HE BLOWS EVERY MIND!
Every man sees him as his hero. Every woman sees him as her lusttul dream. Every race and nation claims him enthusiastically as its own. But Jonathan Relevant, the Man from Charisma, is strictly on his own, doing his own thing, freaking out both foe and friend as he swings into far-out sexational action and adventure.
THE MAN FROM CHARISMA
The newest, greatest creation of the one and only
TED MARK
Ted Mark
THE MAN FROM
1970
CHAPTER ONE
The world is round. It rotates on its axis. Fact!
So, at various times, various people are standing upside down on the bottom of the globe. Logic!
The question is, how come they don’t fall off? The answer is simple:
People are falling off all the time!
Perspective!
With the proper perspective, it’s easily understood that there are indeed global dropouts. Also global drop-ins. Which brings us to Jonathan Relevant. . . . Maybe . . .
Naked, he dropped into the world with no indication that he had exactly been born into it. Still, he may have been an infant . . . And he may have been a full-grown man . . . or an adolescent . . . or an octogenarian. . . .
As to the manner of Jonathan Relevant’s appearing, it was cataclysmic. But like many cataclysms in this post-Hiroshima world, it had to be carefully planned. The other element for creating cataclysms was also present: a teeny-weeny mistake. Hell, that’s why they put erasers on H-bombs. . . . Perspective . . .
“Hell, that’s why they put erasers on H-bombs.” That’s what Professor Klauss Von Schweindrek said when it happened. Professor Von Schweindrek, de-Nazified and made a U.S. citizen by special act of Congress, was the scientist in charge of the United States’ Project Blowjob.
“Back to the old drawing board.” So remarked Admiral Vladimir Churkov when it occurred. Admiral Churkov, much admired as a phrasemaker in the higher echelons of communist society, was in charge of the U.S.S.R. Operation Fartnik.
All of which is relevant to Jonathan Relevant as one and one is to two. —Two H-bombs, that is. Or, to be more precise, underwater nuclear-test devices.
One of these devices, a short time before the manifestation of Jonathan Relevant, snuggled in a wooden crate under maximum security guard at the home base and computer processing center of Project Blowjob at Point Barrow, Alaska. It was kept cozy and warm by an excessive padding of excelsior—doubtless meant to inspire it onward and oopsward. Only a simple nuclear nose-job was needed to ready it for launching.
At the same time, the second missile rested in a lead box under maximum security guard at the home base and data processing center of Operation Fartnik at Ambarchik on the Siberian seacoast. Its schnozzola had already been nuclearized. It awaited transportation via Soviet atomic U-boat.
When the Russian submarine Glubtub arrived at Ambarchik, there was a short delay while scientists rechecked some of the more sensitive recording instruments. Meanwhile, at Point Barrow, the nuclear warhead was screwed into position and the missile loaded onto the U.S. submarine Wartoy. Professor Von Schweindrek boarded the Wartoy, all hatches were secured, and the craft submerged. Concurrently, in the Waters off Ambarchik, the U.S.S.R. Glubtub was leveling off at seventy fathoms and setting its course due north. The Wartoy also headed due north at a depth of seventy fathoms. The cruising speed of both ships was a fast twenty knots. This speed was maintained until both vessels arrived at their destinations simultaneously, and engine performances were cut to the minimums required to hold relatively stationary positions.
For the Wartoy, the position was eighty miles due north of the Mendeleyev Ridge in the Arctic Ocean. The Glubtub held at a spot 120 miles south of the Harris or Lomonsov Ridge. The U-boats lay parallel along a northern latitude of eighty-six degrees, each about 240 miles from the North Pole, and roughly 160 miles from each other. Both maintained a depth of seventy fathoms.
Aboard the Wartoy, Professor Von Schweindrek stood over a control panel with three buttons. The first, blood red, would launch the underwater nuclear-test device when it was pushed. The second, dead white, would detonate the missile’s warhead when it was pressed. The third button, a melancholy blue, would raise to the surface a complex of periscopes and cameras by which the result might be observed and recorded.
Admiral Churkov, on the Glubtub, sat in front of a similar control panel. Only this one had a troika of switches instead of buttons. One was shaped like a hammer, one like a sickle, and one like a globe of the world. Tripping the hammer would fire the Russian underwater missile. Triggering the sickle would detonate it. The globular switch, when rotated, would elevate the Glubtub’s cameras and periscopes.
Professor Von Schweindrek pushed the red button. The American test bomb zipped away on a level course at seventy fathoms along a 270-degree azimuth. Its course had been carefully planned in advance. In case anything went wrong, the nuclear warhead would be pointed toward Siberia. Aiming it the other way might have put an undue strain on relations between the United States and Canada — if anything Went wrong, that is.
At that precise moment, Admiral Churkov tripped the hammer. The Russian undersea missile took off on a level course at seventy fathoms, along a ninety-degree azimuth. The direction had been precisely determined beforehand so that if there was a slipup the hydrogen warhead would be traveling toward Canada. The Russians didn’t want to be accused of violating the human rights of political prisoners in Siberia by aiming it in the other direction—if anything went wrong, that is.
As the two nuclear devices travel on their appointed courses, inexorably converging on the manifestation of Jonathan Relevant, pause to consider the concept of coincidence. In fiction, the long arm of coincidence is a brittle twig. Stretch it too far, it snaps and credibility breaks with it. But reality knows no such rules.
Reality always seats your wife’s best friend at the next table in the intime little bistro where you’re fondling your mistress. In life, you take a laxative, board an elevator en route to the lavatory, and are trapped there through a trembling colon of eternity by a one-in-a-billion power failure short-circuiting the entire Eastern seaboard. Circumstance dictates that if you tie one on, the first person you’ll stagger into will be your mother-in-law, or the minister’s wife, or that teetotaling client who’s just on the verge of signing the contract you’ve been slaving over for three months.
That’s life!
Coincidence . . .
If two marbles are traveling on the same straight line, one along a 270-degree azimuth, the other along a ninety-degree azimuth, they are moving toward each other. If they continue on their respective courses, they will inevitably collide. If their momentum is great, both marbles will shatter upon impact. If the impact is great enough, there will be atomic displacement.
Science derives from this verification of the formula E=MC2. Observation tells the layman that this is how men lose their marbles.
As the Russian test device approached the halfway mark in its carefully calculated journey, aboard the U.S.S.R. Glubtub Admiral Churkov conducted a 121-piece symphony orchestra playing a Katchaturian overture in his head. As the brass section built to the crescendo, the middle finger of his right hand, which was his baton, stabbed rhythmically toward the sickle-shaped lever on the control panel in front of him. Of course, Admiral Churkov never actually touched the sickle switch. But Katchaturian would never be the same for him again.