The familiar sounds of John F. Kennedy International welcomed me home as soon as I stepped off the jet bridge a week later. Despite two sixteen hour flights, I hadn’t slept well since my interview in Dallas, and I didn’t feel the slightest hint of exhaustion.

I walked through the terminal, pulling my luggage close behind as the most cliché song in the history of aviation sifted through the speakers. A cover of Frank Sinatra’s “Come Fly with Me,” complete with an orchestra, was inspiring the most tone deaf of passengers to sing along as they rushed past the gates.

Pilots from other airlines walked on the other side of the hallway in their freshly-pressed uniforms, giving slight nods as they passed me by. The flight attendants at their sides blushed and smiled, offering me small waves and winks that went unanswered and ignored.

All I could think about right now was how today officially marked the lowest of lows in my career. A fresh start of all the bullshit I thought I’d escaped.

When I first started flying gliders at sixteen, everything in regards to aviation was an art. Every facet, from the engineering of a plane, to the actual flying itself, held intrigue, creating a perfect balance of craftsmanship and allure.

Newly designed aircrafts were something to clamor over, new routes were planned and praised for pioneering the unthinkable, and each move an airline made received its rightful due in the press. Spectators stopped and stared at the new Boeings and Airbuses in complete admiration from below, passengers acted like they actually gave a fuck, and flight attendants were more than pretzel serving waitresses at thirty thousand feet. For pilots, there was even an art to effortlessly jetting from city to city, landing in hotel after hotel, and fucking a different woman every night.

Yet, somewhere between new regulations, greed, and even with the advanced technology, all of that changed. Now, a pilot was nothing more than a bus driver who shuttled ungrateful-ass passengers across the sky. And that perfect balance of craftsmanship and allure was no longer seen; it wasn’t even remembered.

“Excuse me, Captain?” A man wearing an ‘I Love NY’ shirt suddenly stepped in front of me. He held up his cell phone, extending it toward my face. “Would you mind taking our picture? We’ve tried to do it ourselves, but I keep cutting my head off in the frame.” He laughed and pointed to his family—two young boys and a woman in a yellow dress. They were laughing and posing in front of a blue “Welcome to New York” sign.

I didn’t take the phone from him. I stared at his family, their laughter becoming more and more unbearable with each passing second. One of his sons waved at me, holding up a toy plane in his other hand, smiling and waiting for me to smile back.

“Captain?” The husband looked at me. “Can you please take our picture?”

“No.” I stepped back. “No, I can’t.” I noticed a flight attendant walking toward us and nodded in her direction. “But I’m sure she’d be happy to help you.”

I didn’t give him a chance to respond. I walked away and headed straight for the parking garage.

I needed to get the fuck home.

***

Later that night...

I parked my car in front of my condo, The Madison at Park Avenue, and waited for one of the valets to approach the window.

“Good evening, sir.” An attendant dressed in a grey tuxedo opened my door. “How long do you expect to be in town this time?”

“Four days.” I stepped out of the car and tossed him the keys. “Keep it close to the front, please.”

“As you wish, sir.”

I walked up the stone steps that led into the building and glanced up at the night sky. For the first time in as long as I could remember, the stars weren’t shrouded by a film of grey clouds. They were bright and blinding against the darkness, probably giving false hope to some optimistic dreamer who was falling in love with this city.

“Welcome home, Mr. Weston.” The doorman, the one constant in my life, opened the door for me. “How are the skies treating you these days?”

“The same as always, Jeff. The same as always.”

“Coming back from anywhere interesting this time?”

“Singapore.” I pulled a small satin bag out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Currency. For your collection.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said, smiling. “By the way, there were five business class tickets to Belgium in my mailbox here last week. I don’t recall ever mentioning my birthday wish to you, so would you know anything about this secret gift? Who I need to thank, perhaps?”

“I have no idea,” I said, moving past him. “But those should have been first class tickets, not business, so whenever you figure out who gave them to you, tell him he needs to make the airline fix that mistake.”

“I will.” He laughed. “Have a great night, Mr. Weston.”

“Thank you.” I walked into the lobby and stopped, slowly letting my eyes adjust to the harsh light from the new chandeliers. The owners were always renovating or unnecessarily adjusting something different every month, and that was the main reason why I never felt like this place was truly home. The popular chain hotels I spent nights in during stopovers always seemed far more familiar and welcoming.

I headed straight to an open elevator and swiped my key card at the panel. When I was sure no one else was coming onto the car, I held my card against the panel once more and pressed “80,” the penthouse suite.

Every resident in this building was one of New York’s esteemed elite—judges, politicians, doctors, lawyers, but they were all paying exorbitant prices to simply rent one of the four massive units offered on each floor. My floor, however, was mine and mine alone. It had a long history and had always been owned. Although I hardly ever used it, I refused to sell it back to the building’s owners, no matter how large and lucrative their offers grew year after year.

The second the elevator doors opened, I stepped off and disabled the security cameras that were hidden in the hallway vases. I double checked their wires to make sure they hadn’t been tampered with and returned them to their hiding spots.

Unlocking the double doors that led inside my apartment, I took off my jacket and hit the lights. For the most part, everything was just as I left it—except for the usual shit the housekeepers insisted on rearranging.

Annoyed, I realigned the collectible Coke cans on my counter, returned my chilled wine bottles to their original positions, and re-latched the windows that lined my living room and parlor room walls. I tossed a few misplaced “Welcome to The Madison” tour brochures into the trash, and turned the air on high to tone down the new strawberry scent they sprayed onto every single surface. Then I moved my parlor chair far away from the window where it belonged.

I walked through room after room, already knowing what was out of place since I went through this routine every few weeks.

When I was sure everything was alright, I walked into my private library and damn near lost it. All five hundred of my books were now rearranged by color instead of alphabetically. To make matters worse, my favorite three books were spread wide open on my desk, with several of their pages folded and creased. An unforgivable offense.

I pulled out my phone and sent an email to the housekeeping manager.

Subject: My Goddamn Condo.