More Oddments

Prose Bowl (with Barry N. Malzberg)

Standing there at midfield in the Coliseum, in front of a hundred thousand screaming New-Sport fans and a TriDim audience estimated at thirty million, I felt a lot of different emotions: excitement, pride, tension, and maybe just a touch of fear. I still couldn’t believe that I was here — Rex Sackett, the youngest ever to make it all the way through the playoffs to the Prose Bowl. But I’d done it, and if I cleared one more hurdle I would be the new world champion.

Just one more hurdle.

I looked across the Line at the old man. Leon Culp, better known as The Cranker. Fifty-seven years old, twenty-million words in a career spanning almost four decades. Twice defeated in the quarter-finals, once defeated in the semi-finals two years ago. His first time in the Prose Bowl too, and he was the sentimental favorite. I was just a kid, an upstart; by all rights, a lot of the scribes had been saying, I didn’t deserve to be here at my age. But the odds-makers had made me a 3–2 favorite because of my youth and stamina and the way I had handled my opponents in the playoffs. And because there were also a lot of people who felt The Cranker couldn’t win the big ones; that he depended too much on the Fuel now, that he was pretty near washed up and had made it this far only because of weak competition.

Maybe all of that was true, but I wasn’t so sure. Leon Culp had always been my idol; I had grown up reading and studying him, and in his time and despite his misfortune in past Prose Bowl races — he was the best there was. I’d been in awe of him when I was a wet-behind-the-ears kid in the Junior Creative Leagues, and I was still a little in awe of him now.

It wasn’t that I lacked confidence in myself. I had plenty of confidence, and plenty of desire too; I wanted to win not only for myself and the $100,000 championship prize, but for Sally, and for Mort Taylor, the best agent in the business, and most of all for Mom and Dad, who had supported me during those first five lean years when I was struggling in the semipros. Still, I couldn’t seem to shake that sense of nervous wonder. This wasn’t any ordinary pro I was about to go up against. This was The Cranker.

It was almost time for the Face-Off to begin. The PA announcer introduced me first, because as the youngest of the contestants I was wearing the visitor’s red, and I stepped out and waved at the packed stands. There was a chorus of cheers, particularly from over in G Section where Sally and Mort and the folks were sitting with the Sackett Boosters. The band struck up my old school song; I felt my eyes dampen as I listened.

When the announcer called out The Cranker’s name, the cheers were even louder — but there were a few catcalls mixed in too. He didn’t seem to pay any attention either way. He just stood without moving, his seamed old face set in stoic determination. In his blue uniform tunic, outlined against the hot New Year’s Day sky, he looked bigger than he really was — awesome, implacable. Unbeatable.

Everybody stood up for the National Anthem. Then there was another uproar from the fans — I’d never imagined how deafening it could get down here on the floor of the Prose Bowl — and finally the head Editor trotted out and called us over for the coin flip. I called Tails in the air, and the coin fell to the turf and came up Tails. The Head Editor moved over to me and patted my shoulders to indicate I’d won the toss; the Sackett Boosters bellowed their approval. Through all of this, Gulp remained motionless and aloof, not looking at me or the Head Editor or anything else, it seemed.

We went back to the Line and got ready. I was becoming more and more tense as the Face-Off neared; the palms of my hands were slick and my head seemed empty. What if I can’t think of a title? I thought. What if I can’t think of an opening sentence?

“Be cool, kid,” Mort Taylor had told me earlier. “Don’t try to force it. The words’ll come, just like they always have.”

The Cranker and I stood facing each other, looking at the huge electronic scoreboards at opposite ends of the field. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Head Editor wave his red starting flag at the Line Editor; and in the next instant the two plot topics selected by the officials flashed on the board.

I had five seconds to make my choice. Both of the topics looked tough, but this was the Prose Bowl and nothing came easy in the championship. I made an arbitrary selection and yelled out “Plot B!” to the Head Editor. He unfurled his white flag with the letter B on it, and immediately the PA announcer’s voice boomed, “Rex Sackett chooses Plot B!”

The crowd broke into thunderous applause; the sound of it was like a pressure against my eardrums. I could feel my pulse racing in hard irregular rhythm and my stomach was knotted up. I tried not to think about the thirty million people watching me on the TriDim close-ups.

The Line Editor’s claxon went off.

The Cranker and I broke for our typewriters. And all of a sudden, as I was sliding into my chair, I felt control and a kind of calm come into me. That was the way it always was with me, the way it always was with the great ones, Mort had said: no matter how nervous you were before the start of a match, once the horn sounded your professionalism took over and you forgot everything except the job you had to do.

I had a title even before I reached for the first sheet of paper beside the typewriter, and I had the first sentence as soon as I rolled the sheet into the platen. I fired out the title — THE MICAWBER DIAMOND — jabbed down the opening sentence and the rest of the narrative hook, and was into the second paragraph before I heard Culp’s machine begin its amplified hammering across the Line.

