Mother and I deplaned at Boston Logan and entered a terminal that had recently been imploded. The walls were covered with loose sheets of corrugated metal, and the carpeting was ripped up, exposing a surface as adhesive as flypaper. The sign on the information kiosk read, “Please be patient. We’re remodeling.”
Mother went to get some water, while I searched for a good spot to settle in for our two-hour layover. There were no available chairs (most of them having apparently been sent off site for remodeling), though I did manage to locate a fairly comfortable carpet remnant. I plopped down near a group of young French women in formfitting sportswear. They were scrolling on their phones and laughing, pausing occasionally to converse in incredulous flurries. A typical exchange:
“Ah oui?”
“Oui oui.”
“Non. Ah oui?”
“Mais oui. Absolument.”
“Ah oui?”
“OUI!”
I got out a book and pretended to read as les filles moved on to meatier subjects. I had no idea what they were talking about, but imagined the translation to be something like this:
“Remember that night at Emmanuelle’s house? With the absinthe?”
“Ye-es.”
“And the feather pillows?”
“Oh! You said you wouldn’t tell!”
“I didn’t mention the riding crop, did I?”
In truth, the conversation was probably closer to this:
“Oh, my God, look at all these fat Americans!”
“I know—it’s disgusting!”
“I hope they aren’t going to France!”
A phone went off and they all made a feverish grab for it. Squealing ensued, followed closely by wrestling. A Lacoste headband, stripped from an unsuspecting brow, was flung in my direction. Just as I was about to dive in and settle the matter, Mother appeared.
She handed me a bottle of water and said, “Let’s go over there. I saw some benches.”
“Do we have to?”
“You wouldn’t make your poor, tired, overworked mother sit on the floor, would you?”
I waved to the muddle of demoiselles and sighed. “Au revoir. See you in Europe.”
*
Aer Lingus (the world’s kinkiest-sounding airline) offers a substantially lower transatlantic fare than any of its competitors. Consequently, our flight to Ireland was packed to the bursting point with cost-conscious continental drifters to whom Dublin was little more than a leaping off point (via the ultra-budget carrier, Ryanair) to cheaper destinations like Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic—post-Soviet states that stubbornly refuse to go Euro, clinging instead to their inflated Forints and Korunas. In these dismal economies, two American dollars can, with a little bargaining, buy you a five-course dinner and a small goat.
The currency gypsies among us were easily identifiable, as they tended to be young Caucasians who had come, almost universally, to the mistaken conclusion that they looked good in dreadlocks. The passengers behind us—a large group of unruly Irish youth—proved to be far more interesting. They were a beaten and bandaged lot, spotted with bruises and black eyes. I thought they might’ve been on the wrong side of a right-of-way dispute with a Boston bus, but it turned out they were a Dublin hurling club coming home from a tournament.
I’d seen hurling matches on ESPN before, so I wasn’t surprised at their condition. Bloodshed is to be expected when you spend an hour running around a field sans helmet smacking a hard ball with a wooden stick. These instruments, known as hurleys, are renowned in Ireland for producing a distinctive sound known as “the crack of the ash.” I had always assumed this referred to the contact between hurley and ball, but, judging by the state of the players, it could just as easily indicate the brain-jarring collision of stick and skull.
Though their conversation didn’t immediately suggest cranial damage, the team did exhibit an over-fondness for the expression “fug” (or, alternately, “feck”), which, I gather, is the Irish way of pronouncing “copulate.” As our plane left the ground, one of the hurlers summed up the pilot’s less than graceful takeoff with a succinct, “Fug, coulda been worse.”
Before we knew it, we were over the Atlantic.
“There’s an ocean down there,” said Mother, staring out her window into the darkness.
“A black, brooding sea,” I said.
“A freezing sea. Full of icebergs. If the plane went down, we’d all be dead.”
“If the plane went down over Harrisburg, we’d be just as dead.”
As if on cue, the Airbus began to rattle and lurch. When the shaking subsided, Mother released her grip on the armrest and exhaled. She opened a book, tried to read, then closed it again.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” she said. “My brother is having his knee replaced next week. And think of the money I’m spending. The garage needs a new roof.”
I’d heard this stuff before. It was Father, communicating from beyond the grave, telling her she had no business in Europe.
Father was a contradictory man. Fascinated by Scottish culture, he played the bagpipes and paraded about in a tartan kilt. Yet the thought of visiting Scotland struck him as patently absurd. He quashed the very notion of leisure travel with a single utterance, easily adapted to any occasion. I first recall hearing it as a teenager.
When I told him I was driving to an out-of-town concert, he cut me off somewhere between the syllables “Cleve” and “land.”
“You have no business in Cleveland,” he said, inaugurating the remark that would become his catchphrase.
Sometimes I argued with him.
“What do you mean I have no business in Boston? My sister lives there.”
“Well? Did she die?”
Funerals were one of the few acceptable reasons to leave home, though I’m sure there was a mileage limit.
“Don’t listen to him,” I told Mother as the plane shuddered through more turbulence. “This will be an experience you’ll never forget. When you’re ninety do you want to look back and remember the sunset over St. Peter’s, or the shingles you picked out for the garage?”
We nodded off, waking every time one of the hurlers shouted, opened a beer, or whacked a ball up the aisle. Dawn was breaking when we began our descent to Shannon Airport in County Clare. The Irish countryside was still lush and green in late October.
“We made it,” said Mother, gazing over the grassy meadows. “The Emerald Isle.”
“Our gateway to Europe and all its splendors,” I said.
A loud slap issued from the seat behind us, followed by a rough brogue: “Wakey, wakey, bud. We’re fuggin’ home.”
Dan Morey is a writer based in Pennsylvania. He’s worked as a book critic, nightlife columnist, travel correspondent, and outdoor journalist, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in both fiction and creative nonfiction. Find him at danmorey.weebly.com.