by Kaye George
"As a species dedicated to the fields of friendly strife, you have lost your way," she said. I glanced up as she spoke this sentence, making distant eye contact with the emperor overhead as I did so. "And he’s going to help you with that."
Whatever had been guiding my feet stopped at that point. I felt the same sense of absurdity I had in high school, walking out onto a field and wondering what I could ever do that would make more than a handful of friends and family interested enough to watch. Now here it was increased by probably six orders of magnitude.
I jogged towards the field, and passing the dozen fresh corpses propped up on display abruptly ended the nostalgic feeling of youthful folly. The audience applauded with the same intensity they normally reserved for visiting alumni or choreographed fights between mascots.
Running up to the huddle a few titters of nervous laughter cut through the fading ovation. I stood almost a head shorter than the next shortest player, and standing next to them I must have looked like a chubby little kid running out onto the field.
The quarterback cut off whatever conversation the others were having when I reached them.
"Okay,look, can you catch?" The quarterback looked like hell. Broken, healed, beaten, healed, cut, healed, only what little remained of his spirit kept him standing at all.
"Not really," I said. The other running back put his head in his hands. One of the larger linemen wiped what might have been sweat from his eyes. The heat from the group gathered in the center space, laced with the scent of stale breath and dried blood.
"Can you run at all?" The quarterback didn’t even look at me when he asked.
"Obviously not." I didn’t pick me, I wanted to yell, she did.
"Okay look." The quarterback turned and spoke directly to me. "Everyone is going to expect us to go with Smitty since you clearly aren’t very fast." He swallowed, gathering strength in a moment of silence. "That means I’m going to hand you the ball instead."
A half second of silence passed until I realized he wasn’t kidding.
"Man, are you serious?" One of the bigger linemen asked.
"We’re going to lose our third down." Smitty, the other running back, blurted in a harsh tone.
I felt a rush fueling my words. "Well, you heard what the bug man said. If I die, you get another player."
"Enough." The quarterback silenced the huddle just by changing his tone.
"What’s the play?" I asked him. I felt suddenly very helpless, like a dream where someone walks into class for the first time only to realize it’s the last day and they’re handing out final exams. "I mean, what do I do?"
"Same play we just did," he said. "You go behind me and I’ll hand you the ball. Got it?"
"Yeah, yeah. Is that it?"
His lips cracked a sad smile. "Run that way, and try not to die."
I stood there without speaking as he broke up the huddle.
Everyone moved to their positions while I hesitated. Crap. Did running backs get in a four-point-stance, a three-point-stance, or just sort of stand leaning forward? I couldn’t remember. I paused and played it off with a uniform adjustment, and then copied what the other running back did. Turned out standing leaning forward was the way to go.
The quarterback yelled some commands. I waited for the second "hut!" and then crossed behind him. Something hard and smooth and heavier than I imagined slammed into my gut between my cradled arms and I took a sharp turn towards the line.
To the others I’m sure I moved in slow motion. The gap opened, stayed open, and finally started to close again by the time I passed through, all the while seeing nothing but Spike. Something, or someone, drove me to charge him and for some reason I listened. I kept my eyes on his, aiming at the number five on his chest. He stepped aside and looked around for others to make the tackle. I shifted to keep him in my path, growling with some feral roar as I went. I charged like I was going to run him down. At the last instant some instinctive moment of doubt, some inherent wonder what I might be capable of got the best of him and he raised his spear arm in defense. I tried to dodge the blade, but even without trying he moved like a blur in my eyes. I stopped when I realized he’d stabbed me all the way up to his fist.
I froze, wracked with pain from the sternum down. He glanced up as his emperor, shrugging the universal sign for "I couldn’t help it" or some Zaubaz’ri equivalent. Spike took a step back and let me slide off and down to the synthetic earth.
"Oh, man." I heard the quarterback mumble.
"Told you we’d waste a down."
I heard nothing from the spectators. I’d lived exactly up to their expectations.
"Clock stopped until expiration or recovery!" the ref repeated his litany with equal passion every time. Every time someone got ready to die.
