Mack
Hall, HSG
Hey, Nice
Little Suitcase You Got Here.
Hate to See
Anything Happen to It.
“This is
disinfectant. Use it.”
-Train Guard
in Doctor Zhivago
When
George Custer and I left Viet-Nam (poor George got into some fracas in the
Dakotas later on), every departing passenger was required to go to confession
before being subject to a pat-down.
The
confessional was a little walk-through closet curtained on both ends. The sign advised the passenger that if he was
carrying home instruments of destruction for later use to repent of any such
idea and in the privacy of the closet leave the things-that-go-boom in a little
box provided for them.
My
seatmate, a fellow named Wellington (he later visited Belgium and designed
boots or something), was much amused when I told him that out of curiosity I
had peeked into the box and had seen pistols, .50-cal machine-gun rounds,
bayonets, knuckle-dusters, and a couple of hand grenades.
Lo
these fifty years later no such courtesy or privacy is extended to airline
passengers: unhappy people of the sort our mothers warned us against touch us
in ways once regarded as inappropriate outside the bonds of wedlock.
As
for your toothbrush and spare socks, at Los Angeles International Airport,
familiarly known as LAX(ative), there is no need to leave things in a little
box for others to take away; the baggage smashers will go into your old
Samsonite and decided for themselves which of your earthly goods they will
endow themselves with.
Passengers,
by order of Higher Authority, must not / may not / will not secure their bags except
with a TSA-approved lock to which everyone in Christendom, Cathay, and
Cucamonga has a key.
Last
week the Los Angeles police and the airport police (everyone has a police force
these days; thinking of getting one myself) arrested a number of workers for
liberating the people’s goods from the Belly of the Beast. Apparently this criminal gang / activist
group is an ongoing problem for LAX(ative), and like Captain Reynaud’s
Casablanca Police Department the local authorities make a few arrests every now
and then, claim to be shocked, shocked that there is pilfering going on, and then steal Sam’s piano.
In
Casablanca the response to a crime is
“Round up the usual suspects.” In an
American airport the response is “Certain measures have been implemented…”
broadcast over and over from Big Brother’s overhead speakers.
When
the unhappy people (maybe it’s the polyester uniforms) hired to paw through
your stuff paw through your stuff, they ask “Did anyone else help pack your
suitcase?”
And
then lower down in one of the circles of (Newark) others who are not hired to
paw through your stuff paw through your stuff, they help you unpack your
suitcase before you even board the plane.
This
is why the airline charges you to check your bag.
The
cleaners, loaders, and security at American airports, unlike the paying
passengers, are not inspected, not checked, not watched, and not regulated. What
is to prevent some resentful son of toil from accepting a nice gift in a fat
envelope in exchange for placing another fat envelope in your luggage?
When
the Agency for Something Or Other reconstructs the accident and analyzes
fragments of your suitcase, they can then tell your survivors that “Hey, your
old daddy took a bomb on board. What did
you know about this? We’re going to
seize – um, sequester – all your property, and, hey, have you visited
Guantanamo this time of year? They say
it’s lovely.”
While
the Los Angeles police are investigating the LAX(ative) Chapter of the Comradely
Brotherhood of This and That Oppressed Workers International, perhaps Captain
Reynaud could ask them if they know where your lost youth is. They may have pinched that too.
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