“Yeah, but it’d be different in a movie,” Francis answered. “You know, a red sexy room with a red silky bedspread and Carolina and Spermwhale all fat and white and oiled and sliding around!”
“You’d need a cinemascope lens,” Baxter Slate offered. “A wide wide angle to take all that flesh.”
“Wall to Wall Meat! What a title! Outta sight!” cried Francis Tanaguchi.
An hour later, Francis, Calvin, Dean and Spermwhale, who were all off duty the next night, were in Spermwhale’s rented orange and white Cessna 172 at Burbank Airport where Spermwhale often flew if he could get someone to pay for the rental and gasoline. Spermwhale had taken off without a flight plan, but with three hungover choirboys, two fifths of Scotch and one of gin, on a mission to recapture Palm Springs by way of Ontario Airport where Spermwhale reluctantly agreed to land because whaddayamean Dean wanted some potato chips. They were reprimanded at Ontario by a man in the tower for landing without using the radio, but Spermwhale told him to fuck off and decided to hire a taxi to the Ontario Motor Speedway to watch some motorcycles qualifying for a race.
It was a long hot day at the racetrack spent sleeping shirtless in the bleachers, drinking the two fifths of Scotch and a case of beer and eating all the potato chips Whaddayamean Dean could hold.
Nothing eventful happened at the speedway until late in the afternoon when the choirboys wandered down to the track and a bearded racer told Spermwhale to get his fat ass off his bike. Spermwhale replied that he could fix it so the bearded racer could equal Evel Knievel’s record for broken bones on a motor track.
The racer then called for track security officers and after being threatened with arrest the four choirboys put on their tank tops and basketball jerseys and scuttled off, moaning about never being able to find a cop when you want one. Whaddayamean Dean was so drunk he had to be helped into his filthy yellow sweatshirt and they got it on backward with the picture of Bugs Bunny on the back and “What’s Up, Doc?” on the front.
The choirboys discovered something extraordinary during the flight from Ontario to Palm Springs: that flying with a blood alcohol reading of.20 was actually invigorating. They celebrated by breaking open the fifth of gin almost immediately after takeoff and cruising at a carefree five thousand feet.
“I hate gin,” Spermwhale said, tipping the bottle and drinking a quarter of a pint without taking it from his lips, flying the airplane as steady as a rock.
“It’s what the brothers drink when they can’t get Scotch,” remarked Calvin Potts, who rode behind the self styled navigator, Francis Tanaguchi, who had never flown in any aircraft except once in the Army on the way to Fort Ord.
“But you people can drink airplane fuel,” Francis said, grimacing from the burning gin.
“Yeah, and you Chicanos are models of sobriety,” said Calvin.
“He’s not a Chicano, you fuckin idiot. He’s a Jap.” Spermwhale said.
“That’s right,” said Calvin Potts, shaking his head. “Gud-damn. I better start layin off the booze. I’m gettin simple!”
“It’s confusin workin with a madman like Francis, is all,” said Spermwhale, belching wetly.
“Gin! Gin!” cried Whaddayamean Dean, taking the bottle from Calvin and after three long swallows dropping into complete obliterating drunkenness.
Twenty minutes from the Palm Springs Airport, Spermwhale discovered he was well off the course through Banning Pass and was coming in dangerously low over the San Jacinto Mountains. “Aw shit!” he said and took the plane up seven thousand feet.
“Dynamite!” chuckled Calvin Potts as they climbed.
“My ears hurt! My ears hurt!” Whaddayamean Dean moaned.
“Far out!” Francis exclaimed as they soared through a cloud and came in like a Ping-Pong ball in the turbulence over the mountains.
“Hey, I can see that guy’s eyeballs down there!” Calvin Potts said.
“What guy?” Spermwhale asked.
“The guy in the brown uniform. Looks like a forest ranger or somethin. The guy that jumped off the rock and fell on his ass when we buzzed him.”
