Cal Easterling                   First North American Rights Only

304 West k Street                         Approx. 2,150 Words

Jenks, Oklahoma  74037

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Boy Who Ran the World

 

by

 

Cal Easterling

 

 

 

     The Rec Room in the basement of Barrett Hall has thirty video games/pinball machines.  Twenty game/eating tables are in the center of the room.  There are a few sofas and easy chairs arranged so as to facilitate bull sessions.

     A television is mounted on the wall in each of the four corners of the room--each tuned in to a different channel.  ESPN, M-TV, CNN, and the Sci-Fi Channel.  Must be a men's dorm, huh?

     There is no snack bar in the Rec Room--everyone takes regular meals over in Braxton Cafeteria.  But there is a full range of vending machines.

 

 

     Eight vending machines, to be exact.  One has stuff like razor blades, toothpaste, and button-sewing kits.  The others vend food products and drinks.  Soda pop, candy, chips, sandwiches, microwave popcorn--there's a nuke oven in the corner.  One machine dispenses hot coffee, cappuccino, and hot chocolate.  Another has cold juice, milk, and chocolate milk.

     Ah, chocolate milk.  That's what Peters comes after.  Usually three or four times in the course of a day.  At a dollar a hit, that's a lot of money going down the tube--his esophagus.

     Almost every time the freshman from Oshkosh comes down to the Rec Room, he sees the same basic group of people.  Don't these people ever study--or sleep, or eat, or go to class?  Even on weekends, they don't seem to vary their routine.

     One group of three guys is always at the domino table, playing "shoot the moon."  They badger wanderers-by to join in and make it a foursome--so they can play "forty-two."

     Another group of four dudes is always playing "hearts" or "spades" and watching ESPN.  They all wear wool plaid shirts and hiking boots.

     One guy sits by himself.  He like, plays with this baseball.  Peters has noticed this guy before.  He pays lots of attention to CNN.

 

 

     Sometimes he asks people a lot of questions--not personal stuff--but questions like who should be President?  What would be the best way to reconcile the situation in the Middle East?  What should be done about human rights violations in Guatemala?  China?  Rwanda?

     The guy's name is Charles Atlas.  No joke.  The ESPN guys just call him Chuck, and so, therefore, does Peters.

     Chuck plays with his baseball, like all the time.  He spins it round and round.  Always in the same direction.  He stares at it a lot.

     It's not really all that weird, though.  Lots of guys walk around with things in their hands--including baseballs, Rubik's Cubes, yo-yo's--whatever.

     One dude on the fifth floor, for example, an art major, is inseparable from a big gob of modeling clay.  He fashions the neatest cars, airplanes, animals, guns and knives, and people.  One day he made the Pillsbury Doughboy--it was so neat.  Then he smashed it to make something else.  Sometimes he would ask a person to sit still so he could pinch out a portrait in clay.  A lot of people kept their portraits in their rooms or gave them to their mothers or girlfriends.  Peters had always admired people who could work wonders with their hands.

 

 

     One day Chuck engaged Peters in conversation.  There were only a few people in the Rec Room, and Peters plopped himself down in an empty chair to catch a little CNN while downing his refreshing ice-cold chocolate milk.  He carried a textbook with him--just in case it got so boring in the basement that he would "have" to read it.

     Chuck motioned to the TV.  It was showing a motorcade on its way to the funeral of a foreign princess.  "What do you think of the British monarchy?" he asked.

     Peters replied nonchalantly that he thought it was a bunch of huey.  "All that pomp and circumstance--who needs it?  Why, this royalty--they're just people, no better than you or me.  They have to put their pants on one leg at a time."  This was something he had heard his dad say.

     Chuck replied, "That's just what I thought.  I never dreamed people would be so upset over this.  I mean, even Americans are upset about it."

     "Yeah, I know what you mean. It was pretty tragic--the way she died and all.  I think it's mostly the women, even I feel kinda sad about it--especially for her two sons who now don't have a mother."

 

 

 

     Chuck frowned.  "Gosh, I hadn't thought of that.  This is far worse than I expected.  I really feel bad about it.  Say, uh, what's your name?"

     "Marty Peters.  I'm from Oshkosh.  Since I'm a freshman, they call me by my last name."

     "Yeah, O.K.  Nice to meet you, Peters.  I'm Charles Atlas."

     "I know.  I've heard them calling you 'Chuck.'"

     "Yep.  It looks like I'm stuck with 'Chuck.'  Say, Peters, what do you think would be the best thing that could happen now--I mean with this princess thing?"  He seemed really interested in Peters' opinion.

     "Gee, I don't know.  If her bodyguard survived, he could tell the real story of what happened.  And the Queen needs to get off her high horse and show some concern for the boys and the princess' family.  That's about it."

      "Hmmm.  You have some great ideas."  Chuck was staring at his baseball--touching it with his index finger.  "It's a terrible mess--and I'm very sorry about it--but I can see how your constructive ideas could improve the situation.  I feel better, already."

     Maybe I should major in psychology and become a counselor.  Peters rose triumphantly and tossed his empty milk carton--two points!--into a receptacle.  "See ya, Chuck."

 

     The next afternoon, Peters was back for more chocolate milk.  Chuck was sitting in his regular spot, fiddling with the baseball.

     "Peters!"  Chuck beckoned.

     "Hey, Chuck."  He took a seat.

     "Look at this."  Chuck motioned to the CNN TV.

     There was a live report from a hospital in France.  The princess' bodyguard was recovering nicely and would be able to give a full account of the events leading up to her demise.

     "I don't know how to thank you for your advice."

     Peters scrutinized Chuck carefully.  He was bubbling with a big, self-satisfied grin from ear to ear.

