His face had been sweating under the mask, and the sudden blast of cool air was a shock. He turned quickly away from the windows, dipped the glider and banked, soaring away from the building. Holy Jesus, he thought. Holy Jesus. Holy holy Jesus. For the first time since he jumped off the Haben Tower he felt naked.
What am I going to do?
It was like a bad dream.
Heading away from the buildings, Mike continued down the hill, passing over the City Hall. He circled above it, feeling his panic fade. Far below, gnat sized people stood around in a parking lot looking up at him. He was so far up that there was no way they could see his face, not even with binoculars. Not clearly, at least. He continued to circle, smiling at the city buildings and the tiny figures in the parking lot beneath him. City officials, no doubt, men and women in the public trust, making laws to protect people from themselves. Seeing something strange in the sky today? An eclipse perhaps? The moon at noon?
He meandered above the city searching for updrafts. The loss of his mask still worried him. It made him feel unsure, urged him to race the glider toward the park for a quick escape. But he had plenty of elevation, and there were warm updrafts here and there – he could stay up for another 30 minutes at least. At the moment he was deliberately avoiding the park, not wanting to help any of the authorities who may be tracking him to guess where he intended to land. As long as Mike maintained his altitude, all it would take was one long dip, a quick swoop across town, and he would be at the park – far faster than anyone in a car or on a bicycle could follow. I have time, he told himself. Lots of time.
Daring himself, Mike turned into the wind and headed for the far side of the hill, where the updraft would be the strongest.
The breeze coming in from the West hit the hill and deflected up at a steep angle. Mike felt for it as he rounded past the concentric circles of the Country Club, hoping to ease into it as he thought it might be quite turbulent. He was over the upper half of the golf range, the really tough holes which sat on the lower shoulder of the hill, when the updraft hit him. Even though he was expecting it, it caught him off guard as to how strong it actually was – he felt the Earth drop away and the blood rush to his feet, and there was creaking sounds from his aluminum frame and two harsh pops, followed by a rapid fluttering of nylon. The thrill of fear went through him like a spike. Two snap buttons on the leading edge of his left wing, out toward the tip, had come undone. The drag of the loose material pulled on that wing tip and made the glider turn, taking him against his will out of the updraft.
Mike swore, throwing his weight to the other side, fighting the turn. If it kept up like this, the best he could hope for was a slow spiral down to the ground. What he was really worried about was coming around and hitting that updraft again. With two snaps off, it wouldn’t take much to pull the rest loose – the wing would come off like it were unzipped, parting from the frame that held it out. Mike would tumble to his death, and only prove to the world that hang gliding – with or without a safety suit – was too dangerous to be legal.
Mike managed to cancel the turn, even to coax the glider a little to the right. This was still no good, as he was now heading right for the side of the hill. He had hardly any control now at all, though if he could just get it a little more to the right, he could land safely on the fairway to the 7th hole. But a sudden updraft caught him and sent him up another thirty meters, getting him right up to the crest of the shoulder. And there, sitting on the ridge, was the Country Club clubhouse. Mike aimed for the white rock of the long, flat roof, and touched down to find it very hot on the bottom of his bare feet.
“Yow!” he said. “Ow! Oooh! Ouch!” He hopped around, getting out of the harness, then dropped the glider and danced around to the wing tip. He snapped the buttons shut, rushed back to the middle, harnessed himself, and ran off toward the North-East.
There was a terrible dip off the edge of the roof, and for a moment it didn’t look like he was going to clear the line of trees separating one side of the ridge from the other. He turned on one wing and sailed in between, right through the trees and only several feet over the grassy ground, then the hill dropped away and the city once again spread below his bare toes. “Jesus!” he exclaimed to himself. “This is it. This is enough.” He pulled on the bar and went into a dive. The glider swooped down toward the tops of the buildings, the air rushing past him and roaring in his ears, then he pulled up and crossed over to the park, a streak of color slicing through the air. He circled around once, looking for a secluded spot, and shedding some of the speed from the dive.
There was a whole meadow adjacent to his car that looked totally deserted, so he took it down and hit the ground running. He reached the edge of the bushes and struggled out of his harness, then quickly began undoing the wing nuts so that he could fold the wings and get out of sight. From somewhere to his right he heard shouting, and he gritted his teeth, trying to hurry. “Over there!”
he heard a woman’s voice. “I think he landed!”
“Where?!”
“Over there!”
Mike folded the wings and rushed into the bushes, pulling the glider after him. He pulled his pack out and fumbled with his clothes, putting his underwear on backwards and buttoning his shirt crooked. By the time he had his safety suit on he could hear people in the meadow where he’d landed, calling out to each other, saying they could swear this is where he had dropped from sight.
Trying to be as silent as possible, he disassembled the glider –
though no matter what he tried, he couldn’t silence the unsnapping of the buttons. Someone was poking around in the bushes to the right of him, about ten meters away, when Mike finished stowing the glider in the pack. He took a breath, turned toward the street and pushed his way through the bushes to the sidewalk.
There were two cops and a squad car right in front of him.
One was walking around the bushes toward the meadow, the other stood at the car and then looked over to see Mike on the sidewalk, looking guilty. “Hey,” he said, walking over to Mike. “What’s that in the bag there?”
“What?”
The officer reached over and unzipped part of the bag, where a tuft of the nylon had been sticking out. He pulled more of the nylon out and felt it with his fingers. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered, looking up and peering into Mike’s eyes. “You’re him.”
“I’m who?” Mike said, but his voice was shaking, as were his hands.
“Don’t play games with me, you’re that crazy bastard mooning the city from the air!” The officer whipped out his night stick and smacked Mike in the face. “Pervert!” Whack! “Terrorist!”
Whack, whack! Mike gasped in agony and fell backwards, watching in horror as the policeman’s partner came into view and begin delivering blows of his own.
#
Consciousness came and went. Mike was aware of the ride in the ambulance, and the doctors putting stitches in his face. Then he was in a hospital bed. The gaps in between were like sections of a video tape that had been erased with a magnet. He lie in the white, sterile linen, held snugly by the safety straps required of all hospital beds, and stared at the holes in the ceiling. His face felt as if an angry cougar used it to sharpen its claws.
Mike thought of his kids, his wife. His job. It was over.
They would never understand. Why did I have to do this? He tried to feel regret, but it wasn’t there. He was glad he was caught –
he was calm about it. The Freud simulation had been right. In one single act he’d broken all of the safety laws he so desperately hated, and he was proud of it. He’d done it, survived, and now he could get on with his life … or at least what there was left of it.