“Hey Rabbi, I’m selling some of the original party napkins from Jesus’ Bar Mitzvah.”
“Oh God” I think, “this is going to be an interesting month.” I haven’t flown with Captain Sheamus O’ Conner for a couple of months.
“Hey, Sheamus, I wonder what became of the Rabbi who performed the circumcision on the little baby Jesus… that child-god must have been pissed.”
Sheamus is a twisted, big-hearted schemer, and a great pilot.
We have completed our pre-flight duties on the 747, loaded the INS’s, and have time to catch each other up a bit. Our plane is still about forty minutes from pushback at the Tower Air gate at JFK, still being loaded with “Chassid” bound for Tel Aviv.
Sheamus is busting to fill me in on some of his latest businesses.
“I’ve developed a line of designer condoms. We’ve got paisley, plaids and stripes. I’m calling the company Sergio Preventos.
“Sounds great, Sheamus, sounds like a wiener.”
Now at altitude, already “coasted out” over Gander, our next radio call isn’t due until 50 west. We have our VHF radios set to monitor “guard” on 121.5, “air-to-air” on 131.8, and the HF’s are tuned to receive any “selcalls.” All of this means that we are now established on tonight’s “Natrack” over the North Atlantic, and have forty minutes free to chat, as our eyes automatically monitor the nav and engine instruments.
Wayne Denze, our PFE (professional flight engineer) is still busy with his engine readings, fuel calculations, and paper work.
“Rabbi, you must know why the Israeli’s don’t have a space program? I’ve figured it out… No Kosher food in space. So, I’m working on ‘the Kosher Kosmos,’ I figure its a great niche market. I can cater Kosher food into space, sell it to the Jews, maybe get some start-up capital out of Morris Nachtomi.”
“Can’t miss, Sheamus, D’Conner’s Kosher Kosmos… has a certain Semitic ring to it.”
Sheamus is a large man, always on yo-yo diets, now he’s bigger than ever. “Brucie,” suffering from extreme cock-in-mouth disease, is working the upper deck tonight, and he’s just entered the cockpit with our coffee.
“Brucie, did I tell you Fm working on a new weight-reduction business?”
No shit, Sheamus, what ever happened to your Scratch and Sniff diet business?”
“Shit, I had to fire my de-frocked perfume chemist! No, no, this one’s much better. I’ve got a door-to-door lipo-suction truck. I haven’t come up with a name yet, but were thinkin’ We Suck, Inc."
Bruce has already finished his first service in the back, he’s got some time and some advise.. “You know, you’ve got to be thin to make it in the gay world, so between that name, which I love, and the thin-is-in gay community, you should start your immediate sucking in San Francisco, really.”
“Hell no” offers Sheamus, “We’re gonna build up a quick customer base following the Dominos Pizza delivery trucks all over New York City.”
Wayne, who has finished his fuel calculations, has tuned in to this conversation. “Hey, Sheamus, I got an idea that’ll definitely improve your profits.”
“What’s that, Wayne?”
Wayne, forever the bigot, “why don’t you back-haul the truckloads of sucked-out fat, sell the lipids to the World Health Organization in
Geneva, and they can use your famous O’Connor Lipo-Pump” to squirt a dose of fat into all those skinny niggers, you know, the real skinny ones on them food lines over in Africa… give ‘em a coat of fat for the winter.”
“You can call the sales end of the bid’ness ‘Sharing The Fat of The Land’,” I add.
Brucie has had enough, and quickly turns on his heels and flees the fight deck as Wayne continues, “yeah, you can make money on both the sucking and the pumping… probably get a Nobel Peace Prize out of it, too.” Sheamus turns towards his fight bag and makes some quick notes.
Wayne says “we all know why dogs lick their balls, right? Because they can…. but do you know why lions lick their assholes?”
“No, why?”
To get the taste of the niggers out of their mouths!”
“Holy shit, Wayne,” I say, “give it up… you don’t say shit like that in front of ‘N1’ and ‘N2,’ do you?”
“Sure I do… they know they’re niggers!”
On our aircraft, N1 and N2 are gauges for engine rotation speeds. At our Company, Tower Air, with only two black pilots, these are our “nignames” for our two gents of color. Most pilot’s don’t really give two shits about race, religion, or such. Pilot’s are loved, or truly hated, based only on competency. “Shit-hot” guys are loved… “weak-dick” pilots are detested.
“Wayne” I ask, “why don’t you start calling them Canadians, like everyone else does?”
Sheamus asks me “What’s with this Canadian shit that everyone is spouting?”
“Sheamus,” I say, “the L.A.P.D. uses Canadians on their radio calls now, to avoid being accused of racism. Everybody loved it, that’s all we call them now.”
The INS alert light comes on, were approaching 50 west, and we all go back to work.
“Gander, Tower Air three-one, position on 8736.”
