Holy Cow

37 UP, UP, AND NO WAY

Tom led us back through the concourse, and then through a door that I think said DO NOT ENTER. It was in Turkish so I couldn’t really tell, but it was bright red and had lots of warning-type lines through it. I asked Tom, “You sure we’re going to the right place?”

Tom opened this door right onto the runway. The sound of the planes was deafening. Tom took off in the lead, flapping away. He ran us up to this smaller-type jet, maybe it was a private plane, and he said, “Let’s go for a joyride!” That scared me so much that I gave up all ladylike pretense and dropped a patty right there on the tarmac. The Turkish coffee had the same effect on Shalom, because he quickly followed suit with an anxious deposit of his own.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked Tom, screaming over the noise of the planes landing and taking off everywhere nearby. “We just risked our lives to get you to Turkey and you haven’t even seen it yet and you wanna get back in a plane?”

“That’s just it,” answered Tom, his eyes clear, bright, and focused. “During that flight, I realized my home is up there in the sky. Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly. The prehistoric ancestors of turkeys flew, it’s in my DNA, and when I was up there I felt it in my wishbone. Up there is where I belong. I am a man with no country but the wild blue yonder. The sky is my home.” And with that he bounded through the plane’s open door. Shalom and I had no choice but to follow him.

Tom bopped into the cockpit, strapped on a headset, and started flicking buttons and running down checklists.

“You sure you know how to do this?” Shalom asked.

“Birds fly. That’s what they do. What am I?”

“You’re kind of a bird, I guess,” answered Shalom.

“’Nuff said,” replied the bird, and slammed the cockpit door in our faces. The next we heard from Tom, it was over the PA system, and even though we were the only ones on the plane, he addressed the cabin as if it were a full boat.

“Uh, this is your captain speaking, looks like we are one or two on the runway here, so, ladies and gentlemen, please put up your tray tables and adjust your seats to the upright position. Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff.”

There were no flight attendants. As Shalom buckled in, he turned to me and only half-joked, “Nice knowin’ ya.”

“Birds fly. That’s what they do.”

The plane was taxiing down the runway, and I don’t think we’d been cleared for takeoff at all, because a couple of planes seemed to speed up to get out of our way. Seemed like we were on the ground so long that Tom was going to drive us to wherever he was taking us. As we gained speed, I noticed a fence beyond which I could see nothing but the blue Sea of Marmara and a watery grave beckoning. I closed my eyes and braced for impact. I had done all I could. I’d had a dream and I’d chased it and almost chased it down. I was pretty okay with this being the end. Shalom, not so much. He was lobbing every Yiddish curse he knew in the direction of the cockpit. “You meshuggener putz! You should get trichinosis and die! Of all the ferkakta birdbrained schemes, you lousy schmendrick-” And he stopped, but only because I think he ran out of Yiddish vocabulary.

We went crashing through the fence and over an embankment, nose-diving out toward the water. Three of my stomachs jumped into my throat. I closed my eyes again as water sprayed the windows and, and, and… nothing. We tilted up. We were clear and making our way up, up, and away.

After we’d climbed a few thousand feet and my stomachs had settled down, Tom came on the PA system again. “Well, folks, sorry about the ascent back there, just a little mix-up with the tower.”

“You’re a madman! You schmuck!” yelled Shalom.

“We’d like to offer you a free drink to apologize for the inconvenience of the takeoff. We are on our way up to our cruising altitude of thirty thousand feet. Predicting a pretty smooth flight, but please keep your seat belts on while in your seat in case of unexpected pig flatulence, I mean big turbulence…”

“I’m gonna kill you!” screamed Shalom.

“It’s about two hours’ flight time, so sit back, enjoy, we’ll have you at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport in no time.”

Shalom stopped in mid-rant when he heard “Israel,” and he couldn’t suppress a smile. He looked out the window as if he could see it already. “Israel,” he said, caressing the ancient syllables as if they themselves had godly power.

“Is-ra-el,” he whispered.

And then he snapped out of it and yelled, “I’m still gonna punch you in the gizzard, you schlimazel!”