Flash Gordon (3 page)

“Oh the poor baby.”

“He’s been pulling that sort of thing the entire game. He’s caused at least ten injuries. I refuse to play with him any longer.”

Coach Hodges’s language lost its colorful appeal, becoming more direct; the essence of his statement was:
“You what?”

“He goes or I go.”

Coach Hodges tore a fresh cigar from its plastic wrapper. “Flash, let me put it to you this way: This is the Super Bowl. I haven’t the time or the inclination to deal with this kind of manure.” He crumpled the plastic and tossed it into an empty bucket.

“That’s right,” Flash snarled, “this is the Super Bowl. There’re two minutes left, we’re behind by five points, we have the ball, but it’s third down and six yards to go on our own twenty-five. Now who’s got the best chance of pulling it out of the fire: Guiraldes or me?”

Coach Hodges bit down on his cigar. The tobacco spread throughout his mouth. He wiped his tongue with one motion of his hand, scraping off the debris on his jacket, and then yelled, “Hank, get in there and replace Guiraldes. Okay, Gordon, play clean if you have to, but get me that touchdown!”

Flash grinned. “Sure thing, Coach!”

Flash pressed his large hands on the center’s inner thighs. He took the snap and immediately lobbed the football over to Ricky Robur, the left end. At once Flash was brought down by a linebacker crashing through the line. Robur had not expected the ball so quickly. He caught it between his left arm and right hand and almost dropped it as he took a chance and moved away from the sidelines to avoid a defensive back; but he and Flash both knew that if the pass had come three seconds later, it would have been intercepted. Coach Hodges, who did not know this, threw down his cigar, stomped on it savagely with both feet, slapped his forehead, closed his eyes, opened them, groaned, waved his arms about like those of a spasmodic windmill, called upon the gods and the fates, in addition to the good wishes of the stars and the ether, and pounded his fists on the shoulderpads of an unsuspecting and unprepared substitute, knocking him to the ground. When Hodges saw that Robur had gained enough yardage for the first down, he began a dance that would have trampled the substitute if he had not rolled away just in time. Three men tackled Robur at the forty, not allowing him to fall out of bounds and automatically stop the clock.

Picking himself up despite an overwhelming desire to lie down and quietly expire, Flash signaled for a time out.

The crowd roared its support or disapproval, forcing Flash to ask for silence twice while the team was huddled. During these brief periods of lowered volume, a red-faced Hodges shouted incomprehensible instructions. The play Flash called was entirely expected under circumstances such as these: a long pass.

Upon taking the snap, Flash dropped back quickly, cocking his arm to throw but wary of blitzing linebackers. He saw that all his eligible receivers were covered by defensive backs, that the linebackers were watching for a short pass; his opponents did not care how much yardage the Jets gained, because a field goal would not give enough points to win the game; his opponents only wished to prevent the Jets from scoring a touchdown.

Flash was very much aware of the responsibilities of the moment; all the effort and the hopes of this season now depended upon his actions of the next few seconds. He had teammates who deserved the bonus money that came with winning the Super Bowl, the teammates who deserved the pride that came with victory. He was aware of the cheering crowd, of the millions watching television in their homes or in bars. How the millions would perceive him tomorrow would also be determined by his success or failure, but Flash did not give that final thought a moment’s consideration. Instead, he summoned the sensation of peace and calm he had developed in the Alabama forest, and he realized that regardless of what he decided to do, it would be correct.

Many a sportswriter had commented that Flash Gordon played football with the aplomb that only the spiritually whole could achieve.

A defensive guard slipped through the offensive line; he slipped past the offensive halfback. Flash tucked the football safely under his arm and maneuvered past a defensive end in such a manner that the end and the onrushing guard collided. Flash dashed past the offensive line.

His action was so daring and unexpected that for many seconds—about fifteen yards’ worth—all the players on the field were stunned. Even the crowd in the stands was awed and hushed.

And then it dawned on everyone that Flash Gordon was making a mad fifty-five yard sprint for the goal line.

The crowd roared, shaking fists and throwing trash high in the air.

Coach Hodges screamed for an assistant to bring his digitalis.

Network announcers were speechless, stunned at the sight of the exhausted quarterback making a run comparable only to that of the great Jim Brown.

