by Andy Schell
And poor Winston. He’s been driving me to this moment since the day at the baseball park. He can’t stand my attempt to be legitimate, to be gay, to be myself. He’s resented that I’ve refused to walk the same straight line that he does, making it impossible for all of us to have a comfortable prosperous life. But now that I’m finally doing it he’s trying to derail me. Forget it. I’m marrying Amity. And getting my inheritance. For all the right reasons.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Amity’s five-year-anniversary “Award Ceremony” with the air line is tonight. It’s only June, but it’s the hottest day of the year so far. The stagnant air is dripping with humidity, causing leaves on the trees that line our street to hang heavy and cast shadows of resignation on the baking pavement. Like Wichita, Dallas has no oceans or mountains to temper its weather, or even give its air a salt or pine scent. The heated Texas earth forces the air to rise up high into the atmosphere, where it cools and forms huge cumulonimbus structures that serve as a patchwork blanket fiddled with holes. The sun blazes through the voids in vertical streams that bear down on us as if we’re ants under a magnifying glass.
We have both of the wall-unit air conditioners blasting in the house (we bought a second one, after cashing the enormous check my mother wrote me the day we left Wichita), so we’re somewhat relieved from the heat as we get ready for the big hoedown. The party is being held in a ballroom of some downtown hotel and requires formal attire. These events are renowned at the airline. It’s a chance for all the employees to put on their TV star clothes and go up on stage and accept awards for things like “Five Years of Perfect Attendance” (you have no life) and “Most Inspirational
Employee” (misguided zealot), but most importantly, stand around and get drunk while gossiping about whoever is out of earshot. It’s that magic night when the stewardesses get their chance to meet the unknowing wives of the pilots they’ve fucked on their layovers. Then all the employees sit at tables of eight and eat gristly prime rib while the president of the airline, Mr. Gherkin, a highly religious man who doesn’t drink or smoke (and has a legendarily tiny penis), tells them he wouldn’t be able to live without his devoted workers. Amity showed me a recap of last year’s ceremony in an old issue of the employee paper. It was a gushy article with lots of splashy pictures that culminated in the coverage and photo of the “Employee of the Year,” a dead ticket agent who had died in a single-car accident and was lauded for her “irrepressible good humor, kindness, and honesty.” Amity told me the inside story was that there were two sets of tire tracks on that fated highway; the ticket agent was a prissy bitch with breast implants who, after she’d threatened to go to his wife, was run off, the road by the executive VP she’d been having an affair with.
I sit on the edge of the tub and watch while Amity patiently separates her hair into clumps and puts those clumps into rollers, winding them up, one by one. She’s dropped the formality of boxer shorts and camisole and stands naked, her freshly showered ass to my face.
“Hey, baby, did you know that Eva Catrell is going to be there tonight with her shit-kicker boyfriend?”
My first trip at the airline I flew with Eva Catrell, who tried to get me to fuck her while we were on a layover in Amarillo. I had dinner with her, and she suggested we go back to her room, where she gave me a Valium and poured me a drink, and we lay down on her bed. She told me she always brought her vibrator on her layovers, but loved when she didn’t have to use it. Get it? This gal was rough around the edges, tougher than most of the guys I’d slept with. “Rode hard and put up wet,” as Amity would say. When I
realized she wasn’t offering me her vibrator as a loan, I got off the bed and headed for the door, but before I got out of the room, she stuck her tongue down my throat. The next day, she drank Bloody Marys on the last flight and insisted on taking me home with her, since it was too late to commute to Kansas. I begged off and let her drop me at what I claimed was a friend’s apartment house where I called a cab to take me to a hotel.
“Oh great,” I say.
“Don’t worry,” Amity answers, finishing up on her hair. “I’m sure she didn’t tell her boyfriend that she French-kissed you, Harry!”
“I bet her pussy tastes like sourdough biscuits and campfire logs.”
Amity screams with laughter. “Ooh, baby, you gotta get some of that!”
“No, I don’t,” I say. “I’m just getting to know little Virginia here.”
