The Flying Man

From above it is the bright yellow backboard that stands out, nailed to the back of a small green barn, a boy dribbling a basketball awkwardly in the grass underneath it.  The edges are painted red which match the centered rectangle.  There are also red letters on it, but I no longer remember what the word is, only that I painted it with a spray can and stencil when I was a kid.

The barn is not tall enough for the goal to sit at its full height of ten feet which is fine with the boy.  He already has a regulation-sized goal on the driveway in front of the barn.  This one is something he has made with his own hands and affixed to the barn with the help of a ladder and a neighborhood friend.  If he charges straight at it and plants his foot on the wall to spring upwards he can just brush the rim with his fingertips even though he is too short to even touch the bottom of the net on a real goal.  

It is a lazy summer day at the edge of a small town in southern Indiana.  From my vantage point above the scene I can see the cornfields stretching off into the distance behind the house.  I have taken the form of a crow in my mind’s eye to ride the winds of memory back to my boyhood; to this particular place, day, and time.  I caw loudly in greeting but the boy only glances in my general direction before fixing his attention back on the goal.    

The wind is really whipping today snapping the sheets hanging on the clothesline and threatening to whip them up into the sky.  I have to land on the top of the post closest to the barn where the boy is attempting a hook shot.  The ball careens off the side of the rim and rolls between the bushes and into the grassy expanse that separates the house from the cornfield.  He runs to retrieve it, but when he bends to pick it up he hears a peculiar noise that makes him forget the ball and look skyward.

It is a kind of buzzing sound that is faint, but growing louder.  Looking westward I see what it is he has already discovered.  It is an ultralight aircraft flying over the cornfield, the pilot perched below its wing in front of a small motor-driven propeller.  The boy has seen these before in the summertime headed for the small airstrip to the east of town.  He waves vigorously at the man to try and get his attention.  Then it happens... the motor sputters and coughs a time or two before going completely silent. 

The boy feels his heart starting to pound in his chest as he realizes the airstrip is too far away for the man to reach it without power.  He cups his hands around his mouth and yells at the man to see if he needs help but either he cannot hear him or he is too preoccupied with his situation to respond.  The boy abandons the basketball and runs to pull his bike out of the barn.  He pumps the pedals to catch the road heading eastward hoping to follow the contraption that is quietly gliding through the sky to an uncertain landing.  His imagination comes up with possible scenarios for the pilot’s fate.  Will he hit a tree?  Electrical lines?  Will he land on Highway 37 and get hit by a semi?  Will his plane burst into flames when it hits the ground?

Whatever the outcome, the boy is determined to follow the descent.  He has to keep visual contact because there is no sound to help identify its location.  I fly in his wake as he splits the wind for me.  We pass down streets and through neighborhoods that he has never been in before but it is necessary to parallel the plane’s path.  After a few minutes of pedaling at a furious pace he finally sees the ultralight disappear over a rise and he ditches his bike in the grass to track it down.  Climbing a small hill he feels his insides quivering.  Will the man be injured or even dead?  

As he crests the hill he sees the man extricating himself from what appears to be an intact aircraft that has nose planted into the shallow rise of a hillside.  He appears frustrated which turns to irritation at the appearance of the boy.  The boy asks if he is OK as I sweep up into a tree to observe their interaction.  He offers to ride his bike somewhere to get help, but the man waves it off and says he is fine and doesn’t need any help.  The boy did not expect him to be so gruff.  His thoughts of saving the day quickly fade as the man turns away and ignores him.  In a moment of insight and with a shrug of his shoulders the boy thinks that maybe the man is embarrassed and wonders to himself, “what’s up with grown-ups anyway?”  It is a good question and not one this crow can answer for him.

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