Seized by an exhilaration he would later describe as unholy, Flash had never felt more alive. He instinctively side-stepped and stiff-armed tacklers. One crashed directly into him, practically knocking his rib cage from his chest and causing a ringing in his ears that would not go away for ten minutes, but Flash shrugged him off, lowering his head and butting into the stomach of another defensive back, sending him flying backward into a heap five yards away. He was vaguely aware of Robur diving before the legs of another would-be tackler, tripping him headlong into the Astroturf. Flash was certain other teammates had made key blocks during this play, and he was certain he would congratulate them next spring when they watched the game films together, but right now he was filled with the strength of his own spirit, with strength flowing into his arms and legs, strength molding his body and mind into one magnificent fighting machine, a true athlete!

Flash ran alone into the end zone.

He had scored the winning touchdown of the Super Bowl!

That night, while his teammates celebrated by carousing in the bars of the French Quarter of New Orleans, Flash sat beneath hot studio lights and taped an interview for a Saturday-morning children’s show. He wore white jeans and a white T-shirt with his name inscribed in red over the chest; the T-shirt had been a gift from an anonymous admirer, and he wore it in the hopes that she (the odds favored the pronoun) would know he appreciated it.

“Yes, Phyllis, I would say to children everywhere that if they want to be successful athletes, they should eat their breakfasts every morning and they should obey their parents and they should never tell a lie. Coaches don’t like liars.”

Phyllis Franklin, a prim former beauty queen whom the network had hired to add some glamour to their sports division, crossed her legs and folded her hands demurely over her knees. She raised her green skirt a half inch, ostensibly to straighten it, though its minor state of disarray would not be revealed on the home screen. A pretty woman, she had been recently divorced from an oil tycoon; her blond hair was cut short and made to rest immobile with a surfeit of concealed pins, but the effect made it seem as if she had used half a bottle of spray. “Do you think all children should aspire to be athletes, Mr. Gordon?”

Flash laughed. “Oh, of course not. Being fit and in shape is important, regardless of your profession, but playing pro football is just a job, and I would take the same amount of pride in my work if I was a newscaster, such as yourself, or an accountant, or an insurance agent. Or a janitor, as my father was.”

“Would you care to tell us something about your humble beginnings?”

Flash smiled, sternly, so she would not mistake his meaning. “No one has humble beginnings. No one should ever be ashamed of his parents or his parents’ work.”

Phyllis’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open; for the first time she looked upon Flash Gordon as a human being and not as another dim-witted hunk to be interviewed. Most of the players she had met had been callous brutes, in her opinion. “What other advice would you give today’s youth?”

“Oh, nothing very remarkable, I’m afraid. Remember that
hopefully
is an adverb. Speed kills. Avoid festival seating.”

Noticing the director signaling her to end the interview, Phyllis impulsively reached out and held Flash’s hand. “Thank you, Mr. Gordon,” she said. She realized the gesture would play badly on the home screen, so she released the hand and sat up straight again; but the damage to her interview had already been done. A curse appropriate to her critics burst into her thoughts, and she immediately felt more confident. “It’s been a pleasure having you.”

“Thank you, Ms. Franklin,” said Flash.

Phyllis turned toward the center camera. “That was Flash Gordon, quarterback for the World Champion New York Jets. And this is Phyllis Franklin, thanking you for joining us and urging you boys and girls to tune in next week when our guest on ‘The World of Sports’ will be George Plimpton, telling us about his recent stint boxing a kangaroo.”

The camera pulled back; after a few moments the brightest, hottest lights blinked off. Sighing with relief, Flash wiped sweat from his forehead.

Phyllis said, “Mr. Gordon, that was one of the best interviews I’ve ever done. Thank you.”

“Call me Flash . . . Phyllis.” He could not help but notice the crew was ignoring her; the director had acknowledged her with a brief wave before turning his attention to someone else. And Flash would be ignored as long as he talked to Phyllis.

“They don’t like me very much,” she said, deducing his thoughts from the movements of his eyes. “They think I don’t know anything about football.”

“You’ve come a long way since you started, and I bet that next season you know three times as much as you do now.”

She laughed, covering her mouth with her left hand. “But three times zero is zero.”

