So I decided to try a bit of night-flying instead.

Well, it didn’t go so good, either. Same routine as before: up on the building, step to the edge. Wait for the wind while listening to the cars honking and the occasional person yelling. And then- I did something that I promised Meetri I wouldn’t do. He’d been bringing in these new little steel knobs you worked with a ratchet set- made the wings open quicker and be even sturdier. I’d taken to being a bit more of a daredevil as I got to the end of school. Meetri had told me the best way to test the wings would be to open them up and try flying when I was falling. Well, sounded good on my end, nuh? Eighteen-year-old boys all think they’re invincible anyways- think that bullets’ll bounce offa their chests, and they can drive a hundred miles an hour and never crash.

Well, I did that. I stepped off and just started falling. I pointed myself at the ground like I was gonna do a high-dive into water. Whoo-whee! Feeling the air whistling past my ears, knowing I had about five seconds to pull my wings open? Forget drugs- there’s nothing that’ll give a rush like that. Reefer? You make yourself into an idiot for a while, mess up your head and your guts-if’n tobacco cigarettes are as bad as they say, you tryin’ to tell me reefer’s not worse? Pshaw!

Anyways, droppin’ down, getting’ faster every second, nothing like it. I popped open my wings at maybe the last second and swooped, came within maybe a foot of the sidewalk and then up a nice, big arc, until lady gravity gently decided to pull on me again. And then I scooped again, and up in the air, twisting and spinning, looping and hovering on a thermal where I could find it.

Why hadn’t I tried it thisaway before, I thought? Why didn’t I just go out at night, when I wouldn’t have all the eyes on me, no cameras, no papers, no nothing. I’d gotten hurt and messed up when I went out during the daytime, but the night? That’s where a guy like me could shine. I’d be like a moth, maybe, something that comes out at night to fly and feed, and be seen by the light of the moon. Not something beautiful like a firefly (you hear about that dame? Firefly? Last I heard she married Frosty, the hero guy she was always going up against. Crazy world, huh?), and not something dangerous like a scorpion or a rattlesnake- the guys who modeled themselves after those animals weren’t exactly ‘ight-bay in the ain-bray,’ if you get my meaning. Bright yellow and shit-brown costumes? Yeah, that’ll show up good in the papers.

But I wasn’t thinking of being a bad guy. Or even a good guy. I just wanted to fly and soar, and maybe do the occasional prank. I sometimes wonder if it was a good or a bad thing that the papers got ahold of me and tried to make me into something I wasn’t. I mean, you know, Jane, we did become comic book characters. Kind’ve like the bad-guy wrestlers today. People knew who we were, but we still could go to the grocery store without people mobbing us the way folks on TV are. Some dreamer came by with a contract to make a line of dolls about me and the Airman- can you believe it? After all these years? And some fat kid in his twenties with a scrubby beard and pimples tells me I could make millions? Gimme my bifocals, where do I sign, right?

And it’s all because of what happened a week or two after that night I just decided, what, why not? Why not be a bad guy? All the good-guy slots were taken, it seemed.

See, I had been flying at night, and still doing the occasional prank on folks. No stealing, no hurting anyone. If I had seen something bad happening, a gal getting attacked or a real purse-snatching happening, I like to think I woulda done something about it, something good.

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But as it was, it was way, way easier to see some fellow who needed a good hat-flipping than someone who could use help from me, who usually needed both hands to fly anyway. I mean, I’d see a cat in a tree, or a guy on the side of the road with a flat, but how could I help that, really? I saw way more ways to be a little stinker at a world that had either ignored or hurt me than actually could have used my help in some way.

Well, scratch that. I did see a lady broken down in the dark on the highway one night. And I could see she had kids in the car. I didn’t know much about cars- still don’t really. But I knew how to change a tire, and I thought maybe I could’ve called a tow truck or something.

Or something. I couldn’t tell you why I circled and flew down. I saw her standing on the side of the road, arms folded. Maybe she was looking for a car to flag down. But I still thought…well, maybe she looked like my own mom. Anyways, I landed about twenty feet away and folded up the wings. I was wearing a combination of black and white clothes then. Wings, too. I gave up hoping they’d call me the Eagle, or the Hawk, or some cool kind of bird of prey. Hell, I would’ve preferred being called the Vulture or the Buzzard at that point, but apparently there was a villain team over on the West coast that already held those names, so I was out’ve luck.

So, black and white. Mothman. Could’ve been worse, I guess.

I dropped down, folded up my wings, and walked towards the lady with a smile on my face. Could that’ve been the problem? No. The problem was I had a little red flag go off inside my head when she looked at me. Maybe she had too much makeup on for a mom of that many children. Maybe her kids were too quiet in the car given how kids usually get when they’re stranded and alone in the dark with nobody to help them.

Well, I walked up, smiling. I got maybe a half dozen steps and had opened my mouth to ask ‘what seems to be the trouble?’ when she started screaming.

Now, with 20/20 hindsight, I get it. You’re already stressed out and upset because you’re stranded in the middle of the city at night, kids in the car, god-knows-what could happen to you when you’re a very vulnerable woman by yourself, and then a fella drops out of the sky who you’ve seen in the papers touted as the Bad Guy? Well, Jane, you’d probably just pull out your shooter and make’im take a dozen steps back or else. This gal, though, started screaming.

I tried to tell her to be calm. I tried to quiet her down. I put my hands up and tried to shush her, but she just wouldn’t. I was getting pretty upset myself and wondering what I should do, right? I might, you don’t want to fly off and leave a lady and kids alone in the center of the city at night, but you can’t stay there either. I tried to yell over her that everything was alright, but then . . .

Then I felt the two, gloved hands clap me on the shoulders. Hard.

I got spun around and found myself looking straight and close-up into the face of the American Airman.

And he did not look handsome like they drew him in the comic books, lemme tell ya! His face was all joints and angles, with a big, pointed nose and an adam’s apple so big you could hurt someone with it. He was wearing those black goggles and the stupid leather hat he really had no need for- I think he just wore it for show, you know?

Well, I didn’t have a lot of time to think about that then. Because right after he spun me around he hauled off and gave me the first, genuine punch in the nose I ever got. Usually, bullies back in Fort Orlan would trip me, ignore me, or whatnot. But instead this time he spun around and soaked me so good the world started spinning.

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TO BE CONTINUED...