DAVID HOLUB

Born on April 18, 1978 in Houston, Texas. My fiction has appeared at www.cafeirreal.com

David Holub is a newspaper designer in Corpus Christi, Texas. His favorite things include tooth decay, preservatives, ducks and locomotives.

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"HANGING"

        It came to me during my sleep. I woke up feverishly scribbling out notes and sketches, trying savagely to get it all on paper. I took a clean 58-minute break for the "Price is Right" then immediately began sketching and scribbling again.

        Personal transport would never be the same. To get from A to C in the city, folks relied on cabs, busses, cars, or two functioning legs. With these conventional methods, one is forced to put up with traffic, crowds, police, and stray dogs.

        My gift to humanity would change that. My concept would turn roads into seldom-used eye sores and sidewalks into a laughable nugget of history. Sure the accolades would come and the Oval Office visits would grow tiresome after a while, but to be revered and remembered by mankind and perhaps a few neighbors would be most rewarding.

        My vision, however, wasn't pure goodwill. I must admit, I had had something else in mind. Getting paid. I couldn't hide it, my job was going nowhere. I'd been at the same company for four and a half years and I'd been told at my six-month evaluation not to expect any movement in salary or job description in the near or distant future. I was stuck.

        But I wouldn't be brought down this day. As Bob Barker pleaded that I get my pets spayed or neutered, my determination soared. Soon, I thought, I'd have the entire aeronautic industry on its collective knee at my doorstep, begging for that notebook.

        And once I cashed in on my crowning achievement, taking the school of transportation by whirlwind, I could then call my junior high physics teacher and tell him to take that C- he gave me and once and for all cram it up his sorry behind.

        My concept: An elaborate personal hang glider made from trash bags.

        With a week of unpaid vacation burning a hole in my pocket, I was ready to face my endeavor.

        I put on some shorts, gathered my sketches and hastily set out to build a prototype. Realizing I didn't have any trash bags, I emptied out a bag of lawn clippings that was sitting in front of the house next door. Also in need of wood, I was forced to dismantle the covered sandbox in the yard behind me.

        After constructing a crude model, I headed to the roof. With my arms securely strapped in, I crept toward the edge, and without much more thought, jumped. I didn't glide too far but fell straight into the bushes. When I adjusted my goggles, I realized I had mangled the bushes, which I had been trimmed to resemble the late Captain Kangaroo. Now they looked like Captain Kangaroo if Captain Kangaroo was Chinese.

        I would not let the bush incident get in my way. To give my efforts a bit of flare, I put on my Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Lakers jersey and the Kareem goggles I had picked up at a garage sale. The knee pads and the high-tops fit the Abdul-Jabbar theme but were worn for protection more than anything.

        Before I made my second attempt, I heard a neighbor shout, "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's about to hang glide off that house!"

        I was forced to stop my jump. This infuriated me as I then had to climb down and explain to this woman that, yes, I was hang gliding off my house, but by no means was I Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. To this day, I'm not sure she believed me.

        After a quick malt, I was up on the roof for another attempt, determined to glide to safety. As I was sketching out my flight pattern, I had caught the eye of a man down the street who thought I was about to take my own life.

        "Why don't you just take it easy, fella," the man said calmly. "I'm here to help you. I'm your friend."

        "Just back away from the driveway," I demanded. "The only way I'm getting off the roof this time is by jumping."

        But the man refused to see my vision, my determination. He was persistent if nothing else. He finally lured me down with a ham sandwich and the June issue of "Modern Shepherd." I ate the sandwich, thanked him for the magazine and he was on his way.

        And I was right back on the roof.

        "I'll need a running start this time," I said aloud as I backed up to the crest of the house.

        In a full sprint, I made my way down the roof. I must've leaped too soon because my left foot snagged on the gutter. I managed to clear the bushes this time but crashed through the half-dismantled sandbox sitting in my front yard.

        I was furious and was about to let the sandbox know. I summoned a tennis racquet from the garage. So the neighborhood wouldn't see me in a fit of uncontrollable rage, I tried to divert their attention. I put on a tuxedo and top hat and sang, "There's No Business Like Show Business" while I savagely demolished the last part of the sandbox left standing.

