Love and Hydrogen Read online

  #4: Saucers Blast Our Jets

  One saucer; nine jets. The saucer tilted in a lazy diagonal, like Maurice Chevalier’s straw hat. A jet alongside it explodes in a V shape. Flying outward with the rest of the debris, a human figure. (One of the pilots tried to get a look at the inside of a spaceship. Seeing this, the saucer smashed itself into the jet without any damage to itself.) Delta-wing fighters chug toward the saucer from the foreground and background. Another, below, exploded by the heat ray. Its nose cone, interestingly, popping off from the impact. Another on the far right doing a fiery corkscrew to Earth. Two others streaking by below, presumably part of a different, fatal, attack. See Card #5: Washington in Flames.

  #5: Washington in Flames

  On the back: The Martians did not spare anyone from their vicious death rays, and fear for the president’s welfare continued to grow by the hour. What happens to him? We never find out.

  #6: Burning Navy Ships

  The sky in the background is brilliant purple. Two men manning the machine gun are on fire, one showing his back, head down, as if submitting. Behind them, a white-hatted officer, raising an elbow to deflect a saucer’s heat ray, squinting at its brightness. My brother calls long distance to ask if I know what these cards are worth. He was at one of the conventions; he saw a full set on one of the tables. Fifteen hundred dollars, he says. He’s calling from New Orleans. He’s crisscrossing the country. He stays in youth hostels, rooming houses. He’s forty-two. My father wires him money—a hundred dollars, two hundred dollars—every few weeks. He rarely works, and when he does he loses the job quickly. He calls me, his only brother, the younger brother, when he’s at his most despairing. His calls are monologues of defeat. I fancy myself always busy, and listen for one or two hours at a stretch, aggrieved. The only safe subject is our old collecting days: what’s implicit between us is his belief that that’s the only thing in his life that has panned out.

  #7: Destroying the Bridge

  Finally a good view into the top of a saucer: tiny figures in the green suits and scuba tanks facing inward, sitting in pairs around a large round table. More death rays. The sky canary yellow. The Golden Gate Bridge in scarlet. The suspension cables falling away like noodles. Tumbling cars. Below, a ship flying an American flag from the bow is halved by the falling debris. Cars plunged into the icy waters bringing death to the helpless passengers within. Screaming hysterically, the people had no way of escaping their steel coffins. My brother, later institutionalized, was then just beginning to “act up,” as my father put it. I’d recently killed my dog by running her across the street into a car. I retreated to my room for long stretches to lay the cards out and give my parents more to worry about. Did I think of the cards as a Refuge? I did not.

  #10: The Skyscraper Tumbles

  The Empire State Building breaking like a cookie, its top third tumbling off at a thirty-degree angle. The saucer responsible is out of proportion and half the building’s length. The sky an electric red. Other buildings, other saucers, other fires. New York was burning down and no one could do anything to help. On good days I would tap the cards on my palm to line them up. Hold them under my nose to reexperience their smell: faint, musty, dry, sugary. Fan them out before me while I drank Tom Collins mix with ice and pretended it was a cocktail.

  #11: Destroy the City

  A rampart of burning bodies and skeletal remains. Vacant mouths, gaping eye sockets, tumbled rib cages. Flames issuing from a stomach cavity. In the middle ground, on a perfectly featureless street, four Martians: one erect and pointing, three charging off in the direction he indicates. They carry short, speargun-sized weapons wired to their suits. Behind them, more bodies. A factory resembling Sikorsky Aircraft, where my father worked. A smashed car. A black figure writhing in the yellow heart of a fireball. My brother would walk home from school in the middle of the day, two miles, without notifying anyone. He refused to cut his hair. He refused to sing the national anthem. During an assembly the principal brought him to the microphone and had him sing it alone. Nothing was glamorous about these rebellions; his misery with his own behavior was too transparent. He lost cards; gave them away; stopped buying. I began to pull ahead.

