"This is marvelous, Clark," Lois exclaimed as she sampled her sea bass. Their adventures in the shower at the B&B had sprung her appetite into high gear. They had decided on a casual restaurant on the wharf for dinner, followed by a change of clothes into evening wear at their handy room and cable car ride up Hyde Street. After it turned onto Washington Street, they could get off at Mason Street and walk the three blocks to the famed elegant Mark Hopkins Hotel. At the Top of the Mark they planned to do some dancing to soft jazz.
First they had started with a shared appetizer of fried calamari, Clark declaring that Cozzi's at the Wharf was known far and wide for its preparation of fresh calamari. Clark was now digging with gusto into a bowl of the house specialty, cioppino. He had mastered the crab legs with great ease and without flinging bits of crab all over Lois. Lois noticed that some tables were not that lucky as one of the members of the party wrestled with their crab legs. Of course, Clark could forgo the awkward metal crab crackers and simply open the crab with his fingernails.
All of a sudden many in the room began digging their cell phones out of their pockets or purses. Most were set on vibrate mode, but Clark could still hear them. Several phones simply rang. Something alerted him that this was very unusual. The bartender answered his phone and turned the bar TV to the local news. The sound was muted, but Clark turned and read the closed captioning. It was a little far for Lois to read it clearly, but certainly something big was going on. Clark could also overhear some of the cell phone conversations. Most were calling emergency personnel back to their duties.
Lois could sense something too. "What is it, Clark? What's happening?"
"There's a major fire at SBC park that's broken out during the last inning of the ball game. People are evacuating and all the access roads are jammed now and no one is going anywhere." He gave her a cross between a pleading and an apologetic look. He whispered loud enough to hear over the chairs scraping against the floor as one or two members of a table or sometimes whole parties left their dinners. Those leaving their tables flung money down on the table to cover the dinner and rushed out of the restaurant.
"Go," Lois said simply and firmly. "You have to help. You could have heard about it on LNN at home and rushed to help. There are some things only you can do with traffic jams and fires." Clark still looked torn and Lois continued. "I'll be fine. I'll go back to the room and wait. Oh, and give me the *one* room key."
Clark pulled the key out of his pocket and put it into her hand, rising and coming over to kiss her. "I love you," he whispered. He rushed toward the restrooms at the back of the restaurant. Shortly Lois heard a sonic boom over San Francisco Bay. She looked over at her package of Ghiradelli chocolate they had picked up on the way to the restaurant and said aloud. "It's just you a me tonight, kid."
Lois calmly continued eating her dinner. No longer having anyone to talk with, she looked around the restaurant and noticed several other women and some men now alone at their tables doing the same thing. Lois reached over for Clark's cioppino. "Can't let this go to waste, either."
After paying for their dinner, Lois made her way back to their B&B. As she passed by the open door of the Buena Vista historic bar and restaurant she looked in the open doorway. The patrons were almost to a person staring intently at the television. "There's Superman," one person called out. Another remarked, "Boy, it really must be bad down there to bring him out." Lois hurried on up the hill so that she could watch in private.
Opening the outside door with her key, Lois stepped into the living room. Steve came out from the kitchen, drying a skillet with a towel. He simply said, "Hi, Lois. Have a good evening," and returned to the kitchen.
Lois entered her room, immediately turning on the television in and searching for signs of Clark. The game had been televised up to the point it was stopped by the tragedy, so there was no lack of cameras to cover the action. And the stadium lights had remained on through the fire. Predictably, Clark's activities were the focus of many of the cameras. He was flying high, blowing freezing super breath on the flames in the grandstand. The flames seemed stubbornly resistant to his efforts, though. The announcers were doing a play by play of him, just as they had been of the game itself. Lois turned the sound down, finding the hysterical tone rather annoying. Clark had found one of the large trash dumpsters prevalent in the ball park and ripped of the lid with one tear. He then lifted it up and flew to the bay only feet away. He carried the dumpster down into the water and emerged with it full, returning to the fire and dumping out the water. He repeated this five times before the foam trucks arrived and began spraying foam. Finally the fire succumbed to the combined efforts.
The cameras switched to the traffic jam outside the stadium. The fleeing fans stuck in the jam had gotten out of their cars and were watching Superman in action, some wielding large binoculars. When Superman was high in the air, he was still bathed in sunlight from the setting sun. They observed Superman flying toward the line of traffic and then up to where the jam began. Complicating matters, several accidents had happened when the panicked drivers started to leave in haste. Those at the front of the line saw Superman begin to clear the accidents, so they returned to their cars and trucks. Once they started their vehicles, the action flowed like a river down the long lines of cars as people got back in and started up again, realizing they were going to be able to leave. Traffic slowly started to clear.
The cameras switched to covering the fire chief directing the efforts. Suddenly Superman landed beside him. Lois turned the volume up.
"Superman has just landed next to Chief Davis. We'll try to get a few words."
The reporter was beside himself with excitement. He thrust the microphone toward Clark's face, but Clark held up a hand. "Just a minute." He and the Chief faced away from the camera and conferred for a while, Clark gesturing to various areas of the park and the Chief gesturing to others. The S on the cape stood out prominently in the additional camera lights. Finally the two nodded at each other and they both turned to the massed reporters from all the local stations.
