It was a video. Twenty seconds long, taken from my lap, of the seat slamming back into my knees four times in a row with nothing happening in front of it. You could hear the thud every time. You could hear me ask him, politely, to please go easy. You could hear him say no.
Then I showed her the photo of my knuckle, split open on the tray latch, and my shirt soaked through with coffee.
The flight attendant was a woman named Ingrid. She watched the video twice. Then she looked at the man in front of me, who was already turned around saying I was harassing him.
Ingrid did not argue with him. She just said, sir, I have watched it. Then she walked up to the front of the plane.
For six hours I had felt like the problem passenger, and it took twenty seconds of video for somebody to see who the problem was.
She came back two minutes later with the lead flight attendant, who knelt down in the aisle and spoke to the man in a voice too quiet for me to hear. Whatever she said, he did not recline again for the rest of the flight. Not one inch.
Then Ingrid turned to me and asked if I would like to move. There was an open seat in the exit row with extra legroom. I said yes before she finished the sentence.
The man who had been sitting beside me, the one who had asked the recliner twice himself, grabbed his bag. He said he would take my old seat and stretch into the middle, since he was only five foot six. We both laughed.
Ingrid brought me a first aid kit for the knuckle and a pack of wet towels. Then she disappeared into the galley and came back with a gray airline t shirt still in the plastic. She said they kept a few for spills. It was two sizes too small. I wore it anyway. It was dry.
The woman across the aisle, the one who had put her book down, leaned over as I was leaving. She said she was a physical therapist, and I should ice both knees as soon as I landed. Then she said she had watched the whole thing and I handled it better than she would have.
When we landed in Chicago, I was waiting at the carousel when the man from the seat in front of me walked up. He did not look at me at first. Then he said his back had been killing him since a car wreck in the spring and he had not slept in two days. He said that was not an excuse. He said he was sorry about my shirt.
I told him I hoped his back got better. I meant it.
I still have that t shirt. It does not fit, and I never wear it. But I keep it in my carry on every time I fly, just in case somebody behind me spills their coffee.