Fame and Blowing Bubbles

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The flashbulbs burst. A spray of light blinds me. I should be used to it, but I'm not. I blink and throw my hands up to cover my eyes. “Please,” I say, “don’t do this.”

“You’re too modest,” a reporter tells me, sticking his microphone halfway up my nose. “Tell us – we’re all waiting for this – what gave you inspiration? How did you think of it?”

I sigh. I’ve just come downstairs for a quiet jog in the park. I have on my scruffiest shorts and a dirty tee that says, Make peace, not war. I am wearing unmatched socks since my mom has been gone for a week visiting Aunt Gertrude, and I badly need a shave for the few strangling dark hairs that are starting to populate my peach fuzz. It is two o’clock in the morning on a Saturday. Don’t these guys ever go to bed?

“Look, not NOW,” I say, pushing gently through the mob.

I believe that they will be satisfied with that, but they follow me. I shut down my thinking apparatus, ignore them, and begin testing the wind. That’s what I always call it, anyway – the way the air feels so tingly and crisp like a fresh head of lettuce just out of the refrigerator. You can play with the wind on your tongue, rolling it ball-like back and forth. It tastes of green and of sky. Or so I choose to believe.

On that day with the fifteen or so huffing and puffing news vultures, it is hard to savor the air, so I run faster than usual. The breeze shoots by me, flicking my hair and licking my forehead and cheeks. It reminds me of how a young colt must feel with its tail streaming out like a fan-blown sheet. Maybe I should toss my head and buck a few times. That would stir up the reporters, but the pictures on the cover of the New York Times might not be that pleasing to look at. Besides, what would the kids at school say? They already think I'm weird.

Forgetting for a moment the twelve guys still attempting to keep up, I laugh out loud thinking about the reaction that would have at school. Then I realize my strange laugh will probably be in the news, too, but why shouldn’t it be? Shouldn’t we all be feeling good enough to laugh?

Actually I'm still trying to convince myself of that. Laughs don’t come easy when the girl you’ve been mooning over the past six months suddenly decides you're not that thrilling and takes up with one of the members of the school band -- an oboe player, which in my book isn't like Prom King or anything.

The sweat is starting to bead on my forehead. I wipe it off with a rather dirty handkerchief, the big, white kind, closer in size to a bandana than a tissue. It's amazing how well those man-sized handkerchiefs work. I think everyone should buy them. I use them for sweat, for napkins when the hamburgers drool down my neck, for dusting my bedroom, even for saving the world. Strange how everything keeps coming back to that last thing.

I am running through the part of the park where it parallels the river. The streetlights cast shadows of light across the water. The rippling movement is mesmerizing. The river always brings me to that place of "inner peace". It’s a runner’s meditation, and I am deep in it. That’s why it's such a shock when one of the reporters actually catches up with me and then runs alongside.

I start to say something nasty about privacy invasion. I would, too, except SHE has baby-blue eyes, blonde hair swinging in a ponytail down her back, and a face that is so sweet and well – hopeful. I can’t say a word.

The others have fallen back or stopped. It is just this one gorgeous girl and me under the moonlight, with the water gurgling its quiet song.

“I’m Meredith,” she says. “I’m sorry about intruding, but I just realized I'm all alone out here, and it’s pitch dark in the parts where we’re not under the lights. You don’t mind if I run next to you, do you?”

“No interview questions, right?” I spit out with a complete lack of manners.

She wipes her face of the spittle carried in the breeze of our run. Then she gives me a mouthful of white, white teeth and lips the color of catsup. She shakes her head. The blondeness of her highlights almost blinds me.

I’ve never noticed women's teeth, and the only catsup I use is on fries, but believe me, on this reporter, the combination of teeth and lips is a thrilling sight. I smile back at her, and we run on.

I like to take the path leading over the river’s bridge. There’s traffic there sometimes, but the city has laid down a good pedestrian path. I make my way up towards the center, and then stop as I always do, taking a breather to stare out over the river and back toward the city. The lights make the buildings look sparkly and clean, and the reflection in the water echoes it with a water paint kind of blurring.

“It’s so pretty out at this hour,” Meredith says.

I swing my eyes back to her, and I'm not sorry. Her cheeks are flushed. The sheen of perspiration gives her face a soft glow. She looks entirely kissable.

Now where did that pop up from? I feel like kicking myself for stupidity. She's obviously at least ten years older than I am, and besides she's a journalist just wanting to get the story.

