One week later, still in the sandbox, in walk the ‘Siamese Twins,’ Joe Rudder and Bob Hollis. Both former Eastern pilots, they flew for Air Siam after the strike, and seem always in each others company.
Joe: “Hey Steve , we were just best man and maid of honor at P-Brains wedding.”
Bob: “And we have the pictures to prove it.” I am blown away… we all are.
Captain Phil Brain Phil (‘P-Brain’ to one and all), a bitterly divorced, confirmed misogynist, and I had dead- headed to Jakarta together four weeks earlier. Realizing the bargains now available in Indonesia due to the devalued rupe, we decided to go into business together. Both of us live in Florida, so we decided to collectively buy Indonesian wooden sculptures and container same to Miami. We would then split the cost of the container, the cost of the extremely cheap inventory, divide up the artwork and peddle the stuff independently.
P-Brain was to price out freight-forwarders and container costs. My job was to locate and select the wooden carvings. I had done my job, but had not seen P-Brain in four weeks. I was expecting to consummate our business deal upon my return to Jakarta in May.
“Holy shit, what happened to my partner,” I ask?
The Siamese twins explain that in a three week period, P-Brain met a
“Good grief!” Charlie exclaims. “Life is good,” says Jerry Lovell.
I shake my head in disbelief, I am struck mute. The Jakarta Hajj has struck again!
Charlie Pickles Invents Live-Heading
Coming Awake, the darkened interior of the empty 747 was cavernous, echoing shadows, not sound. We three cockpit crew, along with the fifteen Indonesian flight attendants, are deadheading back to Jakarta from Jeddah, on this otherwise empty airplane. We had spread ourselves throughout the beast, and I staked out about ten rows of nine seats wide as my territory. I stretched out across an entire empty row of seats and fell fast asleep.
Now awake, thanks to my fifty-year-old bladder, I crept silently forward, looking for an empty lay. I was already abeam Charlie’s Cheshire smile before I noticed the girl’s head moving purposefully in his lap. Capt. Charlie, wearing his bright red Jodhpurs, was getting a chi-ching blow job, God bless him!
A few days later, Charlie confides that this is the first time in his twenty-five years of flying (after all the stories he’s heard of others’ experiences) that he’s gotten sex on an airplane. “She was great,” he exclaims in his distinctive, nasal style. “I didn’t do anything… she asked if she could lay down next to me and use my lap as a pillow, the next thing I know she’s got my pecker in her mouth… it was terrible!” he grins.
“Yeah,” I say, “I saw part of your act… you looked like the
“Did you really?” all happy now that he’s got a witness to part of his good fortune. Charlie blurts out that she finished him off, had a handkerchief ready to delicately pat him dry and put him away. “But she didn’t need it,” he smirks, “she was so neat and thorough. Keshy, the best part was that she asked me for my room number in the Hilton, so she could come by the next day to do it again.” He answers my unasked question by saying, “Yeah, she shows up in a Mercedes, her husband must have a business, does me twice more, without wanting any return favors, and about 3P.M. she says ‘I have to leave, I have to be home to fix dinner for my husband’ …then she shows herself out of my room.”
“Perfect,” I say.
“Perfect,” Charlie agrees, “those perfect little Indonesian girls. They have such a wonderful and different view of sex.”
“Yeah, a different view… hey, Charlie, do you know the difference between a gynecologist and a proctologist?… point of view.”
Charlie grins in agreement. Thinking aloud, he does the sums, “…you know with the extended duty we got for that trip, I got to sleep-fordollars, a blow job, and $800 extra dollars for that leg.”
“Charlie, you just invented a new ‘chi-ching,’ ‘Live-head’ pay, instead of ‘dead-head’ pay.”
“Life is good,” Charlie agrees, using Jerry Lovell’s punchline.
The Intellectual
I’m one of the few pilots considered an intellectual, since I’m forever reading. Let me amend that, Fm now reading Forster’s
“Hey Chubby,” Charlie Pickles turns towards me in his Captain’s chair, You know about Salmon Rushdie, don’t you?”
“Charlie,” I declare puffing up slightly, “I’m the only person I know that actually read
“No shit?”
“No shit, and it was brilliant, but a bitch to get through, all those references alluding to London and to Islam that I had to look up.”
“Well then, Rabbi, you probably know that those
“Yeah, Charlie,” now smugly, “I’ve seen Rushdie interviewed a few times on those PBS interview shows.”
“Then you must have heard he’s just written another book?”
“No, No, I didn’t hear that.”
“Yeah,” Charlie informs me, Its called
Yul and I were turned around upon our arrival in Paris, told by the Station Manager that we had to commercial to Athens. We had time to change into our commercial attire, sports jacket, tie, and slacks, and head for the first-class lounge. All our overseas repositioning of crew, “commercialing” is business class or better, when available.
Yul Leviv and I check into the lounge, now comfortably ensconced in plush couches, drinks in hand. “
Yul’s an older man, with white, close-cropped hair and the lips of ‘froggy the gremlin.’ This will be the first time I’ve ever spent any private time with him. He quickly knocks back three more of the free double vodkas before we go to the gate. On the plane, Yul leans towards me to advise me, in confidence, “
“What?”
“Oh,” I say.
Yul leans back in his seat, satisfied now that he has alerted me to this crisis, and is at once asleep.
In Athens now, the young Greekin and reekin’ cab driver, excited to be driving two such distinguished Americans to their hotel, animatedly engages us in conversation. I’m conversing, Yul is snoring.
“How long will you be in Athens,” he asks? “About 16 hours.”
Not sure that he has used his English correctly, he repeats the questions, “No, no… How many days is your
