The Gingerbread Man

Tom and Gabby were drunk, swaying back and forth into one another as the train car bounced along the rails to the stadium. They made a handsome couple. Gabby was lithe and graceful, usually that is, with a slim build beneath long, blonde hair. Tom was tall and spry, and while he wasn’t particularly stocky, his muscles pushed outward on all sides of his t-shirt. Together they looked like they belonged on the cover of Getting Married, if there was ever such a thing. 

The train was old and thoroughly worn out, as evidenced by the flickering lights and the faint smell of vomit that permeated the air. Just standing in the car was enough to give one the sensation of grime that slithered onto the skin from all angles. Oblivious to this was Gabby.  She was bubbly and radiant, decked out in all red, the color of the home team they were on their way to see. As the train car sputtered and shimmied, protesting loudly with metallic groans, she abruptly grabbed hold of the front of Tom’s shirt and kissed him. Before she pulled away, she whispered in his ear. 

“Can’t wait to see the show, Gingerbread Man.” 

It had long been a joke between them. The old children’s rhyme from their youths, repeated endlessly by caregivers and movies alike, elicited in them the childish glee of flight mixed with the almost universal love between a child and a well-baked cookie. It frequently entered the banter of their weekend mornings together. With the sun’s light sharply streaking through the breaks in the curtains, Gabby could often be seen coming in from the living room and jumping on the bed, fully naked, to holler ‘You can’t catch ME!’ Somehow, Tom always did. 

At this moment, however, they were in Athens. A long and winding road had led them there, from the Eiffel Tower in Paris to the uproarious party of Oktoberfest, down through Italy, and then finally, across the Ionian Sea to Greece. This was the final stop on their vacation and they had planned it well. After two weeks on the smaller, lesser-known islands of the archipelago, Tom had booked an apartment in the city center of the ancient capital, where they had seen everything there was to see, eating and drinking as much as they could stand along the way. There were three days left before the couple headed home, so they decided to end their trip with a bang by going to see the biggest soccer team in Greece play its rival. 

With a disarrayed symphony of squeaks, the train came to a stop outside the stadium. Thousands of the Olympiacos faithful streamed toward the massive structure of the stadium, all swathed in the same red colors as Gabby. Tom felt somewhat out of place in his black tearaway pants and cheap gray hoodie but he put the thought out of his mind. The couple entered the fray and headed straight for the concession stands. 

No alcohol was allowed in the actual stadium itself, presumably to stop fighting and rioting, so Tom had to console himself by guzzling cheap beer as fast as possible before the game started. Gabby watched him with a bemused smile. He chugged away, belching frequently, which elicited small giggles of delight from his girlfriend. When he couldn’t take anymore, he tossed the can he was holding behind him and tottered backward toward a nearby railing. Gabby grabbed his arm then, directing them through the press of people entering Karaiskakis Stadium. 

As a small miracle, the pair somehow made it past the alcohol monitors and security, then to their seats. These had been chosen carefully. Tom had wanted to be ‘part of the show,’ as he had put it, which meant sitting in the most raucous section of fans, and right near the field to boot. He had gotten exactly what he wished for. 

It was ten minutes to kick off and the noise was deafening. The stadium was packed to the brim with wildly cheering people. Confetti flew upwards from seats all around them, some of the small pieces of paper catching on the humid air currents and lifting upwards towards the partially domed roof. Vuvuzelas blared their merry and triumphant tones. People of all ages screamed in Greek, waving their arms and jumping up and down while they did so. Both Tom and Gabby enthusiastically joined in. But they were waiting for something more than just the bellowing of the crowd. There was a ritual…

The players were on the field now, set up in their respective rows, with the referee pointing here and there. From their close-up seats, Tom could make out the individual faces of the players. He watched as their bright smiles dampened, rapidly transitioning to the stern fierceness of competition. The noise had somehow grown even greater, almost overpowering any other sense one could have. The reverberations were so strong that Tom could feel them in his clenched teeth. And then, just as the first second of play began, their section popped the flares. 

