AN OVERWHELMING SENSE OF SECURITY
AN OVERWHELMING SENSE OF SECURITY
BY RICKY FAY
BY RICKY FAY
In November 2002 we received the sad but expected news that Granny had passed. Her wake and funeral were scheduled to be held in the township of Norwood, Massachusetts, where she’d spent her adult life raising five now-grown children and lovingly grandmothering another six. Attendance at her memorials meant my father, my brother James, and I would have to fly cross-country from Oregon. Our mother, at Granny’s bedside during her last few months, was in Norwood already, helping with her mom’s funeral preparations and estate. Our sister, studying abroad that year, was unable to attend.
And so it was that the abbreviated Fay party arrived at Portland International Airport in the pre-dawn gloom, groggy but (we thought) prepared for our transcontinental voyage. Little did we know firsthand how drastically the transportation world had changed since the previous year’s terrorist attacks. Vastly longer wait lines greeted us. Far more stringent security precautions were in place. TSA agents bristled on high alert.
Because we planned on being back East for a week, our father had prudently packed forty dollars worth of quarters for the coin-operated laundry at the hotel. But innocent rolls of change stacked end-to-end materialized on the x-ray screen as a suspicious, potentially sinister iron bar. Without warning, Dad found himself summarily yanked out of line and hustled away by humorless security staff. He returned several minutes later disheveled, chuckling at the experience, to find his sons howling with laughter at the possibility their mild-mannered father might crack the national No-Fly List.
As we moved toward our gate of departure, James remarked that his physical ticket looked nothing like ours. He wasn’t wrong. Printed on glossy paper of a different color, his boarding pass was marred by a conspicuous row of Xs beneath the passenger info section, but neither our father nor I could off er a reasonable suggestion as to what these variables might portend. As we prepared to board, however, it quickly became clear.
Apparently, Jim’s ticket was one pre-selected for an additional ‘random’ search at the gate — a largely-symbolic gesture meant to assuage the fears of nervous travelers. But in our grief-drunk, sleep-deprived, post-terror attack anxiety, coupled with the fact that our father had already been intensively screened at the previous checkpoint, Jim’s ‘preselection’ felt wildly hilarious and our trio dissolved into decidedly inappropriate giggles as he was whisked behind a nearby security screen by a pair of uniformed officers.
Dad and I were directed to proceed down the jetway, assured by airline employees that our traveling companion would be only moments behind us. We found our seats, stowed our carry-on luggage, and fastened our seatbelts low and tight across our laps, commenting good-naturedly on how ensnarled we’d already become in airport security’s zealous enforcement of their new protocols. “You’re next, son,” my father predicted solemnly, hinting that my turn might well involve an intrusive rubber glove. Before either of
us noticed, the rest of the cabin filled with passengers. Jim’s seat was now the lone vacancy aboard.
Our estimated time of departure came and went. Travelers began to grumble loudly. Dad checked his wristwatch for the dozenth time, an increasingly worried look in his eye. Near the main cabin door flight attendants huddled, shoulders hunched like they were trading nuclear secrets. Two gestured in our direction. Others turned to look, as did several eavesdropping rows of passengers. One customer posed a question to the cabin crew we couldn’t quite hear.
The flight attendants’ reply was muffled as well, but above the roar of the engines powering on, we both caught the phrase “major security breach”. Dad and I shared a look of escalating panic as we saw the door close and heard an authoritative voice crackle across the loudspeaker: “Flight attendants, prepare for pushback from the gate.” We both began frantically mashing the orange emergency button overhead.
As an exasperated-looking steward hurried toward us, the freshly-secured cabin door swung open again. We heard Jim long before we saw him, his distinctive, high-pitched, hiccupping laughter indicating that something truly remarkable had transpired.
Whatever it was had turned my brother’s legs to liquid. Unable to stand, he was crawling down the aisle toward us, clawing and pulling at armrests to propel himself forward, gasping for air between peals of hilarity. An irate stewardess hovered above him, exhorting him to hurry and take his seat, that the flight’s departure time had already been
significantly delayed because of him. Polite as he usually was to strangers, this admonishment only served to elicit louder, more uncontrollable gales of mirth. By now, the entire passenger manifest was gawking at him, some with aggravated contempt, most with naked curiosity.
Breathless, he lurched into the seat next to me, his body convulsing helplessly. “What happened to you?!” my father and I demanded in concert.
His first attempt to describe the adventure met with colossal failure, his voice so high, cackle-filled, and tremulous that every word was unintelligible gibberish.
