Can Am Story

by Oliver Rill

  “So you think I should take Chamber’s 11 planes off him and order new ones? Ok I see. Don’t’ you think 11 is a bit much at one time? I’d need feed routes to fill them up.”

  “You sold me a dream with your presentation, Oliver. Now make it come true! We’ll stand you security for the money. Talk to your friend Lorenzi about the slots – and watch out for Chambers. He isn’t just being nice to you. At some point he’ll bite your backside. He has to justify himself to his bosses and shareholders and isn’t’ going to let you take the bread from his mouth.”

  That was the first call on this busy day. I leaned back in my chair and cast an eye around my office. Behind me I had a view of the beach, before me my glass plated big desk with a under which was a small part of an airplane wing. My chair was that of a pilot, naturally modified to suit the surroundings. I had a little sitting area, the door to Matt’s office and one to the corridor, a few pictures a sideboard and some shelving with a few folders and books. I was master of 36 air planes and I was so glad of Ad’s good advice, keeping me on the straight and narrow and supporting me when it got tough. I felt less anxious about it all and more as though I was on the right road going forward to my dream.

  My next call was to Marie. I had not spoken to her for so long and I wanted to tell her about everything that was going on here. After all she had been here on day one.

  “I was just on my way to bed! Tell me, how’s it all going?”

  I told her that we had just moved into my new offices, how big the fleet was now going to be and that we had won over the paparazzi.

  “Uh huh.” She sounded impressed. “And how are you and Matt doing?”

  “Oh, Matt. Well, what do I say? I think I’m in love with him. I think it’s sort of one-sided though.”

  “And have you two got a bit closer?”

  “We sleep together fairly regularly.”

  “That’s fantastic! Just enjoy it.”

  “I’m trying to.”

  “And what’s it like being boss?”

  “Hmm. Good question. Actually it’s quite pressured. I want it all to go well and with all the experts that I have around me, it should. You know what I mean? I have to trust them to do their jobs. To use their expertise.”

  “And you just harvest the profits?”

  “No, that’s exactly what I don’t want. I want to look, listen and learn, but it’s all such high flown technical stuff in IT or engineering or accounting, that I just don’t have the knowledge or the time to research it all. And to be honest I just can’t be doing with all that.”

  “But you should be keeping an eye on the bookkeeping at least.”

  “Yes and I do make the effort there at least. We’ve found a really super guy who is a wizard at figures and understands how it all works.”

  “How about Ad? Is he happy? Do you have the feeling that the staff look up to you?”

  “Ad’s happy with how things are running at the moment. And the staff that we have seems really nice. They are all fairly respectful. Yes. We discuss a lot of the stuff that goes on and make decisions together where we can.”

  I chatted a while longer with Marie about Berlin and her job and then rang off.

  I dialed Chambers and told him to deliver the planes to Boeing Field to get them kitted out. Matt told me that AA had sunk their prices on all the routes that we also flew by ten percent.

  “I really don’t care if they give their tickets away. I’m not entering into a price war that I can’t win. I can only hope that our customers understand that they get better value for money with us.”

  I was just asking Matt to make an appointment with Boeing, as Melvin burst into the office with a worried look on his face.

  “We had 3.8 million in the account. Now there is only 0.8. We have to take care of the cash flow, or we will really have the devil at our door quicker than Boeing reportedly flies if I may say so in these offices.”

  “How come? We’ve got more bookings than seats.”

  “We may well have, but we’ve also invested heavily in the fleet lately. The individual flights will give good returns and as you forecasted increasing the profits will come true. But we need time to save new capital if you want to take on more machines.”

  “Well, since we are on the subject, we’re going to get another eleven old Boeing 737s from American Airlines which we are going to deck out and refit.”

  “Do you want to sit on the pavement, cap in hand? That’s going to cost us at least two million! We just don’t have it.”

