Hulk

Hulk’s mobile device

STEVE BIERSDORF

There are practicalities he has to consider as Dr. Banner for when he’s Hulk. There’s a flip side to being seven feet tall and weighing half a ton, able to propel himself several miles from a deep knee bend, capable of benching a hundred tons or holding his breath for twelve hours. His motor skills are elephantine, his fingers half as wide as a normal fist, his touch roughshod on anything the least bit frangible. Touch screens are out.

Dr. Banner designs a voice-activated device for Hulk he won’t ever touch to use, where sending a text or responding to notification that a text message has arrived, or calling anyone or answering a call, is accomplished with a simple, monosyllabic voice command. A speaker dependent system is what he needs for Hulk, and he needs the local system identification (SID) number from American Cellular to patch into their frequencies with Hulk’s customized device.

Calling technical support, and no one on the front lines knows the SID number, or what a SID number is. Brad (third transfer) is upbeat and helpful or confident of being able to assist. Brad acts like this is a routine request, but then he puts Dr. Banner on hold ‘for a minute.’ Brad could ignore him, strand him in hold purgatory until he hung up. Brad’s in complete control. If Dr. Banner hangs up he might never get back to Brad. The third transfer next time might be back to the technical support help desk front lines, where they’ll tell him to try powering off his device.

A woman picks up the call, no-nonsense, aggressively questioning him about why he needs the SID number. He can sense her sorting the information he gives her into predetermined categories of corporate dictum. His explanation isn’t expected, and she doesn’t have a counter argument. She’s been confronted with the unanticipated, something off-script. She becomes less aggressive but steadfastly she’s sorry, they can’t give out that information.

Anyone at the mobile telephone switching office (MTSO) knows the SID number. The MTSO outposts are operated by machines and wires and electricity, with a skeleton crew making sure everything functions within optimal parameters. Dr. Banner downloads a grid map (he has level 3 security clearances), narrowing down where the MTSO might be based on concentrations of power annotated in red on the grid map. After some twilight reconnaissance by Hulk, he locates the MTSO within a high degree of certainty, an unmarked, newer brick office building with swamp-water tinted windows, in ideal range of a cell tower.

He arrives at the MTSO and circles the building. There isn’t a public entrance. No one in sight behind the tinted windows, some tinted glass doorways on either side of the building off the parking lots, but no way in without a coded card. Or if you’re Hulk, splashing through the outer glass doors, mangling the inner door. Surveying his surroundings he sees no one, only tight passageways banked by rows of servers and wires and ports and cables and blinking blue lights.

He turns sideways to move laterally down the nearest passage. He comes to the end of one and hears soft voices, following them, maneuvering to his left and down the next passageway and the talking has ceased, in a room walled by more servers and no windows, three people turned to him in muted astonishment. Hulk sidles into the room and squares up.

“Hulk needs SID number. Or Hulk will smash.”

Not much they can do but give him what he’s after. The MTSO is the wire-and-circuitry heart and soul of the cell phone delivery system of this particular hexagonal cell in the honeycomb.

The voice user interface of Hulk’s new device recognizes only Hulk’s voice if Hulk is in a crowd of people, or otherwise surrounded by ancillary noises, the voice user interface ignoring everything except Hulk’s voice. Dr. Banner tweaks the auditory capability of the device so it has the hearing of an owl.

When his next bill comes a $65 custom equipment surcharge has been added. He calls the 800 number on his bill to complain and he’s greeted with “message MD22, welcome to American Cellular. The number you have called is no longer in service. If you feel this message is in error please contact American Cellular, message MD22.” Um. And sur, doesn’t that mean “on” in French? Is the use of surcharge meant to imply that a custom equipment surcharge is something less consequential than a custom equipment charge?

He doesn’t want an explanation as much as justification, or to hear what the official explanation might be. Presumably he wouldn’t be the first person to ask, and there’s a scripted response. He could always call technical support. Maybe Brad can help. 

First responder

STEVE BIERSDORF

When the non-dairy creamer plant explodes in the Valley Hulk is quickly on scene, walking through a crowd of onlookers on the outskirts and safely at a distance, the crowd parting to let him through, comments at his back as he passes:

“I guess it’s time to drink my coffee black.”

“I’d say. Imagine what that stuff does to your innards.”

“Look, there’s Hulk.”

“What’s he think he’s going to do?”

The Valley is a bad place for this explosion and resulting fire, other industrial facilities in proximity, a developer’s idea of tony, assisted-living apartments that have to be evacuated, one resident expiring from the commotion.

To any of the firefighters or first responders on the scene, no amount of damage from a miscalculated leap can overshadow what they see that day, and they’ll tell anyone who’ll listen. No one sees what the Hulk does beyond the first responders, and the things he does are what make him the ever-loving Hulk. Things he does and does gruffly, that no one else can do, never responding to praise or thanks with anything more than a harrumph, his gruffness taken for modesty, part of the Big Lug mystique.