A hundred thousand voices screamed for speed and continuity. The Cranker’s rooting section and the Sackett Boosters made the most noise; I knew Sally would be leading the cheers on my side, and I had a sharp mental image of her in her red-and-white sweater with the big S on the front. Sweet, wonderful Sally...

I hunched forward, teeth locked around the stem of my old briar, and drove through two more paragraphs of stage-setting. End of page one. I glanced up at the south-end scoreboard as I ripped the sheet out of the platen and rolled in a new one. SACKETT 226, CULP 187. I laid in half page of flashback, working the adjectives and the adverbs to build up my count, powered through eight lines of descriptive transition, and came into the first passage of dialogue. Up on the board, what I was writing appeared in foot-high electronic printout, as if the words were emblazoned on the sky itself.

It was solid stuff, I knew that. Not my best, but plenty good enough and just what the fans wanted. The sound of my name echoing through the great stadium put chills on my back.

“Sackett! Hack it! Sackett, hack it! Sackett hack it Sackett hack it!”

I finished the last line on page two and had the clean sheet into the machine in two seconds flat. My eyes found the scoreboard again as I pounded the keys: SACKETT 529, GULP 430. Hundred-word lead, but that was nothing in this early going. Without losing speed or concentration, I sneaked a look at what The Cranker was punching out.

God, I thought, that’s top-line prose. He’s inspired; he’s pulling out all the stops.

The crowd sensed it too. I could hear his cheerleaders chanting, almost drowning out the cries from my own rooters across the way.

“Come on, Gulp! Write that pulp!”

I was in the most intense struggle of my life, there was no doubt about that. I’d known it was going to be rough, but knowing it and then being in the middle of it were two different things. The Cranker was a legend in his own time; when he was right, no one had his facility, his speed, his edge with the cutting transitions, his ability to produce under stress. If he could maintain pace and narrative drive, there wasn’t a writer on earth who could beat him—

The score registered on my mind, and I realized with a jolt that my own pace had slacked off: Gulp had cut my lead by more than half. That was what happened to you when you started worrying about your opponent and what he was doing. I could hear Mort’s voice again, echoing in my memory: “The pressure will turn your head, kid, if you let it. But I don’t think it will. I think you’re made of the real stuff; I think you’ve got the guts and the heart.”

I jammed out that line and I knew I was back in the groove, beginning to crank near the top of my form. The sound of my machine climbed to a staccato pulse. Dialogue, some fast foreshadowing, a string of four adjectives that drew a burst of applause from the Sackett Boosters. I could feel my wrists starting to knot up from the strain, and there was pain in my left leg where I’d pulled a hamstring during the semi-final match against the Kansas City Flash. But I didn’t pay any attention to that; I had written in pain before and I wasn’t about to let it bother me now. I just kept firing out my prose.

Only I wasn’t gaining back any of my lead, I saw then. The foot-high numerals read SACKETT 1163, GULP 1127. The Cranker had hit his stride too, and he was matching me word for word, sentence for sentence.

“Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!”

“Sackett, Sackett, Sackett!”

Sweat streamed into my eyes, made the numerals on the board seem smeared and glistening: SACKETT 1895, CULP 1857. I ducked my head against the sleeve of my tunic and slid a new sheet into the machine. On the other side of the Line, The Cranker was sitting straight and stiff behind his typewriter, fingers flying, his shaggy head wreathed in cigarette smoke. But he wasn’t just hitting the keys, he was attacking them — as if they, not me, were the enemy and he was trying to club them into submission.

I reached back for a little extra, raced through the rest of the transition, slammed out three paragraphs of introspection and five more of dialogue. New page. More dialogue, then another narrative hook to foreshadow the first confrontation scene. New page. Description and some cat-and-mouse action to build suspense.

My typewriter locked. I heard the cheering rise to a crescendo; two hundred thousand hands commenced clapping as the Line Editor’s horn blared.

End of the first quarter.

I leaned back in my chair, sleeving more wetness from my face, and took several deep breaths. The Cranker had got to his feet. He stood in a rigid posture, a fresh cigarette between his lips, and squinted toward the sidelines. His Seconds were already on the field, running toward him with water bucket and a container of Fuel.

My own Seconds reached me a short time later. One of them extended Fuel, but even though my mouth was dry, sandy, I shook my head and gestured him away. Mort and I had agreed that I should hold off on the Fuel as long as possible; it was part of the game plan we had worked out.

By the time I finished splashing water on my face and toweling off, there was less than a minute of the time-out left. I looked over at G Section. I couldn’t pick Mom and Dad out of the sea of faces, or Sally or Mort either, but just knowing they were there was enough.

