drmstream

They stopped us at the bot­tom of the jet­way. We were the first ones to board, had scanned our tick­ets and paced down the car­peted walk­way with the pecu­liar metro­nomic inten­sity of reg­u­lar travelers.

They weren’t ready for us. We were a mot­ley gath­er­ing: a tall, thin woman with a pinched face read­ing a faded xerox of her daily inten­tion; a stout busi­ness­man, dap­per in his blazer and pressed shirt, anx­ious to get mov­ing; a slim, stal­wart old gen­tle­man with a cane and a sharp limp; a young woman with con­spic­u­ous pim­ples dressed in sweats and car­ry­ing a sur­pris­ingly expen­sive carry-all.

The plane crew called up to the top of the gang­way. We waited. Being at the front of the line meant that our wait would be the shortest.

The bot­tom of the jet­way was clut­tered: a black wheel­chair, a cone, a plas­tic con­tainer. As peo­ple piled up behind us, we gath­ered our­selves tightly in the small land­ing, turn­ing our bags and bod­ies in impromptu jig­saw fittings.

We didn’t look up. That’s not the way of the first peo­ple onto the plane.

A woman in an air­port out­fit walked briskly down the jet­way. A moment behind her were two young black men in red t-shirts. The young men were well-groomed and fit, their demeanor per­plexed and anx­ious. We cleared a lit­tle room so they could move through with­out pause.

A sec­ond woman fol­lowed them. She was push­ing a nar­row metal chair on wheels.

They had for­got­ten some­one on the plane.

The casual dis­re­gard that had filled the jet­way tight­ened. We were more care­ful not to look at each other.

I tried to imag­ine the per­son who had been left behind, as if see­ing it in my mind would lessen the dis­com­fort and embar­rass­ment when the men wheeled the chair out. I imag­ined an old woman, barely able to talk, paper thin from age, in tran­sit from one branch of her fam­ily to another, so old that she hardly seems to exist. I read­ied myself. I’d seen these vir­tual specters before and felt sad that one had been lost. I can wait patiently a lit­tle while longer, I thought.

A woman was wheeled out onto the jet­way. She was small and thick, her breadth spilling over the side of the seat. She wore a snug sweater and stretchy pants, her hair was nicely cut in a longish bob that retreated from her face and spilled onto her neck. Her hands were folded in her lap. A dainty gold bracelet stood out on her wrist.

Her body occu­pied the space of the metal chair in odd pro­por­tion. Her calves bulged just above slen­der ankles. A shoul­der lifted against her jaw on one side. Her torso seemed thicker at the turn of her rib cage.

She sat steady and sure as the two men turned the chair next to the black wheel­chair we had all gath­ered around.

Ahhhh.

We began to shift slightly, as if we were a waxen dio­rama that had been exposed to sud­den heat.

The woman in the wheel­chair did not look at any of us. She didn’t look away, either. She was in the mid­dle of a nec­es­sary process. We could be overlooked.

The two aides stood front and back to the woman. The three mur­mured to each other the steps and plans. She replaced a plas­tic sider on her chair. The chair was stream­lined and black. The wheels had wide rub­ber grips. The han­dles were not designed for push­ing. This was a util­i­tar­ian chair.

One aide wrapped his arms under her knees. The sec­ond aide leaned down behind her and extended his arms, palms flat and fac­ing side­ways. He was ele­gant in the moment, car­ry­ing his hands for­ward so that he didn’t push against her breasts.

At the same moment that he closed his arms around her, she crossed her hands and clasped his wrists in a firm motion, pulling him toward her chest, shift­ing for­ward as the two men smoothly lifted her body on the fab­ric seat. She was weightless.

“You are good at this,” she said.

Her voice was clear. She spoke only to the two men. We all stood immo­bile, wit­nesses but sep­a­rate. Her demeanor didn’t acknowl­edge; she may have been for­got­ten, but she didn’t need to explain or apol­o­gize, nor assuage our con­fu­sion and dis­com­fort at the dis­rupted thread of her exis­tence. She was a a trav­eler too, and was at an obsta­cle on her journey.

She set­tled in the chair, turned the wheels so she pointed straight up the jet­way. We cleared a lit­tle more space. One of the atten­dants handed her her bag. It was a purse designed in a cres­cent shape, zipped at the top, clean and styl­ish, cov­ered with the kind of flo­ral design that evokes a meadow of wild flow­ers on a bright sum­mer day.