“Oh, Phyllis, you should think more highly of yourself. The average female’s ignorance of professional football is due to another cultural exclusion sexist, male-dominated society foists upon women. To prove to them”—he waved his hand—“that you know your subject, you’d have to demonstrate you know six times more than they do.”

They were silent for nearly half a minute, looking into one another’s eyes. Flash felt a familiar emptiness in his chest, a yearning of his spirit to be cleansed of the afternoon’s violence.

“Would you care to join me for a drink?” asked Phyllis.

“Where did you have in mind?”

“There’s a nice bar around the corner.” She removed several pins from her hair.

“My hotel is just two blocks away, and we can call room service.”

“Let’s go to my hotel.” She shook her head so her hair would fall naturally; it wasn’t so short after all. “My room service is a company expense.”

T
HREE
months after the New York Jets won the Super Bowl, the bored monarch and Klytus decided to test the planet Earth.

The red and green rays materialized between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars; they had crossed unfathomable distances. The vastness of the universe did not pose a problem to the machinery at the Emperor’s command.

The rays struck the moon before the few astronomers who saw them had the opportunity to adjust emotionally to the fact that they were witnessing a heretofore unknown phenomenon. An observer at Mount Wilson in Los Angeles noticed the rays only because he was examining a sector of the asteroid belt in their path; the asteroids struck by the red rays exploded, and those struck by the green disintegrated. Scowling and rubbing his chin, the observer decided the rays were the result of atmospheric interference, which in its turn was the result of a new weapon being tested by the Pentagon.

Astronomers arrived at different conclusions on Mount Palomar near San Diego, below Arecibo, Puerto Rico, in the Andes of Chile, and on Kitt Peak in Arizona. The remaining astronomers withheld conclusions until all the data was recorded, a process a few hoped would last indefinitely. It was just as well, for even the most ingenious conclusions were rejected when the rays struck and sent a silent explosion of moon rock into the vacuum. With two exceptions, no one dared to think; the phenomenon was simply too horrifying to contemplate and too awesome to inspire anything but a mental numbness.

The first exception was Pete Whittaker, who lived in an exclusive suburb of Miami. An open can of beer nestled between his legs, Pete sat in his backyard and peered through his latest toy—a twenty-thousand-dollar telescope. When he saw the brilliant red and green flash an instant before it struck the moon, he jumped up, spilling his beer all over himself, and exclaimed, “Oh my God! It’s an invasion! We’re being invaded!” Visions of Wells’s Martians and the Japanese Mysterians flooded into his brain, and he fell backward, in a dead faint.

The other exception took this unexpected turn of events much more calmly, though he did have his impetuous moments. This exception was one Dr. Hans Zarkov.

F
LASH
spent his vacation by himself in a friend’s cabin thirty miles from a small Maine town. He visited the town twice a week to buy groceries and to take flying lessons at a country airport. The remainder of his time he spent out of contact with humanity (though he did receive two letters from Phyllis Franklin). He lifted weights. He chopped firewood. He performed isometric exercises. He meditated for at least an hour every morning, sitting in the Zen or lotus position in the middle of the living room, near the red coals in the fireplace. The cabin was equipped with modern conveniences, except for radio and television. Flash spent his considerable spare time reading. His flying instructor saved newspapers for him. His other material included the encyclopedia, James’s
Varieties of Religious Experience,
Wilson’s
The Outsider
and
Order of Assassins,
works by Jack London and Gunter Grass, and several science-fiction books (including
Rif
and
The Prince of Sleep
). Occasionally he played tapes by Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Jr., and Johnny Cash, and he appreciated the silence of the falling snow and the whiteness resting on the ground and bare branches and the pine needles. Sometimes he imagined all the universe had succumbed to the soft quiet, and he experienced an incomparable peace. Alone, Flash purged himself of the last vestiges of grief for those who had left him (though the emptiness created by their passing could never be filled). Alone, he occupied himself enough to stay in shape and keep from becoming bored. Alone, he did not experience loneliness, for he had discovered spiritual nuances within himself, he had discovered the connection between his life and all other living things. He drank the sensation of each moment until it seemed infinite, yet the time alloted for his vacation passed more quickly than he would have wished.