Four Johns Johnson

THIS STORY IS INTENDED FOR ADULT READING ONLY.

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The one thing an airline pilot must never do is flip his lid -- especially when he's got four of them to worry about. And even if he keeps a steady hand on the stick, will the stews keep their promises?

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"Hi, lady. Come in and take the weight off. It's hot outside today. Take a seat over here, by the bar and you'll get a great view of the guys on the beach. Better yet, I'll get a good look at you. . ."

"Hey, maybe I'm an old goat but I still know how to compliment a good looking gal. What's your poison, honey . .?"

"Sure, this is Four Johns Johnson's bar. I am Four Johns Johnson -- pleased to meet you . . ."

"No, no, lady, we only have the usual two johns in this bar. Male and female, just like everywhere else . . ."

"No, it's nothing to do with the bar. It's my handle, has been for years. Take a look at the photo on the wall, right there. See that, a 767 coming into the ramp at Gate Tango-2 at O'Hare, with the fire crew wetting the plane down? That's a tradition when the pilot is retiring. That was my last flight as a Senior Captain with West and Western. Twenty two years on a flight deck and that was the day it ended. But see those four guys standing out in the spray each holding up a toilet seat lid over his head and laughing fit to bust? Yeah, even if I say it myself I was a legend in the business. Everybody knew about Four Johns Johnson, the man who pulled off the best landing in airline history. Mind you, the company went apeshit over that photo, trying to keep the media from finding out what the deal was with those toilet seats . . ."

"You want to hear the story? Sorry, but it's not one for mixed company, especially a nice lady like yourself . . ."

"You're a lawyer? OK, maybe you're not so nice after all then. But even so, this might shock you. Do you promise not to sue me if I confess my sins . . .?"

"Well, if you're sure you're game you'd better tell me your name -- hey, I'm a poet . .!"

"OK, Gloria, I'll tell you what happened, and it was a while ago now. But it was an even longer time ago when I left the Air Force and first became a commercial pilot. I'm talking prehistory here. Before deregulation, before 9/11, God, almost before computers on the flight deck. In those wonderful days we had people called flight engineers up front with us and we had these other people called stewardesses out back to look after the passengers. Not flight attendants or customer service consultants or whatever the hell they're called nowadays. We had stewardesses, and they had a service life of about two years, by which time they were either pregnant, or engaged, or both. They were all in their early twenties, they were all drop dead gorgeous, they were all marriage hungry and we used to call them menu items. As in 'what's on your menu tonight? Mandy or the new blonde?' . . . "

"I can see you pulling a face at me, Gloria. You want to put me on the stand and make me confess to being a disgusting old maleist, right? Well, that was the way the job was then. God, they were beautiful times. But I'll tell you this, never, never walk away with the idea that we pilots didn't respect those gals back there in the cabin. We did then and we still do, even if a lot of them are guys now. That doesn't matter, what does matter is that if the shit ever hits the fan it's the cabin crew who have to take control of hundreds of panic stricken passengers and get them off the plane safely. Even if they never have an emergency come up in their careers, boy, do the stews get plenty of hassles from the passengers, especially after deregulation let all the screwballs loose on us. Rum and coke again . .? "

"OK, so take it from one who knows, I was absolutely terrified about twelve times flying commercial jets and ten of those times it because of passengers who should have been doing cell time with Hannibal Lector. I'd rather have been a garbage collector than deal with airline passengers every day, especially when it comes to being locked in the same cabin as the mad bastards. And, apart from the passengers, the stews had all kinds of other problems to deal with that you'd never think of. Have you ever tried cooking eggs at 40,000 feet, Gloria? If you do, you'll find they turn green. There's a whole lot of strange things happen in that kind of environment. Anyway, that was the way things were when I was green myself, a green young co-pilot living way up there in pilot's heaven. And then God blew his whistle and told everybody to get out of the pool. Suddenly it was paradise lost . . . "

"Hey, is the girl on that board wearing a bikini or not? Sure as hell isn't my eyesight going because I can see every dimple where she isn't . . ."

