Airport Security and Insecurity

Posted on October 10, 2005 in The Orange Travel - Conferences

The line at Orange County-John Wayne (the name, like many things in the OC gives credit to a man who only appeared to do things for America) ran like a flat switchback one hundred yards from the American Airlines counters and back again seventy yards to the checkpoints. Unlike a dirt trail, it moved. I was lading the contents of my pockets into ziplock plastic bags and putting them into plastic wash pans inside of ten minutes. My belt buckle and shoe clasps irritated the metal detector, so I had to go back to take them off. As I turned, I saw a young woman stripping off her jewelry, shoes, and metal studded apparel until she wore only a thin top and tight jeans. I walked through the gate again, gathered my things, and trudged half the length of the terminal to my gate.

Stupidity would not manifest itself at Orange County until I returned from my trip.

The descent into Dallas clogged my ears. The flight had been uneventful. I’d noted the tape over the fire alarm cover marked with the date. A fellow who wore a sweat shirt with a hood had a tough time of it. He put his glasses over his eyes and rocked back and forth through the entire flight. After we landed, I followed him off the plane. He knocked on the outside of the jet three times as he exited the hatch and marched up the ramp as he stared at the floor. I asked him where he was going, wondering if he was going to the bipolar conference that had brought me to Fort Worth.

“Baltimore,” he said.

I lost interest. I resisted the temptation to ask him if he suffered from OCD.

Dallas-Fort Worth had several gates. In front of the American ticket counters, it had a display case showing items you could not take on the plane which included various kinds of household cleaning products, bug sprays, compressed air cans, shaving creams, a Clorox bottle, and a gigantic car battery. Did Texans try to lug bleach and car batteries among their carrry-on items? I wondered.

Getting through security there should have taken only a minute or two — now that I had mastered the drill of getting my shoes off, removing my belt, and putting all my pocketables into their plastic bags –but I had the misfortune of falling in line behind a guy who filled four trays full of items from his pockets and God-Knows-Where-Else. After he passed through the metal detector, the man watching the x-ray screen signaled a guard who grabbed one of the containers and had the fellow stand to one side.

“Put your stuff through”, he told me as he held the suspicious tray high and waited for our side to clear.

I had no trouble. On the other side, I rendeavoused with another conference attendee from Wichita. Nodding towards the x-ray examiner, I said “Now, if that man starts to run, you follow him.”

As is always the case when you slide through the chokepoint, the atmosphere of the inner terminal was agitated but calm. I ate with two friends and then went to Gate A19 to wait for the flight home.

The flight itself raised no anxiety: it was easy to avoid explaining exactly why I had been in Fort Worth, to ignore the Young Republican with a Bush is God screensaver, and to enjoy talking with the fellow on my right who had distinctly liberal values and a love for Arthur C. Clarke. I had, for the first time in a long time, feelings of nausea as the plane bounced around (could it have been the lithium?), but I controlled them. The jet plunked down onto the concrete.

“You may turn on your cell phones and pagers,” said the captain. Obediently, I did and called Lynn.

“Honey, I’m home!”

Back in Orange County, where an idolatrous statue of a man who never went to war or punched a cow stood overlooking the cars coming to pick up arrivals and TIA guards sat with their arms crossed at the top of the stairways leading down to the baggage claim area. The escalator brought me to the doors leading out. A small man who had a plump face with the lines of Edvard Munch’s Scream stood in that area. I blinked at his stare, then did what I often do when confronted with such apparent arrogance: straightened my back and passed within three feet of him.

A four lane-herd of cars passed slowly before the length of the terminal. Orange County throught it wise to place four traffic signals along this road, probably to prevent stampedes. I walked over to a miraculously clear segment of curb where I saw a fellow passenger jump into a waiting van and speed away. Three other arrivals joined me. In two minutes, a cop car arrived, lights flashing. The officer stumbled on one leg as he emerged from his prowler.

“You can’t be picked up here,” he said.

I wanted to ask him why — or what made him think that we were terrorists — but thought the better of it. This was the airport where the county liked to park police cars with their flashers spinning out in front of the departure gates. Here — unlike Dallas/Fort Worth where they plyed you with information as to the whys and hows ahead of time — the cops appeared to have no sense of civic responsibility. I surmised that I could end up with a cracked skullcap if I pressed the issue.

Orange County, it seemed to me before this trip, was a little Texas. Having visited that other place for my first extended stay, however, I retract that conclusion. The Orange has a paranoia all its own. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the man they set out to worship behind the tall glass of the former Santa Ana Airport never really roped steers for his livelihood.