IF YOU REALLY WANTED TO MESS ME UP, YOU SHOULD HAVE GOT TO ME EARLIER
Top 5 Songs From My Stack of Sevens to Think About in a Strange Airport After Your Shoes Get Stolen in a TSA Line
“If you really wanted to mess me up, you should have got to me earlier.”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
In 2006, I stood in the Austin-Bergstom International Airport waiting for my flight home. My shoes had been “lost” (well… stolen) at the TSA checkpoint. They were once expensive, slick, dark blue seventies loafers and had been lifted off the conveyor slide and out from under me while I waited my turn to go through the metal detector in my bare feet. Irreplaceable. And whatever scuzzfuck choad was responsible had disappeared with wings into the mob scene of somewhat fortunate indie rock band members who had not been forced to ride home in the rented white cargo van, their groupies draped in dollar thrift store clothes and headbands, members of the music press, and assorted industry heavyweights who were still standing after the dust began to settle from the onslaught of illegal downloading. SXSW had ended, and everyone was fleeing Austin in what looked like the final minutes of the fall of Saigon in the days before the boutique hotels and Travel Channel-friendly food truck food courts descended upon South Congress Avenue.
And there I was in the airport, shoeless.
Most flights back to the mainstay cities had been oversold, causing further unrest and groans among the hoard of fellow music freaks. At my gate, I heard the announcement softly spoken over the loudspeaker in an unmistakable matronly Texan twang. People were getting bumped off my flight back to Los Angeles and rerouted through connecting flight hell, or they were being chucked into the standby abyss indefinitely. My feet had left the cold marble-like airport floor and hit the dirty carpet.
“What’s the matter with this fucking airport,” I mumbled as I adjusted my grip on the flight case that housed the rented camera gear I had to watch over closely with my life.
I had been sent down a few days earlier at the last minute on a corporate gig for a well-known denim apparel company. The job was to film bands' live performances at their outdoor event venue. Listening to and seeing music has always been important to me. While my band had dissolved a year previously in a blaze of glory after botching an important opening slot at a KCRW concert in L.A., I still looked the part even after the band ended and was constantly asked that classic question in bars by strangers: “Are you in a band?”. I was primarily trying to write screenplays then, but directing music videos was starting to become my thing, and I needed the money.
I had checked the bag with my clothing when I arrived earlier, but it wouldn’t have helped if I hadn’t because I had no extra shoes, socks, or even underwear, which was just how I rolled then. At this point, my Levi’s could have walked over to Jim Morrison’s ghost on their own and said “hello” after moving through the crowded, beer-soaked, sweaty venue for the last 72 hours. The black promo t-shirt I wore with the words “Death Before Disco” had been handed to me by Gang of Four’s guitarist Andy Gill after I took a photo of him at a party the night before. It was the only clean thing about me. I was still nursing a bad hangover, which was amplified by the intense work schedule and very little sleep since getting the job. For some reason, as I stood in line waiting, I was becoming more and more self-conscious that the people gathering around me now thought that my lack of footwear was some misguided hipsteria choice or that I had found spiritual enlightenment through Ram Dass and not that I was a victim of a heinous theft. My eyes moved like a wolf’s, scanning the crowd for them as we all waited. As I edged closer to the airline personnel, I dreaded the next wave of announcements over the P.A. system at the gate.
Nothing. By now, the culprit was probably on the other side of the terminal, showing off my hand-blocked Savile Row loafers to his girlfriend while splitting a burnt airport latte.
I had about a thimble full of patience left to my name as I spoke to the two big-boned Texas Milkmaid airline lifers helming the computers at the gate check-in. They sized me up suspiciously through their heavy eye makeup as I asked about my chances of getting on my flight. I am trying to remember exactly what the story I gave them was. Still, it had something to do with the high-end gear I was holding and how I needed to be back in L.A. by a specific time to film an important interview for my important corporate client or something along those lines. The truth was that I had nothing to return to except an empty fridge and an unmade bed full of unfolded laundry.
I just needed to leave this place.
As I explained my dilemma, I knew it would be best to seem sympathetic. “Ebeling, try to separate yourself from the Angelino entitled exasperation jabber and all-too-prevalent biz-snapping loudness yammer they’ve been suffering through since you got in this line. Break away from the pack,” I told myself. So I found a patient and understanding smile and spoke with concern—like a true gentleman with greasy, unwashed, shaggy hair and three days of growth on my face.
These women were fatigued by the out-of-town freak show, even by the standards of the “Keep Austin Weird” tie-dye-friendly welcome policy the City had adopted from the Willie and Kinky outlaw hippies. Their world was different. The stock that put 2 liters of Big Red on the table at dinner time and loaded their husbands’ shotguns on family hunting trips. But make no mistake about it; they both had that undeniable Texan cowgirl super strength to psych out any rabid Hayseed high school footballer with a hard-on thinking of knocking up one of their daughters before a proper Christian wedding.
And now they were sizing me up, looking for holes in my story, and I knew that the attributes that let me drink after hours in the Silverlake dive bars were already working against me with them. The louder one asked for my ticket and I.D., which I calmly handed over. She reluctantly began to look into the system. Then she lingered on the photo on my license and began to eyeball it, me and back.
Then she showed it to the other. I hid my panic because it felt like I was in trouble for some unknown reason. Then I realized what it was.
My driver’s license picture was taken six or seven years ago when I was a fresh-faced teenager with impeccable short brown hair, strong blue eyes, and a black sweater. I reflected a hint of optimism: a good boy on the journey into manhood with my whole life in front of me.
And then they melted with concern over whatever ordeal they theorized I had been through that could have gotten me to this place in life and said,
“Oh, honey. We got to get you home.”
Then, they upgraded me to business class and put me in boarding group one (under the condition that I cut my hair).
I’m a firm believer in the Top 5 List. In tribute to Nick Hornby’s novel High Fidelity please find my top five inspired by this story;
My Top 5 Songs From My Stack of Sevens to Think About in a Strange Airport After Your Shoes Get Stolen in a TSA Line.
Head - The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Butterfly Collector - The Jam
Capital Radio - The Clash
Up Town Top Ranking - Althia & Donna
Rari - The Standells
I'm sorry for your loss.
No shoes! I would freak out.