     The next scene on the screen was Windsor Castle.  The Queen was expressing her sorrow in very poignant, human terms.  She would personally see to the needs of the princess' sons.

     "It's just as you said."  Chuck grinned at Peters.  "You are a wise man, for a freshman."  He laughed.

     Peters laughed, too, sort of.  For the first time, he was starting to take a closer look at Chuck.  He looks just about like everybody else around here, except for two things: his eyes and his biceps.

     Chuck wore a baseball cap with a big "T" on it, for the Texas Rangers.  His clothes--khakis, work shoes--nothing out of

 

the ordinary.  But his eyes.  His eyes--if you looked into them--were old, very old.

     And his biceps.  His long-sleeved shirt was bulky, but his biceps were so large that the sleeves were tight over them.  When does this guy ever work out?  I only see him sitting in here.

     "How old are you?" Peters blurted out, startling himself.

     "Why do you want to know?"  Chuck didn't seem defensive, exactly.

     "I don't know.  Just curious, I guess."

     "All right, then.  Since you've been a great help to me, I'll tell you.  I'm nineteen million."

     "Peters grinned.  "I see.  You've got it all calculated out.  You're nineteen million minutes old."

     "No, nineteen million years."

     He's serious.  A nut case.  A basket case.  "How do you explain that?"

     "Explain what?  How old are you?"

     "Eighteen."

     "How do you explain that?"

     Oooh Kaay.  Let's move on to something else.  Peters pointed at Chuck's arm.  "How'd you build up your muscles like that?  I've tried and tried, but mine aren't anything like yours."

     "By holding up the world."

 

     "Say what?"

     "My name is Atlas, remember?"

     Peters grinned.  "Ooh Kaay, Mr. Atlas, I guess you did tell me that before.  That's pretty good."

     "But, let me tell you, Peters, there's a lot more to this job than just holding up the world and making it spin.  I have an awful lot of decisions to make.  Unfortunately, I sometimes make bad ones.  Holding up the world is a high-pressure job."

     He grinned and continued, "I guess it must seem a little strange to you, huh, Peters?  After all, you're an ordinary human being, aren't you?  Except that you have an above-average affinity for chocolate milk."

     Peters was thinking about that bodyguard.  And the Queen.  And this guy's eyes.  And his muscles.  And his baseball.  He looked at the baseball.

     There, lightly shaded in, were the blue oceans.  And the brown and green continents.  Am I nuts?  There were clouds floating around the baseball--a hurricane in the Atlantic.  It was black and swirling.

     A glance at the TV.  Puerto Rico and Cuba were bracing for Hurricane Denise.  There they are, nailing plywood over their windows.

 

 

     "Chuck, er, Atlas," he began, his mind racing like the--well, like the wind.  "Do you get all your advice here--in the Rec Room of Barrett Hall?"

     "Yeah, Peters, nowadays I do.  You wouldn't believe some of the scum-holes I used to hang out in.  The world was in terrible shape back then, too--I hate to admit.

     "Why, I remember back in the 8th to the 10th Centuries.  I stayed at an inn in Norway.  The Vikings gave me their opinions of the way things should be.  I have similar stories for the Middle Ages, the Civil War, and World Wars I and II.  During the Vietnam era I lived in San Francisco.  I tried to balance the war with the peace movement.

     "And so it has gone, right up until today.  It seems that every time I try to help someone or a particular group benefit from a situation, why, someone else loses out.

     "I must say, Peters," Chuck was looking really old, now, more like someone in his thirties or even forties, "I'm getting a mite tired of all this.  At first, it wasn't so bad.  Just holding up the earth and knocking away the bigger asteroids.  One or two have gotten past me, but not very many.  Now, though, after nineteen million years of this, it's starting to get old."

 

 

 

     He looked at Peters, as if for the first time really seeing him.  "Say, didn't you tell me that you've been trying to build up your muscles?"

     Peters was surprisingly unsurprised.  "Yeah."

     "Well, let's see if you can hold this little old baseball in your little old hand, old boy."

     Don't take it.  Don't you dare take it!  "Uh, no thanks, Chuck."

     "Oh, hey.  It's not so heavy as you might think.  Really.  I mean, you have a lot of people around to help you.  That's why I came here.  To a college, I mean.  A seat of learning.  There are hundreds of wise guys--I mean people--like you, Peters, who give me great ideas about how the world should go.

     "Like, I had this one student ask me if I died today, would I go to Heaven, and I really didn't know, so he led me to accept Christ as my savior.  So I opened up the world to hear the message from this guy, and now everybody knows Billy Graham.  And millions have salvation.  That was one of the best things I've done.

     "Another example of what you can do is like, there was this trial, you remember, of O.J.?  I just got tired of hearing everybody say he was guilty, but without real evidence, so I let him off."

 

     "You let him off?"

     "Sure.  And I saw a report on TV about Mother Teresa.  They were wondering who would take on her ministry to the poor after she died.  I got to thinking about it, myself.  So..."

     "You killed Mother Teresa?"

     "Well, she was tired.  She said she was ready for Heaven.  She's very happy now, I assure you.

     "And you know the Super Bowl, the World Series, all those things--the really big ones--the Olympics?  Everybody thinks it's all based on athletic ability.  Sure it is.  My athletic ability."

     Chuck stood up.  He tossed the ball to Peters.  "Good luck, pal."

     He headed for the door.  The domino guys asked him to play "forty-two."

     "No thanks, guys," he said, leaving the Rec Room.

     Peters didn't notice.  He touched Hurricane Denise with his index finger.  She would not hit Puerto Rico and Cuba after all.  He grinned and took a swig of chocolate milk.  She was now heading for North Carolina.

 

 

THE END