Beware of Flight Attendant

by Cactus Moloney

  “Good morning, welcome aboard Flight 982, leaving Las Vegas non-stop to Miami, Florida. This is Captain Morgan speaking. The weather is clear, so it should be smooth sailing. Plan on working on your tan in less than five hours. The beaches are waiting folks! If you can give our in-flight service director your full attention, they will now lead the safety announcement.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen…boys and girls…and everyone else!” The animated voice of the male flight attendant resonated over the intercom. “Please follow along with our lovely flight attendant, Carmen, for the safety presentation. You can also find this information in the instruction card in the seat pocket in front of you.”

  Carmen stood next to Ezra’s daddy’s seat while she presented the safety demonstration. Ezra could smell the woman’s jasmine perfume. Ezra ogled the lady's legs; they were shiny, tan, and smooth. On her petite frame, Carmen wore a navy blue, knee-length skirt, a white-collared, short-sleeve shirt and a navy sweater vest hugging her curvaceous figure. Ezra admired the woman’s thin, muscular arms. Maybe, Ezra thought, someday she could be strong. She hoped.

  The flight attendant’s skin glowed from the Miami humidity, fruity lotions, and plenty of sunshine. She wore a glistening, dainty gold watch on one arm and two gold bangles on the other. Ezra watched the bangles slide up and down her smooth arms, as she handled the demonstration materials, beginning with the life jacket.

  “A life jacket is located under your seat. To put it on, place it over your head.” Carmen pulled the demo version over her head, clipping on the waistband belt; she pulled it tight as instructed.

  “Please do not inflate it while you are still inside the aircraft.”

  Carmen pointed to the exit rows.

  “An evacuation slide and life raft are at each door.”

  “In case of emergency, oxygen masks will drop down in front of you. Please pull the mask down towards your face, then place the mask over your mouth and nose.”

  She watched Carmen’s French manicured nails open and close the snap on the demonstration seatbelt, completing the safety announcement.

  Ezra was a nervous thirteen-year-old. When feeling anxious, she chewed her nails, forming puny, pink stubs at the end of her long thin dark fingers. When she could no longer access any bits of nail, she would begin pulling out her kinky black hair one strand at a time to ease her nerves. She looked it up online, she had trichotillomania; a disorder causing her to pull her own hair out.

  Ezra was born in Las Vegas.

  “We moved for new opportunities,” her daddy had explained about his apparent opportunity to drive a limousine in Las Vegas and move from his hometown in Melbourne, Florida.

  Ezra had colic when she was born and had screamed for hours. At the same time her mother was diagnosed with postpartum depression, leaving her unable to deal with the inconsolable sick infant. Her parents were young, in a new place, with no friends or family. This forced her daddy to take care of Ezra. Her daddy Darnell was her hero.

  Dressed in a black suit and tie with dark shades over his eyes, he would bring the long sleek limousine home after his shift, offering Ezra and her friends’ free rides down the Las Vegas Strip. The girls would sing along with Rihanna, belting out Live your Life.

  She knew her daddy would keep her safe from that dog. Her daddy, Darnell, was looking at her now with concern. He was watching her fidgety big brown eyes nervously looking back at the dogs behind her.

  “Did ya know my family had a dog when I was a li'l boy?” Darnell asked Ezra.

  She looked over at him all relaxed in the seat next to her. He was leaned back with his legs splayed outward in worn out gray sweatpants, white Nike high tops, and a black L.A. Raiders t-shirt.

  She was surprised to hear he had a dog—he didn’t like dogs either.

  She shook her head no.

  “Yep, his name was Moses, medium-size brown mutt. He liked all us kids, when we was playing outside. He was always bark’n and jump’n up and down from his doghouse he was tied to cross the yard. We tried to give him attention as much as we could. Throw’n him scraps after breakfast and dinner. Pops wasn’t so mean to that dog, and sometimes he would even talk to him like he was a person when he come home from work.”

