And De Fun Don't Done (3 page)

Having never travelled overseas before Norton couldn't say if the flight was good or bad; it was like a domestic trip only bigger with more flight attendants. Whatever it was, it wasn't all that enjoyable. They gave you plenty of snacks and things to keep you happy and the Lamb Apricot dinner was nice, but it hardly touched Norton's sides. Consequently his stomach was rumbling most of the time and he was glad he'd tossed the two Cherry Ripes in his bag. The stopover in Fiji for fuel took close to an hour and a half, and another half-hour out of Nadi one of the rear toilets blocked up, leaving you with two giant Henry the thirds to stare at if you had to use that particular brasco. Les was in a non-smoking section but a team of hard-core smokers, just a few seats behind, managed to smoke enough cigarettes for everybody else on the plane, so there was a continuous wafting of smoke coming from the rear all the way to Los Angeles. Fair enough, he had plenty of room due to the empty seats alongside. But two mongrel kids behind him cried, put on tantrums and tried to kick the back of Norton's seat to pieces till they ended up falling asleep two hours out of Fiji and about ten minutes before Les was going to choke the pair of them along with their empty-headed parents. So much for the flying fuckin' kangaroo, mused Norton,
in between dozing off and reading snatches of P.J. O'Rourke. At least the drinks were free. Norton was just about to put his Walkman on and see what he had when his journey took a sudden and dramatic turn.

There wasn't a bomb on the plane and they didn't get hijacked by Muslim terrorists. A head flight attendant came up, introduced himself as Greg, said he was a friend of Tommy Butterworth's and did Les remember him. He was about thirty-five, with dark hair and a moustache. Les stared up at him for a moment. It was a party about a year ago. Greg had fallen over, cutting his hand pretty bad, and everybody at the party was either too drunk or out of it so Les ran him up to St Vincents. Les had bumped into Greg around the traps now and again after that and always joked about how his drinking hand was.

Greg suggested that if Les didn't want to watch the movie he could come up the front and have a few drinks; which probably meant he could drown himself in it if he wanted. This sounded like an absolutely splendid idea to Norton. The movie wasn't all that hot and it was a good chance to stretch his legs. So before long Les found himself in a galley towards the front of the plane with a couple of off-duty flight attendants who were friends of Tommy's, nibbling little snacks and munchies and all pouring Jackies and Coke down their throats and exchanging drunken jokes and stories like they were expecting the plane to crash at any moment. Subsequently Norton was able to sway back to his seat reasonably drunk and crash out for the remainder of the trip. So after a few hours' sleep, a Farmer's Omelette, coffee and a bit of a clean up Les was too dazed and puzzled to know whether he was jet lagged, hungover or what when they began circling the smog- shrouded, freeway-jammed wastelands of greater Los Angeles around 1.00 p.m. California time. The only thing Les did know, but couldn't quite come to grips with when they touched down and he adjusted his watch, was that it looked bloody hot outside and it was still Thursday afternoon. Doesn't time crawl when you're having fun? he mused, rubbing the stubble on his face.

They all started to file off the plane to the polite smiles of the flight attendants when, after winter in Sydney, Les noticed a burst of heat coming from outside. Then Les noticed something else. As they started walking up the ramps and corridors everybody seemed to start walking faster, and faster, and faster. Norton got swept along with the mob and by the time they went along one corridor and into another they'd almost broken into a sprint. What the fuck's going on? thought Norton. Was there an earthquake warning? Is there an impending riot? No one said anything getting off the plane. They scorched up another corridor; Les screeched round a corner, almost blowing the sole off one jogging shoe, and into a huge enclosed area where he stopped dead in his tracks. The only thing he could compare it to was Grand Final day at the Sydney Cricket Ground. There were literally thousands of people from all over the world, crushing themselves and their hand luggage into countless queues to get through immigration and customs. Somehow Les got swept into one queue and stood their gaping. Christ! I'll be here for a month, he thought. People pushed, shoved and argued. Voices boomed out over intercoms in English, Spanish and Japanese. Airport officials — blacks, hispanics, asians, whites — wearing uniforms and badges roamed the queues, ordering people around in weird American accents like nothing Les had heard on TV or in the movies. Now and again a customs official would appear out of nowhere with a sniffer dog and let it run and jump across the passengers' bags. Still dazed and now a bit spun out Norton shuffled forward in his queue and tried to switch off to the heat and bedlam around him.

