Sputterpub's Blog

After a few hours everyone had been rebooked and bused to nearby motels. Each passenger was dispensed a small blue pack with a tiny tube of toothpaste, a pull-apart travel toothbrush and rudimentary shaving gear, and a coupon worth a steam-table dinner that wouldn’t have tasted good under the best circumstances and was worsened by her father’s depression and her mother’s busy anxiety. She tried to be understanding and warm with them. She even returned to their room and watched an episode of “Law & Order” with them. Then she went almost grateful to her poor room.

There was no problem with the plane the next day. There were even empty seats. They boarded and spread out and mostly felt better, although her father was still inconsolable about their lost day.

The flight attendant added an announcement to the usual greetings. He told the passengers how sorry United was for the delay, and offered limitless free drinks as partial compensation. It was 11 a.m. but Lilah decided to take them up on it.

She asked for cognac and soda. He brought her two individual bottles of Courvoisier, a can of sparkling water, and a glass with ice. She drank the first, found it fine, and then had the second.

Fortuitously, that’s about when the pilot turned off the seat belt sign, because it’s also when Lilah felt an urgent need to visit the bathroom. She got out of her seat, walked rather calmly up the aisle past her parents bickering about something, and went into the head. She latched the door, turned, bent over the toilet, and sent a smooth stream of vomit from her belly to the bowl. She must have managed to get exact esophageal alignment; there was no burn and not even a remnant. Suddenly she felt better than she had in days.

She returned to her seat almost ready for that trip.

In general, from fifth grade to 59, Lilah just didn’t go there. The few times she vomited involved alcohol, unconciousness, and the kindness of some fellow partiers.

Except for the London trip. Lilah’s parents determined that they would celebrate their 50^th wedding anniversary by taking their offspring to their favorite city. They planned the vacation the way they did most things, with Lilah’s father enjoying the sentiment and asserting his persnickety requirements and her mother early, energetically and repeatedly racing through every preparatory task. Her mom always made such a big deal about plans that Lilah grew up thinking travel was just too much trouble to take.

As arrangements gelled it was settled that she would fly with the parents. Sam and his wife were going to stop in New York on the way and would meet them in London.

Sam didn’t have any travel complications. Unfortunately, the plane that was to fly Lilah and her parents developed a mechanical problem. By the time the plane was fixed the crew had been on too many hours. The airline cancelled the flight.

Of course no travelers were happy about it. A DC-10 load of passengers had to rebook for the next day. They all lined up.

Lilah’s father was devastated. He had diminished with retirement, sunk from a satisfied professional to a degenerating shopping aide, and he valued this family trip like a last pilgrimage. He just couldn’t accept the delay. Sam and Carol would be in London for a full day before them, and that glitch acted on him as if it were wrecking everything. Lilah’s mother was never patient, but her husband’s grief spurred her to be even more aggressive than usual. She elbowed her way to the front of the line. One waiting passenger, annoyed to fearlessness, made a comment about how “some people think lines only apply to others.” Lilah’s mother heard, was slowed enough to pause, and looked to Lilah for support. “Can you believe what that woman said to me?” she whisper-blurted. By then Lilah was so exasperated that she couldn’t cover her own disgust.

(to be concluded next Monday)

Lilah was never a good vomiter. Her whole family avoided the process, opting instead to suffer through the clutches of stomach cramps until the problem descended into their intestines, where they were all more comfortable about the issue.

Of course she had no memory of spitting up as a baby, but she had a younger brother who was capable of projectile vomiting, according to her mom. Lilah must have heard a hundred times how Sam only quit the disgusting habit at two, after their mother made him lie in it for all of one nap time.

She did have a memory of being sick in school. She was in fifth grade and her mother’s father was visiting from Florida. He took them all to a fancy place and Lilah ate something wrong. She said she was unwell the next morning but her mother didn’t listen. She declared that Lilah would feel better if she just got up and moved herself, dammit, and she made her go to school anyway. Immediately after the class said the pledge of allegiance, as she took her seat at the corner of the six square desks arrayed like a rectangle, three facing three, Lilah’s stomach clenched and sent its contents exploding up her throat, burning past her teeth and all over the desks.