I took my place, knocked dottle out of the briar, tamped in some fresh tobacco, and fired it. My mind was already racing, working ahead — a full four sentences when Gulp sat down again and the Head Editor raised the red starting flag.

Claxon.

And I was off, banging my machine at the same feverish pace of the first period. I cut through a full page of action, interspersing it with dialogue, drawing it out; the scene was good for another 500 words, at least. Twelve pages down and the thirteenth in the typewriter. My quality level was still good, but when I glanced up at the board, I saw that The Cranker was once again cranking at the top of his form.

“Gulp, Gulp — crank that pulp!”

My lead had dwindled to a mere twelve words: the scoreboard read SACKETT 3359, CULP 3347. The Cranker was making his move now, and he was doing it despite the fact that I was working at maximum speed.

The feeling of tension and uncertainty began to gnaw at me again. I fought it down, concentrated even more intensely, punching the keys so hard that pain shot up both wrists. Fresh sweat rolled off me; the hot sun lay on the back of my neck like a burning hand.

The Head Editor’s whistle blew.

And my typewriter locked, jamming my fingers.

Penalty. Penalty!

My throat closed up. I snapped my head over toward the sidelines and saw the ten-second penalty flag waving the green-and-black one that meant “Phrasing Unacceptable.” The crowd was making a magnified sound that was half excited, half groaning; I knew the TriDim cameras would have homed in on me for a series of closeups. I could feel my face reddening. First penalty of the match and I had let it happen to me.

But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that it was going to cost me the lead: The Cranker’s typewriter was still clattering on at white heat, churning out words and sentences that flashed like taunts on the board.

I counted off the seconds in my mind, and when the Head Editor’s flag dropped and my machine unlocked, I flailed the keys angrily, rewriting the penalty sentence: HE HIT THE FOLLOWER A SECOND TIME, HIT HIM IN THE MOUTH WITH A HAND LIKE A CEMENT BLOCK. But the damage had been done, all right. The board told me that and told everyone else too.

The penalty seemed to have-energized The Cranker, given him a psychological lift; he was working faster than ever now, with even more savagery. I felt a little wrench of fear. About the only way you could beat one of the greats was to take the lead early on and hold it. Once an experienced old pro like Culp got in front, the advantage was all his.

A quote dropped into my mind, one I’d read a long time ago in an Old-Sports history text, and it made me shiver: “Going up against the best is a little bit like going up against Death.”

I had my own speed back now, but my concentration wasn’t as sharp as it had been before the penalty; a couple of times I hit the wrong keys, misspelled words and then had to retype them. It was just the kind of penalty-reaction Mort had warned me against. “Penalties don’t mean a thing,” he’d said. “What you’ve got to watch out for is worrying about them, letting them dam up the flow or lead you into another mistake.”

But it wasn’t Mort out here in the hot Prose Bowl sun. It wasn’t Mort going head-to-head against a legend.

The amplified sound of Culp’s machine seemed louder than my own, steadier, more rhythmic. Nervously I checked the board again. His stuff was coming so fast now that it might have been written by one of the experimental prose-computers instead of a pulpeteer.

Some of the fans were on their feet, screaming “Cranker! Cranker!”

I felt light-headed, giddy with tension; but the adrenaline kept flowing and the words kept coming, pouring out of my subconscious and through the mind-haze and out into the blazing afternoon — nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. Don’t let him gain any more ground. Stay close. Stay close!

Whistle.

Lock.

Penalty.

I looked up in disbelief and saw the Head Editor waving the purple-and-gold penalty flag that signified “Switched Person.” A smattering of boos rolled down around me from the stands. My eyes flicked to the board, and it was true, I had slipped out of third person and into first — an amateur’s mistake, a kid’s blunder. Shame made me duck my head; it was as if, in that moment, I could feel concentrated waves of disgust from the sixty million eyes that watched me.

The ten seconds of the penalty were like a hundred, a thousand. Because all the while The Cranker’s machine ratcheted onward, not once slowing or breaking cadence. When my typewriter finally unlocked, I redid the sentence in the proper person and plunged ahead without checking the score. I didn’t want to know how far behind I was now. I was afraid that if I did know, it would make me reckless with urgency and push me into another stupid error.

My throat was parched, raw and hot from pipe smoke, and for the first time I thought about the Fuel. It had been a long time since I’d wanted it in the first half of a Face-Off, but I wanted it now. Only I couldn’t have it, not until halftime, not without taking a disastrous 20-second Fuel penalty. There had to be less than 600 words left to the end of the quarter, I told myself; I could hold out that long. A top-line pro could do 600 words no matter what the circumstances. A top-line pro, as The Cranker himself had once said, could do 600 words dead.

