Texas Re-Attempted: Delays and Connections

I don't know what it is about Americans - what makes their mentality so different from my own countrymen - what has always been alluring to me. I think it's that they're tough, and not in an arrogant or crude way. When they speak it's like they're here to get the job done. Service staff in England are the eternally bored, stressed and ever-awkward, and they conduct their business with me in a conscious and mutual agreement that we would both rather be somewhere else.

But Americans... when they advise me and when they serve me they do so to get shit done, and always with a stoic competence in their eyes. I feel like I can count on these people - that they would be strong with me if I needed them to be. Perhaps these are "my people". They don't walk on eggshells and they give as much as they get.

They're like Laura.

And they all take that extra step. A stranger stands beside me as I observe an exhibit of Martin Luther King at the Atlanta airport. "Dayum, that dude was short!" he remarks as he nods at a display case containing Doctor King's clothes. We have a whole conversation about it. Then a voice comes on the tannoy. "Hey, if you missed your flight you gotta think positive. Look for other booked flights that have seats available. Don't give up now." There it is again - think positive and get shit done.

After 4 hours sitting in Atlanta Airport, staring at old Americans with their shirts tucked in, I'm on the connecting flight. It's small and cramped and the stewardess has to sit by the emergency exit, next to a horny old guy (not me) who acts like he's brought all the other passengers along to impress her. I eavesdrop on his clumsy flirtations and hope the stewardess's look of stoic disgust is something I will never see on Laura's face.

There's another black passenger in the seat next to me, but he's dressed in a white suit and wears a fedora. We are ice cold, like a cop duo, ready to defend this plane from randy geriatrics and flawed Hollywood scripts. We scowl at the other Americans who seem incapable of taking orders. As the plane takes off the other passengers get out of their seats, fiddle with laptops, open overhead bins and tuck their shirts in as the cabin crew scream at them - a cargo of arrant autistics.

And I find a Suduko. Fuck yeah!

Then we're down.

I'm here. In Houston.

I move slowly through Security and follow the signs to Baggage Reclaim. My heart is thumping, my limbs shaking - but I savour every moment. For these are the throbbing crescendos of a vital life. Coming down the escalator, I see her - the hair and figure distinctive. She cuts a rift through the room, the way only a woman can. I think of jewels in glass vessels, preserved under shifting waters.

Laura's facing away from me. Maybe I can pounce on her, or sneak up and breathe on her neck. I like doing that to unsuspecting women. It's why I'm such a player. But alas... Laura has put her back to the sea of luggage trolleys. I would have to clamber over them in order to get the drop on her, and such behaviour would probably get me shot by the security guards. Already she has thwarted me.

Then she turns.

The awkwardness expires in under 20 seconds. We say hello, softly, then hug, ask a few superficial questions, take a few steps towards the exit. Then I grab her and, with an apology, swoop in for the kiss.

It is, and ever will be, her sharpness that strikes me - how utterly she stands apart from the colours, textures and expectations that surround her. She is not like other women and yet, it were as if something new is manifest in her, or something old of which she is the last. A separate gender, for those who ride a wave apart. She leads me to the car, walking on her tiptoes as she has always done, and soon we are riding through the Houston night.