An annoyance; fond memories; a shock

The man would simply not stop complaining. From the first time we met, now four years hence, when his favorite topic was how he’d be getting the short end of the stick, once his divorce went through, and the “life-draining hag” was out of his life, until now, today, a Wednesday.
For days on end I was forced to listen to Ulysses D. Thurgow III, rant on, in his pseudo-optimistic way, about how much life, in general, sucked.
Forced, you ask? Why forced? Could I not have simply walked away, stopped up my ears, put on headphones, or something?
No. I chose not to take any of the countless opportunities to act, for one simple reason: he is my brother. Not by blood, no. Ulysses D. Thurgow, III is my wife‘s brother, adopted shortly after he was born. The chasm that separates him from the otherwise gentle, strong-willed genetic offspring of Dorothy and Ulysses Thurgow, II, is quite obvious to anyone close enough to the family, who nonetheless love this perpetually complaining man.
“You know the problem with the city council?” U III asks. “U III”is what I call him, but not to his face. Sounds like “you three”.
I do not respond, pretending instead that I didn’t hear the question.
“Well let me tell you. The problem is that they sit there, bleeding the retirement coffers dry, making themselves and their friends rich, and what will happen to them? Nothing. Maybe a fine, maybe some parole. Some little guy like me, on the other hand, gets caught riding with traffic, going with the flow, you know ...” here he stopped to look at me, squinting his eyes, hoping, it seemed, for some sign on my part, that I understood, that I was on his side “Anyway, you get a guy like me, not really speeding, and ...”
“You were going ninety five, Ulysses, in a fifty five,” I say.
“But that’s not the point!” My last comment seems to have rattled him a bit. He seems to be running scared, I can see sweat bead out his pores, so closely packed is the elevator in which we stand. “The point is that I was in a hurry and there were at least two or three other people going as fast as I was. Why didn’t the cop pull them over? Did he not see the stickers saying I support cops?”
“That might have pissed him off even more,” I mumble to the woman standing next to me, who I can tell has been listening to us, based on the way she stands.
“What did you say?” Ulysses asks.
“I said, I think we just missed our floor. Does anyone know what floor we’re”
“Second, going up,” a curt, almost angry voice, nearly shouting, conveys from a line of suits in the front. Must be enjoying this little talk U III and I are having.
We were picking up my wife at the airport. My wife had insisted I stop by and grab Ulysses from his job, two business parks over, and take him with me. Otherwise he would have sat on a bus for three hours or something. As we exit the elevator I make eye contact with the woman from the lift. Somewhat tall, fit, exquisitely business-travel-dressed, half Chinese, by the looks of it, she gives me a once-over, and a little smile, lingering just too long for it to be innocent, just enough for me to remind myself that I am married.

I met my wife at a bookstore, where I was working, at my parents’ place on summer break. She lived on the other side of town, in what I always thought was a bad side neighborhood.
“Excuse me, I’m looking for a book ... help me find it?”
At that very moment I was on my knees, restocking the science fiction section, and started to tell her to go find one of the search-kiosks, where she could find anything she needed. Just as I was about to start, I saw, looking through my legs, a perfect foot, wearing light sandals. Whipping around into a crouch, too quickly (I scared her and knocked over a stack of books), I managed to say
“Sure, uh, hi. What was the name of the book you were looking for again? I’m sure I know where to find it, just let me know what genre.”
“Slow down, book-boy. Aren’t you going to clean up these books you spilled? Plus, I didn’t name any book, just said I was looking for a book.”
For the next two hours, we wandered the bookstore. she would think up names of books, and we’d go try and find them. If we did, we’d read the first page to each other, back and forth, trying to make each other mess up. We laughed and talked about everything, but, thinking back, those two hours were a blur. A perfect, sun-lit blur filled with her tanned stomach, long brown tresses. Finally the manager flagged me down, over by Ancient History, to tell me that the store would be closing soon, and that I could go home.

Words fade in, vision collapses back to reality, and I realize Ulysses is standing far too close to me, and see in my peripheral that we are both blocking others’ view of the arrivals monitor bank.
“What’s the matter with you? Are you feeling ok? Can you hear me?
“Hello? Are you ok? What are you so worried about?” Ulysses asks.
“Not worried, U, just thinking,” I say, looking over his shoulder, across to the hallway window, not sure why.

In the fading twilight, against a backdrop of cotton-puff clouds exploding with red, orange sunlight, the second port-side engine lights off, one last time, separating itself from the wing. The pilot feels it, fighting to keep the plane steady, the stick bruising his thighs in its wild jumps and starts. From his vantage point at the window, Taylor Underwood watches as the second engine ploughs back, through the wing, shearing it off, about five yards out, igniting what little fuel is left inside. He sees the plane begin to twist, turning upside down, so close to the runway. Next to him, Ulysses stands and stares, disbelief and shock fighting for pole position on his face. The plane makes it three quarters of the way around and slams into the runway, cockpit first. The rest of the plane crumples like a squashed soda-can, the tail whipping around to gouge a huge chunk out of the pavement.
After two hundred yards, what’s left of the plane comes to rest to the sound of sirens, fire-retardant foam spewing from three fire trucks.
“Wait, what flight was that ...?” I ask, turning before anyone can answer, walking calmly, a void widening in my gut, seeping into my heart, which knows the answer already.
I check the flickering screens, vision blurring. Hardly able to breathe past the lump in my throat, I find the flight my wife was on United flight 239, Los Angeles to Atlanta, arriving 1830 on the Arrival screen.

An animal wail fills the waiting area. A young boy, shocked and crying, but not sure why, turns briefly toward the noise. He sees a man, crouched on the floor in the middle of the large hallway he and his Mom crossed to get to the window. The man is crying and shaking, too, but he scares him. Another man, a fat man, is standing next to the man on the floor, looking like he doesn’t know what to do. He begins to look around, and sees the young boy. Scared, the boy buries his head in his mother’s soft hair.