Happy Birthday!

57

It was typical that the plane back to New England would be on the Thursday before Labor Day as my father would often have that as his day off and he could pick me up at Logan airport, normally in the evening, and get us home by night. This time, though, the flight back didn't leave until after dinner Colorado time. My not as older brother had some leave from the Air Force and arrived at the mobile home for my last day or so, then after we ate it was off to the local airport. Nothing particularly interesting about the flight other than most of it was in the darkness of night time. Given the two hour time change, we didn't arrive at the gate until one fourteen in the morning. Taking my computer with me off the plane as my carry-on, I expected to see dad in the gate waiting area, which was a normal practice for people before the turn of the century.

But my father wasn't there. I assumed that he had been running a little late, perhaps having trouble finding the gate so late in the night. So I stood aside and waited a half hour as the rest of the passengers greeted their own relatives that were here for them, or just drifted past, until they began to trickle to a few stragglers. I debated the pros and cons of remaining behind at the empty gate lobby, and decided it would be easier to follow the last handful of people to where the baggage claim was, rather than wait another half hour then figure it out for my own, alone. I concluded that, given the lateness, perhaps dad's plan all along was to meet me at the baggage claim and assumed it would be obvious to me. He had always been good at assuming people somehow guessing what was obvious to him.

Drifting as the last people through the airport would normally have perked my interest, but I was just tired and wanted to get home to bed. Once at the baggage claim the serpentine belt was already running, weaving in and out of the floor space providing plenty of opportunity to stand at the side and grab one's luggage. With much of the suitcases already picked out, mine were easy to find and move to one side. My father wasn't here either. Eventually the belt stopped and the last of the passengers gone except for me. Being before the age of mobile phones, I saw a payphone nearby and went to it to call home as I started to wonder if dad had just simply forgotten about me. I made sure to pick a phone where I could keep an eye on my collection of bags still by the belt. Using the last of my change, I called and the phone rang and rang and there was no answer, so clearly he and Roberta must have been on their way otherwise one of them would have been home this time of night to answer the phone. Still, I felt I should touch base with someone just so it was known where I was. The call not having completed, my change was returned to me and I called my mother in Colorado, which at this time would have been past midnight her time. Her initial anger at me calling late was quickly replaced with stunned silence as she realized I was alone at the airport.

Her first decision was to have me give her the payphone number and then she would call me back once she got dad on the phone at home. A few minutes stretched into fifteen and I decided to pull out the book of science fiction short stories I had brought with me on the plane to read. I tried to start the next one, but my eyes really didn't want to focus, just close. The payphone rang after twenty minutes had gone since I'd called her: Mother was on the line. She had called the house several times and gotten no answer so she concluded dad must truly be on his way and just been held up by something. With the emptiness of the airport closing in, I asked if she could stay on the phone for a bit and keep talking, she instead handed the phone to my not as older brother and we chatted for a bit, but soon my mother was back on the line explaining that she couldn't afford the long distance charges and was sure my father would be there soon.

Deciding what I should do, I looked to my pile of bags by the luggage belt and even though there was no one else around, I felt they were exposed and ready to be stolen if I closed my eyes to let them rest. I found a strip of chairs in an alcove near the claim area and brought my bags to the end chair, allowing me to huddle next to them and try to finish reading the story I had started. Once done it was past four in the morning and I couldn't imagine being awake another minute or more, but at the same time I couldn't really imaging sleeping in this stiff plastic chair either. I looked at the floor with its dingy carpet with bits of gum and dirt scuffed into it and hated the thought of lying on it. Also, in this alcove, what if I fell asleep and dad arrived at the claim area and not see me? Then I realized that in the protrusions of the serpentine luggage belt was a carpeted strip. I walked up to it for a look and it was clean. Stepping up over the belt I sat on it for a minute and made sure I could see my bags clearly from this position and anyone arriving could clearly see me. Then I pulled my legs up and lay down, just wanting to rest my eyes while intermittently glancing at my bags; I fell fast asleep on my back.

I was woken up by a guard around five thirty in the morning and told I couldn't be there as the day's planes would soon start arriving. I got myself up and off the belt island, the echoing sounds of vacuums permeated the space as the cleaning crew had arrived. My bags were still where I had left them and, seeing the time, I went back to the payphone and called the house again. It rang and rang, but the collect operator wouldn't let it ring more than just a couple extra times. So I settled down in the chair next to my bags and entered a semi-conscious stupor. The airport came to life as the morning sun drew in from the glass wall. Desks which had been empty all this time since I'd gotten here finally had people, then the first new crop of passengers arrived and the serpentine belt again flowed. It stopped again once empty, then flowed again with the next crop of passengers. The various arriving people were all busy looking for their bags and took no notice of me off to the side.

It finally dawned on me that it was passed eight o'clock. I tried the house again, and again there was no answer. I debated about whether to call my mother given how early it was her time, but finally chose to do so. I was still at the airport?!? She yelled back when I told her. Father had gone from an ass who was late to pick me up to a full hole for having forgotten to pick me up entirely. She went back to the plan of calling the family home a few more times, then she got desperate and called Uncle Ronny and Aunt Harriet. I hadn't seen either of them in years since my mother had first moved to Colorado. I hadn't any way of visiting them once living with my father as I didn't have a driver's license yet, and once I'd received my license, in my typically out of sight out of mind fashion, I hadn't thought of visiting them in the year since. Though from my father's side of the family, they never seemed to take an interest in visiting him. They agreed to pick me up at the airport once they cleaned-up and had breakfast, both being senior citizens at this point, I couldn't begrudge them that.

