CAPTAIN PERFECTO AND THE GAG GIRL

It started with my flight to Phoenix. I left from Greensboro to fly to Charlotte. I brought a small suitcase that I was able to bring on board. I had never done this before, and always check my luggage, but knowing U.S. Airways' record of losing luggage, decided to bring it with me. I go through security and hear, "She's got a lighter!"

Fuck! I did. I completely forgot to toss it out! They pulled me aside and started to search through my purse. They confiscated the lighter that alarmed them, then continue to search through my purse.

"You sure have a lot of lip stuff," commented the security guy as he pulled out three chapsticks and two lip glosses. He began to mutter the things he pulled out of the purse. "We have a clip, some money..." He then went into my secret pocket - the pocket that is never opened. He pulled out about four tampons muttering, "We got some of these," as he laid my tampons on the table. Then he found what I'd forgotten was in there. "Oh, and we got one of these," he said a little louder, pulling out a condom, which considering I haven't had sex in almost two years, was surely expired. The condom was then placed next to the tampons. I wanted to shout, "Would you just like me to set my vagina on the counter? You've got everything that goes in it on the table, why don't you just check my fucking vagina? I got a lighter in there you know!"

He finished searching my purse, the rest of it being rated G, and let me go on my merry way. The flight boarded and I took my seat next to what turned out to be a really cool guy. Behind us was what surely had to be elderly understudies from the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. It started when the luggage door slammed shut and jostled the plane. The man two rows behind me shouted in his deep, Southern accent, "Lord! Someone get me some toilet paper!" I snickered.

Next came the two women, who were with the group, sitting behind me.

"Dear Lord! Take a look at the size of that head," cried the first woman.

Her friend must have gandered at the picture she was showing her. "Oh bless his heart. To have a head that large is just a terrible thing."

"Yes, bless his soul," answered the first woman. "That thing must be three times the size of what it should be!"

I giggled some more. Their conversations kept flowing amongst the two couples in the two rows behind us. I kept giggling at it, and my seat-mate and I would exchange glances that said, "Can you believe this?" Then it happened. Toilet paper man spoke again...very LOUD!

"Let me tell you something," he shouted to no one in particular. "When I had those kidney stones, the things those doctors did to me was invasive! INVASIVE I TELL YAH!"

I lost it and burst out laughing and couldn't stop. The man next to me says, "You're not from here are you?" I shook my head. "Neither am I," he said. We talked the rest of the way to Charlotte about music, his job, moving to the South from the West Coast, and his wife and kids. It was a very nice flight.

I then had a long layover in Charlotte. I wasted it away by eating and drinking in the bar. There I befriended a guy who lived in Virginia Beach and was flying home to Indiana for his father's sixtieth birthday party. After he left, I hung with a woman who'd missed her flight to New Hampshire, after she'd just helped her daughter move to Florida. She cried every time she talked about it. Next to her was a retired Air Force Captain who talked of how much he loved his wife and kids, and what a good marriage should be like. We had fun and laughed and the woman kept crying in between the laughter.

My flight was leaving and I got on board, hopeful for another good conversation with another person. Instead, I encountered Perfecto. This was his birth name. I commented that he really needed to make himself a militant super hero comic book with a name like that. He was 21-years old, and a Marine that had just finished his second tour of duty in Iraq. Everything started off okay. We talked about ourselves for a bit, then talked about the war. That's when things turned. It was like watching a cartoon where all of a sudden, Bugs Bunny grabs a saw and slowly dismembers Donald Duck. It was horrible!

The conversation about the war wasn't bad. I made sure to not get all riled up about it, and we had a decent enough conversation. I went to my book for a while, and that's when he pulled out his laptop. No one was sitting in between us, so he pulled the middle tray table down and set the laptop on it and started looking through pictures from the war. You could tell he obviously wanted me to see it since it was in the middle of us, so I asked the question wanting to be asked.

"Are those pictures from Iraq?"

He got all excited, "Yes! Want to see?" I agreed to take a look.

It was sad and beautiful, much like the pictures I'd seen in the news. He showed me the slide shows that his troop had made at the end of each of their tours, which was put to music. Here were guys who shouldn't be there, posing around a war-torn country with their faces painted in some. Some were men yelling or flexing their muscles. Others were them man-hugging each other, acknowledging the bond they'd had there. I'm very against the war, and it made me sad to see.

Then came Bugs Bunny with the saw.

"Let me show you what really happens over there," Perfecto said. And that's when Bugs dismembered Daffy Duck.

I saw dead men. I saw dead men with guts and bones showing. I saw a man with half his face blown off, which continues to haunt me. I saw close ups of brains, missing eyeballs, etc. all on dead men. I sat with my mouth gaping open. I knew I would never forget this, and I wanted to smack the fucker. Then it got worse. He started to play an execution video. I recognized the video from the news in the early years of the war. I thought they'd just chop off his head quickly. I told myself I could get through this. I didn't know how to say "no" to this stranger.

They did NOT quickly chop off his head. It took a while as they cut through it. I sat there trying to stay calm, and then I started gagging. Perfecto laughed as I gagged. Fucker. You fucking asshole. I looked around hoping that flight attendant would see this bully torturing me on the plane, and ask him to please evacuate the plane through the emergency exit; lock him in the bathroom; beat him with the drink cart; or at least turn off his computer. They didn't. Others would kind of glance at what was happening, but no one would say anything!

The video finally ended. I sat back in my cramped seat, wanting to heave and I told him I was going to have nightmares for the rest of my life. He laughed again, and in my daydream of what I wish could happen, I peed in his eyes so they would burn the way mine did.

And then we landed. I wobbled outside, Abby picked me up, we screamed, hugged, and hopped in her car. She smiled and said, "I hope you got a nap on the plane because we have catching up to do!"

"I just watched slideshows of dead people," I gasped.

"So you didn't sleep?"

And I didn't the rest of my trip.