It is an old tradition that is popular around the world. A section of fans will pop road flares in a carefully laid out pattern that either spells out a word, a letter, or some kind of pattern. In this case, it was an ‘O’ for Olympiacos. But that didn’t matter to Tom. What was relevant to him was that now there was a ton of smoke, all of it concentrating to form a cohesive screen, through which anything might appear. 

And today, ‘anything’ meant The Gingerbread Man. 

Only a minute of the game had been played and Tom was already heading down the handful of steps that it took to get to the field. He briefly looked over his shoulder to see Gabby, smiling from ear to ear, with her phone out, no doubt recording the action. But then she was gone, blurred by the thick smoke wafting in all directions. He could feel the pulse of the crowd. At some point, he bumped against someone rising from their seat but resolutely kept moving downward. When he got to the rail he didn’t hesitate.

Tom didn’t care one bit about soccer, or futbol, or whatever it was they called this silly sport. You couldn’t even tackle anyone, for Pete’s sake. No, what Tom cared about was making sure that everyone in the stadium was going to see his ass, especially Gabby. And he was going to show it for as long as he could. Maybe forever, really, because they could run as fast as they could, but they’d never catch him. 

As soon as Tom hit the turf he ripped off his sweatshirt, tore off his breakaway pants, and started to run. A lot of people will never truly run. Sure, we go for jogs, we sprint after our dogs on the beach, and maybe even some lighthearted chasing with our kids in the backyard. But there is a great difference between those lighthearted runs and running for what feels like your life. When you are being chased, hounded by someone who intends to tackle you in the rudest way possible, there is the adrenaline of The Hunt. You are the prey and you have to outpace and outdistance your opponent. In that state, you are capable of speed and endurance you didn’t think was possible. 

Tom burst through the wisps of smoke that made it to the field and reached top speed as he crossed into the field of play. It took the players a few moments to realize that there was a fool streaking naked across the field, but when they did, the man who had the ball at his feet kicked it straight toward Tom. In an amazing display of the abilities of these professional athletes, the ball came very close to pegging him right in the side of his head as he crossed in flight. Some of the players laughed, some scowled. The crowd noise hadn’t abated one bit. It was impossible to tell whether people were cheering or jeering him, but Tom assumed the former. 

The first security guard came from in front of him and slightly to the right. Luckily, security was easy to spot because of the bright yellow jackets they wore. This man’s running days were well behind him, maybe they had never been at all, as evidenced by his flopping arms and bouncing gut. He had exhausted himself simply getting to Tom and his winded attempt to grab the streaker’s arm met nothing but air. Tom took a hard left, jab stepped, then cut even harder left, almost back in the direction he had come. He could feel his breath, ragged but hearty, alongside his wildly pumping heart. He ran. 

As he passed, a player from the opposing team reached out his foot daintily, trying to trip the naked interloper. But Tom saw it coming and leapt high into the air without breaking stride. He could see security all around him now, yellow jackets buzzing in, all of their arms flailing, trying to grab him. He zigged, then zagged, cutting through the maze of attacking guards, much to the delight of the crowd. There was an impressive sense of focus that permeated him, possible only because of how many eyes were on him. There must be at least thirty thousand people around him. He looked up at the stands and tried…

As if he had been hit by a bus, Tom’s body went from rapid motion in a vertical stance to complete stillness on the horizontal plane. It took just under three seconds. His head hit the turf and bounced once, twice, then rested roughly on the plastic turf. The pressing weight was unbearable, as at least two security guards were putting their entire weight on top of him. He felt himself being abruptly and unceremoniously tugged upwards, then dragged toward the sidelines. The noise became oppressive again, with screams of joy and derision cascading down around him along with the last wisps of smoke from the faded flares. 

And with that, Tom looked up one more time to see Gabby, still seated, laughing uproariously. Her blonde hair tussled with the wind, leaving her face a bright spot in the sea of red. The entire section was laughing, thrusting their phones towards him. A few others were commenting to Gabby, although she wasn’t listening. Her phone was still up in the air, definitely recording the action. He wanted to wave to her but that was impossible with the hands clutching his arms. Instead, he smiled. It occurred to him that something momentous had occurred. 

Someone had, indeed, caught the Gingerbread Man.