The Man Who Flew
He is going to fly tonight at sunset off the roof of his office building. His arms will become wings when he spreads them and he will soar south where the geese have gone, north where Santa Clause lives and then, finally, east where wars are waged on mountains of sand. He has seen his future in the sky and he knows he can do it.He has told everyone he knows; his boss, his cat, his mother, the homeless man on 76th Ave. “You should come,” he tells his girlfriend the morning of his flight, as she puts her bright red lipstick on in the bathroom’s mirror.
“I’d rather not,” she says. She has moved on to eyeliner now and is carefully tracing the crevices of her eyelids. “Oh, by the way, bring home some milk when you come home from work.”
He nods, gives her a kiss, and grabs his briefcase. He watches her momentarily as she rummages for her mascara in her purse. A part of him is already flying as he looks at her. She is beautiful in an ordinary sense, but still beautiful, and he loves the way her jaw intersects with her neck down to her jutted collarbone. He thinks, briefly, about forgetting flying and work and just making love to her, but tosses it aside. He has no time for distractions. He is going to fly tonight at sunset off the roof of his office building and touch the stars.
So instead of making love, he says, “I love you,” to which she says, “Have fun flying,” to which the sound of the front door clicking shut responds.
Later on, when asked how they felt about the man who spread his wings and flew off the Larson building downtown, the people would say they wished they could stop him; that man had never meant to fly and man would never fly again. They would’ve clipped his wings if given a chance, tied him to a bed in a nuthouse, and sedated him with narcotics.
“It’s just not right, man, you know? Jesus, we stay on the ground, we don’t fly, man, we just don’t fly, we weren't meant to fly,” one man in a business suit would say, chewing gum loudly. This is the sentiment that would be broadcasted across national news. “Except in airplanes, of course. Or helicopters. Or maybe spaceships, but that’s kind of floating or blasting off more than flying, right?” He would look quickly to the camera man for some sort of smile, nod or confirmation, but would get nothing.
Then the man would add, quickly, faltering now since there would be no smile, nod or confirmation, “And those things people hang off and glide across the sky on. What’re those called again?”
Truth was, the man who flew, he wasn’t always right in the head and he was a bit abnormal. He wore flip-flops in the wintertime and snowshoes on a sunny August day; he opened his umbrella indoors during a heat wave and put on a swimsuit in the snows of a blizzard. So when he said he was going to fly, everyone assumed he meant daydream about flying or go fly a kite or something. Maybe a toy airplane, maybe a flight simulator, maybe he would even buy a round trip ticket to Hawaii, but they never assumed he meant he himself would fly; that his body would be the vehicle of choice.
Or maybe they knew he was going to really fly like a goddamned bird, take a running leap off the building, and they wanted to see it first hand. You never really know, there are two sides to every story and people love their stories wild, bloody and with a hint of fiction.
His girlfriend, a few years later with a new beau and a rather round tummy, told everyone she’d known and hadn’t cared. “It’s a free country; let him fly if he fucking wants to. I mean, let the caged bird sing, right?”
He stands on top of the building at six in the evening and he stretches before doing a few warm-up laps around the roof-top. There is a crowd gathering on the street below; someone tipped a local newspaper off, probably the woman who sat next to him in the cubicle. “Are you really going to fly,” she said, dully at the time but perhaps with concealed interest, and he said, “Yes, to Mexico,” and she said, “Bring me back some tequila,” and they both laughed. When she dialed the newspaper, when he left the room and blew her a kiss, she was thinking that maybe she would get quoted in the newspaper, under the photo of him flying, a quote about how he was a nice man, and maybe she would get her fifteen seconds of fame--people like her didn’t get fifteen minutes-and maybe she’d fly too.
Yeah, maybe she’d fly too.
So anyway, he’s stretching, he’s touching his toes like he did in eighth grade gym only he’s thirty-five and balding and he’s carrying around a few dozen extra pounds, but he’s still in eighth grade, and he’s already flying at the thought of flying. The crowd below is anxious and he salutes them, bravely.
“Jumper,” a kid in a black bomber jacket shouts up at him.
“Flyer,” he says, softly, to himself more than to the crowd. The wind carries his words to the crowd and they are in a sickening awe of the scene about to unfold.