  “Melvin, I have been taking bookings all morning. Show the bank the figures and show them your charm.”

  “And where do we get the securities from? JB Homes?”

  “From JB Homes as far as I know.”

  Melvin left the office shaking his head. “And I thought that bookkeeping would be a quiet job.”

  Chambers had booked us into first class and that sat badly with me. A flight like this would normally cost around $10,000 and I didn’t really want to be in his debt so badly. I knew that it was worse as I owed him from the slots in LAX, that I had more or less beaten out of him. Damn! I didn’t ask him for it and he had wanted appease me because he had reduced his prices on our competing routes. I had justified myself.

  Now I needed a hotel from Mark. I was sure he had done a deal with a hotel chain of some kind, hadn’t he? Mark let me know within ten minutes that we had deals with most hotel chains, thanks to JB Homes and we got two rooms in the Marriott free of charge.

  Wow! Just like that. It seemed that as president of an airline you got gifts thrown at you from all directions!

  Oswald Garcia was the President at United Airlines. He got me on the phone in my Range Rover on the way to see Lorenzi, where I was once again turning up unannounced. Garcia has got wind that something was happening in Los Angeles and offered me 12 free slots for a million each.

  Melvin’s outburst was still ringing in my ears and I didn’t particularly want to give that much money to United Airlines. Apart from that, Garcia was an even more slimy character than Chambers. I told him I had to speak to someone about it and would get back to him. And speak to someone I would!

  Lorenzi’s face creased into a smile as I was lead into his office. He had a really cool corner office that looked out over two runways where flights from all over the world came to land. An outlook like that would never get boring!

  “We’ll have to play a round of golf sometime!” He said and I laughed.

  “I am really not that sort of guy, Alan.” I asked him about slots and he was able to give me two but no more as he didn’t have them. He couldn’t appropriate any from American Airlines as they were filling them lately themselves with new life. I told him about the offer that Garcia had made which made his eyes flash angrily.

  “Oh yeah? They wanna sell our slots?” His office door stood open and he called out “Miranda? How many empty slots have United got? Serve notice on all of them!”

  I had made an enemy and gained 26 slots by the time I sailed back to the office in my Range Rover. I had had a good day!

  I didn’t’ know if I would ever be proper friends with Debbie. I called her.

  “I’ve got an idea. It’s just a personal small extravagance that I want to take on.”

  “Oh God! What now? Be quick I’m busy.”

  “I want to recover the seats in my Range Rover.” I heard Debbie’s eyebrows go up and mouth open in horror.

  “And you come to me with this? I am really busy. You have to get that done at the Land Rover dealership. I’m not a middle man.”

  “But Debbie, I want the seats to look like our seats in the fleet. Grey with this red stitching. I won’t get that at Land Rover. It has to be bespoke.”

  “God! You are right. That’s really extravagant.” She said her voice thick with irony. “But it’s a cool idea.”

  “Can I leave the car with you over the holidays?”

  “I’ll get it picked up and get them covered, no probl
em. Anything else? You have a new building to move into and you want the trees in the garden painted grey with red flowers too?”

  “No, I like them as they are and I am staying put, thanks.” I laughed. “But thank you for what you did in Venice though. It looks great and I really like the way you furnished it. You really are a professional.”

  “Give over. The flattery is dripping out of the earpiece here. Talk to you later, I’ve got to go.”

  In the office I tested the ground with Sharon, telling her that we would be taking on new routes and that I would be able to give her the details in a couple of hours. She looked at me in anticipation of the storm to come.

  I sat down with Matt and we began to file for slots starting in La Guardia, because JFK was full, Chicago had a few, Washington had one or two, Boston was easy just as Orlando and Miami was. I knew I needed to learn how valuable time was. You had to be quick to get in. Chicago was the last slot that I got because United Airlines had blocked them all. Garcia was upset!

