Tom Sydow is creator and director of City Dialogues, a loose association of artists and writers who present collaborative multidisciplinary publications and shows, most recently at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Art Park. He currently teaches writing and literature at Potomac State College of West Virginia University. Previous publications can be found in DisOrient, Mosaic, and Riprap, under an assumed name….

Iceberg Theory

April 3, 2003

This is not a Hemingway story. There are no white hills looming in the distance. We are not on our way to Barcelona. Nobody is waiting reasonably for the train. We are at LAX on an early spring morning, my father, my older brother Bob, and I. Downstairs at check-in, we’ve gotten a taste of post-9/11 security. We watched as the bags were searched at the curb, then sent through x-ray machines and checked for explosives residues. The agent at the counter, a gruff man in his fifties, interrogated us with a series of well-rehearsed probes, checked our driver’s licenses against a list of known and/or suspected terrorists, never smiling, never once wishing us a pleasant trip. A year ago, on this same journey, this scene was just the opposite. The pretty blond with the sensuous Texas drawl was happy to talk to us then: “So y’all are all headed to Utah, huh? What for? Fishin? Oh I used to fish with my daddy when I was a little girl. It’s so nice that y’all are goin as a family...” Back then that twang in her voice was alluring, sweet. I’d cringe to hear it today. “Don’t mess with Texas.” Y’all.

And now we run the gauntlet of metal detectors and newly trained security screeners to get to the terminal. Their backgrounds have all been checked, they’ve signed loyalty oaths, but their fingerprints and photographs are on file with the F.B.I., just in case. As we near the detectors, my father whispers at me, “you should have shaved your goatee, Tom. You kind of look like an Al Qaida sympathizer.” I smile politely at him, and watch as my backpack, filled with papers from my advanced composition class at Cal State Fullerton (I hope to grade them, but I know I won’t), clears security. My backpack will have to wait for me. The metal detector rings like a slot machine hitting on a jackpot, and I’m ushered to a holding area, relieved of my shoes, and told to assume the position: legs apart, arms out, palms up. The screener rummages through my pockets, has me unbuckle my belt and roll the waistband of my pants over, skims me over with a handheld detector. At my belt buckle it rings, lights flash red, and I dutifully roll my waistband over for a second look. The screener is young, African American, early twenties. He could be one of my students. He walks over and picks up my shoes, brings them over to me. “Have a pleasant trip,” he says.

I retrieve my backpack and join my dad and brother, who are waiting outside the screening area. On my way, I look outside the terminal screening area, out to the building atrium and notice four young men looking towards the screening zoo, smiling, laughing as they observe the scene. They look Middle Eastern. My brother has seen them too. “You know,” he says, “I miss the phony religious fanatics who used to beg for donations. You know, those Mexican ladies in the pseudo-nun costumes. They’ve all been banished. But maybe those guys are selling box cutters for Allah.”

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