{"id":12759,"date":"2015-03-30T05:00:11","date_gmt":"2015-03-30T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bullmensfiction.com\/?p=12759"},"modified":"2022-08-03T13:14:46","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T17:14:46","slug":"stewarding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/fiction\/stewarding\/","title":{"rendered":"Stewarding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Passengers call me different things: steward, flight-attendant, air-hostess, even bastard (when I refused to serve a screwdriver to a young man with slurred speech during boarding). But most folks just wave and yell \u201cSIR!\u201d whenever they want something. The shiny nametag stuck to my button-up shirt reads, KYLE. But hardly any passengers call me that, and if they do it always catches me off guard. Sometimes my crewmembers and I make up funny names for one another when introducing ourselves over the PA. If it\u2019s a Friday night Vegas flight, we might fabricate ridiculous stripper names. If we\u2019re headed to Orlando with a ton of kiddies, we\u2019re most likely Goofy, Arielle, Beast, or other Disney characters. Sometimes pilots join in on the fun, though all they ever seem to come up with is presenting themselves as Captain Clarence Oveur and First-officer Roger Murdock from the movie <\/span>Airplane<\/em>, or Maverick and Goose from <\/span>Top Gun<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cMorning, Ma\u2019am.\u00a0 Something to drink?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA beverage?\u201d\u00a0 I scoop ice into a row of cups while she thinks.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you have peanuts?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, but we have snacks for sale.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike king-size bags of pretzels, chips, cookies. Three-to-five bucks a bag.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing for free?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust drinks, minus the booze.\u00a0 Those are complimentary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you have?\u201d<\/p>\n

The same shit as every other airline, I want to say. But I don\u2019t. I only say, \u201cCoffee, tea, soda, juice, water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you have lemonade?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have Sprite.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes it have caffeine?\u201d<\/p>\n

I double-check the can. \u201cNope.\u201d<\/p>\n

She nods reluctantly. I snap it open, pour, and hand it to her fizzing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, sorry, I actually don\u2019t want it with ice.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cHEY!\u201d a guy in 16F yells. I\u2019m pulling the drink cart toward the front of the aircraft, getting in position to start service. \u201cDO YOU HAVE ANY NUTS?\u201d He\u2019s a hefty fifty-something man wearing those nifty noise-cancelling headphones. He must have the volume kicked to the max. Outside his window, the Rockies look like the spine of a giant alligator dusted with snow.<\/p>\n

I mouth, yes, and most passengers turn around to search for the yelling man. Ever since 9\/11, passengers freak if someone shouts or if a baby suddenly wails, and rightly so. It\u2019s nice to know people are on the lookout, that they\u2019d be willing to jump up and help me knock a lunatic or terrorist to the floor. But this big guy is pure entertainment.<\/p>\n

\u201cDO YOU HAVE ANY SALTY NUTS?\u201d He accentuates \u201csalty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat all depends,\u201d I say. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long day.\u201d In reality, it\u2019s the last leg of a three-day trip. Passengers laugh as the man yanks off his headsets to see what the hoopla is about. But I\u2019m already backing away with the cart, shaking my head.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tonight, as I\u2019m trying to fall asleep in my hotel room, I hear a man and woman making a racket in the hall. It\u2019s after two o\u2019clock in the morning. I figure they\u2019ll knock it off after a few minutes, but they don\u2019t. That\u2019s when I get out of bed and walk to the door, ready to tell them to pipe down. But first, I bend forward and look through the peephole.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Jess, one of the attractive women I\u2019ve been working with for the past three days. She\u2019s standing directly across from my door with her arms draped around our first-officer\u2019s neck, a stout Midwestern with short white-blond hair. He\u2019s bunching up her green blouse, trying to slide it up over her head, but she won\u2019t stop kissing him.<\/p>\n