He'd managed to stuff up one of his immigration forms so he had to fill it out again. But the customs official was quite friendly.

‘From Australia, eh?' he sort of smiled.

‘That's right,' answered Les.

‘Going down to Florida to see the “mates”, are you?'

‘Yeah, something like that,' said Les, returning the man's smile.

The official banged a stamp on his passport. ‘You have a good one.'

‘Thanks, mate.' Les pocketed his passport and walked off, wondering whether he should have said that.

Now all Les had to do was pick up his luggage from Baggage Claim 18. It wasn't hard to find; Les just followed the numbers through the melee till he found a mob of forlorn-looking Australians crowded around an empty conveyor belt that just kept going round and round and round. Some bloke in a crumpled white shirt, sitting on the edge of the conveyor belt, looked up and caught Norton's eye.

‘The fuckin' hatch is stuck,' he said, his voice tinged with despair and frustration. He looked too tired to be angry. ‘I've been sitting here nearly half a fuckin' hour.'

‘Christ!' replied Les. ‘I'm supposed to pick up a plane to Dallas.'

‘Hah!' answered the bloke. ‘Join the club. I've missed my plane to Chicago.'

Norton looked at his watch. ‘Shit!'

‘Yeah. Shit!' nodded the bloke.

After about twenty-five minutes the luggage started to dribble through. Norton's blue canvas bag dribbled through about fifteen minutes later.

Getting through customs was barely a formality, but between the kindly air refuellers' strike in Sydney and the hatch jamming on the plane Les missed his connecting flight by about twenty minutes. Oh Christ! he lamented. I knew this would happen. I just fuckin' knew. It was no big deal, though, according to the woman at the Delta Airlines counter, just behind the customs desk. She re-routed Norton via Atlanta then told him to toss his bag on the conveyor belt behind him. Norton did as he was told.

‘Now where do I go?' he asked.

‘Out that door there,' pointed the woman. ‘Turn left, and it's about a half-mile to your right. You can't miss it.'

I will though, thought Norton. ‘Thank you, miss,' he said, and stepped outside the terminal.

If it was hot inside, out on the street seemed like a blast furnace. Norton couldn't tell where he was, either.
Strange noises, strange cars going everywhere, strange voices and even stranger heads. Gripping his overnight bag Les set off in search of Delta Terminal 25 and his connecting flight to Atlanta. To his surprise Les found it without much trouble; he even managed to find a money exchange and without too many stares exchange some traveller's cheques for just on a thousand dollars cash. The flight didn't leave for another thirty minutes; Les figured he might as well be on the plane, sitting down reading and relaxing, as wandering around the terminal. It was no different from boarding a domestic flight in Australia. He showed his ticket at the desk, next thing he was inside some massive plane, the ceiling almost as high as St Mary's Cathedral, seated on the aisle somewhere in the middle. All Norton had seen of LA was a crowded, hot, sweaty, hazy, confusing blur. Settled back in the aircraft's cool interior Les was now able to relax a little and check out the heads on the seppos.

The whites sure had some strange melons. They looked like Australians, but there was something different about them Les couldn't quite put his finger on for the moment. Maybe it was all the different T-shirts and caps most of them wore. Les didn't notice any Mexicans or hispanics or whatever they called themselves, but there was quite a number of blacks who all either looked like Little Richard or Whoopi Goldberg. The flight attendants were mainly women but there were two black men among them who looked big enough to form a rugby league scrum on their own. But for their size they were that polite and obliging as they showed people to their seats that Les found it almost confusing. The plane began to taxi slowly for take-off, the seat-belt sign came on, the flight attendants went through their crash drill while the pilot spoke softly over the intercom in a southern drawl.

‘This is Captain Calvin Breuer. On behalf of our Atlanta-based crew we'd like to welcome you aboard Delta Flight 376. LA to Atlanta. Y'all have a nice trip.'

Wah, thank you, Colonel, Norton chuckled to himself. Ah'd sho be obliged.

