"Flight Patterns" Summary

Native American traveling salesman William rolls out of bed early one morning when he's supposed to get to the Seattle airport for a business trip to Chicago. His wife, Marie, a longhaired Spokane Indian woman, tries to get him to cancel his flight and stay home with her and their five-year-old daughter, Grace. There is a gentle, heart-warming tug-of-war between them before he finally gets underway.

William admits that he's afraid of flying. He "always scanned the airports and airplanes for little brown guys who reeked of fundamentalism." William also is a little brown guy, though, who goes to great pains to smell only of soap and after-shave. William's cab driver is a short, thin black man from Ethiopia. As they drive to the airport down Martin Luther King, Jr. Way in Seattle, William reflects that "Seattle might be...