Whistling in Charlotte

I love being in airports. Unironically and actually, I like being in airports. I sometimes struggle to know what to do with myself in spaces where expectations are unclear and find it easier to thrive when expectations are very obvious. Most of life isn’t clear. Airports are. Why are we there? To leave on our way to somewhere else. No one is really comfortable there, and as a result, I feel like I fit in better there. Like my discomfort is just a part of what everyone is doing rather than something standing out. 

Bus terminals and train stations are different because you can just walk in and walk out. But with airports, you have to dedicate some significant time and money to be annoyed. They are liminal spaces, thresholds between here and there. But sometimes, the in-between becomes the main event. And if you get put in-between on your way to in-between, well, that’s a story. 

This past weekend, I was leaving a hotel airport in Charlotte, NC to catch a flight home back to Boston. It was 3:30 pm on a Sunday afternoon. I had been there for a conference about Youth Ministry, where I had been brought in to teach about trauma-informed teaching practices, but we were mostly done. The hotel was nearly empty as people had already headed home. It was a quiet, fall, sunny day. 

I went from being the only person in the lobby to the only passenger on an airport shuttle. What was intended to hold 20 people was just for me. The shuttle driver was a black woman in her late 30s, her hands gripping the wheel with the weariness of someone nearing the end of a long shift. She asked what airline when I got on, and that was it. 

“American.”

“OK. 15 minutes.”

I put my headphones in. I was listening to a political podcast, thinking about the impending election. Polls that show someone ahead by half a percent are the same as those that show half behind. Pay attention to trends.

As we got closer to the destination, I recognized the surroundings as vaguely airport-like and prepared to be on my way. Then, as we pulled into the airport ramp, a car started to honk behind us. And then eventually laid on the horn without stop. It was an SUV, a black Toyota Tacoma. At first, he pulled up beside us as we were driving, horn not stopping. Then he pulled out in front of us, slowed and stopped, forcing us to stop. He got out and began to yell.

I was surprised and confused at first. The person was a white guy in his 50s or 60s, I guess. Close-cropped white beard and glasses. I popped out my headphones in time to hear, "You hit me!" through the open window of the driver. She yelled back: "Like hell I did!" She turns back to me and says, "Did we hit him?" I was now apparently part of a “we” that was being accused. But no, we hadn't hit anything as far as I could tell.

He starts yelling back, "Come look! Come out here! Come look!"

She lets out a long sigh, looks back at me, and says, "This is how bitches end up dead." She said it humorously, but that’s the kind of humor that’s only funny because you need that laugh to push against the truth it is rooted in. Then she opened the door and stepped out, closing it behind her. I was alone in a 20-person passenger van with no driver. Parked smack dab in the middle of the airport on-ramp with an angry Toyota Tacoma ahead of us and honking cars behind us, not able to get into the airport. The van's interior suddenly felt cavernous. 

I lost sight of them both as they walked around to the front of his car. Through the open window I could hear her say, "Well shit." Apparently, we had hit him. 

She stopped being defensive, but he didn’t stop being yelly. Eventually, an airport employee showed up in a red airport facilities department shirt, black hoodie, and a dayglow vest. He began to direct traffic with one hand, using a walkie-talkie with the other. I couldn't hear anything, but he seemed to be standing there well and cars began to drive around us. Lots of honking still, but also motion. For them, not me. I was essentially trapped alone in the van.

5 minutes. Then 10.

Another man arrived, this one a shorter, stockier man. Also a walkie-talkie. This second man plays a major part in this story, but I never even got his name. Let’s call him Virgil.

Virgil and the first vest speak briefly and then he goes to the other side of the van. I’m now flanked. One vested guy on either side of the van directing traffic around the van I was in. The Tacoma guy and the shuttle driver walk off to the median.

How long would you wait? For me, it was 11 minutes. 

I yelled out the window (well, to the extent that you can yell "Ummmmm..... I'm in here.")

The first vest guy looks over his shoulder. Does a double-take. Yells to Virgil, "Hey, there's a guy in there."

Yes, sir, yes, there is.

Virgil was surprised. He yelled over at the driver, interrupting a conversation she was having with the Tacoma and a recently-arrived female police officer. "Hey, you've got a guy in there!" The cop seemed the most shook by that. She yelled back to Virgil "There’s a passenger in there? Are they alright?"

Before I could say anything my shuttle driver says loudly, “He’s fine!  We didn't even know we hit him." True, but again, if we're going to be in this together you think I'd be allowed off the bus.

I'll save you the play-by-play, but eventually, the cop stops all traffic, and my driver gets back in the shuttle.  We pull over and us, the Tacoma, and the cop all drive the wrong way into the side waiting area for cabs. We’re followed on foot by both the vestmen.

I finally got off. I had a carry-on and my laptop bag. But there wasn't anywhere to go. There were no sidewalks from there to the airport, just commercial traffic. The area was a concrete jungle of service vehicles, fuel trucks, and the constant rumble of jet engines. The passenger terminals loomed in the distance, tantalizingly close yet unreachable.

I turn to the first guy and say, "How can I get to the airport from here?" He looks around. "Maybe a cab would take you?"

Nope. Because why would they? They'd have to bring me to the drop-off spot and then have to leave after driving me for only two minutes, unable to get a pickup or a fare. At least, that’s what I was told. The cabbies felt my plight, though. And they got I was innocent. 

"She hit that Tacoma, huh? Bad day for the sister." He looks over at me and says... adding... "No offense." 

I take this to mean he thought I heard how in his head he finished with.... "to hit an angry white guy."

"None taken. It's a bad day to be that sister for sure."

They all laugh. One of the cabbies says to Virgil, "Why don't you get your truck and bring it in here and drive him up?"

