FRENCH AIR STEWARDESSES by Peter Nolan Smith

Air stewardesses of the 1970s were sex symbols of travel. These elegant airborne beauties flew from city to city and country to country with a smile. The uniforms were designed by fashion houses. Air travel was cool and the stewardesses were sexy in a good way.

The sexiest air hostesses were from foreign countries with Air France girls exuding an availability at high altitudes and they overnighted in an apartment high rise next to Hurrah on West 62nd Street, where I worked as the doorman.

The punk disco offered live shows of the Damned, Ramones, and Dead Boys. Between sets our New Wave DJs such as the British Sean Cassette spun the B52s, Specials, and Blondie for dancing. Each night a new crew of Air France drop their bags at the airline apartments and then stripped out of their uniforms to slip into leather and chains for a night at Hurrah.

As doorman I held the power of entry and waved in the Air France stewardesses for free. They were young, international, and beautiful. Pan-Am, BOAC, Lufthansa, Air Italia were also welcomed guests. My co-worker, Anthony, and I bedded many of these travelers and these glamorous Valkyries transported us to Valhalla without ever asking for a home phone number.

Anthony and I reveled in these anonymous encounters and we gained a well-deserved reputation for free love in the stairways and bathrooms of Hurrah. Jhoury the gay bartender announced the arrival of these high-flying angels in a shrill voice.

"Now landing at Hurrah Air France Flight # 201 from Paris."

It was good fun, until a goddess fully aware of her deification sauntered up to the entrance in a sleek black leather body suit straight out of the flight school of Pussy Galore, 007's love interest from GOLDFINGER. She was arm and arm with a handsome air steward wearing matching black leather. I didn't even really see him.

Her platinum blonde hair hung straight as a bullet's trajectory complimented her powdery white skin. The click of her crow black boa stiletto heels on the concrete sidewalk accented her haughtiness. She paid no mind to my opening the ropes or my waving her in for free or my trailing her scent of Chanel # 5 up the stairs to the dance floor.

My adoration was in competition with every straight man in Hurrah. She danced with anyone who asked her for dance. My eyes studied her sinuous body to the music of the Bush Tetras like a XXX film producer casting his leading lady. Jhoury plied Claudine with drinks at my request. Her male steward friend was his type; handsome as a Greek statue and dumber than a bucket of mud.

I introduced myself.

"I know you. Dance with me," she spoke like Marlene Dietrich and I obeyed her command.

I danced with her during the headliner's show, my hands on her hipbones. The flesh over her skeleton was thinner than a crepe. Claudine shrugged off my grope.

"Pas ici."

"What about______" I knew very little French and understood less.

"I have heard about you from the other stewardesses. You fuck like a dog. Toilet, roof, stairway. I am not a dog."

"Oh."

She swirled away with a shimmering curtain of hair pirouetting across her shoulders. Her refusal scoured the rust from my lazy pride. I had never said that she was a dog and I had never thought about having her doggie style until her mention of 'dog'. She was right. I was a dog.

Jhoury laughed at my expense. He was expecting to tour Le Toilet bar in the West Village with Claudine's male roommate. He was into the rough stuff. I gave Jhoury the finger, as Claudine and her friend, Martin, left the club.

I had failed for once.

Fifteen minutes later Martin climbed the stairs to Hurrah. A boa stiletto in his hand. He pointed to a lighted terrace on the 24th floor.

"Claudine is expecting you. She is flying to Paris in five hours. Go now. Enjoy." He shone a big smile for Jhoury.

I told Anthony that I was taking a break. It was 2:14am. I wasn't coming back here until the following night. Anthony glanced at my hand. The shoe said everything.

"Bon appetit."

The doorman at the high-rise was expecting me and said, "24F."

The apartment door was open. Claudine lay on a chocolate brown couch. Her vanilla skin looked like ice cream atop cake. A dog collar clasped around her aristocratic neck in imitation of Marie Antoinette on the leash. Cocaine rails zigzagged across the glass table. Claudine had seer-soothed my sins. I was Johnny Thunder's cousin from the John Holmes' side of the family. A thin Cartier watch was on the table. Claudine glanced at the face.

"Four hours to take-off."

Claudine had a swimmers's muscles and bones. After a few minutes her skin bore the tang of chlorine. Within twenty minutes she only smelled of my sweat. The view out the window was New York from a magic carpet, but the magic spell was draining out of the hourglass of opportunity. We had no time to waste figuring who was master or slave.

The reversals of domination contested our stamina. I was in good shape. She was in better condition. In the end I was Claudine's dog, while she was a lioness wanting more of heaven and hell. I was looking for eternity, but as the sun bleached the black rim of the night with a sliver of red, Claudine reached out for her watch.

It was 5:43am

Claudine snapped off the cuff. The fall of the chain was muffled by the carpet. Brown. It was a company apartment. No one really lived there. I had been there before. New York was a stopover for all the Air France hostesses. Paris was home. She threw my clothes across the room.

"I must go."

"Five more minutes." I begged for more, knowing once she was gone she was gone.

She shook her head with a smile of conquest on her lips.

"Au revoir, le chien."

Claudine pushed me out of the apartment with a kiss on each cheek and the scent of her skin gently weeping in my soul. The Beatles should have written a song about her. The door shut and I was a naked man in the hallway of a high-rise. I had been here before.

Same apartment.

