“The Life”: The magazine article that inspired “Up In The Air”
From GQ:
In June 2000, GQ Literary Editor Walter Kirn wrote a piece of journalism for GQ called “The Life.” It was this story that inspired Kirn to write the novel Up in the Air. For two weeks, Kirn flew back and forth across America — and sat in more than a few business-class lounges in cities from Denver to Dallas to Chicago — to hear the stories of the men who would become Ryan Bingham.
We are pleased to reprint it here.
How about a taste?
Inside United Airlines’ Red Carpet Club East, a sort of legion hall for frequent fliers feeling strung out and lonely between missions, Peter Zelter is desperate for a drink. He should be in Los Angeles by now, connecting with a commuter flight to Oxnard, where he’s supposed to meet up with a sales rep for the medical-systems division of Siemens, his company. Peter’s job is demonstrating equipment — high-end X-ray machines, to be precise, which go for up to $1 million apiece — and if his rep is going to make a sale, Peter needs to be there, showing off the unit. To add to the pressure, Peter’s division is under orders from the upper echelons to achieve a “flatter line” in its quarter-to-quarter revenue curve, meaning it needs to boost its springtime sales to match its traditionally stronger autumn performance.
Peter holds out a Visa card to Dennis, one of the bartenders, and asks if he can run a tab. No dice. With all the club members jamming the phones with tense, excuse-filled calls to pissed-off bosses, harried subordinates and impatient clients, the bar’s credit-card terminal can’t get a line out. Worse, the ATMs are down. More frustrating still, the TV behind the bar has ugly news: the third-worst point drop to date for the NASDAQ.
Morale is low in the Red Carpet Club, and Peter jokes that he’ll have to curb his drinking. He calls for bourbon, slaps down a couple of bills and talks bout his life aloft — the life of a corporate airborne commando.
“I don’t know what day it is half the time,” he says, estimating his annual air travel at 120,000 miles. “My work’s never done. I work in my hotel room. I rarely go out. My friends think I’ve got a great job, but traveling isn’t glamorous. I go to a lot of cities, but I never see them.” Peter laps his bourbon for a moment as CNBC reporters recap the market drop and a man at a nearby table boots up a laptop to check his portfolio in real time. The battle maps change quickly in this conflict; it’s crucial to have the latest intelligence.
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