black and white Southerners have always had a curious symbiosis. It always amazes me to watch a person whom I know to be a bigot speak with warmth and good humor to a person of color.

Strom Thurmond could openly support the KKK, spew venomous hatred towards blacks, and support Jim Crowe laws. He was the kind of a man who could look at blacks as a fraction of a human being but he did not have a problem in having a sexual relationship with one of them. I wonder about their relationship. Did he force himself on her? Or did they have some secret love? Maybe ole’ Strom had an affection for her the way you or I might love our pets. Perhaps Strom had just felt the thorns of a scorned love and in his stuporous rage he found some peace with the slave girl he’d known from early in his youth.


01:30 PM - 01:38 PM – Terminal C to Terminal D

My plane will start boarding in a manner of minutes so I rush through terminal C. Nothing interesting to report here.

As I approach my gate I notice a parade of soldiers from the National Guard who will be on my flight into Maine. They’re on leave from Iraq and hope to have some well-deserved rest and relaxation.


01:55 PM – On the Plane

I’m seated in the aisle seat next to one of the soldiers, a 24-year old named Mark. He’s about one hundred pages into HIS “DaVinci Code”. By this point, I have thumbed through the opening chapters of said novel, but I’ve taken the jacket off of my book.

The lady in our row who has the window seat is a typical Mainer: unapologetically ultra-liberal, mildly obese, and probably a Dennis Kucinich supporter. She praises Mark for his service but then expresses her disdain for our presence in Iraq. I expect Mark to launch into some preformed response about fighting terrorism where it sleeps and hunting in caves and what not.

Instead Mark surprises me. With his buddies scattered all throughout the cabin, he whispers a 5 minute diatribe into our commander-in-chief so venomous he easily could have been Michael Moore’s long-lost, muscle-bound son. He absolutely detests the U.S. presence in Iraq, he believes it to be an unjust war, and he knows the war to be a political “wag the dog” routine. Yet, he remains a faithful soldier. I suppose, so long as he doesn’t go on the Dick Cavett show, his shot at the White House is still gold…

*****

A spy is a secret observer of others. So you could say, in the most literal sense, that for one day I actually was a real-life spy (and imagine, I didn’t need the help of an MTV show to accomplish this). That would make the spy in an airport a sort of census taker in our little laboratory of human behavior.

The airport is that unique place in our culture where every day, hundreds of thousands of travelers from anywhere and everywhere in the world arrive and depart in a very concentrated space. We leave our footprints and instantly we are connected to the millions who walked a similar path before us in our global community. I observed so many different people, it goes without saying. And of course we all shared the common desire to get somewhere in a timely manner.

But we’re all in a place where we’re required to temporarily be removed from the real world of the ground and the earth. We all share that common experience of being in a departing flight and always having that omnipresent hint of uncertainty. Risk exists everywhere in life, but it never seems more real than when you’re about to be propelled thousands of miles above that earth that you know so well. That brief glimmer of our mortality—whether you acknowledge it consciously or subconsciously—gives all of us a vulnerability that we share to some degree once we get past that security check and dash to our gate.

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