Learning To Fly

by DeMaris, Charles

  “I’d love to, but maybe I should call it quits. I’d hate to look like a pig,” Walter said.

  “Little late for that,” Franklin said.

  “You said it. I didn’t,” Keisha said.

  “Okay, maybe I went a bit overboard,” Walter said, “We’ll take the check now.”

  “Let’s not go home just yet,” Walter said.

  “Where we gonna go at this hour?”

  “I don’t know. Walk around Meijer? Just don’t feel like going back yet.”

  “You could try to jump over the Meijer building.”

  “And if someone sees me?”

  “Who’s gonna see you? There’s nobody in the parking lot.”

  “Maybe I should start small, like this,” he said, jumping over a parked car in one easy leap.

  “Impressive, but a far cry from a tall building.”

  Walter did a standing jump and cleared three parked cars this time, still with little effort.

  “Come on old man, you’re not even trying. Remember the track?”

  The next time, he squatted down and leapt into the air, clearing half the parking lot and the Meijer grocery store. A few seconds later he came back over the building, landing with a thud next to Franklin.

  “Man, you cracked the pavement. Gotta work on the landings. What was it like?”

  “That was fun. Like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I feel like I’m twenty again, but I couldn’t do that when I was twenty.”

  “At the end, it looked like you changed direction in the air.”

  “Yeah, that was weird. I wanted to land next to you and I just moved that way. I can’t explain it.”

  “Dude, you know what that means?”

  “Not sure, and I’m not sure how much you say dude.”

  “I’m young. That’s how we talk.”

  “And I’m old. We don’t talk like that.”

  “And most people your age can’t fly.”

  “You think I can fly? I just jumped over a building.”

  “You were controlling it. I bet you can. Give it a try.”

  “I’m not sure how to try that.”

  “Just jump up and then try to move around. I don’t know.”

  “You mean like this?” Walter said, as he jumped in the air and did a figure eight before coming back and landing next to Franklin.

  “That was it, dude…sorry…Walter. You were flyin’ man. How did it feel?”

  “Kinda cool. See, I can talk like a kid too.”

  “I bet it’s gonna be like runnin’ at the track. It’s all in your head, man. You think you can just take off easy like?”

  Walter jumped up and hovered a foot off the ground.

  “You mean like that?”

  “Man, that is so cool. I wonder how fast you can go.”

  “Maybe we should just head home now.”

  “Just give it a try. I’ll be in the store when you get back.”

  Walter jumped up in the air and moved left and right a couple times, then accelerated up at an exhilarating pace. Before he knew it, he was above the clouds and still speeding up. He went higher and overtook an eastbound 747 like it was sitting still. Seconds later he broke the sound barrier and was still speeding up. The wind was in his hair and he was giggling like a little boy. How in the world was he breathing at this altitude, and how was he still speeding up? Where was he?

  That last question bugged him, so he angled his body downward so he could get below the clouds and see if he could see any landmarks. He put his hands out in front in a Superman pose and let out a belly laugh. This was far better than all the dreams he had when he was young. When he broke through the cloud layer, there was no land below, nothing but water. Great. He would have to wait until he saw some land so he would know where he was. When he finally saw land, he also saw the sun, and the coastline didn’t look too familiar. He tried slowing down, to limited success. The land was zipping by way too fast below him. He angled downward more, and the ground came up way faster than he expected. He narrowly missed a group of banana trees and hit the ground at over 700 miles per hour, leaving a long furrow in the ground.

  Climbing out of the crater he had made, he found himself face to face with two black men staring down at him. One of them was pouring out the contents of a flask he had been drinking from and the other was just standing there slack jawed. He finally recovered his wits enough to address Walter.

  “Jambo mzungu.”

  “Come again?” Walter said.

  “Jambo…hello. You’re a mzungu.”

  “Mzungu? What’s that?”

  “That’s what you are. A white fellow.”

  “Never heard that word before.”

  “You not been in Kenya much before?”

  “First time here.”

  “What did you do?” the other Kenyan asked, “Fall out of the plane?”

  “No plane. I don’t know how to explain it to you guys.”

  “You fell from the sky like a stone, make a hole in the ground, and you’re not hurt. That’s some weird juju there.”

  “I’m in Africa?”

  “Yeah, mzungu. That town over there is Ahero.”

  “Wow, went farther than I thought,” Walter said, lifting into the sky and taking off, heading west.

  4

  Franklin walked out of the store and took about ten steps across the parking lot when he was whisked clean off his feet and carried five-hundred feet into the air. The city below went by in a blur until he was set down at the front door of Walter’s apartment.

  “Whoa dude, could have warned me about that,” he said.

  “Didn’t think you’d mind the ride home,” Walter said.

  “Yeah, it was way cool, but I never saw you coming. So you can really fly. What’s it like?”

  “Like nothing you can ever imagine. You’ve had the dreams? This is way beyond you’d think it would feel like. I passed an airplane. Can you believe that?”

  “Hey, slow down old man. I’m the kid, remember? Can we take this inside?”

  They went in and sat down, but Otis was standing near the door and whining.

