Love and Hydrogen (4 page)
Below the ship, frightened horses spook like flying fish discharged from seas of yellow grass. Miles away, necklaces of lightning drop and fork.
Inside the hangarlike hull, they can feel the gravitational forces as Captain Pruss brings the ship up to the docking mast in a tight turn. The sharpness of the turn overstresses the after-hull structure, and the bracing wire bolt that Gnüss overtightened snaps like a rifle shot. The recoiling wire slashes open the gas cell opposite. Seven or eight feet above Gnüss's alarmed head, the escaping hydrogen encounters the prevailing St. Elmo's fire playing atop the ship.
From the ground, in Lakehurst, New Jersey, the
Hindenburg
malingers in a last wide circle, uneasy in the uneasy air.
The fireball explodes outward and upward, annihilating Gnüss at its center. More than 100 feet below on the axial catwalk, as the blinding light envelops everything below it, Meinert knows that whatever time has come is theirs, and won't be like anything else.
Four hundred and eighty feet away, loitering on the windblown and sandy flats weedy with dune grass, Gerhard Fichte, chief American representative of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin and senior liaison to Goodyear, hears a sound like surf in a cavern and sees the hull interior blooming orange, lit from within like a Japanese lantern, and understands the catastrophe to his company even before the ship fully explodes. He thinks:
Life, motion, everything was untrammeled and without limitation, pathless, ours.
MARS ATTACKS
#1: The Invasion Begins
A bubble-helmeted Martian in the left foreground stares out at us and points at the saucer, which is silvery white and spotted along its outside rim with the black ovals of windows. The saucer stands on four narrow poles, like a tent at a wedding. A column of Martians in green spacesuits with red scuba tanks on their backs extends to a prosaic ladder leading to an open hatch. Another saucer is on the ground behind the first. An easy diagonal of saucers swoops by in the background. The sky is a deep blue, fading to an ominous yellow on the horizon. Jagged orange peaks rise in the distance on the right. The Martian's pupils are red. His whites are huge. His nose and teeth are a skull's. His brain is oversized and exposed. The back of the card is a caramel brown. On it we learn why they're doing this: buildup of atomic pressures beneath the surface of Mars with an explosion only weeks or months away, no choice, and a reckless overconfidence in the power of their weapons. We're told to
See Card #2: Martians Approaching.
#2: Martians Approaching
Again a face looking out from the left foreground, with an excited, sheepish grin. Behind him, two other Martians, one working controls, one pointing out the window. The Martians clearly point a lot. Behind them, saucers, extending to Earth. Earth's continents are emerald green and its oceans a pale bathroom-tile color. Eastern Canada seems oversized.
#3: Attacking an Army Base
One GI, the only one not on fire, shoots up at the closest saucer. The yellow line of the bullet looks feeble, the squirt of a water pistol. All around him, his pals in agony. The saucers crowd in, jostling one another, blocking out sky. In one corner, a few bodies lying around, incinerated. On the back:
A quiet Sunday afternoon was turned to
tragedy as flying saucers launched their first attack against Earth.
#55: Mars Attacks! A Short Synopsis of the Story
Planning to conquer the Earth, Mars sends flying saucers through
space carrying deadly weapons. Burning the cities, the Martians
destroy much of Earth's population. The enemy then enlarges insects
to over 500 times their normal size and releases them on the helpless planet. People go into hiding, knowing that death is the consequence if they are discovered by the creatures. Despite its losses,
Earth launches a counterattack that shatters the Martians on their
home planet, Mars.
I was eight years old. Martian Cards, we called them. I filled in each box on the checklist in pencil, in case one was lost or traded. As a collector of Martian Cards, I was a figure to be reckoned with. I carried doubles to and from school wrapped in a rubber band. The nuns hated them. For a full year, they were everything. My brother and I were constantly deciding: should we pool what we had, or compete for cards? Did my parents have an opinion? What sort of gum came with them?
Did
gum come with them?
#4: Saucers Blast Our Jets
One saucer; nine jets. The saucer tilted in a lazy diagonal, like Maurice Chevalier's straw hat. A jet alongside it explodes in a V shape. Flying outward with the rest of the debris, a human figure. (
One of
the pilots tried to get a look at the inside of a spaceship. Seeing this,
the saucer smashed itself into the jet without any damage to itself.
) Delta-wing fighters chug toward the saucer from the foreground and background. Another, below, exploded by the heat ray. Its nose cone, interestingly, popping off from the impact. Another on the far right doing a fiery corkscrew to Earth. Two others streaking by below, presumably part of a different, fatal, attack.
