Fear of Flying

B.A. Baracus and John Madden have something in common. Granted, B.A. Baracus is a character and John Madden is a real person, but don't stop reading on account of that. The former is the Mohawk-rocking enforcer played by Mr. T on the insipidly macho '80s show The A-Team. The latter is the blustery and retired football coach and analyst. Their similarities are not striking on the surface. The two differ starkly in matters of hairstyle*, wardrobe, skin pigment, and tolerance of crazy fools. But they share a severe phobia, the topic of this essay: Aerophobia, the fear of flying.

David Bowie, the eclectic and eccentric explorer of psychedelic glam, is also afraid of flying, which in part explains why he adopted the surrogate persona of Major Tom for “Space Oddity,” his epic song about a doomed and intrepid astronaut who loses his way somewhere in the cosmos. The hero of Bowie's invention meets the tragic fate that the songwriter portends for those foolish enough to defy the Earth's gravitational pull in a floating tin can.

But I'm digressing far too early on. I've been warned about that.

Hey, did you know that Marge Simpson also suffers from Aerophobia? I love The Simpsons, from season 2 through 8, especially. Did you know that Homer Simpson's flummoxed profile was etched into my right bicep when I was eighteen? It's true, and before I turn 40, that tattoo is totally going to get me laid.

Oops.

Returning to Mr. Bad Attitude Baracus** and bloated gasbag John Madden, their mutual phobia is vexing when you consider how their manly personas are in contrast with suffering from an abject fear. Male chauvinists tend to think phobias are exclusive to women, that they're always the ones afraid of spiders, mice, guns, chainsaws, and unprotected sex. Baracus and Madden, both broad beacons of manliness--one known for launching terrorists and evil drug lords through plate glass windows, the other for squiggling X's and O's on a telestrator to enlighten fans and players alike about the nuances of America's greatest and manliest sport--are afflicted with a dire phobia. Baracus squeals in a hysterical tantrum every time he catches wind that his partners want him to board an airplane. It is rumored that Madden curls up into the fetal position and wails in a terrified falsetto the words to “Rocky Mountain High” every time he overhears a John Denver song on the radio. *** Such weaknesses hardly reflect the behavior of two macho guys.


At a recent backyard bonfire, as I spoke with my friend Tony, both of us sipping on Keystone Lights on a tranquil summer night, Tony revealed that he fears flying, too. My hope is that someday B.A. Baracus, John Madden, David Bowie, Marge Simpson, and my friend Tony will all be in the same support group for Aerophobics, empathizing amongst themselves, lending each other shoulders to cry on and so forth.

In terms of manliness, Tony ranks much closer to the likes of Baracus and Madden than an effeminate neurotic such as David Bowie. Tony hangs dry wall for a living, he swings a sledgehammer for a good chunk of his workday, he manages fire-pits and grills with nonchalant aplomb, and he plays on a rugby team dubbed the Wolf Pack.

Personally, anytime I think to myself, “Hey, I'm playing RUGBY!” I know that I'm having a nightmare. A YouTube clip of me locked into a combative scrum would elicit a million hits. The clip would be titled, “Skinny Geek Pummeled into Coma on Rugby Field.”

It surprised me that Tony had such a palpable fear of flying, that something he found terrifying didn't scare me much at all.

Like all obsessive-compulsives, I am not without my phobias, but nonetheless, Aerophobia puzzles me. The odds of dying in a car accident are exceedingly greater than dying in a plane crash. The average motorist is so much less reliable than the average pilot. A pilot would sooner smash his own crotch with a wooden mallet than send a text message from the cockpit. Pilots are a competent, respectable breed. Have you ever shaken hands with a male pilot? The handshake of a pilot is firm and vigorous. His intention is to make your hand throb afterwards, but the gesture is done with gallantry meant to inspire confidence.

Pilots can be trusted not to guide the plane into the side of a jagged mountain with malice both homicidal and suicidal because pilots are usually content men who lead satisfying lives. This is mainly because it's easy for pilots to get laid. Women are insatiably attracted to them because pilots are adventurous, capable, courageous, and responsible (for the lives of 200 people at a time). Pilots also wear uniforms.

By the way, the fact that women are so profoundly attracted to men in uniforms bothers me because writers can't feasibly wear uniforms. I protest petulantly that being an individual who thinks uniforms are highly over-rated can be sexy, too, but no one ever seems to listen. Fair enough, I suppose. It takes a repugnant fool to argue with the truth.

Pilots exude authority and command respect. When a pilot is distracted by the intense glare of the Sun, he squints ever so slightly, gnashes his teeth and growls, “Fuck off, Sun!” Seconds later, it gets cloudy. The Sun retreats behind hastily formed clouds, thick as Texas-sized marshmallows.

Bus Drivers, on the other hand, tend not to be great conquerers of women. Their calling in life inspires feelings of tedium rather than adventure. There are ballsy dudes on bicycles in major cities who don't fear a brush with a bus. Flying in an airplane evokes enterprise while riding a bus evoke the realization that you're probably poor. Pilots have got to be more satisfactorily laid than their bus-driving counterparts.

I'm not entirely trying to worsen the wounds of the bus driver—it's an essential, respectable profession. It's just that, in a roundabout, peculiar way, the fact that pilots have richer sex lives than bus drivers makes me fear flying less and riding on a bus more. Screwing on an airplane is a cheeky achievement. Screwing on a bus is a desperate plea for a Hepatitis intervention. To boot, homeless people don't jerk off on airplanes. They can so rarely afford plane tickets. Buses are often seedy and filthy vessels of transport, and that rankles me as an obsessive-compulsive. The more I think about it, the easier it is to assert that riding in a bus scares me more than flying in an airplane.

