Close to the edge

I had just switched seats with the guy in 26D so he could sit with his wife and daughter. I like an aisle seat. I like the minuscule extra bit of legroom, and I don't have to bother anyone if I need to powder my nose. I was on my way to St. Louis to see some friends for the weekend, and the weather was supposed to be spectacular. My irritation from the whiplashed rush-hour cab ride to LaGuardia and the removal of my ankle boots at security was starting to abate. Then, from out of nowhere, she appeared.

"Excuse me," she said, looking straight into my eyes, her eyes bulging with restrained annoyance, "is that your stuff?"

I glanced at the two unoccupied seats to my right, where a coat and a purse were strewn across both seats.

"No." And Bulgy was gone.

When 26F returned, she pleasantly excused herself and I stood up to let her pass. No sooner had she sat down than Bulgy, a chunky Valerie Bertinelli lookalike, suddenly reappeared.

"Is that your stuff?" Bulgy said to 26F, her lips pressed tightly together.

"Oh, yes," 26F said apologetically and moved her stuff. I got up to let Bulgy in, and she leaned over and forcefully and almost angrily brushed away several crumbs on the seat before flopping down in 26E.

I immediately turned on my iPod and closed my eyes.

From the corner of one half-shut eye I saw Bulgy fidget and sigh as the plane waited to take off. I turned up my iPod so I wouldn't risk being sucked into a conversation with her. "Don't look at them," Ben Mears tells Mark Petrie in Salem's Lot. "That's how they get you."

About halfway into the flight I was jolted awake by the beverage hostess, who wanted to serve me a drink. Bulgy already had two vodka and cranberries on her tray. Super. A drunken Bulgy.

My headphones seal out external noise, so I can't hear anyone talking to me, even when the sound is off. I took one bud out of my right ear to tell the flight attendant I wanted water.

"What time is it?" I heard through one ear, somewhere around me. I looked to my right. It was Bulgy. "What time is it?" she said. To me.

"Huh? Oh, it's about 8:00 Central time," I said, starting to put my earbud back in.

"I was just trfhgan..." said Bulgy's muffled voice.

I took out my earbud and said, "Excuse me?"

"I was trying to decide whether to take a nap, but I guess we'll be landing soon."

"Yes," I said, my body language clearly indicating lack of interest, "in about half an hour." I should have stopped right there, but I heard myself say, "but then, it's only a 2-hour flight." The captain clearly said before takeoff that flight time would be 1 hour and 57 minutes. Bulgy looked at me like I was retarded.

"No, it's not," she said. "I know. I've been doing this flight for the past 10 years." You fucking idiot was implicit in her tone.

Like a gambler in Vegas, I couldn't help myself. I knew I should just plug in and tune out. But I didn't.

"We're only in the air for 2 hours," I said. "They build in an extra hour so we'll still arrive on time."

"Well, I know that," she said condescendingly.

OK, bitch, I thought, I'm not in the mood for games. I almost had my earbud back in.

"Are you from St. Louis?" I heard Bulgy say. I took my earbud back out, trying not to roll my eyes.

"New York," I said. Bulgy was not going to leave me alone so easily. I didn't know if she wanted to annoy me or hit on me or what, but I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of pissing me off.

"First time to St. Louis?"

"No, 10th or 11th," I said. "You?" Why? Why? Why did I engage her?

"I was born there. I live in New York." Then, as if I'd asked, "45th and Lex."

"Ah," I said, "centrally located," and turned away again.

She shot another mocking look. "Well, yeah." [Read: Duh.] "I don't care about that neighborhood bullshit. I'm near everything. I can walk everywhere. I can walk to work."

"Great," I said coolly. Inside I was seething.

"I mean, my office was going to move down to Wall Street. I'm so glad they didn't. I took the train down to Bowling Green today. Do you know how long it took?" she asked rhetorically. "Twenty minutes!"

I nodded, as if to agree with the crazy woman. Twenty minutes seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

"Where do you live?" she asked. I told her I lived in Park Slope.

"Oh, I love Park Slope!" Bulgy said. "My favorite restaurant in all of New York is Blue Ribbon."

"I live near the one in Brooklyn," I said. You idiot! You might as well have invited her to your house!

"It doesn't have the same menu as the one in Manhattan," she said authoritatively. The Blue Ribbons in Brooklyn and Manhattan have almost identical menus. The Brooklyn one is bigger, is all.

From time to time I glanced past Bulgy to 26F, who wordlessly shot me sympathetic glances and generally looked worried about the powder keg in 26E. I decided against arguing with Bulgy. I said I liked the oysters at Blue Ribbon and that they were as good as ones I'd had in New Orleans.

"I lived there for 6 years," Bulgy said.

"What part?" I asked. Why? Why did I ask? What the fuck was wrong with me? I couldn't decide who I hated more: her or myself.

She waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, I don't know the name of the neighborhood. Somewhere near the French Quarter."

"Marigny?"

"What? What's that?" she said huffily, blinking rapidly, as if I'd just pulled any old name out of my ass to be a showoff.

"Faubourg Marigny," I said. "The bohemian quarter."

"What is it? Spell it." I spelled it.

"There's no such neighborhood," she said. "You must be thinking of somewhere different."

For some reason an image of a rabbit boiling on a stove popped into my head.

The conversation could have ended there. But it did not. It continued. Bulgy expounded on her job as an account executive selling fax equipment for a brand-name manufacturer. Jesus Christ, I thought, I'm listening to a friggin' copier seller.

I looked at my watch. The 10 minutes to landing seemed like an eternity. Bulgy was getting restless. "I'm ready to party in St. Louis."

"Not me," I said. "I'm ready to go to bed."

From her immediate look of disgust, I might as well have said I wanted to fuck her doggie style in the airplane restroom. "Go to bed?" She shook her head. "I don't think so," she said, leaning away from me and curling her lip. Was she scoffing at my preference to sleep, or--oh my God, did she think I was trying to hit on her? I mean, I'd made it clear I thought West Point cadets are cute.

For some reason Hilary Swank came up, and I let slip that I belonged to a boxing gym and we had just held a fight night.

"Oh my God!" she said, grabbing my arm. "I would love to watch that. You have to tell me when the next one is."

She gave me her business card and told me to e-mail her. By this time we had landed and were waiting for our row to leave.

"Hey!" she asked. "When are you coming back? Sunday?" I nodded tentatively. "Me too! I'll bet we're on the same flight."

There's a scene in Airplane! in which a man douses himself with gasoline and sets himself on fire as Ted Striker drones on and on about his days as a pilot. Boy, did I want to be that guy!

Bulgy pulled out her itinerary to see what time her Sunday flight was. "I'm on the 3:15," she said.

"Oh," I said. "I'm on the 5:45."

I let Bulgy off ahead of me. I hung back to get my bag in the last overhead bin. As she left she turned to me and said ingratiatingly, "Don't forget...e-mail me about the fights."

A faint odor filled the air of the cabin. Was that boiled rabbit I smelled?