Birdy

air coming into the helmet. I can’t get my breath from the shock of the cold water. The glass face plate is already fogged so I can’t see. I don’t want to turn on the flashlight until I’m completely under. If the guard sees the light he’ll be all over us.
    The water starts coming up past the face plate of the helmet. I’m wondering if I’m going to be able to climb back up the slippery sides of the reservoir. I can feel panic grabbing me. Where the fuck did I get such a screwy idea anyway; who the hell needs to walk around underwater shooting fish. If it weren’t for Mario and Birdy watching me, I’d scramble right on up out of there. I try a few slow deep breaths. At the least, I have to get the wholehelmet underwater. I take a few more sliding steps down. My feet start sinking into soft cold mud over my ankles. I turn on the light but all I can see is a blur. There isn’t going to be any shooting fish, that’s for sure. I’m just managing to beat down surging panic. I take a few more steps and the mud is up to my knees.
    Then, I don’t know what brought it on; the helmet is working perfectly, the air bubbles are plopping out of the bottom, I have enough air, everything is perfect; but I need to get out of that helmet.
    I rip it off and pull on the rope. I’ve ripped off the helmet before I realize I’m really underwater and I don’t know how deep. Nobody is pulling on the rope either. I’m not sure which way is the way back. I don’t even think of pulling myself back by the rope. I’m completely ape. I drop the flashlight and try to swim up to the surface. I can’t make it because of the mud and the weights on my legs. I breathe in a full swallow of water; I’m choking, drowning, when Mario and Birdy start pulling me out. They pull me sidewise up the side of the reservoir like a gaffed fish.
    The air feels wonderfully warm and thin. Mario and Birdy are bent over me. I’m stretched out, shaking, choking. Jesus, I’m glad to be alive. Birdy leans close.
    ‘What happened, Al? Did it leak?’
    I nod. I don’t look at him. Now it’s Mario.
    ‘You all right, Al?’
    I nod again. Mario starts pulling in the helmet. Birdy is undoing the rope from around my waist; the knot slipped when they pulled me up the side of that wall and I can hardly breathe. Mario leans over the water.
    ‘The light’s still burning down there. Look at that.’
    ‘Forget it. Let the damned thing burn itself out.’
    Birdy’s taking apart the pumps.
    ‘What happened, Al?’
    I look over at him. He’ll believe anything. He wants to believe.
    ‘Water began coming in. It started rising up past my mouth, then past my nose. I ripped the thing off and tried to swim upbut I couldn’t move; these fuckers weighed me down and the mud on the bottom is thick as cow shit.’
    I’m sitting up now and trying to untie the weights from my legs; I’m starting to get cold. Birdy gives me a hand. Then I get dressed and we take all the stuff back with us. Later, I use the diving helmet as a project in Science, get an A for it. I write it up as if it really worked. Actually it did.
    To try out Birdy’s crazy wings, we have to wait till the wind’s blowing from the right direction. This wind has to blow on a Saturday or a Sunday when we don’t have any school. Birdy has the whole thing planned out with written instructions so it’ll only take the two of us to pull it off. He’s already gone down and cleared a path about a hundred yards long for the bike to make its run. He’s cleaned off all the tin cans and used a shovel to fill in any dips and knock down any bumps. I hope nobody saw him flattening out the top of the dump; they’ll figure for sure he’s crazy. I go down and look at it; it’s like a short narrow runway for an airplane; in fact, Birdy’s rigged a little wind sock with an old, starched silk stocking.
    Birdy doesn’t want anybody to see his machine, so we take it down at night and hide it up where we used to have the pigeon loft. We still have the rope ladder; Birdy’s old man didn’t find that. Everything’s set.
    Finally, after about three weeks, the wind is blowing perfectly on a Friday night. We make arrangements to meet at home plate at seven o’clock the next morning. When I get there, Birdy’s already waiting with his crazy bicycle and the platform hooked to the front. We’ve been practicing riding around the block with him standing up there. This itself is a hot trick both for Birdy and for