This Weeks Review: Flying A Kite
A British woman once told me Americans are repressed about sex. She was right, I recently learned, we are repressed. But not nearly enough.
My day off was hot and sunny so I grabbed my kite and drove to the park. Apparently so did everybody else because there was no parking. Not only was the lot at the park full but so were the streets for six blocks. Anywhere from the lake is uphill, so I turned the car around and started gaining elevation. Behind me Lake Union stretched in the summer heat while I ground slowly higher in my ill-muffled car. My chest itched. I thought about my broken air-conditioning.
A week earlier my mechanic roommate had pointed at my engine and said “You see that empty space right there, behind the radiator? That’s where the air-conditioning unit used to be.”
The guy who sold me the car said it was a good spot for a turbo. “Cool.” I said, while writing a check for the full asking price.
Other features of the vehicle somehow slipped his mind, like how the back seats fall forward when you stop quick, allowing, if necessary, a thorough inventory of the contents of the trunk. And the wipers come on when you hit a speed bump. And a headlight is broken…but the first time I bought a car is not the center of our story; kites, hippies and my foreshadowing difficulties with parking is.
Eventually I found a spot behind a mountainous SUV and knocked over a garbage can finalizing my distance to the curb. The can was empty and plastic, but I still checked my bumper for damage. After grabbing the kite off the backseat I started towards the park. It was a ten minute walk and I repeatedly encountered pedestrians heading the same way. As I neared the park foot traffic increased and a little klaxon went off in my brain.
The signs were all there: beautiful day, no parking, everybody walking the same direction, no, it couldn’t be…not on my day off…yes. There was a fair. That’s right, I remembered, the fucking summer solstice.
Well, maybe I could jet in, fly my kite, relax for a few minutes in the grass and hoof it before seeing too many dream-catchers and white people with dreadlocks. I walked over to Kite Hill, so named because it rises steeply from the lake about fifty feet, pulling wind off the water and building updrafts.
Slightly panting, I arrived at the hilltop to find naked hippies painting each other.
Goddamnit, I thought.
Additional naked but less painted hippies milled about in the sun. Looking around I noticed a rough correlation between age and the volume of color applied. The younger the hippie, the heavier and more elaborate the coating. As youth gave to middle age, paint yielded to bare skin. The problem with public nudity, I realized, is it rarely involves those who should be seen naked.
Slightly below the top of the hill I found a spot with a view of the city but free of old ball sacks and took out my kite. It didn’t look like much when I bought it at the mall, but out in the sun it is pretty sweet, i.e. vaguely fish-shaped and colored turquoise and orange. It was easy to get in the air, but tricky to maintain above thirty feet or so. Above that elevation the wind died and my kite fell, forcing me to jog towards the water to give it lift. Soon I was down at the lake and could only watch my bright nylon fish thud to the ground.
Focusing on my feet to avoid wayward skin, I coiled the loose line and moved up the hill. At the top I grabbed my kite and looked up then immediately back down because a kind-faced, grey haired old woman with no shirt and pierced nipples was sitting a few feet away watching me.
“Do you need a hand with that?” She asked
“No, uh, I got it.” I said.
She smiled and leaned back, propping herself into a fleshy ramp with her arms behind her. Shaken, I walked to a different part of the hill and found a consistent breeze to lift my kite. Once all the line played out I lay down and used the bright azure sky to scour my retinas of unwanted afterimages of bright steel and dark nipples.
Besides the wrongness of British people, what you should take away from this story is the importance of knowing your city and reading you local events calendars. Otherwise you risk having your day off invaded by the pale, misshapen nudity of your parent’s generation.
Final Grade for Flying a Kite: C
Ye olden Wednesday reviews
Giving Bad Service To Someone Who Doesn't Deserve It
A Cracked-Out Pimp on a Cell Phone Riding the Bus With His Tragically Young Ho