  #13: Watching from Mars

  A circular room, not well lighted, with a polished floor. Immense curved windows and a lunar landscape beyond with moonlight (or earthlight) and another home in the distance. It has the overall shape of the plastic dome shielding doughnuts in a diner. In the foreground a sober Martian face considering a panel of magenta dials. Another barefoot and half-naked Martian in a curved seat offering little back support. The large head and skinny limbs give the impression of early childhood. One hand holds a champagne glass full of cranberry juice. One points at a huge screen. On the screen, the Capitol Building, flanked by saucers against a blood-red sky. Their advanced civilization had developed TV cameras which were capable of sending pictures millions of miles through space.

  #14: Charred by Martians

  A generic tomato red sixties convertible up on two wheels, its back end bursting into flame. The driver’s arms up and head back in a Victorian tableau of distress. The saucer only a few feet overhead. Two Martians visible peeping down, like skeletal Kilroys. The young doctor was driving home after visiting a patient when he heard a humming noise overhead. . . .

  #16: Panic in Parliament

  Outside, a mild blue day and flying saucers. The sketchy outlines of a stately hall with the roof torn away. A large Martian grinning and firing in, suspended impossibly in the air. Panic. One man jumping down from his desk, arms spread wide. Ironically, the topic being discussed at the time was about military plans to beat back the space invaders. Confiscated by Sister Justine, who held it before me like an illustration of sin. Was this what I wanted for myself? she wanted to know. Was this what I aspired to? I had no idea what she meant. Later I realized they were frightened for my brother, worried that they hadn’t caught whatever was happening to him in time, and anxious to avoid the same mistake with me.

  #19: Burning Flesh

  Too gross to talk about. A crouching Martian on the left, a little vacant-eyed, his death ray blooming in the belly of a man with a matinee idol’s face: blue eyes, Rock Hudson hair. The man’s hands cup themselves around the white light. The flesh below his shoulders and above his knees is shearing off the bone. At his feet, another skeleton with the face intact, and behind him another Martian tilting forward hesitantly, weapon raised and expression apprehensive. As if he’s thinking, Whoa. Do we want to keep doing this?

  #20: Crushed to Death

  Three Martians looking down with sadistic absorption from their saucer at three men and four women being crushed between what looks like an outlandishly large snow shovel and the wall of a building. The shovel is operated by a metal arm from the saucer. The brick wall is crumbling and tumbling down, as if the bricks had never been mortared. The man closest to the wall resembles Joe E. Brown. How slow were these people? How’d they get caught in front of a shovel like this? The terror caused by the flying saucers was endless. It seemed as if the Martians always had a new form of horror to inflict upon the people of Earth. During one of my brother’s recent calls I made a mark on a scratch pad for every word I contributed to the conversation. The call went fifty-five minutes and I put eleven marks on the pad. When I’m sitting down listening to him, my knee bounces like I’m keeping rhythm in a zydeco band. Among the things I volunteer occasionally when he calls: You need to see somebody professional. You need to find out how much of this is biochemical. You’re not getting anywhere wandering all over the country. Among the things I never volunteer: Whenever you need or want to, call.

  #21: Prize Captive

  A horror-stricken blonde in the wraparound embrace of a Martian who’s all smiles and eyes at his good fortune. She’s wearing a cravat. The first bit of good news in twenty-one cards: The girl kicked and screamed at the touch of the alien. The Martian was so startled by the woman’s antics that he released her
. Taking the opportunity, the girl fled. See Card #22: Burning Cattle.

  #22: Burning Cattle

  #23: The Frost Ray

  A red sun in a red sky, and six men frozen in supplicating poses. The rays of the sun had no thawing effect at all. In my brother’s mind, I have a successful life: a home, a job, some status. Talking with me is a humiliation. The card conjures up a memory: my mother on the phone to my aunt, elaborating on my performance in the diocesan spelling bee. My cards spread in front of me on the living room rug in rows of five, with gaps for the ones still missing. My brother staring at the television set, rigid with shame.

