Sub•scrib•bler (səb-skrĭb′lər) n.

How bright on the blue
Is a kite when it’s new!

The Kite
by Harry Behn

In the Isle of Man and along the Welsh Border, witches were said to transform themselves occasionally into bats, and to enter houses in that form.  Mrs. Leather relates the story of a man at Weobley Marsh who saw ‘something like a bat’ fly into his room.  He struck it with his handkerchief, but when he went to look for the corpse, there was nothing there.  He said afterwards that he knew from this it was a disguised witch, one of those who then lived upon the Marsh, because a real bat would certainly have been killed by his blow.

…In Oxfordshire, it is a death omen if a bat flies three times round a house.  When bats come out early in the evening and fly about as though playing, it is a sign of fine weather to come.

Children, when they see a bat, sometimes avert ill-luck by singing or saying:

Black bat, bear away,
Fly over here away,
And come again another day,
Black bat, bear away.

or

Airy mouse, airy mouse, fly over my head,
And you shall have a crust of bread,
And when I brew and when I bake,
You shall have a piece of my wedding cake.

(Excerpts from The Encyclopedia of Superstitions)

I’ve had my share of peculiar dealings with bats.  My earliest exposure was the rumor of bats that flew out of an old chimney, the only remains of a burned-to-the-ground abandoned house near Pond Factory.  We visited the site but saw no bats that I can remember.  Still, we thought we could sense them.

On a college choir trip in Colorado, I once killed a bat in mid-air with a hymnal, of all things, in the balcony of an old church.  I strove with the “airy mouse” when he flew up the dark stairwell to “attack” me.  All I could see was a darting shadow in between shadows.  I swung the hymnal wildly until it hit its mark.  Clearly, this was self-defense.  I don’t condone this behavior.  I think it’s actually illegal in some states (TN comes to mind, maybe CT), but no one at the church seemed to mind, particularly the young ladies, who were convinced it was infected with Rabies, which, if transmitted through bat saliva, causes madness and convulsions.  Come to think of it, maybe I should have wiped down the hymnal.

My favorite memory of a bat, however, was not with a real bat at all, but with a kite in the form of bat whose only real crime was wanting to fly higher. This is the story of Bat Kite:

When Jimmy, a friend of mine from church, asked if he could fly his kite at our place that afternoon, I thought nothing of it.  With several acres of open field, our hill seemed like a good place to test drive a new kite.  It was a bright and windy day, perfect for kite flying.

I wondered what it looked like, Jimmy’s kite.  For all I knew, it was just like any other kite; in the shape of a diamond or modified triangle.  I didn’t have a kite of my own at the time so I convinced my dad, somehow, to stop by the local country store on our way home to buy one.

Stopping by the country store was a ritual of sorts, typically for the Sunday paper and an earful of local Woodstock gossip.  (Just a minute or two, that was acceptable.  Any more than that and you were a busybody.)  The gossip itself didn’t mean much to me because I didn’t know who or what they were talking about, but I liked how animated my father became when he got the inside story on some nearby shenanigans.

It was odd that such a small store would have kites, but it did; a small selection of them bound in plastic and sitting in a barrel close to the door.  That’s where I found Bat Kite.  I liked Batman–the comic book, not the TV show.  The real Batman was scary looking with his dark and mysterious costume.  Batman, the TV hero, wore his pants and belt up too high.  How was that comfortable?   As far as superheros go, Batman was my favorite.  Superman wasn’t scary at all; he was squeaky clean and a bit geeky with his curlicue bangs and red underwear pulled over his blue tights.  Spiderman was more of a freak than a hero having been genetically altered because he got bit by a radioactive spider.  He was lucky, that’s all.  Anyone can get bit by a spider.

Thus was I partial to Bat Kite, which had “menace” written all over him.  Bat Kite had two hypnotic eyes that said,  “don’t mess with me or I’ll suck all your blood out!”   So, in less than five minutes, Bat Kite and I were on our way home eagerly anticipating his maiden flight.  I wondered how well Jimmy’s kite would fly and if his kite was even half as scary as mine.  This was going to be a GREAT day!

Jimmy arrived promptly and eagerly opened the trunk to retrieve his new kite.  Once unveiled, it was clear why Jimmy’s dad asked to fly it at our place.  It was gorgeous and exploding in color, a large round unicorn kite with a thirty-foot rainbow tail.  ”How much did THAT cost?”  I wondered.  Truly, Jimmy’s dad didn’t want to take any take any chances flying this majestic marvel of mylar and fiberglass over risky air space, such as his own back yard or even Roseland Park.   There’s no shortage of kite-eating trees in Woodstock, I can assure you.

