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Flags and garbage flutter prettily in the breeze in New Jersey, and the turnpikes are beginning to overflow, some of the run-off traffic puddling in the long-term lot at Newark airport. Traveling around the holidays was never much fun, and this freakishly warm December is even worse than usual. In fact, past the security at Newark, the tension is growing palpable. There is a humble, nondescript bar in the center of the departure lounge, and every time a boarding call is pushed back by fifteen minutes, or Wolf Blitzer's face fills the CNN screen, or something totally unexpected happens like, say, an airplane passing overhead, it is a cue for another few passengers to leave the cluster around the gate and decide that they could use a drink.
"This is my first time flying since September" is a frequently heard phrase.
The statistic has it that, terrorism or no terrorism, flying is still significantly less dangerous than driving. That's not the problem. What has everybody piling in around the Sam Adams taps tonight is the lack of ambiguity in air travel disasters. In a car - even a car piloted by a drunk, in a thunderstorm, with no functional taillights - there is still some neutral space between safety and death, a space in which people miraculously survive eighty-mile-per-hour spinouts and imperfectly negotiated police roadblocks. Granted, it'd be unlikely for everyone in the car to come through unscathed - particularly if the police start shooting - but your own personal chances are not quite extinguished. Plus, if you're the sole survivor, you can claim that you were kidnapped. If Danny Aiello can survive a limo falling off a cliff, on fire, with him hanging on to the hood, goes the logic, then it'd be foolish to abandon all hope the moment the damn car flips over.
This slight, hopeful margin of error does not manifest itself in plane crashes. Within a minute of a 747 leaving the ground, you can look out of the window in full certainty that there is no earthly means by which you could survive a fall from this height. Dim optimistic images of the plane gliding to safety are overcome by the realization that you're trapped inside something metallic and heavy, whose natural disposition will be to fall downwards quite fast as soon as something goes wrong. These morbid images mesh quite well with the tone of tonight's news coverage, not to mention the two-hour wait in line to clear security, and the experience of having a guy go through your luggage for nail scissors while someone from the National Guard stands a yard behind him with a rifle.
Nobody resents the additional security - in fact, it's the first time I've ever seen people demand that their bags be searched or thank the security guy for being so painstaking - but it is an unwelcome reminder of recent events. And anyway, it's nigh-on Christmastime, so everybody was miserable to begin with.
"We bombed them during Ramadan, didn't we?" asks one nervous backpacker. "Or did we? When is Ramadan, exactly?"
Those passengers who show outward signs of concern can be fairly categorized as introverts or extroverts. Sadly but inevitably, the lively conversation of the latter has basically driven the former out of the bar to clutch their beads and mutter at the gate. The remaining swirl of conversation is gratifyingly free of intangibles about war, Afghanistan, or Osama bin Laden. Instead, practical-minded people are trying to reassure themselves by reverse-engineering the hijacking procedure. On its face, it's unclear why this should have much of a soothing effect. It almost goes without saying, though, that everyone here is settled on a plan of action against the possibility of someone trying to hijack our respective flights. Anyone tries anything, we will rise up against them with a spork in each fist. Any lingering suspicions that we would actually just behave like the vast majority of hostages in the vast majority of hostage-takings throughout history are dutifully and thoroughly suppressed. After three beers, it seems entirely likely that we shall all die like heroes, if called upon to do so. Or, perhaps, after four beers, just for the hell of it.
At the very least, it's a comfort that our combined acumen is unable to point out any obvious holes in the veil of metal-detecting apparatus that we have passed through.
"It's clever," says a Java programmer, arranging a line of peanuts on the bar to delineate the secure zone. "Look: the fellas with the rifles are here and here, right." Casting about for suitable visual aids, he settles on lime wedges as representing Guardsmen, sprinkles a couple of them behind the line of peanuts, and points out fields of fire as best he can.
"They're not covering the checkpoints. Uh, 'checkpoints' is the wrong word. Anyway.
They're covering the line of people. And from elevation wherever possible. Someone was actually thinking about this. It's not just a random grouping of guys in fatigues."
A couple of us must look underwhelmed by this observation, because he grins and tells a true-crime story about some maniac opening fire on passengers waiting to check in for an El Al flight. "You're vulnerable when you're standing in line," he tells us. "And they've closed all the areas where you can get above lines of people, too."
An older man with the appearance of an executive chimes in. "Sometimes they put nets up across the concourses to stop people throwing things down from a higher level. I saw that in Europe."
He pauses to look at the tables around him. Not many of us look as though we're traveling on business this time around, but it's still a pretty well-upholstered crowd. Nervous people shred napkins, gulp at steins, gaze resentfully at their calmer brethren sitting near the Virgin Atlantic counter. "We're targets now," the guy says with an expansive gesture. "Potentially, at least. On ideological grounds. Our existence is decadent. Our occupations are decadent. Our work here. It's not good to feel damned simply because of, you know, an upscale job."
The bar staff, in between bouts of overwork, are playfully arguing about something. "I'm not saying another word on that," says the one in the apron, realizing that he is cornered, "without a lawyer present."
"Actually, I'm a lawyer," say three people at the bar, more or less in unison. Then they wince. Another fucking airplane roars by above us. In addition to the remembrances of the dead across the river, someone proposes a toast to all the folks in the bar at JFK, and says "Happy holidays," with a grimace.
Olly Ruff is the AP columnist for the Oregon Commentator.
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