Coffee, Tea or Me? (18 page)

—“My wife loves me too much. It’s stifling. I’m smothered by her love. I need to be with a woman who doesn’t love me, like you, someone who can face me objectively.” (This is fairly enlightened and can be so refreshing in its absurdity that you might fall into the logic.)

—“Once the children came, my wife forgot I was even around.” (Another old line, but valid in too many cases.)

—“We bought a dog and ever since my wife has forgotten I exist.” (Come on, fella.)

—“It’s the bomb. Tomorrow may never come.” (That’s a good reason to get a good night’s sleep, as far as we’re concerned.)

—“I went to Sweden once.” (Is he trying to tell us he’d had an operation?)

—“It’s good for a man to have different sexual experiences. Why, Doctor Joyce Brothers says . . .” (Why don’t you call Dr. Brothers?)

—“This is the twentieth century.” (He’s fairly bright, at least.)

—“It’s good for a man to stray once in a while. He appreciates his wife more.” (Flattering to us, huh?)

—“My wife is so immature. I need a mature woman, someone with insight, understanding, someone to confer with on an intellectual level.” (Who, me?)

—“My wife and I have an agreement. She knows I run around a little.” (It’s a sure bet he’s scared silly of his wife and the last thing he wants to happen is for her to find out.)

—“If you do go out with me, promise to be very quiet about it. My wife would kill me.” (At least he’s honest.)

—“We’re getting a divorce soon.” (Call me from Mexico.)

—“My wife is frigid. That’s not easy for me, you know.” (Her either, Charlie.)

—“I’m writing the great novel of our times and I need to live, to experience all of life.” (Have you ever been to a happening?)

—“I’m seventy and still need love.” (Have you written your will yet?)

And so on.

 

No matter how we feel about dating married men, each of us ends up with at least one in our careers. The only time I’ve become really involved was when I truly didn’t know he was married. My radar completely broke down and I believed everything he said, including the fact that he could only date me on Wednesday because he went to school every other night of the week, including Saturday and Sunday. I hate to tell you how I found out about his wife. It was one of the darkest experiences of my life. Thank God she was the calm, reasonable woman she was.

I was at home reading a book a captain had given me, a gripping novel about the peacetime army,
Stockade,
when the telephone rang. I picked it up, still engrossed in the book.

“Hello.”

“Hello, I’d like to speak with Trudy Baker please.”

“This is Trudy Baker.”

“And this is Mrs. Pearl.” I was elated. The book I was reading was written by Jack Pearl, and for a moment, this woman seemed connected with him. But that fantasy lasted only a fraction of a second. Then I realized I knew another man named Pearl. His name was Bob Pearl, a draftsman, the man I’d been dating every Wednesday night for the past six months.

“Bob Pearl’s mother?” I asked timidly.

“No, his wife.”

What do you say in such a situation? I said nothing and let her continue.

“Miss Baker, I’ve known all about you and Bob. Don’t ask me how. It’s really irrelevant. But what I do want to say is I’d like to stay married to Bob. But I won’t if he’d prefer to continue seeing you. I’ve offered him a divorce but he’s declined.”

“Mrs. Pearl,” I said slowly, “I’m sorry. I did not know Bob was married. He said he wasn’t and I believed him. I’m sorry.”

“Didn’t you find it unusual that he could only take you out on Wednesday?”

“Yes. At first. But I stopped thinking about it. I was happy with Wednesday.”

“Well, at any rate, I do demand that either you stop seeing him or I’ll start divorce proceedings. Bob says he doesn’t want that and I now leave it in your hands.”

“Mrs. Pearl, I want nothing to do with your husband. Believe me, nothing.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry he lied to you.”

Quite a woman. That was the end of that.

Actually, there’s one kind of passenger any girl will date, or at least go to dinner with, whether or not he’s married. That’s the man who sits there quietly, behaves himself like a gentleman, but you know that he’s aware of you. You’re sure that he wants to ask you for a date but doesn’t know how. As he’s leaving, he’ll often say something like this: “That was a very nice flight. I enjoyed it and you’re a nice stewardess. I’d like to have you on my flight again. The next time I’m on your flight, maybe I can buy you dinner.”

That’s fine. Even if he’s married, most of us will go out with a guy like that, have dinner, enjoy his company and that’s it. No wild time. No big sex thing. But we’re both in a strange city, away from home, and we want to spend a pleasant evening. There’s no harm in that. Of course, it can happen that from such a casual beginning there can develop a very deep and complicated attachment. That’s a risk we take.

Yes, the radar is built in. What we do with its findings is another matter.

There isn’t a great deal you can say about homosexual men and women you meet on a flight, except maybe to comment that there are more of them than you might think. Just as we’re able to size up a man’s marital status, profession, and nationality, we’ve become quasi expert in labeling the gay guys who fly with us. It really isn’t difficult when you think about it.

Some make it easy for us through their outward mannerisms. It’s a fairly safe bet to say, “Here comes a fay one,” when the subject of your comment floats up the loading ramp, his feet six inches off the ground, twinkle-toes past you, and lightly settles in his seat, one leg daintily crossed over the other in best feminine fashion.

Much tougher to recognize are those with big biceps bulging under their coats, rugged faces, and harsh, manly ways of speaking. They’re dangerous, if only because you can fall in love with one before you know he isn’t capable of returning the affection.

Certainly, there are times and conditions when a homosexual is preferable. Many girls working foreign lines testify that a good portion of the male stewards working their flights aren’t as masculine as you might expect, and this very lack of drive for the opposite sex ensures these girls a relatively safe trip, especially in the close confines of the galley.

