A Brush with Fame

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As he entered the departure lounge, I thought the tall lanky man with the guitar case was a friend of mine. At least, he was as familiar as an acquaintance. Perhaps, it was his attire of khakis, loafers, a jeans dress shirt and a BoSox cap that fit an archetype so close to simpleton traveling types. Through his Ben Franklin spectacles and under the bill of his cap, I recognized him.
I caught myself slightly smiling at him as he scanned the room and placed his guitar case on the ground. Two boys and two women followed him in, adding to the eight other passengers waiting on the flight. The boys were twins, both dressed in blue and white pinstripe shirts, and were no more than three years old. As for the ladies, one was a lean brunette who took a seat apart from the others, and the other was a silver-haired woman with a sunhat. This latter looked to be his wife.
Naturally, I had my doubts. I had expected him to be much taller, given his stature on the stage. After a few glances his way, I became convinced that it was indeed him. I looked at the other eight passengers waiting to board the plane. Two retired couples were caught up discussing hot properties and recent land purchases in the Bahamas. A business man was typing on his laptop. A couple were staring out of the window. Another formally dressed man peered to the side towards the guitarist. He was the only other one who showed sign of having noticed.
The well known songwriter remained reserved and communicated only with his family members. He followed one of his sons to the snack bar, letting the stripling marvel at the candies on display, but unyielding to his demands to have one. They took a seat beneath a large wall map of the islands. His wife and other child joined him soon after and they remained there for about ten minutes. It would have made a great picture.
After returning to their original seats, they were visited by a stewardess. With effusive glee in her tone, she presented two small plastic wings to each of the boys and proclaimed, “We’d like to thank you for choosing American Airlines!” The boys pinned the wings to their blue and white pinstriped shirts and immediately became pilots in their imagination.
One boy proclaimed, “I’m going to be the pilot!”
The father replied, “Well, Rufus, what is our flight time today?”
His scion pulled up on his wings and looked down at them in fascination. “Forty minutes.”
“Will we be able to smoke cigarettes on board?” he asked, shaking his head thereafter so the little one would know how to respond.
“No, we won’t,” Rufus replied.
Continuing the roleplay, he asked “What will we be having to eat?”
Rufus paused in thought and replied, “we’ll be having...” he paused in thought, “breakfast... lunch... and dinner.”
If there was any reaction to the humor, the parents expressed it internally. The wife decided to join in, instructing a useful phrase. “Is there anything I can do for you...”
Rufus repeated the fragment carefully.
“...to make your flight more enjoyable?”
He repeated the remainder.

It soon came time to begin boarding. It was announced by a different stewardess, who walked into the room and stood in front of the famous family. She spoke the words with the poise and undertone of nervousness that a performer might display when on stage for the first time. Smiling and aware of the spectators. “We would like to announce the boarding of flight 4952 from George Town to Miami. Please present your boarding cards and identification at the gate.”
To this the passengers stood and gathered their bags. I waited for the family, who was seated closest to the door. The singer picked up his guitar case and urged his boys to get their stuff ready. They stood and proceeded through the gate out onto the tarmac. I followed several paces behind watching the man look out at the scene beyond the runway. He came to the attendant waiting at the foot of the stairs. She smiled at him, then instructed us to wait a few seconds before climbing in. Another attendant came and took his guitar case and placed it on a luggage cart apparently set aside for them.
Meanwhile, I noticed the brunette standing next to me. Feeling that the moment was suitable, I commented, “Good idea to bring the guitar. I wish I’d brought mine.”
She smiled and nodded, “Oh it’s great to have. You know who...”
Her sentence was cut off by the attendant’s call to board the plane.
She knelt down to take the bags and one of the boys hand. Finding it difficult, she asked me, “Do you mind taking this bag?”
“No not at all.” I took the gray bag with the initial “H” on it. Addressing the young boy I said, “What’s your name, buddy?”
Carefully watching the step ahead of him, he said, “Henry.”
We reached the interior of the plane, where I returned the bag. The woman and I exchanged a smile.
I glanced at my seat number on the ticket: 8D. As I neared the eighth row, I discovered that the man and his son had taken a seat not only in the same area... but IN my seat! I immediately opted to let it slide and simply took a seat across the aisle in 8B. With only twenty passengers, we could simply sit anywhere.
I sat back and relaxed, confident that my maneuvers weren’t coming across as too contrived. Knowing that I would spend the next hour and a half in his proximity, I thought some about how to approach him or break the ice.
I am someone who has no desire to become famous. I sense that fame deprives you of humanity in respect to other humans. Stars tend to be reduced to a name or a face. That is why people most often ask for an autograph or a photograph, by-passing the normal steps of acquaintance. It seems that famous people most want to be treated like normal humans, to have banal conversations, and maintain contact to average life. In light of this, I decided to avoid using his name and interact on the most appropriate level possible given the circumstances.
