Oliver Bates was fond of neither heart surgeries nor plane flights, but he was destined to have both. The heart surgery had taken place about three hours before he arrived at the airline. He explained to his doctors that, despite their best intentions, he had a flight to catch at 10:00 AM, and he could not afford to miss it.

They sighed. Through their surgical masks.

“Mr. Bates.”

An eighteen-year-old behind him couldn't suppress laughter.

“Flying off to Los Angeles, are we?”

He nodded. The security person applied red marker all over the ticket.

“Cheap flight,” she said. Her eyes sagged, much like an old dog's eyes sag, drooping, crying, slipping down the cheeks until one of them found itself caught up in the red ink that was Oliver Bates's plane ticket.

“It is,” he agreed. Oliver stood upright. Erect. Not erect like a soldier standing attention to a general. Not erect like a slab of marble. Erect like a forty-year-old man viewing a twenty-eight year old security person. My, were the security people getting young these days! And what beautiful red lips! Lips like red ink.

“Very cheap flight.” One of her eyes lay on her left breast, looking, watching, crying. It cried all over the plane ticket, and red ink spilled onto the security person's hand. Violent red ink. It smelled like pus.

“Very cheap.” He licked his lips. He licked his lips again. He licked his lips more slowly this time. He had forgotten to brush his teeth this morning, because he was too preoccupied with the heart surgery, so he licked his lips instead.

“Almost... too cheap,” she said. Her eye (the one on the ticket, now smudged in red ink) twinkled. Beautiful red eye. What were the mysteries it saw through? Even Oliver did not know.

“Yes.” Oliver sighed. “Unfortunately, they did not have anything less suspicious than this suspiciously cheap ticket.”

“Only cost twenty dollars. Are you sure that this ticket wasn't bootlegged?” At the word “bootlegged” she touched her thigh just lightly enough, just quietly enough that he noticed.

It was a busy airport. San Jose airport is always busy, and today was no exception. People surrounded Oliver and the unnamed security person. A lot of people. All dressed in grey, all looking grey, even the eighteen-year-old boy had turned grey. Grey like a pencil. Oliver stood, erect, jeans, white undershirt, greasy hair, sunken eyes, five o'clock shadow. He hadn't shaved this morning, because of the heart surgery. He hadn't showered for the same reason. He smelled like wet paint, and looked like it too. The security person stood, one eye on the ticket, soaking up more ink, one eye on her left breast, studying Oliver, then the ticket, then the grey blurs behind him, then Oliver. Her left hand was still at her thigh. Her right held red ink.

The two stood before a security gate. The security person was at a podium. Oliver had no luggage; it was a one way trip, and both of them knew it. He turned his gaze from her to the security gate, past the security gate, past the coffee stand, past the child whimpering for a toy, past the trash cans filled with old hot dogs, passed the grey concrete pillars, past a flight attendant (what color were her eyes?), into the window. Planes. Airplanes, all white and blue from playing with the clouds and the sky, all cool and happy, all purring quietly, letting people exit and enter, letting luggage exit and enter, flight attendants picking up cups and food and barf bags, the planes didn't care. The planes played among the clouds. The planes rolled along the tarmac. What a wonderful life, playing among the clouds, rolling among the tarmac, never caring if you got dirty, because you had no mother to tell you that dirtiness was a sin, or that cleanliness was moralness or something like that. To have two wings and three wheels and cut into your playthings, letting yourself be embraced. What was that like?

The security person pushed the red ticket into Oliver's chest, reminding him of his heart surgery.

“Go,” she said, her eyes looking away, her hand still on her thigh.

He went. He walked through the security gate, and, of course, the alarm went off.

“I have a pacemaker,” he told another security person. This one had a shotgun strapped to his leg and a hat strapped to his head and a whistle strapped to his mouth and a moustache strapped to his face.

“I'll be the judge of that,” he said, placing a muscular hand on Oliver's shoulder and hoisting him to a small strip of carpet that had yellow footprints. “Stand there.” Oliver stood there. The officer waved a black wand around, which, sure enough, went off when it passed by his heart.

“I told you, it's my pacemaker.”

“I'll be the judge of that.”

The officer lifted up Oliver's shirt, ran his hand over his chest, on his chest, like a child runs his hand over a mound of sand, trying to remember where he buried his treasure. In the chest, to be sure, and this officer was going to find it.

He held his hand over Oliver's chest for a moment. Cold hand. Oliver's heart beat faster. He felt the fingers begin to curl, grip the skin, grip tighter. What was this man doing? Oliver stood and watched with his jeans and his undershirt and his dignity. That cold hand. That calloused hand. Oliver was reminded of World War II. So cold. Like sandpaper. Like quicksand, as it massaged the area around his heart, please, please make it stop! or don't make it stop! but at least tell me whether it will stop soon or not, because I have to use the restroom!

It stopped. The officer dropped Oliver's undershirt.

“I was the judge of that.”

The officer walked away and Oliver stood, stunned, staring at the airplanes out the window, at the red ink in his hand, wondering what just happened.

He walked into a nearby restroom. Another man. Man with a black hat. Black glasses. Black suitcase. All business. Nothing to say. What are you looking at?

“Nothing,” Oliver said.

“Nothing,” the man said, washing his hands, washing, rinsing, the water ran freely into his hands and he caught it and he made motions with his hands, as if he were molding it into some giant thing. Oliver walked over to the sink and did the same thing.

“Use the next one,” the man said.

“What?”

A dull pain. Oliver was inside a bathroom stall. The door was locked. The man with the black hat stood over him.

“Don't question me.”

A handgun pointed to his head. One point of defense.

Oliver grabbed the man, grabbed the handgun, pushed both against the wall, leaned close to the man, and said, “I'll question who I want.” Immediately, he felt sorry for the man, for he hadn't brushed his teeth all morning, and he hadn't brushed his teeth all morning, because of the heart surgery.

The man laughed. “What will you do? The second you let go of me, I'll strangle you. I'll strangle you with my--”

A blade grazed the man's neck.

Two men, in a bathroom stall, it smelled like urine. A third man, in an adjacent stall, urinating. Silence. Heart surgery. Bad breath. Red ink.

“You see, don't you? You can't shout out or call for help. You see that you are helpless. You picked the wrong guy to mess with, you see. This blade, you know that nobody will find this blade. I can kill you right now, and nobody will ever know that I had this blade. Your death will be a mystery forever. Do you want that? Do you? Well?”

A blade, silver, protruded from Oliver's chest.

“What do you want?” the man asked. His voice was calm. Firm. Concrete. Like a crumbling pillar.

“Where are you flying.”

“Chicago.”

“Give me your ticket.”

“You're holding both my hands, I can't reach it.”

“I don't care.”

“Look, you're being really inconsiderate, and I--”

“Do you want to die?”

Something dripped from behind the man's glasses. Clear candle wax? He removed a shoe and performed what looked like a yoga pose to take a ticket out of his pocket. A clean ticket. No red ink?

“Take it,” he said.

Oliver took the ticket. Smiled. Stabbed. Left.

- - - - - - - - - -

“Have a good flight, Mitch Sampson.”

It was a good flight. Quiet. He jumped out the plane, ran through the gates, and embraced his daughter, golden locks he hadn't felt in years. Still smelled like candle wax.

- - - - - - - - - -

Mitch Sampson found himself in LAX. Red ink was still flowing from his chest. He would have to find a doctor. Hopefully they could operate on him in the morning. Hopefully he could get a cheap flight for tomorrow. It might cost him his suit, but he didn't have time to worry about that.