Ariel

by Steven R. Boyett

  The trailing edges of the sails flapped in the breeze. We faced them nose-down into the wind so they wouldn’t be flipped over or cartwheeled away. Next we fitted ourselves into the swing-seat harnesses that, along with crash helmets, Malachi, Tom, and Mac had also brought from Elite Sports. The harness was an ingeniously simple device. It looked like a sort of combination jockstrap/suspenders and felt about the same. Standing straight made it pull in on the insides of my thighs and press down on my shoulders. I asked Mac to loosen the leg straps a little for me and he obliged. My harness was yellow and black; the helmet I strapped on was bright red, and the gliders themselves were bright, vibrant colors. We were going to sneak up on the Empire State Building in day-glow camouflage.

  We were ready. I grinned nervously at Mac. He grinned back, just as nervous, I think.

  “Well, Hank, m’boy,” said Tom, clapping him on the shoulder, “since you’re the one with the most experience at this, I think you ought to be the first, so we can follow your shining example.”

  Hank smiled thinly. “Yeah, okay, okay. First things first. Help me carry the glider to the middle of the road. Only carry it by the rigging wires.”

  I grabbed the rigging on the left side, Mac grabbed the right, and Hank held the two wires leading from nose to bottom corners of the trapeze bar. The kite was surprisingly light, but difficult to maneuver because of its bulk. It wasn’t a creature of the ground, but of the air.

  “There’s a decent breeze today,” Hank said, after we set the glider down in the center of the asphalt. “When we finish our flights we ought to be able to ‘fly’ the kites back up the hill. You do it by holding on to the nose wires and keeping the nose up and into the wind. Let it fill with air and then walk forward slowly.” He buckled his chin strap. “Let’s do it. Somebody want to hold the nose up for me while I climb in?”

  Tom came forward and held the nose level while Hank carefully picked his way through the rigging, knelt down before the trapeze bar, reached behind himself awkwardly, and grabbed the heavy-duty clip buckle attached to the back of the harness. He attached it to the link hanging from the keel just behind the trapeze bar. “I can’t stress this enough,” he said. “The first thing to do is to always make a hang check. Be sure to clip yourself on; it’s easier to forget than you might think. If you jump off the World Trade Center without hooking yourself to your kite, it’ll keep going and you won’t.” He lowered himself prone, placing his hands at either side of the trapeze bar. He hung four inches off the pavement. We gathered closer to see. “Let the glider take your weight,” he said. “See how you’re hanging or, better yet, get someone else to stand in front of you and see. How’s it look, Tom?”

  “You’re hanging in the center, not leaning to either side, with your chest even with the bar.”

  “Good. Now, this is the tricky part.” His grip tightened on the trapeze bar. “This thing is really sensitive to your commands. You’re what steers the kite; you’re its center of gravity because of the way you hang here. So if I want to turn left, I shift my weight to the left.” He straightened his right arm, pushing his body toward the left side of the kite. “Make sure you move your hips and legs over, and not just your chest, or your body will compensate by doing this.” He deliberately did it wrong, so that his chest moved to the left but his hips remained centered and his legs moved to the right. “See? I haven’t done anything; my weight’s still centered.” He returned to neutral position. “This is your flying position: relaxed, not forcing your body anywhere unless you want to alter your flight. Your hands should stay at either end of the bar. You’re going to be excited but don’t grab it in a death grip. It takes a few seconds for the kite to respond when you want to turn, but when it does, it turns fast. Don’t turn too much or you’ll stall.

  “The mistake most beginners make is overcorrecting—moving the bar too far forward or back. It’s hard to get used to the fact that it hardly takes any effort to make this thing stall or go faster. If you stall, pull in on the bar. The answer to almost everything is to pull in on the bar. You’re better off being high and going fast—the more speed you have, the more control you have. Like riding a bicycle.”

  “I can usually get up afterward if I wreck a bicycle,” Mac muttered.

  Hank ignored him. “No matter what happens, don’t panic. We’ll be high up, and that’s actually better—you have lots of time to correct. If worse comes to worst and you stall and don’t know what to do, just relax and let it stall. The kite parachutes down. But don’t try to turn on a stall—I saw one woman crush her wrist because she got about thirty feet up and stiff-armed the bar.

