Coffee, Tea or Me? (13 page)

You can always recognize a captain from the calluses on his finger from pushing the call button for coffee. Sometimes we think that’s all the captain does up there—summon us for coffee. Most captains are great guys. They have a sense of humor, they know how to treat a girl, they take care of their girls. Good captains are extremely protective of their stewardesses. They don’t permit any funny business, by anyone, where their girls are concerned.

I’ll always bless the captain of one of my early flights. The two senior stews were stiff, unfriendly girls, and I was decidedly ill at ease. Just before dinner a passenger toward the rear of the plane signaled. I went back. A man sat there. His pants were unzippered and he was fully exposed. He grinned up at me with a nasty expression that froze my blood. I panicked and ran to tell the senior stew. She coldly suggested that I inform the passenger of his condition in case it was an accident. I approached him gingerly and said, “Sir, I’m sorry, but would you please zip your zipper.”

He leered at me and said, “Why don’t you let me put a tiger in your tank, young lady?”

I was completely flustered. The other stews were clearly not going to be any help. I went forward and told the captain. Without a word the captain turned the controls over to the first officer, put his hand on my shoulder an instant to reassure me and strode to the rear to deal with the situation. He got the man closed up all right. Two policemen met the passenger at the next stop and hauled him away. The captain rang for me immediately after the incident. “You all right, honey? You OK?” He sensed how distressed I was.

“I’m shook, but I’ll make it.”

“That’s a good girl. Don’t let the goons get you. Wait for me in Toledo. I’ll take you to dinner.”

That captain was a born big brother. At dinner he kept me laughing steadily with stories of his boyhood in North Dakota. He showed me pictures of his seven-year-old twins and his Great Dane puppies. His easy chatter crowded all thoughts of the distasteful encounter from my mind. At my hotel door, he tilted my head back, kissed me on the forehead and said, “You’re a good girl, Trudy. You’ll be OK now. Sleep well.” Now that’s my idea of a captain. I only hope his wife is good enough for him.

On the other hand, there are some captains, not many of them, who think the whole point of taking a plane from one city to another is to make a lunge for a stewardess two minutes after landing. Sister stews have told us some pretty horrendous tales about captains. You could begin to think that some of the most oversexed males in the country are right up front in the cockpit of your super-powered, fan-jet, dyna-lift, whisper-quiet airplane. Waiting for only one thing—to paw their way into your chaste chamber at the hotel.

What never ceases to amaze us is the stamina and staying power of these pilots, most of whom are over fifty years old. They’re not old for the same reasons old men are selected at the stewardess school. It’s taken a pilot a long time to gain the necessary hours and experience to command a multimillion-dollar jet aircraft. There’s been a lot of talk recently about the upsetting effect jet travel has on the bodily functions of crew members. Maybe there is a physiological reason for captains’ retaining their sexual drive, even after the age when most men find it necessary to develop another hobby. Maybe the key to potency is more jet travel. (We now lay claim to any airline advertising campaign based on this assumption.)

Of course, a few months on the line and you soon develop your own code of conduct with the cockpit crew. Either you Do or you Don’t. And you try not to tell your roommate or your hairdresser. You make up your own mind whether your captain really does have the right to all your services. Captains realize that the longer a girl flies the line, the harder she’ll be to conquer. Stewardesses who’ve been around will generally have latched onto one particular captain or have acquired other interests. So those on the make stalk the new girls, fresh from school where Big Momma made virtue sound dull and walls were for climbing.

It was on Rachel’s third flight that she was introduced to the “manual flush” routine so popular with cockpit crews where a new girl is concerned. It was a light flight and dinner had been served when the little light flashed in the galley indicating that service was needed in the cockpit. It’s an unwritten rule that the junior girl handles the cockpit chores, unless a senior girl has something going up front. This day, Rachel was the one. The other girls had evidently sworn off crew members for the week and simply pointed to Rachel.

She nervously pranced up the aisle, fluffing her dark hair and straightening her skirt. The flight engineer patted her fanny as she slid by him, a gesture Rachel assumed was normal cockpit procedure. Besides, she wasn’t about to be labeled a square so early in the game. She stood silently, in back of the captain’s right ear, his head just reaching her chest.

“Rachel,” the captain said with a smile as he turned to show his wrinkled profile, a must for all captains, “we seem to be having trouble with the flushing apparatus in the lavs.”

What could she say.

“Yes, sir.”

“It looks as though we’ll have to go to manual flushing techniques this trip,” he continued, frowning to indicate the gravity of the situation.

Rachel quickly flipped back through her mental file of procedures and could remember nothing of a manual flushing problem. But that didn’t prove a thing. Would a captain lie about something like this?

“We’re very busy up forward here, as you can well imagine, Rachel. I’m placing you in complete charge of the manual flushing procedure. That little button in front of me, the one farthest away, activates the manual flushing operation. Every twenty minutes, I want you to come forward to the cockpit and flip that button. You’ll flip it and hold it for forty-five seconds. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Better give it a try now, Rachel.”

The only way Rachel could reach the button was to lean over the top of the captain’s head. She strained to get her finger to the switch, her breasts melting comfortably around the captain’s ears. Finally, after much squirming, she managed to reach the button and flip it.

“Hold it steady for forty-five seconds,” the captain commanded, his head rigid back against her bosom.

Rachel started to sweat as she kept her finger on the switch. She kept shifting her weight from foot to foot, each movement rearranging her breasts on the captain’s head and neck.

“Manual flushing completed,” snapped the copilot in crisp military tones.

“Roger,” the captain confirmed.

