The Stranger

A few years ago Gretchen and I were traveling when we decided to spend a layover in the airport lounge. It was busy that day, but we were lucky enough to find two stools together at the end of the bar. As we were sitting there an important woman walked in and stood right next to where I was seated. She looked really uptight, so I asked if I could buy her a drink. When she said "yes, thank you" and proceeded to order a double vodka I knew I was right.

It's always $10 beer day at the airport.

Unlike Dr. Phil, I don't believe in the cathartic benefit in complaining to strangers about your problems. Whining about that unmanageable cowlick will neither fix your hair nor be a good use of my time. One of the foundational principals of being an adult is you deal with your shit and I'll deal with mine, thank you very much. For whatever reason, on this afternoon I ignored that conviction and did something I had never done before. I said to this lady, "You seem very upset. Would you like to tell me about it?" Then she started talking. 

She said she was an Executive Flight Attendant. That meant she worked on private charters, corporate jets, and the like. She was on a job in Germany when she got an urgent message from home. She was told that her younger brother was in a tragic accident and she needed to return immediately. This was the last leg of that trip, from Chicago to Kansas City. Then she told me about her brother.

He had a big idea.

Ever since he was a little boy he wanted to have his own business. Starting around age 7, once a year he would set it up in the hall bathroom and invite his parents and siblings to attend. By age 10 he needed more space, so he moved it to the family’s basement. By high school he was using the entire basement. He enlisted his friends to help him. By that point his guest list had grown to include classmates, teachers, and even his parent's friends. This had become a neighborhood event. He continued this the whole time he lived at home. Then he graduated and went to college.

Once there he moved on to college things, he had classes and keggers to attend. When he graduated he got his own place. It didn't take him long to find a job. He got a good one. He also found a wife. She was a good one, too. They had kids, five of them in fact. Life was good, but he still carried this childhood notion. Eventually it became more of a memory than a dream.

One day as he was drinking coffee and scanning The Star,  he noticed that a warehouse in a historic area of town was up for sale. His flicker of imagination turned into an inferno of energy. He knew if he could buy that warehouse he could build his business. He started making phone calls. First he called his parents. Then he called his in-laws. He called everyone he knew who he thought might have a few hundred dollars to spare. The force of his enthusiasm allowed him to quilt these people together as investors, and he bought the property.

One evening he was assisting with elevator renovations when the ballast cable snapped. When the tension was released the severed end whipped around and struck at him like an angry snake. He was knocked off his perch. Like Hans Gruber plummeting off Nakatomi Tower, he fell from the top of the elevator. He didn't fall that far, but he was decapitated on the way down. 

The lady I was talking to was on the way to the funeral of her baby brother. He was just 38.

Then she told me that this business, his idea, the thought that had consumed him for so much of his life...it was to be a tourist attraction haunted house. So when guides showed guests past the exhibits, when they got to those double doors they would tell this story. In finishing they would use their spookiest voice to say that the original owner’s head landed RIGHT OVER THERE! And they would be telling the truth. I think it would have made Dennis happy to know that even posthumously he was able to give me goosebumps.

We were quiet for a while. After hearing a story like this you don't spackle in conversational gaps with small talk. 

I don’t know how long the silence lasted. It might have been ten or twenty seconds. When I finally spoke I said, “I am so, SO incredibly sorry."  Then I again did something that I had never done before. I asked, "By any chance would you like a hug?” She said that she would. As we exchanged a long embrace in that crowded airport bar she whispered “Thank you. This is one of the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” 

Then our time was up. We had planes to catch. We left at the same time. She went one way down the concourse and Gretchen and I went the other.