NOTE: Our Contributing Editor, Cody Barstow, submitted this article from his home. Said he didn't want to come in to work. We checked his contract. He's allowed to do this. Contributing Editors have a completely incomprehensible amount of freedom. We suggest this position as a career goal to any aspiring writer.

Cody Gets Wanded.
Part I.

MOJO CITY, Nov. 25, 2001 -

Amber dropped me off at Tucson International. Said she wanted to spend a couple more days with her mother there, then up to join me in Mojo.

I'm standing in line for the screening at the entry gates. Guy in front of me has these two kids. Wife is over to the side. The young kid, a boy, about three, is screaming incessantly. Wanting something his older sister, about five, has. Parents aren't doing a damned thing. Not a damned thing. I deal well with kids doing this. It's their job. But parents have a job, too. It's called discipline. Dealing with things and quieting the kid down.

The noise grates. I make "arrgggghhh" noises. The wife looks over at me. Husband begins to turn around to face me.

"The kids … noise is too much," I say.

The guy explodes. Face rushing crimson. Spluttering spit and hissing incredibly incoherent words, something like, "If you don't like it, go find yourself … another airline, another flight … another … get on another … damned thing!"

Popping the guy in the nose seemed almost preordained. He'd done something I'd never seen ... taken his glasses off to put in the change basket before he walked through the electronic gate.

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The Gunman
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Cody's Travels with Fred

It's too damned late.

The weather sucks.

Now, any guy at this point has three options. First Option is to just roll back and pop the sorry sombitch in the nose. Let the sudden pain drive him to his knees and blind him with tears and blood pouring out of the nose. No one gets up after a properly administered whack like that.

Second Option is to recognize that First Option will lead to jail time, and instead, you can sucker the sorry sombitch into trying to punch you first. Then you merely protect yourself, let him go to jail, and sue the bastard later in civil court. Do it this way … you look at him calmly, and compliment him on his speech problem. "Witty repartee," you say. "I'm surprised. I didn't figure that kind of mind resided in that tiny head of yours."

Third Option is to let it go. Recognizing that neither First Option, nor the Second, really are much of the mark of a civilized man. So, in the spirit of cooperation we find ourselves in when in airports these days, the Third Option gives you this … "Calm yourself down, dude."

He couldn't stand it. The words made him realize that he was not calm, and that he was on public display and that his actions had consequence in the public eye. He turned away from me and began tossing things at the conveyor belt for X-ray inspection. Never said a word.

Later, we're in the air on the same plane. I'm in 5A. He's behind me, somewhere around Row 12. Damned kid's still squalling.

I chill. Take a breath. Close my eyes … find my center. I go trance-state in meditation. I begin to get real spiritual. I have a need to talk to the guy. I lift out of my body and walk my spiritual self down the aisle, and prop myself up in the seat across from him. Neat … in this spirit-mode, I can't hear the kid. I look the guy over.

Starting to go to fat. Can still hide it to some degree, but on a terminal downhill. His eyes don't seem to be able to focus on much for any period of time, suggesting a distracted mind, an inability to concentrate. Two kids. The wife.

I get into stereotype-thought and I tell him,

"I figure you're about twenty-nine or so. Got the obligatory two kids out the chute. The wife there. You're in a job you once thought held promise, and now … now, you don't even wonder about things like promise anymore. Your life is a prescribed series of decisions already made for you. Bigger house and mortgage, longer hours at work, a sorry-assed sixteen-year-old son in about thirteen years causing you and the wife all sorts of behavioral-hell problems because you bought into some silly idea that discipline spoils the child and you reared a kid who never heard the word 'no' in a disapproving tone.

"Also prescribed by this route you've taken … that Big Clutch at the chest at about fifty-four. The sudden black rushing up from the floor and you won't need to buy aspirin for the rest of your life to prevent that second heart attack because you're already dead.

"Dude, I've made a lot of bad decisions, and a lot of unsure ones in my life. But they were mine. A lot of people married with kids have done the same. They never bought into the prescribed life. They made their own decisions about this life.

"Your anger this morning was directed at a whole lot more than me bitching about your asshole kids. Your anger was at your decision to raise your kids in that irresponsible manner and knowing you're looking at the future when you see him wail and someone says something about it. It's your own failure that you're looking at when you look at him. And you feel terrible because that sense of failure is slowly replacing what you hoped would be love for him.

"And with that kid, and your uncontrolled anger at yourself, and your inability to gather the courage to step out and take control of your life … you just might try to eat a gun before you hit fifty-four. But you'll find it impossible to find the trigger. No guts.

"All you have to do to stop all that is gather the courage to crouch down and look into your son's eyes and in a deep, low, controlled and slow voice, say one word to him in that tone every parent has that just shakes the world of any child. Say it. "No." And have the courage to do it each time the kid acts out of line.

"But I guess it's easier to take a chance that someone like me is going to beat the shit out of you, than it is to face your own kid."

The plane flies on. He never hears my words.