Notorious

I sat, thinking. I thought about the last time I had flown somewhere. I hated flying, and I hated connecting flights even more. But I couldn’t afford a direct flight back to Florida. They didn’t have that many available, anyway. Who even wanted to go to Florida, anyway.

I sat. It was just me so far. That only lasted a few minutes as I saw the lady—a stout, busty, Latina—she had a big smile and said, “Con Permiso,” as she looked down at me, smiling. Had I been on that flight a few months prior to that flight, I would have thought, “What the hell does she have to smile about?” I didn’t question such sentiments, anymore.

I had to pee. It was only a few minutes before take-off, and I was trying to train my bladder for me to not pee every thirty minutes; it had become easier since the last time I had flown. I still bought an aisle seat. I hated being in between people. I hated asking for permission to get up and move. I hated asking people for things I shouldn’t need permission for.

I sat. I just wanted to train myself to be able to hold it in better. Holding in things was what I excelled at, anyway.

“Welcome to…” I listened to the pilot speak. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I unbuckled my seat belt and started making my way to the restroom as I saw one of the attendants give me a disapproving look. Oh well, so much for holding it in.

It felt liberating; to let it out. I could hear the pour. It was warm. It peed for a whole minute. I heard a knock outside the door. No one needed to use the restroom, but everyone needed that flight to be on its way.

I went back, or tried to as the flight attendants—a man and a women between the ages of early thirties and late forties—stood in my way. After a few seconds of shoulder scuffling, I managed to get back to my seat. The middle seat was filled. I couldn’t sit immediately, even though the seatbelt sign was on. He was there. In the middle.

“Sir, we’re going to need you to take a seat,” said the tall, brunette as she touched my shoulder. I hadn’t been touched that way in a while. All three of us sat in silence. I took the aisle, he was in the center, she took the window seat. In reality, I was sitting on the edge. Just like I had the entire time I dated Riley.

“How are you?” I asked Riley as he sat, in the same suit he wore the last time I saw him. He always wore that same suit when he flew.

“I’m ok, where are you headed to?” Riley asked as he tapped his fingers on his lap, like he did on every flight.

“Headed back home,” I said, looking at him. Riley wouldn’t look at me, instead he looked out the window seat, past the stout, busty, Latina he had nothing in common with. That’s one thing me and the woman had in common.

“You?” I asked as we started to ascend off the ground.

“I have a layover in Dallas. Then headed to France,” Riley answered. Layover and not direct flight to Dallas. Riley wasn’t going to visit his family.

“Cannes?” I said. My memory was too sharp, and so was my tally of the months. It had been three.

“I am,” Riley said, waving his arm up in the air, almost in my face. The flight attendant, the one in his early thirties, came over to Riley.

“Can I help you?” he said, looking at Riley. Could he? Maybe, but not yet.

“Can I order a drink?” Riley asked him, as he gave him a judgmental look. “Not yet, sir. We’ll come around with drinks and snacks shortly,” he said to Riley, whose blue, sunken eyes were crying out of thirst. He was always so thirsty.

“Are you excited?” I asked him, hoping to shift his thirst from one thing to another.

“Yes,” answered Riley, his eyes still looking in the direction of the flight attendant. I could see the sweat running down his forehead, his eyes sunken, tired. Riley was still tired.

It was twenty-five minutes into the flight and the flight attendant had only started walking with their food and beverages cart. There was only one cart and it was to the opposite end of the row we were seated in. Riley sat and continued to look out the window. He was looking for an escape that was being denied in every direction. He continued tapping his fingers on his lap. Then we felt it. The first jolt. It was subtle. Just like Riley.

“Folks, we just hit a bit of turbulence, the seat belt signs went back on. Please stay seated, we should have cleared the turbulence in the next fifteen minutes or so…” the flight attendants started backtracking to their seats, taking the cart with food and beverages with them. I turned to look at Riley, his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets. They were desperate. Thirsty.

“What’s the name of the movie you’re working on?” I asked Riley. Riley’s eyes had no interest in looking my way. I knew the name of the movie. I had seen it promoted all over his social media. I couldn’t help but keep track of it. Keep track of him. Someone needed to keep track of Riley.