“We didn’t buzz nobody,” Spermwhale said. “Not on purpose.”
“Well, ain’t we flying a little low to the mountaintop?” asked Calvin.
“Whaddaya mean? Whaddaya mean?” asked Whaddayamean Dean.
“You know, there’s somethin wrong. Somethin’s fucked up,” Spermwhale said. “We ain’t comin in on the airport. We’re comin in on somethin else looks a little different. I think maybe I’m a little more off course than I thought.”
Then Calvin Potts was suddenly draped around Spermwhale’s neck screaming, “Are we gonna crash?”
“Whaddaya mean? Whaddaya mean?” yelled Whaddayamean Dean.
“Get off my fuckin neck, Calvin, goddamnit!” Spermwhale ordered, prying Calvin’s fingers loose. “Damn! You remind me a that vampire partner of yours. Jumpin around people’s necks!”
“We are most certainly not going to crash,” said Francis Tanaguchi, who was giggling idiotically as the airplane swooped down and up again. “As long as I am navigator we shall not crash!”
“Crash? Crash?” said Whaddayamean Dean.
“Give Dean another drink and take one yourself, Calvin,” Spermwhale said as they dropped down toward the business district of Palm Springs and the airplane’s engine started to attract attention below.
Then they were buzzing the Canyon Country Club. Calvin Potts, his red tank top soaked and plastered to him, cinnamon shoulders gleaming, said, “That’s a green motherfuckin airport, Spermwhale. That’s a… GUD-DAMN! THAT’S A GOLF COURSE!”
And Spermwhale jerked the wheel and the airplane pulled out and up, throwing them all back against their seats.
“We’re gonna be all right,” Spermwhale assured everybody. “I’m just a little lost is all.”
“Lost? Lost?” cried Whaddayamean Dean. “What’s he mean, Calvin? What’s he mean, Calvin?”
“Here,” said Francis Tanaguchi and Whaddayamean Dean accepted the bottle and was happy again.
As often happened when the choirboys would get drunk with the simpering redhead, they would find themselves un-consciously talking rapid fire and double action after hearing Whaddayamean Dean for a time.
Spermwhale was next to do it when he said, “I could use a drink. I could use a drink.”
“Here. Here. Drink. Drink,” said Francis.
“You had enough. You had enough,” said Calvin Potts.
“What’re you trying to say? What’re you trying to say?” said Whaddayamean Dean.
Francis played with the gauge and pretended he was a real pilot while Spermwhale turned around for a second pass over what he thought had to be the airport but was another golf course.
“Motherfucker’s shootin at us!” screamed Calvin Potts as Spermwhale Whalen swooped down over the fifteenth fairway and then up toward the mountaintop.
“Who is?” demanded Spermwhale Whalen, deliberately turning the roaring little airplane around and diving belligerently toward the golf course.
“It was nothing,” said Francis disgustedly “Some guy pointing a golf club is all it was. He jumped into the sand trap that time down.”
Then Spermwhale circled downtown Palm Springs for another few minutes as the police department sent two cars to sight and identify the aircraft.
Francis suddenly turned surly to the chagrin of Calvin Potts who had stopped drinking fifteen minutes ago.
“Rotten paleface assholes!” screamed Francis. “Steal the Indians’ land! I wish Roscoe Rules was here, you lousy scrotes. Roscoe’d fix you. He’d make you do the fucking chicken!”
“Whaddayamean, Francis? Whaddayamean, Francis?” asked Whaddayamean Dean.
“They stole the land!” said Francis, and the sadness in his voice was all that Whaddayamean Dean understood but it was enough to make him cry and wail, “They stole the land! They stole the land!”
“Shut up, Dean, goddamnit!” growled Spermwhale. “That’s all we need now, for you to start bawlin.”
“Have a drink, Dean,” Calvin Potts said, shakily handing Whaddayamean Dean the bottle as Spermwhale circled the town and Francis raged against all white men.