  Sharon got help and IT made the system more robust so that we didn’t have to book so many manually. Matt also got reinforcement in route analysis, but decided to explore the new routes himself. My assistant had an assistant.

  The three musketeers sat easily around the pool in the evening, after Matt had dragged us around the hills like a herd of lazy sheep.

  “So my love, you don’t want to go to Athens? That is, you’ve definitely decided to stay here?” I interrogated him.

  “Yes Oli, I wanted to speak to you about that. Can I get a proper salary and an apartment? I like living with you, but I need my space and I want to be independent.”

  “You want to move out? You are leaving me?” I teased him, with mock gulps.

  “Ha ha ha. No, I’d never leave you, darling! But I do need my own space.”

  “Hey Aristo, don’t you think it’s cool that we all hang out together in the evenings?” Matt joined in.

  “Yes. It really is. I love it.” It came into my mind that I didn’t have any friends in Los Angeles and was suddenly afraid that Matt would leave me too.

  “Matt, how about you? You live with your dad and haven’t been home for ages. Doesn’t he ask where you are?”

  “I’ve told him that I’ve got a girlfriend and am really busy in the new job.” Good, so Matt seemed to want to stay.

  “Ok, Matt. We can look for an apartment for you, Aristo. You are definitely going to stay in L.A.?”

  “Yeah. It doesn’t have to be a big place and it can be around here.”

  “What about you, Matt? Do you want somewhere small around here, too? Or do you two want to move in together?” I teased.

  “Are you trying to get rid of me again? You know what these hands can do.”

  “I know it, and I will use them again if they’re not too busy.”

  “Well, I am going to stay here – At least long enough to have breakfast anyway, if that’s ok with you?” retorted Matt.

  “Ha ha. Only if I get desert!” I rejoined cheekily.

  “This guy is a real hard nut to crack when you have to deal with him!” I looked over at Aristo as he spoke. “Yeah, yeah, I know, but it is a win-win situation for everyone here, I would say. Wouldn’t you, Matt?” Aristo grinned at Matt in conspiracy.

  I looked at Matt. I had always thought of him as handsome and sexy, but as he lay there with his short white T-shirt and tight jeans so casually… The contours of his shapely body starkly defined took my breath away. And his arms, they seemed to get more muscular each time I saw him.

  “Hey man! Will you guys get a room?” Aristo rolled his eyes in mock disgust. He had obviously caught me out while I was mentally undressing Matt. I grinned sheepishly.

  “Come on, Oli, ‘Risto is right.” Matt stood up and beckoned me with a movement of his head and I followed him into my room. Today he went down on me. Shortly before I climaxed, he paused and waited. I could hardly bear it. I begged.

  “That was wicked, wasn’t it?” Matt said as lay next to me.

  “You’ll be the end of me.”

  “I know. I love it when you look at me like that. At the pool earlier, I saw the way you looked and I just knew what you were thinking. That really turned me on.”

  “And that’s why you ‘accidently’ pushed up your T-shirt. To show me your six pack?”

  “My tummy itched. If you have an itch, you have to scratch it!” He winked.

  “I think I’m going to get an appointment with the masseuse.”

  “Shall I ask him if he is free?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “He says he has a customer in the morning. A very demanding one. Good looking, intelligent, sexy, he said he’s also a bit of a greedy pig, he always wants a happy end. Do you know anyone like that?”

  I seemed to be continually in the press one way or another. Headlines such as: ‘Porsche, Audi - Can Am next?’ and ‘Can American vs Goliath’ were commonplace. Our original press folder wasn’t enough and the journalists simply made up more. I read some interesting stuff about myself. Rebecca forbade giving interviews or being photographed, so I kept well out of the way and that inspired them to make up stuff about me rather than extol the super service we were giving.

