Extreme Sports

I was having an iced tea with the crew in Kupang, right in front of the beach where we’d landed the dinghy.

Adriano, the Portuguese one, asked:

“What are you going to do now? Keep traveling? Sailing with new crew every few months? Travel on land? Go back to work?”

Then he suggested I take up extreme sports.

No responsibilities, after all.

Skydiving. Hang gliding. Rock climbing.

So I told them my story.

It was a long time ago.

A previous life.

A different woman.

We were lying on a beach in Leblon, Rio de Janeiro.

Shirley and I.

The sunlight was brutal, burning my corneas, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the strange contraptions circling above the beach.

Corcovado towered over us.

It looked as if those birdlike things were flying out of Christ’s outstretched arms.

Doves from the hands of a magician.

Torn between the impossible engineering of Brazilian swimwear and those flying marvels, I’d chosen the marvels.

Or rather, Shirley had chosen them for me.

Maybe she’d noticed my furtive glances drifting toward the beach now and then and decided to redirect my attention.

“Do you like those hang gliders?” she asked.

“They look like a lot of fun.”

“Would you like to do it? Fly one of those?”

I certainly would.

I wouldn’t lie. That applied to both.

“Aren’t you afraid of heights? Of dangling from a few straps, thin nylon, and a handful of aluminum pipes high above the skyscrapers?”

I truly wasn’t.

But when a girlfriend asks a purely hypothetical question while basking in the sun, drink in hand, every man gives the same answer.

So, like any other turkey, I puffed out my chest.

All I remember is her mischievous smile, her dark eyes, and the glow of caramel skin.

She said nothing, dropped her sunglasses over her eyes, and turned back to the scenery.

The evening dissolved into the usual blur of fun. Restaurants, drinks, and a fair amount of debauchery.

The next morning we were back in the same place.

Same chairs. Same roasting sun.

That’s when he arrived.

Blond dreadlocks. Surfer clothes. Scruffy beard.

He was chewing on a pastry with the appetite of a man who had clearly smoked his breakfast.

He was trying to look semiprofessional, brushing crumbs from his beard and shirt.

“Hi, I’m Casimir.”

Shirley answered like she already knew him.

“Are we going to fly today?”

That’s when it hit me.

She had called my bluff and secretly arranged for me to go soaring on a hang glider.

Out came the cash.

He pointed to his car.

A yellow Volkswagen Maggiolino with a rather obvious cargo strapped to the roof.

We had our own car and driver, courtesy of a local friend, so we followed him up the steep road climbing one of those sugar-cone mountains.

Asphalt turned to gravel, gravel turned to dirt.

Puffs of burned oil and badly carbureted gasoline from the exhaust guided our way.

Often Casimir had to back his cartoonish yellow Beetle downhill and rev the engine just to gather enough momentum for the next incline.

We followed at a safe distance.

At the top there was a clearing where we parked.

Under a tree slept a dark-skinned man with a wild head of white curls and beard, his hair resting on a brick like a pillow.

He stood up, adjusted his tattered shorts, and without a word walked to Casimir’s car.

Together they pulled the glider off the roof rack and began assembling it with practiced ease.

Then Casimir stood up from under the glider, craned his neck toward me and, like a man afraid he might forget, proudly said:

“I built this.”

Great.

I thought of all the safety labels and certifications they’d saved in the process.

Once the machine was assembled, Casimir said:

“Now training.”

I don’t know if you’ve ever glided in one of these apparati.

Most of you are probably smarter than me, so I’ll guess no.

It was basically a giant kite. Aluminum pipes, colored nylon, and underneath, a handlebar with straps and a hanging pouch the size of half a sleeping bag.

He explained that the two of us would hold the bar, run off the ledge, and once airborne slide into a horizontal position with our legs inside the pouch.

So far so good.

For training we grabbed the bar.

“Quikke run, quikke run.”

We ran maybe thirty feet.

“Good. End of training.”

I looked at the launch platform.

Maybe fifty feet long. Sloping down.

At the end, nothing.

Far below, the skyscrapers of Rio looked like LEGO.

He put a helmet on me far too small for my melon head and tightened the strap under my chin.

Shirley took a picture.

No iPhones back then. A real camera. Film. Negatives to be developed.

Will I ever see it? I thought.

Or would some stranger develop it for the memorial?

This time I had done it.

Shirley took my wallet and my belongings and walked back to the car, stopping now and then to snap another photo.

Casimir and I took our positions.

“Quikke run, quikke run.”

We ran.

We jumped.

And there was no flying.

We were dropping like Newton’s apple.

Fast.

I turned to my left.

Casimir did not have a reassuring face.

I tried to speak but my mouth was filling with air, my body vibrating with the frame.

I’m not sure what came out.

But his words came through perfectly.

“We are too heavy.”

Holy shit.

I was pretty sure I hadn’t gained weight in the last hour.

Maybe he had overdone it with the pastry.

You know when they say it felt like an eternity?

This didn’t.

The glider skimmed over buildings and suddenly we were over the beach.

The hot, wet air rose from the scorched sand.

A beautiful updraft.

The glider slowed.

Just before hitting the sand he yelled:

“Quikke run, quikke run.”

We did.

Not elegantly.

Among Brazilian bikinis.

An hour later, maybe less, maybe more, I saw Shirley walking toward me, smiling, full of pride, like she had just sent me on a joyride.

“Did you have fun?”

Next time pick option one, I thought.

A few days later, back in the States, I saw the photos.

In every picture I looked the same.

Ridiculous.