"What went wrong? What happened? No disrespect, Gloria, but lawyers happened, that's what. Come the 1970's and suddenly the airlines were being taken to court by girls who'd been put off because they were overage, or married or whatever. And the stews started winning the cases. Only they weren't stewardesses anymore, now they were flight attendants. Before long we had married flight attendants with kids for God's sake, working mothers on red eye flights whose idea of fun was getting back home in time for an hour in bed before cooking the family breakfast. Suddenly we went from being a bunch of playboy pilots flying around glamorous trolley dollies to being glorified chauffeurs for a bunch of slam-clickers . . ."

"What's a slam-clicker? She's a beautiful looking woman in her thirties with a wedding ring who brings the coffee up to the flight deck, lays on all the smiles and moves to the pilots, goes to the crew hotel with you, says "Goodnight, guys, nice to fly with you," slams her door shut and the next thing you hear is the door lock clicking. That's a slam-clicker."

"OK, so now comes the three day working trip when I get famous -- or maybe infamous. I was forty two years old, I'd arrived for duty at O'Hare on a January morning, and Chicago was as cold as the proverbial witch's clit. So I'm dreaming of how I'm going to retire in a year or so and own a bar in the tropics and spend my time talking to beautiful lawyers . . ."

"You think I'm being smooth now? Wait until you hear the story. . ."

"Listen in, then, and I'll tell you. I walked into the company flight center, signed my release, then pulled down all my flight details off the computer. I was going places, none of them I really wanted to, finishing off for the day at Tucson. Well, that was something, anyway. The last landing of the day is always the hardest work but Tucson was an airport I always liked. Never any snow, rarely any rain: the wind can get tricky sometimes, but not often. Yeah, Tucson was a gift compared to some pit of an airport like Washington National, LA International or La Garbage at New York.

"Then, as I was leaving the flight center, I took a glance at the whiteboard on the wall which had odds and ends of company information on it. One of the notations was that Mr Greenmont, the company chief security officer was going to be in Tucson on the same day that I'm flying down. Now that was kind of strange because anytime you have a senior company guy on board, it's noted in your flight details. I double checked the sheet, but no mention of Greenmont's name. So if he was scheduled for Tucson, how was he going to get there? Obviously, it had to be a West and Western flight, we didn't pay other airlines to haul our own assholes around, which, incidentally, was what this guy Greenmont was by all accounts, a grade A asshole. And I knew the only other flight W&W had going to Tucson that day was a night shuttle which had gone out about 1 PM. So either this guy was on my flight and I wasn't being told about it, which was strange; or Greenmont had slipped off to Tucson well before the crock crowed. Which was even stranger. Airline executives, even small times ones, don't usually travel on rocket flights.

"So, I went to the plane and asked my Chief Flight Attendant to find out if Greenmont was onboard. She checked the passenger list, said he wasn't, I shrugged my shoulders and got on with my job. After we'd got to our flight level and I'd handed over to the co-pilot I had time to run a few stray thoughts through my head. But they weren't about William H. Greenmont, security guy. What had my attention was the gal I'd spoken to about him. The CFA that day was a lady called Yvonne Page. A real wise old Senior Mama in the system, maybe a couple of years younger than me, kids in college, but still a hell of a figure, auburn hair and luscious. To me, she was like some kind of Italian film star, the Sophia Loren earth mother type but always immaculately dressed and presenting herself like a fashion model. When she wasn't running an airliner she worked as a part time stockbroker and that woman absolutely oozed class. Out of the top drawer as the British say -- just like you, Gloria . . ."

"It's a house rule. The more drinks you buy, the more I flatter the customers. And if you buy me one as well I'll really go over the top . . ."

"Another one all round it is then. OK, so I was wondering whether to make another pass at Yvonne in Tucson, though it hardly seemed worthwhile bothering. We'd flown together three or four times in the last two months and everytime I'd made an approach to her I'd been waved off. Nothing rancorous or bad tempered, mind you, just a stunning smile and a slam-click in the face. So I was thinking about Yvonne and then another girl comes into the cockpit with the coffee -- girl! I mean I'm not saying her first flight was handing out spam sandwiches on a DC3 but she was as much a Senior Mama as Yvonne herself was. A nice looking one, too, a blonde, with an ass to pant over. But two attendants of that seniority on the same flight? It had to be some kind of a roster fuck up. Still, I had to go back for a leak anyway, so I thought I'd check to see if we've got a couple of young trainees on board to balance things up.