Same hallway. Only then Claudine had been Brigitte.

I didn't bathe her off my flesh for three days.

Several weeks later I met the Blonde Model from Buffalo. She became the only woman in my life. The stewardesses heard the news and fewer came to the club. Anthony was angered at my blowing a good thing.

"French stewardesses," he muttered, saying the two words like a prayer three times.

This prayer acted as a curse.

I've haven't had a stewardess since.

Neither in Space nor on Earth.

The Damned Live 1979

Hurrah was a walk-up nightclub on 32 West 62nd Street. The second-floor had been a disco in its previous reincarnation. Studio 54 stole that clientele and the owners brought downtown uptown by having Jim Fouratt book punk bands.

The live music was the main attraction to Hurrah. The bookers loaded the stage with New York bands such as Klaus Nomi, ESG, Polyrock, and Ballistic Kisses to opened for headliners like the B-52s, Gang of Four, the Dead Boys, and the Ramones.

Between sets video monitors played music and strobed a kaleidoscope of images. My friends and I worked the punk disco as barmen, DJs, bookers, management, security, cashiers, and me employed as the doorman.

Our crowd were cute high school girls, long-legged models, generous drug dealers, wild movie stars, aspiring musicians, though teenagers from the outer boroughs, off-duty cops, druggy diplomats, doctors, and ne'er-do-well artists as well as a diverse collection of undesirables.

$10 bought entry for anyone other than a rat pack of bridge-and-tunnel boys. They were trouble.

In June of 1979 The Damned from the UK hit Hurrah for a one-night stand with the Dead Boys. I was familiar with the band from their newly-released LP MACHINEGUN ETIQUETTE. The Jefferson Airplane?s WHITE RABBIT was a cover from the album. I had the single. RABID was on the B-side.

Aside from letting in underage girls from Fieldston Academy and cuffing twenties for extra wages, one of my tasks as doorman was to lead the top billing bands from the dressing room in the rear corridor through the crowd onto the low stage.

A distance of 150 feet through a crowd crammed past capacity, since a cashier and I had racketed the door and resold tickets to SRO shows.

The night of The Damned's concert I probably had packed another hundred fans into the club. The Dead Boys had torn up the 700+ boys and girls. They wanted more and the more that they were going to get was The Damned. Hundreds chanted for the band. Their boots stomped hard on the wooden floor. The booker signaled me that it was time to get the band onstage. I went to the dressing room. The five bandmembers sat on its asses, surrounded by the usual punk groupies. Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys sulked in the corner. The lead guitarist was not used to being ignored by his faithful sluts.

"What's the problem?" It was obvious that the Damned weren't going anywhere.

"No Vodka. Our contact stipulated four bottles of Vodka. We ain't got none." Captain Sensible, the lead guitarist was wearing a gorilla suit. Pink top. Yellow bottom. It was a warm June night and sweat rivuleted down his face. Hot pants and a tube tops would have been a better choice.

"No vodka. No show." The black-haired singer announced with folded arms. His skin was covered by a film of white. He so wanted to look like a vampire.

"Gimme a minute." I reckoned that the owners had refused the vodka fearing the band would hit the stage drunk, but if they wanted vodka, I was going to get them some. Jhoury was the head bartender. Long thin and gay, he had a thing for the lead singer. I told him the problem and his hands elegantly seized five bottles of bar-well quality.

Old Cossack.

"Lead the way." The bottles, glasses, and mixers appeared on a tray, as if Jhoury had anticipated this call all evening. He had a thing for straight boys with English accents and reveled in his glory, when he entered the dressing room with their request the band sprang to their feet at the sight of the vodka.

“Good man." The redheaded drummer, Rat Scabies, grabbed the bottles and distributed to his fellow band members. He waved away the glasses and mixers. "We'll be drinking it neat."

The Damned screwed off the tops and lifted the open bottles to pour the vodka down their gullets like baby birds swallowing their mother's spew. Some of it made it down their throats. The rest spilled onto their clothes and floor. Jhoury was in wide-eyed awe. He like his drink too. The bottles were half-empty within a minute. Cheetah Chrome drank most of one. The drummer Rat Scabies smirked at him and said, "It's showtime. Get us on the stage and keep any lit cigarettes away from us. We're combustible."

"Jhoury, you're coming with me." I eyed his tray. Jhoury smiled with thanks. He never got out from behind the bar and now he was leading rough boys through a thick crowd. He didn't have to be told twice and we wedged out way through the phalanx of fans. The band picked up their instruments and opened the set with NEW ROSE.

It was a great show.

They performed WHITE RABBIT as an encore.

By 3am Hurrah was empty and the band ready to hit the road on their bus.

The Dead Boys with them. They were a double bill for the tour.

Destination Cleveland.

No one could find Cheetah Chrome and the bus pulled out without him. It wasn't until Buffalo that someone opened the storage area under the bus and found Cheetah passed out on the speakers. He didn't wake up until Cleveland.

The lead guitarist knew the smell of his hometown.

I never saw the Damned again, but Jhoury and I spoke often about their glugging the vodka. They were our heroes, then again so were so many of the bands that appeared at Hurrah.

It was the best of times.

ps Cheetah Chrome called me a phony for writing him into the story, but I recall him under the bus.

Plus this is semi-fiction and I love the Dead Boys.

Check out NEW ROSE by the Damned

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTfyUqVqX-0