Free On the Wing by Eric Kraft Page A

new Sheboygan.”
    â€œI think I see where this is going,” said the woman.
    â€œTo New Mexico?” I suggested.
    â€œEventually,” said Al, “but our immediate goal is to get back to the safety of our room and find out whether Bulky Burger delivers.”
    â€œHilarious!” declared the beefy man, though he only chuckled.
    *   *   *
    ON OUR WAY OUT of the lounge, we heard another of the humorists saying this: “Ours is not an age for subtlety. It doesn’t want a Wilde or a Parker or even a Wodehouse. It doesn’t want wit; it wants the whoopee cushion. It’s an age that calls for a Rabelais or the Balzac of Droll Stories or that old sniggering schoolboy Alfred Jarry. In an age when people think a bomb is an appropriate answer to an insult, a fart is a clever riposte.”
    â€œWell, I suppose he’s right about that,” said Albertine.
    â€œI wish he weren’t,” I said.
    â€œI know you do,” she said. “So do I.”
    â€œI prefer the fart to the bomb, though.”
    â€œI’ll take silence, thanks.”
    *   *   *
    I STRODE THROUGH THE LOBBY with the purposeful look of a man who has left his toothbrush in the car. In the garage, I found an outlet, moved the Electro-Flyer to a spot one cord’s length from it, and plugged it in for the night. Outside, I stood still for a moment, scanning the sky for the flashing lights of a helicopter. Nothing. I went back through the lobby. Passing the clerk, I patted my jacket pocket and said, “Toothbrush.”
    â€œHa-ha,” he said skeptically.
    *   *   *
    LYING IN BED that night, I had an insight, just before I fell asleep. It wasn’t about humor; it was about Lem and his version of the Martian invasion story or, more accurately, my reaction to it. When I had objected to his altering the story, I wasn’t taking offense on behalf of H. G. Wells or Howard Koch or Orson Welles. I was personally offended. The recorded version of the radio play that I had made with my friend Dan had been different from any of the sources we had used. It had been very similar to Howard Koch’s radio play but not identical to it. We had made some changes out of necessity, others out of expediency, and others out of playfulness—changing some of the names of the characters to match the names of teachers in our school, for example—and the version that resulted was in a small way our own. That version had become in my storyteller’s mind the version that I thought everyone ought to know and hew to, Lem included. It still is.

Chapter 7
    A Banner Day
    He was a bold man that first eat an oyster.
    Colonel Atwit in Jonathan Swift’s Polite Conversation
    IT WAS A DAY for rhapsodizing, one of those extraordinarily beautiful days when, under a sky pellucid and blue, you willingly fall victim to the illusion that life is good and nothing can go wrong. Spirit ’s engine hummed, the air felt buoyant, and a couple of times when we crested a rise in the road, I gunned the engine and the road fell away beneath us. Oh, that exhilarating feeling of flight, the breathtaking thrill of being airborne for a few feet.
    Toward evening, when the light began to thin, I found myself riding through a marshy area, and because the lack of trees or other concealing vegetation afforded me a long view of what lay ahead of me, I could make out a small town or village in the distance. Soon I came upon a road sign welcoming me to Mallowdale, and farther on, when I reached the edge of the village, I saw a bright banner strung across the main street. Because I was still too far from the banner to read it, I allowed myself to think that it might be a message of welcome for me.
    â€œOh, please,” said Spirit.
    â€œWhy not?” I asked. “Word of my journey could spread by phone—and why shouldn’t it? Why shouldn’t people in the towns we’ve