The plane took off and Norton began leafing through the Delta inflight magazine. Before long one of the huge black stewards appeared, pushing a trolley along the aisle.

‘Would you care for a beverage, suh?' he said, turning to Norton.

‘Yeah righto,' answered Les, studying the On-Board Amenities list. ‘I'll have a can of Pawberry Punch thanks.'

‘Certainly, suh.'

It was some flat, purple-coloured drink made from pulped up cherry cocktails and it tasted like shit. Ohh yuk! grimaced Les. How crook's that? Norton placed the can and the plastic drink container on the fold-up tray belonging to the empty seat on his left and stared into space for a minute. He was going to read some more of his book, but decided it was more fun just staring into space. Not reading, not thinking, not sleeping. Not doing anything. Just staring ahead. After an eon or so Norton finally started thinking again. Only two thoughts. Just, where the fuck am I? And, have I got another nine-hour plane trip in front of me or do I go through another time zone? What the…?

Norton was still staring into the cosmos when the smell of hot food began wafting from somewhere out of the time tunnel. One of the female flight attendants appeared pushing a trolley. She asked did Les want beef, fish or chicken? Norton went for the chicken, and a can of… Dr Pepper. He also asked what time it was now in Florida. The girl told him and Les put his watch forward three hours. He now didn't have a clue what time it was in Australia or how long he'd been travelling. Les shook his head and started on his first taste of American airline food. The chicken was wrapped in bacon and came with rice, green beans and a salad with something called Ranch Dressing for you to slop on it. It definitely wasn't the best feed Norton had ever had. The drink this time was the same purple-coloured, glazed cherry-tasting shit as before, only it had gas in it. Still, Norton ate nearly all of the meal then put what was left on the tray next to him
and resumed staring into space. He was still staring into space when they landed in Atlanta at around 10.30.

Norton filed off the plane to pick up his connecting flight to Tampa, Florida. Although he still didn't have a clue where he was and he was still half dazed, Les felt a lot happier knowing he'd arrive on time and hopefully so would his luggage and Hank'd be there to meet him. After Los Angeles, Atlanta was easy; not unlike getting off the train at Bondi Junction and going up the escalator, only everybody climbed aboard a shuttle as well that took them to the other side of the terminal. It was when Norton got off the shuttle that he saw his first full-on black soul brothers and sisters.

There were about ten of them, men and women in their twenties and thirties; four had just arrived on some other flight. And these cats weren't just black. They was blaaaaacckk. Their hair was either braided, shaved, beaded or clipped and shaped like a lot of little black hedges. Even though it was night time they all sported mirror sunglasses to go with the gold plating, one lot wore baggy pants, shirts, hats and dresses of orange, red, yellow, amber and colours that bright you couldn't miss them if you had cataracts on your eyes an inch thick. The others had on black cotton tracksuits and caps with big white Xs on them. Might be a brand of beer mused Norton. White X. As he walked past, it was all weird handshakes and boogie jive.

‘Yo! Mah man. What's happening?'

‘Hey, brother. What it look like?'

‘Yo. What's happening, blood?'

‘Shit man. Gimme five.'

‘There it is, mah man. Lookin' good.'

‘Yo!'

‘Hey!'

‘Outasight.'

‘What's happenin' brother?'

‘Yo!'

Get down, thought Norton, as he continued to stroll past. And don't bother getting back up again, you bunch of wallies.

Somehow Les managed to find his connecting Delta flight to Tampa; a much smaller and narrower plane. Les was squeezed in between a woman of about fifty and a girl on the aisle of about fourteen, wearing a Camp Hoocha- kookaboochee or something T-shirt. They took off and all Norton got this time was orange juice, which was all he wanted. The two either side of him picked up on Norton's accent and a bit of polite conversation followed. The woman lived in Tampa but had been working at Atlanta, managing some office; now she was going home for a week. The girl came from Tennessee; she was going to meet her grandmother then she was off to summer camp somewhere in South Florida. Les told them he worked for the Australian Space Industry and was being transferred to Cape Canaveral for a year.

‘Oh, you're a rocket scientist?' drawled the woman.

‘That's me,' replied Norton sincerely. ‘Les Von Brawn.'