The Little Red Bag

About an hour out of San Francisco on the flight to Los Angeles, I made the discovery. I had finished reading the Chronicle, folded and put it beside me, turned and looked out the window, expecting to see the San Joaquin Valley but finding only a sea of clouds instead. So I returned my attention to the inside of the plane, to the overstuffed gray-haired woman asleep beside me, to the backs of heads in seats before me, across the aisle to other heads, and down to the blonde.

I had seen her in the concourse and at the gate, a shapely thing. Now she had crossed her legs and I was privileged to view a trim ankle and calf, and her profile as she stared moodily across the aisle and out a window where there was nothing to see.

I slid my eyes past her to others. A crossword-puzzle worker, a togetherness-type-magazine reader.

Inventory completed, I went back to looking at the clouds, knowing I should be thinking about the printing order I was going to Los Angeles for, and not wanting to.

So I started going through the purse of the woman next to me. Perhaps that sounds bad. It wasn't. I'd been doing it for years and nobody ever complained.

It started when I was a kid, this business of being able to explore the insides of things like purses and sealed boxes and locked drawers and--well, human beings. But human beings aren't worth the trouble. It's like swimming through spaghetti. And I've got to stay away from electric wires. They hurt. Now don't ask me how they hurt.

Maybe you think it's fun. For the most part, it really isn't. I always knew what was in Christmas presents before I unwrapped them, and therefore Christmas was always spoiled for me as a kid. I can't feel the color of anything, just its consistency. An apple senses about the same as a potato, except for the core and the stem. I can't even tell if there's writing on a piece of paper. So you see it isn't much. Just the feel of shapes, the hardnesses and softnesses. But I've learned to become pretty good at guessing.

Like this woman next to me. She had a short, cylindrical metal object in her purse with waxlike stuff inside it--a lipstick. A round, hard object with dust inside--a compact. Handkerchief, chewing gum, a small book, probably an address book, money in a change purse--a few bills and coins. Not much else.

I was a little disappointed. I've run across a gun or two in my time. But I never say anything.

* * * * *

I learned the wisdom of keeping my mouth shut in the fourth grade when Miss Winters, a stern, white-haired disciplinarian, ordered me to eat my sack lunch in the classroom with her instead of outside with some of the other kids. This was the punishment for some minor infraction. Lunchtime was nearly over and we'd both finished eating; she said she'd be gone for a few moments and that I was to erase the blackboard during her absence, which I dutifully did.

Class had hardly resumed when she started looking around the desk for her favorite mechanical pencil, asking if any of us had seen it, and looking straight at me. I didn't want her to think I had taken it while she was out of the room, so I probed the contents of her purse, which she always kept in the upper right drawer of her desk.

"It's in your purse," I blurted out.

I was sent home with a stinging note.

Since then I've kept quiet. At one time I assumed everybody was able to sense. I've known better for years. Still, I wonder how many other people are as close-mouthed about their special gift as I am about mine.