Frank describes himself as a realist. There are times when I am sure he verges on pessimism like in February when he broods for several weeks while the taxes are figured up. He becomes convinced that we will owe the government lots of money and every year he is pleasantly relieved that we have withheld about the right amount. Every year I say, “Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.” Every year he says, “You are just being an optimist. It is going to be really bad this time.” It is never as bad as he fears and on the whole I will grant him the pessimistic side of realism, except when it comes to movies.
We sit together in our oversized, overstuffed chair in the bedroom and click the play button on the VCR. I had queued up Frank’s video choice for our Saturday night movie, “Executive Decision.” Action adventure is Frank’s favorite and this movie was right on target with the opening scene of the stealthy alpha commando group slitting Russian mafia necks on their midnight raid of the house with the hidden nerve gas canisters. Despite the slaughter of every bad guy in the house the commandos were too late to catch the nerve gas which reappears a few scenes later in the cargo hold of a hijacked Boeing 747 airliner carrying over 400 passengers across the Atlantic Ocean to Washington D.C. Frank bites his nails and I intermittently cover my eyes as we relax on the edge of our chair.
The rescue of the jetliner begins with the alpha commando group transferring from a secret stealth plane to the underbelly of the 747 in a mid-air tunnel. The commando group is small to begin with compared to the plethora of hijackers, but they are one fewer when Steven Segal is blown out of the transfer tunnel 5 miles above the ocean surface. On the film there is even a split second scene of the human figure hanging sideways for a moment from the tunnel aperture before being blown away. The usually pessimistic realist Frank, who has seen a lot of action adventure movies in his day, says, “He’ll be back.” We anticipate his return for the remainder of the movie with an explanation like he was blown onto the windshield of a trailing plane, was dragged inside and then in midair climbed out of the plane to clutch to a handle on the exterior of the 747 and was pulled on board the aircraft by his friends. We would believe it.
Later in the movie we have no trouble believing that the “heavy” 747 is saved from annihilation by the navy fighter jets when the alpha commandos use the jetliner taillights to blink a message in Morse code. After all the commandos had isolated the taillight wires from a 1 foot tangle of Boeing electrical cable, so Morse code was a snap. We found it credible that the 747 could be safely landed by Kurt Russell who earlier in the movie was foiled from taking his first solo flight in a single engine prop plane because he was called to the Pentagon. We believe and Frank says, “Whew, with that nerve gas on board that was a close call for D.C.” “For the whole eastern seaboard you mean,” I add.
Later while lying quietly in bed with the lights out we hear the toilet running in our bathroom. The flapper is worn and occasionally doesn’t seal properly. The steady inflow of water to the bowl is maddening in the quiet night. The realist says, “I’ll go fix it.” The optimist says, “Just wait. Steven Segal could be back. Maybe he’ll land in our bathroom and jiggle the handle.” I’ll believe it.