I forced myself to shut out everything from my mind except the prose, the story line. Old page out of the platen, new page in. Old page out, new page in. Speed, speed, but make sure of the grammar, the tense, the phrasing. Still a full 5000 words to go in the match. Still an even chance for a second-half comeback.

My machine locked again.

I jerked my head up, half expecting to see a penalty flag aloft for the third time. But it wasn’t a penalty; it was halftime at last. The Line Editor’s horn blew. The Cranker’s cheering section was chanting “Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!”

I had to look at the board then, at the score shining against the sky, and I did: CULP 5000, SACKETT 4796.

Some of the tension drained out of me and I sat there feeling limp, heavy with fatigue. The joints in my fingers were stiff; there was a spot of blood on the tip of my right forefinger where the skin had split near the nail. But the score was all that mattered to me at that moment, and it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. Only 204 words down. I had made up larger margins than that in my career; I could do it again.

Across the Line, Gulp was on his feet and staring down at the turf with eyes that gleamed and didn’t blink. He wasn’t quite so imposing now, strangely. His back was bowed and his hands looked a little shaky — as though he was the one who was trailing by 204 words and facing an uphill battle in the second half.

When I pushed back my own chair and stood up, a sudden sharp pain in my tender hamstring made me clutch at the table edge. I was soaked in sweat and so thirsty I had trouble swallowing. But I didn’t reach for the Fuel when my Seconds appeared; in spite of my need I didn’t want to take any while I was out here, didn’t want to show The Cranker and the crowd and the TriDim audience that I needed it. In the locker room, yes. Just another few minutes.

Two of Culp’s Seconds began escorting him off the field toward the tunnel at the south end; he was hanging onto his Fuel container with both hands. I waved away my people and hobbled toward the north tunnel alone.

Fans showered me with roses and confetti as I came into the tunnel. That was a good sign; they hadn’t given up on me. The passageway was cool, a welcome relief from the blazing sun, and empty except for the two guards who were stationed there to keep out fans, New-Sport reporters, and anyone else who might try to see me. The Prose Bowl rules were strict: each of the contestants had to spend halftime alone, locked in his respective locker room without typewriter or any other kind of writing tools. Back in ’26, the year of the Postal-Rate Riots, a pro named Penny-A-Word Gordon had been disqualified for cheating when officials found out another wordsmith, hired by Gordon’s agent, had written a fast 1000-word continuation during the break and delivered it to Gordon, who then revised it with a pen, memorized it, and used it to build up an early third-quarter lead. The incident had caused a pretty large scandal at the time, and the Prose Bowl people weren’t about to let it happen again.

As soon as I came into the locker room, the familiar writer’s-office odors of sweat, stale tobacco, and spilled Fuel assailed me and made me feel a little better. The Prose Bowl officials were also careful about creating the proper atmosphere; they wanted each of the contestants to feel at home. Behind me the door panel whispered shut and locked itself electronically, but I was already on my way to where the Fuel container sat waiting on the desk.

I measured out three ounces, tossed it off, and waited for it to work its magic. It didn’t take long; the last of the tension and most of the lassitude were gone within seconds. I poured out another three ounces, set it aside, and stripped off my sodden uniform.

While I was showering I thought about The Cranker. His performance in the first half had been flawless: no penalties, unflagging speed, front-line prose. Even his detractors wouldn’t be able to find fault with it, or even the slightest indication that he was washed up and about to wilt under the pressure.

So if I was going to beat him I had to do it on talent and speed and desire — all on my own. Nothing came easy in this business or in the Prose Bowl; I’d known that all along. You had to work long and hard if you wanted to win. You had to give your all, and try to stay away from the penalties, and hope that you were good enough and strong enough to come out on top.

No, The Cranker wasn’t going to beat himself. And I wasn’t going to beat myself either.

I stepped out of the shower, toweled dry, bandaged the wound on my right forefinger, put on a clean tunic, and took the rest of my allotted Fuel an ounce at a time. I could feel my confidence building, solidifying again.

The digital clock on one wall said that there were still nine minutes left in the time-out. I paced around, flexing my leg to keep the hamstring from tightening up. It was quiet in there, almost too quiet — and suddenly I found myself thinking how alone I was. I wished Mort was there so we could discuss strategy; I wished the folks and Sally were there so I could tell them how I felt, how self-assured I was.

But even if they were here, I thought then, would it really make a difference? I’d still be alone, wouldn’t I? You were always alone in the pros; your parents, your agent, the Editors, the girl you loved, all of them gave you as much help and support as they could — but they weren’t puppeteers and they just didn’t know what it was like to go out time after time and face the machine, the blank sheets of paper, the pressure and pain of millions of words and hundreds of Face-Offs. The only ones who did know what it was like were other pros; only your own could truly understand.

Only your own.

The Cranker?

