Another one today!

            Now I am under the impression that the most important thing to know in order to write is that you need courage!  Boys and girls, all you need is some big giant balls!


 

            The counselor stepped back and let Biff talk.

            “I’m only doing this because they’re making me.”  Biff said, feedback from the microphone dulling the brains of everyone in the room.  “Matter of fact, I’m not doing this.”

            He attempted to get off stage and Mr. Davidson turned him around, pleading with him to share his story.  The rest of the campers had.

            “I’m not like all of you lot.”  He said, surveying the crowd of unhappy attendees.  One man with angry eyebrows had the audacity to boo.  Charles, the enormous security guard, looked for approval from Mr. Davidson to intervene.  Mr. Davidson nodded and Charles stepped into the row,  forcing his way through the aisle like he was walking in quicksand. 

            Carlo looked at his watch.  Charles yanked at the shirt of the guy who yelled, his head lolled back and forth like a bobble head.  His oversized suit coat twisted to the right, the buttons heavily burdened by Charlie’s weight.  Carlo took a bite out of a corndog, tossing the bare deepfried pole into his empty box of popcorn.

            “Sometimes I just get so mad, you know?  I blame my father.  Nothing was ever good enough for the man.  I feel guilty all the time, even right now, when I’m talking about it, I feel like I shouldn’t be talking about it.”

            Leroy, a man who embellished all of his intervention stories in a way to paint a more positive picture of himself, laughed at Biff’s admission.

            Carlo got up and feigned having to pee, and then said “Pee” when Mr. Davidson enquired as to why he was leaving.  As he entered the Airport Lobby, the water in the water cooler gurgled, like a pin needle dropping in the forest.

            He walked over the moving conveyor belt, moving twice as quickly as if he had been standing still on it.  He squinted at the coffee place across from the bar, which was shutting down for the night.  Belinda sat there, head in hands.  She wasn’t going to be happy with him.

            She was playing a stupid cellphone game and held up a finger as he approached.  He sat down for a moment half-assedly, and when it was clear she wasn’t going to pay attention to him until she was done being angry he decided to get a drink.  He stood at a crossroads, coffee or alcohol.  Coffee.  First.

            He ordered a red eye because their plane was leaving late and he liked the idea that he was having a red eye before going on a red eye.  She stole furtive glances at him, furrowing her brow and looking away every time she looked over.

            “You were right.”  He said.  This piqued her interest.  “The meeting wasn’t funny at all.  It was a bunch of depressing people whining about problems, nothing like in the movies.”

            “Of course I was right.”  She said under her breath.  “That’s why I didn’t want to go.”

            “You were scared to go and you know it.  Who sneaks into things like that?  Well, go-getters, go-getters like me do.”

            A man with a top hat and long hair passed by, his shitty jeans dragging as he walked.  Security people walked beside him on each side. 

            “You’re still wearing that stupid hat.”  She said.  “I thought it was a joke.  I thought you were a funny guy.”

            The man in the top hat stopped and glared over.

            “I didn’t mean you, I meant him!”  She said, waving her hands in front of her face.  Carlo smiled at the man under the veil of his very similar top hat.

            “You’re still wearing those dumbass sunglasses in your hair.”  The man leaned forward with his hands on his hips and said to her.  “You’re still wearing that ugly floral print skirt.”

            “Mr. Provolone, let’s get going.”  One of the security guards tugged at his arm like a child trying to get their mom to leave the supermarket.

            “What did I say about touching me, Jimmy?”  Mr. Provolone removed his arm forcefully and flattened out his suit coat.  “Now I am going to have to have this dry cleaned.  That comes out of your bill.”

            “Dino Provolone?”  Carlo said, stars in his eyes.  Or they might have been dollar signs.  The fluorescent lights burned his corneas as he sat unblinking for a minute at the counter.  He took a sip out of his coffee and his face sucked in at the corners.

            “Keep your bitch on a leash.  I don’t care if you’re a fan.”  Dino said, and realized the majority of patrons were looking over at him.  He had inadvertently made a scene.  “Heh heh, just kidding!  Gotta run!”  And Dino was gone, his guards lumbering after him slowly.

            “Are you happy, Belinda?”  Carlo asked, doing his best Jimmy Durante impression.  He knew Belinda had no idea who Jimmy Durante was, but figured that joking around with her at this point was pretty hopeless anyway. 

            After a half an hour of silence, Carlo reading the funny section in the paper and Belinda staring mindlessly at her phone, the overhead announcement to begin boarding for their flight sounded. 

            “I’m a little nervous, Belinda.”  He confided.  “I don’t like airplanes.”

            “It’s too late now, my daddy thinks we’re coming.  And these tickets are a once in a lifetime thing.”  She sounded softer, and he secretly breathed a sigh of relief. 

            He checked his pockets for the boarding passes, and began to panic immediately.  “We have to go back.”  He said.

            “Go back where?  What’s wrong?” 

            “Back… I don’t know.  Back to the meeting.  Back to the coffee bar.  I can’t find the boarding passes.”

            “They can look them up by our names, I’m pretty sure.”  Belinda said.  But, Carlo was already booking it down the hall back to where the meeting had been held.  He checked his back pocket, where loe-and-behold he had the two boarding passes.  The nervous jitters were starting to get to him. 

            He always thought traveling with a girl would be nice.  Having a real girlfriend would be nice.  Someone to live with, a companion on the “road of life.”  But there was nothing romantic about it, when it happened in real life.