The whole crew had gone downtown for drinks, but Jess and the first-officer decided to stay at the bar for a couple extra rounds when the rest of us called it quits. They were busy swapping divorce stories. Now they\u2019re good and drunk, laughing and shouting. Once he nearly has her shirt pulled off, she says, \u201cHOLD ON. LET ME FIND MY ROOM-KEY.\u201d She picks up her giant purse from the floor and rummages around, but there must be 167 random items inside. \u201cNOT STOPPING,\u201d he yells, reaching for her belt buckle. \u201cBETTER HURRY UP.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s nearly midnight, September 10th, and I\u2019m standing in the middle of the aircraft, welcoming people onboard our flight to New York\u2019s John F. Kennedy. Boarding takes forever this late with people so tired and sluggish. It\u2019s my job to help push things along and get us out on time. I\u2019m helping a woman stow her bag in an overhead bin when a group of obnoxious French tourists starts pushing toward us. One of them, an old man, has a purple jewel attached to a strand of yarn. He keeps walking up and down the center aisle during boarding, long after his friends have taken their seats, and swings the gem, praying or something. I can\u2019t understand him, but he\u2019s loud and sounds crazy. People are already freaked out because of the date and where we\u2019re headed, so I tell him to knock it off and sit down.<\/p>\n

Five hours later, September 11th, we touch down safely at 08:40. As we taxi toward our gate, I wonder if everyone else is thinking about American Airlines Flight 11\u2014how a decade earlier, the Boeing 767 was only a couple minutes away from crashing into the North Tower.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tonight, while taxiing out to the runway in Philadelphia, the woman in 14A rings her call light. She\u2019s hyperventilating, pulling at her hair, scratching her face with her fingernails. \u201cTake me back to the gate,\u201d she says. \u201cI thought I could do it. I can\u2019t. I need to get out of here. Take me back.\u201d<\/p>\n

I kneel beside her row and try to calm her down, try explaining how it\u2019s more dangerous to drive on an undivided two-lane road than fly on a commercial airliner, but that doesn\u2019t make a dent. Her boyfriend tries to sooth her but he can\u2019t keep her still. It seems like she can barely hear either one of us. Then she looks straight at me and says, \u201cIf you don\u2019t get me off this fucking plane right now, I\u2019m going to open a door and jump out! Do you hear<\/em> me?\u201d<\/p>\n

I tell her I do then hustle to the nearest interphone to notify the captain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny how accurate stereotypes can be. Today, on my flight from Seattle to Los Angeles, most every ethnic makeup is represented in the cabin. Black, White, Indian, Asian, a few Australian and Europeans travelers. Black folks, eight times out of ten, want Sprite or cran-apple. White people want Diet Coke if they\u2019re young or chubby; if they\u2019re old and upper-class, they want club-soda with a wedge of lime. Indian people generally drink most of the orange and tomato juice. Asians tend to order hot water and juice without ice. \u201cNo eye,\u201d they say. Europeans like Coke-a-Cola, and the Aussie\u2019s request lemonade, which means Sprite. Kids drain all the apple juice, babies suck down the milk cartons. Sometimes, if I\u2019m feeling particularly fun or bold like I am today, I simply pour drinks by stereotype and pass them out like some kind of magician.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nobody ever wants to work a day of Vegas turns (four legs: SFO-LAS, LAS-SFO, SFO-LAS, LAS-SFO), especially on weekends. That\u2019s because they\u2019re always sold-out, turbulent, and rowdy. But sometimes you get stuck with them. This Friday afternoon is no exception. I\u2019m working in the back with this guy named Steve Montana, an older guy who\u2019s been flying thirty years. He tells me stories about military charters, delivering soldiers and their weapons to Desert Storm and the Iraq War. Stories about prison charters with men shackled to their seats and armed guards monitoring the aisles. He also has a wacky sense of humor. Everything is a joke to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo how did the hearing go?\u201d he asks after we\u2019ve parked the cart in the aisle and started pouring drinks for passengers. He speaks in a booming voice. \u201cDo you really think they\u2019re going to charge you on both counts of assault?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is\u2026\u201d Passengers look up at me open-mouthed, and I try to play along for Steve. \u201cWell, it\u2019s not going too well. My lawyer said I\u2019ll be lucky to get off with six months’ probation.\u201d When we move the cart back, he unravels another fabrication. \u201cI can\u2019t believe your sister is going through with the pregnancy. Sextuplets! Seriously, she must be a saint. I\u2019d jump off a bridge or something if I found out I was going to have six kids at once. I mean, you must be terrified to become an uncle, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Later on, when we’re killing time and swapping stories in the aft galley, he opens the lavatory doors for passengers and says, \u201cJust make sure you don\u2019t flush. We\u2019re flying over a city.\u201d Then he shuts the door. Likewise, when we\u2019re on the ground, boarding, attached to the jetbridge, he says, \u201cJust make sure to yell down before you flush. The mechanics are working right underneath the toilets.\u201d Some people laugh, some smile timidly, others nod in all seriousness. One woman even raises her voice and yells down into the pot before flushing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Late tonight, on a layover in downtown San Diego, a homeless guy startles me while I\u2019m waiting to cross the street. He\u2019s tall and skinny, a few years older than me, wearing a dirty clothes and a hiking backpack. He gets up close and asks for money, says he hasn\u2019t eaten all day. He kind of freaks me out, coming out of nowhere, getting in my face, and I scoot across the street toward Wendy\u2019s and mumble an apology as I go.<\/p>\n