  “Position the nose so that it’s just a little above level. Don’t look down, look straight out.” He picked up the kite. “Heads up, Tom. Okay, I’m going to run full-out, even after my feet start to leave the ground, and as soon as I’m in the air I’m going to push the bar out just a little bit to get height, then go to neutral position to glide on down. To land I’m going to push the bar all the way out and stall, and—I hope—I should flare up and parachute down.” He grinned. “Ready, set … go!”

  He took three running steps and was airborne. His next few steps were imaginary ones taken in the air. His kite—red, green, and blue striped—angled out from the hill for a few seconds, gained height until he was about twelve feet up, relative to the slope of the hill, and angled down again. He raced along, level with the slope of the hill, and sailed smoothly over the mass of collided cars. Then his descent seemed so rapid and steep that it looked as if his crash were inevitable. His chest was two feet from the asphalt when he pushed the bar forward. The kite, which had been riding along on its own cushion of air, flared up. Hank swung his feet down and touched the asphalt, light as you please.

  I realized we were all cheering. All but Malachi, of course, who nevertheless looked awfully pleased.

  Hank stumbled a bit, but recovered quickly and set the nose down immediately. He unbuckled himself. “Whooooooeee! Make sure you put the nose down, or you’ll get blown over.” He walked around to the front of the kite, lifted the nose, walked his hands down the lead rigging wires, and let the wind lift the sail. He began “flying” the kite back up the hill. “Who’s next?” he asked when he reached us, setting his kite to the side with the nose down into the light breeze. “Tom?”

  “Oh, what the hell.” Tom carried his glider to the middle of the road, picked his way through the rigging, and buckled himself in. He lowered himself into prone position. “How’s it look?”

  Hank eyed him carefully from in front of the glider. “Perfect. I’ll run down the hill and call up to you. If I tell you to do something, just do it, okay?”

  “Right, coach.”

  Hank trotted down the hill and sat on the hood of a white Maverick. “Ready when you are,” he called up.

  Tom grimaced. He positioned his arms on the bar, set the angle of the nose, and ran. Four sprinting steps, and up he went.

  “Pull out!” Hank called from below. Tom complied and the glider gained height. “Now in!” The blue-and-white sail dipped, gliding down the hill. “Left! Left! Okay, neutral! Perfect! You’re flying it; just ride it out.” Tom sailed over the cars and continued past the intersection, barely skimming the road. Hank called after him. “Push the bar out! You’re—oh, hell.” Tom pushed the bar out, but was much too late. He belly-skimmed on the asphalt for ten feet before the nose plunked down in front of him and he stopped. He unbuckled and came out. “Well, my goodness,” was all he said. Hank ran to him and they carried the glider back up the hill. Tom’s shirt was a little worse for the wear and his stomach could have used a squirt of Bactine, but otherwise he was fine. “Malachi?” he said.

  Malachi nodded and set up his glider, which was bright yellow with a red V in the center. He methodically checked himself out, picked up the kite, set himself, and ran. Suddenly his feet were off the ground and he was speeding down the hill. His straight-line trajectory wavered for a second, but he corrected and landed
light as a feather, a dozen feet past the spot where Tom had touched down. He unbuckled and nosed the kite down.

  “He makes me sick,” muttered Tom. He trotted down the hill to help him with the kite.

  “Pete next,” he said as they set Malachi’s kite to the side.

  I swallowed, suddenly feeling it was much easier to watch than to do. Hank returned to his spot on the hood of the Maverick. “Just listen and do what I say,” he called up, “and everything will be fine.”

  I stepped to the center of the road and climbed through the rigging. My foot caught on one of the wires and I pulled it free before I tripped. I twisted around, grabbed the buckle, and clipped myself on.

  “Hang check,” Tom reminded me.

  I nodded and lowered prone. The harness tugged on my shoulders. I kept my head up.

  “Looks good to me,” he said.