“Notorious,” he answered.

It was almost another twenty minutes of silence before the attendants started heading down the aisle again. They restarted from the very first row, feeding and hydrating the freeloaders once again. Riley’s neck twisted to look at the flight attendants as they made their way back down our way, all the way to the other side of the plane. “Why are they talking so much?” I heard Riley murmur as the flight attendants smiled and served snacks and beverages. Drinks. Vodka drinks. Whiskey drinks. Vodka. Riley was tapping more violently and even biting his lip.

“How long are you staying in France?” I asked Riley. I couldn’t stand looking at his neck snap anymore. Hearing it. It was the ugliest sight and sound I had seen in those last three months. Riley didn’t answer. His eyes answered me; Riley was fixed on the cart. Not the whiskey. The vodka.

It was another ten minutes before they arrived. I had turned to look at the seat in front of me. I didn’t want to look at the flight attendant, see him pour for Riley. I could hear the pouring. Just like the last time we had been together. Just like every night where I kept Riley company as he drank himself to sleep.

I just stared at the seat in front of me as I heard Riley take his first sip. Then his second. I was done asking Riley questions. I just stared at the seat in front of me. I stared for the sake of staring at anything else.

It was another thirty minutes before anyone said another word. This time it was me, and it wasn’t at Riley. “Can I please have a cup of coffee?” I asked the flight attendant. I had been so strict about cutting back on that, since I had gotten rid of every factor that caused me anxiety.

“Can I have another Vodka soda, make it a double,” Riley said as the flight attendant poured me my coffee first. I felt guilty; I had unwittingly enabled him. Again. She gave me my coffee and then gave Riley his drink. I couldn’t look at Riley but I had no choice but to look at his hand as his credit card flashed itself in front of me. If it could only buy us both some peace for the remainder of the flight.

It was disgusting. I felt grotesque. I could smell it as it trespassed through my nostrils; it smelled like Riley’s breath but it was coming from my soaked chest instead. “I’m sorry,” said the flight attendant in his early thirties. He immediately handed me some napkins. I grabbed them and started wiping my chest; it didn’t help much. It didn’t soak in much of anything. It was nothing like me.

“Please fasten your seatbelt, we are hitting heavy turbulence. We should clear it soon,” said the pilot as the flight attendants took their seats again. Riley was unaffected. He had what he needed to function through the remainder of that flight. If only I could learn to function properly around him. I had learned to function again without him in those past three months.

It was another ten minutes. The turbulence got worse. The moms and dads and children and singles didn’t seem too perturbed, at first.

It was another ten minutes. The seat belt sign was still on and the turbulence only worsened. Riley sat, the tapping had stopped. He simply drank. His eyes blue, sunken, tired. Riley was unaffected by the impending destruction.

“Everyone , please stay seated with your seat-belt on. The turbulence is pushing us East. We are going to have to make an emergency landing in Houston. Stay calm, we should be descending shortly. I apologize for the convenience. Rest assured you are in good hands.” The faces finally reacted. The moms seem concerned, for themselves and their children. The dads seemed stressed by the crying and hyper children as they kicked their respective parents or the seat in front of them. A few passengers were still sleeping, mostly the drunk singles. And the rest were looking up and down the aisle. Riley just sat. He sat sunken. Tired. Unaffected. He was notorious at being unaffected.

It was another five minutes before I saw something; it was one of the flight attendants reaching for an oxygen mask. “That’s not a good sign,” I heard the guy sitting in the aisle seat in the middle row. It wasn’t good. It was all ugly. The flight. The feeling of the sticky, smelly alcohol drying onto my skin. The feeling of Riley’s shoulder rubbing against mine, the confusion it caused as I was unsure whether the turbulence was responsible, or if it was Riley being Riley. Touching me without truly touching me.

Suddenly, I felt more than his elbow; it was his whole shoulder as he looked over. I knew who he was looking for. Riley was always looking for these types of paid enablers. Riley started waving again, even though both attendants were seated, the one in his thirties still hanging onto his oxygen mask as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did.

