Boarding Group 4
We rustled up some snacks from the self-checkout stores dotted around the terminals of Newark Liberty International Airport, including chocolate milk, which my sister assured me was the most effective way of maintaining hydration. We stood at the back of the crowd, watching as boarding groups 1, 2 and 3 made their way onto the plane. For reasons understood only by United Airlines, boarding is split into two lines that merge back together just as people are asked to scan their boarding pass. When boarding group 4 was announced, we stepped forward, but were unsure of which line we should be in, and no one around us seemed to be moving toward the gate. In that beat of confused hesitation, a gentleman behind us said we should be Line 1, so we went ahead, apparently the only two souls in Boarding Group 4. It’s a modest club, but extremely exclusive.
Because of our missed connection the previous night, the United Airlines agent had upgraded our seats to Economy Plus, so our seat numbers were in the 30s instead of the 50s. We were seated on the right side of the plane, in a row that as of yet had no one else sitting in it. The overhead luggage compartment was completely empty, but we still jammed our bags as close together as possible in hopes of leaving room for the poor souls behind us. From our seats we watched a few dozen more people trickle in toward the back of the plane. The trickle became a drip, and pretty soon there was no one else but the flight attendants coming down the aisles. All the passengers in our half-full section held their collective breath…the announcement that the boarding doors were closed went off like a starting gun, and there was a rush of bodies spreading out to claim as much space as they could find. I slid over from the middle seat to the aisle seat, thereby establishing dominion over a modest 3-seat fiefdom, gratefully occupied by two sore, sleepy peasants. A woman laid out across all four empty seats in the middle section next to us, providing a vivid illustration of the proverb “Fortune favors the bold.”
Colleen fell asleep almost immediately after the spate of irritating announcements that airlines insist on making until the plane reaches cruising altitude. I made a stab at sleep, but gave up after a few minutes. First I watched a few episodes of “Barry” on the small screen in front of me. But staring at a screen while traveling doesn’t feel right (except of course hours in front of a text editor banging out long-winded blog posts), so I switched to reading my book. It was Jack Kerouac having a conversation with himself for two months sitting alone in a fire lookout tower somewhere in the northern Cascades of Washington, which, as reading material goes, was pretty tough sledding. It wasn’t long before my eyelids drooped and drowsiness fell heavy enough to overcome the ungainliness of sleeping sitting up.
The cabin went dark, meal carts came and went, a baby wailed itself into exhaustion, and the plane shot towards a dawn that came ludicrously early by the clock on my phone. I read, I wrote, I dozed, I ate while the hours slid by at a pace of their own choosing. Window shades remained mostly shut until after the final meal was served about an hour from Dubai, and then the blinding late afternoon light was allowed in just in time to watch our descent through the sandy-colored air down to a sprawling city built on the slim margin between sea and dune.
After we deplaned, we had to go through an abbreviated customs and security check to get to our connecting terminal. At 7 p.m. local time, the terminal was almost entirely empty. It was clean, comfortable, and above all, quiet. Unlike Newark, there were no blaring announcements every 15 minutes about not smoking in the terminal or accepting packages from unknown persons. We found plenty of empty lounge-chair style seating where we could put down our bags and put up our feet. It felt luxurious after 12+ hours in the air, even with half-empty Economy Plus seating, and we sat for a time gathering our wits and taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi.
