The Champ

Champ! The Champ is here! Over here, Champ! Can we get a shot of you against the window, Champ? That's great, Champ! Champ, how 'bout a few words with the American people, via KBIG?

The Champ shoulders aside Mr. Feeney, his personal assistant, leaving the man-in-brown with nothing to do with his hands but limply hold the wilted brim of his hat. The Champ parts the sea of reporters and photographers, celebrity-lovers and cops, and strides larger than life, from the pages of history, the ink still wet, to the steps, where Gil Gilbert, KBIG's "man about town" waits, his microphone a monstrous metal daisy.

Gil reaches a polished hand out to the Champ, who shakes it carnivorously. "Champ! Good to see you! Do you have any words for America on this glorious day? Tell us, what's on your mind?"

The Champ isn't used to thinking. He's used to doing. Gil's simple, and absolutely predictable, question throws the works inside the Champ's head into reverse. He stands there, his not-smile stuck on Grimace, for three, four seconds. Then he snaps out of it, his eyebrows popping higher up on his flat, bare forehead. "I tell ya, Gil—I went in there and showed 'em why I'm the Champ!"

Gil's eyes beckon the Champ further down the path, further toward that mythical land called Scoop. Gil's eyes can't go it alone. Mr. Feeney assaults the brim of his hat as Gil steps closer to the Champ for his next, harder-hitting question. "That's swell, Champ, but tell us, how does it feel?"

The Champ looks to Feeney. Feeney pretends to be interested in a passing cloud. The Champ picks out Gil again, beneath him on the steps. "Why don't I show you how I feel?" Cheers all around from the assembly on the steps as the Champ marches down the steps, finds a fist-sized stone by the curb, and throws it as hard as he can toward the Pavilion. As though guided by every instinct known to man and beast—hunger, thirst, and love—the stone finds a window and punches through it.

Gil turns back to his polished microphone. "Can you hear that, ladies and gentleman? Can you hear that window breaking? That right there, America, is why the Champ is, as many have said, the greatest living window-smasher in history! That is why the Champ is the Champ!"