PULP & POPCORN

Page 13
The last time he played in a college game, some Big Ugly decided that Felix was a
cheater and followed him out of the game, determined to beat the hell out of him and get
his money back. He never put a hand on Felix, though, and Felix managed to put the guy on
the ground without actually touching him, dodging a punch at just the right moment so that
Big Ugly had to turn suddenly, snapping his ankle like kindling. Just to add insult to injury,
Felix made sure to take Big Ugly’s decidedly cute girlfriend home with him.
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Felix was just like every other red-blooded
American man, determined to get some payback and fight the war face-to-face. He spent
enough time enlisted to do full tours in both of the major theaters of war, and through
everything, his luck seemed to hold, unwavering. The very first guy Felix met at boot camp
was David Gordon. The two of them made a promise to have each other’s backs no matter
what, and it almost seemed like Felix gave David half of his luck. When Christmas of ’44
rolled around, the two of them were in the woods near Bastogne, doing their best to dig the
Germans out.
At one point in what seemed like an endless day, Felix and David found themselves
pinned down. None of their guys could reach them, and anyone who tried got cut down by a
German sniper. At one point, David tried to make a break for it and caught a bullet in his
left wrist for his efforts. Felix could see from his vantage point that they were surrounded
and outnumbered. As he was trying to spot some hole in the cover that they could exploit,
the clouds overhead parted in just the right way and a single beam of light fell on something
in the field, catching Felix’s eye for moment. A tiny bit of green.
The rest of the world fell away and Felix stood up out of his foxhole. Rifle up, he
began to walk out into the middle of the battlefield. One shot after another found its target,
even as Felix felt bullets race by him so close that he could feel their heat. When his rifle
was empty, he simply dropped it, pulling his pistol now, continuing to fire, one deadly
accurate hit after another.
The Germans charged him, and he not only killed them all, he turned one of their
weapons back on them once his pistol was empty. Felix barely seemed to register what was
happening as he kept walking the entire time, finally finding himself with an empty gun and
only one final German soldier on the field. The small patch of green was still illuminated,
and it stood halfway between where Felix stood and where the German soldier raised his
own rifle, yelling at Felix in German as he did so.