  I knelt and lifted the bar as I’d seen the others do. It was heavier than I’d expected. I felt awkward with the added weight above me; my center of gravity had shifted from the pit of my stomach to the top of my chest. I felt strangely buoyed. I let the sail fill with air until it was rigid, two arcs spreading seagull-like from the central keel to the wing spars. I took a deep breath. It’s really easy, I told myself. Just remember what Hank told you. Nothing to it. You have to develop familiarity with the kite, and a sense of how to react, but the basics are easy as hell. A twelve-year-old could do it. Twelve-year-olds had done it. I nodded to myself. I experimentally moved the bar, feeling the balance shift in the kite above me, stopping when it felt right. The wind was nice and smooth—now or never. I ran.

  Holding the bar in and down made it awkward, but after no more than three steps the weight began to lighten from my feet. I felt I had no traction. Keep running, I told myself. Run until they aren’t touching the road any longer. I kept the bar in firmly and tried to keep the nose up. Angle of attack, Hank had called it. How appropriate.

  My harness grew taut as my weight settled into it. My feet dangled: an odd, helpless feeling. I remembered to push the bar away a few inches to gain height. The angle of attack became higher as the kite’s center of gravity—me—moved toward the rear.

  “Keep your head up,” called Hank. “Don’t look at the ground!”

  I looked away from the pavement blurring beneath me and relaxed until I was in neutral position. I was gliding down the slope, I was doing it!

  I’d been in the air no more than five seconds when I was speeding over the wrecked cars. Hank flattened himself on the hood as I sailed over him. The road rushed up. I had to fight a momentary panic that screamed for me to abandon ship. I pushed the bar away and slowed as the ground-cushion effect took hold, and then the kite became a parachute and I settled vertically. I had flared too high, though, and I felt myself backsliding, slipping backward. I pulled the bar in and landed easy as a snowflake.

  I unbuckled quickly. My ears pounded. I felt giddy, as if I’d hyperventilated. When I’d been flying, I had been preoccupied with doing it right; all that information had been running across my head and it hadn’t really hit me that I’d been flying, I had flown! Now that I was down and out of the glider, the sensations sleeted across me. I grinned like an idiot and applauded myself. Hank jogged up to me, returning my grin, sharing my exhilaration. He helped me tote my kite back up the hill. I grinned at Malachi Lee. He rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he tilted his face to the sky.

  “You’re up, Mac,” said Tom.

  I looked with different-seeing eyes as Mac positioned his kite—an arc of rainbow with a ball of gold at one end. Now I knew what it felt like, and watching was a vicarious thrill.

  Mac waited for the wind to stop gusting. I looked at Hank, who had resumed his position at the foot of the hill. Why, he wasn’t even a hundred yards away! As Mac rushed forward I realized my flight had lasted no more than ten seconds. The sensations had been enough to fill several good hours.

  Mac ended up dry-running it. His last few steps lost their oomph, and instead of lifting off, the tops of his shoes dragged the ground for ten feet. He pulled back on the bar to gain lift, but he had neither speed nor proper angle of attack. His kite nosed up and we watched him dangle like a hung-up marionette for two long seconds, and then the tail of the kite hit the ground, with Mac not far behind. He got up quickly before the wind could flip him onto his back like a Raid-sprayed roach. Cursing, he walked the kite carefully back to us and tried again. This time he lifted smoothly, glided down swiftly and evenly, and settled down onto his knees. He unbuckled and stumbled from the glider. “Oh, well,” he said cheerfully. “Any landing you can walk away from.” He declined Hank’s offer of help and walked the kite back to the top. His eyes were bright. “I think,” he said seriously, “I’ve found a suitable replacement for sex.”

  I found myself blushing.

  “Walt,” said Tom mildly.

  Walt’s flight was something out of the instruction book. Nice.

  “Okay, Drew. Curtain up.”

  Drew got off to a good start, coasted down the slope—and freaked when he saw the cars heading toward him. He shoved the bar away to gain height, but he overdid it and stalled.

  “Hold still!” shouted Hank. “Pull in on the bar!”

