Chapter 209: Michael in (Weddings) Trouble

Sunday, July 11, 1971

Usually, I’m a morning person. And usually, the morning of a trip, especially a trip half-way around the globe, you would find me wide-eyed and bushy-tailed.

But not this morning!

This morning, it was all I could do just to open one eye and glare at the delegation that was standing beside my bed as I was wondering why they had sent so many executioners just to escort me to the gallows. Because, as bad as I felt, that was where I was surely going.

“C’mon, Michael,” Candy shook my shoulder again. “We have to get going. Adriana says we have to be on the bus in fifteen minutes and everybody else is already up and dressed and waiting on you!”

“She’s right, you know. We have to go now!” my sister added. “We packed your suitcase last night. Run jump in the shower while Jenny and I lay out what you need to wear. Then come on downstairs.”

Usually, I CAN follow orders.

Except sometimes.

Like when I am exhausted beyond measure and sleep deprived. However, I finally stumbled into the shower and immediately slumped down on the bench (it’s a big shower!) without turning on the water.

“It looks like someone is gonna have to get in there and help him,” Candy observed. “Otherwise, I don’t think he’s gonna make it.”

“I just finished doing my hair so I vote we let him fly stinky, if it is up to me,” Randi said.

“Maybe we should go get the ones that did this to him,” Nicky said as she reached in and turned on the shower.

I think I moaned.

“Who DID do this to him, anyway?” Julie asked.

“I think it was Aunt Debbie,” Nicky replied.

“I can’t believe that my mom did this to him,” Candy stated incredulously.

“Oh, it was your mom alright,” Nicky replied. “Along with Jessica, Izzy, and Sandy.”

“ALL of THEM?” Amy asked. “No wonder he’s useless this morning.”

“Well, I’m going to get our mother in here right now to clean up her mess,” said Mandy.

“Oh, don’t bother Mom. I’ll do it,” Candy intoned. “I mean, like, we really need to get him going or we’re gonna be late.”

“How can we be late, if it’s a chartered flight?” asked Jenny. “Don’t they have to go when we tell them?”

“You’re right, Jenny,” said a new voice as Vickie walked in. “However, we had to prepay for the slot to take off in, and if we don’t take-off then, they can hold us all day until another take-off slot comes open. And they can charge us even more for sitting around taking up space.”

“Oh,” replied Jenny.

“I overheard your situation and I’m here to help,” Vickie added as she began taking off her clothes. “Why don’t you all head downstairs and I’ll help Candy get this big lug ambulatory?”

“Cool!” Jenny told Vickie. “You always seem to use these really neat words!”

“Okay. Go on now. Go check on everybody else for me. Okay?” Vickie asked her.

“Yes, ma’am!” Jenny replied as she scampered out of the bathroom.

I’d like to be able to report that we arrived at the General Aviation Terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City only five minutes late, at 5:35am. And I’d like to report that we then quickly boarded our charter flight to Los Angeles, where we would re-fuel, swap flight crews, and then take off for Honolulu.

Like I said, I’d like to...

Except, I slept through all of it and it wasn’t until we were almost to LAX that I actually woke up. So I am just reporting what Grace and Vickie told me later.

As for waking up, I probably would have done it sooner except that I was so comfortable in my super-soft bed. That’s right. Somewhere over Utah, I woke up in this big, luxurious king-sized bed, with some of the softest sheets you’ll ever feel. And if not for the engine noise and the dizzying view when I rolled over, opened the shade, and looked out the window, I might have thought I had never left my room back at Seven Oaks.

Squinting my eyes against the bright sunlight pouring in on the port side of the aircraft, I lifted my arm to check the time.

“Damn! When am I ever going to remember to get me a new watch?” I thought to myself.

“He’s awake,” I heard Ileana say, somewhere forward of my bedroom.

“And he sounds grumpy,” added Allie.

“Naw, he’s just hungry,” Nicky told them. “And he needs some coffee.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Grace told them. Two minutes later she was sitting on the edge of my big bed, holding a tray with coffee, juice, crescent rolls, and peach marmalade.

“You know?” I started to say after I had downed the first cup of coffee. “I think that this is the first time I’ve felt like a prince since I actually became one. When are you going to tell me how much this flying bed is costing me?”

“My, my. Someone woke up on the wrong side of the flying bed this morning,” Vickie said as she entered my flying bedroom. “Maybe he needs sex. I wonder ... which one of us is going to have to strip naked and crawl between those simply scrumptious looking sheets and fuck our boss silly so he’ll be nicer to his assistants?”

I just growled. I didn’t even want to think about sex after what Debbie, Jessica, Izzy, and Sandy had done to me last night.

“Yeah. He doesn’t sound very appreciative. I mean, we did go to all that trouble so that our boss wouldn’t have to wake up this morning until almost noon,” Adriana added.

“OKAY!” I said, grinning as much as I could with a headache. “Why doesn’t somebody get me some aspirin and then you can tell me what’s going on.”

After Vickie brought me the aspirin, my assistants settled down on my bed and Adriana said, “Let Grace tell it.”

“Well, it’s pretty simple really. We were at Uncle Harry’s bank signing some paperwork and discussing the trip when Uncle Harry began asking us questions. You know, like how many of us were going and where all we were planning to fly. Then he excused himself,” Grace explained. “When he came back, he asked if we would consider doing him a favor. It seems that one of his biggest clients, Eastern Airlines, had ordered one of the new Lockheed L-1011 TriStar passenger jets. The prototype had arrived back in January and Eastern began testing it out.”

