“I’ll never get to sleep,” he said to no one in particular, but with certainty. “I know what this is. This is fever.” He nodded with conviction, his sweat dotting the concrete. “I’ve had this before and I never got to sleep. I just sweated and ached. Awful. Couldn’t even get up and find a bottle. Just sweat-ached. Sweat-ached. Headache-sweater. Pattycake-sweeter. Played pattycake in a sweeter sweater with a headache. Hee, hee.”
Old John nearly fell down the cellar steps. The door had developed a hole which went unrepaired, so he just squeezed through on his hands and knees. Without bothering to rise, Newell curled up on the hard-packed dirt, moved the foot that was in his face, then closed his eyes.
Then he opened them again. There was a foot in his face. And it wasn’t his. Old John shook his head, but the foot was still there. Old John shut his eyes and opened them again, but it was still there. Old John figured it was about time to investigate further. He rose to his elbows to see a sleeping young man sitting up against the basement wall.
He looked to be about thirty years old, judging from the tight muscles lining his chest and arms. Although the man was far from musclebound, there was not one extra ounce of fat or flesh on his lithe frame. About six feet tall, Old John figured, and handsome in a mediocre way. There were deep stress lines across his forehead and around his eyes. The brown hair showed a few gray and white strands. But certainly the most unnatural thing about the man was his clothes.
Old John thought he himself looked fairly ragged, but this fellow’s wardrobe was made of confetti. His shirt hung in blue streamers from his shoulders. His pants, what was left of them, looked like a grass skirt. And they were awfully big for him, as well.
The fellow’s eyes, which had opened while Old John was studying him, were brown and deep. His awakening expression was completely vacuous, as if nothing could possibly surprise him anymore. Old John leveled one uneven finger at the fellow’s nose.
“You’re a doctor, right?”
A slight show of surprise flew across the man’s face. Then the expression was empty again.
“I am no one,” said a clear, unaccented voice as bland as his visage.
“You’re a doctor, all right,” said Old John. “I never miss. Either that or an artist. Hands, m’boy, hands give you away. Never seen hands like those on anyone but a doctor or artist. I swear they must grow on doctors naturally. Maybe it’s something they put into the food at med school. I swear these kids can go in with the ugliest little stubs on their palms and come out looking like Michelangelo. I swear.”
The young man was looking around.
“You’re in New York, son,” said Old John. “Doctor capital of the world. Forty-third Street and Ninth Avenue. Lots of doctors around here. Need ’em. Plenty of disease, y’see.”
The young man put his doctor’s hands across his face and rubbed. Dropping them again to his lap, he looked at the bum squatting at his feet.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“John Newell is my name, son,” the bum replied, putting out a shaky hand. “Old Sir John, my friends call me, ’cause I was almost knighted once. Up for the O.B.E. once, y’know, in ’54. Then I lost my money, my reputation, and my accent. Hee, hee.”
The young man took the bum’s hand absently. They shook in mutual exhaustion.
“Now, who are you?” Old John asked, returning his hand to the floor so he wouldn’t fall over.
“Call me Bruce,” said the other, smiling for the first time and rising to his knees.
“See there?” said Old John. “You’re not nobody.”
“And you’re burning up with fever,” said Bruce.
Old John let Bruce Banner lower him onto the ground, then watched through drooping lids as the young man searched the cellar for something to cover him with.
“Told you you were a doctor,” the bum mumbled before losing consciousness.
When the old man awoke, Bruce was talking to himself. But his utterances were not addled. His monologue was the reaction of a person too long alone. Even as he spoke, he continued to mop the old man’s brow.
“We’re a lot alike, Old John,” he said. “We’re both homeless, both nameless, both running away from something. We’re both running from nothing, really—things we can’t put our fingers on exactly. What was your wealth? Your success? Numbers in a book, that’s all. Something someone else tells you about. A mumbled word that gets you a table in a restaurant or a seat at a sold-out theater.
