* * *
“Congratulations, Max. You’re back on the team.”
“I passed all the tests?”
J.J. Heywood nodded. “You’re good to go.”
On the field, Max was the same, unassuming young man he’d been when he appeared tugging at Coach Marvin Jones’ shirt, begging for a chance to play. He blushed when, at the start of one of the practice sessions, his teammates jokingly knelt down in front of him crying out, “Oh, our king, our savior.”
Max covered his face with his hands and said, “Aw, come on, guys.”
Several teammates confessed they had been approached by representatives of Fox Sports Network and Sports Illustrated and offered large sums if they could find out where Max had gone to college, where he lived, what he did, where he came from and where he disappeared to after he left the playing field. The only information they could come back with was OSU. Max was a genius in diverting their questions. They concluded that if Max didn’t want them to know, it was none of their business. He also politely declined invitations to dinners or parties from his teammates, coaches, even the team owners.
Sports Illustrated did put his picture on a cover of the magazine, but it was one taken with a long range camera while Max was playing. He just shook his head when asked to pose for one.
Sunday’s game against the Eagles turned out to be a laugher for the Rams. By the end of the first half they led 35-6, thanks to a new franchise record of 130 yards receiving in one half by Max. In the second half, the Eagles tried triple-teaming him, but that just opened up the other receivers. In addition, with all the attention on the Rams’ passing game, the runners had a picnic. If Coach Jones hadn’t kept his passing game to a minimum, the final score, 56-20, could have been even worse for the Eagles. But several years before, the Eagles’ coach had been Jones’ mentor, and Jones wanted to avoid embarrassing him by putting up astronomical numbers.
Monday morning following the rout over the Eagles, the Herald editor called Ham Gleason into his office. Ham walked into the glass-enclosed cubicle that overlooked the large room where reporters pecked away at their computer keyboards.
“What do we know about this Aries kid, Ham?” said Thompson.
“Only that he’s a gift from heaven, and the Rams’ key to the Super Bowl.”
“What about his background?”
Ham recalled how only a few weeks before, Thompson had called him off when he had attempted to find out where Max had gone to college. Since then, he had been so busy meeting deadlines for his column he hadn’t had time to pursue the story. Besides, he didn’t want to buck the editor’s orders. “Nobody seems to know anything. I asked the Rams’ media guru, but all she had was a copy of his contract.”
Thompson nodded. “Okay, I want a feature story on him. Biography, where he came from, where he lives, what he has for breakfast—the works. And I want it for tomorrow’s paper”
Ham left the editor’s office scratching his head. Where to begin? The simplest way was to go directly to the source: Max himself.
A phone call to the Rams office gave him the information he already knew: there’d be no practice today, the team had been given the day off as a reward for their lopsided victory over the Eagles.
Ham pressed the secretary who’d taken his call. “Evie, I need an interview with Max Aries. Today would be ideal since he doesn’t have to report for practice. Where can I reach him?”
Evie said, “How should I know. I’m not his mother.”
“Where does he live?”
Ham could almost hear her shaking her head over the phone. “Ham, you know we can’t give out that information.”
He wasn’t about to give up that easily. “Evie darling, remember when you needed tickets for your family for the World Series? I scratched, scraped and called in a bunch of favors to get them for you…”
“All right, all right. I wouldn’t do this for anybody else, but hold on, let me look it up. But remember, this is between you and me.”
“Thanks Ev. My lips are sealed.”
While he waited, Ham hummed and thought of the questions he was going to ask Max.
Finally, Evie was back on the line. “Ham, I don’t know how to tell you, but we have no record of his address. In fact, except for the copy of his contract, the only other thing in his file is a scribbled note that Marv Jones said was Max Aries cell phone number. Marv said he called him at that number to tell him to report to J.J.’s office for a contract.”
“Okay, give me that.”
“Well, I tried to call him once and all I got was a humming noise.”
Ham Gleason was persistent. “Evie, give me the number and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Be my guest. The number is 23f6 992d”
“Huh?”
“I told you.”
Ham wrote down what Evie had given him. After he had hung up, he tried punching the numbers and letters into his phone. He heard a series of clicks, then, “Hmmmmm …” followed by three-tone musical notes repeated over and over. He tried to recall where he’d heard something like that before. Ham shook his head. His mind was playing tricks on him.
Back in an office on the planet Oh Ess Yew, Ham Gleason’s ring registered as a blinking green light on a large board. The operator who’d received the call switched on a screen that showed Gleason’s image. Since it was no one he recognized, he turned off the signal.
The operator’s supervisor, a man named Tron, from a far corner of the room called over, “Was that an interplanetary call?”
“Yes. From planet Earth.”
“Isn’t that where Xam is visiting?”
“Uh-huh. Except on Earth he calls himself Max— Max Aries.”
Tron smiled. “Clever. What did Xam—or Max—want?
“It wasn’t Xam. I didn’t recognize the caller, so I aborted the signal.”
“Hm,” said Tron. “I wonder how he got this call signal. I’m sure Xam didn’t give it to him. He knows it’s only to be used in emergency. If it happens again, we’ll have to cut Xam’s visit to Earth short and bring him back here.”
Max Aries felt the vibration emanating from the phone in his pocket. On its small screen he saw Ham Gleason’s face and wondered how Gleason had accessed his call signal. He disconnected the signal and mused that have to be more careful about leaving his signal where it could be picked up.
Ham Gleason called a friend, Sam Loewe, at the phone company. “Sam, someone gave me a cell phone number. Does this sound like anything you’ve heard of?”
Ham gave him the combination.
“There’s no such number,” said Sam.
“What about cell phones?”
“Ham, there’s no such number. What word in that sentence don’t you understand?”
Ham hung up. He made a note to ask Marv Jones if he had reached Max at that number. But, since there was no practice session today, he couldn’t do anything about it until tomorrow. He’d grab Max or Marv and try to fill in the blanks.
For the next hour, the frustration Ham felt was eating him up. He couldn’t wait until tomorrow. His editor wanted the story NOW.
Ham had been friendly with Todd Albright, the Rams quarterback. During the Rams dark days when they had been losing games, other journalists had been lambasting Albright, blaming him for his receivers’ dropped passes. Ham had stood by the quarterback, praising him in his columns. He had Albright’s home phone number. If any of Max’s teammates knew where he could be reached, Todd Albright would certainly know. He placed the call.
Albright said, “Ham, I wish I could help you. Mary and I have invited him for dinner a couple of times, but he was always busy.”
Ham wondered if Albright could give him a lead in tracking down the elusive Max Aries. He said, “When you invited him, did you phone him?”
Albright thought for a few moments, then, “You know, I never called him. I always invited him in the locker room after practice sessions.”
Albright k
new that none of the other team members were friendly with Max. “In fact, I hate to admit it, but until he became such a star, the other guys treated him like he had leprosy.”
Ham tried all the resources that usually gave him the information he needed, but came up empty. The Bureau of Motor Vehicles had no record of Max Aries. “He apparently has no license to drive,” said the clerk.
He had wheedled Max’s Social Security number from Evie in the Rams’ office, but as he knew, the Social Security Administration would not give out information.
Finally, after wasting an entire day, Ham was forced to call his editor and confess that the only place Max Aries existed was on the football field at practice or during games. “I’m afraid I can’t get you the story until I see him at practice tomorrow.”