Then, too, a fay fellow can be valuable simply as an escort, when escorting is the sum and substance of what you expect on a given evening. There are many girls who maintain a warm friendship with a homosexual man, and enjoy his company on those occasions when all she wants is a pleasant fellow to take her to dinner, the theater, and to bring her home without pawing and panting. But as a steady diet, none of us wants that man around.

We’ve found that most effeminate men on our flights are extremely passive. They generally possess a high degree of intelligence, are witty, too polite, and offer no trouble to a stewardess. But despite these apparent advantages, their very presence is unnerving and disconcerting.

The biggest problems with a homosexual on a flight come when he’s an overt one, a practicing queer with little discretion for the time and the place. We’ve all been involved in these cases, and they can leave you shook for days.

I remember one young man, neatly dressed and from all appearances a gentleman, on a flight from Dayton to Houston. He sat in seat 6B.

We were airborne and just leveling off at cruising altitude when a passenger signal light flashed in the galley. It was for seat 6A, occupied by an elderly businessman who had settled down to paperwork the moment he came aboard. I walked down the aisle to answer his signal, and as he saw me coming, he got up and met me in the aisle.

“May I have a word with you?” he asked, his expression one of disgust.

“Of course, sir,” I answered, and led him back to the galley.

“Look, Miss, I don’t want to be a complainer or prude. But I wonder if there isn’t something can be done about the young man sitting next to me.” He was referring to the neatly dressed young man in 6B.

“What’s the problem, sir?” I expected him to say he had excessive body odor, or was playing a wooden flute, or maybe he was even reading
Playboy.
Perhaps the sight of the center foldout was bothersome to this businessman trying to work.

“I don’t even want to get into a description of it with you, Miss. I think the best thing would be for you to go down the aisle and look at what he’s reading. You’ll understand then.”

It seemed a reasonable request, and I did as he suggested. I wish I hadn’t. There was the young man in his seat, his eyes focused on a magazine he had in his lap. It did have a centerfold like
Playboy,
but this one had nothing to do with girls. Folded out was a full-length photograph of a nude man posed against a tree. He was the pinup of the month. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a man in the nude, but the setting and timing left me in a slight state of shock.

I came back to the galley where the businessman stood patiently.

“That’s awful,” I said.

“Yes, it is. The thing I want to know is what we can we do about it. I’d ask to change my seat but it’s obvious there isn’t a vacant seat in this airplane. But I won’t spend my whole trip looking at his . . . his pinups.”

“I think the captain should be advised about this.”

“That probably would be a good idea, Miss.”

I went to the cockpit and explained what the problem was.

“Pictures of naked men?” the captain asked with disbelief. “Come on, Trudy. You’re kidding.”

“I’m serious. A foldout, no less. And his seat partner, a distinguished type, isn’t happy, boss. I suggest you come on back and straighten things out.”

The captain, a tall Texan with droopy eyes, came back and approached the young man with the magazine. The magazine was still on his lap but turned to a different page. This page featured a large advertisement for a community shower gadget that would attach readily to any shower enclosure. The illustration showed six men standing nude in a circle as water flowed from the overhead rig. One was washing another’s back.

“I’m gonna have to ask you to put that magazine away, young fella,” the captain drawled. “It’s . . . well, it’s indecent, if you follow what I mean.”

The faggy fellow raised up in his seat and surveyed the captain with great scorn and resentment, as a woman might do when confronted with someone of financial position at an Episcopal tea.

“Indecent?” the faggy fellow echoed in an annoyed whine. “You’re indecent, Captain Marvel.” He broke into a high-pitched giggle and blinked his eyes at the bewildered captain.

The captain pondered the man’s reaction to his request and decided to take immediate action. He reached down and gave the magazine a pull. “Gimme that thing,” he demanded.

The homosexual hung on tightly. “Don’t you dare touch this,” he screamed, “Or I’ll have you demoted . . . and whipped!”

“The hell you say,” the captain retaliated. He gave an extra pull and came away with most of the magazine. The homosexual was left holding the corners of a few pages.

The queer young man turned red with anger. His lips quivered, he breathed hard, and he turned around to everyone within hearing distance, which took in most of the passengers.

“This man is a sadist. He’s violating my rights as an individual and a citizen. He should be whipped. That’s right. Somebody help me.”

No one moved. They returned to their magazines or to looking out the windows. The captain just stood there, his prize, the bulk of the magazine, tightly clenched in his fist. He turned on his heels and stalked back to the cockpit. I went in with him and asked what I should do.

“Not a damn thing, Trudy, unless he makes any more trouble. He’ll probably settle down now. Let me know if you need me again.”

Before I left the cockpit, I took a moment to look at the magazine. It was some sort of official publication for homosexuals. It was the sickest magazine I’ve ever seen.

The fellow in 6B kept quiet for the rest of the flight. The businessman returned to his seat with great reluctance and no further trouble came from that section of the airplane.

It was on arrival that the homosexual decided to raise a little hell with the captain’s confiscation of his magazine. He waited in the lobby until the captain came off the airplane, and boldly walked up to him.

“You big bugger,” he snarled in the captain’s face, his hands waving about like Bette Davis. “I hope you get some horrible disease from the next girl you’re with.”

He wiggled away, his tight pants accentuating his girlish derrière.

“I’ll be a son of a bitch,” the captain muttered as he walked over to us. “These damn fags’ll take over the whole damn world.”

We still kid the captain about the incident. He says he’s kept the magazine as a reminder of the experience. I don’t need anything to remember it.