The Clown Brigade

ON THE FLIGHT to see Jenna, Kyle, for the first time in months, finds a little faith in humanity. In the world. In life.

What happens is a tall, austere businesswoman swirls down into her aisle seat in such a way that her long blond hair drapes over the back of the seat, making the college girl sitting behind the businesswoman have to part that blond hair like a curtain in order to see what she was watching on the little television screen embedded in the seat.

The reason Kyle assumes the woman with the long hair is from the business world is her power suit—both aggressive and reserved—and the no-nonsense way she carries herself. He’s pretty sure she’s used to flying business too, but due to some scheduling disaster, here she is in economy, with all the chickens.

Cluck-cluck, Kyle says in his head, with a grin.

Her having to fly coach isn’t what restores Kyle’s faith, though. What gives him heart, maybe even the smallest measure of hope, is that once the plane’s at cruising altitude and the businesswoman’s made one trip up and down the aisle, her hair again in the college girl’s space, proving that this isn’t a mistake, the college girl pulls her purse up into her lap, digs in it until she comes up with what she needs: fingernail clippers.

You can get through security with them, and with tweezers too, no matter how sharp, Kyle knows. Nothing with an actual blade, of course. The sunglasses he considered for thirty minutes and finally splurged on in Terminal B? The sales rep had to cut the tag off with the cutest little pair of scissors—safety, safety, nothing too dangerous on this side of the scanners.

Fingernail clippers aren’t a weapon, though. Not really.

For the next twenty minutes, what the college girl does, bite by tiny bite, is neatly cut herself a ragged, square window in that blond fall of hair, balling it in her left fist and depositing it under the lid of the medium-size cup of coffee she brought on board. The gentleman beside her is sleeping, oblivious, but, across the aisle, Kyle most definitely isn’t.

He can hardly contain what wants to be his laughter, what finally has to bubble up as a grin of—when the girl glances up, catches him watching—collaboration.

Kyle feels a flush of warmth spreading across his face, and, worried he’s going to give up this wonderful game by making the businesswoman spin around, see what this chicken is clucking about, he makes his way back to the island of bathrooms in the middle of the plane. By the time he makes it back to his seat, the flight attendants are coming through to collect any trash items. By the time he’s buckling his seatbelt back on, the college girl is depositing her coffee cup of hair into the flight attendant’s extended bag just a fraction slower than she has to, as if allowing Kyle to savor this delicious moment with her.

On the college girl’s little television screen now, framed in ragged blond, a clutch of twenty-somethings are going through the motions of some hilarious and relatable drama in a sitcom living room, and Kyle accidentally tumbles onto that soft green couch with them, hears himself trying to join in the good-natured banter, the zingy quips, the effortless empathy, but he knows that if the him in that cheery living room were to touch his face in a lull between zingers