I watched as Jimmy and his dad began to fasten a gigantic spool of string to the mighty unicorn.  ”Wow, ” I thought, “that’s a lot of string.”  I watched as his dad helped launch the long tailed stallion into air.  It soared straight up, its string bending in a great arc against the wind.  I could hear the giant spool of string spinning wildly as the kite galloped above all the trees.

“Dad,” I said frantically, “do you have any string?”

Ever the problem solver, and no doubt feeling the pressure of the moment, my father dashed into the house.  Two minutes later, he returned with the only thing he could find; his silver case of chalk line, still full of blue chalk.  It was crude, he said, and short–maybe only 50 or 60 feet of line–but it just might work.  It was certainly windy enough to carry the weight of the thick chalk-encumbered string.

I was all for it; I had faith in Bat Kite.  By the time we had fastened dad’s chalk line to Bat Kite’s harness, his wings were flapping loudly.  FLAPPITY FLAP FLAP FLAP!  Dad grabbed hold of the wily rodent with the gargoyle eyes and started backing up, pulling out the chalk line as he went.  Blue dust scattered in the wind, off the line, wispy, like blue cirrus clouds.  In an instant, Bat Kite clambered free and was airborne.  Chalk continued to explode out of the case in clumps on my sneakers as Bat Kite climbed.   Then, no more than ten seconds later, “CLICK!”  Bat Kite had reached the end of his tether.

“Already?”  I thought.  “He’s not even above the telephone pole.”

As if infuriated by his short leash, Bat Kite thrashed like a real bat as if he were trying to break free, first to the left than to the right.  FLAPPITY FLAP FLAP FLAP!   I yanked, I slackened, I tilted and contorted my body–all in vain.  Had it not been for the sturdiness of his 20 lb harness, Bat Kite would have surely broken free.  Then, the worst thing that could have happened, happened.  Bat Kite careened across Jimmy’s kite string.

“No!”  my father shouted, as Bat Kite and his blue demon string coiled around Jimmy’s line.

“What’s the big deal,” I thought, as my dad raced to wrangle Bat Kite from his ravenous instincts.  But before he could get there, Jimmy’s line went limp and we watched, in mortifying silence, as the cut string (I say “bit”) pulled away, up, up into the air, out of reach, now invisible.  [Gulp]  The unicorn, now hundreds of feet above the tallest trees, the majority of its string spent and beyond reach, began to descend as it pulled away, slowly, ever so slowly into the heathen forest;  a gripping scene.  Hearts sunk.  Tears were shed.

How bright on the blue
Is a kite when it’s new!

But a raggeder thing
You never will see
When it flaps on a string
In the top of a tree.

I felt bad for Jimmy, I really did.  The brave unicorn kite didn’t deserve that.  If it was Bat Kite who managed to free himself from his line (because that is the way he would see it) and flew into dark forest, I would have thought him truly free, even liberated; a wild beast gone back home.  In fact, I would have imagined him being welcomed by his heathen kin, who lived in such dark places, with open arms and great rejoicing.  I could see no such reception for the rainbow unicorn.  His kindred lived in the clouds, not the forest.  All I could imagine, if I could see his eyes, was fear and trembling as he descended to some unspeakable fate.  What grim torture?  What dreadful trial would he endure in that grave hollow?  Was I responsible?  Would the ghost of the rainbow unicorn haunt Braaten Woods in the years to come?

I reined Bat Kite in, as discretely as I could (his loud flapping seemed inappropriate), laying him down on the grass until we were done consoling Jimmy.  Once he finally came to grips with the hard truth that he’d never see the unicorn kite again, he left with his dad and his near-empty spool of string.

Bat Kite lived to fly more days following this ill-omened beginning, with real kite string that allowed him to soar high above the trees; to dive like a falcon and to spring up again.   If anyone saw the unicorn kite, wracked in some towering Pine or tangled in the wide and gnarled branches of a giant Ash tree, it was Bat Kite.  Would he feel anything if he saw it?  Would he still feel guilty and feel compassion?  Or would he snicker?  I think I know.

© 2010, R M Braaten. All rights reserved.