My Brother

I remember a time when Albert and I were very young. I had read the story of Icarus and the waxwings and told my brother and friends the tale. Albert's eyes were wide with the possibility of flight. Never mind the moral of the story. It was the fantastical, the wonder of flight that captivated him. We were country boys full of dreams and possibilities, and Albert said, "Let's calculate," which was a word he had just learned, but it immediately set the plan in motion.

We found a corrugated crate the railroad workers had tossed by the cotton gin. We measured and cut wings, glued chicken feathers, and attached rope and wire for hand and flight control. We christened the wings Icarus. We used an old outhouse as a launching station and surrounded it with mounds of loose dirt in case of an emergency landing, and we waited for a haboob, a dust storm prevalent in the Texas panhandle. 

Weeks later, awakened by the rattling of windows and the smell of dirt, exhilarated by what was about to happen, we jumped out of bed and phoned our friends. A giant wall of dust was rapidly approaching, so we hurried to the Outhouse Flight Station. By the time Oscar and Julio arrived, the winds raged, and visibility and communication were almost impossible. 

We prepared Julio, the youngest and smallest, with the wings, placed a bomber's cap on his head for protection, and tied it down with a bandana. He climbed the ladder and desperately tried to stand near the edge, but the powerful winds buffeted him every time he spread his wings.

We began the count down, "Ten, nine, eight." The world was a red and orange haze, and we could barely see each other. "Seven, six, five." The winds were ferocious and howled and grew stronger. "Three, two," Julio suddenly screamed, "I don't want to do this!" I asked, "Did he say, 'I don't want to do this?'" Oscar nodded. We all looked at each other, and then, at the top of his lungs, Albert yelled, "No, he said I want to do this!" He said it with such conviction that we immediately restarted the countdown, "One, zero, blast off!" And Julio, like a good soldier, jumped.

We held our breath, and, in the blinding dust storm, we saw Julio hover above the outhouse and disappear into space. Albert yelled, "He's flying! He's flying!" We hugged each other and jumped and whooped and hollered. We were euphoric and screamed, "We did it," but Oscar grabbed and yanked us around. "There," he said, pointing toward the outhouse. Huddled by the wall, we made out a form. As we drew near, we heard whimpering. It was Julio. He'd plummeted into the soft, loose dirt. It had broken his fall, but he was crying because his wish of being the first boy to soar through the clouds was gone. 

While Oscar tended to his brother, Albert and I discussed what had gone wrong. He said, "We have to recalculate." And so we did. Throughout the coming months, we tried again and again. We never flew through the sky or touched the clouds, but the summer of '65 was full of wonder and adventure as we chased the dream of flight.