Amity turns around, naked, her hair in rollers, barely any makeup on, and somehow looks like the most elegant woman on Earth. “And little Virginia is quite pleased to know you,” she answers with gracious esteem.
We’re heading down Mockingbird, in my dented but paid-off BMW (another benefit from Mom’s generously written check), on our way to Central Expressway, and I ask Amity, “Did you read that the House of Representatives passed legislation that cuts federal money to states who have drinking ages below twenty-one?” Texas’s legal drinking age is nineteen. “So they say Texas is going to probably raise the drinking age.”
“That’s not fair!” Amity whines, toking on a joint. She’s wearing a dark maroon floor-length velvet dress that has a slit up the side. “How are young drivers going to cope with Suicide Express?” “They could drink lots of 3.2 beer.”
“That’s not good enough, Harry. You need a shot of whiskey to get on this bad boy.”
“Amity, that’s a great idea! We should set up a series of HA Roadside Whiskey Stands at every on ramp. Sell little shots of Jack Daniel’s to people about to enter the expressway.”
“Yes!” Yay-yus.t “And give them little pep talks like, “Y’all are great!” and “Go git ‘em!” “
“And sell double shots to those fat, fraidy-cat housewives in those tan ky station wagons, and give advice like, “Punch the shit out of the accelerator and close your eyes!” “
We quit joking, have a moment of silence, as we approach the expressway.
“Get ready,” Amity whispers, pretending to straighten up. Our mission is to catapult onto Suicide Express, head south, and somehow arrive downtown alive. I’m behind the wheel, but Amity’ s hair is so jacked up it’ spractically blocking my sight. “Move your hair,” I order.
“I’d need a crane,” she answers.
There’s a car sitting on my tail, which makes me even more nervous than usual. The air conditioner is blasting. I call to Amity to turn it off for extra power.
“Air off!” she calls, my copilot. “Take a hit, baby. Take a hit,” she encourages, holding the joint to my lips.
I suck in. All the way. Gun the engine. Pop the clutch. Jettison the Beamer into traffic and exhale the smoke.
“Yay!” Amity yells. “We’re alive!” She accidentally drops the joint, and by the time we find it there’s a hole burned in the vanilla-colored leather seat.
We’re stoned out of reality, riding up the escalator to the ball room, both of us grinning at the high cheese factor of the big event. On the escalator, she slips one leg through the slit on her dress and hikes it onto the step above her. Her legs are so tanned and smooth she doesn’t have to wear panty hose. “Squirrel shot!” she yells,
showing me her bare crotch. We roll off the escalator laughing so hard that everyone in proximity stares. We stop first at a table where they give Amity her five-year service pin a 747 that’s rising for takeoff. Amity pins it on so that it’s pointing downward toward her breast a 747 crashing into a mountain. Then she’s handed two drink tickets that entitle us to one cocktail each. Any more and we’ll have to pay. Tacky. We know we’re “Couple of the Month” for the moment the Texas Babe and the Gay Yankee so we play it to the hilt, going table to table, as if we’re the President and the First Lady at a fund-raiser, while various Southern belles scream with delight at seeing Amity and carefully hug her while stabbing her with a dull kitchen knife in the truth of their imaginations. Amity’s hair gets caught in another stewardess’s hair clip, and everyone gets a good laugh
when the women are unable to separate. The guys shake my hand, hard, and slap me on the back, I presume, because I’m the gent lucky enough to land Amity Stone, former Slut of the Month.
I wander off to get us our two free drinks, and when I return she’s not there. And I can’t locate her in the crowd. So here I am, among these straight guys some with ill-fitting polyester suits over their big bellies and horse shit on the heels of their cowboy boots; others looking downright elegant, like male models in tuxes and tails; and all of them highly heterosexual.
Some guy about a foot taller than I am nods, strikes up a conversation. “Did you watch the game yesterday?”
Was there a figure skating competition on TV?
“Nolan Ryan is the man,” he continues, not waiting for me to answer. “They can’t pay that guy enough as far as I’m concerned.”
I stand there with a glass of champagne in one hand, my dark rum and soda with a twist in the other. “Definitely.”