  #24: The Shrinking Ray

  One GI charges while another, the size of his foot, shrinks. His helmet, flying off, threatens to cover him, as in a shell game. Another handheld Martian ray, this one looking like an insecticide spray. His buddy watched horrified as the six-foot-tall man was reduced to inches, before vanishing from sight. So was his buddy watching or charging? Do we believe our eyes or the narration? What else are we not being told?

  #25: Capturing a Martian

  The second bit of good news. A netted Martian in the foreground, his hand in a soldier’s face, drawing blood. A few other soldiers stand around helpfully with their ends of the net. A quick jab with the bayonet quieted the alien and he was carried off to Earth’s military headquarters. There, trained specialists would attempt to break the language barrier and communicate with the captured Martian.

  #26: The Tidal Wave

  A disappointment: I’d heard about the card, loved the idea. The wave was a nonmonumental swirl of blue and white, tumbling toy-like ocean liners around indifferently rendered skyscrapers. Saucers in the foreground. Crumbling buildings. The saucers’ powers seemed unlimited.

  #27: The Giant Flies

  A beetle-shaped blue thing resembling no fly we’ve ever seen, clutching and contemplating a helpless policeman waving a tiny gun. Two large compound eyes and curved mandibles, like tusks. Eleven other flies tumble from an overhead saucer. Humans run panicked in all directions. The sky is a lemon yellow. The normally annoying pests were now transformed into deadly menaces, attacking any slow-footed human around. I fought, with Gary Holter, over this card. He broke his tooth. I cut my hand. My father said, “I wouldn’t be throwing those friends away. There aren’t that many to go around, sport.”

  #29: Death in the Shelter

  The victim Italian-looking, a cross between my uncle Guido and Richard Conte, with Latin features and curly black hair. Families cowering behind him. Beside him, inexplicably, a dead ringer for Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera, a movie I’d already seen at that age. An homage? Even I wondered.

  #30: Trapped!!

  The huge spiders were perhaps the ugliest and most frightening of all the giant insects. The woman, dressed in white, entangled head to foot, has one arm above her head as if wanting to answer a question. Her head is turned away but her eyes look back at the spider. The spider, tiger-striped in red and black, holds her with three legs and has bright white pedipalps, like teeth. My father bought me the pack that contained this card and I forget which others. This I remember because of the teasing noise he made when he saw it, knowing I was afraid of spiders.

  #31: The Monster Reaches In

  Lost. What I remember: Another blonde wrapped in an embrace, the double green tarsus of an insect reaching through a window. A leg reaches farther in for a soldier, whose bayonet opens a lawn sprinkler of blood along its length.

  #32: Robot Terror

  A greenish robot like a squat peppermill with arms. Three arms: one with a vacuumlike attachment that’s already sucked up half a human; two with pincerlike claws, one of which is driven deep into the center of a swooning young woman in a sundress. It rolls along on low, spiked wheels. On its side, rivets. In its head, a Martian, who looks genuinely sympathetic.

  #33: Removing the Victims

  By some means the aliens had found a way to communicate with the giant insects they had created. The bugs followed any instruction given to them by the spacemen. Did the bugs want anything in return? Could humans hear their talk? Were the negotiations difficult? More mysteries.

  #8: Terror in Times Square. #9: The Human Torch. #12: Death in the Cockpit. #15: Saucers Invade China. #17: Beast and the Beauty. #18: A Soldier Fights Back. #35: The Flame Throwers. #38: Victims of the Bug. #40: High Voltage Execution. #41: Horror in Paris. #42: Hairy Fiend. One afternoon Sister Justine confiscated eleven cards from Milton Dietz. For three days she had them in her desk. On the fourth day while I watched from the boys’ bathroom she pitched them into the Dumpster. That night I got them back with a flashlight, one leg sunk into someone’s applesauce from lunch. Milton was crushed at the loss, but I didn’t return them. Worse: I didn’t confess it to Father Hogan. Who knew how closely he worked with the nuns?