For example, I play guitar and saw a traveler carrying a guitar. Thus, just when it looked like the man had gotten settled in his seat, I said:
“It was a good idea to bring the guitar.”
He looked at me with a slight delay, nodded and said, “Yeah.”
I added, “Exuma’s a good place to play it.”
“Sure is,” he replied with a convincing nod and smile. He turned to make sure his son at the window seat was safely buckled in. Then, without turning my way he continued, “You have to make sure it has a good case, though.”
I began to notice how familiar his voice sounded, like that of a close friend. I demurred, trying to construct an apt reply, but came out with: “To protect it.”
The dialogue stopped there. The typical flight procedures had begun. The stewardess made her announcements from the front of the plane, noticeably giddy and nervous. As she did this, the small plane set forth down the runway and took off.
Once airborne, I noticed that the man had rested his head back to take a nap.
For the next half an hour, I did my own usual in-flight entertainment of reading, writing and taking pictures out the window. Every so often, I looked around the rest of the rather empty plane. The man and his son were sleeping. Behind him, the brunette sat looking through a checkbook. At times, she caught me looking back, glancing at me and smiling. This woman possessed an air of an intermediary, as if she were monitoring the interactions between me and him. I sensed her approval of my presence. As for the lady in the sunhat, she sat two rows behind me with the other son. I had had little to no nonverbal contact with her. She did look like a familiar celebrity, though.
The man was still sleeping when the stewardess passed through the aisle to take and serve drink orders. He stirred and woke several minutes after. The stewardess, who dared not disturb the man’s nap, returned soon after and took his order.
I fell into a dumbstruck stupor. I was nonplussed, feeling that any remark would be out of context and intrusive. I continued doing my pastimes, all the while telling myself not to leave his presence without at least saying something like: “I’m enjoying your music.”
The captain appeared from the front of the plane, removing the sliding door between the cabin and the cockpit. He slowly proceeded down the aisle coming to where the man and I sat. Kneeling down between us in the aisle, the captain began whispering to the man, then extended a hand. The man concealed his eyes beneath his BoSox hat, whispered a reply and answered the offer of a handshake. The captain then pulled out a photograph from his pocket. In the process of handing it to the man, I saw that it was a picture of two young girls, one of whom I presumed to be the daughter of the captain. He then stepped away and returned shortly with a pen.
Upon seeing this demand for an autograph, any of my remaining doubts of the man’s identity were allayed. I glanced behind me and discovered the brunette looking at me and grinning. I grinned in reply, perhaps acknowledging that I knew who he was, perhaps communicating a little humor in the whole absurd gesture. The captain had hardly spoken to the man, asked for his autograph, then retrieved the photograph and returned to the cockpit without a word.
I tried to imagine a life in which a stranger comes up to you, hands you a photo of someone else you’ve never met, asks you to write your name on the person’s likeness and leaves without a word. Then I tried to imagine doing this ten, twenty, maybe a hundred times a day. I would ask myself: Who are these people? How does my signature bring them happiness?
I remembered talking to a teenage coquette who had met Johnny Depp over the summer at the Chat n Chill on Stocking Island. She had used her irresistible smile and innate charm to get his signature... on her panties. A few days prior, she proudly showed me the photographs on her digital camera, proof of a fleeting encounter with fame. It was as if she were momentarily endowed with his renown, and had the remnants of that sensation to recreate it vicariously.
I suppose I came to the conclusion that a photograph or autograph request would trivialize the encounter and reduce it to the type of stale exchange that reminds me of a concert hall, a cinema or a museum: places in which the artwork and viewer are both removed from their natural disposition to communicate in a vacuum. For the captain, the usual manners of human behavior didn’t seem to apply. He felt he had a calling or a duty to ask for an autograph, as if giving autographs is expected ofa celebrity.

After many minutes of this rumination, I decided to attempt a typical airplane conversation.
“Spend a week on vacation?” I said, making sure to look at both the man and the brunette. Addressing them both seemed more polite, casual and safe, in case he decided to ignore me.
There was another delay in his reply. “Yeah. And you?”
“Yeah, was doing some boating,” I answered.
The dialogue seemed to die right then. He didn’t immediately reply, nor was there a real reason to. The seconds counted themselves towards a minute and it seemed as if all my efforts to interact would be in vain. Just as I was about to get over the awkwardness of this silence, he spoke again:
“So, where’s home?”
I turned to see him looking straight at me through his Ben Franklin spectacles. His eyes spoke in a tone of sincerity and genuine interest. The question was penetrating and I delayed my response to let the thought form.
“North Carolina.”
I immediately remembered the famous tune he’d written about my homestate.
“Really, which town?” he followed.
“Was raised in Charlotte but I live in Raleigh now.”