Her problem then was compound. She was ill. She was lastingly humiliated by her seatmates’ grossed-out reactions (She’d forever be able replay “Eewwww, Mr. Tucker, Lilah barfed!”). She was escorted to the school nurse by the teacher’s pet, a short girl named Betsy who made her feel hulking and ugly as well as sick.

Her mother came for her and felt so bad about sending her to school that she rubbed Lilah’s back and let her have as much ginger ale as she wanted. But regurgitation remained a distasteful experience. Lilah learned to battle any nausea to a salivating stalemate. She must have refused that form of relief a dozen times as an adult. She didn’t want it herself and didn’t understand it in others. When her seven-year old stepdaughter threw up on the back steps, Lilah looked for a dietary cause. That was early in 1990, when they all knew the family was done – the last time she saw little Polly, showing her the house. The child puked all over the classic brick steps and it wasn’t until 1996, one morning vacuuming, catching sight of bright pink under the sunroom baseboard, digging out a cheap plastic barrette, Polly’s, that Lilah finally understood that puke.

It only got worse over the next two years. Bill and Mary had no more babies, partly on purpose but mostly because they rarely had sex after Eric. Bill started to dally with other women. He’d always been outgoing, chatting easily with men and women alike at the car lot and in local taverns where he lunched, and it was a short step from talk to tango, as he’d say. His first encounters were one-night frolics with barflies – standup activities in the bathroom or nape-guided nuzzlings in his car – but within six months he had a real affair going, with a young employee at the dealership, in an apartment he leased near the freeway.

It was a little outrageous. She was only nineteen. He got a thrill out of teaching her how to please him. Her name was Pam but Bill always called her “Baby.” He was done with her within eight months but he paid her community college bills for two years afterwards.

Mary was complacent. It wasn’t that she tolerated philandering – Bill was usually careful, and he acted like a normal suburban husband when he was home. Mary appeared happy with her house and her children. She didn’t seem to expect much from Bill. She was okay transporting the kids in the big car, grocery shopping and planning meals, while Bill zipped around in the roadster and made money.

Bill liked being married. Mary was a nice person. She was boring, but a very good mother to his kids. Home was a comfortable place for him, and if it weren’t for the non-sex he thought it would be good.

He only fell in love with one girlfriend and she wouldn’t have him, so his marriage was safe on that score. Her name was Amy and the near-wreck occurred in 1984. (Apple introduced the Mac computer. The AIDS virus was discovered.) Amy was an environmental activist whose group picketed Bill’s car dealership, and they formed a hot relationship from the debates of that day. They were very different, off as much as on, but they persisted for three years. After Amy, Bill never let his heart get hooked. He was careful to choose partners he didn’t even like.

In 1995 the kids started leaving. That was the year of the Oklahoma City bombing. OJ Simpson was acquitted, and the Ebola virus ransacked Zaire. The twins were twenty-one and flourishing. Emily was engaged to the son of the richest family in neighboring Laguna, and she worked in her chosen field of archaeology. Ned was at the top of his class in medical school.

The other offspring weren’t doing so well. Liz’s decadence had caught up with her and at eighteen she had AIDS. Her promiscuity hadn’t hurt her but sharing needles had.

Laney was healthy but obnoxious. She was sixteen and a fish-eating vegetarian, which meant she thought she had the right to all the lobster and shrimp in the paella, since she wasn’t eating any sausage, ham, or chicken. She believed her blue eyes were owing to her diet instead of to her mom.

Little Rick was the one who made the big news. He was thirteen that year, blonde and cute as the boy next door. He was also impulsive and distractable, often angry or moody, prone to fantasies about superheroes. He picked the lock on Bill’s gun safe one Tuesday. He loaded the revolver and smuggled it to school, where he unloaded it explosively toward the front of his English class. He winged his teacher and injured two kids. Then he turned the gun on himself but it was out of ammunition. Four students jumped on him and held him down until the police arrived. His face was understandably bloodied. Himself was understandably locked up.

Bill has legal problems because it was his gun. He has emotional problems because it was his son. Bill has headlines.