© 2010, UrbisMedia
I was telling a friend the other day that the first commercial flight I ever took I just walked on (to a smoke-belching American Airlines DC-6) dressed in a suit and carrying hand luggage to nobody gave a concerned look, much less an inspection. I was also able to keep all my clothes on. No greetings by rubber-gloved TSA folks who will soon be using those gloved digits for body-cavity searches once some terrorist earns the appellation “the Colon Bomber.”
There was a time when flying was actually fun. No more. Even when you get past the escalating indignities of TSA, you are crammed into too-small seats beside too-fat aisle-mates and wonder if any swarthy guy going into the toilet is going to blow his scrotum and the rest of us out into the wild blue beyonder. The only stories of flying one hears today are gruesome and depressing tales of flights of necessity, not fun. So, I would like to offer a tale that, if not of flying fun, at least is (to my perverted sense of humor) of funny flying. At least I can thank the crotch-bomber for reminding me that once the terrors of flying were a little less terrifying. Here goes.*
On an almost fully-booked international from Europe a few years ago I was again having trouble trying to sleep in my aisle coach seat on a 747. Added to my usual problem sleeping on planes was that fact that the male flight attendant responsible for my section of coach was probably more vain and self-obsessed than one of those blow-dried news anchors on local newscasts. In addition, he had a habit of going to the lavatory, seemingly every half hour, and dousing himself with the cheap aftershave the airline provides gratis on many international flights. So when Troy—let’s call him Troy, because his looks reminded me of the actor Troy Donahue, with his well-coiffed blond hair and All-American good looks—when Troy ‘refreshed’ himself and walked back down the aisle past my seat I would begin gagging and sneezing from the sickly-sweet aroma of his aftershave. The very air around his head and shoulder seemed to be wavy, like heat rising off a New Mexico highway in summer. He reeked of the stuff.
OK, so at least he didn’t smell ‘badly’, one might say. But there’s more. What probably bugged me more was that Troy comported himself with practiced movements and an attitude of ‘superiority’ and aloofness, that announced something like: “you realize, of course, that I’m only doing this flight attendant thing because I’m between pictures and modeling jobs just now.” If someone switched on their service light he would glide up with the sort of smile parents give to kids misbehaving in public and provide his services with as much condescension as he could muster. Troy also never removed his uniform jacket, which allowed him to affect the position more of a maitre ‘d, and set himself above his co-workers. Petty and immature as it might sound, I wanted to smack him, just to bring him down a few notches.
As things turned out I didn’t have to.
We were in that part of the flight when, several hours in, after the main meal service and the movie is over, the shades are all down, and the sleepers are sleeping—the ‘wee, small hours’ of the flight—after Troy had made yet another refreshing trip to the lavatory, that disaster struck. It was during the ‘snack’ meal service.
Let me set the scene. Three rows ahead of me, also on the aisle, slumbered one of those passengers we see on almost every long international flight: the ones who manage to encapsulate themselves in a cocoon of near total sensory deprivation. Headphones on ears, neck pillow encasing his head, eye shades blocking out and rays of light, and blanket pulled up to his chin, only his nose, apparently insensitive to Troy’s gagging fumes, functioned unimpeded.
Let’s call him Art, Art Slumberman will do nicely. I envied Art because he seemed like one of those lucky fliers who can get into a state of suspended animation, like in those space movies, and wake up fresh and ready to go after the rest of us are ready to scream “let me off this goddamned airplane!!!” It was not a nice envy I had for Art.
It’s a bit of a detour in the narrative, but my ‘nice’ envy was reserved for the guy in the row behind me. Sometime during the ‘wee’ flying hours what I took to be a few moments of turbulence in my weary daze appeared, under furtive inspection, to be an initiation into the exclusive “Five-Mile High Club” in the darkened cabin. I’ve heard groans of anxiety during turbulence, but the utterances mixed with the hissing cabin vents were moans, not groans. In turbulence once can see all the heads in the cabin bobbing, or wagging from side to side; this ‘turbulence’ was affecting only my seat!
