The Kicker of St. John's Wood
by
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Super Bowl LIV was played in Burlington, Vermont at the Equal Rights Dome, a state-of-the-art facility with seating for over ninety thousand spectators. The first mezzanine featured a shopping mall with retail establishments selling products that were exclusively fair-trade and made from materials that were biodegradable or recycled. In fact, much of the stadium itself shared these characteristics. For example, next to the main scoreboard was a peace sign, over fifty feet in diameter, made from compacted eyeglass frames.
There was a requirement that at least eighty percent of stadium employees belong to one of the following groups: gay or transgendered individuals, the severely disabled, former illegal immigrants, Native Americans, or ex-felons. The eighty-percent rule extended to all visiting contractors, including television crews. Thus the network commentators had to be reshuffled to suit the occasion. The competing football teams, however, were permitted to retain their usual composition.
We played against the Hawaii Sun Monarchs. When that franchise was established in 2014, the Hawaii state legislature passed a law mandating that all players be of East Asian or Pacific Island descent. Controversy erupted in 2017 when the Sun Monarchs drafted star quarterback Roger Smith from Ohio State University. Smith was only one-half East Asian/Pacific Islander. Under heavy pressure from the public, the law was amended to allow this single exception.
During the last couple of days before the game, my thoughts and those of my teammates turned entirely to football. Mahinta Zagumbi had been withdrawn from view, and Azala was absent from the scene. The press was concentrating exclusively on the football-related aspects of the contest. Even the U.N. resolution calling for the abolition of all-male professional sports teams, passed the day before the game, generated little interest.
We practiced hard—very hard. There was no excess emotional space in which to foment a hostile action of any sort. Thelonius spoke incessantly of how he was going to shut down the Hawaii wide receivers, and flatten the quarterback Smith with a safety blitz.
Contact with Ashley was scant. She had come to Burlington well before the game, but we could not meet, being that all players were restricted to quarters. We did speak a couple of times on the phone, however. She was looking forward to the game, and cheered me on with enthusiasm. The ticket I had given her was for a seat on the forty yard line, about fifteen rows up from the field. She would have Thelonius’s sister and her husband on one side, Rebecca Gonzales on the other. I made arrangements for a bodyguard to be seated alongside them.
A few hours before the game, I informed the stadium security personnel that a terrorist attack was likely to occur. I urged them to keep an eye on Azala and his entourage. The security people looked at me like I was crazy, and refused to consider the possibility that the guest of honor, a man invited by the president herself, would be involved in illegal activity. They assured me that security at the facility was hermetic, and that every single person would be checked with sophisticated detection equipment before entering the stadium.
I will never forget Coach Petersen’s pep talk in the locker room just before the game. He poured his heart out. He said he loved us like his own children, and would still love us whatever the outcome of the game. The players were more attentive than ever. I caught a glimpse of big Hubbard wiping away a tear. The coach informed us that he would be announcing his retirement a few days later; this was his last hurrah. Each of us had an open invitation to come see him at any time in the future, just for a friendly visit if we so desired, but also to share our toughest personal problems.
The team burst onto the field, awash in adrenalin. After completing our warm-up exercises, we withdrew to the sidelines. I scanned the stands and found Ashley. She blew kisses in my direction, and I returned the gesture. The ceremony of the coin toss was conducted at midfield with great solemnity; among the VIPs present were the NFL commissioner, the mayor of Burlington, and the governor of Vermont. We won the toss and elected to receive the opening kickoff. The Coyotes assembled around Coach Petersen for the full team huddle. I was near the edge and couldn’t hear most of his words, what with the deafening roar of ninety thousand excited people. The huddle broke, we cheered wildly, and our receiving team took the field.
Thelonius was back deep to receive the kick from Hang Chen, the placekicker for the Hawaii Sun Monarchs. Chen was considered to be one of the best kickers in the league. He certainly proved it on this occasion, booting one to the back of our end zone. But rather than take the touchback, Thelonius decided to run it out. The man was on fire. Carefully navigating his way behind the excellent blocking, he broke two tackles and was in the clear, with only Hang Chen between him and the goal line. I winced as Thelonius dispatched the kicker onto his rear with a merciless straight-arm, and raced the remaining thirty-five yards for the touchdown. The New Mexico bench erupted into a frenzy. In the midst of it, I saw Coach Petersen applauding, but with a calm face. He knew all too well that such a surprise breakthrough at the outset of the game could have deleterious effects, leading to overconfidence and impaired concentration. But there was soon to be an event that returned everyone to a more sober state of mind.
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About the Book
This is a story of America in the year 2020: Fractured socially and politically, its enemies are gaining ground and its civil liberties are threatened like never before.
Jayesh Blackstone, a professional football player, finds himself at the focal point of an historic experiment: a woman is going to play in a football game, and it will happen in the Super Bowl. It turns out that this is just a foretaste of the metamorphosis that is taking shape. The very same event is the venue for an announcement by world leaders of a new order, one that defines humanity exclusively in terms of race and gender.
The new reality steadily encroaches on Blackstone’s world; he is compelled to choose his allies, declare his identity, and determine the price he is willing to pay to live the life of a free individual.
Embracing controversy from its very first pages, The Kicker of St. John’s Wood is a rampage through the pantheon of contemporary idols, and a literary journey into the American national psyche of the twenty-first century.
About the Author
Gary Wolf is the author of futuristic novels that portray worlds in which multiculturalism and political correctness have run amok. From 2000 to 2006 Wolf lived in Paris, during which time he witnessed the breathtaking collapse of traditional European culture. Against the backdrop of the city's aesthetic and historical splendor, he observed the unraveling of Western civilization under the weight of multiculturalism, deconstructionism, the "root causes" mantra, moral equivalence, and self-hatred. His reaction was to author a trilogy that confronts this process and its derivatives. Using the genre of speculative fiction, he wrote three futuristic novels that tackle different aspects of the contemporary malaise: "Workshop of the Second Self" -- dumbing down, reverse discrimination, and the victim industry; "Alternating Worlds" -- multiculturalism; "The Embracer" -- gender confusion. In early 2009, Wolf completed another futuristic novel, "The Kicker of St. John’s Wood," a literary journey into the depths of the American national psyche in the twenty-first century.