I'm the Co-Pilot

Guatemala City 1/1990

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Everything in this story is true, as in it actually happened. Not all at the same time. Probably not in the same exact sequence, or with or to the exact same people. Which likely doesn't matter because I changed some names, and have forgotten others. That's a consequence of getting older and not having written it down those many years ago.

Like they say getting older is a bitch, but it sure beats the alternative.

***

All sexual activity in this story occurs between characters who were at least 18 years of age back in January of 1990 when the events described occurred.

***

"I'm the Co-pilot I sit on the right,

I'm quick and courageous and wonderfully bright.

My job is remembering what the Captain forgets,

And I never talk back so I have no regrets...

I 'm a lousy Co-Pilot and a long way from home..."

Stanza One, Poor Co-Pilot -Oscar Brand (1948)

***

"This is One-Six-Two-Point-Four-Five-Zero," the recording said, "G-U-A, Guatemala City, Guatemala. The time is Twenty-Three-Thirty-Seven-Zulu," that's 6:37pm local, "the barometric pressure is Two-Niner-Point-Nine-Two." I reached over and flipped the altimeter to 29.92 and was pleased when the hands correctly showed that we were 4950 feet higher than the Caribbean waters that we fly over on our three-or-so-hour flight home. "It is eighteen degrees." Divide by five multiply by eight add thirty-two, that's 65 Fahrenheit. We get Royal Navy time, barometer given in inches and the temperature in Celsius, makes sense.

"Aeropuerto La Aurora, Icarus Douglas November-Four-Two-Seven-India-Charley, hold at X-X. You are three for takeoff on Two." Runway 2, 20" on the compass rose.

"Lisa..." Mitch said, as the radio crackled.

"Icarus Air, Douglas November-Four-Two-Seven-India-Charley, La Aurora, understand... We are number three for runway Two, behind heavies and holding at intersection X-X." I said into the mike while adjusting my Dick Clark headset to abate the sound of our four Pratt and Whitney R-2800 eighteen-cylinder 'Double Wasp' piston engines. It wasn't so important right now, but when we got up to the threshold and ran those bad boys up... Well then it would be really important.

We have to wait for those two heavies, meaning really big airplanes, a Lockheed Ten-Eleven and an Airbus Three-hundred before we could taxi up to the threshold and do a final engine check, the run-up. A required and truly prudent first step to lifting our forty-year-old DC-6 filled with snap-peas from good 'ole terra firma. Departing this airport situated in a lush green valley five thousand feet above the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Without taking into account the slower climb up to cruising altitude and winds aloft which could either help or hinder our journey it would be a three hour and thirteen-minute flight back to MIA, Miami International Airport. I carefully closed my small black six ring binder containing the GUA airport pages and dropped it down into my black leather Jeppesen case next to my big light green thermos of steaming hot Guatemalan coffee and brown paper bag containing a scrumptious coffee cake from the mission. My children would be asleep when I got home, but I would see them tonight.

Aeropuerto Internactional La Aurora was one of my favorite destinations, unlike many of our other common ports-of-call it was just so real and so diverse. Young caramel-colored military conscripts that appeared to be fourteen or fifteen were everywhere in the terminal and on the ramp. Each one had a different facial expression. In our flight uniforms and obviously being Norte Americanos we were never perceived to be a threat. Some were happy, many were bored and a very few were either boisterous or bossy in their berets, yellow neckerchiefs, polished boots and jungle cammies lugging their huge Spanish CETME rifles.

Something in them activated my 'mom' gene. Maybe the fact that they looked for all the world like a group of little Hispanic boys back home in Texas. All dressed up in their daddy's duck hunting clothes and lugging his huge-to-them Remington semi-automatic shotgun with its long twenty-eight-inch barrel. It made me feel an affinity for them. Or maybe it was the fact that they were to my thirty-year-old brain merely weeks older than the oldest orphans at Eva's mission that made me want to hug them and give them some of my delicious cake.