“But what is it I’m running from? I don’t know. I’ve never met it. But I know what I’m told and what I read in the papers. He’s big and strong and green.”
“Sounds like a cop I knew once,” said Old John.
Banner looked down at his patient without surprise.
“Did you ever have a bully for your best friend?” he asked.
“You mean like Paully Prouse back on St. Anders Street? He was a pal o’ mine back when we were kids. He was the only real bully boy I ever knowed.”
“Sure, Paully Prouse is fine. Now take him and multiply his size and strength by five. Now take him and multiply his meaness by five. Like if you stepped on his foot, he’d put you through a wall. Now what if every time you got mad at someone, he’d show up and avenge you? And what if you were never sure when he’d show up or who he would beat on? Say you’re having a fight with your girl friend. What if he punched her and hurt her?”
“I wouldn’t get mad,” Old John said pleasantly.
“I’ve tried not to!” Bruce burst out. “And it’s impossible! You know how stupid people are? How rude and inconsiderate? I’ve tried to stay calm in this city, but do you know how everything grates at you? It’s like everyone wants to get everyone else angry.”
“Take it easy, take it easy,” said the bum. “We don’t want old Paully Prouse to show up here.”
Banner stopped for a moment, then laughed easily. “Quite true, Old John, quite true. Well said—especially since if old Paully showed up now, he’d be practically unstoppable and green to boot.”
“Green? Why green?” asked Newell.
“Why, indeed, green?” Banner retorted, rising to his feet. “I’ve been trying to figure that out. But there’s nothing I can do to find out for sure.” Banner started pacing. “I can’t test him, because he’s never around when I’m around. I can’t get him to test himself because he doesn’t think straight, you know?”
“Wait, wait,” said Old John from the floor. “Couldn’t you send him a letter or call him up or something?”
Banner laughed again, but with an edge of hysteria to his voice. “Don’t think I haven’t tried,” he said with quiet desperation. “But it’s like every time he shows up, I disappear. I’m awake, sort of, but asleep at the same time. I can feel, but not really. It’s like being completely covered in a skintight rubber suit that’s as strong as steel. I can’t see but I’m aware. I can be hit, but I can’t be hurt. And this huge, green Paully Prouse is beating up on people. I want to call out, but I can’t. I want to stop him, but I can’t. I can’t.”
“What do you do?” asked Newell, understanding nothing, but not wanting to lose his first real company in years.
“Try not to get angry, like you said. Try to make sure he doesn’t come around. And try to figure out as much as I can about him. Maybe change him. Maybe stop him forever.”
“How much do you know?” the bum whispered conspiratorially.
Banner looked down at the old man at his feet. The ex-Britisher’s face was flushed and covered with sweat, showing that he had beaten the fever. He was enjoying himself thoroughly. His eyes were lit with a non-alcohol-inspired passion, and it was clear that there was still some brain left in the gin-soaked skull. It was all a fairy tale to him, Banner realized, a bedtime story to keep the day away, just to pass some time. What harm would it do to lay it all out for him? Banner wondered. He needed to tell someone. Sure, what harm would it do?
“He’s somewhere around seven or eight feet tall by eyewitness
account,” Banner said, hunching down. “Some people have said as much as twelve feet, but I think they were exaggerating—with good reason, though. He’s totally green, except for his eyes, which are supposedly silver—bright silver with specks of green. Even his fingernails and hair are green.”
The young man rose to his feet again and ambled about the cellar as he continued.
“Near as I can guess, he’s that color because of chloroplasts. Chloroplasts are the same things that supply plants with their food and oxygen. Somehow this Hulk is invested with a thick covering of chloroplasts, which add to his strength. They would also explain why he can go without eating or resting for so long. His skin would literally be sustaining him. The only thing I can’t explain is where he goes when I show up or where I go when he shows up—into a nether-dimension, maybe.”
