Conundrum. Tom told me his flight got in at six a.m. Monday. I got up at 5:30 today and drove up to the east terminal where I was to meet him. No Tom. I read the William Faulkner short story Barn Burning and chatted occasionally with cold security guards who were impressed with all the heavy duty cleaning equipment in the back of the van. “Looks like you’re here to work son.”

When Tom still hadn’t appeared by six thirty I figured I better go inside and look around. I parked in the garage and wandered through the terminal, hitting an ATM so I could cover parking. The only flight arriving from Ohio was scheduled at arrive at seven ten so I figured Tom got his wires crossed and he must have been leaving Ohio at six, rather than arriving.

I wandered off to get a Starbucks Latte and then parked myself in front of the arriving flights doorway, which he would have to walk through at some point, right? Seven ten came and went. No Tom. I went and stood by the luggage carousel. I have no contact numbers. I called home. M.B. had left for work already. Tom has my home and cell phone number, but has called neither. Tom doesn’t, to my knowledge, have a cell phone.

Did he miss his flight? Is he in custody for Ohio contraband? Is he getting in at six p.m. instead? As my mother would say, “Is he dead in a ditch somewhere?” I have no idea. His car is in front of my house and his keys are on my dashboard, so at some point he will need to make contact.

Two hours is long enough to wait at the airport, don’t you think? Security was starting to look at me funny. I hadn’t planned on going into the building so I wasn’t wearing socks. People in airports without socks when it is snowing outside are innately suspicious. I am a suspicious looking character anyway. You never know what I am up to. I don’t know what I am up to. People like people to have purposes and there is an aura of purposelessness hanging around me that is palpable.

I guess Tom will either call or catch a taxi.

Some people have this thing about them, a quality of going left to get right, sort of an innate confused wander. It’s fairly simple to get to my house from Kville and I had drawn him a map that somehow he didn’t use last Thursday. He stayed with interstate seventy past the inner belt until he ended up downtown. He got off on Grand for some reason and then he found Delmar from Grand, driving city streets checking addresses. He eventually got here about and hour after he would have gotten here had he followed the directions. He sort of doused his way here. So I’m left thinking that there is something in Tom’s nature, some sort of travel karma, that creates these sort of mini dramas of misplaced timing. I don’t feel critical about my wasted morning, only slightly confused because generally I am anywhere that I am going before I’m supposed to be there. Ah well, wish us luck.