“Yeah. And then, when Rolls Royce filed for bankruptcy in April, Eastern started trying to cancel their order, because Rolls Royce made all the engines for the Tri-Star. Eastern also decided to get rid of its four-month-old prototype. Eventually, they made a deal with some Middle Eastern Prince and he had it customized as you see. But then he was killed in a military coup last month, before he could pick up the plane,” Adriana said.

“Uncle Harry says we can get it for what the Sheik still owed, which is a fraction of its value,” Vickie told me. “So, we told him we would check it out. Then, Eastern agreed to supply the pilots and fuel for the test flight. So, all we had to pay were some landing and fuel surcharge fees.”

“Of course, if you don’t buy it, it’s back to commercial airlines with no beds for the return trip,” Adriana said smiling.

Grace had the numbers and she and Adriana went over them while Vickie got me more coffee. Finally, after answering my questions, I asked them, “Okay. Assuming I do go for it. And yes I understand the tax implications. But just saying I do go for it ... which one of you do I get to make love to in this bed first?”

They all sat looking at me, not saying a word.

Finally, Grace said, “We didn’t think of that!”

I didn’t have time to make love to any of them because we were approaching Los Angeles International Airport and aviation rules require all passengers be in a seat and buckled for take-offs and landings.

So just before the big Tri-Star broke through the clouds as it descended into LAX, I opened the door to the rest of the aircraft and froze in my tracks.

“Damn!” I exclaimed.

The rest of the aircraft was as plush as my bedroom with leather chairs and sofas scattered the length of the cabin. There was a galley and a bar and pull-out tables for every seat.

The prince had sure had it done up ... er, I think ‘extravagantly’ might be the word I was looking for.

We slipped into the plush, padded leather seats with the rest of my family as a voice came over the cabin speakers.

“Stewardess’, please prepare the cabin for landing,” it intoned as the two stewardesses, dressed smartly in their early 70’s Eastern Airlines uniforms, went through the cabin, making sure we were all buckled in and the table tops were stored in their appropriate places. I knew that it would still be a few years before they would be called ‘Flight Attendants’.

After a relatively smooth landing and a rather long taxi to the back of the airport, the voice returned.

“Welcome to Los Angeles. The time here is 8:55am and the temperature is a cool 67 degrees this morning. As you can see, we are not at a gate and there are no ramps or stairs to access the Tri-Star at this time. So unfortunately, you will not be able to deplane.”

There didn’t seem to be much dissatisfaction at his announcement as most everyone moved to be able to look out the windows.

“However, we only expect our ground time here in LA to be around sixty minutes while we re-fuel and re-provision the plane. Also, FAA regulations require us to bid you goodbye now. Your new flight crew for the next leg of your journey will be boarding shortly. So, on behalf of this flight crew, we would like to thank you for flying with Eastern ... er, for flying with Wagner Industries.”

When I looked out the window, I could see the distinctive, Paul Williams designed, “Theme Building” that marked the LAX passenger terminal in the distance. I could also see that the Tri-Star was too high off the tarmac to even think about jumping out.

I was wondering how this flight crew was going to get off and the next crew get on when I noticed a catering truck pull up beside the plane.

I watched as the box on the truck bed lifted itself by means of some scissor-lifts under the box, until it was level with the galley door. One of the stewardesses opened the plane’s outside doors in the galley and there was the catering truck’s box. Then the door on the catering truck rolled up and out walked the new flight crew, along with a food services employee with carts full of fresh food to replenish the galley.

After the caterer was through re-stocking the galley and had collected all the trash, she and the old flight crew boarded the catering truck’s box. Finally, I watched as the box lowered itself back to the bed of the truck, before speeding away.

“I’ve always wondered how they did that,” Jimmy commented.

As we sat on the tarmac, waiting on the refueling to finish, I thought about the L-1011 TriStar.

If I remembered correctly, it was in the 1960s, that American Airlines had approached Lockheed and their competitor Douglas (later McDonnell Douglas) with their need for an airliner smaller than the Boeing 747, but capable of carrying large passenger loads to distant locales such as London and Latin America from American Airline’s hubs at Dallas/Ft Worth and New York. Lockheed, who had been absent from the civil airliner market since the late 1950s (see Lockheed L-188 Electra), was eager to re-enter the market, and their response was the L-1011 TriStar.

The Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, commonly referred to as the L-Ten-Eleven or the TriStar, is a medium-to-long-range, wide-body tri-jet airliner. With a seating capacity of up to 400 passengers and a range of over 4,000 nautical miles (7,410 km), it seemed to meet American Airlines’ initial requirements.

But the Tri-Star also included a host of technologically advanced (for the day) features including an auto-land capability, an automated descent control system (DLC), a three-engine layout, low noise emissions, improved reliability, and efficient operation.

The Tri-Star’s highly advanced autopilot system was the first to receive an FAA certification for Cat-IIIc auto-landing, which meant that the Tri-Star was approved for completely blind landings in zero-visibility weather when performed by the aircraft’s autopilot. The Tri-Star also used an Inertial Navigation System (INS) to navigate, which included being able to align the navigation system by entering current coordinates of longitude and latitude.

The Tri-Star also had a unique Direct Lift Control (DLC) system, which allowed for smooth approaches when landing without having to use significant pitch changes while on the approach path. The DLC helped maintain the descending glide slope on final approach by automatically deploying spoiler panels on the wings. Thus, rather than maintaining the descent by adjusting pitch, DLC helped control the descent while maintaining a more consistent pitch angle using four redundant hydraulic systems.