The Surprise Visit

Newsletter 2024-08-25

The text came out of nowhere. On Wednesday, my brother Harry asked what I was doing Friday. Normally, my schedule has no relevance to his life. We live seven hundred miles apart. That’s a bit outside the range to casually drop by. I’m in Indiana, and he’s in one of the Carolinas with a direction in its name. I think it’s East. This time, though, my comings and goings were very relevant because of Harry’s new job: He’s an airline pilot. After a decade in the Air Force, he’s now flying to places that aren’t military bases or active war zones. Friday, for the first time ever, one of his destinations was Indianapolis. The complicated bidding system that assigns routes based on seniority, personnel availability, and whether or not Mercury is in retrograde gave it to him by surprise. I immediately got to work planning all the fun things we could do together. If only I could tell time.

I initially thought Harry would be on precious Indiana soil from 5:30 Friday evening until 4:30 Saturday afternoon. There were so many activities we could fit in. I could pick him up at the airport to spend the night at my house. We could go to my daughter’s cross country meet the next morning and have my parents and two siblings drive over to visit from our hometown in Illinois. Then I reread his message. His flight was leaving at 4:30 a.m., a time that legally shouldn’t be allowed to exist. Worse, he was the one flying it, so he couldn’t sleep on the plane. He was looking at a 9 p.m. bedtime. There are senior citizens who party harder. Factoring in the time it would take him to get from the plane to the hotel where I could pick him up, we’d have a maximum of two hours together—if his flight ran on time. Since everything with air travel is always done right on schedule, there was no risk there. Still, I had to temper my hopes for what we could do together. I went from not expecting to see him at all to planning a half-weekend extravaganza to hoping I could wave to him from outside his hotel window before he flew away.

That was a regular day for Harry, whose life is literally always up in the air. He wasn’t afraid to gamble on having fun. Because we’re both in our thirties, of course that fun would involve sitting still and eating entirely too much. There’s an all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse in downtown Indy where the servers bring big skewers of meat to your table until you beg them to stop. Well, until normal people beg them to stop. My stomach is bottomless. I went through a phase a few years ago where I was only eating one meal a day, but that meal was literally five pounds of ground beef divided into twenty patties, sometimes with cheese. About an hour later, I would be hungry again. There’s a reason I use an app to tell me when to stop eating. Harry is my equal. Together, the two of us could bankrupt the steakhouse. Harry booked a 7:15 reservation for two. We weren’t positive the timing would work out, but we’d try. I asked him to add my wife Lola to the reservation. I’d earn crucial marriage points by bringing her along. More importantly, I’d feel less guilty about eating my bodyweight in steak if I had to pay for her, too, since she consumes next to nothing. The buffet industry depends on small women to stay afloat.

Making a reservation for three people seemed overly cautious to me. What restaurant can’t accommodate a trio of customers on short notice? I’m used to traveling with a party of six, which always sends restaurants into a full-blown panic. It’s the same reaction you get from McDonald’s cashiers when they see two buses carrying an entire football team pull up. The biggest challenge was making it there by the reservation time. We had to factor in all the extra stuff Harry had to do after he landed. He couldn’t just park the plane, toss the keys to the next pilot, and run out the door. Harry thought he’d be ready to go from the lobby of the hotel an hour to an hour and a half after the moment the wheels hit the ground. Then we’d have to drive from the hotel to downtown Indianapolis and find a parking spot. Despite living in the greater Indianapolis area, I’m not super comfortable driving in the heart of the city. I’m a suburban guy. I like my cars spread out and my parking free. Downtown parking garages are the opposite of that. Regardless, I’d brave traffic congestion and underground parking garages for my most geographically distant sibling. The stage was set for an epic if brief night—if everything went right. Obviously, it did not.

Friday morning, Harry said his flight was delayed by two hours. He claimed it wasn’t his fault, which is exactly what I say when I’m completely to blame. Allegedly, a plane somewhere earlier in the chain of routes had mechanical problems, causing a delay that rippled through the system. Our 7:15 p.m. reservation was out of the question. Harry pointed out that the Brazilian steakhouse would be open till 10:30 p.m.. If we pushed it, we could make it there by 9 p.m.. His flight out the next morning also got pushed back, so he could have a slightly later bedtime than the average toddler. I was non-committal. I still wanted to see Harry, but I wasn’t sure I could wait that late to eat. That was midnight snack territory. If I’m dining at that hour, I better be in my pajamas.