See Card #5:
Washington in Flames.
#5: Washington in Flames
On the back:
The Martians did not spare anyone from their vicious
death rays, and fear for the president's welfare continued to grow
by the hour.
What happens to him? We never find out.
#6: Burning Navy Ships
The sky in the background is brilliant purple. Two men manning the machine gun are on fire, one showing his back, head down, as if submitting. Behind them, a white-hatted officer, raising an elbow to deflect a saucer's heat ray, squinting at its brightness. My brother calls long distance to ask if I know what these cards are worth. He was at one of the conventions; he saw a full set on one of the tables. Fifteen hundred dollars, he says. He's calling from New Orleans. He's crisscrossing the country. He stays in youth hostels, rooming houses. He's forty-two. My father wires him moneyâa hundred dollars, two hundred dollarsâevery few weeks. He rarely works, and when he does he loses the job quickly. He calls me, his only brother, the younger brother, when he's at his most despairing. His calls are monologues of defeat. I fancy myself always busy, and listen for one or two hours at a stretch, aggrieved. The only safe subject is our old collecting days: what's implicit between us is his belief that that's the only thing in his life that has panned out.
#7: Destroying the Bridge
Finally a good view into the top of a saucer: tiny figures in the green suits and scuba tanks facing inward, sitting in pairs around a large round table. More death rays. The sky canary yellow. The Golden Gate Bridge in scarlet. The suspension cables falling away like noodles. Tumbling cars. Below, a ship flying an American flag from the bow is halved by the falling debris.
Cars plunged into the
icy waters bringing death to the helpless passengers within. Screaming hysterically, the people had no way of escaping their steel coffins.
My brother, later institutionalized, was then just beginning to “act up,” as my father put it. I'd recently killed my dog by running her across the street into a car. I retreated to my room for long stretches to lay the cards out and give my parents more to worry about. Did I think of the cards as a Refuge? I did not.
#10: The Skyscraper Tumbles
The Empire State Building breaking like a cookie, its top third tumbling off at a thirty-degree angle. The saucer responsible is out of proportion and half the building's length. The sky an electric red. Other buildings, other saucers, other fires.
New York was burning
down and no one could do anything to help.
On good days I would tap the cards on my palm to line them up. Hold them under my nose to reexperience their smell: faint, musty, dry, sugary. Fan them out before me while I drank Tom Collins mix with ice and pretended it was a cocktail.
#11: Destroy the City
A rampart of burning bodies and skeletal remains. Vacant mouths, gaping eye sockets, tumbled rib cages. Flames issuing from a stomach cavity. In the middle ground, on a perfectly featureless street, four Martians: one erect and pointing, three charging off in the direction he indicates. They carry short, speargun-sized weapons wired to their suits. Behind them, more bodies. A factory resembling Sikorsky Aircraft, where my father worked. A smashed car. A black figure writhing in the yellow heart of a fireball. My brother would walk home from school in the middle of the day, two miles, without notifying anyone. He refused to cut his hair. He refused to sing the national anthem. During an assembly the principal brought him to the microphone and had him sing it alone. Nothing was glamorous about these rebellions; his misery with his own behavior was too transparent. He lost cards; gave them away; stopped buying. I began to pull ahead.
#13: Watching from Mars
A circular room, not well lighted, with a polished floor. Immense curved windows and a lunar landscape beyond with moonlight (or earthlight) and another home in the distance. It has the overall shape of the plastic dome shielding doughnuts in a diner. In the foreground a sober Martian face considering a panel of magenta dials. Another barefoot and half-naked Martian in a curved seat offering little back support. The large head and skinny limbs give the impression of early childhood. One hand holds a champagne glass full of cranberry juice. One points at a huge screen. On the screen, the Capitol Building, flanked by saucers against a blood-red sky.
Their advanced civilization had developed TV cameras
which were capable of sending pictures millions of miles through
space.
#14: Charred by Martians
A generic tomato red sixties convertible up on two wheels, its back end bursting into flame. The driver's arms up and head back in a Victorian tableau of distress. The saucer only a few feet overhead. Two Martians visible peeping down, like skeletal Kilroys.
The
young doctor was driving home after visiting a patient when he
heard a humming noise overhead. . . .
#16: Panic in Parliament
Outside, a mild blue day and flying saucers. The sketchy outlines of a stately hall with the roof torn away. A large Martian grinning and firing in, suspended impossibly in the air. Panic. One man jumping down from his desk, arms spread wide.