It’s a wonder to me how people can behave differently in the same situation. To some people, flying is such a terrifying experience that sex might be the last thing that would come to their minds, or unlikely to come to fulfillment if it did come to mind. Then there are those people who take the position that this flight might be their last, and what would they most prefer to do with the little time remaining to them? Still others dread the thought of being in a ‘compromising position’ when the ‘end’ comes.
I peeked through the space between the two seatbacks in my row. The cabin was quite dark, and the couple was bundled in two or more blankets. Their armrests had been raised, forming the three seats into an airborne love-seat. This arrangement is not unusual in under-booked flights, but typically this is done to stretch out for sleep. The ‘turbulence’ and moaning continued for a while, apparently without the notice of anyone else, and convinced me of my suspicions in the rapid acceleration of ‘turbulence’ prior to its abrupt conclusion.
That consummation was none too soon for the amorous couple; the cabin lights came on and some of the window shades were raised. Most people still slept, especially Art, but Troy was beginning to serve our rows a ‘snack’ of nice hot quiches, whose aroma was swirling with Troy’s cologne. It was evident that the cabin crew wanted to get the snack served and cleaned up in time for an earlier than scheduled arrival in LA. A few more window shades were raised as some of the first-time European visitors wanted their first glimpses of America from 36 thousand feet.
My attention, however, was on Troy, in particular his method for distributing the quiches. No serving cart for Troy; since his station was close to the serving bay of the plane he simply emerged from the bay with two quiches in each oven-mitted hand, dispensed them, and returned to the bay for more. This he did with an almost choreographed style, swirling and turning, and leaning, like some supremely-confident dancer, or one of those prancing and posing new-style magicians.
Troy was serving three rows ahead of mine when disaster struck. He had served two of his four quiches and was in the process of turning to distribute the others when a mild, but real, turbulence jolted the plane. Caught off balance he began to pirouette, struggling to keep one of the quiches from flying out of his hand. I could see that he was in trouble, for the first time that sort of smug expression he wore was replaced with that of a guy who has just caught a sensitive appendage in his zipper, and a mouth that wanted to scream “help!” or something expletive. “Mr. Control” was out-of-control.
No matter, it would have been too late for Art anyway. Troy spun to keep his hand under the quiche that wanted to take off like a Frisbee. In the process his hand brought it around with considerable force and plastered the quiche squarely on the sleeping face of Art Slumberman. It looked for all the world like one of those comic ‘pie-in-the-face’ stunts; except that this was a steaming quiche Lorraine and Art had no idea it was snack time.
Art launched himself from his seat like a missile, smacking his head on the bottom of the overhead storage bin and flopping back down in his seat half-dazed. Troy shrieked—no other way to describe that utterance—and flipped the other quiche into the air as he was reaching for Art’s face. The second quiche landed harmlessly in the aisle beside my seat. But Art was sputtering and gasping as he tore off his eye-shades, flipping bits of quiche on nearby passengers. It was a good thing he was wearing them as the steaming quiche was very uncomfortable and might have caused serious harm.
Troy understood that as well, completely losing all that practiced ‘coolness’ and alternately swabbing Art’s face and then looking about to see who might have witnessed this supremely embarrassing event. Surprisingly few people had seemed to have noticed, but briefly Troy’s eyes contacted mine and I could see the panicked look in them—he knew that I knew!—and he returned to swabbing and apologizing to Art.
A few minutes later when Troy came by to clean up the quiche that had flopped face down by my seat I was going to ask him how Art, the “plaintiff’s attorney in 34C,” was doing. But I saw that the smug expression was gone. Troy’s eyes that had a pleading look, and a little piece of quiche lodged in the once perfect hair. I didn’t want to smack him anymore; the winds of turbulence had taken care of that. All I could muster was: “I’ve been meaning to ask you the name of that cologne you’re wearing.”
These days, Slumberman won’t be allowed to sleep beneath than suspicious blanket. And, if he wants quiche, he’s going to have to bring it aboard himself—after TSA has warmed it up in the x-ray.
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© 2010, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 1.5.2010)
*This story is from “Flights from Purgatory,” in my book, The Stranger is Me; Journal of Self-Discovery, 2007.