"So, I went to the john and I had a look at the other attendants, and I'm thinking to myself that something is seriously wacky around here because the other two FA's both look like they've got more flight time than I have. I've got a crew of females on my plane who probably have enough experience between them to fly the goddamn thing home themselves and field strip the engines afterwards.

"I collected another cup of coffee and went up to the flight deck again to do some real thinking. In all my time with the company I've never seen a bunch of attendants with this much seniority serving on one crew. If it was just an odd coincidence, OK, but what if it wasn't a coincidence? I tell you, Gloria, it suddenly occurred to me that it was a set up and I was the set upee. I mean, sure, I made quite a few passes at the lasses, but at least I had enough sense to stick to women of my own age. So maybe the company was putting a big pile of temptation in my path and Greenmont was lurking down there in Arizona ready to pounce on my ass with sexual harassment charges as soon as I opened my big mouth to one of those ladies -- or maybe, knowing me, to all of them.

"Yeah, that was the way I figured it, until I had second thoughts. There was no reason why the company would want to get rid of me. Not that I knew of anyway. But the flight attendants, now that a horse of a different color -- a shitty color. You see, Gloria, back then it was like today in one way -- the airline, all airlines, were desperate to save money. One of the big problems W and W had was with the unions, and they'd got a deal going that whenever a union worker left he or she was replaced with a non-union one. So we had two pay scales, an 'A' class one for the long term employees and a much lower 'B' class one for new starters. I thought about that for a while and about the fact that I only knew that Greenmont was in Tucson because of that note on the white board somebody had probably forgotten to wipe off. Then I thought about how I was carrying a bunch of FA's who probably had more years of service between them than any other four attendants on the airline. And right then I began to smell a dirty big rat. Like how come somebody had rostered all these high time 'A' gals on one flight? And like why Greenmont was sneaking down to Tucson before sun up?

"I told the co-pilot I was going back again. He looked pissed because he had to keep an oxygen mask over his face all the time he was the only pilot on the flight deck, but to hell with him. I didn't want him hearing this conversation and I sure didn't want the cockpit voice recorder taping it either, so I went back to find Yvonne and took her into the galley. She was looking at me about the same way as you are now, Gloria, like maybe I was planning to play grabass with her. But no, I was there to be the same perfect gentleman I always am.

"Yvonne," I said to her. "Maybe you'd be doing yourself a big favor if you didn't work for peanuts on this trip -- especially down South' What I was talking about was how it was considered one of the small perks of the attendant's job to take home odds and ends of stuff that was left over from the flight supplies. Three ounce bottles of liquor, packets of peanuts, individual cartons of long life milk, those kinds of things. Nobody had ever made an issue of it until then, it was only nickel and dimes stuff but, technically, it was stealing. Catching an employee walking off the job with any company property could be cause for instant dismissal if the bosses wanted to be tough guys -- especially if they wanted to be tough guys trimming down on the payroll.

"Yvonne's eyes widened and I knew she'd joined up all the dots a lot quicker than I had. She knew exactly what I was talking about. In fact she was ahead of me. 'Why Tucson?' she asked. 'Why not O'Hare?' I understood what she saying, because the girls didn't use of that kind of stuff in their hotels, they took it back home with them in their bags and the company could have busted them back in Chicago when they were signing off their rosters. But then I had another thought.

"'Yvonne,' I said, 'Your union offices are in Chicago, so are your union lawyers. Way down where the buffalo roam you're on your own. That's if you should happen to need some urgent help for any reason.'

"Yvonne kind of cocked her head on one side and asked me if I knew anything for sure. And, me, I put on my Sergeant Schultz accent: 'Lady, I know nothing . . . nothing.' Then I went back to doing what I was being paid to do, flying the airplane . . .

"Another round, Gloria . . .?

"Sure, I'm trying to get you drunk . . . There's this great beach I can take you to where all the ladies go topless -- and, brother have you got the wherewithal to go without a top . . ."