Virgil, who apparently had a truck, considered it. "It would take a while because I'd have to go out and around to pull in."

He said it almost apologetically.

I shrugged. What else was I supposed to do?

The airport was no more than 150 or 200 yards away, but it wasn't something you could walk to. Tantalus.

Virgil nods once and leaves. I am standing alone with my luggage. 30 feet away, the driver-cop-Tacoma trio continues their grumbling paperwork.

It felt like two worlds. The original cast was off to one side, reviewing damage, taking photos, fuming without purpose. I was in a separate orbit. And I finally wasn't alone. 

Four cabbies hanging out of their windows, two airport employees, and me. The cabbies were a chatty bunch - one older guy with salt-and-pepper hair and a toothpick permanently attached to his lip, a younger woman with bright purple braids, and two middle-aged men who looked like they could be brothers.

I make largely meaningless conversation with them. One by one, they drive off and another joins the queue. The ones form before tell the new one why I’m there with luggage in a place people don’t ever get.  They pass along the details to each other like ants on the trail of a fallen ice cream sandwich. The individuals of the cabbie group change until there are none of the original four left. But functionally, I'm having the same conversation. Eventually, one of the new cabbies asks how long it has been since the airport guy left. 

“15 minutes,” I say. 

"Yeeeessh," he says. 

For a moment, I think he's going to offer me a ride. He does not.

To reiterate:  I can see the airport from where we are. I just can’t get to it.

Eventually, I go over to the cop. Does she have any way to get me to the airport? I thought the airport employee was bringing you? Oh, so in addition to being a public servant, she has superhuman hearing, too. Excellent. Well, yes, officer, that is true, but he has apparently disappeared. She says that the hotel manager needs to come before the driver can leave, so it is going to be a bit longer before the van can go and she's going to need to wait. 

"When's your flight? Are you going to miss it?"

I always try to get to the airport profoundly early so there isn't even a slight chance. "Hours from now."

"Oh good." She heads back to her car.

Eventually, Virgil arrives. 18 minutes.

I toss my bags into the back of his utility pickup.

We get in the car. He's sweet. "Sorry, it took so long. Not what you thought you'd be doing when you left your hotel, I bet."

"Nope. But things happen, you know. I appreciate you bringing me."

"Not a problem."

We pull out of the taxi lot, and we round the corner in under a minute. Halfway there! We pass by a sea of parked rental cars, their windshields glinting in the afternoon sun, then by a long line of idling cars and shuttles. As we pull into the lane there's a guy directing traffic entirely by whistle and windmilling arms. Virgil laughs.

 "Does he think we understand what his whistles mean?"

I laugh.

We can't go anywhere. We're in the kind of traffic that happens right at the drop-off lane of an airport, two and three lanes of cars stopped and dropping people off. You don't just drive, you wait and shift, wait and shift. 

The traffic director is a short, rotund man in a neon yellow vest that's at least two sizes too small, his face red from the exertion of his enthusiastic direction. He's like three feet from my face, outside my open window, flailing at us and whistling. 

The amount of whistling is crazy. Virgil laughs again. We end up slowing to a stop. We're right next to the whistle guy, who is on our right. He's waving his hands in what I imagine he thinks is what directing traffic looks like. It is not. But he is whistling. Like, piercing, punctuated whistle blasts. I honesty had the thought that maybe he was trying to use Morse code.

It is all too surreal. 

Virgil starts laughing. I do too.

I turn to my new friend. "It's like when someone doesn't speak English so you just speak louder and slower." The whistler can probably hear me. I don't care.

My friend laughs. I do a little act out: "What?! I don't understand you! 'Toot toot' I don't understand. 'Tooooot toooooot.'"

Virgil either shares my sense of humor or is humoring me. Either way, he cracks up.

Author’s Note: In editing this, days after it first happened and I wrote it in the airpot, I realize whistles don’t really sound like “toot.” Having  now done some research, I know now that common onomatopoeias for a whistle sound include "tweet," "whee," and "fweet." However, the exact representation can vary depending on the type of whistle and cultural context. For instance, "pea-weep" or "wheeeeet" can be used for a referee's whistle, but "foo" or "phweet" for someone whistling through their lips. I settled on “toot” though. At least, that’s what I said to Virgil. And I stand by that decision. 

We finally pull away. The whistling is behind us. We chuckle with each other for the next minute as we move and shift, move and shift. We finally stop.

 I thank him and hop out, get my stuff out of the back. I lean in the passenger window.

"Thanks again, man."

"You got it. Hope you have a great day."

“Well, I'm having a better day than my shuttle driver."

He cracks up again. I wave.

I get like 10 feet from the truck when he yells at me. "Sir! Sir!"

I turn around to see he’s stopped. He leans toward the passenger window and gestures me back to the truck.

I get up to the window, patting myself down. I must have left my phone or something.

"Yeah?"

"It's too bad your driver didn't have a whistle." He turns his head out the driver's side window and yells at the top of his lungs. "Toot! Toot toot toot! Tooooooooooot!" He continues to loudly issue toots as he drives away. 

It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally I get the feeling my life might just be a small part of a quirky British comedy show. This is one of those times.

Other folks with luggage were looking at me weirdly as if I was the one yelling. 

I have nothing to say to them.

I consider whistling my way through security but decide against it. Some performances are better left as one-time shows, playing exclusively at the drop-off lane of Charlotte Douglas International Airport on a single Sunday afternoon.

I eventually make it through security and find my gate. I’ve still got hours. Just like I like it. 

Forty-five minutes before boarding is supposed to start, a voice comes over the intercom announcing a delay. Around me, people groan, sigh, and shift in their seats. I smile. 

Toot toot, indeed.