That was the last text I sent to Harry before I lost contact with him. I guess he was busy flying a plane or something. I felt bad leaving things there. Over the course of the day, my brotherly loyalty got the best of me. My sibling had called for my assistance in eating unreasonable quantities of meat at an ungodly hour, and I deflected. When Gondor calls for aid, Rohan should answer. While Harry was still in the air, I texted that I changed my mind. I’d be up for anything at any time if he still wanted to attempt the buffet. I even held off on eating pizza with the kids to save room for meat. It was my finest hour. Not all heroes wear capes, but some of them are hungry for a few extra hours so they can binge eat later in the day. Then again, I wasn’t sure the buffet would even happen. Harry was out of communication most of the day because he was in charge of carrying hundreds of people from Los Angeles to Indianapolis. Meanwhile, I hung out in my room by myself and played Xbox. We all have our burdens.

Harry’s flight landed around 7:30 p.m. Friday, about fifteen minutes later than it’s already expected two-hour delay. I called him, and we recalculated our timeline. He still wanted to try for infinite meat. He wanted me to pick him up at 8:30 p.m., which would, with luck, get us to the Brazilian steakhouse by 9 p.m.. We didn’t have a reservation anymore, but I didn’t think we’d need one. Who else would want to eat that late? Not Lola. Like any sane person, she refused to have dinner in the middle of the night. She gracefully opted out and ate a salad at home instead. If Harry and I stuck to our new schedule, we’d have an hour and a half of uninterrupted steak time without the civilizing influence of Lola to slow us down. We would be free to abandon frivolities like napkins and silverware. If we felt like it, we could skip chewing all together to maximize our rate of steak ingestion. We would truly be our best selves.

I showed up at Harry’s hotel by the airport at exactly 8:30 p.m.. Unlike the airline industry, my minivan always runs on time. Harry noted that I seemed wired as I drove us downtown. He handles a 737. I can barely manage an eight-passenger van in traffic. We found a reasonable parking garage under the mall and walked a few blocks to the steakhouse. For the second time that night, I arrived exactly when expected. Okay, so not entirely expected. The restaurant wasn’t planning on us being there since we’d canceled our earlier reservation. I asked the maître d how long the wait was. She said they weren’t seating walk-ins at all. So much for my theory that two people could be seated anywhere at any time. Harry flew across the entire country just for me to show him a bad time. I am the ultimate host.

We went back outside, aimless and hungry. We almost ate at Five Guys, which is right across the street. That seemed like too much of a failure. I insisted that we go back to the mall and find someplace fancier. Maybe they had a Sbarro. There might have been one in the upstairs food court, but we were too hungry to walk that far. We stopped near the entrance to the mall at an upscale Chinese restaurant. The food was probably no different than at the takeout place in my suburb, but at the mall it cost more because it came on a fancy plate instead of in a cardboard carton. I was hungry enough that that sounded like a good deal. Also, I didn’t care that much because Harry insisted he would pay. I’d be wasting the opportunity if he didn’t get price gouged.

We were seated almost immediately. All the other people who ate dinner after 9 p.m. were over at the Brazilian steakhouse. We ordered our food then had a chance to catch up. I don’t understand most of Harry’s stories. Asking even a simple question about what routes he flies involves an answer longer than this newsletter. My stories about work are much easier. For my day job, I stare at a computer screen. For my side gig, I stare at a computer screen some more. Ironically, the easiest work stories for me to understand are the ones from my nuclear engineer brother, Mitchell. Either something broke, and he has to do a bunch more work, or something else broke, and nobody can do any work. It’s a completely normal place of business, except they split atoms instead of invoices. I’ll stick to spreadsheets.

The stuff in Harry’s personal life was easier to understand since it didn’t involve a bidding system and an app. He’s only two and a half years younger than me, but he’s at the family stage I was in fifteen years ago. He lives in a new state with his wife and their two toddlers. That makes flying and waking up in a different city everyday considerably less stressful than just being in his own house. I’d have to go back and read my old tweets to remember those days for myself. My kids have always been their current ages, which is old enough to babysit themselves and also start minor world wars over simple tasks like brushing their teeth and folding laundry. It would seem every stage has its challenges.

Dinner ended with the world’s largest piece of cake, which the restaurant called the Great Wall of Chocolate. I double checked that Harry was paying before digging in. I only budget for lesser dessert walls. We were at the restaurant for a little under an hour. Afterward, I took Harry straight back to his hotel. His plane didn’t crash the next day, so he must have gotten enough sleep. I hope he shows up in Indianapolis again, preferably for longer than the length of a single meal. Unless his short visits mean he’ll pay every time. Then I’m fine if we do nothing but eat.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next time.

James