I said so to Tony and he dismissed my argument. He considered it bizarre nonsense. Tony has never lived in Chicago as I did, without a car, and so the last time he stepped foot on a bus was probably for a high school field trip, nearly a decade ago. I didn't spend much more time debating the perils of bus travel because I was more at ease questioning Tony about his fear; it was and remains an interesting novelty to me.

It's dubious to seek validation for your argument based on a scene from the film Dumb & Dumber. The film is a sophomoric comedic spree and not typically known for imparting wisdom. It reflects poorly on your intellect when you're in total agreement with the words of a hapless buffoon—especially when the buffoon in question essentially fulfills the role of a character coined “Dumber.” But that is where my rhetoric ventured to next.

I asked Tony to recall the scene in which Lloyd, behind the wheel of a limousine, drives vivacious redhead Mary Swanson to the airport. Her demeanor is frazzled because she is about to drop off a briefcase loaded with ransom money as payment to the mob—who have kidnapped her husband. Lloyd wrongly assumes that her anxiety is due to a pre-flight bout with Aerophobia. Wanting to console her in his flirtatious stupor, Lloyd cranes his neck over his right shoulder, ignoring oncoming traffic, and says to Mary...

“There's really nothing to worry about, Mary. Statistically, they say you're more likely to get killed on the way to the airport. You know, like a head-on crash, or flying off a cliff, or getting trapped under a gas truck—that's the worst. I have this cousin—well, I had this cousin...”

At this point Mary urges Lloyd to keep his eyes on the road, to which he replies...

“Ooh. Yeah. Good thinking. Can't be too careful. There's a lot of bad drivers out there.”

What I said to Tony was paraphrased, and rather shabbily, at that. I smoke too much to remember that many words verbatim. As readers, you get the benefit of verbatim thanks to the wonder of DVD technology.

I felt like a recollection of this scene from Dumb & Dumber did wonders for my argument. Even a hapless buffoon like Lloyd Christmas can cite evidence to support his stance that driving is more dangerous than flying, and additionally, Lloyd's negligence behind the wheel speaks volumes about the intellect of the average motorist. (Not to implicate you, of course. No. Never you.)

Tony is pretty practical--a quality that can really hinder one's imagination, and so he said I was nuts for citing Dumb & Dumber as persuasive evidence for the case against Aerophobia. My thoughts were again dismissed with cordial authority, treated like little more than wisps of smoke cleared away by a hand-swipe.

Deferring and recharging, I listened further to Tony's explanation of why he's afraid to fly. At last it occurred to me why he feared airplane travel and I didn't. It was all a matter of Control and Faith.

My capacity for control is exceeded by that of Tony's. He provides a justification of control at his job, swinging sledgehammers, or while he's calmly tending the grill or thrusting a shoulder block as he struggles to advance past carnage on the rugby field. Me? I'm less in control of my life, what with the unemployment, the fact that my dad doesn't trust me to operate his grill—perhaps with good reason—and my fear of contact sports.

My capacity for faith, contrarily, exceeds that in Tony. I have faith in pilots because there is something cosmically profound about their handshakes, because pilots get laid frequently and therefore have stronger wills to survive. I trust pilots for being everything I'm not. Unlike pilots, I'm not too adventurous, capable, courageous, or responsible—and I don't wear a uniform. But I have enormous faith in all of the aforementioned qualities (wearing a uniform NOT INCLUDED, because I still think the perceived sex appeal of men in uniform provides a grim hint that women really prefer conformists to individuals).

With maximum faith but minimal control, death wish inclinations abound. This is why terrorists declare Jehads and fly planes into buildings with malice both homicidal and suicidal--because they have faith that a grateful and benevolent invisible man is going to greet them after the catastrophe, his arms stretching around the distance of 36 ravishing virgins on either side who can't wait to be banged by insidious lowlifes. Their lives are likely to be out of control, too. It's hard to get a job in a country that is war-ravaged and economically bleak. It's also hard to get a job when you check “Yes” to the box on the application that asks, “Are you a terrorist?” And consequently, without steady jobs, terrorists must strive to oppress women no matter what, because an independent woman is one who needs a damn good excuse to date a dude who doesn't have a real job.

Let's see Tony dismiss that as bizarre nonsense.

And incidentally, I'd like to declare that I am not in fact an Islamic extremist. My death wish is expressed with sadistic patience, by means of sweet, toxic nicotine. Not coincidentally, Tony rarely smokes cigarettes.


I'm not afraid of flying. For people, control is always subject to limitations, but Faith can be boundless, immeasurable. Forgive the sour grapes, please, but I think control is mostly an illusion, a tangibility that can morph into an apparition at any moment, regardless of our objections. When I lose control, I still feel human. When I lose faith, I turn into a monster. Maybe you can relate.



*Okay. Admittedly, Mr.T's hairstyle lookalikes are a very breed, limited to pro-wrestlers from the Cock Rock era who have all but become extinct due to overdoses of cocaine, steroids, and anti-depressants, which when abused at the same time, comprise a concoction that pro-wrestlers ominously refer to as the “Ultimate Piledriver.”

**As his name appears on wedding invites.

***Obviously, I hope you already know this, otherwise I hate to bear this bad news, but folk singer John Denver died in a plane crash. For God's sake, didn't you see the movie Final Destination?!