When Paul Met Linda…. This is the end…My friend The End

This I promise is the last part…

Once through the doors nerves set in. What the hell was I doing traveling round the world to meet a woman 20 years older than me with two grown daughters and a handful of grandkids. Was I mad. For the next 12 hours was the only time I doubted myself and the logic behind my trip. The 8 hour flight from London to Chicago was pleasant enough.. I got drunk on red wine and cursed the airline for banning smoking on planes. I watched all of the inflight movies and sobered up just to try and get drunk again. I couldn’t sleep. I wish I could have I wouldn’t have had to sit through George Clooney’s Three Kings TWICE.

I had a two hour stop over in Chicago and nearly got arrested for rolling a cigarette in a non smoking non loading white zone only designated for the pick up and drop of of small children and ducks on a Tuesday afternoon. I had only been on terra firma for twenty minutes at the time. Remember this was before 9-11 and getting through a US airport especially an international Hub airport was a lot easier than it is today. Mind you please take into consideration that I broke a land-speed record to make it outside to smoke once cleared through customs.

During my two hour stop over I smoked a half ounce of tobacco and relaxed as best I could. I went hunting for coffee and found Snapple instead.. go figure.. I was a bit daunted about spending Dollars as i didn’t know a nickle from a dime to a quarter. I didn’t want to be ripped of my some unscrupulous Starbucks employee. So I used a vending machine with a dollar bill I had.
Feeling proud of my ingenuity at not being ripped off I went for my last cigarette before Cincinnati and my future.

I made my way to the boarding gate for my connecting flight and sat back and waited the thirty minutes before boarding began. I took out my Walkman and pulled out my traveling tape, which had all my comfort songs on that I had been saving to psych myself up for this final leg of the trip. It mostly consisted of Pumping rock music the definitive track being Homebound Train by Bon Jovi for the New Jersey CD. I loaded it into the Walkman and leaned back and sank into the music. That thirty minutes flew by and soon I was on the plane. I had the very last seat at the back.. in fact I had both tail end seats. I could spread out.

The plane was full and with only two stewardesses getting a drink when your sitting at the back is a gamble at best. But bless them, they got me some black coffee and chuckled when I told them why I wasn’t drinking the complimentary wine. The flight kinda dragged from Chicago to Cincy. I guess anticipation slows time. I looked out over the Cincinnati skyline from the air that night and was struck with awe. As we made our approach to the Cincy Airport which is actually in Covington Kentucky (go figure) my stomach went into puke mode.. all the doubts I had had that day manifested themselves into one almighty gut churning cramp in my stomach. I put my chair and table in the upright position and put my head between my knees as Jon Bon Jovi wailed in my ears… “I’m on a homebound homebound traiiiin… I’m comin home home home can’t you see that my man” that’s what they sounded like to me and Jon soothed the savage soul and I relaxed.

Once we’d landed they put the lights on in the cabin and I was blind. they had been on low during the flight and now the bright lights were to much so I put my sunglasses on. I stood up and pulled on my leather bikers jacket that I had bought with me due to the fact that it was march and I had heard it could be cold that time of year. I got my hand luggage and through it over my shoulder and slowly humped my size 10 doc martins down the alleyway toward the door.

I thanked the stewardesses and they in turn wished me well. I heard them giggle as they walked by us a few minutes later.

I set off down that long covered gangplank to the terminal. I didn’t know what to expect except there would be a woman waiting for me.. a first for me I can tell ya.

About halfway down I saw a woman dressed in a denim mini skirt and a grey hoodie jacket. She was the only one there and I knew it was Nu. My heart stopped and I didn’t know I could walk and breath with no heartbeat but there it was.. happening to me there and then. As I got to the end of the gangway, we touched for the first time and it was like an electric shock kick starting my heart back to a regular rhythm. I was alive, and now I knew that all my doubts were pretty much allayed. We stood in the terminal talking for a minute, but then an overwhelming urge for a post coital cigarette kicked in. All we had done was kiss and hold hands for a minute maybe two, but I needed a smoke and I needed it NOW.

After the aforementioned smoke I came back inside and collected my bags and we walked out. About halfway to the door we stopped and started kissing.. and we didn’t stop, we just kept kissing. My fears and doubts were now just shadows in the wind of a cool Cincinnati night.

We made our way to Lindas beat up station wagon which I immediately nicknamed The Tank. We drove back to Linda’s apartment and introduced ourselves they way we had only been able to do with words over the previous year.

That was almost 6 years ago and we are now married and still as bizarrely happy as we were back in the days of poetry chat.

Until Next Time… See I told ya this would be the last part.