Riley kept waving his arm up in the air, his credit card in hand. I knew what he wanted as I looked at his empty drink glass. I wasn’t shocked. I simply knew he wasn’t going to get his fix this time. Riley was going to have to sit through the discomfort just like everyone else on that flight. Just like me. For once.

“They aren’t coming,” I finally said after not speaking to Riley for over half an hour. Riley wasn’t listening to me. Riley had a notorious habit of not listening to me, whether I was speaking or not.

“Riley,” it was the first time I had spoken his name in three months. The turbulence got worse. The children started crying. The moms went from concerned to confused. The dads went from stressed to distressed. Riley was about to cry as he waved his hand up in the air.

“Riley!” I whispered loudly, but this time, Riley shut me up with an elbow to the mouth. I could feel it. The blood. Warm. Warm as it exited my mouth. Riley had accidentally made me bleed out. Again.

“Sorry,” I could hear his words in my head replay. Replay themselves like they had everyday since the last time I had seen Riley. The last time he had made me bleed-out accidentally. He was notorious at making me bleed-out accidentally.

I could smell it. Grotesque. Putrid. Disgusting. The smells combined as I brought the napkin up to my nose, wiping the blood off my face. If only I could wipe off the image of Riley’s face as he waved at the attendants. They were terrified. Everyone was. The plane kept shaking. The turbulence was only getting stronger. Just like Riley’s thirst. His thirst and desperation. He was notoriously thirsty and desperate.

The turbulence. It didn’t terrify me. The turbulence. Not anymore. It terrified everyone else. Riley also wan’t terrified—he was relentless. Riley waved his hand at the attendants. Riley waved and waved at the terrified attendants.

I looked at the window as I saw the stout, busty, Latina—sleeping. She had somehow remained asleep throughout that entire flight. Oh, how I envied her ability to sleep. Sleep through turbulence. I looked through the window; the skies were clear despite the turbulence. The turbulence persisted despite the shining sun overseeing the cloudy landscape.

I was notorious for ignoring the landscape. No matter where we were. Whether it was at his place. On vacation. A date. At the bar. In bed. I ignored the landscape. I ignored it because I couldn’t ignore what Riley was. It was notorious disconnect perpetuated by our ugliness.

I poked him again. His eyes were no longer sunken. They were no longer tired. They were awake with desperation. Thirst. He waved his hand as the plane swayed from side-to-side. He fell on the sleeping woman. She remained asleep. I got back up as the plane swayed from side-to-side. The lights started flicking on and off. On and off. On and off like our relationship. One and off until we couldn’t do on and off anymore. His face. From darkness to light it grew more desperate, more thirsty, more ugly. Whether in light or darkness, Riley remained ugly.

The lights stayed out for a couple of minutes, or maybe it was only one. Or five. I had no idea and it made no difference. The darkness was notorious for allowing me to escape from Riley.

The lights returned. “We will be making our descent into Houston in the next ten minutes. We apologize for the turbulence. Thank you for flying with us. You may continue to use your mobile devices for the remainder of the flight.”

The lights had returned, but not entirely.

“Sir, please take a seat. We’re about to land,” the flight attendant in her fifties said to Riley. Riley just looked at her, his head twisted, his eyes were desperate. Desperate was all that remained. Riley looked into her eyes with desperation, she had nothing left but contempt. That’s one thing she and I had in common.

We exited ten minutes or so after landing. Riley said nothing. The stout, busty, Latina by the window woke up, having slept through the turbulence. How I envied her ability to do that.

“Take care,” I said to Riley as I grabbed my backpack and started heading off towards the exit. I had to pee again and I had no desire to continue to hold things in. I turned to look, as much as I had promised myself I wouldn’t anymore. I was notorious on going back on promises to myself.

Just like Riley was notorious for looking out windows at the end of every flight. The only time his eyes no longer looked sunken, tired, thirsty, or desperate. They were unattached again. Riley was notorious at going back to that. Riley was notorious at going back on everything. Notorious for doing that every time.