NEW YORK—LaGuardia Airport is located in the Queens borough of New York, smack dab in the Fifth Circle of Hell.
The airport is big, rundown, covered in bubblegum wads, and full of angry people who are waiting for delayed flights. I am told that LaGuardia always has thousands of delayed flights.
In fact, three quarters of New York’s population is comprised of airline passengers, most from the Midwest, who have been waiting for a flight home since 1940. They are sleeping atop their luggage, huddled in various corners, living on breath mints.
I am sitting with hundreds of them. Most of these are people whose mothers never taught them to speak with inside voices. Like the two women behind me.
One woman says loudly, “Have you ever seen that one movie with, oh… What’s his name?”
“What movie?” says the other.
“It has that movie star… Oh, what’s that movie? He was real funny.”
“Chevy Chase?”
“No, not Chevy Chase.”
“I love Chevy Chase.”
“I don’t remember the name of the movie.”
“Look it up on your phone.”
“My phone’s dead.”
“Why don’t you charge it?”
“I forgot my charger.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t Chevy Chase?”
“No. It wasn’t Chevy Chase.”
“Chevy Chase was in a lot of movies.”
“I’d remember if it was Chevy Chase.”
“I like Chevy Chase.”
“I wonder what ever happened to him?”
“Who? Chevy Chase? He’s still going at it.”
“Chevy Chase is?”
“Chevy Chase won’t quit.”
Silence.
“Did I ever tell you about my hysterectomy?”
Sweet Jesus.
Beside me are boys playing games on smartphones. They barely speak. They are not even in this world. Their heads are craned forward. They are staring at bright screens.
Every few minutes one shouts something like, “HAHA! I JUST DECAPITATED YOU!”
“I‘M LIQUIFYING YOUR BRAIN!”
“NUH UH!”
“YUH HUH!”
“NUH UH!”
“YUH HUH!”
“MOM!”
Maybe I should be concerned about America’s youth. But of course these…