Chapter 2

As Gabe lay there half awake, he could still hear the storm around him, and he was ushered into a mind-whirling memory of his childhood home. He could see himself sitting on the window sill of his room on a stormy night, listening to the sound of the thunder crash and watching the lightning streak across the sky. He would close his eyes and feel the wind rush along his arms and face, almost like a caress. He remembered the smell of the moisture, so fresh and cool. If he spread his arms, and really imagined it, he could feel himself lifting into the dark sky like a superhero, thunder trembling his body and lightning missing him by mere inches.

That was a long time ago, and today it seemed that the drama in the sky was no longer his friend. Maybe it was because his innocence had gone. He wasn’t a child sitting on his window sill anymore, but a twenty-three-year-old man lying on the hard ground. He tried to get up, but because the pain was sharp and aching, he fell back, getting only as far as the crude, splintery fence that he leaned against. While he sat there, he looked up at the sky overhead, still hearing the loud thunder-crashes, and remembering the words his mother used to tell him on nights such as this.

It’s God throwing a bowling ball across the skies and making a strike.

He didn’t really believe it, of course, but the thought always soothed him.

It was sad to know that as he grew into manhood, all the fairytales and pie-in-the-sky things he’d heard all his childhood years were nothing but lies, told to all children to make them feel safe and secure in this imperfect world. When the ugly truth finally dawned upon him, he learned he was gay and was growing up in a world where someone like him wasn’t tolerated. In a world where even his mother’s loving words no longer had the power to soothe him.

Now, instead of his mother’s soft smile, he saw an angry sky, and big rocks lying all around him meant to hurt, even kill. So, with tears glittering on his cheeks, and the loud thunder-crashes still overhead, he knew that somewhere deep inside him there was still enough of that little boy left to make just one more wish.

If only I had wings—to escape this hell.

* * * *

Gabe did eventually get his wings, but it was in the form of a Beechcraft Musketeer Single Engine Plane. By then Gabe was a struggling, small-time pilot who owned his own airline, and although it was no more than a rinky-dink operation, he did well with it. Over time he had gained a reputation, being called a flying daredevil by some, and a stupid idiot by others. They said he took way too many chances in the air and would one day crash and burn.

Hell, maybe it was true.

But it was hard for Gabe to keep his flying down to a normal level since he loved it so much. He had come a long way from the kid on the window sill. It seemed as if his dream of flying had come true, but with one exception. His windowsill had turned to a plane he lovingly called the Night Flyer.

Now, as he sat in the cockpit of his plane and looked down through the wide windshield of the Musketeer to the patchwork world below, he saw the twinkling lights of The Big Apple. He was about to come in for a landing, so he switched his radio on, and spoke into a small microphone.

“Beechcraft Musketeer approaching. November, one, two, one, Papa, Papa, requesting coordinates for landing.”

While listening to the instructions spoken into his ear, he looked down at the instrument panel of his Musketeer and let his fingers fly across it, preparing for its eventual descent by positioning each dial, knob, handle, or control to its proper setting. That done, he gradually turned the nose of the plane downward, and let it soar on the four winds, giving his passengers a thrill until he had at last set it down along a glittering runway. He smiled when he heard his newly acquired flight attendant speak into her microphone.

“We’d like to thank you folks for flying with us today. And the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we hope you’ll think of us here at TangoWest.”

Well, what else could you expect when all you could afford to pay was minimum wage? He couldn’t complain, though. When the passengers got off the plane they always had big grins on their faces. He knew it must be the words of the flight attendant—it certainly couldn’t be his flying.