Were we really opponents, enemies? Or were we soul brothers, bound more closely than any blood relatives because we shared the same basic loneliness?

It was an unnerving thought and I pushed it out of my head. I couldn’t go out there and face Gulp believing we were one and the same. It would be like going up against myself, trying to overcome myself in a contest that no one could ever win...

The door panel unlocked finally, just as the three-minute warning horn blew, and I hurried out of the locker room, down the tunnel past the silent guards and back into the stadium. The last of the marching bands and majorettes were just filing off onto the sidelines. The fans were buzzing, and when they saw me emerge and trot out toward the Line, there were cheers and applause, and the Sackett band began playing my old school song again.

Gulp wasn’t there yet. But as I reached the Line and took my position, I heard the roar from the stands intensify and his rooting section set up a chant: “Cranker! Cranker!” Then I saw him coming out of the south tunnel, not running but walking in a loose rapid gait. Halfway out, he seemed to stagger just a little, then regained his stride. When he stopped across from me I saw that his eyes were still bright and fixed, like shiny nailheads in a block of old gray wood. I wondered how much Fuel he’d had during the time-out. Not that it mattered; it wouldn’t have been enough to make a difference.

The Head Editor walked out carrying his flags. I lit my pipe and Gulp fired a cigarette; we were both ready. The crowd noise subsided as the Head Editor raised his red flag — and then surged again, as the flag fell and the claxon sounded.

The second half was underway.

My mind was clear and sharp as I dropped into my chair. I had checked my prose printout, waiting at the Line, and I had the rest of my unfinished halftime sentence and the rest of the paragraph already worked out; I punched it down, followed it with three fast paragraphs of descriptive narrative. Build into another action-confrontation scene? No. I was only at the halfway point in the story line, and it would throw my pacing off. I laid in a deft one-line twist, for shock value, and cut away into transition.

“That’s it, Sackett! That’s how to hack it!”

The approving cheers from the Sackett Boosters and from the rest of the fans were like a fresh shot of Fuel: I could feel my thoughts expanding, settling squarely into the groove. Words poured out of me; phrases, sentences, crisp images. The beat of my typewriter was steady, unrelieved, like a peal of thunder rolling across the hot blue sky.

But it wasn’t the only thunder in the Prose Bowl, I realized abruptly. The Cranker’s machine was making it too — louder, faster, even more intense. For the first time since the quarter had begun I glanced up at the score.

I couldn’t believe it. I had been certain that I was cutting into his lead, that I had closed to within at least 175 words; instead Culp had widened the margin by another 30. The thin edge of fear cut at me again, slicing through the confidence and that feeling of controlled power I always had when I was going good. I was throwing everything I had at the Cranker here in the third period, and it wasn’t good enough — he was still pulling away.

I bit down so hard on the stem of my briar that I felt it crack between my teeth. Keep bearing down, I told myself grimly. Don’t let up for a second.

“Sackett, Sackett!”

But The Cranker’s machine kept on soaring; The Cranker’s words kept on racing across the board with relentless speed.

“Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!”

The lift from the six ounces of Fuel I’d had in the locker room was gone now and the tension was back, binding the muscles in my fingers and shoulders. The sun seemed to be getting hotter, drawing runnels of sweat from my pores, making my head throb. My words were still coming fast, but the images weren’t quite as sharp as they’d been minutes ago, the quality level not quite as high. I didn’t care. Speed was all that mattered now; I was willing to sacrifice quality for the maintenance of speed.

Down by 241 now; The Cranker had only gained seven words in the last 800. But he had gained them, not I... I couldn’t seem to narrow his lead, no matter what I did. I lifted my head, still typing furiously, and stared across at him. His teeth were bared; sweat glistened like oil on his gray skin. Yet his fingers were a sunlit blur on the keys, as if they were independent creatures performing a mad dance.

A feeling of desperation came into me. Time was running out; there were less than 500 words left to go in the quarter, less than 3000 left in the match. You could make up 250 words in the fourth period of a Face-Off, but you couldn’t do it unless you had momentum. And I didn’t have it, I couldn’t seem to get it. It all belonged to The Cranker.

The fans continued to shriek, creating a wild counterpoint to the thunder of our machines. I imagined I could hear Mort’s voice telling me to hold on, keep cranking, and Dad’s voice hoarse from shouting, and Sally’s voice saying “You can do it, darling, you can do it!”

Holding. Down 245 now, but holding.

You can do it, you can do it!

The palms of my hands were hot and wet, but I didn’t dare take the time to wipe them dry. Only 150 to go in the quarter now.

I tore page twenty-six out of the typewriter, slapped in page twenty-seven.

My machine locked the instant after I touched the period key; the Line Editor’s horn sounded.

The third quarter was over.

