Chris Smith, a better looking Tom Selleck, was a crash pad buddy and flying colleague over at Eastern Metro. Married to a devout Baptist woman, father of two children (his family lived in Charlotte, heart of Jesus’ Heartland ), Chris was always being chased by the ladies, sometimes successfully.
Chris was the first of our gang to be hired by a Major Airline, every Atlanta based Commuter pilot’s first choice, Piedmont Airlines. He came back to visit all of us at our College Park complex, after completing Initial Indoctrination. We were rapt as he described the President of Piedmont’s greeting to Chris’ new hire class on their first day: “Welcome to Piedmont, the last Airline you’ll ever work for!” Man, that sounded great, what a lucky guy.
Months later, we meet up again, and he tells me about his first trip as a brand new Second Officer/Flight Engineer. “The Captain and everybody were great, all real nice to me,” he says. It was a five day trip, and he’s not sure, but he thinks the girl Sue, serving the coffee and meals to the cockpit, is coming on to him. “She’s been kinda brushin’ up” against his back, arm and shoulders as she goes forward to hand the Pilot’s their coffee and meals, he’s not certain, but “some of it might have been unnecessary,” and he’s heard all the stories about layovers and such.
On their third night out, now in Savannah, the crew gets together in the evening for drinks… they’re not flying again until the next evening. Everybody’s chatting and sipping, and suddenly a real mellow live band kicks up in the cocktail lounge. The whole crew jumps up together, all ready to dance. They laugh at their own eagerness, this is great, nice people, laid back. Eventually, Chris is dancing one number with the cockpit queen that he thought may have been coming on to him. She is very reserved on the dance floor, very proper, but when nobody is looking, she slips her room key into his pocket, whispering for him to wait at least an hour after she leaves and before he shows up… be discreet… Holy Shit, it’s gonna happen.
Chris waits about half an hour after the girl, Sue, has left. He excuses himself, says goodnight and goes to his room. While he waits, he brushes his teeth, applies more deodorant and recombs his hair. Finally, gently, he lets himself out of his room, and quietly makes his way to Sue’s room. Knocking softly, he lets himself in… she’s in the shower, yelling for him to get himself a drink (there are minis and ice on a sideboard), and to join her in the shower. Chris knocks back a fast vodka, rocks…. “it hasn’t even had a chance to cool down, but I needed it for my nerves,” he laughs. Then he strips naked and pulls back the shower curtain. “Welcome to Piedmont Airlines!” the whole crew yells, sitting, hiding on the floor of the tub in their bathing suits, Sue standing there in hers. They are laughing and pointing with glee… Chris is the only one balls naked, he’s been had. It turned out all right he shyly smiles, finishing his story.
Last time I saw Chris, he and his very Baptist wife, Kathy, visited me and Geri at our apartment in Honolulu. While the girls were shopping, Chris and I walked along Kapiolani Park, up the trail to Diamond Head. Chris was real upset as he told me the latest,” and I could tell he had been holding back, wanting to get me alone for this. Seems he had taken up with a Flight Attendant who had her home in Atlanta. On layovers in Atlanta, schedules permitting, they would shack-up at her house, a few bedrooms of which she rented out to two openly gay, male flight attendants. She was a “liberated, sex-loving lady,” he says.
One morning he wakes early in her bedroom suite. He’s got an early morning show, she’s got the day off. So as not to wake her, he’s quietly using her master bathroom, going through his routine… he shaves, showers and dresses in uniform, “all real quiet like, so as not to disturb her rest.”
As he re-enters the bedroom, he is instantly repulsed. She is doing the two gay male flight attendants in her bed, the bed Chris crept out of only an hour earlier. She’s taking them both at the same time, one in the mouth and the other in her pussy.” The guy whose dick is in her mouth, is deeply tongue-kissing his buddy, the other guy, “over the top.” Chris wants to puke.
This is the age of AIDS, it’s 1987, and his lady friend never felt it necessary to tell Chris that she was also fucking the two gay guys. Chris is crying, sobbing now in my arms, as he finishes his story. He really loves his wife. They have been married eight years, have two young sons, and she’s a devout Christian woman who attends church regularly, in Charlotte, their home town. “I know,” he says through his tears, “I did it to myself, but God, I don’t want to do this to her!”
I hold him around, comforting him. He doesn’t know if he’s got AIDS, worse, he doesn’t know if he has passed it along to his wife. There are no quicky tests as yet, and prevailing wisdom is that at least five-years must pass before you’ll ever know. He is wracked with guilt, faced with indecision. Should he tell his wife, or not?
God, I feel for him, another pecker-induced mistake, common to the airline industry.