There i was at 30,000 feet

 THERE I WAS AT 30,000 FEET

 

 

So I am on this airplane.   I hate flying, but, as my destination would take me 20 years to walk, well, I had no choice.  I had to use fake documents to get on the plane because I am a wanted man.

 

So I am bullshitting with one of the stewardesses trying to get into her pants.  Why I want to get into her pants is a mystery, because they are at least two sizes larger than I wear.  And, for whatever reason, I make up this story how I was a fighter pilot during the Persian Gulf War. 

 

“What kind of plane did you fly?”

 

Not having a clue, I respond with the first thing that popped into my head,

“Ehh...one of those real fast ones.”

 

 

She gets up and walks away and I silently curse myself and make a mental note not to tell stories in which I have no idea what I’m talking about.

 

I’m bored and start looking around for someone’s balls to break. I am a master ball breaker;   I am infamous far and wide for this daunting ability. There is this older woman next to me, actually she was probably 15 years younger but everyone is older than I,. even 15 year olds.  Can’t do that to her.

 

So I’m looking around and spot this boy who looks about 8 or 9 and this story pops into my head about the wing eating monsters that just happen to live in this area of sky.  And it might be a good idea if he kept watch on the left wing and I will do the same on the right wing.   Just in case they appear.  S**t! Can’t do that either; besides, his Mom looked like she could kick my a*s; the last thing I need in my pathetic existence is to lose a fight to a woman.

 

 

I am compelled to amuse myself; which is bad news, because it only gets me into trouble.   I start thinking about mass murderers, not the John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy types but the Crème de La Crème of mass murderers Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot.  So I zero in on Pol Pot and wondered how does a monster (no way a man) wake up one morning and decide to empty all the cities in Cambodia in order to create a Utopian agrarian society.  Did the idea just pop into his head or was it something he was working on over the years?  Sorta like his doctorate thesis coming together?

 

I read Thomas More’s Utopia and quite sure it didn’t include killing over two million people.  Besides, the arm strength alone required to off so many people is a Herculean feat in itself.  Back when I was killing a whole bunch of people the highest I got up to was between 150/175  and I had to take a few days off.

 

All of a sudden “whoosh” the plane drops about one thousand feet in less then a second.  It starts veering left then right and everyone is screaming “We’re going to die!”  That always pisses me off because you are going to die the question becomes will it be now!  I got to hand it to men they are not screamers, woman on the other hand can scream at the drop of a hat,  S**t, they scream when they get engaged. 

 

The stewardess  is giving her fake “everything is cool” smile and makes her ways to the cabin, knocks on the door and enters.  She comes out five seconds later and her face is white as a ghost and her eyes are the size of silver dollars.  Shock, I recognize it immediately.  She makes a Bee line to me and since she is in shock, she thinks she is whispering but she is actually screaming into my ear, “THE PILOTS ARE DEAD, THERE IS NO ONE TO FLY THE PLANE, CAN YOU?” The women start screaming again.

 

I’m annoyed and wondering why she is laying this hubris on me.  Then I remember  that stupid fighter pilot story.  I look around the plane and all eyes are on me.  I feel like breaking out into laughter and saying “you friggers are dead, man”  But the little boy’s eyes catch mine and it breaks my heart.  So, I mentally sigh and stand up and address the people. 

 

Now, being a hero is totally alien to my character.   I hate it, it’s not me.  Absurdly, I recall the deep sea fishing trip I was on some years back, rough seas and three quarter of my buds have their heads over the side vomiting uncontrollably.  What do I do?  Of course I and another bud look at each other and we start cutting the heads off some fishes, stick them in our mouths and shove our faces in front of our dying, vomiting friends.  That is who I am.

 

S**t!  “Fear not fellow sojourners, I shall take the helm of this winged chariot and guide us safely back to mother Gaia’s arms.”  Not a bad speech, however, the entire plane starts screaming even the men this time and I recognize my mistake.  “What I mean is that I was a fighter pilot and I can fly this sucker.”   The people break into cheers.  They start slapping me on the back as I head towards the cockpit.  I have an annoyed fake smile on my face but I am doing it for the kid and I figure false hope is better then no hope at all.

