Fiction / Bryan Price

:: I’d rather be hang gliding::

I’m on a bus between Mexico City and Puebla. It smells like rain. Everything’s green and I
wonder what it’s like to deliver ice. I try to imagine a great many things on this long stretch of 
highway. I try to imagine, for instance, what it’s like to live in each house I see. I spend hours 
in each one. I go through their cookware and eating utensils. I turn on their televisions and
watch the news. I realize that newscasters are the same everywhere. I try on all the shoes that 
fit me and wear interestingly patterned shirts. Shirts I would never wear in real life. I wear a 
woman’s corduroy dress that maroon color of a bloodstain and look at the world from a 
balcony. I look down at my hands and someone has painted my fingernails blue. I touch fabric 
and record albums, try on a multitude of jewelry (including tiaras), enter a closet where there 
are only skeins of yarn. I find a store of knives and instead of thinking about butchery or the 
 slaughterhouse I imagine someone fashioning windchimes out of wood. Not a master 
craftsman but someone just curious about the physics of sound. I peer into children’s rooms 
and marvel at the toys. I touch their bedspreads and look for shirts with frogs on them. I water 
potted geraniums and touch (very lightly) the spines of a cactus, which I don’t know the name 
of. I think of all the things I don’t know the names of. All the plants and insects and animals 
and chemicals, like the ones used to treat diaper rash. I look at cars, into their engines, and
inhale the smell of gasoline and motor oil. I run my finger along bicycle chains and chainsaw 
chains and tractor tires. I handle hammers, screwdrivers, hacksaws, chisels, planes, and 
monkey wrenches, but only to test their heft. I sleep in their beds and smell sweetness on every 
pillow. It’s the fabric softener, isn’t it, I say to the woman lying next to me. She nods and I
kiss her forehead. I don’t know who she is but I want to live in her gaze forever. I sit at their 
tables reading their newspapers and magazines, impressed with how quickly I’ve picked up the 
Spanish language. I light their cigarettes with a lighter that someone has covered in aquamarine
sequins. I could have chosen a zippo with a boot embossed on it or a plain yellow one more 
the color of butter than egg yolk. I smoke with my hand out the window so as not to stain 
their existence. There is ice cold beer in the refrigerator and a cake with pink frosting. I help
myself to these things and leave a note that says, I owe everything to you, including my life. 
Thank you for sustaining me in such trying times. May God bless this house forever. After an 
hour or so of reading, I say the words jaguar, cricket, butterfly. I touch a finger to my lips to 
shush myself. There is a movie playing on the bus that is unfamiliar to me. It concerns children 
and animals. It takes place in the jungle. The man in front of us wears a purple cowboy hat. 
Affixed in its black band is a yellow and gray feather with a spray of red. He tells us he works
as a jukebox repairman in and around the city of Amarillo, Texas. I tell him I didn’t know 
there were still juke boxes and he says, you just don’t know where to look. I feel wounded by 
this comment, or at the very least reproached for my ignorance. I look at his hands and think 
about all the intricate work those hands are responsible for, the electronic housings they have 
entered into so that the people in and around Amarillo, Texas may continue to dance. His wife
is from Puebla and they are visiting her family who continue to keep horses. They have two 
young children who, for some reason, remind me of the ocean. Of looking at the ocean. The
ocean is not something that should be taken lightly. For some uncountable number of years 
the ocean portended death. Not just random death, but certain death. If you look at maps of 
the world from these times they are unconscionably small and over the oceans you see Hades
and his three-headed dog depicted. These children though have nothing to do with that. It’s
all in my head. I beat myself up for having seen no ruins. I saw no ancient cities and my spirit
won’t forgive me. I saw no temples to the God of War or the God of Water. I saw no amount 
of stone smoothed by thousands of years of worshipful touch. My spirit will never forgive me
until I let time lay its hands on me, until I see something at least twice as old as The Hall of 
Bulls. Later in another life or a future life (a life that is behind me now) I will tour other ruins 
with other women and attend different churches. Ones not as concerned with the spectacle 
of Christ’s return. In the halls of these other churches (if I can call them halls) I’ll be able to 
swear off hard drugs and see no more levitating cats. I’ll manage to placate what others (though 
not me) call their demons. My life will become as smooth as a piece of paper and I will drink 
green tea with my meals. When I learn to drive again I will follow a car with a bumper sticker 
that reads, I’d Rather be Hang Gliding, and think about how this means that driving is tedious 
but necessary. But now I’m on a bus between Mexico City and Puebla. I’ve seen no ruins and 
have imagined the interiors of a thousand houses. There is a black Nissan waiting for us. I 
share a cigarette with the driver whose name is Eric. He takes us to a hotel right off the Zócalo 
where there is a truck driving around with a caged tiger on its trailer. It must be, I say to you, 
an advertisement for the zoo.

From the writer

:: Account ::

Some­times it’s hard for me to dis­tin­guish between dreams and mem­o­ries. I do remem­ber tak­ing a bus from Mex­i­co City to Puebla. This must have been 2006 or 2007. We flew into Mex­i­co City and hung around for a while and then took a bus to Puebla and then took a bus back to Mex­i­co City to fly home. There was a film being shown on that bus but I don’t recall it being about chil­dren or a jun­gle (maybe I was think­ing of Juman­ji, but who knows). I think I was try­ing to get at the idea of a per­son chang­ing over time (in terms of reli­gious con­ver­sion or reli­gious con­ver­sion as metaphor). That per­son on that bus is no longer me. That per­son who rode that bus with anoth­er per­son no longer lives with that per­son; doesn’t share dreams or expe­ri­ences with that per­son. And that per­son who didn’t see ruins no longer exists. The thing about juke­box­es is there because I like old media and old tech­nol­o­gy. I like the idea that some of us cast away old things and oth­er peo­ple keep try­ing to make them work. There was a caged tiger on the back of a flatbed truck and a black Nis­san taxi. The idea of the title came from see­ing a license plate hold­er that said I’d Rather be Bowhunt­ing, but I changed it to hang glid­ing because hang glid­ing seems nicer, more ano­dyne, less vio­lent. All the stuff about imag­in­ing what people’s hous­es are like is my attempt to dis­ap­pear which I guess is what writ­ing is sometimes.

Bryan D. Price is the author of A Plea for Sec­u­lar Gods: Ele­gies (What Books, 2023) His sto­ries and poems have appeared or are forth­com­ing in Noon Annu­al, New Let­ters, The Glac­i­er, Boule­vard, and else­where. He lives in San Diego, California.