“I go to the end of the bridge and then head back. You okay?” I ask with a voice much gruffer than I intend.

“I’m fine,” Meredith says, and I see in her eyes that she's ticked off with me because I implied she couldn't keep up.

I wonder about that as we run on, the rhythm of our pace sounding in my ear like one of my mother's jazz duets. Why should she care what a high school kid thinks? I start hoping she'll look beyond that and see my vast maturity.

We don't talk for awhile, but then words start dribbling here and there: from her -- "Oh, look at that bush," because it is a solid mass of red camellias, and from me later, "Be careful of the pile of ..."which I never finish because we've already run past it, and it seems pointless.

And then it's time for my morning stop. Yeah, I know it makes no sense. I run for five miles, and then I stop and have a doughnut and a chocolate shake, but it's my life, and what do you think I run for?

I invite Meredith to join me, and she accepts. Apparently the inconsistency doesn't bother her. She orders an apple fritter and a Java Supreme. Me, I keep to my normal -- no whip cream on the top of the shake, which the shop likes to add for some strange reason, and two glazed doughnuts with cherry filling.

The place is deserted. That's one reason I like it. But the biggest reason is because, in the early hours of the morning,The Doughnut Friend makes all the doughnuts for the day, and I can relax and let those odors permeate in and out and all around me. I sit inside that smell, and it takes me back to the memories of before I saved the world and how I was just another kid. That smell floats me. I need that more than even the actual doughnuts and the shake.

That morning is no exception, and being there with Meredith makes it even more pleasurable. She is not only wonderful to look at but easy to talk to. That’s why I find myself pouring out the story of how Jennie has deserted me for an oboe player. (Of course, I make it sound like there was more to the relationship than there ever was, but a guy has to do something to keep his spirits up.)

Afterwards, Meredith shares a similar tale. I guess it's fairly common. Her boyfriend left her for a redhead.

I tell Meredith her boyfriend was a jerk and an idiot, and she laughs softly, like leaves rustling in an afternoon breeze. I really like her laugh and tell her so.

She smiles into my eyes, and it seems only natural to talk about saving the Earth. Meredith doesn’t probe. She just listens. That’s why it all comes tumbling out. I wasn’t really a hero, you see. I was just a dumb guy who happened to be in the right place. I think fame is always like that.

I guess if I were looking at me, I'd be impressed too about what I’d done, but I never did it because I meant to be a hero.

I tell all that to Meredith, and also the rest of the truth -- that if I’d had the chance to run when the aliens came, I would have.

“But, you were so brave. You didn't run away," she reminds me.

I laugh and think back. I almost don't catch her next words, until her dancing ponytail returns me to the present.

"Those aliens wiped out Chicago and Dallas,” she argues. “You must have seen that on the news. They vaporized people. There weren’t even any buildings or cars or sidewalks left. It was all just gone.”

“Yeah, I saw it on the news. I thought like everyone else that our world was coming to an end. No one knew what the aliens wanted. We just all assumed that since they’d vaporized so many without warning, they wanted everyone gone.”

Meredith covers my hand with hers. Her eyes are lit up with the enchantment of the story. She is leaning forward, her face only inches away from mine. I inhale the smell of her and sigh.

“It’s strange how the aliens didn’t issue demands or anything,” Meredith comments, taking a moment to sip her Supreme Java. She is still nibbling at her apple fritter, breaking off tiny pieces and slipping them between her soft, red lips. Of course I downed my doughnuts in three bits. They're already sitting in my stomach turning into fat cells.

Noticing my eyes on her fritter, Meredeth tears off a piece and delivers it to my mouth. I open. Her fingers plop the piece directly into my mouth. The fritter dissolves almost instantly.

“I know,” I agree with her, trying to recall where the conversation had left off. “But life goes on. I went for a run that day, and it just happened to be the place where aliens landed -- right over there in the park.” I gesture as if Meredith can see through the walls of the doughnut shop. She nods her head.

“Of course, I didn’t know they’d landed there, or I wouldn’t have stuck around. I was down by that camellia bush, the one you pointed out. The blooms were just buds then. Only a few had opened.

“Four of the aliens popped out of nowhere. And they were so alien-looking with that box-like body, those triangular heads and that blue-striped skin they have. It startled me , and of course, they barred my progression forward. I turned, just like a basketball player would have, real smooth and agile – except I fell on my face. I think that shook them up. They all gathered ‘round me and stood looking down, arguing about something – at least I think they were arguing. Maybe they were just telling jokes or talking about how silly I looked. I don’t know, but I assumed they were angry. Their mouths wear an eternal frown, you know.”