I sagged in my chair, only half aware of the crowd noise swelling around me, and peered up at the board. The printout and the numerals blazed like sparks of fire in the sunlight.

A deepening fatigue seeped through me, dulling my thoughts. Dimly I saw The Cranker leaning forward across his typewriter, head cradled in his arms; his whole body heaved as if he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. What were the New-Sport announcers saying about him on the TriDim telecast? Did they believe he could maintain his grueling pace for another full quarter?

Did they think I still had a chance to win?

Down 245 with only 2500 left...

Gulp took his Fuel sitting down this time, with his head tilted back and his throat working spasmodically. I did the same; I felt that if I stood up my knees would buckle and I would sprawl out like a clown. The game plan called for no more than three ounces at the third-quarter break — none at all if I could hold off — but neither Mort nor I had counted on me being down as far as I was. I took a full six ounces, praying it would shore up my flagging strength, and even then I had to force myself not to make it nine or ten.

Only it didn’t do anything for me, as it had at halftime and as it usually did in competition. No lift at all. My mind remained sluggish and the muscles in my arms and wrists wouldn’t relax. The only effect it had was to make my head pound and my stomach feel queasy.

With a minute of the time-out left I loaded my pipe, put a match to the tobacco. The smoke tasted foul and made my head throb all the more painfully. I laid the pipe down and did some slow deep-breathing. On his side of the Line Gulp was lighting a fresh cigarette off the butt of an old one. He looked shrunken now, at least ten years older than his age of 57 — not formidable at all.

You don’t awe me anymore, I told him mentally, trying to psych myself up. I can beat you because I’m as good as you are, I’m better than you are. Better, old man, you hear me?

He didn’t look at me. He hadn’t looked at me once during the entire Face-Off.

The Head Editor’s red flag went up. I poised my hands at the ready, shaking my head in an effort to clear away some of the fuzziness. The screaming voices of the fans seemed almost hysterical, full of anticipation and a kind of hunger, like animals waiting for the kill.

All right, I thought, this is it.

The red flag dropped and the claxon blared.

And my mind went blank.

My hands started to tremble; body fluid streamed down my cheeks. Think of a sentence, for God’s sake! But it was as if my brain had contracted, squeezed up into a tiny clotted mass that blocked off all subconscious connection.

The Cranker’s machine was making thunder again.

Nothing.

“Come on, Sackett! Hack it, hack it!”

Block. I was blocked.

Panic surged through me. I hadn’t had a block since my first year in the semi-pro Gothic Romance League; I’d never believed it could happen to me in the Bigs. All the symptoms came rushing in on the heels of the panic: feeling of suffocation, pain in my chest, irregular breathing, nausea, strange sounds coming unbidden from my throat that were the beginnings, not the endings of words.

A volley of boos thudded against my eardrums, like rocks of sound stinging, hurting. I could feel myself whimpering; I had the terrible sensation of imminent collapse across my typewriter.

The stuttering roar of Gulp’s machine ceased for two or three seconds as he pulled out a completed page and inserted new paper, then began again with a vengeance.

A fragment of memory disgorged itself from the clotted mass inside my head: Mort’s voice saying to me a long time ago, “To break a block, you begin at the beginning. Subject. Object. Noun. Verb. Preposition. Participle. Take one word at a time, build a sentence, and pretty soon the rest will come.”

Subject.

Noun. Pronoun.

Verb. Verb.

Preposition.

Object.

“Sackett, Sackett, Sackett!”

It had all come back in a single wrenching flood; the feeling of mind-shrinkage was gone, and along with it the suffocation, the chest pain, the nausea. But the panic was still there. I had broken the momentary block, I was firing again at full speed but how much time had I lost? How many more words had I fallen behind?

I was afraid to look up at the board. And yet I had to know the score, I had to know if I still had any kind of chance. Fearfully I lifted my eyes, blinking away sweat.

The panic dulled and gave way to despair. 650 words down, with less than 2000 to go and The Cranker showing no signs of weakening. Hopeless — it was hopeless.

I was going to lose.

Most of the fans were standing, urging Gulp on with great booming cries of his name; they sounded even hungrier now. It struck me then that they wanted to see him humiliate me, pour it on and crush me by a thousand words or more. Well, I wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction. I wouldn’t be disgraced in front of Mort and my girl and family and thirty million TriDim viewers. I wouldn’t quit.

In a frenzy I pounded out the last few lines on page thirty, ripped it free and replaced it. Action, action — draw the scene out for at least three more pages. Adjectives, adverbs, similes. Words. Words.

Agony in my head, in my leg, in my wounded forefinger. Roaring in my ears that had nothing to do with the crowd.

Gain of 20 — twenty words! I wanted to laugh, locked the sound in my throat instead, and made myself glance across at Gulp. His body was curved into a humpbacked C, fingers hooked into claws, an expression of torment on his wet face: the strain was starting to tell on him too. But up on the board, his prose still poured out in letters as bright as golden blood.

