the tale of the chicken farmer

I’m counting the minutes until the man next to me closes his tab. He’s in his fifties, with an orange fake bake glow and referred to the female bartender as ‘Sexy’ instead of her given name. He asks her to add her phone number into his phone, it’s been charging behind the bar and has some battery life now. She’s firm about it, her non-answer. And I admire her—I was never that direct when I was bartending.

An orange hand taps me for comedic effect—I’ve missed a joke. I smile and nod and hope his plane is leaving soon, please, Delta, make some announcement about his flight to Baltimore because his clothes are tinged with smoke and apparently he knows the founder of Yuengling. Richard Yuengling, he says, though he goes by Dick. Dick Yuengling, he repeats, a couple of times, just in case I or the male bartender with smiling eyes and a scruffy beard didn’t hear him.

He’s nice enough, and observant. He asked me if I bartended. I told him yes, for a couple of years and he praised his observation. Is it that easy to tell? I suppose I have an ease around bars in general, the conversation, the location, the computer systems but I wasn’t like ‘Sexy’. I would turn red and giggle, even if Baltimore tried to get me to put my phone number in his charging cell.

When he leaves, I find myself happy but quickly irritated by the man that takes his place. And that’s when I make a new friend, a guy about my age who sits to my right and comments on the infomercial during the commercial break from SportsCenter at the Sports Scene Bar and Grill in Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. The Shakeweight. The men’s commercial.

“Have you seen those?” he asks, to me. Me only.

“Oh, yes,” I say, “Did you get one for Christmas?”

And with that, he looks a little confused, says something or the other but in the next couple of seconds, Josh, the young male bartender returns in front of us. I’m disappointed, thinking I’d made a funny joke but comfortable in the silence of being misunderstood.

The bartender notices the commercial. The trio of us laugh.

My new friend turns to the bartender. “Did you get one for Christmas?” he asks.

Josh laughs, we all laugh. And I relish in the fact that he did get it, he did get my joke and I’m even happier about that than I am about a funny comment. My new friend points to me. “She asked me that, too.”

We talk about the crazy things we’ve seen on ESPN during my layover. The Air Force mascot, a live falcon, didn’t fly into the stadium for a bowl game as intended. An ESPN anchor interviewed someone from the Air Force staff for an extended period of time, asking not only about the lost falcon and it’s rescue, but of the threat to humans of the falcon being loose, the danger to the falcon from owls and other animals, how the falcon gets to and from games, and even how the falcon can fly coach on airplanes when the airlines won’t even let people bring a full tube of toothpaste on board.

He’s confused first, thinking I’m talking about the Falcons. So we discuss our relative sports teams, then distinguish falcon vs. Falcons. We talk jobs and where we’re from. He works in the poultry business, in Douglas, Georgia. He and his father spearhead a company that vaccinates the chickens. I ask why his father isn’t joining him on his skiing trip—he’s headed to Colorado to ski Breckenridge, but his father was in a very bad accident. I see his face fall, I feel for him. He’s not just a traveler anymore, he’s a lonely traveler and I feel like there’s an empty seat next to him, wherever he will go on his vacation. Someone calls him, or he calls someone, but he’s still attentive to me while the phone rings or as he waits for a voicemail. He returns to the same topic of conversation when he puts the phone down, asks a follow-up question, reminds me what we were talking about.

I title him Chicken Farmer in my mind. He’s wearing a baseball cap, khaki, with the Ralph Lauren Polo logo—a little horse in navy blue. The khaki cap matches his pullover; he’s wearing respectable jeans. He’s fair, but not pale and has blue/green eyes that glint a little, because he’s focused on me. He has a goatee, a small one, but I’m not as offended by his facial hair as I normal am. And he leans in to me in conversation, talks confidently but not loudly and is southern but not glaringly rural in tone. I like him. A lot. He is the perfect example of laid-back, talkative and a conversation starter, but quiet enough in conversation to make me sat back and breathe—a rare feat.

“Do you like that lager?” Chicken Farmer asks, pointing to my Yuengling. (Little did I know my beer choice would be such a topic of conversation in Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.)

I nod, smile. Tell him it’s my favorite, that I can’t get it where I’m from and I’m trying to stock up now. I explain that the beer where I live is watered down—domestics are all 3.2% alcohol. He asks if they cost the same. I nod and smile. Exactly! Can you believe it? He offers to buy me a beer, but by that time I’m about to burst. I’ve had to use the restroom for at least 45 minutes. I say he doesn’t have to do that, but will he watch my stuff for me for a second? He is happy to, conversationally tells me of course, just put my bag in my chair and slide my chair in. And I like this about him too—that he’s instructing me, but it doesn’t seem like it. That he’s taken the lead and I don’t feel overwhelmed with this loss of independence, this loss of dominance.

I go as quickly as I can, rush back. We sit and continue to talk, he offers the beer a few more times but I’ve had three Yuenglings at noon on a Tuesday and can’t handle anymore. We finish at the same time, leave at the same time and I search my bag for my card. I ask his name, hand it over and tell him to give me a call if he’s ever in Oklahoma. He’s Tim. Tim Davis. I’m stopped by the manager on the way out—“You can’t leave!” he jokes—and Tim and I part ways right in front of the Sports Scene. Safe travels. Safe flight.