 

I enter the cockpit and Wow!!!  Blood everywhere!  I look around for Freddy Kruger, Michael Meyers or that Jason dude.  Such horror!  The stewardess hands me a note.  My head wraps around absurdity fairly easily, it defines my existence.  This was tough.  Apparently the pilot and co-pilot were homosexual lovers who decided to execute a mutual suicide pack.  Of course, airport security being what it is, they couldn’t bring sharp weapons on board; so they pecked themselves to death with those toothpicks with the cheap umbrellas on it.  The kind you pay $30.00 a drink for in the islands.  Who could make this up?

 

I am torn between admiration and sheer horror.  I estimate it took between 10,000 and 15,000 pecks to produce this much damage.  They had to be at it for at least three hours.  I shuttered.  I’m not anti-suicide, it is a personal decision, however, went you involve one hundred and seventy five other people, well, it is beyond rude,  I grab the bodies and toss them aside.  I sit down at the nearest seat.  “Don’t you think you should sit at the captain’s seat?”  I look at the stewardess like she has two heads.  “Can you really bring us safely home?”

 

She is annoying me so I tell her the truth.  “I know I can bring us down, it is the safely part that I am not feeling warm and fuzzy about.”  She faints and drops like a sack of potatoes.  Good Riddance! She was a pain in the a*s.

 

I sit down at the captain’s seat and survey the instrument panel.  I do not panic in emergencies, I am serious.  I guess my life has been one emergency after another.  Certain death?  Been there!

So I figure if two a******s that peck themselves to death with umbrella toothpicks can fly, why can’t  I..  I curse engineers because there are entirely two many switches and gages on the panel.  Should be only about six, take off, fly and land and a couple gages for wind speed and altitude but that is it..

 

Stupidly I think about the Oddpoet theorem,  which states that everyone is an a*****e, it is just a matter of degree.  The so called professional types, the engineers, doctors, lawyers, judges?  I have absolutely no respect for them.  Why people hold them with such regard is a mystery to me. 

 

The airplane is veering right and then left so I try to get it somewhat straight careful not to overcompensate.  Dam, it worked.  We are flying more than less true. I spot some headphones and say cool!  Catch some tunes , maybe some W.I.M. or “The End” by the doors, appropriate!  I hear panicked voices on the other end.  A radio!  S**t,  things are looking up. 

 

I do not know airplane radio speak but I do know a smattering of that redneck, CB talk which was the craze in the 1970’s.  So I say what I know.  “Breaker, breaker, one nine,  what’s your twenty?  Ten-four good buddy, I’m laying the hammer down.” 

I hear on the other end.

“Who is this a*****e!

Normally I would skewer the frig but I have bigger fish to fry.

‘This is the a*****e sitting in the captains chair, dick!”

“What happened to the pilots?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Terrorist attack?”

“Technically no, looks like a mutual suicide”

“That is rude!”

“No s**t!”

 

“Do you have any flying experience?”

“I did have the Microsoft flight simulator but I threw it out the windows after I crashed on takeoff sixty consecutive times.”

“This is not good.”

 

“Listen, is there an auto-pilot here I am trying to stabilize the plane.”

“Yea, hold on.”

I can hear muffled voices on the other end of the radio.

“Okay, it is on the left hand side, halfway down the panel.”

 

I’m looking all over and I can’t find the sucker.

“Can’t find the frigger, how is it labeled?”

More muffled voices…

“It is labeled CPZ271.”

Of course!

 

I find it and flip the sucker,  Sure enough, I hear a hissing sound to my left and a blowup doll inflates in the co-pilot’s chair. 

“You got to be shitting me.”  I lose it for a few seconds.

“Yea, just like the movie.”

 

The plane stabilizes and he walks me through punching some co-ordinates for the location of the nearest airport. 

