Читать книгу Demon Dancer - Alexander Valdez - Страница 15

Chapter 10

Flying South

A new day was starting, and not soon enough. I would be flying in a private plane down to Mexico. Those were two things I had never done before, and I couldn’t have been more excited.

When we arrived at the private airstrip, the pilot, whose name was Red Turner, was warming up the plane. It was a Super 18 Beechcraft, and it kinda looked like the last plane Amelia Earhart was seen flying in, so you can get an idea. By the way, you may take a guess as to why his name was Red.

Also boarding were Uncle Jorge’s brother Alberto and two of his friends making the trip.

Alberto was what I would call a prissy type, somewhat effeminate, but given the beautiful wife and six kids, I doubt he was of the funny nature. And I don’t mean the ha-ha funny nature. He was manicured and bathed in cologne and dressed in a very expensive suit. I liked him okay, but he was bossy and let his new money, which the brothers had amassed, go to his head.

Red was a real cool dude, and I guess he was hired right after the Korean conflict, where I’ll bet he kicked some major ass in his Sabrejet. He had me ride up front and let me hold the steering wheel. I was the king of the world.

It had to happen though. Murphy’s law just had to rear its head. It was not going to let me enjoy one of the highlights of my life. First, it started with what I would call a little toot, but one that could peel paint. There was no hiding the noxious odor, and I had no response to Red’s semismile. Jet pilots go through this all the time, so I was not shocking him in the least.

He merely cracked his little side window. But, O Lord, here comes that unmistakable feeling that knows no control. I was pinching my butt cheeks so hard I could have cracked a walnut.

I could not sit up front any longer; the mess would have caused an air disaster of epic proportions. I unbuckled my seat harness and flew down the aisle to the rear of the plane, passing the men playing cards as they sipped good scotch. I recalled a tube in the small luggage closet, which I gathered was only meant for tinkling. I was praying that this tube, under a certain set of circumstances, could accommodate some other type of liquid if absolutely necessary. Alberto finally caught a whiff of the noxious, repulsive odor of what was going on, and I’ve gotta say, he was not pleased at all. I got to hear what some official down-home cussing in the King’s Spanish was like. I was desperate and in pain from holding in what was pounding at the gates of Troy to bust out.

I reached for the handle of the door and was going to moon it and probably give the plane a fresh coat of paint when Alberto shrieked and stopped me before I had a chance to be sucked out into space. Later, I learned that only planes with pressurized cabins would have you sucked out if you opened a door. Whew, anyway.

Alberto found a big brown paper bag that would have to act as my latrine, and that was a messy but welcomed adventure.

Thank God he had access to one of his many colognes. He splashed the bottle about the cabin like the pope blessing the troops. I can’t say I blamed him; I even allowed him the liberty of grabbing the waist of my pants and dousing the blaze in my butt cheeks.

We had another ten minutes of flying time, and the flight couldn’t be over soon enough. As it turned out, Red thought the episode was one of the funniest things that ever happened to him. He thought Alberto was a pain in the ass like so many others did. Even his brother Jorge had to tolerate him all his life, and I think he was thanking me down inside.

When my father got the news from Uncle Jorge, my mother, as I found out later, said my dad had burst out laughing on the phone. Apparently, it was karma that was long overdue.