  “He would say, ‘Moses you chase off them scumbags today?’” Her daddy smiled. “Then pops would tell him he was a good guard dog.”

  “Did you touch the dog?” Ezra asked him, her dark eyes opened wide.

  “Like I say, Moses was more of guard dog, we touched him plenty when we would feed him. We liked to just pat him on the head, with him rubbin' his filthy body hard against our skinny selves…taken in what he could.”

  The story was taking her mind off the big dog and the irritable little dog seated behind her. It was taking her mind off the high-pitched whining airplane engine.

  She was curious about her daddy’s dog.

  “What happened to Moses?”

  “Oh, it didn’t end so well for the mutt. Not that any dog deserves what happened to Moses. My sister, your aunt Evette...who we’re gonna see in Miami...was thinking it was time someone give Moses a bath. She took it upon herself to bring him around the front of the house and tie him off to the parked car, so she could reach the hose. She scrubbed him good and shiny. Talk’n to him sweet the whole time. She said she even dug out the crusty boogers stuck in his eyes. She loved that dog the only way she know how.

  You know how eight-year-olds is, so she ran off and got distracted, leave’n Moses to dry after his bath in that humid Florida air. Mimi needed to run to the store to buy cigarettes. She sat on the velvet driver’s seat of that old faded blue Buick, lit up her last smoke, pulled the shifter to R and reversed out of the driveway. The dog tied to the passenger rear bumper stumbled along the side of the vehicle, running the neighborhood streets, before reaching US 1. Then she flicked the blinker left, flicked her cigarette out the window, and accelerated to forty-five-miles-per hour. Mimi started hearing the cars honking and seeing the people waving frantically from their rolled down windows. This of course made her all the more nervous.”

  “Eventually, she slowed down and looked in her rear-view mirrors; everything looked fine from the left mirror, then she glanced in the right rear mirror to see the limp dog dragg’n behind her.”

  “Daddy what did Mimi do…was Moses dead?” Ezra’s big eyes were filled with tears from the visual of this poor animal’s ordeal, even if it was a dog.

  “Nearly dead. Moses was far-gone. I won’t get into the gory details. She got him to the vet and put him out of his misery.”

  They both heard the plane speaker crackle to life. Daddy had distracted her. Ezra hadn’t even noticed they were in the air.

  “This is your captain speaking. We have reached a cruising altitude of 32,000 feet and I have turned off the seatbelt signs. Please feel free to get up and walk around the cabin. Thanks again for choosing Freedom Airlines and we hope you enjoy the rest of the flight.”

  14 Senator Mike Young

  The senator reclined the third-row leather first-class seat. He chose the aisle to make himself more available to the enthusiastic world traveler, Derek Beeman, who sat one seat diagonally behind him in row 4D.

  His assistant, Stacy was scrolling her iPhone, leaned against the window, next to him. Her long legs were crossed and the top button on her blue and white striped shirt had popped open, exposing the top of her tanned cleavage. The senator hardly noticed the near forty-year-old Stacy. She never bothered him, quietly getting things done.

  He was more interested in Derek; aware the enthusiastic Australian was cozying up to him at the bar. At this point he was curious about what Derek had planned to gain by this budding friendship with a Florida senator—he was suspicious of what the Aussie might want. A better question was, what could he gain from Derek? The senator smirked causing the scar on his cheek to stretch upward to form a thin Gamakatsu fishing hook snagging his face.

  The senator tightened his lips, thinking back to the
hefty weight of the impressive Pitbull, as it shook the plane on boarding. He had watched it carefully amble ahead of an elderly lady, her muumuu covered in red poinsettias, leading her in a parade like a queen. She wobbled precariously, leaning on a cane with a silver elephant for a handle. The dog had locked its luminous amber eyes with the senator for a split second, showing no sign of interest before trudging past.

  He reached up and touched the thin line, running diagonally from his cheek to his lip. People told him it was hardly noticeable. He put foundation on the scar to conceal it from questions and stares—as well as his own vanity—only letting his guard down with his family.