The plane accelerates briefly and executes a turn. S**t this is cake.  Okay,

“The auto pilot has this under control I’m going to get drunk.”  

It was rhetorical, but I heard an “Ehhh” on the other end.  I wasn’t in the mood for an Ehhh…

 

“What?”

 

“The auto pilot can not land the plane, it has to be done manually.”

 

I’m having a real bad day and it’s getting worse.

 

“Are you friggin kidding me?”

“Don’t you feel that landing is the single most important aspect of this flying business.”

I’m really pissed.

“Otherwise, why don’t we just tie rockets to our asses and hope for the best!”

 

“We’re working on that.”  Was the sheepish reply.

 

Then the radio went out.

 

Sometimes you just have to hang it up.  It’s simply goodnight Irene time.  I slam the headphones to the deck,   Dickweed wakes up from her faint. 

“Where are we?”

I look at her in disgust and tell her to fetch me as many bottles of vodka she can get her hands on.

“Why?”

I give her the look and she hurries out the cabin and returns with a handful of those small airplane bottles.  I down three of them and I light a cigarette and put my feet up on the console.  I’m going out with attitude; styling to the very end.

 

“You can’t smoke here!”

“As your captain I hereby suspend all rules and regulations, do you want to have sex?”

 

I can see the dumb b***h was actually thinking about it. 

 

Could have been the vodka and the cigarette but I start rooting around the cabin for some book or checklist.  I find a weather report and briefly think about making an announcement, “This is your captain, it will be sunny and 79 degrees in Los Angeles when we meet are fiery deaths, drinks are on the house.”  I try the radio set and again…nothing. 

 

And then… there it was, under the flight panel,  protruding slightly, “flying for dummies”

I ignored the ramifications of such a book on an airplane.

 

I will not bore you with the details but with the help of the book I was able to get us within striking distance of the airport.  I could smell blood.  I said goodbye to the auto pilot, and lower the flaps and landing gear. Too fast., I decreased speed and brought us lower, inching closer to that sacred place called earth.  The things we take for granted,  walking along a beach so simple yet,  how sweet it seemed now. 

 

I could see the earth about 40 feet below.  Too fast!  It was balls to the wall time.  I cut the power completely, we drop and bounce up, down, up.  Each impact accompanied by the screams from the passenger section.  Frig them!  We finally stay on the ground.  But, I am struggling to keep the sucker from veering off the runway.  I hit the reverse thrust, the only switch properly labeled.  The engines roared to life and we come to a stop. 

 

I allow my self a brief self satisfied smile and reminded myself what a bad a*s Mo Fo I am.  I hear the screams of joy from the cabin and I’m glad the boy will live another day.  The rest?  They will die in their own time.

 

“We did it! We did it!”  Dickweed is alternating between hugging me and doing that stupid survivor dance people do when they escape certain death.

I stared at her in amazement.  “Yea, we did.”

“At the press conference I will make sure you get credit for what you did.”

“Very kind of you Hon, you were an inspiration throughout the crises.”

“You really think so?”

“No, but let’s make like sheep and get the flock out of here.”

 

I had to rip her makeup thingy out of her hands and push her out the cockpit..  And people wonder why I hate people.

I open another bottle and down it.  I lit another  smoke and took four deep hits., died it out, put my baseball cap on, aviator shades, grabbed my carry on and I split..

 

It wasn’t hard to get lost in all the confusion.  I was a wanted man.  I couldn’t afford  to be congratulated just before they threw me in the joint.  I got out of the airport and took a cab to a seedy section of town,   A place where the wanted and unwanted  live.  Home! I found a cheap motel and got a room. 

 

I broke into the liquor cabinet, it didn’t matter, I wasn’t paying for it anyway.  I was no longer who I use to be.  I was a series of fake id’s and stolen credit cards.  If I wanted something I took it!  Only a******s asked, the law taught me that.

 

I took a drink and lit a smoke and I planned my next bank job.

 

To be continued…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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