On Being From Nobody

The boy who is almost a man comes up to me in the airport at 2 a.m. in his military camouflage and says he missed his flight to Germany. Reeking alcohol and asking for a lighter, he sits next to me and asks me where I’m going. I take a risk—say home, Louisville Kentucky. To which he slurs fucking Kentucky? You’re from fucking Kentucky? Nobody’s from Kentucky. To which I say, I’ve never disliked someone so much within the first 20 seconds of meeting them. To which he says, let me buy you a drink. To which I say no. To which he says do I have to make you. To which I say no. To which he says I have to force you. To which I say no, I am not afraid of you (as in: I am willing to fight death). To which he says why not. And I note there is no one else here and eye the fluorescent exit, its sliding doors into the midnight. I hold my phone in front of my face like a shield, looking for a portal. He tells me I’m not like any girl he’s ever met. To which I say what do you mean. To which he says intelligent. To which I say that leads me to conclude that you have never met a girl before. And I pray for all the girls and women he has ever met. I reach for silence until the 3 a.m. airport staff arrive, and leave him to find his flight to the country where you can buy a loose cigarette on every corner, so he told me, demanding wait! as I escape back. Somewhere there is a military boy who is almost a man telling his military almost men friends about the intelligent girl from Kentucky while they laugh, throw a cigarette into the dust and ask for the next joke.