Flying in the Heart of the Lafayette Esc - By James Van Pelt Page 0,2

nurses from Fitzsimmons. Good bands.

A short brunette wearing a fur coat brushed the edge of our table as she walked by.

“Scuse me!” Brian yelled. I’ve seen this approach before. He says the key to scoring is getting their attention, that it doesn’t matter what you say as long as they look at you. He said to me once, “Get them into a rhythm, a call and response thing, and you’re half way home.” She turned her head, looked at him and slowed down. Brian’s One-Stop-Sun-Shop tan and hair is so blond, its white gets most of them.

“Nice jacket. Does that have buttons or a zipper?” He smiled. His teeth are a little crooked and one of the top front ones is turning black from a bad root canal, but he talks so fast and smiles so often that women never seem to mind.

She pulled the edges of the coat closed and hurried towards the bar as if she’d just seen someone she knew.

“Frigid or a lesbo. If they won’t talk, they’re one or the other.” He rested his hand on his beer. The band kicked into a heavily drummed tune that sounded good to dance to.

He pushed his elbows off the table and scanned the room. The late flights were all in and unaccompanied women sipping from wine coolers or spritzers sat together in small groups around the tables. So few men were in the place that women were dancing with each other. They looked like they were having a good time. The Lafayette is an undiscovered resource in Denver. Most guys head for After the Gold Rush or Confetti’s where the ratio is three to one the wrong way.

“I’m going to the aviator,” he said. “Prime time.”

Lafayette’s bathrooms are labled “aviator” and “aviatrix.” When Brian’s on the hunt he will leave once an hour, lock himself in a stall, take a wad of tobacco laced with coke, and come out ready to fly. “Just a pinch between my cheek and gum is the real thing,” he’d say. I’d tried it once, but I got sick. No buzz.

Another bar-ace I know named Quinn, when I asked him what he did to make connections at singles joints, told me, “I plant seeds. I strike up a conversation; maybe dance, buy them a drink. I always make sure they know my name and I know theirs. Two or three weeks later I see them again. We’re friends. They know who I am; I remember them. But I never go home with anyone unless it’s her idea. I’ve learned that it doesn’t do me any good to suggest it. I plant seeds and I wait for the harvest.”

I’m no bar-ace with silhouettes of kills recorded on the headboard. I’m an observer. I want to touch, but not like Brian and Quinn. I mean I like sex just like the next guy, but it doesn’t seem like really being with someone. When I’m through with sex and we’re lying there I secretly grip the pillow, make a fist and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze, because it never goes far enough.

A portrait of Raoul Lufbery, the leading ace of the Lafayette Escadrille hangs in the foyer with the other World War I pictures. He’s facing the camera, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a cigarette between his thumb and index finger. The caption underneath is a quote, “There are only two kinds of combat pilots: those who shoot and those who get shot.” I guess there is something to that.

I’ve been shot down twice. The first time was only a few miles from the Luxeuil-les-Bains airdrome. An all white Halberstadt appeared out of the sun and fired one burst that destroyed my engine and blew oil into my face, blinding me. The wind whined in the wires as I side-slipped hard to the left and started a flat spin to convince him I was dead. German pilots will sometimes continue firing into a crippled plane so that they can report a clean kill. A spinning plane is impossible to get a good shot at. I tore my goggles off when I was convinced that he was not following and landed in a corn field where a French farmer and his wife fed me wine, cheese and coarse bread until the ambulance from Luxeuil came and picked me up.

I bank my plane east now and head deeper into Boche air. Nearly an hour has passed and I will have to turn back soon. The