He runs back to the other side of the roof, leans against the domed ceiling window. Looks down, sees the boss’ big oak desk. Thinks it could have been him, but knows it couldn’t have. He was born to fly and the closest to flying the man behind the big oak desk would ever get was a first class plane ticket every week when he flew across the country to kiss his wife on the lips, a close-lipped familial kiss because they both had other lovers these days, and pat his kids on the head before taking off again. And that, that wasn’t flying at all.
So the man, he’s ran back and he’s still leaning against the domed ceiling window, and then he just takes off. He’s running a marathon, he reaches the edge of the building and the crowd is silent and there is no hesitation. He spreads his arms open and he has a magnificent wingspan and-
-He’s flying, flying, flying, really flying, told you he could, told his mom he could, and he is soaring over Rome suddenly, lands on the Vatican, flips off the pope, then he’s in Japan and he’s eating sushi, and then he’s just landed in Berliner, he’s saying, “Ich bin Berliner,” and then he’s landing in Hawaii and he’s dancing, shaking those hips, he’s French kissing a chick in a hula skirt, has the biggest hard on of his life, and then he’s in New York on top of the Statue of Liberty, suddenly he lands on the pyramids of Giza, suddenly, oh God, he is flying, he is fucking flying, the air is so crisp, so refreshing, it is cutting his face, he inhales and it is beautiful and-
He dies, of course. He doesn’t really fly, or so the crowd says to the paper, so the pictures of him tumbling through the sky show, and there is blood all over the pavement and some poor sadsack has to clean it up later that day. Teeth fragments, skull fragments, pieces of skin, a limp body, an oddly juxtaposed arm broken in four different places with fingers bent backwards are all that remain of the man who flew. A woman to the left of his corpse vomits all over, and some of the vomit mixes with the fresh blood. It is purely disgusting, and people gag.
“What a waste,” says a teenaged girl.
“Fucking jumpers,” says someone else.
“Flyers,” says someone else in a hushed tone. “He was a flyer.”
And maybe he was. There are some who stood there, under the Larson building’s shadow, that will say they saw some feathers sprout on his arms and he didn’t really fall so much as glide down gently, sort of like he’s a game bird and the crowd a circle of vicious hunters armed to the teeth with full camouflage and bright orange hats, and that he really flew and was flying until they shot him down. They say the body was just a decoy. They say he’s really drinking cheap wine with Amelia Earheart and Elvis in a hut on a beautiful beach somewhere far, far away.
They say he flew that day and that it was beautiful.
I think they’re right.
“I’d rather not,” she says. She has moved on to eyeliner now and is carefully tracing the crevices of her eyelids. “Oh, by the way, bring home some milk when you come home from work.”
He nods, gives her a kiss, and grabs his briefcase. He watches her momentarily as she rummages for her mascara in her purse. A part of him is already flying as he looks at her. She is beautiful in an ordinary sense, but still beautiful, and he loves the way her jaw intersects with her neck down to her jutted collarbone. He thinks, briefly, about forgetting flying and work and just making love to her, but tosses it aside. He has no time for distractions. He is going to fly tonight at sunset off the roof of his office building and touch the stars.
So instead of making love, he says, “I love you,” to which she says, “Have fun flying,” to which the sound of the front door clicking shut responds.
Later on, when asked how they felt about the man who spread his wings and flew off the Larson building downtown, the people would say they wished they could stop him; that man had never meant to fly and man would never fly again. They would’ve clipped his wings if given a chance, tied him to a bed in a nuthouse, and sedated him with narcotics.
“It’s just not right, man, you know? Jesus, we stay on the ground, we don’t fly, man, we just don’t fly, we weren't meant to fly,” one man in a business suit would say, chewing gum loudly. This is the sentiment that would be broadcasted across national news. “Except in airplanes, of course. Or helicopters. Or maybe spaceships, but that’s kind of floating or blasting off more than flying, right?” He would look quickly to the camera man for some sort of smile, nod or confirmation, but would get nothing.
Then the man would add, quickly, faltering now since there would be no smile, nod or confirmation, “And those things people hang off and glide across the sky on. What’re those called again?”
Truth was, the man who flew, he wasn’t always right in the head and he was a bit abnormal. He wore flip-flops in the wintertime and snowshoes on a sunny August day; he opened his umbrella indoors during a heat wave and put on a swimsuit in the snows of a blizzard. So when he said he was going to fly, everyone assumed he meant daydream about flying or go fly a kite or something. Maybe a toy airplane, maybe a flight simulator, maybe he would even buy a round trip ticket to Hawaii, but they never assumed he meant he himself would fly; that his body would be the vehicle of choice.
