Ivan Faute
Airstream
Sam
convinced his brother to help him build the kite. He didn’t tell Frank
his real
plan, but Frank didn’t care because he was easy-going. He liked to
build things,
help out and do what he was told, as long as he was included. Sam, on
the other
hand, came up with grand plans. If he’d been born a century earlier, he
might
have invented something important, a device to change the world or an
idea to
transform the organization of societies. Sam did not regret the year of
his birth,
but he did feel a general sense of loss, as if he would never be able
to
differentiate himself in the world of mechanical engineering and
computer programming,
where corporations, not individuals, were the greatest inventors. It
was a
heavy burden for a nine-year-old.
The
kite required more materials than their mother was willing to hand
over, so the
boys scoured the neighborhood for discarded fabric and bamboo blinds
that no
longer swooshed up and down on plastic pulleys. Sam made drawings and
sketches
while the family watched television together.
“What are you so obsessed
with?”
his father asked.
“He’s building a kite for me,” Frank would
answer,
and then
recount the places the two had been and the things they discovered.
Frank
described the materials gathered but also the old possum rotting in the
ditch and
the colony of ants they saw moving to a new hill, carrying their white
eggs on
their backs
“Just
don’t steal anything from anyone,” their mother said, distractedly. She
felt a
need to offer parental advice as often as she could. “And make sure you
wash
your hands before you eat anything,” she added.
Sam
would smile at his brother’s enthusiasm. It took them twelve days to
gather
enough stuff before production began. They’d piled it all under a
low-hanging
branch on the edge of the open field that had been designated the
kite-flying
area, away from electrical wires, trees and busy streets.
“This is a
lot of
stuff,” Frank said to his brother, surveying it.
“It’s going to be a
very important
kite,” Sam answered. He pulled the oft-revised plans from his pocket
and began
to lay out the chassis. The frame stretched five feet from top to
bottom, and
nearly seven feet across.
“That’s
a big kite,” Frank said.
Sam looked at his brother, his head tilted at
an angle,
with one eye closed against the sun. “It’s a very important kite,” he
said
again.
It
took them all day to cut and measure and cut again. They tied sticks
together
and tested the strength of their knots by pulling at them like at
tug-of-war. The
process could not be completed in one day, and they had to disassemble
what
they could and hide it under the low branches of the tree.
“What if
someone
takes it?” the little brother asked.
Sam smiled without teeth. “They
won’t,” he
said. “I’m sure of it.”
The
next morning, set free to enjoy another summer day, the two found the
kite as intact
as they’d left it. The hard work had been done, and they quickly
assembled the
materials and finished with reinforcing crossbars and the tail and the
little touches
that make homegrown kites so important.
“It’s
all done,” Sam pronounced.
“Now
what?” Frank asked.
Sam
marched to the stash of materials left under the tree and returned with
several
leather belts. “Lay down there in the center,” he told his brother.
“What
do you mean?” Frank asked.
“I
need to strap you on. I told you this was your kite. Don’t you want to
see what’s
up there?” Sam pointed to the sky, blue and open and full of wind.
It
only took Sam a few moments to tie his brother down, a few adjustments
where
the leather was too tight, and a few assurances that it wasn’t too
loose, so he
wouldn’t “slip out and die.”
Sam
gathered several of the neighborhood boys to help launch the new
airship. They
had been kept away while the kite was being built, but, instead of
taking offense,
their curiosity had been kindled. They helped the brothers launch.
The
wind was strong and Sam’s abilities were superior. The kite took to the
air on
the first try.
It
was a grand kite, too. The wings were wide in the air; the small fins
and tails
the two had attached all along the spine and along the bottom edge sent
out a
great commotion of noise.
Everyone
took turns holding the line, although Sam decided the order. Frank
floated
about, high in the air, straining his neck to look at the whole town
below him,
or to engage the occasional sparrow that approached to see what strange
creature
this was hovering over the open field.
It
was well past lunch time when the boys’ mother came stomping down the
street and
beat her way through the bushes that separated the field from the end
of the
pavement. Sam was holding the kite string at the time, guiding it
back and
forth with great skill, so that his brother made swoops and loops in
the air.
Unaware
of his mother’s appearance until she stood only a few feet away, Sam
jumped
with fright when she screamed.
“What
have you done?” she yelled. She lunged for the kite string, bumping her
son’s
hands out of the way.
The kite broke free, and Frank, no longer held back by that connection to the earth, floated higher and farther away until he looked like any other bird in the sky.
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