Solidarity (Short Fiction)

I've never thought of myself as nostalgic, unless holding a grudge was considered a form of that. I’ve always been good at that, but I’ve had my reasons.

Nostalgia snuck up on me in the form of a woman that I’d gone to school with, when I saw her at the SeaTac airport. I recognized her from the back, the shape of her head… It’s funny what one remembers.

We’d barely been on a first name basis back then, but we knew the same people, and had always been polite to one another. I was content in knowing that I’d seen someone from back home, so the thought of going over and talking to her never occurred to me.

She had other plans and found me at my gate. She’d probably caught me from behind as well when I walked past. Lots of folks tell me they can spot my walk from a mile away.

We talked about memories, and asked each other about people from home. I found out that she was going to UCLA for something or other, she found out that I was going back to gather the rest of my things in order to ship them back to Seattle.

“Do you miss it?” she had asked.

I thought for a moment. There were things I missed about Anchorage, but most of those things were tied up in people. A lot of those relationships with people had turned into the grudges I couldn’t let go of. Did I miss it though? “Yes,” I said, surprising myself. Anchorage never felt like home to me, and being away from it and experiencing the world without a filter had reinforced that. Did I miss it?

“I do too,” she said. “I’m going back when I finish school.” We hugged each other and that was the last time I saw her.

I never planned to go back after that trip.

My job had a heavy travel requirement, so I spent a lot of time in the SeaTac airport going to Portland, or San Francisco, occasionally as far east as Denver. My company operated on the cheap which meant I never got a chance to get out and experience the cities. A routine trip for me involved flying in on the late flight, checking into the hotel, grabbing a bite and crashing.

The next morning, I’d do my presentation and catch an afternoon flight back to Seattle, where I’d have the pleasure of fighting my way through rush hour traffic, back to my apartment.

There really wasn’t much time for living in my line of work. I was either prepping, or decompressing, traveling or just returning from a trip. I didn’t mind it so much. I knew what would happen if I gave myself the time to be alone with my thoughts. I’m not a bad dude, it’s just those grudges. They’re hard to let go of.

It was inevitable that spending all that time in an airport that was practically on Anchorage’s doorstep, I’d start running into people I knew at every trip.

Okay I’m exaggerating, but the frequency with which it occurred, I began to suspect that the average Alaskan’s number one hobby was to flee the state only to come slinking back when they found out the real world wasn’t as quaint as Anchorage.

I ran into the Captain of the Hockey Team on one trip. His mullet was gone and I took that as a good sign since it had been 8 years from when he’d strapped the skates on for the Varsity Team.

I didn’t follow sports then so I had no idea if the team had been any good. We shared many classes through High School, and had had a friendly relationship. Running into him turned out to be a pleasant experience, until he brought up Sophia.

“Whatever happened to her anyway?” We’d stopped at one of the restaurants in the airport mall, and had treated each other to a pint. He’d danced around the subject earlier, but the alcohol had loosened his tongue.

I wanted to say something witty, or spin the conversation back to something tame, but really, there are only so many things you can talk about with a fellow Alaskan. Anchorage is such a small burg that it’s impossible to have your personal business remain personal. Eventually it will find its way into a conversation. For all I knew, he was probably related to Sophia, or knew someone that was. It always seemed to go like that with me.

“I don’t know,” I said, after about 3 minutes of staring at the head of my beer. I decided it would be better to start cutting my departure times closer. I couldn’t weasel my way out of this conversation by saying I needed to get to my flight, because I still had an hour before they opened the doors. Punctuality, it’s a blessing and a curse.

He realized that he had hit a nerve and redirected the conversation accordingly. We spent the rest of our time together reminiscing about the Senior Kegger and joking about the upcoming 10 year reunion.

When we parted, he surprised me be by giving me an awkward hug. I didn’t think any less of him for it. I’d have done it first if I'd known he’d planned to.