  “I’ll take him out,” Franklin said.

  When Franklin came back, Walter handed him a Coke and sat down in his recliner with a beer. He finished one beer, went for another, and finished that one.

  “That’s weird,” he said.

  “What’s weird?”

  “Not even a buzz. Takes a bit to get me drunk, but I’m not even feeling a buzz after two. That’s not normal.”

  “Part of your powers? You can’t get drunk?”

  “Maybe. Only one way to find out. I’ll have to approach this scientifically.”

  In the time it took Franklin to finish two Cokes, Walter downed an entire twelve pack without even feeling buzzed.

  “Well, I guess that could have its advantages, at times.”

  “You’re not feeling anything?”

  “Nope, like I was drinking water, except…yeah, excuse me for a sec.”

  “Might not get you drunk, but it still goes through you,” Franklin said when Walter came back.

  “You got that right, like a racehorse. Where were we?”

  “How far did you fly?”

  “Would you believe Africa…Kenya to be precise.”

  “You went to Africa and back in a few minutes?”

  “Pretty much. Had a hard time figuring out how to slow down. Left a good sized crater and a couple locals saw me. If you could have seen the looks on their faces.”

  “You must have really been booking.”

  “Not sure. I passed an airliner somewhere over the Atlantic and kept going faster. Made a sonic boom over Europe and the next thing I knew I was over Africa. Figured out slowing down by the time I got back here. It’s pretty much in the head.”

  “In the head?”

  “Yeah, not like I have an engine to control or anything. I want to speed up and it just happens. I want to slow down, it happens. It’s not really
a physical thing…well…it kind of is. It’s hard to explain. The body feels different when I’m changing speed, but I don’t know how I’m controlling it.”

  “You’re gonna need a manager.”

  “A manager? You get that from your comics?”

  “Maybe not a manager. I don’t know what to call it. The support guy, the guy in the lair sitting behind all the computers. ‘Hey Superman, robbery in progress in Indian Hill’ and then the hero says, ‘I’m on it.’ That sort of thing.”

  “Lair? You think there’s a lair somewhere?”

  “We’re not sitting in it?”

  “This is just my apartment, and not a very nice one either.”

  “Let me guess. Too many noisy kids?”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “What do you think? You think I can be the dude helping you be the hero?”

  “I’m not a hero.”

  “Man, you’re Superman. If that’s not a hero, I don’t know what is.”

  “Look kid, what I can do is pretty far out. I felt like a kid flying out there, but I don’t know what to do with this. I mean, what do I do, fly around looking for bad guys and just scoop ‘em up and drop ‘em off at the station?”

  “That would be a start.”

  “And where do you come in?”

  “I don’t know. I can go online and when I see stuff going down, I let you know?”

  “How do you suppose you do that?”

  “Get me a phone and get you a Bluetooth that won’t fall out of your ear. I just call you and say, ‘Hey Superman, bad dude at Liberty and Race,’ and you say, ‘Okay, I’m on it.’”

  “Liberty and Race? Only thing there is that fish place.”

  “Yeah, Alabama…anyone tries to anything there you’ll kick his ass, right?”

  “You like that place?”

  “Whenever I can get it, which isn’t often.”

  “Maybe we can swing by there tomorrow, on one condition…maybe two conditions.”

  “Conditions?”

  “I think I have a couple. First, watch your mouth. And two, I don’t hire anyone without an education. Did you finish high school?”

  “Well…”

  “I figured as much. You’re going to get your GED. You can’t work for me without it, deal?”

  “Okay dude…deal.”

  “Good, we start work on that tomorrow…and maybe you can help me pick out one of those Bluetooth things.”

  “Tomorrow? Look at your watch. It’s almost morning.”

  “Isn’t that what these heroes do, stay up all night?”

  “Not always.”

  “You’re the one who’s the expert, and I’m the one who ended up with these powers…isn’t that rather rich?”

  “Maybe. This ain’t like the comics. You know, all the heroes are young guys with six-pack abs, not old dudes with a beer gut and no hair.”

  “Hey, I still got hair.”

  “Yeah, you got three of them and two are waving goodbye to the other. You might not need a costume. People see you walking down the street they’ll never mistake you for Superman.”

  “You know we can’t use that name, right?”

  “You see anyone else walking around can do what you can do?”

  “No, but there’s a matter of the guy in the books with the tights on, and some trademark on the name. I can fly, but I’m still half broke.”

  “We gotta call you something.”

  “My mama gave me a name when I was born. It’s served well enough.”

  “You can’t just go by Walter.”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s not a hero name.”

  “Next thing, you’ll be designing a costume. Look at me. This isn’t the body for tights.”

  “Hey…you know what I just noticed?”

  “What, kid?”

  “Those the same clothes you’ve had on since we went to eat, right?”

  “Yeah, what of it?”

  “When you were running, you trashed your sneakers, but you fly all the way to Africa and back and your clothes are still good. How fast were you going?”

  “Pretty fast…that is weird. You would think my clothes would have gotten torn up or something.”