Then it occurred to mother to call the ski area and see if my dad was there. He was and he was pissed that mother had called Uncle Ronny and Aunt Harriet as he was going to pick me up in his own time. He called them to tell them not to come, but it was too late and they had already left for the two hour drive to Logan. Just shy of eleven thirty it finally dawned on me that my name was being called again and again on the airport intercom, I then had to figure out where the nearest phone of the right color was located. As my flight had long since emptied its bags, once they had reached the airport Uncle Ronny couldn't find out what luggage claim area I was in as the airport had several and he was on the phone to ask me. I didn't know either at this point and asked an attendant behind a counter next to me. I told them and they would see me soon. Mother had told me to call her once they had arrived so she would finally know I was leaving the airport. My not as older brother answered the phone, perhaps mother had gone to work by now, was she working this day? My mind simply wasn't functioning anymore but it occurred to me I should tell my brother that our Aunt and Uncle were here to take me home.

They came down the long concourse to the claim area and looked worried. Rather than having us lug my stuff to where the car was parked, Aunt Harriet thought it would be best if Uncle Ronny got the car and met us curbside just outside the glass wall of the claim area. He agreed and left. Not knowing what else to say in the meantime, she asked me how the flight had been. I flat out told her that at this point I couldn't even remember the flight as I'd been up so long with only a cat nap a few hours back. She assured me that I could sleep in the back of the car during the drive to my family home. I brought my stuff over to the glass wall and we looked out waiting to see their car. Aunt Harriet was beginning to wonder why it was taking so long when then Uncle Ronny arrived in the car outside. I brought my stuff out and he helped me load it into the trunk, then I clambered into the back and lay straight down as he explained he had to drive around the airport a couple of times before he found the right lane to take to this claim area.

I lay in back, though couldn't sleep, but at the same time I didn't want to sit up and have them try to engage me in conversation as I was too tired for that as well. I just lay back facing upwards, the cloth surface making-up the ceiling of the car bobbed back and forth as we rode. Then it donned on me it was my head bobbing back and forth with the bumps in the road. Hours later, they prompted me that we were almost there and I got myself to a sitting position and looked out the window to watch the familiar main road of my home town flow by. I focused my mind and finally got out the words to thank them for picking me up. They told me it was no problem at all and, while Aunt Harriet still looked worried for me, Uncle Ronny tried to lighten the mood with his usual bright smile. Up the woods cloaked driveway, we pulled into the loop portion and stopped. Dad had left work to meet us, despite his telling them to leave my luggage on the ground and go, Uncle Ronny insisted on helping us bring it in. Dad thanked him, but couldn't talk to them now as, 'He had to have a talk with me,' and they needed to leave. As my father followed them out the back door, I slunk to the kitchen table and waited for him to return. He did, and despite the warm weather, he closed the back door and sat on the other side of the table.

He then let me know that Roberta had divorced him over the Summer because of 'what I was' and it was all my fault. He had decided not to pick me up at the airport to 'teach me a lesson', though I would later learn that he told everyone else that he thought one o'clock Friday morning came after Friday night. He informed me that I was disowned and that he wanted me out of the house and never to see me again, but as he was magnanimous, he would let me stay at the family home to finish-up my last year of High School as long as I paid the bills. Upon graduation, the disowning would take effect.

He was staying with his new girl friend at her house. She owned a restaurant and once she knew I was coming back, she insisted on having a belated birthday party for me at her restaurant. As it was three in the afternoon, I asked if I had time to take a nap on my bed. ''No.'' I was told as we had to leave now. Dad went to Pappy's apartment to let him know it was time to go, but as Pappy had thought we would be leaving at dinner time, he needed to get ready first. I remained sitting at the kitchen table for the next half hour then it occurred to me to use the bathroom and splash some water on my face at least. I got into the back seat of the car with dad and Pappy taking the front seats.

The next couple of towns away, when we arrived at the place, it looked familiar as I had glimpsed it outside the passenger window so often over the years as a child. We came in and went to a table in the back half of the restaurant. 'Lois' came out to meet us and we sat down at a table and her daughter joined us. We made our orders and I realized this would be the first thing I'd have to eat since the airplane. It took me a few moments before I recognized Lois as the ticket girl my father had introduced me to nine years earlier who had run her fingers through my hair and told me how it was just like my dad's. Now she apparently ran a restaurant. She tried to engage me in some conversation, such as how had the flight been and such, but I was still far too tired to give more than a word or two response.

After dinner, she and dad went to the back kitchen area leaving just Pappy, me and Lois's daughter. She leaned forward and with a smirk on her face told me that dad had spent the whole Summer going around telling everyone that I was Gay. I don't know if Pappy hadn't heard what she said, or he was pretending not to have heard it. I had no idea how to respond and just sat silently. Given my 'situation' I knew I was different, but I had always thought that being 'Gay' meant having same-sex interests. I didn't have any of those, nor any interest in any sex. I didn't have much time to reflect on this though as dad and Lois emerged singing from the kitchen with smiles on their faces and a lit birthday cake.

''Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To You...''

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