  Sometimes I was a rabid businessman, then I was a mysterious prince of a noble family from Germany, or even Austria? Another time I was the young Bill Gates of the skies. One photo turned up that showed Matt and I jogging. Luckily the story took on the lines of a health fanatic rather than reporting the gay aspect of my life. Rebecca had immediately applied for a restraining order, with the threat of a heavy fine. I was neither a politician nor an artist, not a person of public interest. Most journalists understood that any photo that we hadn’t given out ourselves or allowed to be taken in a press conference would not make money, but lose money in the way of fines.

  Rebecca wanted to distract the focus of the press back onto the airline and asked for a budget for advertising. The resulting adverts were mind blowing. They were sexy and alluring, but in a classy low toned way that even middle class housewives in the mid-West could smile about without blushing. Leather and chocolate was often part of the scene. We hired Nicolas Domanicki, a 19 year old bodybuilder from California who took part in competitions and modelled. We sat him in a body clinging T-shirt in the cockpit with the words ‘Fly me.” Or we wrapped him in one of our blankets, with one muscular arm out, licking one of our pralines suggestively. He looked edible himself! Another picture showed a beautiful woman, nibbling on our chocolate with the words ‘Let us entice you’. And ‘The sweetest way to travel’.

  Our bookings soared, however, the flights to the smaller cities were sometimes not so well utilized. We now had a fleet of 26 planes and 11 of these I wanted to swap for the Dreamliner. We had practically quadrupled it in the space of two months. If Boeing were here, I would have to plan for a whole twelve months in advance. I thought about it in my office and looked out at the ocean beyond.

  “Oli, what are you thinking about?” Matt came in and laid a list on my desk.

  “I am wondering whether I should be careful and order 11 Dreamliners and then another ten 737s or if I should throw caution to the wind and just go ahead and order 50 planes.”

  Matt came around the table and laid his hands on my neck, massaging some of the tension away.

  “You are a German. I thought you had megalomania in your blood.” He said and left abruptly, leaving me acutely aware of missing the intimate feeling of his hands. I ordered the 11 Dreamliners, 40 Boeing 737s and ten 777s without checking again with JB Homes.

  “We’re celebrating today, Guys!” I called out as I called Aristo and Matt to drive home with me.

  “What are we celebrating?” Asked Aristo.

  “We’re celebrating that you and Sharon won’t know up from down in the very near future, we’ve got so much work coming your way.”

  “More destinations?”

  “And I think you will be spending a couple of weeks in San Franc
isco, my friend!”

  “How come?”

  “I have just ordered a whole pile of planes and since we won’t get any more slots in Los Angeles other than the ones we got yesterday, we’re going to build a further hub in San Francisco.”

  “I love my job more and more each day!” Cried Aristo. He, Matt and I drove home, ate the tasty meal that Gavin had left and made serious inroads in my stores of Champagne.

  Our excited chatter lasted long into the night until Matt stood up.

  “You have got an appointment now, Oli.”

  “Now? At this time?”

  “Your masseuse is waiting for you.”

  I lay on the bed and melted under Matt’s hands. Gradually, he began to concentrate solely on one part of my anatomy and then he leant forward and whispered in my ear.

  “Can we do it tonight without? I want to feel all of you tonight.”

  “Matt, sorry but I … No not completely without.”

  “I’m clean!”

  “I believe you. Let’s discuss it in the morning, ok? I just want you to …” And he did, without rancor.

  I returned to the conversation at breakfast, which Matt in his devotion had prepared keeping me strictly to his diet. We both sat at the dining table and I looked directly into his eyes.

  “Matt, you know you and I both want to go without a you-know-what.”

  “Then why didn’t you let me?”

  “When I do, then only if we both go to get tested and are shown to be clear. Then we will be exclusive. No other women, no other men, no dogs, cats – nothing. If one of us does do something with someone, for whatever reason, maybe too much alcohol, or something, I don’t know. Anyway, if one of us does have a blip, then that is put on the table right away. Right up front. That is the only way we do it ‘au naturel’ or without. Otherwise we stick to the rubbers.”