I looked up at the sky, the emperor’s floating disc off to one side of my point of view. Each breath I took sent a stabbing pain to every corner of my torso. And still the crowd did nothing but murmur and wonder what would happen next.
I strained to listen, to keep my eyes open.
"Get up, you sack of crap!" Someone off in the distant crowd to my left. Male, possibly even Globe Face.
I felt a strange tingling in the open wound, some tiny bits of my flesh reverberating for a moment with his words. I had the vague image of fingertips tracing across my chest, and felt I only needed one voice to save the world… I pointed quickly in his general direction, then turned my hand and waved with a "come on" motion.
"I said get up, you lousy fat bastard!"
I rolled over onto my side, facing his general direction, then gestured again.
"Get up!" he yelled. "GEEEET! UUUUUP!"
"Yeah! Get up!" Someone else caught on.
I made my waving motion bigger.
"Get up! Get up!" Someone started the chant, and I smiled. That was it.
Responding to the voices, I turned over to my stomach.
"Get up! Get up!" Only a small section fans kept up the call, but they remained steady, and loud.
I pushed up to my knees, crouched on all fours.
Half the human stands joined in.
"Get up! Get up! Get up! Get up!"
My knee rose, planting my foot on the turf. I pushed up, still leaning over, and dropped back down to my knee. More of the stadium erupted with the same call.
"Get up! Get up!" I rose at last, stood up straight, and raised my hands. The wound, the blood, even the tear in the uniform, they were all gone. The voices rose in a collective manic ovation that shook the rafters and didn’t fade.
"Way to go, Fat Bastard!" that first voice cut through the throng.
I glanced up at the main press box and knew Victoria was no longer there. She had done more than just touch me that night in the parking lot. She’d changed me, enhanced me, or perhaps just reminded me of something she’d given me decades ago that I’d lost…
I moved slowly back towards the huddle, keeping eye contact with Spike as I turned. The other players watched me wide-eyed as I took my place. None of them spoke.
"You've all fought hard," I said with a clear calm voice I’d never had before, "but it's time for you to rest." The cheering continued in the background. I could feel muscles thickening in my legs, arms, shoulders. They saw it too. "On this next play, I’m going to back up and start out standing just inside our goal line." Yes, I was going to need the whole length of the field. "When everything starts, I need you all to take a step back."
"Do what?" The other running back’s protest sounded more out of habit or obligation than genuine objection. He was fine spending this play resting.
I caught the quarterback’s eye. "Just toss me the ball," I grinned at him, "and call my name." I finally had a reason for people to cheer. I would have felt better if they’d known my real name, but the one the crowd shouted would do. It didn’t matter, as long as they all meant me.
We moved into formation. I stepped a full twenty yards back from the line. Only one thing was missing.
"Run, Fat Bastard!" A different voice, younger, female, different part of the stands entirely, but I heard it over the roar. Others did too, and that was enough to get it started.
"Fat bas-tard! Fat bas-tard!"
The quarterback took the snap, spun, and tossed the steel ball underhanded the full distance into my hands. True to my request, the front line let the defenders through without resistance and then shuffled off towards the sidelines. The ease of it all startled the Zaubaz’ri, and they paused.
"Fat bas-tard! Fat bas-tard!"
Mangler gave in first, extending the razors from his fingertips, ducking down, and charging. I ran to meet him, and when we were five yards apart, I jumped up in the air and hovered for a moment, the ball crouched in one arm, the other arm raised up behind my head. I came down planting my forearm across the side of Mangler’s helmet so hard that he went limp and crumpled to the ground.
"Fat bas-tard!! Fat bas-tard!!" the chant grew stronger, and I realized my hands were bigger, my forearms thicker, and I was no longer the shortest member of the team.
I pointed at Bruiser, ninety yards distant, and he shifted his weight back and forth with anxious energy. Then I bolted forward.