“You’re going there now?” His interest seemed to grow with each question.
“Yeah, gonna take the slow train back.”
I knew he had lived some time in North Carolina, but decided to ask the question anyway.
“You been through there?”
He remained quiet, looking above his spectacle lenses and below the bill of his BoSox hat into his thoughts. I imagine that he must have found the question peculiar, given the fame associated to him and North Carolina. Perhaps he was asking himself: Does this guy know who I am?
He replied, “Yeah, I used to live in Chapel Hill.”
“Oh,” I replied nonchalantly and gave the assessment I usually give when talking about it: “Cool town.”
At this point, his son distracted him and he returned to his paternal duties, speaking too soft for me to hear him.
I returned my attention to the scene below. The final islands had passed and the plane had begun its long and steady descent into Miami. The rolling cloud cover stretched out in numerous mounds across the blue of the Gulf Stream. The sun reflected off the mirror of the ocean, defracted at points by the minute waves. Forever fascinated with the sensation of flying, I took out my camera to take a few photos of the nebulous formations, each one unique and awe-inspiring. Meditating on them I lost track of what the man was doing next to me.
Some time later, he spoke again: “What kind of boating did you do?
I turned to find that familiar regard. “On sailboats.” I felt invited to elaborate. He turned his head and listened out of one ear, keeping an eye on his son.
I continued, also looking at the brunette who was watching me. “I had envisioned it like hitchhiking on boats by working on them. My plan was to make it to the Antilles, but the trip didn’t make it that far.”
I saw a smile curl up at the edge of his face in profile.
I added, “It’ll be good to be home.”
He nodded in response.
After a pause I added, “Are ya’ll staying in Miami?”
The man replied, “No we’re going to catch a connecting flight and go up to Massachusetts.” I remembered that he hailed from there and had spent time in Chapel Hill only for his studies.
The plane began to tilt in its descent towards Miami. The ground neared on either side of us and we each turned our attention to the pools and houses in their square lots, landlocked by straight avenues extending beyond view. In spite of my distaste for Florida, I felt relief in returning to the comforts I had been deprived of on the sailboats in the Bahamas. In a matter of minutes, the plane touched down successfully.
We stood up, as often impatient air travelers do, before the “fasten your seatbelt” light was turned off. Once we had our hand luggage, we proceeded to the exit at the rear. I began to assume that we’d soon split and that I’d need to say farewell. But exiting the plane, I saw that an accordion bus was waiting to transport us to the main terminal for customs check-in. As the man stepped down in front of me off the plane, he was greeted by a smiling attendant. Her smile seemed excessive, unveiling the nervousness that many other stewardesses before had displayed. She said, “We tried to arrange a separate bus for you Mr. Taylor, but if you don’t mind please use this bus.”
I walked around him and boarded the bus that awaited us. I sat down towards the rear, returning to my zone of solitude. He neared the bus with his sons and helped them step into the bus. He then took a seat opposite and diagonally from me. The bus moved forth, all of us in that silent introspection of travel. The ride quickly ended at a double doors, where the passengers began to alight the bus.
Being at the rear, I waited for the family to get their luggage together. I was about to offer a hand, when the brunette asked me, “Well, since you’ve waited for us before, could you help us with this?” She handed me the same small bag.
Nearing the front of the bus, I asked the man, “Have those two learned to play guitar yet?”
“No not yet,” he said without turning around.
“Still need time to develop the callousses.”
I couldn’t hear his response if there was one. We stepped off the bus and entered through the double doors into a small room with an escalator. An entourage of American Airlines employees awaited the family. At this point, the brunette turned, extended a hand, and said, “This is as far as you can help us.”
This was where the trip ended. They were to be escorted through their own customs process while I was to return to the plebeian customs and immigration circus. It reminded me of Field of Dreams.
I replied to the woman, “Well, it was nice to meet you. Have a safe trip.”
“Thanks,” she replied.
I then turned to the escalator, passing by the man one last time. By now he had been given his guitar case and stood waiting for instructions. He turned my way as I passed.
“Was a pleasure to meet you. Have a safe trip!” I said, feeling no need to reveal names. I would have extended a hand to shake, but his guitar occupied his right hand, and a bag his left.
He smiled and replied with a nod, “Alright, man. Same to you. See ya.”
I returned and stepped onto the empty escalator ascending into the banal real world of lines to wait in and strange faces to hide in. It occurred to me in that split second that I was returning to the world best suited for me, a realm of anonymity that can be so comfortable, it goes unnoticed. It is where the hoi polloi dream of renown, a widespread recognition for their toil and creativity, without thinking of the sacrifices involved with such celebrity.
As in every parting, I took one last glance back halfway up the escalators and discovered him looking up towards me through his Ben Franklin spectacles, a peculiar grandfather grin across his face.

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