The words were beginning to make Old John woozier than his sickness. “Where . . . where did he come from . . . whoever . . . whatever he is?” he uttered, trying to send the verbal stream in another direction.
“From an accident,” said Banner, unaware of Old John’s confusion. “A stupid accident. An overdose of what is called gamma radiation.”
“Gamma?”
“It’s the third letter of the Greek alphabet,” explained Bruce amiably. “It’s also the degree of contrast of a photographic image or the third of three or more closely related chemical substances. It is also a high-energy photon. Do you want to know what a photon is?”
“No, thank you,” said Old John carefully. “You really are a doctor.”
Banner laughed without reserve. “Not really. I may have been once, but now it’s just something that doesn’t mean anything anymore. The only thing that means anything to me now is the Hulk.”
“The Hulk?”
“That’s what they call this green guy,” Banner said with bitterness. “The Incredible Hulk. They hunt him, hound him, and try to hurt him. Not once have they tried to communicate meaningfully with him or understand him.”
“Just like me,” said Old John.
Banner smiled. The old man looked far better than he had earlier. He looked halfway decent, quite possibly fifty percent better than he had in a long time. Banner had been able to sterilize his wounds with some wood alcohol he had found in a hole behind the wall, and he had bound the old man’s bruises with what was left of his shirt.
“Yes, just like you,” he responded.
“Well, I’ll tell you, Doctor Bruce, if you take care of this Hulk as good as you took care of me, he’s got a real friend.”
Banner knew it was time to leave. The sun was streaming in through the holes in the walls and windows and the sounds of sirens and traffic jams were already loud in the cellar. The banks were sure to be open.
“Oh, no,” said Bruce Banner, moving toward the decrepit doorway. “He has no friend in me. He knows I’m his worst enemy. You see, I’ve been trying to destroy him for years.” Banner stood halfway out the broken basement door. “Take care of yourself, Sir John,” he said.
“Mr. Jacoby!” cried the dark-haired teller. “Mr. Jacoby, could you come here a moment, please?”
Sal Jacoby dropped his gold pen with consternation. How could anyone expect him to get any paper work done when these summer replacements, these high school temporaries, kept calling him to help them with the simplest transactions? Ever since the bank had decided to go modern, he thought, the working conditions had deteriorated alarmingly.
All the wood and paper had been replaced with plastic, including the cash. Nowadays everything was done with cards and the new “money machines.” A computer could do your banking, so why did they need these summer kids in here to mess things up?
“Mr. Jacoby!”
“Just a moment,” he called back. If they had computers, he thought as he stood up, why couldn’t they install an intercom system, too, so the executives wouldn’t have to shout at the tellers and the tellers didn’t have to shout at the patrons? Every noontime the bank sounded like an army induction center with all the cries of “Next!” and “Step down, please!” Jacoby pushed his chair back with a vengeance and stalked over to teller number six, the special accounts line.
“Yes, Audrey, what is it?” Audrey was a nineteen-year-old with a face like a bull and a manner that could faze Attila the Hun. Customers practically had to apologize for taking up her valuable time.
“This gentleman says he has an account with us,” she said more through her nose than her mouth.
“Yes?”
“He says it is one of our twenty-four-hour CentralBank computer accounts.”
“So?”
“He says that his coded CentralBank card is being held in a safe-deposit box here.”
“And?”
“Well, I can’t let him in there,” she said with defiance.
“Why ever not?” replied Jacoby in exasperation.
“He’s not wearing any shirt or shoes!”
“Perhaps I can explain,” said a soft voice beside Jacoby. The bank executive turned to see a fairly handsome and well-developed young man, a bit on the thin side, perhaps, wearing nothing but a ragged pair of pants, and holding those up with one hand.
“I need the card to get the cash to get the shirts and shoes,” continued the nearly naked man.
“But the sign clearly says that no one is allowed in the bank without a shirt or shoes,” the teller stridently declared, pointing at the sign tacked to the inside of the bank door.
