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AT THE AIRPORT: A PLAY IN TWO SCENES
THE PLAYERS:
THE SETTING:
Enter PASSENGER, who supplies TICKET INFORMATION to a TICKET COUNTER AGENT.
PASSENGER: No, nothing to check. Just one carry-on.
AGENT: Has your luggage been with you at all times since you entered the airport? And did you pack it yourself? Has anyone given you anything to take aboard the plane?
PASSENGER: My wife helped me pack. I went out to the bathroom for a minute but when I got back it didn't appear that any bomb had been interlarded with the clothing.
AGENT (appalled, bored): Security!
PASSENGER (taken aback): Hey, heh heh, just a little joke!.... Just trying to lighten the mood?
AGENT (not amused, but primly willing to relent to the extent of not arranging for the immediate arrest of the customer): If you had read the Patriot Act you would know that jokes are now illegal while in transit. Sir.
PASSENGER (recovering): Point taken. And if you had read Title 26, Subtitle A, Chapter 1, Subchapter A, Part IV, Subpart E, Section 50 (a)(2)(A) of the Internal Revenue Code, you would know that, in general, "if during any taxable year any building to which section 47(d) applied ceases (by reason of sale or other disposition, cancellation or abandonment of contract, or otherwise) to be, with respect to the taxpayer, property which, when placed in service, will be a qualified rehabilitated building, then the tax under this chapter for such taxable year shall be increased by an amount equal to the aggregate decrease in the credits allowed under section 38 for all prior taxable years which would have resulted solely from reducing to zero the credit determined under this subpart with respect to such building...."
AGENT (glacially): ...Has anyone come up to you in the terminal and asked you to take anything aboard the plane for him?
PASSENGER: No, not really. No. I mean, nobody but this one terrorist guy.... Hey, I'm kidding...I kid you...
SCENE TWO. ENTER the NOW-CHASTENED PASSENGER trying to make his way through security checkpoint BRAVA ALPHA TANGO (there is a sign that says "Checkpoint Brava Alpha Tango"). He is attended by SECURITY PERSON ONE, SECURITY PERSON TWO, SECURITY PERSON THREE, and SECURITY PERSON FOUR. To celebrate diversity in the airport environment, one of them is black. One is tall. One is fat. One is a woman.
ONE: You're the wise guy, eh?
PASSENGER (putting his suitcase on the conveyor belt, his keys in the basket): Just a humble passenger trying to make his way to a destination.
TWO (waving metal-detecting wand around PASSENGER): He's wise all right.
THREE (concurring, at federal rates): Very wise.
TWO: I'd like to consult him whenever I need to make an important decision.
FOUR: Huh.
ONE (concentrating): Okay now, empty your pockets please sir.
PASSENGER: I just did that. The keys went through. That's all I have, the keys and the wallet.
ONE: And a wallet.
THREE: So he's got a wallet. Wonder if he's got any connections to Al Qaeda too.
FOUR: Huh.
THREE: Wallet?
ONE: What's in the wallet?
TWO (gesturing triumphantly with the wand): Something metallic is one thing.
ONE: Metallic huh?
THREE. In his wallet.
FOUR: Yeah, in his wallet.
ONE: Didn't want to run your wallet through the metal detector for some reason sir?
PASSENGER: I like to keep my wallet on my person. I have a habit that way.
ONE: Oh, he likes to hold onto his wallet. It's habitual.
TWO: He's fond of it.
THREE: Got a thing about his wallet.
FOUR: Huh.
ONE: Afraid it will run away?
THREE: Ha ha ha.
PASSENGER: No, I guess I worry about somebody else running away--with it.
ONE: Want to open the wallet, sir?
PASSENGER: I'd rather not. Being as how there's not any reasonable suspicion or anything.
ONE: He'd rather not.
TWO: Rather not.
THREE: Not.
FOUR: Huh.
ONE: 'Fraid of what we might find sir?
PASSENGER (flipping open the wallet, holding it up so that its innards are plainly visible, including a single key dangling over a leather pocket encasing an American Express card): It's just a house key. The metal is in the key. No submachine guns or box-cutters at all.
ONE: Metal's in the key, huh? You sure about that?
TWO: 'Cuz you better be damn sure, home boy. Okay?
THREE: Metal in the key. Thinks he's funny.
TWO: Oh, he's a riot. No machine guns, just the key. Like he couldn't a had a razor blade in there.
THREE: Stick that wand up this mo-fo's ass, yo--that's what we gotta do.
ONE: Yeah.... Want to bend over, sir?
PASSENGER: Only if it's for my country.
The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan. Complete set of 10 DVD videos; also available in video. Are you a number or a free man? Find the answer--maybe--in one of the most interesting and independent-minded television shows ever made. GET IT
Bulletproof Privacy, Boston T. Party. Hard-core, thought-provoking tips on how to protect your privacy from prying eyes. GET IT
How to Be Invisible, J.J. Luna. Advice from a man who had to learn to be invisible in Franco's Spain. GET IT
The End of Privacy, Charles J. Sykes. Tells the story "of citizens who have had their conversations monitored, movements spied upon, medical and financial records accessed, sexual preferences revealed, homes invaded, possessions confiscated, and even lives threatened--all in the name of some alleged higher social or governmental good."--Laissez Faire Books. GET IT
Passenger
Ticket Counter Agent
Security Person One
Security Person Two
Security Person Three
Security Person Four
Attorney General AshcroftA modern, spacious, expansive airport terminal, realistic to the extent of being filled with run-of-the-mill, standard-issue shops, restaurants, kiosks, ticket-counter agents, flak-jacketed soldiers and federalized security personnel. Through the many giant windows of the concourse, spectators may view planes taking off, landing, taxiing, or waiting in queue to take off. Especially the last.
END SCENE ONE. Stage darkens.
FINIS.
--David M. Brown, 6/6/02
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