“Whew,” Rachel sighed.

“See you in twenty minutes, Rachel.”

Most new stewardesses are put through the manual flushing routine. Some come back to the galley cursing the captain. Some, embarrassed, say nothing. Some can’t wait for the twenty minutes to pass. Good thing all Rachel’s attitude was that it could have been worse.

 

Another favorite trick is to hoist a new stewardess up into the overhead coatrack before passengers have begun to come aboard. The crew then sits and watches the girl try valiantly to get down, tight skirt and all.

We give it back at times to the cockpit crew. A copilot (commonly called a first officer on most airlines) or flight engineer making his first flight as a crew member with the airline can look forward to having his sleeves sewn shut, his cap insignia turned upside down, and his coffee served in one of those dime-store dribble cups.

Captain Smyth was a fine pilot, one of the airlines best. He was also a religious fanatic. When he wasn’t pushing a 707 around at thirty thousand feet, he was guiding his own congregation of six hundred people in a church he founded about ten years ago. It had no affiliation with any recognized religious order.

Captain Smyth was a nice guy to fly with. He was always polite to his stewardesses and would tolerate no dirty talk in his cockpit. Many cockpit crew members refused to fly with him. They took offense at his pious approach to flying. But there were always a few first officers and flight engineers who held similarly strong religious beliefs, and when they’d get together on a particular flight, we’d term the cockpit “Boeing’s Basilica.”

If you flew often enough with Smyth, you soon found yourself turning to him for fatherly advice. In effect, he’d set up his own flying confessional. And it’s amazing how many girls took advantage of his religious leanings.

One night in the crew motel in New Orleans, a pretty brunette took her tale of woe to Captain Smyth’s room. It seems she’d become deeply involved with a married passenger and his marriage was threatened as a result. She told our self-ordained captain the entire story and waited for his words of wisdom.

“I want you to take off your clothing and lie on the floor,” were his initial words of advice. “You must lie there awake all night and pray to the spiritual bodies of the universe that they may wipe you clean of this sin.”

“You’re joking?”

“Joking? Hardly. Do as I say and I’ll remain at your side for the entire night, if need be. You can gain through my strength.”

Naturally, the story got around. And that ended any evangelism as far as Captain Smyth and his girls were concerned. He’s still a fine pilot, but the stewardesses working his flights now confine their problem-telling to a psychiatrist boyfriend or roommate.

At times captains can be trouble for a stewardess, even though their intentions are honorable.

Marge Bascom was a striking blonde girl who had been with the airline for over two years. She had a particular friendship with a veteran captain that, she claimed, never went beyond the platonic stage. She was a pretty open gal, and there was no reason to disbelieve her.

Her trouble with this captain came after a delayed flight into Kennedy from El Paso. They finally arrived in New York at 1:30 A.M., and the captain offered to see Marge home to her apartment in Manhattan. His wife was away and he thought he’d stay in town rather than trek home to Westchester.

They took a cab into the city and went up to Marge’s apartment. Her roommates were out of town on layovers. When she offered to make him a drink, he accepted, and settled down on the couch as she prepared martinis in the kitchen.

“Mind if I change into civies?” he yelled through the archway.

“Be my guest,” she answered.

“Give me a minute out here before you pop out,” he warned. (It
was
platonic.)

“Take your time.”

This captain, with the honorable intentions, was down to his shorts and T-shirt when a key turned in the front door and a tall, young man stepped into the foyer.

“What the hell?” he gasped.

“Who are you?” the captain asked, a little dismayed by his state of undress.

“Marge,” the young man shouted, storming past the captain into the kitchen.

Zap, smack, whop
came from the kitchen and the young man tore out of the room.

“You bastard,” he hissed at the captain who was racing to get dressed. “You dirty bastard.” With that, the young man made his exit with a flair of slammed doors and profanity.

Marge emerged from the kitchen holding her mouth. A thin line of blood trickled from its corner and her eye was beginning to puff.

“What is this?” the captain asked as he went to help her.

“That
was
my fiancé,” she said. They never did make up, and Marge is still flying the line looking for another intended.

There was a time when a crew could stay together as a working unit. The airline allowed the captain, first officer, flight engineer, navigator, and stewardesses to bid as a unit for various trips, and it wasn’t uncommon to find a congenial group flying together for a year or more.

But those days are over. And ironically, the change was brought about by ex-stewardesses who married captains as the result of this cozy situation.

Every airline has an organization of ex-stewardesses who band together to rehash old stories and aid their former airline in matters of policy and publicity. In reality, the girls primarily use the organization to maintain the illusion of still being glamorous stewardesses. It’s an organization Rachel and I have pledged to each other to avoid at all costs when our flying days are over.

But they’re an influential group of women, and when they decide to put the pressure on a given airline, their collective voices are listened to. That’s what happened to the permanent crew situation. Many, or perhaps most, of these ex-stewardesses married crew members whom they got to know quite well when they were flying as a team. Many of them managed to steal captains from spouses of long standing.

Once they won their Flash Gordon from the other gal, they were put in her shoes. And they didn’t like it. So, using the power they had, they convinced their airline that crews should not be allowed to fly together for any extended period of time. They won. Their victory spread to other airlines and pretty soon you couldn’t fly with that great crew any longer. The silly thing is that this maneuver didn’t really accomplish a thing. If a husband is going to stray, he’ll do it no matter how new his crew is to him. But the girls feel more certain in their own hearts that they’ve ensured a long and happy marriage. Maybe we’ll react the same way when we’re married, grounded, and scared of losing our hero. We hope not.