Football Partnerships

By Alex Kotler

Delirius. No concept of what day it is. No means of reconciling it with my body clock. A prisoner to Charles de Gaulle (the airport, not the man).

Digression
An easy flight from the US to Paris. Little was asked of me. I read and struggled through a movie with Owen Wilson, Henry Poole is Here. The movie didn’t have proper balance, swinging from ridiculous and unfortunate to hokey and predictable somewhere over the Canadian island of St. John’s. In fairness I was listening with one functioning headphone, so my equilibrium was off, too.

I sat next to a Frenchman who gave new meaning to speed reading. He blazed through a 400-page English paperback with remarkable speed. Like him, I was reading a book in my second language (Spanish). If we were to compare the speed of our respective page-flipping rates, he’d be a young Thierry Henry and I’d be just about anybody else.

We said little other than hello.

It was obvious to me from the flight that the American airline industry is in a drought. Being accustomed to drinking wine from gate to gate, I was almost distraught that the only complimentary adult beverages offered came with dinner - red wine for one, which I fell asleep on.

With an hour to go in the flight, on came the lights and the crew roused us for breakfast. I ordered tea, added milk and two sugards and gazed out the window at the British Isles below. When the attendants came by to pick up our rubbish, I checked the boarding information for my continuing flight from Paris.

Scheduled departure: 10:30
Local time at destination: 9:40
Estimated time of arrival: 9:59

I rang for the attendant to enquire about how much time was necessary to make a connection. Her expression told me that I had a better chance of bedding Heidi Klum than catching the flight. She humored me though, and brought me forward to sit with a group of passengers in a similar predicament en route to Mumbai. Like sprinters, we crouched in ready positions with the unfasten seatbelts indicator as our race starter.

Go! I stood, shuffled forward, and hit Business Class traffic. It was like rush hour on the BQE at the exit off the Brooklyn Bridge towards downtown brooklyn: one lane, everybody merging and nobody moving. A Roumanian girl with a 10:30 to Bucharest shared my frustration. If she missed her flight, she’d have to wait two hours for the next flight. So would her sister, picking her up on the other end, who had a two-hour drive to the airport. At 10:10, the cabin door opened, she became my relay partner in the mad dash.

Off. Running. Bags cluncking into other passengers as we overtook them on moving walkways. Her suitcase wobbled with each turn, tipping to two wheels, slowing our progress. From behind her I steadied her baggage as she swore in frustration. At then end of the corridor a line of television screens with flight rosters. Our eyes scrolled down from top left, I to the Js and she to the Rs. Me, Gate E72. She, Gate D14. We divorced as suddenly as we’d married, bidding farewells that captured our time together - brief but tender. “Good luck,” she cried. “Safe trip,” I replied. And we were gone.

Up the stairs, on the tram. Waiting. 10:19. “Close doors,” I cry within, but they taunt me and my troubles and wait a minute before they comply. There. Out. Up the escalators. Through the glass doors to security. “I’m sorry sir, we’ve closed the flight.” 10:21. And she ushers me to a counter where a French girl named Stephanie rebooks me on a flight 12 hours later.

Do I go to Paris? I know only one person well enough to contact, Football Partnerships’ columnist Jérôme Osselaer, who texts me back that he’s in the south of France. My two bags are a burden, and Stephanie tells me that there are no lockers available for rental. So I’m stuck. I pass through customs and get some air to ponder my options, find none, and so I look for places to access the internet. The WiFi comes with a fee, and so do the stations at the airport Sheraton - each high as pirates’ ransom off the coast of Somalia.

With only the restaurant Paul in the ticketing area, I check back through to the E gates, where I will spend the next 11 hours. I read. I wander. I snooze on a specialized lounge chair that perfectly cradles a sleeping body. I do yoga. I redeem a voucher for a free baguette and drink. I wander some more. I talk to a friend in Madrid who’s sour because we’re two hours aways from one another and helpless to do anything about it. I watch other travelers depart. I admire the terminal’s glasswork. I play FIFA Street Pro on a Sony Playstation 3 by Gate E73. And I lose to England’s street team with a Brazilian side that includes Ronaldinho, Robinho, Kaka, Cicinho, Adriano and Julio Caesar - which shows my lack of video game prowess.

Finally, the day fades and the scene outdoors is decribed by blinking moving lights. There are only three flights on the board: Johannesburg, Santiago and Sao Paolo, and the terminal is nigh empty in both directions. Where once there was commotion, I am alone and can whisper aloud and hear myself. But I have nothing to say.

Present
Hunched on a seat in the gate, I am knackered. Catatonic almost. Is it Wednesday or Thursday? Two middle-aged French couples sit next to me chattering away, unaware. I’m slouching, fighting a battle against my eyelids to stay awake. In and out of consciousness. A group of Norweigan or South African or Dutch or from-somewhere teens laugh boistrously and play a hand of cards. I hear them, but I’m too tired to place their accents.

At half ten boarding is called. I am awake. Happy. Sort of. Now another 10 hours of limbo. But South Africa is on the other side, and that’s where Soccerex and the world are waiting for me. I get in line. I reach the ticketing agent. She stops me. “What now,” I wonder. She gives me a piece of paper and wishes me a good flight. I open it. It’s from Stephanie, the girl who rebooked my flight, and she’s given me her email address. Inside I have a small celebration to recognize my occasional charm. The other part of me wonders what I could have done to have earned an upgrade from a food voucher to passage to the Air France VIP Lounge. I guess I can ask her when I email her. Off to Jozi.