  “It looks like Captain Hook’s hook,” his daughters would tease him about looking the part of the villain in their favorite story.

  “Watch out!” He would run after the squealing girls. “It’s going to hook you with kisses!”

  Sitting in his cushy seat, with a drink in hand, the senator prepared his thoughts for an upcoming debate with a democratic opponent. He needed to show the appearance of goodwill and accommodation to both his voters and wealthy donors. Recently, he had voted for a federal court judge, who had been highly undesirable on the left. The new conservative justice was strongly anti-abortion, making this a monumental victory for the Republican Party. The senator was tenacious in his anti-abortion stance and voiced this objective to the conservative Palm Beach district. He had been given no choice but to vote for the disliked judge, or the voice of his constituents would be heard in the ballot box come November. He had angry liberal Florida voters, outside vocal feminists, and activists in favor of women's healthcare, infiltrating his offices, demanding answers to his vote.

  The issue making him uncomfortable was that the new judge supported ending government subsidized low-income grants that helped pay for women’s healthcare. The senator had recognized the need for affordable healthcare after visiting an alternative school in Brevard County. The school was attempting to set up a daycare facility that would help young mother students wanting to complete their education. He respected these young black and Latino women for choosing to take the difficult road; raising a child while still being adolescents themselves. The girls had surrounded him, explaining that if they were able to obtain free birth control, they would promise to use it.

  “They’re always asking for a handout,” the senator told a pompous congressman, while sitting on the passenger side of the golf cart. “It sounded almost like they were threatening me…with babies and abortions, that is.”

  Then the idea slammed him like a golf ball to the noggin; if young women could prevent pregnancy—then they could also prevent abortions. The senator hated abortion, and most of the people he socialized with also condemned it. All agreeing it would be best for poor people to stop reproducing.

  “Certainly, you don’t want these poor colored people, making more brown babies,” he had asked the same pompous congressman, as the man took his shot for par on the eighth hole.

  The senator adamantly claimed to be the least racist person he knew. He was well aware of what was right and wrong, having grown up the son of a Florida judge.

  “Everyone knows there is a difference between them,” his judge father repeatedly told him when he was growing up. “Son, you remember now...a nigg-a is your friend...and a nigg-er I put in prison.”

  The senator voiced his brilliant idea to provide poor women with government-subsidized birth control to a group of deciders at the country club. The men sat in wingback, forest-green leather chairs, in a warmly lit cigar room. Tobacco smoke created a dreamy blue filter throughout the space. Two thick wooden doors, beautifully carved with palm trees, separated the smoking room from the elegant mahogany bar. The ballroom-sized area was adorned with chandeliers, twinkling in the afternoon light. The warm glow came from the goliath windows that faced out onto the lakes, dotting the golf course beyond.

  The response was not what he had been hoping for.

  “We need to make it clear, this idea of free birth control is not an option,” the governor responded to the senator’s appeal.

  “I have research backing me up.”

  The senator pulled out a manila envelope. It held printed documents, organized by color-coded paper clips. “Look here, this graph shows how fifty percent of abortions could be prevented if women had access to affordable care.”

  “Mike, we do not think giving away American taxpayers money is the way to end baby killings,” said a Florida congressman leaning back in a huff. “We finally have the opportunity to end abortion for good. Why the hell would we take halfway on this issue, when we can have the whole Goddamn thing?”

  “Think of the Medicaid, food stamps, and housing costs the taxpayer could save if all these poor people stopped having all those babies,” Mike responded to the congressman.

  Another deep-pocketed billionaire, superstore titan, and big donor cleared his throat, and then he took several puffs from his cigar.

  “It would be in your best interest to keep your thoughts to yourself from now on Mike. I’m not paying for some floozy to fuck for free.”

  The senator slunk back into his chair and didn’t speak the rest of the afternoon.

  “Maybe these boss guys aren’t so pro-life after all,” he had whined to his wife after the meeting.

  “It’s a dog-eat-dog world Mike.”