"Fat bas-tard!! Fat bas-tard!!" A few steps later I felt it spread. In the middle of the corps of cadets at West Point, all watching with their families from their 40,000 seat stadium on the pathetic little screen added just last week, some plebe started the chant up to rile up his peers. By then I was six and a half feet tall.
I ducked my shoulder as Smasher came in from my left. He bounced off me like he’d hit a wall and then landed flat on his back.
"Fat bas-tard!! Fat bas-tard!!" Every stadium in the United States roared with the chant now, somehow in sync from one ocean to the other. My uniform grew with me as I ran.
Spike, poor Spike. His spear shot out at me and I knocked it away with my free hand. As he tumbled forward I grabbed him by the throat and dragged him along, squeezing the life out of his scrawny little neck. I threw his body down in front of me so I could trample it as I continued on. Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory, burned so hot beneath my sternum I wondered if it was glowing.
"Fat bas-tard!! Fat bas-tard!!" The aliens seemed smaller, trivial. Only Bruiser had me on height and mass now. Some Very Smart Person in the control room cut to a shot of one of the other stadiums continuing the chant. People in bars and churches suddenly shouted at their TV sets.
Some little flying Zaubaz’ri hit me in the ribs, spun around with the momentum and flew off the other side without breaking my stride.
Each step caught another crowd joining the chant. Stadiums in Berlin, the streets of Time Square, entire neighborhoods watching at home in Rio and Chicago. "Fat bas-tard!! Fat bas-tard!!" By the time I reached the fifty the ground shook with every footfall.
Several other Zaubaz’ri bounced off my sides, then my hips, and finally just my legs, throwing themselves in a futile gesture for fear of their emperor’s retribution if they didn’t. I paid them no mind.
Instead I locked eyes with Bruiser.
Still at least three feet taller than me, he leaned over behind his goal line, crouching at the ready. Some emotion crossed his face. I could only read its intensity. His hands opened and closed in anticipation.
Beijing TV fixed their momentary satellite glitch, and millions more voices joined in the cheer.
Bruiser couldn’t stand the wait. He ran out at me, a redwood lumbering out of its little lot. We both ducked down, two juggernauts roaring, charging, and finally colliding with an ear-shattering crack at the twenty yard line.
Commentators would liken the sound of the impact to Casey's bat, Ali's anchor punch, or Pelé’s power shot.
We held there a moment, staring into each other’s bulging eyes, both struggling to move the other, and Bruiser finally broke a sweat. I’d lost my momentum. Large parts of the crowds had gasped when we hit, forgetting the power of their voices. Power faded from my limbs. Then some camera operator, God love him, zoomed in on me and broadcast it to the universe.
By now I no longer looked like anything even my late mother would recognize. I was the Hulk crossed with Mr. Hyde and the Missing Link all on steroids and a thyroid condition. But in that close-up of my face, the viewers saw something they recognized. They realized then that I shared their determination, their simple desire to survive and protect those dear to them, and in that exact moment an entire species synced up as a single unified voice.
"FAT! BAS! TARD! FAT! BAS! TARD!"
Strength returned to my legs.
I pushed Bruiser back, his heels digging trenches into the Astroturf and the concrete below. The song of the world swelled. Billions went hoarse screaming at the top of their lungs and didn’t stop screaming.
"FAT! BAS! TARD!"
The eyes of my opponent widened with unmistakable fear as we crossed into the end zone. I ducked down to get under his weight, lifted Bruiser up in the air, and held him over my head. The scoreboard added six points to the score. Cities vibrated from the white noise of the crowds, and rushing with the adrenalin from six continents, I brought Bruiser down on the spike of the goal post, skewering him all the way to the crosspiece.
I spun towards the Zaubaz’ri emperor, balled my fists, and let out the scream of primal victory carried by every descendent of the first Cro-Magnon to stand over a fallen opponent with a crimson dripping bludgeon.
The world and the stars above went silent.
The emperor sat there, chin in hand, elbow on knee. He didn’t call for his assistant. Instead he took his time rising from his throne, watching me as he stood. And with the barest hint of a nod, it ended.
