The Japanese loved it, not seeming to mind the racial reference. Happily, Sheamus would stroll the beach each week, collecting his rent. Over the years, this was the only business idea I’ve ever seen Sheamus act on.
Bruce is back… “Your crew meal choices tonight are a pasta something, a rice-vegetable something, and the mystery meat.”
I’m on the radio with Gander, reporting 40 west. They tell me to contact “Shanwick” at 30 west. Sheamus and Wayne are groaning at the choices.
“Aren’t there any first class meals left over?” Asks Sheamus. We all know that the fifteen flight attendants have already scoffed-up any leftover first-class food. Bruce, innocently says that there was no extra first-class food.
“I’ll have a large pepperoni pizza, and a fine Merlot wine,” I order.
Bruce, having heard this from me a hundred times over the years… “Funny, which meals do you want, it’s busy back there. Those fucking New York Jews are just driving me crazy.”
Sheamus opts for the pasta, Wayne settles for the rice and veggies, and I get stuck with the mystery meat.
Wayne asks, “Do you remember the cartoon show years ago, ‘The Jetsons’?”
“Yeah.”
“They just developed a new show, same concept with an all black cast, know what it’s called?”
I bite: “No, what?”
“Niggers!”
“Holy mother of God,” Sheamus shouts, “I wonder what became of the tip?”
“What tip?”
“The tip of the circumcised baby Jesus’ little Jewish dick! Don’t you realize there’s an un-risen portion of the body of Christ sitting somewhere in the dirt of Bethlehem? This is worth a fortune…” Sheamus starts pulling out charts, “…Fuck the Holy Grail, man, Fm going after that little piece of the Son of God!”
“Hey, Rabbi, you going on the Hajj this year?” Wayne’s question takes me by surprise.
“Oh, man, Wayne, the Hajj is only two months away, and it’s snuck up on me again, shit! Ninety days away from home, but that’s where the money is. I guess I’ll have to go.”
Wanda Decker, “The Pussy of Thunder herself,” who is working business class tonight, and is tonight’s lead Flight Attendant, has sent up a new girl to the cockpit. The new meat has been told to introduce herself to us ( and to be set up for her initiation rites, though she doesn’t yet know that ).
“Welcome, welcome”…. All that shit, then we lay it on her…..” Hey, kid, we need for you to take these white garbage bags and tie-ties and collect ozone samples for the Feds at different flight levels…. Did Wanda tell you how to 2”
“No, oh, that’s o.k. it’s easy, here’s what you do… each time we change flight levels we’ll have you take a sample bag-full of air, for the Feds, for the Ozone test. Here’s a magic marker…. Just walk through the cabin and get a great glob of air in a bag, tie it off, write the flight level on it, and by the end of the flight you should have five, maybe six sample bags. … some Fed will meet you at the jetway in the terminal… just hand it to him, and get a receipt. Give the receipt to the head of your In-flight department. Easy, no sweat thanks.”
Watching any Newbie Flight Attendant walk off an airplane holding four or five worthless bags of air, waiting around for some non-existent Fed has always been a hoot… the shit crews do for laughs.
Ahmed Slitherian
I love to be home. It’s so rare that I get to enjoy the house, my wife, and kid. My time home is precious to me, so I sure as shit ain’t going to spend it with any assholes.
Ahmed Slitherian, one of Iranian P.F.E.’s is the complete asshole. Obnoxious and backstabbing when sober, he becomes even more arrogant, and abusive, whenever he drinks. Ahmed is unliked by everyone, including the “Iranian Mafia,” our contingent of Persian pilots and Professional Flight Engineers, all terrific guys.
During a Miami turn, Ahmed informs me that “We are neighbors, now.” He has moved his family to Daytona Beach, not far from my home, since his son is attending Sandler College in St. Augustine. Thrusting his phone number at me, he insists that we have to get together. “Shit,” I think, and throw his number away as soon as I can discretely do so.
Every few months, on the phone with Geri, she tells me that some guy called, with some funny sounding name, and he’s left his phone number.”
“Throw it away,” I tell her, with no explanation.
Months pass before I bump into Ahmed again, this time in JFK Flight Ops.
“Hi, Ahmed,” I say.
“Oh, you don’t like me!” he booms.
“Don’t like you?” all innocence, “Why wouldn’t I like you, Ahmed?”
“You never return my calls,” he says, invading my space. Ahmed is one of those people born with no sense of personal space. A close-talker.
“You called me, Ahmed? I never got any messages,” I lie. “I get home so infrequently that I just have enough time to pay my bills, do my laundry and re-introduce myself to my family.” This is no lie.
Years pass with no further attempts at home contact. When I do fly with Ahmed, every few months, we are always politely proper with each other, but I know that he knows, that I don’t like him, and that I don’t care that he knows.
Ramadan-Pederast
God, I’m tired. The music, fire alarms and kids running through the halls pounding on doors, have kept me up most of the night. It’s Ramadan, a forty-day holiday in Islam, where it’s decreed that nothing may be done during the day. No eating, no work, no sex. I don’t know if the original rule was forty-days of total abstinence and fasting. If so, the Saudi’s have perverted the intent, by simply reversing their life cycle. The wealthier Arabs make a holiday of it, filling up our luxury hotel, different rooms for different wives, kids,
Daytime’s not a problem. We’re out flying the scheduled Saudia trips during the day. But our evening sleep, the rest we need to be fresh for these daytime flights, has been a disaster. The kids run wild at night, riding their bikes, pulling the fire alarm handles and pounding doors. The adults at poolside pay no attention. Arab “music” blasts from giant speakers, the men pull smoke through their hubbly-bubblys ( hookahs ), while their women wade in the pool, holding the hems of their black
We are in Jeddah on a nine-month “wet lease” contract. All but one of our five planes have been painted to perfectly match the Saudia fleet, except for the American “N” registration numbers, they are indistinguishable. All except for the “yellow banana,” one of our planes cheaply painted by Morris Nachtomi in Mexico, using the wrong shade of yellow.
We’ve had a few weeks of this Ramadan under our belts and we are all frazzled from lack of decent sleep. Complaints and calls to hotel management have gone unheeded, “What can we do? It’s a holiday.” The poor Egyptian hotel staff, in Saudi Arabia on five-year contracts, are
right. It is a holiday, and our protests be damned, the Saudi’s will celebrate as they see fit.
This is my fourth month in Jeddah, getting home to Florida for a few days every other month. The strain of maintaining a relationship as husband and father is worsening. The senior guys avoid the Magic Kingdom like the plague, and as a junior puke, I’ve already been to Arabia on three annual 90-day Hadj’s. Now this, Ramadan.
We were flying a regular Saudia flight to Islamabad. Out of Jeddah, south briefly, then east along the length