  Drew’s legs continued to flail as if he were trying to tread water. He came down on his ass on the roof of a black Cadillac. He hit hard. We ran down to see if he was hurt. The wind had been jarred out of him, but he was okay. Hank helped him out of the rigging and onto his feet, making an obvious effort to be patient. “You can’t panic,” he said, trying to keep his tone reasoned. “You’re going to jump from a fucking fifteen-hundred-foot-tall building, and if you land on the roof of a Cadillac from there you’re going to be a permanent part of it. Relax—pay attention. And remember what you’ve been told.”

  We went five times apiece, trying for a little more height each time, a little more speed, before calling it a day and deciding to let the jumps off the office building wait until tomorrow. We spent the rest of the evening working out an attack strategy.

  No one got killed, or even broke anything, so I guess we did okay.

  *

  The air was charged in the assembly room. A nervous hubbub waxed and waned. Tom had announced the assembly on the bulletin board when we returned from our strategy session, the purpose being to go over the plans for the attack and make sure everybody knew who was doing what.

  Tom faced the assembly and cleared his throat. The murmuring died down. “Well, here’s the story,” he said, electing not to mince words. “We’ve assembled a hang-gliding team.”

  He was drowned out by the excited babble that followed the announcement. He waited until it died down. “The team consists of myself, Malachi Lee, Vic Magruder, Hank Rysetter, Walt Bonham, Drew Zenoz, and our latest addition, Pete Garey.”

  The murmuring rose again. I saw people counting on their fingers as he called our names out, and I heard a few commenting to each other. “Seven people? Seven? Oh, come on … .” And one voice from the rear: “Go-o-o-o mice!”

  “The rest of you leave for New York early tomorrow morning.”

  Again his voice was lost. It was like a nominee’s speech at a big political convention; every statement was emotionally charged and brought a response. Tom went on when it died down. “Don’t rush the march. It’s eight days if you make good time without wearing yourselves out. Don’t push it any faster than that. Remember, you’ve got a battle to fight when you get there.”

  I looked around and saw Shaughnessy sitting with a woman I didn’t recognize. She didn’t see me. I kept looking around and saw McGee, who smiled and waved when she saw me. I waved back, surprised at how pleased I was to see her.

  “You should reach New York in the early morning,” Tom continued. “Make sure you get a good sleep the night before; take longer to camp. Because when you get to New York I want you to attack without delay.”

  He waited until the noise died down enough for him to be heard, then turned
to a map of Manhattan mounted on an easel. He pointed to the intersection of two streets. “This is Fifth Avenue,” he said, indicating one, “and this is Thirty-fourth Street. The main entrances open out there. That’s probably where you’ll do your heaviest fighting; it’ll be a bottleneck until you can get through. From then on I’m afraid it’s a fighting push up the stairs. According to our information from Pete they have a possible eight hundred to a thousand men on the bottom three or four floors.”

  It was several minutes before it grew quiet enough for him to speak again. Beside me, Mac said, “He ought to have a gavel.” I nodded. Tom had upped my estimate of their number a bit, but who could blame him? Better safe than sorry. At least he wasn’t bullshitting them about what they were walking into.

  “Do all of you know Avery Stondheim? Stand up, Avery.” A small, bird-like man stood, turning so the seated people could get a good look at him. “Avery will lead the attack from the Fifth Avenue side. Roger Dawson—stand up, Rog—will lead the Thirty-fourth Street. We’ll split our forces equally. Once you’re on either the Thirty-fourth Street or the Fifth Avenue side, your respective leaders will tell you what to do.” He paused. “The hang-gliding team will leave the day after tomorrow. We’ll be traveling on horseback, so we’ll probably pass you on the way.

  “Why do you get to ride?” someone called out.

  Tom ticked off on his fingers. “Because we’re carrying twenty-foot-long hang gliders. Because we need the extra day here to practice jumping off buildings. Because we need the extra time to climb the World Trade Center, set up, and jump off.”

  Silence this time. Amazed stares.

  “At three o’clock that afternoon,” he continued into the hushed audience, “we’ll jump for the Empire State Building. It should take us less than ten minutes to get there. With a little luck they won’t notice us, because they aren’t expecting an attack from above. Right now, surprise is our only real advantage, both in the air and on the ground. Mr. Garey has estimated that there are two hundred men in those top floors—”