A second effort to extract information from him as we taxied down the runway fared no better. By this point, even the grumpiest passengers around us were intrigued. The plane virtually tittered with anticipation.
We’d been airborne a full ten minutes before Jim was able to tame his laughter sufficiently to communicate specifics of the occurrence. Across the aisle and for several rows in every direction, heads cocked and ears pricked as details were finally revealed:
After we’d been split up in the terminal, my little brother had been frogmarched behind a makeshift security screen, where stood a mustachioed, distinguished-looking gentleman who identified himself as Chief of Security for Portland International Airport. Jim was duly impressed.
The Chief directed him to stand on a duct-taped X on the carpet and hold his arms out straight on either side. A hand-held metal detector, wielded by the Chief himself, explored every inch of Jim’s head, torso, arms, and legs, revealing nothing of security related interest. With a jovial, almost-apologetic tone, the Chief then asked him to take a seat in a nearby chair, dropped to a knee, and requested that his subject raise his feet one at a time for closer inspection.
A cursory wave of the wand across Jim’s sneaker triggered a high-pitched alarm. The Chief frowned.
“Do you have anything metallic in your shoe?” he inquired.
“No,” Jim replied, confused and more than a little surprised. “They’re Nikes.”
“Well, we’ll try this again.” With a practiced smile meant to put his subject at ease, the Chief held my brother’s foot aloft for a second time and made another pass with the wand. Again it wailed in distress.
In an instant, the Chiefs lighthearted demeanor evaporated, eyes narrowing as if Bin Laden himself had suddenly appeared in my brother’s place. He glowered at Jim. “Sir, national security is not a joke. What do you have in your shoe?!”
“Nothing!” Jim insisted. “Look, I’ll show you—“. He leaned forward helpfully to untie his laces.
Reacting with instinct and precision, six TSA operatives materialized from the shadows, knocking him out of the chair, pinning him tight to the ground. From his prone position, Jim watched helplessly as one of the agents gingerly untied the suspect sneaker, slipping it off his foot, hustling it away to be further x-rayed and tested.
The Chief fixed Jim with a merciless glare, grilling him about his obvious extremist affiliations. My brother’s tongue momentarily froze in astonishment. A cell at Gitmo now seemed as likely a destination as arrival in New England.
No, he replied, he’d not recently traveled to the Middle East. No, he hadn’t converted to a radical branch of Islam. No, he wasn’t fluent in Arabic or Farsi. No, he didn’t personally know any high-ranking members in Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
The agent who’d confiscated Jim’s shoe returned, sidling up to the Chief and whispering something in his ear. The Chief appeared puzzled. Then ...
“Give me your foot!” he ordered my little brother.
Pinned down as he was, with two security officers sitting astride his torso and another four restraining his limbs, Jim could only reply with an incredulous stare. “You’re gonna have to take it yourself, sir. I no longer have control of my legs.”
Scooping up Jim’s sock-covered foot in his meaty palm, the Chief swiped the felonious extremity again and again with growing hostility. On each pass, the wand shrieked in protest. A look of pure bewilderment flashed across the Chief’s usually-unflappable face, replaced quickly by apoplectic rage.
“You’re gonna tell me what you have that’s setting off my alarm,” he snarled. “Wearing an anklet? A toe ring? You got a metal plate or screw in your foot?”
By this point, Jim didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or demand an attorney. His mind raced. For a moment he wondered if he was secretly being filmed, fodder for a hidden camera prank show.
The Chief appeared baffled as well. His reputation, along with countless lives, hinged on his ability to quickly and accurately decipher mysteries like this one. He continued swiping Jim’s now-bare foot absentmindedly, uncertainty and consternation deepening the distinguished creases of his forehead.
Then, on the twentieth pass, a spark of comprehension behind his eyes exploded into flame. He dropped Jim’s foot, holding up the hand (and wrist) he’d been using as its cradle.
“Oh,” he murmured sheepishly, gesturing at the offending object. “It’s just my watch.”
The entire cabin of the plane was silent for a long moment, then erupted with rollicking laughter. | RF
A LIFE-LONG OREGONIAN OF IRISH-AMERICAN STOCK, RICKY FAY HAS HEARD AND SEEN OTHERS CLAIM TO WEAR THEIR HEARTS ON THEIR SLEEVES. THE ONLY PLACE HE HAS EVER TRULY FELT UNDERSTOOD IS ON THE PAGE OR SCREEN.
