Originally published in July 2020.
This is for Christopher J. Hanson. If you remember me at all, it’ll be because we met on an airplane 20 years ago. I was a freshman in college, you were in the Navy, and before the flight ended, we agreed to write each other letters. I remember you seemed surprised that I’d say yes to such an arrangement, but come on, a Navy pen pal? I’m in. This was before the days of texting, thank heavens. I didn’t want to go my whole adult life without genuine correspondence from a gentleman and because of you I didn’t have to. I upheld my end of the agreement for a time, as did you, but in the summer of 2001 we abruptly lost touch and I have spent two decades wondering where the hell you are. Before you ask, yes, I tried looking on Facebook.
We met on a flight from Austin to Chicago in either the fall of the year 2000, or the spring of 2001. I can’t remember, I’ve slept and had quite a bit of wine since then. The name of the airline escapes me. I sat down on an airplane and a cute, male human being in my age bracket sat down next to me. It hadn’t happened before, and it hasn’t happened since. I am writing this now because for the last twenty years, on occasion, I get a little sad about how and why we stopped writing to each other. I’m worried it’s all my fault. If you’re out there, I’d like to apologize, and I hope whatever you’ve been up to, you’ve been happy.
Our encounter was not really a romantic one. I think we both knew that. Yes, there is something fun and flirtatious about the very nature of the situation, but it never had quite the weight of a sexually charged conversation. It was much sweeter than that. You were nice and there was an innocence about you, that’s what’s always stood out in my mind. You were also tall and blonde and you’d never been on an airplane before. I’d been on lots of airplanes and I gave you my window seat. The delight on the face of a grown man on an airplane for the first time isn’t something one forgets.
I remember being very disappointed that you were in the Navy but were traveling in normal clothes. I get that it was definitely the more comfortable option, but they totally would have let uniforms board first. You were going somewhere for training. I’m sure I was on my way to visit family. You weren’t the only one on the plane in the Navy, you were just the one with an assigned seat next to me. The rest of the guys in the Navy were your friends and were gently giving you shit for talking to a girl the entire time. When you got up to use the bathroom they had nothing but nice things to say. I remember thinking how cool it was that you’d all voluntarily agreed to leave your homes and families and be in the actual Navy, stationed heaven knows where for heaven knows how long. We were about the same age but that seemed like a thing to do that was much more grown up than me.
We wrote to each other back and forth a few times, I have extremely clear memories of receiving your letters and being absolutely ecstatic to read them. When you told me you read my letters to all of your friends because they didn’t get any mail I wanted to hunt down their loved ones and beat them over the head with a wet trout. I have no idea what I wrote to you about but sometimes I think it doesn’t matter. Getting a letter is just as important as what the letter says. Letters are an art becoming more and more lost to time, not unlike our friendship.
I don’t know who changed addresses first, but I think it was me. What I assume happened is that the letter I sent you with my new address didn’t reach you, either because it got lost in the mail, or because you moved before it could arrive. Perhaps we both wrote to each other of our new addresses at the exact same time and they got lost on the way to Mantua. I have no idea what happened but I am sad that we never had a way to connect again. That fall, 9/11 happened and I was unable to find you via the Navy’s website. Later searches were also just as fruitless. You have no idea how many goddamned Christopher J. Hanson’s there are in this country. At some point I just let it go, and trusted that the intent of our connection on this earth was nothing beyond one flight and a few letters, which was just fine, as I enjoyed them both very much.
I’ve often wondered why I never really let losing my pen pal go. You aren’t the only one I’ve had, just the only one I’ve missed. Is it the fact that we met on a plane? Wrote real letters? That you were a serviceman? We lived a movie plot for one brief moment, that must be why it’s stayed with me so long. Anyway, I’m 38 now, I’m a writer and I live in Brooklyn. I’ve preferred the aisle seat since the day we met.
Now, 20 years since our meeting, I don’t know why the thought occurred to me to put this previously untold story out into the world. I am under no delusions that you’ll actually read it. Maybe I just want other people to hear a nice story that had a bummer of an ending but is still a nice story in my mind. Maybe I want other people to know that things can end when we don’t want them to and everything will still be totally okay. I’m really sorry we lost each other, but I’m still really happy we met. I still have your letters. I’ve trashed every other piece of handwriting from men I’ve known much longer and much better over these 20 years, but yours I keep. They’re in a box along with other scraps of paper and photos and things almost as cool but somehow less special, as nothing else is on Navy stationery.
I wonder if you’re still a sailor, or if you changed careers eventually. I hope whatever you decided to do, you enjoy it. I hope you have family and friends and a Labrador. I feel like that’s the kind of dog you’d like. I hope you kept writing letters, you were good at it. And I hope wherever you ended up, you got the window seat on the way there.