"Ray Vukcevich - In the Flesh" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vukcevich Ray)

Okay. I took a deep breath and went on in to the airport. I walked down a long hallway that branched to
the left for women and to the right for men. At the end of the branch was another sign explaining the trip
through this door was also strictly no return. You go in you don't come out. This is not a lavatory!
The room was one big cold area with tile floors and metal benches bolted to the wall. There were three
other men in there. We didn't exchange glances. I sat down on one of the benches and struggled with the
plastic safety wrapper holding my robe. I had no sharp objects, of course. In the end I used my teeth to
get a rip started.

I got undressed and threw my old clothes in a trash barrel and put on my new robe. It was white and thin
and obviously a paper product. At least it closed in the front with a single big button. The floor was cold
under my bare feet, so I didn't hang around but moved straight for the door at the far end marked
"terminal this way."

I walked into an open area and stood looking around for a moment before I located the counter I
needed. I got in line. Getting in line was not something I'd done in a long time, and it made me feel very
strange. That feeling must have been shared by the other four people in line because we maintained about
ten feet of distance between each of us.

When it was finally my turn, I put my hand in the scanner and confirmed for the woman behind the glass
who I was, where I was going, and why. I thought my song and dance about me being a grandfather
finally making the long trip across the continent to see his young granddaughter would at least get me a
smile but she just looked bewildered at that part of my story.

Had I talked to any strangers?

"Just you," I said.

"What do you mean by that?" She gave me a hard look.

"Just a joke," I said.

"We don't joke at the airport," she said.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Please pay attention and follow instructions once you're inside," she said and buzzed me in.

When the door closed behind me, I walked into a long carpeted tunnel where I was met by a woman in a
white lab coat and a uniformed man with an assault rifle. He stepped aside, and I saw a gurney and
another trash barrel.

"Put your robe in there." The woman indicated the barrel with her clipboard.

I took off the robe and tossed it and stood before them naked feeling skinny and plucked. Hey, maybe I
should do the Funky Chicken. No. That would baffle them, and the soldier might shoot me. They weren't
old enough to remember the Funky Chicken. In fact, I wasn't old enough to remember it either. It was
just something that bubbled up to the top of my mind because I was nervous and naked in front of a
soldier with an assault rifle and a woman with a clipboard who was now snapping on a rubber glove.

After her brief and not altogether unpleasant probing, she said, "Okay, get up on the gurney."