I Get to Snoring by Helen Krieger

There was a storm during my first flight, so strong it actually made me sick, which is hard to do. I was almost home now, but as I boarded the plane for the second time, my stomach felt like it was floating. I tried not to think about it as I found my seat. I read the aisle numbers and suddenly realized I’d been seated in an exit row. That was nice.

I quickly threw things onto my seat – Bukowski, The New Yorker, a flight blanket I’d bought during my six hour stayover to wait out the storm. . .

“Let me help you with that,” said a man sitting in the middle seat. He took the blanket and gently put it on my seat. I gave him my iPod, headphones and purse, then I wrestled my bag into the overhead compartment.

“You sure do have a lot of stuff,” he said. He spoke with a deliberate-sounding slur. He moved his knees to the side to let me pass, then held up my seat belt buckle.

“Thank you,” I said. I put on my headphones. He smiled back at me. There was no one sitting in the aisle seat, so I thought he might move over, but he didn’t. He started saying something, and I took out one earbud.

“Now, I’m going to fall right asleep,” he said, and I caught the sickeningly sweet smell of a lot of alcohol as he leaned toward me. “So if I get to snoring, you just wake me up.”

I nodded. He might have been in his forties, but it was hard to tell. He wore pleated khaki pants that strained against a tucked, navy blue shirt. He was the kind of guy someone would probably find good looking, though not me, and certainly not at this moment.

“You just wake me up,” he repeated.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I said.

“When I get to snoring, you just wake me up.”

The stewardess walked down the cabin showing us seatbelts and oxygen masks, but my neighbor wasn’t done. He wanted to show me exactly how to wake him up.

“Put your hand on my face, like this.” He put his open hand against the side of his cheek.

“Okay,” I said.

“You don’t need to hit me, just wake me up like this,” he touched his own cheek again, gently like he were comforting a bereaved aunt.

The stewardess came to our row. “Ladies and gentlemen, do you know that you’re…”

“Seated in an exit row. Ka-ching! We’re fully capable and prepared to execute our duties.” He laughed.

I stared at the stewardess, but she simply laughed politely and moved toward the front of the plane.

I put on my headphones and took out my book.

“What are you reading?”

“Bukowski.”

He grunted, and I couldn’t tell if he was grunting indicating he approved or didn’t know who I was talking about, so I said “Factotum.” He was silent. “They’re going to make a movie out of it?” I continued, and then I felt like I’d cheapened the book, so I crouched against the window and began reading.

I was on a passage that was simultaneously erotic and repulsive, when I realized my neighbor was staring at me. I glanced over, and his eyes were indeed resting on the page, either the book or my chest. I wasn’t sure which, so I closed the Bukowski, shifted toward the window and started reading a New Yorker article about Turkmenistan.

Just after takeoff the guy fell fast asleep as promised. He didn’t snore, but he did turn in his sleep and stretch, pushing his arm across my own. I shifted and pushed, but I couldn’t move it off. His legs were spread eagle on the arm rests of the chair in front of him like he were in stirrups for a gynecological exam while his other arm rested between them, just to the side of his khaki crotch.

I tried to concentrate on what I was reading and how soon I would be back home, but as the plane flew higher, the cabin trembled and the man’s arm shook against mine. He started snoring, and then a fuzzy woman’s voice announced that we would be going through some turbulence.

Helen Krieger has worked in journalism, fiction and screenwriting for the past decade, and she co-founded and ran a local New Orleans paper, the Bywater Marigny Current.

A recipient of the 2007 Eureka! Short Stories Fellowship Award, she has attended the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, and the Algonkian Writing Conference in San Francisco. She lives in New Orleans where many of her stories are set.