I imagined again the urgent cries from Sally, from Mom and Dad: “Don’t give up, Rex! There’s still hope, there’s still a chance.” Then they faded, and everything else seemed to fade too. I was losing all track of time and place; I felt as if I were being closed into a kind of vacuum. I couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything but the words, always the words appearing like great and meaningless symbols on the paper and in the sky. It was just The Cranker and me now, alone together in the stadium. Winning and losing didn’t even matter anymore. All that mattered was the two of us and the job we were compelled to do.

Finished page out, new page in.

Carriage return, tab key.

The board:

And The Cranker’s prose still coming, still running:

Culp’s machine stopped chattering then, as if he had come to the end of a page. I was barely aware of its silence at first, but when five or six seconds had passed an awareness penetrated that it hadn’t started up again. The noise from the stands seemed to have shifted cadence, to have taken on a different tenor; that penetrated too. I brought my head up and squinted across the Line.

The Cranker was sitting sideways in his chair, waving frantically at the sidelines. And as I watched, one of his Seconds came racing out with a container of Fuel. The Head Editor began waving his blue-and-yellow flag.

Fuel penalty. Culp was taking a 20-second Fuel penalty.

It was the first crack in his rigid control — but I didn’t react to it one way or the other. The crack was too small and it had come too late: a 20-second penalty at this stage of the game, with the score at 8960 to 8419, wouldn’t make any difference in the outcome. It might enable me to cut the final margin to 400 or less, but that was about all.

I didn’t watch The Cranker take his Fuel this time; I just lowered my head and kept on punching, summoning the last reserves of my strength.

“Gulp, Gulp — give us the pulp!”

As soon as the chant went up from his rooters, I knew that the penalty time was about to elapse. I raised my eyes just long enough to check the score and to see The Cranker hunched over his typewriter, little drops of Fuel leaking down over his chin like lost words.

His machine began to hammer again. The illusion that I was about to collapse returned, but it wasn’t the result of another block; it was just exhaustion and the terrific mental pressure. My speed was holding and the words were still spewing out as I headed into the final confrontation scene. They seemed jumbled to me, incoherent, but there was no lock and no penalty flag.

Thirty-five pages complete and thirty-six in the typewriter.

Less than 700 words to go. The Prose Bowl was almost over. Just you and me, Cranker, I thought. Let’s get it done. More words rolled out — fifty, a hundred.

And all at once there was a collective gasping sound from the crowd, the kind of sudden stunned reaction you hear in a packed stadium when something unexpected has happened. It got through to me, made me straighten up.

The Head Editor’s brown-and-orange penalty flag, the one that meant “Confused Narrative,” was up and semaphoring. I realized then that The Cranker’s machine had gone silent. My eyes sought the board and read his printout in disbelief.

I kept staring at the board, still typing, my subconscious vomiting out the words of my prose. I couldn’t seem to grasp what had happened; Culp’s words made no sense to me. Some of the fans were booing lustily. Over in G Section, the Sackett Boosters began chanting with renewed excitement.

“Do it, Rex! Grind that text!”

The Cranker was just sitting there behind his machine with a strange, stricken look on his face. His mouth was open, his lips moving; it seemed like he was talking to himself. Babbling to himself?

I finished page thirty-six, pulled it out blindly, and reached for another sheet of paper. Just as I brought it into the platen, Culp’s machine unlocked and he hit the keys again.

But not for long.

Lock into silence. Penalty flag.

I understood: The Cranker had broken under the pressure, the crack had become a crevasse and collapsed his professional control. I had known it to happen before, but never in the Prose Bowl. And never to a pulpeteer who was only a few hundred words from victory.

The penalty flag came down.

And the flag came back up, and the boos echoed like mad epithets in the hot afternoon.

Gulp’s face was contorted with emotion, wet with something more than sweat — something that could only be tears. He was weeping. The Cranker was weeping.

A sense of tragedy, of compassion touched me. And then it was gone, erased by another perception of the radiant numerals on the board — GULP 9449, SACKETT 9296 — and a sudden jolt of discovery, belated by fatigue. I was only down by 150 words now; if The Cranker didn’t recover at the end of this penalty, if he took yet another one, I would be able to pull even.

I could still beat him.

I could still win the Prose Bowl.

Penalty flag down.

Penalty flag up.

Virgin paper into my typewriter. Words, sentences, paragraphs. Another half-page completed.

SHIT, The Cranker’s printout said. A rage of boos. And screams, cheers, from G Section.

I’d caught up, I’d taken the lead.

“Sackett, hack it! Sackett, hack it!”

More words. Clean page. More words.