“Who’s your favorite team in the American League?”
“The 49ers.”
He looks at me as if I’ve cut a fart. “That’s football.”
“Right.”
“I’m talking about baseball.”
“Oh!” I have to think quick. “I thought you were talking about Nolan Cromwell.” I know Nolan Cromwell is a football player because he’s a local Kansas boy who made good by going on to be a star in the NFL. But that was with Los Angeles, I think. The Rams. “I just heard the name Nolan, and that’s why I thought you were talking about football,” I explain.
“It’s June,” the guy says. “Football season is over.” “Right,” I say. “It’s too hot for them to wear those outfits.”
He sort of frowns, swills the spit back at the bottom of his beer bottle, and says, “Excuse me.”
Strike one. That’s baseball, right? I slam my rum and soda, set it down. Fuck the coupon. I’ll pay for another one.
I start to head for a couple of flight attendants I recognize, but before I reach them, an operations agent who recognizes me calls out, “Hey, Harry, I didn’t know you were dating Amity Stone.” He’s never said two words to me at the airline, but tonight he calls me by name and acts as if we’re buddies.
He’s standing with two other guys. I stop to answer. They all hold beer bottles while I clutch Amity’ schampagne glass. “Yeah, we’ve been dating for a few months,” I say with a confessional grin. “We live together.”
“You live together?” He wriggles uncomfortably, as if he’s just shit in his tuxedo.
“Well … yeah,” I say, a questioning smile on my face.
One of his buddies speaks up. “Old Perry here went out with your girl.”
I’m not defensive. Broaden my smile. “Hey, we’re casual. I mean, I don’t blame you. she’s a beautiful girl.”
“How long have you two been living together?” he asks. “Since January,” I tell him.
I watch him do the math in his head, and I know he’s slept with
her since then, because he looks a little red in the face. He takes a sip of his drink. His buddies laugh, shift their feet in their uncomfortable shoes.
“It’s no big deal. We’ve only started really dating in the last couple months,” I assure him.
He relaxes. Frees up. “Man, she’s pretty fine, huh?”
“She sure is.”
“I’ve never known any girl like that,” he says. His friends laugh again.
I know that he’ sreferring to her blow jobs and that he’ sen lightened his buddies. I let my face tell him I know what he’s talking about. “Me either. She’s incredible.”
“Hey,” the guy who has yet to speak blurts out, “you know who I think is hot? That Jennifer Beals. Man, I’d do her in a minute.”
Please. That horrible perm?
“No shit,” Perry says. “And the way she can move. you could bend her over from the front and do her in the back.”
It was a stunt double! She can’t bend like that or even act.
“Did you see the porno version?” one guy asks. “No shit. There’s a porno movie out called Flashpuss.”
Oh those poor women in porno. White legs and bruises. Plastic high heels. Blue eye shadow. They should unionize.
Perry’s buddies howl and give each other high fives. He turns to me and raises his hand. I raise my free hand to high-five him. And miss. And fall into him and spill Amity’s champagne on his tux. He backs off. “Shit!”
One of his buddies: “Whoa!”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry.” I set the champagne glass down on the nearest table and grab a napkin. Without thinking, I start wiping him off.
He backs off as if I’m some kind of faggy flight attendant. I’ll do it,” he says, trying to be polite in his disgust.
His friends look at me differently. Chuckle. Strike two. It’s a lousy baseball season.
Reunited in another part of the ballroom, I hand Amity the glass of champagne. Since the spill, there’s half a swallow left in the bottom of the glass.
She looks at the paltry amount. “This pathetic airline.” Airlawn. “This is just typical of their idea for a free employee drink.”
“I’ll get you another one,” I say, feeling like an idiot for not replacing it already. I just want to get out of this place.
“Don’t worry, babe. We’re about to eat. There’s supposed to be red wine with dinner.”
“I wonder what church they stole it from.”
