Jumpseat Legends: Playing With Fire

We’ve finally reached October.  As the weather turns cold we get in the seasonal mood for bone chilling stories of ghosts, goblins, and ghouls… something I’m currently out of.  What I do have plenty of are jumpseat legends; those scary stories that travel the world on the uncomfortable pads of airplane jumpseats.  In addition to my other posts this month I’m going to be putting up a weekly Jumpseat Legend.  This is the first.

 

Playing With Fire

 

The scheduled trip was New York’s JFK to Mexico City on an Airbus 320, which holds just under 150 passengers.  It was a routine trip for the crew with a short layover, less than 14 hours.  More time than is really needed in Mexico City where it’s almost too dangerous to leave the Hotel.  The pilots, Tom and Scott, were busy at work in the cockpit and the flight attendants, Jane, Gloria, and Stewart (not Steward), were finished their safety checks when the passengers started to board.  Gloria and Stewart took their positions in the aisle and Jane stayed by the door to greet.

Flight attendants quickly develop a knack for making pleasant conversation out of nothing and Jane was an experienced flight attendant.  The greeter has between 3 and 6 seconds from when the passenger steps onto the aircraft until he or she reaches the aisle to size them up and make pleasant conversation.  “Hi.  Welcome aboard,” gets old fast so, like most flight attendants, Jane used her 3-6 seconds with more personalized words. 

“Hi, I love your purse,” she said to the first woman who came aboard.  “Is that Prada?”

“Welcome aboard. Let’s go Yankee’s,” she said to the man with the baseball cap. 

“Good afternoon, sir,” she said to the next man who was wearing a disheveled suit to match the three days of hair rusted on his face.  He was toying with a pack of cigarettes in his right hand.  “Remember, don’t play with fire on the airplane,” she said pointing to the cigarettes.

Fast-forward… The door is closed, please turn off all electronics….to fasten your seatbelt, insert the metal fitting… cleared for take off… Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ll be offering you a beverage service shortly, followed by…This is your captain speaking.  We’ve reached our cruising altitude of 37,000 feet and we’ll be turning off the fasten seat belt sign [ding].  Please feel free to move about the cabin... would you like a beverage... that service seemed to go fast didn't it?

Three hours into the flight most people had drifted off to sleep or slipped their minds into a book.  Stewart walked up to Jane in the front of the airplane. 

“Hey,” he said.  “The lav in the back has been locked for like a half an hour and nobody is answering the door.  Did you lock it?  Neither of us in the back did.”

“No,” Jane said.  “We’ll figure it out.”

As the two walked to the back of the aircraft, Jane noticed that only one seat was empty, the seat that the man in the disheveled suit had been occupying.    

The woman next to the vacant seat was awake and reading a book. 

“Excuse me,” Jane said to the woman.  “Were you traveling with the man in this seat?”

“No,” the woman said.  “Never saw him before in my life.”

“Do you know how long he’s been gone?”

The woman looked at her watch.  “Can’t say for sure.  Maybe 45 minutes.  He spent the first half of the flight scribbling on a sheet of paper like his life depended on it then he got up and ran to the back.  He was kind of sweaty.  I think he may be sick.”

“Thanks,” Jane said. 

In the back of the plane, Jane knocked on the lavatory door.  “Hello?” she called.  “Sir, are you alright?  Do you need any assistance?  Sir, we’re going to open the door now.”  She looked at Stewart and said, “Open the door.”

“Why me?” he asked.

“Because he’s a man and you’re a man.  It’s more appropriate.”

“I think he’d like it better if it were you,” Stewart said.

“That’s another reason for you to do it.”

“Fine.”  Stewart lifted the small metal placard above the occupied sign and slid the latch to open the door.  He pushed gently.  The door didn’t move.  He pushed harder.

"Sir, are you holding the door shut?" he asked.  Stewart leaned against the door and it opened slowly with a screech of metal scraping along metal.  

He turned to Jane and Gloria and said, "He broke the door."

"Look," Jane said.  A foot was lying limply on the closed lid of the toilet seat, facing the wrong way.  The leg it was attached to extended upwards with a very slight slope.

"Oh my," Gloria said.  "That isn't good." She peeked her head into the bathroom and erupted in an earsplitting scream that woke all the passengers on the plane.  Ripping her head out of the bathroom and backing up into the galley she stuttered, "He's...he's...he's..."

Stewart poked his head into the bathroom and quickly pulled it out.  "He's hung."  

"We've got to get him down," Jane said quickly.  "Stew, get him down."

Stewart threw his weight against the door so it would open enough to let him in.  Airplane restrooms aren't designed to hold two people, especially not two grown men, but with some effort Stewart made his way in and broke off the stabilizing arm that the man had tied one end of his belt around.  He left the other end of the belt around the man's neck.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, excuse the interruption," Jane said over the PA.  "If there are any qualified medical professionals on board will you please identify yourself to a flight attendant."  

There was a doctor on board and he was already on his way to the back of the airplane from first class.  He knelt down next to the man that Stewart was pulling out of the bathroom and loosened the belt around his neck.  

"Well, he's dead," the doctor said.  

"So I could have left him there?" Stewart asked.

"No," the doctor said.  "You couldn't have.  If you leave him there for long enough his head could have popped off."

"Really?" Stewart asked as Gloria ran into the other bathroom to vomit.

"No," the doctor said.  "Not really."

There was a sheet of yellow legal paper folded several times and sticking out of the mans breast pocket.   Stewart pulled it out and unfolded it.  "It's his suicide note."

"You can't just read his suicide note," Jane said.  "It's private."  

"He didn't address it to anyone in particular," he said.  "See.  No salutation."

"What does it say?" the doctor asked.  

"It's a confession, I think.  It says he'd rather die than go to jail."

"What?" Jane asked.

"I guess he burnt down his car dealership for the insurance money.  He says he knew he was caught when the flight attendant told him not to play with fire.  Look, it says, "The FBI  will have a hard time arresting a dead man.""

Jane never again greeted a passenger with anything other than, "Hi, welcome aboard."