Icarus was this fella that lived a long time ago in an island name of Crete and the king there was always in a bad mood for some reason. He lived there on that island with his daddy, a fella name of Daedalus, and he was a master builder. He belonged to Crete local 00004 and it said Master Builder right on his union card so nobody could argue with him on that point. Old Icarus weren’t like his old dad, he couldn’t build a fire! Why every time he picked up a nail old Daedalus would run and get the first aid kit.

Well this Daedalus went and done some work for an enemy of the king, ‘cause the fella was paying double scale, and it really pissed that king off. So the king tossed him and Icarus in jail without setting bail. Kings could do that kind of thing back in them days, you know. Anyway, their jails ain’t like the ones you got today. What that there king threw them in was called a labyrinth, which is a maze like them ones them fellas in white coats are always putting mice through except this here maze was a whole lot bigger. What the king forgot was that it was Daedalus hisself what built that there labyrinth so him and Icarus snaked through all them turns and got loose. It made the king even madder.

Well they was on this island, Crete, and didn’t have a boat to get away in and even if they did, they couldn’t get through the king’s navy who was watching all the boats and mainly for old Daedalus andIcarus. So they were standing on the shore a wondering what to do when Daedalus remembered that union card in his wallet and told his boy he was gonna build some wings so they could fly off the island. Folks could do things like that back in them days.

Well this Daedalus fella goes to work making wings with a bunch of feathers, some string and some wax to hold the feathers on somehow. They had better wax in them days, I guess. I ain’t never heard of nobody nowadays slapping a bunch of feathers together with wax then being able to fly. When he got done, he had Icarus do the first test flight. I guess you can’t come to be a card-carrying master builder unless you’re pretty smart. Well, Daedalus was right. The wings worked and they made plans to fly off the next morning.

The next morning, after they had their coffee, they suited up in their wings. Old Daedalus told Icarus not to fly too close to the water or the wings would soak it up and get too heavy and not to fly too close to the sun or that there wax would melt. Old Icarus just grinned. He weren’t too bright and was given to ignoring his daddy’s advice.

Well they took off and flew right over the king’s navy (they didn’t have any antiaircraft artillery in them days). Old Daedalus was feeling pretty smug what with the way the wings was working and all. He looked around to check on his boy and it was then that he heard him hollering. He was yelling all about how high he could fly, just plumb forgetting what his old man told him. His dad was yelling back at him trying to get him to fly lower but he must not have heard him ‘cause he just kept climbing. He kept going higher and higher and right when they was over the deepest part of the water the sun started melting that there wax. I guess even that real good wax they had in them days has its limits. Well, Icarus just fell straight down like a bag of ready mix. There was feathers and string and wax everywhere when he hit the water and he just sunk down and never came up.

Well that was the end of Icarus but that’s kinda where this here story begins. Tater Smoot was there doing some off shore drilling when he seen all this. We known Tater for most of his life and know he ain’t gonna lie to us so we know this thing is all true. Anyway, when Tater seen this here Icarus fella go in, he scrambled down the ladders and dove in the water. Tater is a strong swimmer ‘cause he was a skinny fella growing up and we used to toss him in the deep end of the pond just for sport when we was kids. He had to learn to swim or he wouldn’t have been around to tell this here story.

Old Tater grabbed and snatched, scooping up the wax, feathers and string that was floating on the water. He made two or three trips which put his foreman off some but Tater was a good hand so he let him go and made him make up the extra time at the end of his shift. Well Tater got all this stuff together—it durn near filled his locker up—and when the job was over he started back to Texas. That’s when he hit a snag.

When he went through customs, on the other end, them Greek customs fellas took all the feathers and string from him, telling him that the feathers was part of an endangered species and the string was made of hemp and he wasn’t to get on the plane with none of neither. But they did let him keep the wax ‘cause they didn’t know where he got it and figured it was just some old wax.

Well Tater come to see us when he got back home. He brung that there wax with him and had his tradin’ shoes on. It took us most of the day and three cases of beer to make the trade but we finally got her done. We swapped an old car, some old heap they don’t even make anymore, a Duisenberg I think it was called, a case of beer and the new come along that I bought to replace the one I traded for that there first thought. And now you can own a piece of wax from Icarus’ wings.

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