As I stand in line, waiting to order a burger meal, I feel my blood pumping. The guy looked desperate and hungry, not dangerous. He seemed frantic, like he\u2019d just recently fallen into a hard spot. I think about that. I try and imagine not eating all day. And I think about my steady job, my steady paychecks and benefits. The lady behind the counter motions me forward, but I turn around and push my way outside.<\/p>\n

I search for the homeless guy. I walk up and down and around the dark city block but he\u2019s vanished. I want to tell him that he can join me back inside the restaurant. I want to tell him that I\u2019m tired of eating alone on my layovers, that I\u2019ll buy him a big burger meal so long as he sits down and talks and eats with me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This morning, immediately after taking off out of Dallas, a loud thud reports from the belly of the Airbus. The captain calls on the interphone, asking if we heard anything unusual. We tell him about the thud. He calls back a few minutes later and says he received a brake-failure notification. He figures at least one of the tires has blown on the left-main gear and tells us that we\u2019ll continue on to Los Angeles as planned to burn up fuel in the event that our gear and brakes fail upon landing. He tells us to us to keep the news to ourselves. He doesn\u2019t want to alarm the passengers until the end of the flight.<\/p>\n

For the next three hours, we act like nothing is wrong. I serve Cokes and coffee, collect trash, and make small-talk with folks waiting in line for the lavatories. But I\u2019m nervous, knowing of the uncertainty that lies ahead. The other two attendants have flown longer than me and don\u2019t appear too worried. They\u2019ve already gone through things like this. But the three of us review our flight manuals, looking over the emergency procedure checklists in case things turn worse.<\/p>\n

When we\u2019re forty-five minutes from landing, the captain makes his announcement. Right after that, we prepare the cabin for the worst kind of landing. Passengers study my face and watch my every move, trying to read the severity of the situation. In the end, after a dramatic flyby over LAX\u2014the runway encased with dozens of fire trucks\u2014we touch down safely, slow down, and the cabin fills with clapping. Once we park at the gate and passengers deplane, the whole crew gets a good look at the gear. The inside tire on the left-main is gone. It exploded and shot up against the belly of the Airbus, leaving huge depressions in the skin, and the landing light was knocked loose and hangs by its electrical wiring, like a tetherball.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Early this morning, the two gay guys I\u2019m working with on the red-eye to Boston tell me to check out 15D and E. We\u2019re three hours into the flight, and I\u2019ve been standing under a bright light in the aft galley, reading, trying to stay awake, while they\u2019ve been gossiping and flirting behind the curtain in the forward galley. \u201cSeriously, you have to see this,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n

