Travel Into Terror

  I went around the world last year & you want to know something? It hates each other.

                                                 Edward Mannix 

 “Pssssst....Dad.... there’s two soldiers in camouflage with machine guns out there!” my son Christo whispered through the stall’s metal door.

  “Great” I mumbled to myself. I’d been in hellish, war torn, third world airports just like this one before, but always single, drunk & a fearless man. Now I’d drug my entire family into this perilous predicament. Great...just perfect...

 See, my dear old mother had, month’s earlier, offered to take the entire family on a Caribbean cruise, but after the Sept. 11th attacks, travel had taken on a whole new feel. Now here we were; trapped in this deserted airport surrounded by police, military, bomb sniffing dogs & not a bar in sight.

 I pulled up my pants & peered from the stall.

 “Where’s your mother Christo?”

 “The police have her, their going through her purse.”

 “Lookit son we’ve got to try to get to her, if something happens to me I want you to throw this roll of toilet paper at the guys with the machine guns, then run like hell for the car & drive as far from this place as you....

 “Dad. I’m only 6.”

‘“ Ok, then stick close to me, were going in after her.”
  I peered from the bathroom, & spotted my wife & the baby, behind a glass wall, bulletproof no doubt, being interrogated by half dozen uniformed officers, all armed to the teeth.

 We tiptoed to the glass & pressed our ears to it’s cold, hard surface.

 “And what is THIS?” A mustachioed cop waved a plastic comb in her face.

 “Ahhh, a plastic comb?” she answered truthfully.....then blurted, “Well whadda think, I’m gonna scream “take this plane to Cuba or I’ll comb my hair!”

 I winced from behind the glass as the officer yelled.

 “DON’T GET SMART YOUNG LADY OUR YOU’LL BE...”

Suddenly a stiff finger tapped my shoulder, I spun around, suddenly very jumpy.

 A heavy-set, sunglassed fellow sporting a ominous black belt of phones, keys, walkie talkies, billy clubs & pistols jerked his thumb toward the parking lot.

 “Dat yer car? He demanded in broken English.

 I looked at the vast empty parking lot lined with hay bales & cyclone fences. Two military vehicles surrounded my car.

He had me....seeing’s how we were the only civilians in the place, it was pretty apparent that was indeed our car.

“Yes?” I ventured.

 “It is un-attended?’

 Again he seemed to have me.

 “We’re not in it....we’re in here, if that’s what you mean....”

 “DON’T GET SMART, OR I’LL....

 “Sorry sorry, I’ll move it....

 This time I parked 5 blocks away in what looked like a very seedy, run down side of the town. We’d be lucky if the car survived the night.

 Returning now to the desolate airport I was greeted by a site as horrific as any I’d seen in any backwash country in the world. A dozen military types had now seized a young man & had him sprawled across a metal table. Apparently the kid, a shaved head fellow American had set off the metal detectors with a pierced tongue, and now six officers held him down while two rubber gloved armed assistants pulled his tongue from his head & examined the silver stud.

 “WHAT IS THIS?” They demanded.

 “WEEEBBBBHFFFSSED!” The kid confessed, obviously fearing for his life.

 “This could constitute a weapon, no?” The gloved assistant peered at the officer in charge....

 “NNNNNNUUUIGGJHEE! “ The kid yelled.

 “Let him go.” The assistants let loose the ornamented tongue to slap back in the shaken travelers mouth with a loud click.

 “NEXT!”

 We stepped up to a yellow line.

 What is the purpose of your trip?” they demanded.

 “Vacation?’ I answered as absurd as it sounded...

 “Why”? they demanded.

 “Because our home town went belly up, seemed like a good time to leave for a while.”

 “Four pieces of picture Identification!” they demanded.

 Having been in these bureaucratic-burdened hell-holes before I’d taken the precaution of taking everything from passports to the dogs rabies vaccinations down to Linda Jackson at town hall for her notary stamp. I’d then whacked a few ‘Paid’, ‘Guaranteed’, & ‘Fragile’ stamps on the whole mess knowing how these military types encountered in traveling, love their stamps. It had paid off, for after a examination usually reserved for an anthrax letter we were free to go & ushered to a suspect prop plane squatting outside the doors.

 A nervous pilot welcomed us aboard, scurried into the cockpit, slammed two steel doors behind him & yelled he wasn’t coming out for nuthin’.

 As we taxied to the runway he screamed over a crackling speaker.

 “THANKS FOR VISITING GUNNISON VALLEY AIRPORT!! WE HOPE YOU HAVE A PLEASANT TRIP!!”

 We were on our way.