Guatemala City was a very interesting place to me, filled with open-air plazas occupied by many small-scale shopkeepers hawking their wares. Craftsmen, potters, weavers, often creating their goods in front of you. Farmers growing peas and beans in the mountains. Coffee plantations... Tourists visiting Antigua with its 500-year-old colonial history; street kids begging or selling blankets. There were also big fruit plantations down on the coast, but I had never been there. The coffee and the pastry in the city were absolutely wonderful. Perversely one of the best Italian restaurants that I ever enjoyed was located near the Hilton across Avanida La Reforma from the American Embassy in Zona Nueve.

As a big silver A-300 landed on runway Two-zero in front of us my beloved Punch, sitting in the middle Flight Engineer's seat, for this flight ran up the four engines one at a time as we sat at the threshold. It was his father's little Stinson that I earned my private license. Switching the magneto switch while intently watching the green sine wave on his oscilloscope for abnormalities. Finding none and satisfied that all engine gauges, manifold pressure, temperature, cylinder head temperature and the like were 'in the green' he tapped me and gave me a thumbs up. I called the tower.

"Aerolinea Icarus lista en Dos-Cero," I said into the mike. ICAO says that we are all supposed to speak English, but in Centro Americano and the Spanish Islands they appreciate those Norte Americanos who bother to habla.

"Icarus Seven-India-Charley you are cleared for takeoff," came the accented voice from the tower.

"Gracias, La Aurora, hasta manana," I said as I turn forty-five degrees and proceed to the southern end of the runway.

"Vuela con Dios, mi amigo," answered La Aurora.

As we started our takeoff roll, I could barely hear the tower's response. As I said, the roar of four gigantic radial engines producing eight-thousand horsepower with water-injection at METO, Maximum Engine TakeOff power can be loud.

"Gear up," I called to Mitchell in the left seat as soon as we are airborne, "flaps."

"Gear up... And locked... Three green... Flaps up," Mitch responded as soon as the appropriate instruments indicated their changed status.

I pulled the four throttles back past their lock-out gates from 'METO' to 'FULL' and used the yoke to push the nose of the airplane down just a bit. I counted off the seconds. Two, three, four, it takes a while for the elevators located ninety feet behind me to disrupt the airflow and move the airplane. Then I reached down to flip the trim wheels a tiny bit to compensate for the decreased torque. We will orbit the beautiful green bowl that Guatemala City resides in a few times to gain altitude. A voice from the tower came in and we were cleared to climb to "Angels-Fifteen," ten thousand feet above the city, and given the frequency to contact the control center for the flight back home.

Eventually we reach an altitude of 15,000 feet and I level the airplane out and retrim the flight controls. I fine tune all four engine's power, mixture and propeller pitch re-synchronizing them. Punch stands up and steps away from the flight engineers folding seat. Lillian sits down and taps me on the shoulder to get my attention in order to give me her estimates of time and fuel to Miami. As we finish, she notes that Mitch is asleep in the left seat and starts playing with my nipples, gently one at a time through the fabric of my white uniform shirt. Oh, that feels so nice, it is a shame I have to work.

We don't need a fourth crew member on this trip. But usually someone wants to come along when we take whatever we have that will fit onboard after our payload and fuel down to the orphanage at the mission near the lake south of the city. On this trip we had bicycles, tricycles, some toys and lots of clothing together with a big box of new sports equipment. Growing up we didn't have tons of material possessions, but the kids at the orphanage have almost nothing.

I thought of my own relationship with my children, three and five at home in Kendale Lakes with Jamie, their other mother. I wonder if we aren't spoiling them with unimportant material goods, serving them more than teaching them. It's such a hard line to walk. Jamie, my love, she dotes on them. It's really the only argument, the only friendly disagreement that we ever have. I totally understand why she does it. We both wanted more growing up. But while my parents were struggling financially and were away from home working. Hers were around, mostly passed out drunk and disinterested. Jamie just needs for our children to feel wanted and loved.

