Hell on wheels

I AM SERVING beverages during the flight. A passenger in a bulkhead seat orders a Jack Daniels and Coke. He flips through the bills in a fanny pack around his waist with one hand, pulls out his money, pays for his drink and gives me a one dollar tip. He only has one arm. He is missing three limbs. He is missing both his legs and his other arm. I try not to stare.

He deftly opens the miniature bottle of liquor and pours it into the glass of Coke I have placed on his traytable. Later, he rings his call light and orders another drink. I serve him and we get to talking. I boldly ask him what his story is. “You mean, what happened to me?” he asks. I nod.

“I was in a motorcycle accident four years ago,” he tells me. I can’t imagine waking up in a hospital bed, just a torso and an arm, can’t imagine summoning the will to face another day. Yet he is positive, amusing, flirtatious. Life has not held him back. He is 42. He is studying architecture.

A couple of months later, he is on my flight again! I see him in the gatehouse, greet him like a long-lost friend, lean over his wheelchair to give him a hug. He is flattered I remember his name. “Russell Hanes,” I say, “heir to the underwear fortune!” He laughs. He does not realize he is unforgettable.

He wheels down the jetway ahead of everyone else, the first passenger to board. He makes stump jokes, teases the flight attendants. The three of us fawn over him, caught in his spell. “You’re hell on wheels,” I tell him. I give him a couple of free drinks during the beverage service. Jack and Coke, of course.

Russell is the last one off the plane, waiting for an aisle chair, a small, narrow wheelchair that fits down the airplane aisle to take him off the plane and into his personal wheelchair. He kisses my hand, says I must come and visit him in upstate New York. “There are more wildflowers per acre up there than any other place in the USA,” he claims. “Good to see you again, darlin’,” he says in farewell as he wheels up the jetway into the terminal.

You’re an inspiration, Russell, I think as I wave goodbye.