  “But when you got shot at Shell, there were holes in your shirt. I think your powers are still increasing, or something. It’s like your clothes get it from your body. Man, I don’t know how to explain it. Does that make any sense?”

  “Maybe, kid. This is all so different. A couple days ago, this kind of thing only existed in comic books, now look at me.”

  “And who would have thought it would happen in Cincinnati? You had to figure we’d get a superhero before we’d get a Super Bowl.”

  “Yeah, kid, you’re funny. One of these years they’re gonna do it.”

  “This year if they signed you.”

  “You know that wouldn’t be right.”

  “What wouldn’t be right?”

  “It would hardly be that sporting.”

  “You’re probably right, but it would be cool. Like playing Madden on easy level.”

  “On to other things. Your GED. In the morning, you’re gonna get online. There are places you can study for the test.”

  “I could pass that thing right now.”

  “You’re not taking any chances. When’s the last time you were in school?”

  “Uh…last year.”

  “Exactly. You think everything’s fresh?”

  “I ain’t no dummy.”

  “No, you’re not, but you forget things. Study up and we’ll see about scheduling the test.”

  “You seem pretty stuck on me taking that test.”

  “You should be too. You seem like a good kid. I don’t see you with any drugs. You got a good heart, and you got a lot of life ahead of you. You ever think what you might want to do with it?”

  “Last couple years, I just been thinking about the next meal and how not to get rained on.”

  “Now that we have those things out of the way, you can start focusing on more long-term goals. Get your GED, maybe go to college if you want. Get a good job. Hell, the sky’s the limit.”

  “Man, you’re about to give me the whole American dream speech, aren’t you? You can do whatever you want to do, yada yada. Look at me. I’m just some poor black street kid.”

  “That’s what you were, but it doesn’t have to be who you are. You can be better than that. You can be better than half these dumb college kids who drink themselves silly and keep me awake half the night.”

  “And look at you. What have you done all these years? Sit in this apartment and drink yourself silly and complain about the college kids?”

  “What have I done? I worked my ass off for thirty years to provide for my family. I held my wife until she couldn’t cry any longer after two miscarriages. Then I held my son and worked like a dog providing for both of them…and I stood by her side and was her rock when that son came back from Iraq in a body bag. I spent my savings and everything from the sale of our house on her cancer treatments…and for what? I buried her ten years ago, and I retired last year. I’ve run my race. I’ve earned a couple beers and the right to gripe about the kids. When you’ve done all that, let me know.”

  Franklin stared at the floor, and then looked around the room, looking everywhere except to Walter.

  “Chin up, son,” Walter said, “I don’t care what color you are or if you’ve been on the streets. This is America, and that used to count for something. I happen to think it still does. You get your act together and you can do whatever you want. Just don’t sell yourself short. Now, did I drink all those beers?”

  “It would appear so. You want a Coke?”

  “Sure kid, and bring yourself one too if you want.”

  Franklin retrieved two Cokes from the kitchen, handed one to Walter, and sat down, grabbing the TV remote.

  “Not much on this time of night, or morning,” he said, scrolling through the channels.

&nbs
p; “Never is. That’s why the sensible folk are sleeping.”

  A minute later, he stopped scrolling on one of the cable news channels. There was an image of a high-rise apartment building with a fire about halfway up.

  “The fire appears to be on the 20th floor. We have no idea yet what the cause was, but the entire floor is engulfed. Firefighters are on the scene and are attempting to get to the people trapped on the upper floors…” a reporter was saying on the TV.

  “Where is that?” Walter said.

  “Chicago…says so at the bottom of the screen.”

  “Well, save my Coke for me.”

  Walter put his shoes on and darted out the door so fast he was a blur. Otis raised his head and let out a whine, then looked up at Franklin.

  “Might want to get used to that, buddy,” Franklin said, scratching the dog’s head, “This could get interesting.”

  He turned up the volume on the TV and paid attention. It wasn’t even five minutes later when the reporter said, “Wait a minute. What is that I’m seeing on the video? Is that a man?”

  The feed went to a reporter on the street by the building.

  “I can’t believe what I’m seeing, but it appears that a man flew in a window on one of the upper floors.”

  “Are you sure about that?” the reporter in the studio asked.

  “I’m not sure about much, but that’s what it looked like…hold on a second…yes…are you seeing this?”

  Walter went in the window on the floor above the fire, into an apartment where a young woman and two small children huddled on the bed.

  “Where did you come from?” the woman asked.

  “I’m here to help,” he said, taking a child in each arm. He flew out the window, down to the street below, and gently set the children down next to a group of firemen.

  “Don’t move. I’m gonna fetch your mama, okay?”

  Up he went, returning seconds later with the woman, setting her down next to her kids. He repeated the performance for the next several minutes, until everyone from the upper floors of the building was standing on the sidewalk, looking rather befuddled. The firemen turned their attention to fighting the fire and helping the people out of the lower floors. Several onlookers already had phones out and were snapping photos of Walter, who stood there in a ragged pair of jeans, a white T-shirt, and beat up sneakers, unsure of what to say.