“The Catholics, I hope. They always have the best booze.” We turn and practically bump into Eva Catrell and her boyfriend. He is a shit kicker. His hair is combed straight forward, and the knot of his tie is thick. His hands are as rough as Eva’s voice, and he’s drinking beer from a bottle. He didn’t even try to put on clean cowboy boots. No doubt he drives a pickup with a rifle hanging in the back.
Amity turns on her smile, full bright, and looks at Eva in that Southern way that says, “Sorry, darling’. I win.”
I’m uncomfortable, but I smile, and Eva smiles and we all kind of say hi for one second before Eva raises an ann of her beaded dress and pushes her boyfriend on. He has no idea.
For a moment we stand and watch the women some in ball gowns, others in thousand-dollar cocktail dresses lead their uncomfortable dates, imprisoned in their tuxes and dark suits from table to table. Taped orchestra music is playing, and slide shots of airline workers are being flashed up on a big screen. We watch the screen to see a shot of a fat guy throwing luggage into the cargo bin of a DC-10, then scan the party crowd to see him now wearing a ridiculous light blue tux with ruffled lapels, his buddies slapping him on the back.
The ten-foot-tall picture of the mousy ticket agent, with greasy straight hair, hoisting a piece of luggage onto a scale, belies the glamorous girl in the indigo, off-the-shoulder, beaded gown, her hair now swept up into a French twist. Every once in a while there’s a random shot of our passengers, who, for this presentation, are solely aristocratic families and high-powered business travelers rather than our usual cargo.
After gristly prime rib, the awards begin. The CEO and President, Mr. Gherkin, the religious zealot who measures about five feet tall in his lifts, takes the stage. He stands behind a podium, pulls the microphone down to his mouth, and unconsciously adjusts his toupee. The parade of aviation heroes begins.
Best Voice, Reservations Agent Category. Most Permanent Smile, Flight Attendant. Best Landings, Pilot. Most Christian Bag gage Handler. Most Pleasing Secretary. Best Groomed, Janitorial Staff. Most Optimistic Mechanic. And on it goes until we’re drowning in a sea of hugs and kisses, and the acceptance speeches are waxing gushier and more illiterate with each new award. Amity and I are kicking each other under the table, laughing into our wineglasses as if they’re spit cups at the dentist, using our napkins to cover our hyena mouths. And then … “For her ability to keep everyone happy, passengers and fellow employees alike, for always maintaining her poise and charm, and for always offering an encouraging word and kind compli
ment to anyone and everyone she meets, the award for Most Congenial Flight Attendant, 1984, goes to … Amity Stone!”
For one second, she looks at me with this hysterical bullshit face, and reaches under the table to grab my crotch, and when that second is over, she transforms herself into an Academy Award winner, rises to the applause, gives the crowd a brief wave of acknowledgment, and walks glamorously toward the stage to accept her award.
As she steps up to the dais, the creepy little president comes out
from behind the podium, his lips still wet from the last babe he bussed, and plants a kiss on Amity’s lips that’s just a little more than Christian. She stomachs it beautifully, accepts her little silver 747-shaped award, and takes to the microphone.
“Y’all are so sweet!” There’s almost a tear in each eye, and she looks deeply touched. “I can’t believe I’ve been honored with this wonderful award. G’yaw, how am I going to live up to this? Does this mean I’m always going to have to be nice, even if JR
Ewing is on my flight?”
The crowd chuckles.
“This is a wonderful airline. I just want to say thank you to everyone that I’ve flown with in the last year and how much I’m looking forward to meeting all the new people who come on board as we grow. And to Mr. Gherkin, our president: Thanks for giving me a job I promise to never tell your wife our little secret.”
The audience howls and applauds, and Amity winks at the president, who is laughing uncomfortably. And then, with magic sincerity, her blue eyes become the same two spotlights as on the day we met, and she looks right at me and finishes, “And I want to thank Harry Ford, my fiancee, for making 1984 a year for new beginnings.”
Home run. Out of the park. With the bases loaded.
Everyone applauds, I look over at Perry’s table, and see that he’s watching me, not Amity. I look back to Amity, she lifts her award and motions to me, and I nod, and suddenly this is the finest, most legitimate award program on earth.