I pause to see if Meredith is still staring up at me with those sky-blue eyes of hers. She is. In fact, she is leaning forward, even closer. She looks like she's trying to memorize my every word. Encouraged to go on by her evident fascination, I continue talking.

"So, I was lying there on my back, staring up at them. They had formed a perfect circle of blue stripes, their orange eyes with those curious triangular pupils gaping down at me. I think I screamed, maybe even a couple of times, but not knowing what else to do, I pulled out my white handkerchief and started to blow my nose because it was . . . well, you know.

“I guess it looked like I was waving it. One of the aliens cried out in such a high-pitched voice it seriously rang in my ears, and then the others took up the cry, and they clapped. I mean, really. They clapped just like we humans do. Then one of them, or maybe it was a couple of them – I don’t really remember – came up behind me and lifted me up, patting me like I was a dog or a small child. One of the aliens in front picked up my hand, shook it, and before I knew what was going on, they were all shaking my hand, taking turns over and over.

“Next thing I knew, the police arrived, the aliens were gesturing with what I think were weapons, and they were treating me as if I were somebody important to them. Officials from the government were called, and that’s when I got to meet the president. I was swept into all that mad rush of craziness, and it was all because I’d just waved a “white flag of surrender.”

“I don’t understand,” Meredith tells me, feeding me another bite of her fritter. “I know what the government said, but it just doesn’t make sense. Why did the aliens wage war if they didn’t want to take us over?”

I laugh and scratch my head. “Yeah, that puzzled me, too, until we got the aliens’ translators up and running. Then they explained. You see, wherever the Matstupas initiated contact, they found that in the long run it made more sense just to conquer a species. That way there weren’t any long delays while the two sides figured out who was the more powerful. I guess it’s like establishing a “pecking order" right off. At least now, we sure have no trouble knowing who has the superior force.

“Anyway, the Matstupas “un” disintegrated Chicago and Dallas, and, as you know, all the folks living there, the buildings, the cars, and the sidewalks were just fine. In fact, everything went back to normal -- except my life.

“Oh, I’m really sorry about that,” Meredith says smiling up at me with those eyes so full and . . . gorgeous.

Her fritter is gone. Her coffee cup is empty. I know I can’t keep her much longer. “Would you like to have lunch with me?” I ask. "We can talk about it some more."

“Maybe,” she says. “I’ll have to check with the newspaper. I’m on call, you know.”

All I can focus on is that fact that she hasn't said no. My heart does a butterfly dance.

Meredith takes the band off her hair and lets the yellow fall all around her shoulders. I itch to reach out and curl her hair around my finger, to examine a strand and find out if it really is as soft as it looks.

“Do you think the Matstupas’ ship will come back?” Meredith asks me.

I shake my head. “They never said, but I don’t think so, not for a while, anyway.”

“Oh, dear!” Meeredith suddenly gasps. “I just remembered I have to leave. I promised my mother I'd be home by five. Thanks for the fritter and the coffee and for all the information. You’re a dear.”

“You’re going to print all that?” I ask. I guess I sound surprised, but I'm not really. I’ve never forgotten who she is and where she works.

“I gotta go,” she says and dashes off without answering my question about lunch.

I sigh, place a dollar down on the table for the busboy, and walk home, stopping on the way to pick up three dozen packages of bubblegum.

When I get back to my street, I have no trouble. The press have mysteriously cleared out. The front steps of my building are deserted for the first time in weeks. I smile at that and walk up to my mom's apartment. I am just putting the key into the lock when the door is suddenly jerked out of my hand.

“Did you get it?” a high-pitched voice calls out.

I nod my head and hand over the sack. Then I drop down on the couch and watch. I bet you’ve never seen anything like it. My five blue-striped, triangular-headed friends are all trying to blow pink, chewing gum bubbles. It is their latest favorite sport.

I chuckle and then think about the blond. Maybe I should have told her about the Matstupases, but I'm really tired of fame. I needed to end it.

I sit there for a while, watching the aliens laugh and blow and pop. They are having too much fun. I reach over and pull out a piece of gum. Then I unwrap the chunk, stick it into my mouth, and attempt to blow a bubble as big as the ones all around me.

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