Elvis Is On The Plane

photo (1)“Elvis is on the airplane!” announces a woman as I walk through the aisle.  She’s right – somewhere in the half hour it took to change planes in the Louisville, Kentucky airport, my sleep-deprived brain had lost it’s better judgement to Halloween.  A man in a green shirt narrows his eyes as he scans me from head to toe, and I look down at my clothes.  Gold stars and red and blue dots cascade down the shoulders of my white jumpsuit with the bell-bottom sleeves and pant legs.  A belt with chains and golden eagles encircles my waist.  An oversized star-spangled collar and red scarf adorn my neck, and shiny gold aviators with fake sideburns cover my eyes, which I am secretly thankful for because they grant me a shred of anonymity.  ”You got a song for us?” asks the man in the green.  I flash him a smile.  ”I’m afraid that would piss off a lot of people,” I say.

As far as social constructs go, even with it being Halloween, I am walking a very thin line.  Sure, there are the folks with a healthy sense of humor who slide witty one-liners my way:
“You’re a hunka hunka burnin’ love!”
“Where ya headed…Vegas?”

There were even a few airline representatives dressed like clowns and pirates at the gate.  But most people either look downright terrified, as if I am a raving lunatic on Market Street about to rattle them for change, or worse, they don a placid smile and look anywhere but me, trying to pretend that nothing is out of place.

I locate my seat and smile at the man next to me, and as he looks away, nose slightly upturned, I realize he is one of the latter.  I can hardly blame him – since I bought it a year ago on a particularly successful amazon.com shopping spree, this Elvis jumpsuit has been through a lot.  It has run a mile in the Nashville Hard Rock Marathon (ironically earning a photo spot on the official website of a race I didn’t run), survived a massive red wine spill from a wine-bladder sports bra (another product of amazon.com), and instigated a 20-person Elvis flashmob at a friend’s wedding.

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday.  As a kid, it was all about candy, which I didn’t like all that much.  In my teenage years, it was about drinking (which I wasn’t into), and sometimes washing the egg off of our house.  Freshman year of college, completely unaware that everyone else was using the holiday as an excuse to dress up as sexy devils and sexy angels and sexy bumblebees, I showed up to the party dressed as Pippi Longstocking.  Halloween celebrations have improved quite a bit as an adult, but I am secretly ok with it when people put away the fake blood and vampire teeth and Christmas carols start playing on the radio. Even so, I appreciate Halloween for what it gives us: an official day to relax social constrictions and lean into the weird.

The guy next to me seems to be maintaining his choice to lean away from the weird.  Since his attention is pointedly directed at his iPad screen, I seize the opportunity to take in my fellow passenger.  His crisp outer jacket zips neatly up to his chin, navy blue polyester accenting his closely-trimmed hair and lack of what I imagine would be a ginger beard.  His hands appear soft, like they have seen many days at the inside of an office, and his gold watch band glints beneath his jacket cuff.  I feel starkly alone.

And then something miraculous happens.  The airline steward with the big white trash bag in a flat voice and perfect Monty Python imitation bellows, “BRING OUT YOUR TRASH!  BRING OUT YOUR TRASH!”  A large, very ordinary-looking man across the aisle yells, “I’m not trash yet!” to which the steward whacks him on the head with a newspaper.  The stewardess turns around to reveal a red sequinned devil tail, and the tiny blonde girl in the pumpkin shirt and pigtails cracks a wide smile.  We fasten our seatbelts, the plane lands and the captain emerges dressed as a blind man.  I am laughing now, more out of surprise than anything, and I catch the sharp blue eyes of the carefully composed man next to me.  In the first sign of recognition so far, he does not smile but offers me a piece of gum.  I give him my best Elvis grin.

“Thank you, thankyouverymuch,” I say.

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