The Cranker was on his feet, stumbling away from his machine, stumbling around in circles on the lonely field, his hands clasped to his face, tears leaking through his shaky old fingers.

Two of Culp’s Seconds had come out on the grass and were steadying him, supporting him between them. Leading him away.

New page, old words. A few more words.

Pandemonium in the stands.

Word count at 9985.

The claxon sounded.

Above the din the amplified voice of the PA announcer began shouting, “Final score: Rex Sackett 10,000, Leon Culp 9449. Rex Sackett is the new Prose Bowl champion!”

Fans were spilling out of the stands; security personnel came rushing out to throw a protective cordon around me. But I didn’t move. I just sat and stared up at the board.

I had won.

And I didn’t feel anything at all.

The Cranker was waiting for me in my locker room.

I still wasn’t feeling anything when my Seconds delivered me to the door, ten minutes after the final horn. I didn’t want to see anybody while I had that emptiness. Not the New-Sport reporters and the TriDim announcers who would be waiting at the victory press conference. Not even Sally, or Mom and Dad, or Mort.

I told the Seconds and the two tunnel guards that I wanted to be alone for a few minutes. Then I went into the locker room, and hurried over to the container of Fuel. I had three ounces poured out and in my hand when Gulp came out of the back alcove.

“Hello, kid,” he said.

I stared at him. His sudden appearance had taken me by surprise and I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I came over under the stands after they took me off,” he said. “One of the guards is a friend of mine and he let me in. You mind?”

A little shakily, I took some of the Fuel. It helped me find my voice. “No,” I said, “I don’t mind, Cranker.”

“Leon,” he said. “Just plain Leon Gulp. I’m not The Granker any more.”

“Sure you are. You’re still The Granker and you’re still the best there is, no matter what happened today. A legend...”

He laughed — a hoarse, humorless sound. He’d had a lot more Fuel before coming over here, I could see that. Still, he looked better than he had on the field, more composed.

He said, “Legend? There aren’t any legends, kid. Just pros, good and bad. And the best of us are remembered only as long as we keep on winning, stay near the top. Nobody gives a damn about the has-beens and the losers.”

“The fans could never forget you—”

“The fans? Hell, you heard them out there when the pressure got to me and I lost it in the stretch. Boos, nothing but boos. It’s just a game to them. You think they understand what it’s like for us inside, the loneliness and the pain? You think they understand it’s not a game for us at all? No, kid, the fans know I’m finished. And so does everybody else in the business.”

“You’re not finished,” I said. “You’ll come back again next season.”

“Don’t be naive. My agent’s already called it quits, and there’s not another ten-percenter who’ll touch me. Or a League Editor either. I’m through in the pros, kid.”

“But what’ll you do?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I never saved any of the money; I’m almost as broke now as when I started thirty-five years ago. Maybe I can get a job coaching in one of the Junior Leagues — anything that’ll buy bread and Fuel. It doesn’t matter much, I guess.”

“It matters to me.”

“Does it? Well, you’re a pro, you understand the way it is. I figured you might.”

There seemed to be a thickness in my throat; I swallowed against it. “I understand,” I said.

“Then let me give you a little advice. If you’re smart, this will be your last competition too. You’ve got the prize money; invest it right and you can live on it for the rest of your life; you’ll never have to write another line. Go out a winner, kid, because if you don’t maybe someday you’ll go out just like me.”

He raised a hand in a kind of awkward salute and shuffled over to the door panel.

“Cranker — wait.”

He turned.

“What you typed out there at the end, about the stuff we do being garbage. Did you really mean it?”

A small bitter smile curved his mouth. “What do you think, kid?” he said and turned again and went out into the tunnel. The panel slid shut behind him and he was gone.

I sat down in front of the Fuel container. But I didn’t want any more of it now; I didn’t need it. The emptiness was gone. I could feel again, waves of feeling.

I knew now why I had been so hollow when the Face-Off ended; talking to The Cranker had made me admit the truth. It wasn’t because of exhaustion, as I’d wanted to believe. It was because everything he’d said about the business I had intuited myself on the field. And it was because of the insight I’d had at halftime — that The Cranker and I were soul brothers and in going up against him I was going up against myself, that beating him would be, and was, a little like beating myself.

But there was something else too, the most important thing of all. Gulp was the one who had broken under the pressure, yet it could just as easily have been Rex Sackett. Gould still be Rex Sackett in some other match, some other Prose Bowl — typing GARBAGE GARBAGE and then stumbling around on a lonely field, weeping.

Go out a winner, kid, because if you don’t maybe someday you’ll go out just like me.

I had already made a decision; I didn’t even need to think about it. Sally and my parents would be the first ones I’d tell, then Mort, and after that I would make an official announcement at the press conference.

It was all over for The Cranker and all over for me too.

This would be my last Prose Bowl.