“Audrey,” said Mr. Jacoby, “did you check this man’s account?”
“Yes, sir,” the girl replied with pride.
“Is it in good standing?”
“Well . . . yes.”
“Then I think we should let this man buy some new clothes, don’t you?” Jacoby was enjoying the teller’s discomfort too much to raise much fuss over the eccentric patron.
“But . . .”
“Audrey.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Shut up.”
Bruce Banner emerged from Barcroft’s Clothiers in a loose beige cotton shirt, loose blue flair-bottomed pants with an elastic waistband, and blue deck shoes. Under one arm he had a small shaving kit and in the other hand he held a billfold.
He had already returned the CentralBank card to its safe-deposit box—he had no idea when he might need it again. Ever since his Curse had begun, he had made it his habit to find work all over the country, then place his earnings in banks with high dividend rates and twenty-four-hour computer service. That way, almost anywhere in the country, he would not be totally helpless.
In the shaving kit he had soap, a plastic shaver, and some high-protein health bars. In the billfold was some extra money and a card, one he had found in the pocket of his ruined slacks. It showed only an address, the address of the United Nations Plaza, but it was the address of the man Banner had come to New York to meet—Dr. Maxwell Wittenborn.
Banner knew that address by heart, but how could the Hulk have gotten this card with Wittenborn’s address? Could the doctor have, somehow, spotted the creature and diagnosed the situation? Then he may have left his card as a clue to Banner when he again reached sanity. After all, Wittenborn was one of the greatest radiation scientists in the world. Who would better understand gamma-inflicted effects? It was almost too much to be hoped for. If only Banner were able to remember what had happened.
But, as was often the case, the previous day’s occurrences were hidden from his memory. He could only recall the humid night and a strange sudden pain; otherwise, he wasn’t sure of anything. Banner was sure of something else, however. He was going to find out how he had gotten the U.N. card, and he was going to find out today.
Banner checked the address on the card again, opened his shaving kit, tore open a peanut-butter bar with his teeth, then started across town.
Three
The United Nations building rose into the afternoon sky looking like a monument to someone’s good idea gone wrong. For while the monolith of glass and steel shone,
the sky around it was a pollution-tinted gray, allowing in only a smoky kind of sunlight. Tracking down the number on Banner’s card took a good twenty minutes of checking side streets, blind alleys, and dead ends, but finally Banner found the corresponding numbers winding down what looked like a driveway to a small wharf by the East River.
The dock looked like a miniature of the bigger shipping yards which littered the New York coastline, but instead of tying up English luxury liners or Swedish barges, the scurrying, well-dressed men were docking small runabouts, tall sailing sloops, and cabin cruisers. It seemed to be a facility for ambassadors who enjoyed sailing.
The wharf workers were all dressed in pressed denim bell-bottoms, tailored French white shirts with three pockets and epaulets, and blue deck shoes. In Banner’s own sporty outfit, he looked almost like one of them, so it wasn’t surprising when a man with curly hair called out to him in a clipped French accent.
“Hey! Lend a hand, will you?”
Banner turned to see the Frenchman floating toward the dock on a handsome sailboat, motioning with a pile of rope in his hand. Bruce hurried over to the edge of the wharf, put down his kit, and held his arms out.
The Frenchman threw the rope to Banner, who nimbly caught it and began to pull the boat in. The Frenchman, meanwhile, had run to the rear of the craft, grabbed another rope, and jumped onto the wharf in order to secure the rear end. Together they pulled in the boat and tied it to the upright pilings.
“Very nice,” called the Frenchman. “You’re new here, are you not?”
“Sort of,” answered Bruce. “I just got here.” He walked over to where the Frenchman stood.
“You have a fine, steady hand. Most of these fools bounce the hull off the wood a few times before they secure the lines.”
Marvel Novel Series 03 - The Incredible Hulk - Cry Of The Beast Page 2