Flying this ancient twisted- and I mean that literally not figuratively, measurements were regularly taken of the exact amount of twist- aluminum refugee from Douglas' Santa Monica Factory over nearly eight hundred nautical miles of open water was the safe part of the journey there. The ride in the minimally maintained and completely overloaded Toyota pickup trucks with their Kamikaze School Washout drivers from La Aurora to Lago de Amatitlan was the harrowing part of the trip. But it was so worth it when we saw the children there wearing our clothes and playing with our toys. Knowing that they won't have to beg for coins on street corners or sleep in alcoves.

We need Mitch and his wife Mimi, they hold the FAA required type ratings for the DC-6, as does our other four striper, Captain Dale. The ten of us own Icarus, so the seven without type ratings try to fill out the two stripe and three stripe crew positions on each trip and grab as much legal backhaul as we can to maximize our bottom line. Today our backhaul was a full load those wonderful sweet sugar-snap-peas grown in the rich volcanic soil at high elevations above the city. By now George or Kristin is already on the telephone back at either our condo, or his condo in Kendale Lakes lining up buyers for our harvest.

We were and we are what the kids today call polyamorous. Texas granted marriage licenses to George and Kristin and to Punch and Lillian. It will be another ten years before Jamie and I had an official government document officially recognizing our union. It is in Dutch having been granted to us in Willemstad, Curacao. Our children were legal adults before we had a similar document from our home state of Texas, but I am not complaining. Complaining does not help and my girl Eva will be discussing the finer points of scripture with Jesus himself before officialdom recognizes her relationship with Punch and Lillian or the beautiful relationship that the seven of us share.

I wish we could bring commercial quantities of that delicious high-altitude coffee back. That would be very profitable, but the big players in that game have bribed both governments to prevent others from carrying any more than "that for personal use." Said term being gloriously undefined and subject to the daily arbitrary confiscatory whim of the inspectors at MIA. I imagine that between our trips they sit around, and they drink every bit that they steal from us. In the old days you bought a government appointment and lived off the graft; nowadays you get a salary and pension on top of what you confiscate.

Mitch is still asleep in the left seat as the sun sets behind us as we fly predominantly to the east and just a tad north. Punch, Lillian and I shared the coffee and cake in my chart case, before they went back to renew their monthly membership in the mile-high club. Well technically the two-and-a-half-mile high club. I thought about waking Mitch to share some cake but did not want to be cruel. Mitch is kinda like a father figure to us all. Then together we lacked the will power to just save some of the cake for him. Oh well, you snooze you lose.

I wonder if Mitch sleeps sitting up on the couch or in a comfy chair at home, but I don't have the guts to ask Mimi. Actually, it's not guts, it's that I just could never be that rude or presumptuous, I like them. Mitch was sleeping very soundly while sitting on the sofa in the Aerovias Braniff crew lounge when the three of us returned to La Aurora from the Mission. That's a good thing, Lillian and I were able to share some abbreviated quiet time together while Punch was dropping off the paperwork at Ops and checking to make sure that the airplane was fueled, loaded and ready to go.

It was Mitchell's years of flying the Caribbean that made the connections that allow us the use of this beautiful crew lounge in La Aurora's late forties 'old terminal' building. It had a television lounge with three sofas, a proper dining room, a kitchen, two large bathrooms, a room with a washer and dryer as well as several small bunk rooms. Our impromptu make out session was interrupted by Gary an older Aerovias Braniff guy, another Texan. He came in and sat down at the dining room table and began filling out paperwork.

"You ladies want a room?" He said playfully, "I mean together..."

"Nope, we'll just put it on autopilot and have an orgy on top of the snap-peas when we get to altitude." I said.

"Shit, that old thing has an auto-pilot," he said

"Yeah, but it doesn't work, it used to be a Braniff plane..."

It wasn't, although Braniff did run DC-6s to Central and South America, before converting to blowers, jets. In fact, there was a real nice framed photo of a Braniff 'Six' in better days there in the lounge. All clean shinny polished aluminum and accented in black and orange, not grimy and painted light grey like ours. Icarus had three, one each from United, American and Delta, and each one was uniquely different and eccentric.