        Frustrated and hungry, I prepared a spinach rigatoni tossed in a light garlic cream sauce and headed back to the drawing board.

        My main need at this point: funding. There was no way around it. To advance my invention, I'd need the help of complete strangers to finance my vision. And after hearing my presentation, this would be a homemade personal hang glider that no one could pass on.

        My first potential patrons would come from a strip mall near my house. The mall consisted of a liquor store, a Mexican cantina, a barber shop, a wig outlet/magic shop, and a daycare.

        Armed with a 1:13 scale model, I set out to win over some support. I decided to hit the barber shop first, as I was getting a little shaggy in the back. My plan: After the initial barber-shop small talk, I would describe the hang glider as if I'd read about it in the newspaper or flight enthusiast magazine, depending on the barber's knowledge of aeronautics. After planting the media hype and establishing some street cred for the hang glider, I would then come clean and introduce the 1:13 scale model.

        But right before I could get the 1:13 scale model from my coat pocket, the barber went into a lengthy diatribe, denigrating the idea until he was finished cutting my hair. I got up from the chair sullen and dejected.

        Despite the rejection, I did stick around to get my shoes shined.

        I was met with similar disdain at the wig outlet/magic shop and no one spoke decent English at the liquor store. At the daycare, I was met by two angry dogs on the front lawn and never spoke with any actual humans. At the Mexican cantina, my idea faced great ridicule although I somehow wound up buying a donkey imprinted poncho and a bushel of tamales out of the restaurant owner's trunk out back.

        My failure to lure investors had me back at Step 1: funding. As I stared at a bowl of waxed beans, I realized I was on my own.

        Before I returned to my quest, I hung the 1:13 scale model from a blade on the ceiling fan in my room in hopes it would motivate me when I awoke each morning.

        This backfired, however. One night I left the ceiling fan on and mistook the 1:13 scale model for a bat the next morning. I hid under the covers for six hours while the bat flew circles around my room. After I noticed the bat had a definite flight pattern, I brutally attacked it with a ping pong paddle. I knocked a few pictures off the wall and put a hole through the door but managed to kill the bat. I spent the rest of the afternoon crafting a new 1:13 scale model.

        With little cash to spare, I took a chance on dabbling with different brands of trash bags, with different thickness, durability and color. For wood, I experimented with different weights, densities, and grain patterns.

        After days of scale model trial-and-error testing, I was ready for the real thing. I had constructed the ultimate gliding machine. Tests showed the hollow unvarnished pine and Glad scented kitchen bags built the best vehicle. With a new pair of goggles and a new yellow and black striped sweat suit, I made my way up to the roof.

        I didn't want to stand up there thinking about the jump too long as I knew the importance of this jump. I had spent the last seven days for this one moment. I backed straight up to the crest of the house.

        Down I went as fast as possible. It was a clean jump. Honestly, I expected to crash straight into the bird bath and ceramic elf, but nothing could have been further from that. As if the Breath of the Lord bleweth life into my flight, a gust of wind picked me up and lifted me past the end of the driveway, straight into the middle of the street. Seemingly suspended in air for eternity, I was about to dedicate my achievement to famed underwater explorer Jacque Cousteau when I was tragically slammed by a Ford Expedition. The woman who thought I was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar called an ambulance. I was in full traction for five weeks.

        When I got out of the hospital I realized my career as a personal hang glider engineer was over. Slowly and methodically that night I put all the leftover wood in the fireplace and converted all the trash bags into bed sheets.

        I did finally get back in touch with that junior high physics teacher who gave me the C-. I ran into him one day on the bumper cars at a local amusement park. We exchanged phone numbers and met for lunch a few weeks later. Ironically, after teaching junior high for three years, he quit to travel the world before relocating to sunny yet damp Houston, Texas. He returned to school and went on to become an astrophysicist with NASA. When I told him of my hang gliding endeavors he just laughed at me.