Lean On Me

Flying the Friendly, Foul-Mouthed Skies

“This is my twelfth cup of coffee! I’m not even wound up! Not the least bit! Can you believe it? My twelfth cup! You’d think I would be jabbering and a little jittery but I’m not at all! I’m thinking of getting another cup when we get in the air. Yes! Yes, I’m going to get another cup!” Freddie clapped his hands together and smiled at Mary who was listening to him babble incessantly. “Oh my god!” he said excitedly, throwing his hands out to the sides. “I could order a latte…or a cappuccino! There’s an in-flight barista for us in addition to the chef! My god I’m going to try them all! Yes! Yes, all the café coffee delights! I am going to have each one! Mary when do we take off? Are we close to leaving? Should I order one now?” Freddie went on and on. Mary sighed and sat her magazine aside.

 “Okay, first. You cannot do this for twelve hours, Fred. I can’t deal with it. Second. You are shaking and bouncing a little in your seat. I think you can lay off the coffee for now. Give it…I don’t know, maybe twenty minutes and then see if you still want some, yeah?” Mary encouraged him, rubbing his arm and trying to calm him down a little. Considering he had begun the coffee binge at 3:30 in the morning and it was now 5:15 AM, he was doing fairly good to have only consumed twelve cups.

  “Brian! Brian would you fancy a coffee beverage with me once we get in the air!? You really should have one with me! Oh! I’ll order one for you! Just the minute we get in the air, I will request an in-flight menu and…” Mary cut Freddie off.

 “Ssshhhh…sit back, just sit back and please…please, Freddie just…calm down, love.” Mary patted him again, trying to get him to settle. Brian and Chrissie had that ‘let’s pop a bottle of champagne and get crazy-but-not-too-crazy’ look in their eye. It was the first time they had been away from their son since May and believe me; they were ready for a holiday. Veronica was seated by the window and quietly trying to avoid the Freddie spectacle behind her.

 This is was it. The date was October 14 and the time was now 5:23 AM. It was the plushest, most luxurious airliner I had ever had the pleasure of being on. The hum of the runway noise could be heard and out the windows. The other planes could be seen lining up in their places on the runway for takeoff. It was amazing to me that an airport could already be so busy prior to 6:00 in the morning. Freddie was pecking John on the shoulder mercilessly while Brian and Chrissie marveled at some of the brochures they had collected from some record promoters. Poor Mary was going to need to continually rope Fred back in until he fell asleep from a coffee overdose. Then there was Roger and I….the two bitchiest people on the face of the earth this morning.

 How could anyone possibly be bitchy on the ultra plush Delta Airlines Flight 4173 bound for Los Angeles, California…United States of America? We were surrounded by bucket seats of bound leather, gorgeous navy blue and cream carpet with orange accents, a most beautiful Delta Airlines round area rug and every amenity we could possibly want during our flight. Well, allow me to shed some light on why we were most unpleasant as hell. Roger and I had lived a whirlwind of a life in the past two months. News of the World had been released and we were enroot to LA for the American premiere. None of us, not me, not Chrissie, Mary nor Veronica had ever been to the United States. Roger painted it out to be the most wonderful place he’d ever been. To quote him, when the boys had previously toured there, he said ‘we had a good time in America’….take that however you wish. He and I were beyond excited to get the hell off this runway because Roger had set my expectations very high.

 Roger and I were not morning people…not in the least bit. Well, we were, actually just not….5:23 in the morning people. Typically speaking, we were delightful by 6:30 AM. However, we wanted to arrive in our LA finest and so he and I had been up since 4:00 getting dressed and throwing things all over the bath hoping to god it landed in our suitcases and on this plane. I was clad in my best, thin strapped blue Chanel dress and a lipstick red Louis Vuitton on my shoulder. Actually, it was on my shoulder until right now when I was angrily trying to jam it into the overhead storage with Roger’s shit.