"So let me get this straight. You'd rather miss your flight than feel stupid?"
"Yup pretty much." With this seemingly innocuous ending to our conversation, we bade each other goodnight and goodbye. I was to leave early in the morning so he wouldn't be able to send me off then.
Kingston and I had not met for about two years, but we clicked immediately, as evident from our endless conversations on his couch that I claimed as mine in New York. I was sorry that I had to leave, but San Francisco was waiting. My flight was at 7am this morning. The plan was to get out the house at 5am, and with any luck I would reach the airport by 6:30am.
When I said "with any luck" I did not foresee that I would actually need it. The first thing that went wrong was me waking up late, and after double and triple checking that I did not leave anything behind, I left the house 15 minutes off schedule. I reached the subway station, huffing and puffing with my ridiculously heavy trolley bag in tow. It was 5:30am. Seemed like I could still make it.
I waited at the subway station until about 5:55am, when I felt that something was terribly wrong. At first I persuaded myself that it was just a normal occurrence for the train to be late for ten minutes. With every passing minute I grew more and more fidgety. But when someone actually went and queried the station master, it turned out that someone had pulled the emergency brake at one of the prior stations. The whole track was at a standstill. This did not look good at all.
One of the waiting passengers, after he learned about my dire situation, proposed that we share a cab to the airport. Apparently he was working in the JFK airport at one of the control stations. So off we went. At this time I was rather relieved that the cab solution presented itself. I still had about 40 minutes till 6:40. Once we boarded the cab (which he had to run into the middle of the road to flag down), I relaxed and felt that I would make it after all. Thus I started making small talk and learned that my saviour's name was Jason.
In contrast with my chilled attitude, Jason still seemed highly strung. When he started to check my flight number and making calls to his colleague - "I can't promise you anything, but we'll try to get you through" - I realized that I was totally oblivious to the fact that I was still in high risk of missing my plane. Delta had a 30-minute check-in policy. It was 6:10am and we were still on the highway. It was probably a good time to start panicking.
When we finally reached Terminal 2, it was about 6:20am. Jason took care of the taxi bill by credit card and wouldn't accept anything from me except a $2 to get a coffee later. Plus tip it was almost a $40 ride. I was quite overwhelmed with gratitude but there was no time for that. We broke into a sprint once we got off the taxi. Jason cut me through all the queues with his work badge and outraged "someone pulled the subway brakes today, we were both fucked" pitch, and got me successfully to the security check. It was 6:40am. There was no time to check in my luggage. We had to dispose of all my toiletries above 100ml (T_T mahalnya) to put everything in as hand luggage.
Jason left me at the security gates with a hurried goodbye and good luck. He was also late for work, and I could only thank his fleeting silhouette as he bounded off towards another direction. His random act of kindness saved me at least $150. Pity I don't even know his last name.
The plane left the dock at 6:55am. I had scraped through, just barely. In the plane one of the stewards approached me to ask me if I had any problems "on the ground". After a moment of puzzlement and checking my feet out, I realized that he was asking me about my almost missing the flight back in New York. Looks like Jason's phone call did get through to someone.
So this one's for the great guy Jason who was originally from LA, who's working at the control station of Terminal 2, JFK International Airport, New York. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank another kind old lady who I met in Nelson, NZ, whom I desperately flagged down with my thumb to get me to the bus station for the bus to Greymouth. She managed to stop the moving bus by pulling over right in front of its path, so that I could get on it. The feat was ever more daring when we consider that the kind old lady was probably at least 65 years old and logically would not have much practical bus-stopping experiences as such.
And yes, I should really learn from my near misses by now.
I'm typing this in Berkeley now, where I'm just hanging out in a cafe that has free wifi, until my host returns from work. I'm pretty tired, having slept for only 2 hours yesterday night. And today's going to be longer because there is a 3-hour time difference between the east coast and the west coast. It's 5:45pm at New York/Boston now but only 2:45pm at San Francisco.
