During the summer, when the work was done or could be easily done without him, when the heat was unendurable and each breath made the lungs seem fragile and weak, when his aunt was sitting in the living room and sweating so much that her bra showed plainly through her dress, when everybody else was dead to the world or wished they were, Flash walked through the high brown grass of the fields and climbed the lonely wire fences with rotting posts the dry wind had beaten down over the years. He squinted in the harsh sunlight radiating from a blue sky so deep and pure that he felt it wash over him and cool his skin. His shirt slung over his shoulder, his back and chest and underarms dripping as if someone had poured a bucket of water over him, he stared at the distant shanties of the blacks and the tenant farmers. He heard the children’s dim laughter as they sprayed each other with water from a hose. He heard the whine of a harmonica, the beating of hands and the stomping of feet. He climbed fences until he no longer saw the shanties, until he no longer heard the laughter or the harmonica.
He walked into the forest, into a peaceful world of shady trees. Part of his soul—he supposed that was what it was, he possessed no vocabulary through which he could analyze his spirit—embraced the essence of the silent trees. They became mysterious creatures somehow gifted with peace and long life and wisdom. The dark shadows eased the maniacal quality of his personality which forced him to throw footballs through a tire for hours. He was temporarily freed from the desire to excel and to justify the existence that had caused his mother’s death and had ruined his father’s life. In the forest, life and death mingled with the logic of the inevitable, and he pursued his communion with nature with his usual single-mindedness.
And the Forest in turn embraced him. Birds alighted on his shoulders. The coon and the possum did not fear him. Bucks ate leaves from his hand. Rabbits hopped behind him and the porcupine did not bristle as he walked by.
As he studied the silent, eternal battle of the plants, slowly strangling one another in the quest for growth and life, Flash realized death was not to be feared; nor was the death of those close to him to be mourned for years. During these trips to the woods, Flash exorcised himself of demons of which he had been unaware. And as he grew older, he always carried something of the tranquillity of the woods with him, a tranquillity never more potent than during those situations demanding the utmost of his physical skill, intelligence, and composure. This ability served him well during the months he played high-school football. He won a scholarship to the University of Alabama and eventually a position as starting quarterback for the New York Jets.
This inner peace served him when his aunt Candace died in an automobile accident, leaving him truly alone for the first time. It served him during the tumultuous political events of the sixties and during the gloomy aftermath of the seventies. It helped him to grow into a tall, strong man who carried his bulky muscles with the grace of a gymnast. His hair and eyebrows were blond. His dark eyes possessed a sensitivity and capacity for compassion one did not normally expect of a high-salaried football player; they marked a man who analyzed emotional and spiritual matters as well as the corporal. His handsome face, unscarred by the rough-and-tumble years of football, radiated something of the romantic poet, who perceived eons of evolution in the shape of a rose and who bowed to eternity beneath the canopy of stars. If it had not been for his childhood dreams, Flash never would have been a football player. He liked the game and his skill was unparalleled, but he disapproved of brutality for its own sake; he would have broken his contract and quit the team of a coach who said, “Winning’s the only thing!”
Sportswriters were not the first to notice these unusual qualities in Flash Gordon. Women from every walk of life noticed them at once, and they responded deeply, while men could but react with confusion. However, the unattached women who appealed strictly to Flash’s sexual instincts were invariably disappointed. Although Flash enjoyed the physical sensations of sex, its main attraction for him was the spiritual bond enjoyed by the participants. He had the reputation of being a playboy, a reputation fostered mainly by People Magazine and its ilk; he did little to perpetuate it.
However, the complex components of his personality and his convictions conspired to foster his reputation of having a temper which occasionally exploded.
“Damn it, Guiraldes!” exclaimed Flash. “You didn’t have to do that!”
There were two minutes and ten seconds remaining in the Super Bowl. The New Orleans air was warm, and a large bead of sweat singed with dirt rolled down Guiraldes’s nose. The guard reached below his face mask and tenderly wiped the bruised skin and cartilage; his nose had been broken twice in the last playoff game, and fists and elbows were constantly slipping into his helmet. “Do what?” Guiraldes replied, sounding like a barroom bully.
Flash merely stared at him; he reined in the anger which caused his hands to shake uncontrollably, blurring his vision with a red glare. For the first time he realized how exhausted he was, how the fans’ constant cheering and catcalling disgusted him, how his legs and arms hurt; there was also a constant throbbing in his bowels, the dull ache of gas. He tasted the salty sweat above his upper lip. The muscles around his rib cage hurt whenever he expanded his lungs, but his exhaustion would not permit him to inhale more slowly. He calmed himself with an effort. Unaware of his teammates gathering in a huddle, he returned the guard’s glare. Gradually his jaw relaxed, and he nodded to himself, knowing what he had to do.
The gun signaling the two-minute warning fired.
Without looking at his comrades or at the assistants carrying towels and buckets of water onto the field, Flash removed his helmet, wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his breakaway jersey, and strode toward the sidelines.
Pretending not to notice the coach’s wild-eyed expression, Flash said simply, “Replace Guiraldes. Put in Hank.”
Coach Hodges bit down so hard on his unlit cigar that he tore it. He threw it to the ground and stomped on it, once, planting his foot as if he were a soldier jerking to attention. Spitting flecks of tobacco from his mouth, he said, “What the hell do you mean?” The remainder of his inquiry was phrased in language much more colorful.
“Guiraldes deliberately spiked Bulgarella’s leg,” said Flash, indicating a giant on the defensive team, who sat with a bored expression while an assistant quickly wrapped a bandage around his bare calf.
“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.”
Interlude
THREE 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.
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