  She never coddled him.

  The church didn’t form his ideology, science did. He had read that the chance of being born was ten followed by 2,640,000 zeroes; less chance of being born than all the atoms in the universe.

  “It’s a miracle of science,” he mumbled the enigma to himself.

  The senator always liked science, following the numbers, statistics, and facts. He had thrown these ideologies away to pander to his audience. His convictions no longer mattered.

  He knew saving the environment was a lost cause at this point. All the coral reefs and large animals would be gone in the next twenty years. One hundred corporations produced most of the carbon emissions in the world. Those corporations weren’t going anywhere; a single-family recycling plastic water bottles to help the environment was laughable. Miami was already under water.

  “We are having the Florida government stop using the unsubstantiated claims of global warming and climate change, along with the word sustainable,” the Florida Governor had informed the senator and several colleagues after a fundraising luncheon. “The misdirecting words will be removed from any government communications or reports.”

  “Hey Mike, are you sleeping?” He heard Derek ask from one row back.

  When the senator turned to face Derek, he found the man was holding a mixed drink in his hand, displaying a politician’s grin.

  “So, what were you doing in Vegas?” Derek queried, stirring his drink with the plastic straw.

  “I had a meeting with an investment group. They have expressed interest in helping grow the Florida economy.” The senator shot a wide-tooth grin back to Derek, spewing the same bullshit rhetoric he always did. “It could mean more jobs and better pay for hundreds of Floridians.”

  Derek feigned interest, nodding his head with vigor.

  “What would this group be investing in, Senator?”

  The politician responded with a one-word answer.

  “Energy.”

  The senator took a moment to contemplate the future of his home state. After agreeing to work with the investment group on the energy deal, he envisioned the apocalyptic postcard scene; beachgoers pointing at hundreds of black rigs, pumping oil in front of the spectacular tangerine and peach sun as it set over the Gulf of Mexico coastline.

  “It sounds intriguing,” Derek said. “Anything to help with the economy, right?

  The first-class flight attendant, a middle age woman, with faded auburn hair twisted into a bun, approached him and introduced herself as Nancy. The senator didn’t care.

  “Would you like the chicken cordon bleu or the beef Wellington, Senator Young?”
r />   The senator was still feeling satiated from the chicken wings he had eaten at the airport bar.

  “I’m not hungry—bring me another martini—extra dirty this time.”

  “Do you like speedboats, Senator?” Derek asked as soon as the flight attendant returned to the galley. “After we land I’m planning on doing some extreme sightseeing. The plan is to cruise the speedboat used in the original Miami Vice television program that starred Don Johnson.”

  Derek’s big hands motioned energetically, as he described the power held by the captain of these agents of speed.

  “Senator you should really try it,” Derek encouraged him. “That is—being captain of a speedboat.”

  “I have the afternoon free, right Stacy?” The senator asked his assistant.

  “By the way,” Derek queried the senator. “Have you heard about the manatee conservation group with the FWC?”

  15 Nick O’toole

  The food cart had already clanked passed his row. He waved away the cracker and cheese gourmet snack kit the flight attendant had offered. He always said no to foods containing carbohydrates or dairy. Sitting across the aisle from him, he noticed the ponytailed, crooked-faced guy, had also passed on the snack pack. Nick assumed the man couldn’t eat crackers, because he was missing the right side of his jawbone.

  Nick was waiting impatiently for the drink cart to pass. He frequently darted his head into the aisle to see if it had progressed. The man next to him did the same. Nick was craving a V8 juice. Planning to mix it with a packet of On the Go Green Juice Protocol to supply the optimum electrolyte-vitamin punch needed on this germ-infested flight. Nick reached above his head to twist the air pressure knob and stop any re-circulated air from blowing directly on him. He admired his defined bicep as he twisted the dial shut. Looking back at his phone the screen showing black from looking away temporarily. Seeing his reflection on the face, he smoothed the top of his red hair back in one sweeping motion before swiping the screen to glow bright again.