The hovering disc flew up into the skies, and one by one the glittering points overhead flickered off like falling stars in reverse.
The ecstatic eruption of emotion that followed sustained me a few moments more. I was dead, of course, and had been since Spike ran me through. Victoria had left me an empty husk, and when cheers turned to tears and hugs and prayers, I collapsed in a pile of ash, completely consumed by the forces I’d channeled.
After the shock of that vision faded, the people in the stadium lined up, touching their fingers to the black powder and smearing a line under each eye. Later some of it sold at auction, some of it still sits in jars in museums and halls of fame, and they mixed several pounds of it into the statue they’d raise in my honor after they converted that entire stadium into a memorial. I say in "my" honor, although no one ever came forward to identify who had been chosen from the stands that afternoon.
Songs were written of that day. Sports writers and artists and journalists and editors expended hours on essays and purple prose and YouTube music videos and inspirational viral emails about the final play of the game. The big brass plaque at the base of the sculpture read, "Spirit of Victory," but I think the words someone spray painted on the side of the marble said it better, with the simple words:
"Thanks, Fat Bastard."
FEED YOUR SOUL
Mary Ann Loesch
The machete gleamed in the air and Bob tried to hold it steady. He paused, wondering if he could really do it. That was the real problem—he’d paused and thought. Now he had to make the decision all over again. Could he slice the machete down on his wrist, sever the bone and tissue, and rid himself of the vile thing on his hand?
"Pussy." The tattoo spoke, taunting with the word Bob hated most in the world. Just the sound of it bucked up his courage and he glared at the tattoo. The image of a wizened old goat stared back, a challenge in its inky eyes. "You ain’t got the balls, son."
"Fuck you," Bob whispered, gathering his strength.
Bob flung back his arm and slammed down the machete with all the force he could muster. Pain shot through him, and a howl burst from his lips. It was followed by shock, which embraced him and quieted the pain. He gaped at the severed hand lying on the kitchen table. He slipped down to the floor, wondering at what he’d done, wondering if it was over…
***
Bob was lazy. Every fiber of his being screamed that from the way his greasy untamed brown hair stuck up in spots, to the stench covering his body, hidden by the harsh odor of patchouli. His typical Bob uniform—a wrinkled baseball shirt, ripped cargo shorts, and worn brown sandals—did nothing to enhance the appearance of his tall and lanky frame. Slovenliness had been cute in a stoner sort of way when he was younger. Back then his friends laughed at his quirks, calling him a pothead and thinking…well, that’s Bob. Never a dependable person, it did not occur to him that he should be. He held jobs but they were always ones with the least amount of responsibility since that, much like dependability, was just not his forte. It was just one more character trait that made him endearing…in his youth.
Bob liked to talk and considered himself a master of the spoken word, a weaver of stories and tales that if left unchecked, would go on for hours. When he first met people, this gift was one of the first things they noticed. It made it easy to overlook his lack of hygiene. But the longer they knew him, the more they began to see that his stories had a particular theme: himself. It was always all about Bob. There was no chance of getting a word in edgewise once he’d begun speaking. No chance he would ask after the listener, find out about their life or what was new. He was just too wrapped up in sharing himself to learn of others.
As he’d gotten older, his friends gradually began to steer clear of him; this escaped his attention at first. When he was thirty, he looked around and discovered most of his buddies were either married, engaged or showering regularly, he harbored the uncomfortable thought that he was all alone. He immediately called everyone up he could think of to "touch base," but the conversations turned into long pity parties invariably centering around himself.
Tonight, he felt particularly low. No one was available to go out with him. Or at least no one was answering the phone.
How odd that everyone should be out doing other things, he thought. Why didn’t they call me up?
He walked down Sixth Street, his head lowered, thinking deep Bob thoughts. He spied a can on the ground and it occurred to him that he should do his part to clean up Austin. He should pick up that can, recycle it, keep with the mantra that going "green" would help "Keep Austin Weird." But it was easier just to kick the can, which made a nice, metallic clatter as he booted it about before it came to rest in front of a shop door.