Flight or Fight

By Rosemarie DiCristo

What human being, given the Gift of flight, would wish he had another one?

You’re looking at him. Er, reading about him.

Does that even make sense? Zoiks. I’m as clumsy with words as I am with people. And I’m clumsier with flight.

I hate heights. I hate speed. I hate the breathlessness of taking off and the stomach-dropping-ness of landing. I’d much rather have my kid brother Reny’s Gift: swimming like an eel.

“Do you know how boring it is to be forever stuck swimming the Bronx River?” he asks me. “When I turn thirteen, like you, I’d maybe get to venture into the ocean. But no. I’m too young. Plus it’s gross, Dennis. There’s a reason bottom-dwellers aren’t kosher.”

Remy can stay underwater for days. Perfect for an introvert like me. Invisibility is even better. Only, your Gift is supposed to enhance the world and help the Ungifted, not let you hide. Besides, my big brother Sly’s already claimed invisibility.

Typical of Sly, he’s learned being invisible means not having to wear clothes. Don’t laugh. Sly saves so much money on clothing and detergent, he’s able to afford season tickets to the Mets. Why doesn’t he just invisible himself in? Same reason I don’t hover over the place. The Morality Police keep Gifted people from doing things they shouldn’t. Yes, there are many other things my invisible sixteen-year-old brother shouldn’t do. Let’s keep this G-rated.

Anyway, let’s get back to me. Today’s a big day. See, we’re born with our Gifts, and they grow stronger with age, as do their benefits. We get three chances—on our thirteenth, twenty-first, and thirty-ninth birthdays—to reassess them and maybe choose another. But after that, it’s permanent. Well, today’s my first chance to change. Ha, but what to change to?

I actually Googled “superpowers for introverts.” All I got was lame stuff like “Introverts are deep thinkers” or “Introverts have meaningful conversations.” And despite the Gifted’s contempt for the way comics portray superpowers, I Googled a wad of them, too, for ideas.

Zilch.

Meanwhile, all this week, Borgota was sending me thrice-daily texts to remind me if I didn’t appear in her office by midnight tonight, I’d be stuck with flight until I was twenty-one.

She’s in charge of the Gifted and a real hoot, exactly like Glinda in The Wizard of Oz. Same chirpy voice. Same dippy demeanor. No one knows the extent of her powers, just that she’s “great and powerful.”

I finally texted her this afternoon. You choose my new Gift. Just make it something that helps the Ungifted.

She immediately texted back. Come get it. It’s ready.

As I walked—not flew—toward her apartment in Tracey Towers, Sly, that nerk, sneered and said, “Chickens don’t fly.”

“Yeah, they do,” I insisted. “Just… a little bit.”

To prove I could, I flew, for maybe the last time, in my usual style: a few feet off the ground and moving no more than eight mph, which Google claims is the average running speed. I keep low and slow because of two things I’ve learned.

One, fear evaporates a Gift. Not like air out of a balloon. More like, whomp! gone!

Two, falling from even six feet after the whomp! gone! hurts like heck. It may not kill us—we Gifted are invulnerable to major damage—but it can rattle every filling right out of your mouth.

As I veered left off Jerome Avenue, Tracey Towers loomed ahead. A woman who looked about eighty had just come out the front doors. Then, from between two parked cars, leapt a guy wearing filthy jeans, a torn hoodie, and his baseball cap pulled low. He grabbed the lady’s purse.

I stopped. Someone should do something. I should do something. But wait. The greatest Gifter in the universe lived right here.

“Borgota! Help!” I yelled. But her windows stayed shut.

“Someone! Help!” Nothing. There’s like eight hundred apartments in Tracey Towers and no one opened a window? No one was on the street? No cars were passing? What? Stopping a mugging was up to me?

Creep-o yanked the lady’s purse, knocking her down. She screamed and so did I. Or maybe “I roared” is more accurate, because the lady could be someone’s grandmother and needed help. Like, immediately.

I shot forward, hitting Creep-o in the chest, knocking him down. His head hit the pavement. The lady scurried into the safety of the building. Creep-o didn’t move. He was out cold.

I did it! Me. Dennis Trullo of Cruger Avenue.

“Whooo-hooo! Whoo-whoo-whoo!” Adrenaline, joy, whatever, sent me skyrocketing past Borgota, now peering out at me from her windows on the thirty-eighth floor of Tracey Towers.

Wait, I just zoomed past the thirty-eighth floor of Tracey Towers?

Eeeyaaaagh!

Whooosh!

Thuddddd!

Plop-plop-plop-plop-plop.

The eeeyaaaagh, whooosh, and thuddddd are—probably—self-explanatory. The plop-plop-plop-plop-plop? Like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, my body literally came apart: head over there, legs over there, arms over there…

That was me all over the place.

“I bestow on you, Dennis Trullo,” Borgota called down, “your new and wondrous Gift.”

“Detachment of limbs?” I cried. “Seriously?”

Borgota’s giggle drifted from above. “Try it. You’ll like it.”

I thought I would die. From shame. Or fury. Then what the Ungifted called “fairy dust” sprinkled over me, sealing the deal.

Detachment of limbs. Until I’m twenty-one. Could things get any worse?

Yeah. Creep-o rose, shaking his head as if to clear it, then, still holding the purse, dashed for freedom. If he made it to the number twenty-eight bus, he’d be in Co-op City before any cops arrived.

“No!” I shouted. Suddenly my left leg shot across the street, tripping him. Then my right fist zoomed over, delivering a perfect upper cut to the jaw. Once Creep-o was out cold—again—my butt and legs pinned him down while the rest of me was safely splayed across Moshulu Parkway. I whipped out my cell phone and dialed nine-one-one.

Huh. This could work.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rosemarie DiCristo likes the Wizard of Oz (but not the Mets) and is proud to be a born-and-bred Bronxite, totally familiar with the locations mentioned in her fiction, although she now lives in Queens. She’s written a boys’ mystery involving shelter dogs, counterfeit Rolexes, creepy villains, and a 6’5” bodyguard who’s a coward and pacifist.

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