"Superman, Superman. How did you hear about the fire?"
Clark was in his crossed arms and planted feet Superman stance. He answered in his authoritative Superman voice. "I was watching the game on TV when it became obvious something was wrong."
A collective sound of revelation went through the group of reporters. Superman had a television and was watching a San Francisco baseball game! Was he a Giants fan? Looking at their expressions, Clark had to suppress an urge to laugh. He would have first asked if anyone was injured.
That suddenly seemed to occur to one of the reporters. "Have there been any people injured?"
"There several injuries in the various car accidents, but none fatal. I transported those victims to emergency personnel for care. As for the stadium and the fire, Chief Davis can answer that better than I can." He stepped back slightly to let the Chief take the question.
"Fortunately, I have no words of anyone being critically injured here," the Chief responded. "There were injuries in the car accidents that are being assessed by the emergency personnel. And there are some burn victims. The City of San Francisco mobilized all their emergency personnel and I wish to thank everyone for their quick response. The origin of the fire will be determined as soon as the fire is completely extinguished. Clean up crews are there now." He turned to face Superman. "I wish to publicly thank Superman for his very timely help. His quick response minimized the injuries. It would have taken us a *lot* longer to clear out the evacuating traffic without his help. And his urban water bombing technique with the dumpster was particularly effective." The Chief extended his hand and Clark took it and they shook hands.
"A front page photo if I ever saw it," Lois muttered in her room. She got up from the couch and opened the balcony door. Clark would be back soon.
Sure enough, Clark dropped the Chief's hand and began to lift off. Anxious reporters started peppering him with more questions. He stopped and turned in the air to address the reporters again. "Your emergency people are heroes too. You should thank them. I imagine some of them left their dinners to respond to the call." He gave a wave and vanished into the sky.
Lois's head turned toward the door at the sound of Clark's boots hitting the floor.
"Good interview," she said, gesturing at the TV. She got up and walked over to her husband. "How are *you* doing?"
"Pretty good. It wasn't as bad as I first feared. But I'm pretty stinky from the fire. I need to go shower."
Seeing that the evening had turned out well for him, she said coyly, "Again?"
"Later, Mrs. Kent. Why don't you get ready for dancing?"
"We're still going to the Top of the Mark?"
Clark held up one finger and spun out of the Suit. He spun into nothing and was holding the dirty Suit in front of him when he stopped.
A sound between a growl and a whimper emerged from Lois's throat.
"Later, Lois. Bet on it." Clark walked into the bathroom, tossing the dirty Suit into a corner.
**********
Lois and Clark danced slowly to the soft strains of Cole Porter. The lights of San Francisco spread out before them. Lois was nestled into Clark's shoulder and his head lay against hers. Lois moved slowly away and looked up. "It's been quite an anniversary day today. Breakfast in Tahoe, lunch in Sacramento and dinner and dancing in San Francisco."
"Did you enjoy it," Clark asked softly.
"Oh, yes. I want to come back here. Often."
"Your wish is my command, my lady." Clark noticed the hesitant look on Lois's face. "What is it?"
"Can I ask you something about Steve?"
Clark nodded. "Sure, anything."
"When I came back from dinner alone, he came out of the kitchen and saw me. He seemed totally unfazed that I was alone and just told me to have a nice evening. He didn't ask a single question. I thought that was unusual behavior." Lois raised her eyebrow, asking Clark the silent question, 'Does he know?'
"Well, I don't think he knows anything definite about me, but I've stayed with him off and on over the years. He's a Basque, an Amerikano and they are a very pragmatic people and accept unusual happenings without much comment. They speak one of the most ancient languages on Earth and their culture formed about 7,000 years ago. It's their drawings in the caves in the Pyrenees in Europe."
"Ah, the last tour of the day! Tell me more Clark." Lois returned her head to his shoulder and listened as his voice continued the story.
”There are genetic studies that suggest that the Scots, Irish, Welsh and Basques all derive from the same, possibly very homogeneous, population that inhabited Europe in Paleolithic times."
"An Amerikano is a Basque who has emigrated to North or South America, or one who has returned to the Basque Country to retire after a life spent in the New World. After the Spanish discovery of America, huge numbers of Basques flocked to the New World and most of them remained here. From the Mexican city of Durango to the largely Basque-named vineyards of Chile, the frequency of Basque surnames and place names in Spanish America shows the effort of those Basque settlers who left their homeland forever to build a life across the sea. In the 19th century, a large number of Basques also emigrated to the western United States, where their legendary sheepherding skills were in great demand. Many of these sheepherders eventually came into conflict with cattlemen in the range wars of the late 19th century. Basque sheep flocks still roam much of the Bureau of Land Management land in Eastern Kern County, California to this day. The University of Nevada at Reno is the major Basque study center in the US. It has links with the Basque Country and sends its students there."
Clark noticed Lois was nearly asleep on her feet. "Time to go back to our room, Mrs. Kent. Come on, I'll take you home."
Sleepily, Lois nodded. Home was where ever he was.
THE END (for now)
*******************
Footnote: Basque language and information is from the website of Larry Trask (not all Trasks are bad!) at the University of Sussex, U.K. (
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/larryt/) and from the University of Nevada at Reno.
Artemis