Or maybe they knew he was going to really fly like a goddamned bird, take a running leap off the building, and they wanted to see it first hand. You never really know, there are two sides to every story and people love their stories wild, bloody and with a hint of fiction.
His girlfriend, a few years later with a new beau and a rather round tummy, told everyone she’d known and hadn’t cared. “It’s a free country; let him fly if he fucking wants to. I mean, let the caged bird sing, right?”
He stands on top of the building at six in the evening and he stretches before doing a few warm-up laps around the roof-top. There is a crowd gathering on the street below; someone tipped a local newspaper off, probably the woman who sat next to him in the cubicle. “Are you really going to fly,” she said, dully at the time but perhaps with concealed interest, and he said, “Yes, to Mexico,” and she said, “Bring me back some tequila,” and they both laughed. When she dialed the newspaper, when he left the room and blew her a kiss, she was thinking that maybe she would get quoted in the newspaper, under the photo of him flying, a quote about how he was a nice man, and maybe she would get her fifteen seconds of fame--people like her didn’t get fifteen minutes-and maybe she’d fly too.
Yeah, maybe she’d fly too.
So anyway, he’s stretching, he’s touching his toes like he did in eighth grade gym only he’s thirty-five and balding and he’s carrying around a few dozen extra pounds, but he’s still in eighth grade, and he’s already flying at the thought of flying. The crowd below is anxious and he salutes them, bravely.
“Jumper,” a kid in a black bomber jacket shouts up at him.
“Flyer,” he says, softly, to himself more than to the crowd. The wind carries his words to the crowd and they are in a sickening awe of the scene about to unfold.
He runs back to the other side of the roof, leans against the domed ceiling window. Looks down, sees the boss’ big oak desk. Thinks it could have been him, but knows it couldn’t have. He was born to fly and the closest to flying the man behind the big oak desk would ever get was a first class plane ticket every week when he flew across the country to kiss his wife on the lips, a close-lipped familial kiss because they both had other lovers these days, and pat his kids on the head before taking off again. And that, that wasn’t flying at all.
So the man, he’s ran back and he’s still leaning against the domed ceiling window, and then he just takes off. He’s running a marathon, he reaches the edge of the building and the crowd is silent and there is no hesitation. He spreads his arms open and he has a magnificent wingspan and-
-He’s flying, flying, flying, really flying, told you he could, told his mom he could, and he is soaring over Rome suddenly, lands on the Vatican, flips off the pope, then he’s in Japan and he’s eating sushi, and then he’s just landed in Berliner, he’s saying, “Ich bin Berliner,” and then he’s landing in Hawaii and he’s dancing, shaking those hips, he’s French kissing a chick in a hula skirt, has the biggest hard on of his life, and then he’s in New York on top of the Statue of Liberty, suddenly he lands on the pyramids of Giza, suddenly, oh God, he is flying, he is fucking flying, the air is so crisp, so refreshing, it is cutting his face, he inhales and it is beautiful and-
He dies, of course. He doesn’t really fly, or so the crowd says to the paper, so the pictures of him tumbling through the sky show, and there is blood all over the pavement and some poor sadsack has to clean it up later that day. Teeth fragments, skull fragments, pieces of skin, a limp body, an oddly juxtaposed arm broken in four different places with fingers bent backwards are all that remain of the man who flew. A woman to the left of his corpse vomits all over, and some of the vomit mixes with the fresh blood. It is purely disgusting, and people gag.
“What a waste,” says a teenaged girl.
“Fucking jumpers,” says someone else.
“Flyers,” says someone else in a hushed tone. “He was a flyer.”
And maybe he was. There are some who stood there, under the Larson building’s shadow, that will say they saw some feathers sprout on his arms and he didn’t really fall so much as glide down gently, sort of like he’s a game bird and the crowd a circle of vicious hunters armed to the teeth with full camouflage and bright orange hats, and that he really flew and was flying until they shot him down. They say the body was just a decoy. They say he’s really drinking cheap wine with Amelia Earheart and Elvis in a hut on a beautiful beach somewhere far, far away.
They say he flew that day and that it was beautiful.
I think they’re right.