"You know why?" Gary asked.

"Chief mechanic said it was full of dried semen." Lillian answered smiling.

"Well..." Gary said.

"Cap'n said fuck the autopilot." I joined with Gary in reciting a very, very old punchline.

Then Lillian gave me a quick kiss just to mess with Gary's head a little.

It isn't will power that keeps me from going back into the cabin and joining Lillian and Punch. It's knowing that Seven-India-Charley's primitive autopilot doesn't function well enough for me to step away for the time it takes to do much more than take a leak in the cockpit's chemical toilet. The same seventy-five-pound toilet the government inspector forbids to be secured to the floor while simultaneously requiring that my four-cup thermos bottle be secured. Mitch was in the Air Force, he says "There's a right way to do things, a wrong way to do things and then there is the government mandated way to do things." Ain't that the truth.

I thought about Winston Churchill's often quoted quip that democracy is the worst possible form of government except for all of the other kinds. That's pretty much my feeling on government rules and regulations. We carried three big boxes of Infant formula on the outbound journey because the crap that they sell in Central America is basically just powdered cow's milk. There are rules but they are only for us peons, the big boys bribe their way around them.

I nudged Mitch gently on the arm as we were handed off to Miami Approach Control for our approach and landing in South Florida. It was his turn to land, but he let me. That was cool, I could use the practice, he's done it a lot, he's the only person on this airplane to have had a pilot's license before this plane was built. Miami has a diagonal and three basically parallel runways Two-Seven to the south by the lakes Juan Trippe's old Pan American-Grace Sikorksy Clipper flying boats used. On the north side of the airport side by side sat Two-Six-Left nearer the passenger terminal and Two-Six-Right closer to 36th Street and our leased space. We were cleared for Two-Six-Right.

Soon I would be home, looking at my sleeping children in their beds. At home taking a hot shower. If I was lucky and it wasn't too late, and the day had not been too crazy in my absence. If I was lucky my lover, my girl, the first human being that I was ever intimate with those dozen or so years ago. She, Jamie would be climbing into the shower with me, kissing me deeply tongues touching tongues. Jamie her hands wet and soapy exploring my body as mine explore hers. My mouth tasting and savoring my love, her mouth, her neck, her shoulders, her breasts that nourished our first child together.

Her mouth on mine, kissing my tummy, my sides, my chest, the two breasts that fed our second child together. Us drying one another sensuously as we step from the shower. Big soft terry cloth and a lover's embrace. Soft dabs of towel on sensitized skin, gentle bites on buttocks. My lifting her onto the clear space beside the sink on the vanity. Kissing her hips and her sides, kissing her thighs and her knees. Gently placing my fingertips in the four small golden rings in her greasy outer lips and licking her wonderous lubricant from them. Separating her outer lips and nibbling on her petite inners. Pushing a finger, then two in her sweet silky moistened vagina while licking at her bud hiding...

Oops, not hiding anymore in the warm wet folds at the juncture of her labia. Kissing her, fingering her, slowly at first and then increasingly faster while licking her expanding bud. Sucking on her clitoris as it stands proud from her sex. Feeling the ring muscles inside her vaginal opening strongly grip the three fingers that I am rhythmically fucking her with until she reaches a tipping point. Spasming, gripping my four fingers and ejecting additional lubricant from her excited Skenes gland.

Her taking my hand and walking me to the big comfortable bed with the soft sheets and light blankets that we share blissful sleep and oh, so much love in. Pushing me back onto the mattress. Kissing my ankles and my calves, my knees and my thighs coming to the apex of my thighs. Kissing my hips and my mound my belly and my breasts. Returning to my mound. Nibbling on my labia pulling them out with her mouth aided by the four little barbell studs. Separating my outer lips awash with their fragrant juices and nibbling on the smaller much thinner ones behind. Her tongue traveling the length of my three valleys, flitting across the top of center of pleasurable feeling as it grows to proportions that cause it to come out and play.

A girl can hope.

***

Lisa Ann