Have you ever wanted to kick a child in the arse so hard, that like that cow, he’d fly up over the moon? Well, I was giving it serious consideration.
When you’re trying to see a flight off and the last passengers are a family with not only an infant in a pram, but a six-year-old boy trying to run around your feet it’s quite distracting; not to say vexing, especially if the parents are beaming at you as if to say ‘isn’t he wonderful?‘
My radio went off as a prelude to one of those short, terse, public conversations, where you really wish you could swear; finishing, I strolled through the lounge and onto the jetty where the happy family had already gone through and were now blocking my path trying to disassemble the infant’ pram at the head of the jetty with an attendant Loader rolling his eyes at me.
The parents had their backs to me, but the boy to the side, seeing me truly for the first time was staring up at my red cap with a look of amazement on his chubby little face, while also making it impossible to squeeze past.
‘Findlay, Finley, come here and hold mummy’s bag‘, instructed the father. The child kept on staring up as me as I came to a halt. Noticing the mothers derriere waving around, my best Sid James growl escaped me and they both spun around.
‘Good morning Findlay‘, I said. ‘Would you excuse me please‘.
The father grabbed his sons arm and gently pulled him out of the way and off down the jetty I strode with the boys voice echoing in my ears.
‘He knows my name‘.
‘Daddy, he knows my name‘.
‘How does he know my name? Daddy, how…?‘
My paperwork handed to the crew, a gimlet-eyed CSD at the door, (who obviously had no knickers, as there wasn’t even a sniff of a cup of tea), the family approached, the boys eyes as wide as saucers as I leant back on the jetty wall, one leg bent back, the picture of insouciance.
‘Daddy, daddy’, he hissed. ‘He knows my name‘.
‘Sssh son‘.
‘Daddy, how does he know my name?‘
I pushed my red cap back with my thumb and said: ‘Findlay!‘ He stopped his eyes getting even wider.
‘I know everybody’s name. I know EVERYTHING’.
He quivered: ‘I don’t believe you. How do you know everything?’
‘Because Findlay; I’m a Dispatcher. We know everything. I know your mum and dad’s name and your little sister’s’.
His eyes as wide and round as his mouth, his head snapped back and forth between his parents, who were juggling an infant and bags and staring distractedly at the aircraft door.
‘You can’t’, he whispered in a scared voice.
‘I know their names as well Findlay. They’re called Mary and Peter and Anne’.
Mum and dad yanked him by the arm through the aircraft door, and the last thing I heard as they turned right was ‘MUMMMY! DADDY! WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE A DISPATCHER!’
The gimlet-eyed CSD stood there, staring at me for a moment, before starting to close the door, and as it swung to she looked at me and said: ‘I know one thing. I know you’re a very bad man indeed’.
I crumpled Findlay and his family’s boarding cards in my hand and laughed.
I’d known that for years.
1-5-2018
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