The World’s Fastest Man
by Martin Green

 

 

It was the year 2044.  In Paris the French were preparing for their first Olympics since 2024 and trying to think of ways to top their opening ceremony of teams boating down the Seine.  In the United States they were preparing to start the Olympics tryouts and, as American prestige had declined so much in the world, were desperate to try anything to win medals.  In Chicago, besides the usual weekend murders, a skinny teenager threw a rock breaking a window and stole a television set.  Neither the cops who chased him on foot nor the squad cars who took after him could catch him. 

The next morning the skinny teenager, ratted out by a snitch, was arrested while watching Sesame Street on TV.  One of the cops who’d chased him told his captain that he’d never seen anyone run so fast.  That kid could be in the Olympics.  The police captain called the police commissioner.  The commissioner called the mayor.  The mayor called the governor.  The governor called one of the state’s senators.  The senator called his old college roommate who was now head of the US Olympics Committee.

The police captain told the skinny teenager that he’d committed a serious crime, not telling him that all crimes in Chicago had been downgraded to misdemeanors, and that he could go to jail.  Or he could try out for the US Olympics team and if he made it he might win a medal and be pardoned.  The kid, whose name was George Washington Jones, said, “Hey, I’m not crazy.  Where is this here Olympics team?”

George Washington Jones was accompanied to the tryouts by the cop who’d told his captain how fast Jones was.  The cop’s job was simple:  don’t let Jones get away.  At the tryouts for the 100 meter race, Jones was off like a shot and finished first and the timers said he’d set a new world’s record.  George Washington Jones was on his way to France and, as he told the cop, he had no intention of running away.  He wanted that gold medal.

At the Olympics, Jones won the 100 meter dash and duly received his gold medal.  He was now officially the world’s fastest man.  The day after the cop told him that he’d be going back to the States.  The President was being accused of being soft on crime and a pardon was in question.  Jones said, I see.  Can you do me one favor?  What’s that? asked the cop.  Give me a head start, said Jones.

In an instant George Washington Jones was off and disappeared into one of Paris’s crooked streets.  In the next twenty or so years there were a number of Jones sightings in European capitals as well of reports that the gold medal had appeared in pawn shops in Paris, Madrid, Rome and Budapest.  But no sign of George Washington Jones.  The world’s fastest man was never seen again.

 

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