Maybe I should have used Ken’s Colt .45 on myself.
Suddenly nothing seems funny anymore.
I stare at the seatback in front of me for a minute or so before I pass out.
When I wake up, I’m disoriented and my head’s throbbing.
My shoulder is wet from my own drool.
“Where am I?” I say.
The nun to my left says, “Welcome to Philadelphia. I drank your vodka for you, Ms. Lightweight. Time to exit.”
I look up. The plane is empty.
“We’ve been shaking you. I think they might have gone to find a doctor,” the nun says.
“I’m okay,” I say, but when I try to stand, I feel sick.
I make it to the bathroom just in time to empty my stomach.
Someone is knocking now, aggressively.
“Ma’am? Are you okay?”
I wash out my mouth in the sink. “Coming.”
I look in the mirror and see a monster.
An old-looking mythical creature.
Red eyes.
Makeup running.
I might as well have snakes for hair.
“Great.” I open the door, trying to avoid eye contact. “I’m okay. Nothing to see here.”
I push past the flight attendants.
“Ma’am, your friend left this for you.”
I turn around, and the flight attendant extends a folded piece of paper.
I snatch it from her, say, “Thanks,” and then head for baggage claim, each step echoing in my skull like land mines exploding on impact, trying my best not to throw up again.
My nun friend is nowhere to be seen, so I read the note while I wait for the machine to cough up my suitcase.
Dear Portia,
It was very nice meeting you on the plane. Sorry we didn’t get to talk more. I will pray for you. Very hard! Daily! And I will ask “my husband” to intervene in a special way for you. He says he’s not mad at you for making sexual jokes, so if you are worried about that now that you’re sober—don’t be.
Galatians 3:28—There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, THERE IS NEITHER MALE NOR FEMALE; for you are all one in Jesus Christ.
Good luck with your quest.
Love,
Sister Maeve
PS—Here’s my address, should you ever want to write me. I love letters!
Sisters of St. Therese
Sister Maeve Smith
(Wife of Jesus Christ Number 2,917,299)
16 Waverly Park
Rocksford, PA 19428
Weird, I think, and then stuff the note into my pocket.
Am I on a quest?
Maybe the quest to become a novelist?
But why would she write that? Did I mention something I don’t remember now? I don’t think I ever used the word quest.
I’m too hung over to care all that much, so I drop it.
I try to remember if I really said “wang” to a nun, repetitively.
Did I actually describe Ken’s horrible inadequate stubby penis in excessive detail to Sister Maeve?
It’s impossible to know for sure, and so when my bag finally slides down the conveyor belt, I grab it and catch a cab.
“Take me home,” I tell the dark-skinned man in the driver’s seat.
“Where is your home, please?” he says as he turns on the meter. His accent is sort of sexy. Seal without the scars on his face, I think, but then I quickly remind myself not to say that aloud, because it seems racist, even though I compare white strangers to famous Caucasians all the time, and without guilt.
“Across the Walt Whitman Bridge,” I say. “Westmont. You?”
“Me what?” he says.
“Where’s your home?”
He pulls away from the curb and says, “Philadelphia.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t born here, I can tell by your accent. So where are you really from?”
Silence.
There are mounds of exhaust-smoke-gray snow on the ground outside. I’m no longer in Florida, that’s for sure.
“Are you afraid to tell me where you were born?” I say.
Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror. “Nigeria.”
“Is it nice in Nigeria?”
“No,” he says. “There is too much violence. Please. Never go.”
“Westmont is pretty fucked too.”
“It is better than Nigeria.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But it ain’t like I have a choice tonight.”
“You always have a choice. Look at me. Here in America. A choice.”
“Do you like it here in America?”
“Yes,” he says. “Very much. I will bring my family here one day. Soon, I hope.”
“You have a wife?”
“In Nigeria. And five children. Three strong sons.”
I ignore his sexist favoritism. “You love her—your wife?”
“Yes.”
“She’s lucky.” I hate myself for envying this woman in Nigeria whose husband drives a cab halfway around the world, saving money to rescue her from whatever hell Nigeria currently offers. It sounds like a fairy tale. She might as well be in an ivory tower. So romantic—beautiful even. Their struggle.
Portia, you are a terrible person, I think. Terrible.
“I am lucky. Very lucky. My wife is a strong woman. Very beautiful. Good mother. She will make me more sons here in America. I am the lucky one.”
I look at my ruined reflection hovering in the window as we pass the Philadelphia professional sports complexes on the left.
What is this guy smoking? Because I want some.
He takes me across the Walt Whitman Bridge.
“I do not know this area. Will you please advise me?” he says.
I advise him.
We navigate away from Camden and toward safer suburbia, with me yelling out rights and lefts. Finally I say, “Over there. The one with the highly embarrassing metal awning.”