Homeless man in the airport

I flew from Atlanta to Dallas Monday. The trip is normally fairly boring. This particular trip held no major surprises. As always, though, I people watch when traveling. I had ample opportunity at the Atlanta airport because the “security” line was more than an hour long. In fact, it was so long that the geniuses running the fool’s game we pretend has something to do with security routed us around every luggage conveyor belt in the place. The experience of walking in a giant conga line consisting of a few thousand people winding in and out between the baggage retrieval belts was sort of surreal.

There’s a lady struggling with her three carry-ons. And that lady over there just watched her kid almost get crushed by a bumbling fat man so distracted by his cell phone you could place a giant fan blade in front of him and he would walk right into it. Mixed in between the stand out idiots like fat man on cell phone and the luggage idiot are the other polyglot varieties of people you see in an airport. There are smartly dressed business people with looks of stolid resignation on their faces. Men and women alike with their leather briefcases containing who knows what corporate secrets shuffle slowly toward their aluminum transportation cans. They are used to this lunacy we call the modern American airport. They have submitted to the idiocy although some of them may be growing the seeds of revolution in their hearts. None of them likes being herded like a cow, but most of them aren’t going to moo loudly about it. The travelers are easy to spot because they are dressed so slavishly. Teenage girls in clothing so tight it might as well be glued on compete for the furtively admiring glances from unhappy middle aged suits who like a little eye candy. Couples fight quietly on the transport tram between terminals, their tans already fading as they are whisked back towards their boring little lives full of rampant consumerism, crushing debt and ho hum sex with each other. Ancient octogenarians recline with heads lolling in courtesy wheelchairs as they are rolled through the hallways on their way to somewhere they hope to die surrounded by people who care more than these airport denizens. Few make eye contact even when they brush one another in the overcrowded walkways or lock suitcases or collide trying to navigate in and out of the too narrow restroom entrances. The modern America airport is not a friendly place.

Through this mix of misguided human mutts wanders the homeless man. Only he knows his destination. His luggage consists of the leaves and dirt matted into his dreadlocks. His ancient trench coat is stained with good honest red Georgia clay. He has no cell phone like so many of his rude airport neighbors but he is muttering quietly under his breath just like they are. He wanders nimbly through the endless line of harried, harassed and oh so jaded commuters. The only flying he will do today will happen when he gets high. I see him once, then twice, then a third time. He and I are both moving towards the area where taking off our shoes will be mandatory. He is zig zagging and I am shuffling. Suddenly, his path is blocked by a woman on a cell phone. He motions that he wants to pass through the line. Everyone else has taken pains to let him by - they back up and give him his space. But not this woman. She is on a cell phone and she isn’t moving. In fact, cell phone business lady has decided that homeless man doesn’t even exist. He wants to get through. She wants him not to be a part of her reality. He waves a grizzled hand in front of her face; he is pointing in the direction he wants to go. Cell phone lady hunches over and cradles her cell phone protectively with one hand while grabbing her carry-on more tightly with the other. She is not letting him through. Homeless man gesticulates again! He raises the volume on his muttering activity. Things look like they might get ugly. Without warning, the stalemate is broken as the line shuffles forward and cell phone lady moves toward her date with an overweight idiot in polyester pants, a clip on tie and a nickel-metal badge. Homeless man zips through and continues his mad wandering. I will never see him again. I shuffle towards my own meeting with the people who keep me safe from myself.

As I do I think about who is more free. Is it homeless man or cell phone lady? And how free am I? I’m not feeling it.