I grab a trash bag and make my way down the aisle, the cabin as black as the sky outside.\u00a0 There isn\u2019t a single reading light on. Everyone appears to be sleeping, twisted up in their seats, their faces mashed against the fuselage or pressed down on tray-tables. But 15D and E\u2014a blond girl with a hook-shaped nose and an anemic-looking guy with a bristly beard\u2014are wide awake, despite the fact that their eyes are closed. She\u2019s straddling him, working her hands and lips up and down his neck and chest. They\u2019re both wearing flannel shirts, unbuttoned. He appears to be in the process of removing her bra when I walk up with my bag and say, \u201cTrash?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDamn,\u201d the girl says, closing her shirt. \u201cYou scared me.\u201d I raised my voice when I\u2019d asked for trash. \u201cWe\u2019re fine,\u201d the guy says and slides his hands down the woman\u2019s back, down to her hip bones, and grins like a drunk.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou two need to simmer down, understand? You think you\u2019re on your own private jet or something?\u201d I point across the aisle. \u201cSeriously, there\u2019re two kids sleeping right next to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tonight, after driving home from the airport, I dump my uniform out of a trash bag and hose it down full-blast on the driveway. Earlier, on a long-haul from DC to San Francisco, the boy next in line for the lavatories\u2014he was eight or nine years old with a thatch of brown hair\u2014barfed all over me, all over the galley floor. Projectile vomiting, like his mouth had turned into a fire hose. Ten minutes later, as I scooped the boy\u2019s barf into a bio-hazard bag, wearing gloves and a mask, I remember thinking, how the hell did I get here? <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This morning, on our final approach into Orange County, I hear creaking. I\u2019m working the forward-attendant position, strapped into my jumpseat, and turn to find the cockpit door ajar. I can see the pilots punching buttons and hear their radio chatter with ATC. When I get up and reach for the door to slam it shut, I don\u2019t notice the pistol aimed at my forehead.<\/p>\n

The first-officer, a Federal Flight Deck Officer, had swung around in his seat with his handgun, ready to defend the cockpit. I learn about this first-hand once we park at the gate and I disarm the forward doors. After all of the passengers deplane, a mechanic comes onboard and discovers that the cockpit\u2019s triple-locking-mechanism needs adjusting. He radios for another mechanic to assist him with the repair, delaying our leg back to San Francisco.<\/p>\n

When I flop down in my jumpseat, shaking from the thought of having a pistol pointed at my face, the first-officer says, \u201cI need some air.\u201d He throws open the jetbridge door and storms down the exterior stairs to the tarmac, rattled from having almost fired a bullet through my brain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today, on a jam-packed fifty-minute flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles, I move the drink cart back to row 12 and ask three old Asian women what they want to drink. They eye me like I\u2019m a Martian. They look shrunken and shriveled, roughly four-feet tall, and they\u2019re squinting at me, acting like I\u2019m shining a spotlight in their faces. I mime, taking an imaginary sip from an imaginary cup, and they whisper among themselves in their native tongue. Because there\u2019s no time to waste on a short sold-out flight, I start tapping my foot, fretting that I won\u2019t be able to serve everyone onboard. \u201cDrink,\u201d I say loudly, then mime again.<\/p>\n

The woman in the aisle seat eventually says, \u201cMeeerrr.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to pay for beer.\u201d I\u2019m surprised these little old ladies want booze instead of juice. \u201cWe have Heineken, Miller Light, Sierra Nevada\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, no,\u201d the woman says. \u201cMEEEERRRR.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want BEEEERRRR, you have to pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

They convene a second time. Then the woman in the aisle seat holds up little cupped hands and pumps them, one up, one down, like pistons firing. She makes odd noises, too, and squeezes something in her cupped hands. That\u2019s when it all makes sense. She\u2019s pumping and pulling imaginary teats, making pathetic cow sounds.<\/p>\n

I pull three low-fat cartons from the ice bin and say, \u201cMIIILLKK?\u201d The ladies reach for the cartons and start to crack up. I laugh so hard that passengers pull off their headphones and turn to see what\u2019s was going on. The four of us are all pulling imaginary teats, laughing and mooing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This morning I\u2019m working in the back with a sweet black woman named Lakeisha. This is our fourth day and ninth leg together. Not once during the whole trip has she called me by my name. It\u2019s always Baby this, Baby that. \u201cBaby, will you give this Coke to 22 Echo?\u201d When I\u2019m sitting in my jumpseat, snacking: \u201cBaby, can I have a few of your pretzels? I\u2019m hungry, Baby.\u201d On final descent, when we\u2019re getting ready to prepare the cabin for landing: \u201cBaby, you want to nag while I bag?\u201d As we hug in the middle of the terminal, all done with our trip: \u201cI hope I get to work with you again, Baby. Now give me a kiss before I run.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“They\u2019re both wearing flannel shirts, unbuttoned. He appears to be removing her bra when I walk up with my bag and say, ‘Trash?’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[964,960,963,961,962],"class_list":["post-12759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-commercial-airline","tag-flight-attendant","tag-layover","tag-steward","tag-stewarding","writer-kyle-bilinski"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12759"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12934,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12759\/revisions\/12934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}