Something I jotted down for myself some years ago, but never passed on. This seems like a good place for it..
The Man and the Dogs
I was one of the last few passengers to board. I was on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737, and after spending some time in Anchorage, I was headed back to work in Nome, flying mail in the Navajo. It was supposed to be a full flight – although it didn't take many people to fill the tiny passenger compartment in the back of the “combi” 737, which was mostly filled in the front with freight bound for the bush. As pushback time neared, people settled into their seats and the flight attendants bustled around the cabin. I began to relax – I had gotten the flight fairly late, and had to content myself with a center seat, with the prospect of spending the hour and a half to Nome crammed between the elbows of two other strangers. The aisle seat next to me was still empty, and we were about to leave. My hopes began to rise – maybe the passenger hadn't made it, and I would be lucky enough to have some room to stretch out a bit on the way over. But a moment later, my hopes were shattered – at the very last moment, a pretty rough-looking man appeared at the top of the steps and plopped himself into the seat next to me. He got up again, and pushed his belongings about, opened the overhead compartment, and began pushing the already-organized bags about, trying to jam in his own luggage. He loudly asked the flight attendant what her name was, and began to try to make small talk with her, seemingly unaware that he was delaying her from her required flight preparations. She tried to remain polite, but couldn't conceal an air of impatient annoyance, and soon asked him to please be seated so that we could depart. He sat down, and began to make comments out loud to anyone who would listen. The other passengers looked away and acted as if they were busy with something else- anything, just to not have to respond to him. So he turned to the only audience which couldn't escape, which was the passenger sitting next to him. Me.
I resigned myself to a long flight.
After about fifteen minutes of his random comments and observations, I was feeling resentful. I don't remember any of what he was talking about - it wasn't that he was saying anything insulting, or bad – it was just that he wouldn't stop. Although I couldn't smell alcohol, I wondered if he was intoxicated. My smiles and nods grew less and less frequent, and finally I resorted to my last means of escape – feigning sleep. It worked. Robbed of his last victim, he finally quieted down. A few minutes later, there was a chime in the cabin as we leveled out in cruise, and the fasten-seatbelt sign went out. The man looked restless, and kept looking over at the cabin window near the flight attendant's now-empty fold-up crew seat, as she was again walking up and down the aisle, this time serving drinks and snacks. As she walked by, the man politely asked her if he could go look out the window. She nodded an ok, and he unfastened his seatbelt, crossed the cabin to the window, and crouched down into a squat in front of the folded crew seat, gazing out the window. I noticed he had a contemplative look, and seemed content. The minutes went by, and there he squatted, quietly looking out the window. It was a clear, beautiful day to fly across Alaska – the kind which I would have my face plastered to the window the entire flight if I had the chance, and I remember feeling a bit envious that he was getting to watch scenery while I was stuck in my middle seat. But after a while, the flight attendant came up to him and told him he couldn't just stand by the window, he would have to take his seat again. I halfway expected to see an argument break out, but he just nodded quietly, returned to his seat next to me and sat down. I must have not looked asleep any more, because he said to me something to the effect of how lucky he was to be getting to fly, and how he couldn't understand how people could just sit there in the airplane and fly over such a beautiful state without even looking out the window. Somehow this struck a deep chord in me, and I felt a surge of respect for him. I knew I had initially dismissed this man as an annoyance, but I somehow sensed that there was much more to him than I had given him credit for. Reservedly at first, I began to actually talk with him.
It was nearly Iditarod time, and he talked about dogs. He loved dogs. He loved all dogs, and he wanted to help them. His dream was to be able to one day put together a sled dog team together entirely from rescued dogs, and run the Iditarod race. He didn't want to win the race, just to finish it. He wanted to show the world that there are wonderful dogs in shelters and what they could do when given the chance.
He already had two dogs of his own. At first he had just had one dog, which for some reason, accident or by birth (which I don't remember), had only three legs. A friend/neighbor/acquaintance also had a dog, but the dog got left on a lead while the owner was gone. The dog went underneath the trailer, and got one of his legs wrapped tightly in the lead, caught beneath the trailer. By the time they found him, he was badly enough injured that his leg had to be amputated. The neighbor kept him for a while, but after a while thought it was too much work to take care of him, and began to talk about getting rid of him. The man on the airplane thought to himself, well I have one three-legged dog, I might as well have another also, so he took it in. Now he had two three-legged dogs. Everyone around him was very accepting and compassionate towards his two three-legged dogs. Some of the neighborhood kids would come by and want to take them on walks, which he was happy to let them do. He thought they just liked his dogs. They always brought the dogs back safely, and the dogs seemed happy going on the walks. But he began to become suspicious, as more and more kids started coming by wanting to take them out increasing frequently. Sometimes they would come by and ask for the dogs as early as 6:30 in the morning. So he followed them, and found out that they were taking the dogs to the Apple (a grocery store in Mountain View). The kids were panhandling in front of the store and using the two three-legged dogs as a sympathy ploy. It seems that it was working so effectively that more and more kids wanted in on the scheme. He told me the kids were being nice to the dogs, but it didn't really seem right what they were doing, so he didn't let the kids take his dogs out any more.
I asked him why he was flying to Nome. He was going to a funeral for his recently-deceased girlfriend. His girlfriend came from Nome, but lived with him in Mountain View. She was native, and he said although he didn't like watching TV himself, she watched it constantly. He tried to get her to get up from in front of the TV, but she had a real temper. She would yell and kick and curse, but would eventually give up and come to bed. When he told me this, he didn't say it in a way that was judgmental, or disapproving, or even bitterly. That was just the way it was. Sometimes, she wouldn't even come to bed; she would fall asleep on the couch in front of the TV. One night he thought she had fallen asleep in front of the TV, and tried to wake her up to bring her to bed, but she didn’t move. She had passed away. He had never met any of her family or relatives, but the services were going to be there in her hometown of Nome, so he was on his way there for the funeral, and to meet her family for the first time.
By the time we had reached Nome, I was totally immersed in a fascinating conversation. We shook hands, introduced ourselves by first name, and wished each other good luck. We got off the airplane, and went our separate ways into Nome and into our own very different lives. I never saw him again.
I no longer remember the name of this man with the three-legged dogs and the dream of a sled-dog team of rescued strays, who I met on the way to Nome that day. I wish I knew how things have worked out for him. I will probably never know, but I sometimes remember our meeting of chance, and hope he finds a way to his dreams.
