Now that I can legitimately claim to be a novelist, I feel obligated to eavesdrop, to ask strangers about their lives, even at the cost of seeming intrusive. It’s my job to chronicle the human condition, dammit!

For example, at the moment I’m in a bar at Charleston International Airport sitting next to a young man who turns thirty-one next week. He is, to coin a phrase, as blind as a John Milton’s pet bat’s pet mole. He suffers from a hereditary disease called ocular atrophy, which he gets honestly – his father has it, his uncle has it. He leans his face two inches from his laptop, reminiscent of a photograph I’ve seen of James Joyce peering at close range with the aid of a magnifying glass at Finnegan’s Wake.

The good news is that next week my near-sighted brand-new friend is headed to the Aegean with his girlfriend. They’ll check out an exotic medley of destinations including Athens, Mykonos, Venice, and places in Croatia whose names he can’t at the moment conjure.

But here’s the rub: the last cruise he and his girlfriend took, a Caribbean island-hopping adventure, commenced before Covid was a publicized thing.  Near the end of the cruise, having just fallen asleep and already hungover at five a.m, he was awakened by an ominous blast blaring from a loud speaker. The port of San Juan had been closed because of a pandemic! 

I thought he was going to relate a prisoner-at-sea tale, the ship running out of provisions because no mayor wanted a Covid incubator infecting their fair city, the parched passengers turning on each other, battling over a dwindling supply of Lays potato chips, but he said San Juan’s closing suited him fine because he didn’t have to go ashore and could recuperate in his cabin for two days.

I told him that had the potential of being a great short story and that I might steal the idea. “It’s all yours,” he said.

But now he’s off, headed to Dallas for a job interview.

I’m not making this up. The fellow who has taken his place at the seat next to me is flying to DC because his father’s just had, “a widow-making heart attack,” 9.9 blockage, but, as it turns out, the father is not dead (nor is he married at the moment). The heart attack victim’s family is “up his ass” about his lifestyle. I can’t follow up on the drama because I need to make my way to B9, and anyway, the sons’ thumbs are flying in rapid-fire texting. 

Hey, I can identify with the the young man’s father. A lifestyle is a lifestyle is a lifestyle. Don’t get up my ass, do-gooders!  Keith Richards don’t work for no CIA.

Cheers, I’m off to London!