  #34: Terror in the Railroad

  A gigantic ant, fire-engine red, filling a curved rail shed, embracing, with three of its six legs, a lighted green railway car, and crushing the top of it in its jaws. My parents worry that when they’re dead I’ll inherit their job as my brother’s keeper. My brother has no one else. That leaves them unhappy when he’s in contact with me and unhappy when he’s not. I maintain the disingenuous position of the good son, offering to do more and deferring to the wisdom of their greater caution. Bodies tumble out of the connecting railway cars. One is outlined with ragged and filigreed white light, suggesting the third rail. The entire station was thrown into a panic as they watched the fascinated insect crush several cars the way a child might crush a toy he had grown tired of.

  #36: Destroying a Dog

  The boy shrieks as he runs to prevent it, both fists raised in protest like a figure on a left-wing poster. The dog, a cross between a German shepherd and a golden retriever. The dog’s coat flies to pieces under the force of the ray, separating like autumn leaves off a pile in the wind. The little mail flag on the mailbox is down.

  #37: Creeping Menace

  Two men sprinting past demolished rural buildings. One man carrying a small boy in a red shirt and white socks. The boy seems to want to tell him something. The giant insect right behind them is indigo with cherry-red eyes.

  #39: Army of Giant Insects

  An entomological Guadalcanal: in the foreground, GIs armed with cannons, bazookas, machine guns, and rifles, the NCO exhorting them to hold the line; in the background, an oncoming storm of insects as far as the eye can see. Air Force jets overhead offer support. One bug flies up into the air backward out of the mass. One of the hardest cards to find, and it had to be replaced, at the cost of three months: my brother held it up in front of me early one morning, when I was still in bed, and tore it into eighths.

  #43: Blasting the Bug

  The bug’s leg resting with a casual friendliness on the front of a tank that blasts its compound eye at point-blank range. Two soldiers hurl grenades. One holds out his palm as if to reason with everyone. Everything floats on an undifferentiated red background. We all went out for lunch the day of my brother’s institutionalization, before he was to be dropped off. He answered questions monosyllabically. It was the worst day of my parents’ lives. At some point my father went to pay the check. My mother went to help. I didn’t blame her. My brother and I sat around the ruins of our chili dogs. “I put all my cards and stuff in boxes upstairs,” he told me. “Don’t let them screw around with them.”

  I nodded. That night my mother cried her way around the house and ended up in his room. She was rearranging things, packing things. Was she messing up what he’d organized? I couldn’t go up to find out. At dawn I crept into his room and found his shoeboxes arranged on the floor of his closet. Was that the way he’d left them? Were they all there? I looked at his Martian cards: Eleven I already owned. One I didn’t—#28: Helpless Victim. A perverse love scene: a giant insect and young boy lying alongside one another, a mandible poised at the jugular, the boy trying to avert his head, his mouth open in protest. I took the card an
d closed the box. I’d return it when—or if, I thought, crouching on the floor of his closet—my brother came back.

  #44: Battle in the Air

  A red Sikorsky helicopter, an old S-58, and a fat, ludicrous flying bug the same color. Below, monochromatic suburban homes. An attempt at stylization? Saving on colors? A shot from a rifleman onboard deflects something issuing from the bug: A tongue of some sort? A stream of fire?

  #45: Fighting Giant Insects

  Better production values. The soldiers’ helmets look German. A bazooka in one place draws thick black blood. A bayonet in another draws white. The insect has a body of black fur. How much research was done for this series? Were there things like this in the Amazon?

  #46: Blastoff for Mars

  Without explanation, Earth takes the offensive. In a forest of Cape Canaverals, whole formations of men and tanks clamber up ramps directly into the exhaust cones of liquid-fueled rockets. Other rockets streak by on a diagonal. White smoke billows out in various directions. What are the Martians doing while all this is happening? Where are the giant insects? Men from the ages of 16 to 45 were given quick physical examinations and enlisted into the Earth Army.