"Tucson? What happened at Tucson? Well, I'm not often wrong but I was right again. That son of a bitch Greenmont was waiting there, right in the airport terminal with a couple of security guys, a deputy sheriff and a company lawyer. They pounced on the girls' luggage like they expected the bags to be full of dope or gold bars or something. And, boy, did those guys get an earful from Yvonne and the others when they didn't even find a company issue tissue. Kay asked the company lawyer for his card and told him her lawyers would be in touch, then she turned around and demanded the names and addresses and phone numbers of the deputy and the security guards. They didn't want to tell her but I told Greenmont that either she got the goon squad's details or I'd declare the plane unsafe to fly. Which meant that by the time it had been checked out the relieving crew would have missed their slot into Atlanta. And then there'd be headaches up and down the company chain of command as they rescheduled connections across half the country. So Greenmont crumpled up and told his bad ass gang to do what Yvonne wanted. . . .

"No, you're right, Gloria, it didn't do me a lot of good with W and W. I often wish I'd thought to wipe that note about Greenmont off the whiteboard before I left the flight center, but I didn't. Still, I guess all that happened was that I retired a couple of years earlier than I might otherwise have done. And even that was worth it to see the look on Greenmont's face when he hauled out a pair of scarlet crotchless panties from Yvonne's suitcase. He went almost as red as the panties and Yvonne -- well, she looked at me and, sad to say, I must have had the same sort of expression on my face as Greenmont had on his. He was hoping to catch her red handed but not as much as I was dreaming of catching her red knickered. Of course I wondered who the lucky guy was she was carrying the hot pants around for and I cordially hoped the bastard would get a sudden attack of terminal prick droop, but that was the excitement over. Greenmont was left looking for a rock to crawl under and I was entertaining the hope that one of those fortunate four females would do the decent thing by her captain and let him fu -- er, enjoy her favors. What the hell, I'd saved their jobs, was that too much to ask? Don't worry, Gloria, you needn't give me a legal opinion, it was a rhetorical question.

"How about a rum cocktail this time? You need lots of vitamins down here where the nights are always hot and steamy. And maybe you'd better take a grip on the bar there, girl, you must be getting drunk, you keep going out of focus on me . . .

"What thanks did I get in Tucson? Nothing, zero, zilch, that was what I got. You know, Gloria, I had an English grandmother who used to say that kind words never buttered any parsnips. Yeah, well, I heard a lot of kind words that night but nobody offered to butter my parsnip, that was for sure. Slam-click to the power of four, that was the bottom line.

"Anyway, next day, we doing the second day in the three day schedule. Hops and stops all over the south west and I'm on the last leg of the day into Southern California. I've taken the bird up to cruising altitude, I've told the passengers where the plane is going, just in case Superman is on board and he wants to get out and fly someplace else, I've turned on the dead dog switch and I'm waiting for my coffee. And then that goddamned blonde with the big ass arrives and asks me to come back to the galley for a moment. She's smiling and I'm a seriously pissed pilot. It's not enough I save these bitches' jobs without even one of them stepping up to the plate afterwards to play ball, now they even want me to fetch my own coffee. I figure it's about time I let them know who's Captain on this plane. But when I get to the fo'ard galley all four of the attendants are in there, something I couldn't understand. Until Yvonne tells me that they've had a talk together about what happened in Tucson and they want to give me a sporting chance at a big reward. What was going to happen was that the girls were going to put up the four toilet seats in the plane before we landed and if I could land the 727 down without knocking any of the lids down, then all four of the stews would give me a blow job at the hotel that night.

"Gloria, I was holding a cup of coffee in my hand when Yvonne came out with this and I damned near spilled it all over me. Well, I did get a couple of drops on my shirt and suddenly I've got these four woman with paper towels all around me and stroking me and blowing in my ear and I'm looking over their heads and the passengers on a row on either side are watching all this, wide eyed, and every last one of them is a nun. Honest to God nuns, if you'll pardon the phrase, with those head coverings and long black dresses and they're watching their pilot getting sexed up by the entire cabin crew and for the first time in my life I'm pushing women away from me . . .