Ironically, the topic being
discussed at the time was about military plans to beat back the
space invaders.
Confiscated by Sister Justine, who held it before me like an illustration of sin. Was this what I wanted for myself? she wanted to know. Was this what I aspired to? I had no idea what she meant. Later I realized they were frightened for my brother, worried that they hadn't caught whatever was happening to him in time, and anxious to avoid the same mistake with me.
#19: Burning Flesh
Too gross to talk about. A crouching Martian on the left, a little vacant-eyed, his death ray blooming in the belly of a man with a matinee idol's face: blue eyes, Rock Hudson hair. The man's hands cup themselves around the white light. The flesh below his shoulders and above his knees is shearing off the bone. At his feet, another skeleton with the face intact, and behind him another Martian tilting forward hesitantly, weapon raised and expression apprehensive. As if he's thinking, Whoa. Do we want to keep doing this?
#20: Crushed to Death
Three Martians looking down with sadistic absorption from their saucer at three men and four women being crushed between what looks like an outlandishly large snow shovel and the wall of a building. The shovel is operated by a metal arm from the saucer. The brick wall is crumbling and tumbling down, as if the bricks had never been mortared. The man closest to the wall resembles Joe E. Brown. How slow
were
these people? How'd they get caught in front of a shovel like this?
The terror caused by the flying saucers
was endless. It seemed as if the Martians always had a new form of
horror to inflict upon the people of Earth.
During one of my brother's recent calls I made a mark on a scratch pad for every word I contributed to the conversation. The call went fifty-five minutes and I put eleven marks on the pad. When I'm sitting down listening to him, my knee bounces like I'm keeping rhythm in a zydeco band. Among the things I volunteer occasionally when he calls: You need to see somebody professional. You need to find out how much of this is biochemical. You're not getting anywhere wandering all over the country. Among the things I never volunteer: Whenever you need or want to, call.
#21: Prize Captive
A horror-stricken blonde in the wraparound embrace of a Martian who's all smiles and eyes at his good fortune. She's wearing a cravat. The first bit of good news in twenty-one cards:
The girl kicked
and screamed at the touch of the alien. The Martian was so startled
by the woman's antics that he released her. Taking the opportunity,
the girl fled. See Card #22: Burning Cattle.
#22: Burning Cattle
#23: The Frost Ray
A red sun in a red sky, and six men frozen in supplicating poses.
The rays of the sun had no thawing effect at all.
In my brother's mind, I have a successful life: a home, a job, some status. Talking with me is a humiliation. The card conjures up a memory: my mother on the phone to my aunt, elaborating on my performance in the diocesan spelling bee. My cards spread in front of me on the living room rug in rows of five, with gaps for the ones still missing. My brother staring at the television set, rigid with shame.
#24: The Shrinking Ray
One GI charges while another, the size of his foot, shrinks. His helmet, flying off, threatens to cover him, as in a shell game. Another handheld Martian ray, this one looking like an insecticide spray.
His
buddy watched horrified as the six-foot-tall man was reduced to
inches, before vanishing from sight.
So was his buddy watching or charging? Do we believe our eyes or the narration? What else are we not being told?
#25: Capturing a Martian
The second bit of good news. A netted Martian in the foreground, his hand in a soldier's face, drawing blood. A few other soldiers stand around helpfully with their ends of the net.
A quick jab with
the bayonet quieted the alien and he was carried off to Earth's military headquarters. There, trained specialists would attempt to break
the language barrier and communicate with the captured Martian.
#26: The Tidal Wave
A disappointment: I'd heard about the card, loved the idea. The wave was a nonmonumental swirl of blue and white, tumbling toy-like ocean liners around indifferently rendered skyscrapers. Saucers in the foreground. Crumbling buildings.
The saucers' powers
seemed unlimited.
#27: The Giant Flies
A beetle-shaped blue thing resembling no fly we've ever seen, clutching and contemplating a helpless policeman waving a tiny gun. Two large compound eyes and curved mandibles, like tusks. Eleven other flies tumble from an overhead saucer. Humans run panicked in all directions. The sky is a lemon yellow.
The normally
annoying pests were now transformed into deadly menaces, attacking any slow-footed human around.
I fought, with Gary Holter, over this card. He broke his tooth. I cut my hand. My father said, “I wouldn't be throwing those friends away. There aren't that many to go around, sport.”