“Go ahead with your position report, Tower Air three-one.”
“Tower Air three-one checks 48 north by 50 west, at time 0431, flight level 350, mach decimal 84. Estimating 50 north, 40 west, 0512, next 50 north, 30 west. Fuel remaining, 110.4, go ahead.”
Gander reads back our position report, its correctly repeated, and we are free again for another forty minutes.
“Sheamus, what happened to that Guam business of yours, Nippers with Flippers, did you sell it?”
“Yeah, I had to when we stopped going to Guam a lot, and I was doing great with it, I sold it to that Air Mike guy, you know.”
“The Continental Air Mike guy with the Beef Jerky Business?”
“Yeah, that’s the guy, the ‘Redwing’ shoe distributor for Guam and Saipan.”
When Sheamus and I worked for Continental Air-Mike, before Tower Air, we would check into the Hilton on Tumon Bay for a week. Then fly day or night turns, between Guam-Saipan and Narita or Nagoya.
Guam and Saipan are only three hours from Japan, tropical Marianna islands. A flood of Japanese escape their bitter winters, vacationing on Guam’s Tumon Bay, now more built up with hotels than Waikiki. Tumon Bay, a once beautiful crescent of beach, with great snorkeling reefs and beautiful fish, is now polluted by the effluents of the Hilton and the Pacific Star hotels. Most of the signs and billboards are written exclusively in Japanese.
While the rest of us would lounge at the Tree Bar pool, drinking beer and trying to get lucky with some young, giggling Japanese secretary on vacation, Sheamus came up with “Nippers with Flippers.”
Sheamus brought in hundreds of pairs of flippers, and snorkel masks from Hawaii. He worked out some rental arrangement with the pool-boys at some of the larger hotels, naming his business “Nippers with Flippers.”
The Japanese loved it, not seeming to mind the racial reference. Happily, Sheamus would stroll the beach each week, collecting his rent. Over the years, this was the only business idea I’ve ever seen Sheamus act on.
Bruce is back… “Your crew meal choices tonight are a pasta something, a rice-vegetable something, and the mystery meat.”
I’m on the radio with Gander, reporting 40 west. They tell me to contact “Shanwick” at 30 west. Sheamus and Wayne are groaning at the choices.
“Aren’t there any first class meals left over?” Asks Sheamus. We all know that the fifteen flight attendants have already scoffed-up any leftover first-class food. Bruce, innocently says that there was no extra first-class food.
“I’ll have a large pepperoni pizza, and a fine Merlot wine,” I order.
Bruce, having heard this from me a hundred times over the years… “Funny, which meals do you want, it’s busy back there. Those fucking New York Jews are just driving me crazy.”
Sheamus opts for the pasta, Wayne settles for the rice and veggies, and I get stuck with the mystery meat.
Wayne asks, “Do you remember the cartoon show years ago, ‘The Jetsons’?”
“Yeah.”
“They just developed a new show, same concept with an all black cast, know what it’s called?”
I bite: “No, what?”
“Niggers!”
“Holy mother of God,” Sheamus shouts, “I wonder what became of the tip?”
“What tip?”
“The tip of the circumcised baby Jesus’ little Jewish dick! Don’t you realize there’s an un-risen portion of the body of Christ sitting somewhere in the dirt of Bethlehem? This is worth a fortune…” Sheamus starts pulling out charts, “…Fuck the Holy Grail, man, Fm going after that little piece of the Son of God!”
“Hey, Rabbi, you going on the Hajj this year?” Wayne’s question takes me by surprise.
“Oh, man, Wayne, the Hajj is only two months away, and it’s snuck up on me again, shit! Ninety days away from home, but that’s where the money is. I guess I’ll have to go.”
Wanda Decker, “The Pussy of Thunder herself,” who is working business class tonight, and is tonight’s lead Flight Attendant, has sent up a new girl to the cockpit. The new meat has been told to introduce herself to us ( and to be set up for her initiation rites, though she doesn’t yet know that ).
“Welcome, welcome”…. All that shit, then we lay it on her…..” Hey, kid, we need for you to take these white garbage bags and tie-ties and collect ozone samples for the Feds at different flight levels…. Did Wanda tell you how to 2”
“No, oh, that’s o.k. it’s easy, here’s what you do… each time we change flight levels we’ll have you take a sample bag-full of air, for the Feds, for the Ozone test. Here’s a magic marker…. Just walk through the cabin and get a great glob of air in a bag, tie it off, write the flight level on it, and by the end of the flight you should have five, maybe six sample bags. … some Fed will meet you at the jetway in the terminal… just hand it to him, and get a receipt. Give the receipt to the head of your In-flight department. Easy, no sweat thanks.”
Watching any Newbie Flight Attendant walk off an airplane holding four or five worthless bags of air, waiting around for some non-existent Fed has always been a hoot… the shit crews do for laughs.