He controls the fire as it tears across a dry plain of neck-high weeds toward an acetylene production facility, this done by hopping around the front perimeter of the fire and blowing it to a standstill, Hulk able to generate 30-40 MPH gusts of breath, holding up the blaze as firefighters attack it from both flanks.

He lifts a collapsed cinderblock wall, still relatively intact, a wall only a crane could lift, beneath which are several people badly injured though still alive, Hulk carrying each of them to safety. He works through the rubble, casting aside blocks and girders and other decimated sections of the plant until he finds each of the fourteen people killed in the explosion, and carrying out their corpses, holding the corpses limply in his arms, almost reverently, carrying them out one at a time.

The shame of it is no one gets pictures. Of Hulk facing down the angry blaze, hopping frenetically from spot to spot wherever the fire attempts further incursions across the empty field of weeds. Of Hulk lifting the huge wall, maneuvering beneath it, balancing it on his hands, walking with it until it’s clear of the site, negotiating the imbalance of rubble from the decimated plant, uneven mounds of cinder blocks and steel girders with the huge wall aloft, tossing it out of the way. Of sooty Hulk carrying out the injured, of Hulk carrying the corpses, of Hulk going back into the mess time after time until no one alive or dead is left behind. The firefighters and first responders have their stories, and great stories they are. How legends are made. 

For the media, the Hulk angle doesn’t have legs. The patchwork, decades-old plant standards, regulations of volatile chemicals that don’t stack up against those of other countries, lax inspections, testimony in a Senate chamber about how this could have happened in the first place more compelling news.

H

STEVE BIERSDORF

Dr. Banner is aware he’s a whale to his fanged prick of a business manager, H. H will never have a higher net worth client, and he lives more extravagantly than Dr. Banner, Dr. Banner wondering if he’s paying H too much, half-jokingly, half passive-aggressively. H understands and respects and even appreciates passive-aggressiveness. H is worth it, H with his PhD in the shitty and petty and amoral things people will do to get at Dr. Banner’s various holdings.

Dr. Banner sits across a desk from H as H is talking with an attorney representing the center Hulk dispatched at the Jets scrimmage, the center in traction for three weeks, with a dislocated hip forced to sit out the entire season, losing his starting job to someone younger and bigger. 

“Not our concern,” H says into the phone, glancing confidently at Dr. Banner. “Football players get hurt…you should anticipate that…with more guaranteed money…if I played in the NFL I would never hire you or your firm.”

Pause, as the attorney on the other end of the line rebuts.

“Did you read the waiver? The Jets signed it…again, not our problem…the waiver is ironclad,” pause, H listening, “go ahead, the firm that drew up that document will shred you.”

H grabs a piece of paper from his desk and slides it into a crosscut shredder behind him, holding the phone to the humming grind.

“Like that.”

It was smart, the waiver, the Jets waiving any recourse against the Hulk or Dr. Banner, waiving recourse on behalf of the organization and any of its employees. H thinks of everything. He might be a rabid attack dog, but he’s Dr. Banner’s rabid attack dog and Dr. Banner’s yard he’s protecting. Dr. Banner privately wishes people like H weren’t necessary, but they are, unfortunately, as he knows all too well.

“Not our problem,” pause, H listening, “iron clad, my man. It makes no difference if he didn’t sign it, the Jets did and he’s an employee of the New York Jets football organization,” pause, H listening, “then sue the Jets if you want but I expect this to be our last conversation on the matter.” 

H hangs up, happy with himself, cocky. Dr. Banner knows this is a prelude to something else, a performance meant to impress or distract, or to lessen the impact of not so great news to follow. H could have handled this without Dr. Banner’s involvement. Normally he would have. 

“We won’t be hearing from them again.”

“What else is there?”

“Just this. I’m not sure what the hell this is. What are they talking about?”

H tosses an opened envelope on the desk in front of Dr. Banner, from the United States Department of Defense, swallowing hard.

“Chamomile tea?”

There is always the risk of a Hulk tirade if something pisses off Dr. Banner. A Hulk tirade means H’s expensive office accoutrements are at risk. No doubt they’re insured. 

Dr. Banner reads the information and smiles and he can sense H smiling too, relieved and leaning back in his chair. Dr. Banner says nothing, only smiling, H, not sure what to make of the smile, commenting cavalierly, “that’s a lot of money,” easy for him to say. Dr. Banner could still get angry. Smiles can be angry. 

An invoice for $485,365 addressed to Dr. Bruce Banner from the U.S. Department of Defense, for the destruction of four Nano-Hummingbird Spy Drones, payable upon receipt of the invoice. Failure to remit payment immediately can result in IRS liens on property or other of his financial holdings. 

He could complain about the selective memory. When he’d been on contract with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a consultant came his exposure to drone technology, his input into the creation of harvester drones with the ability to detect airborne radiation, used to inspect nuclear facilities for fallout. The harvester drones could see and hear and go places people couldn’t or shouldn’t, but what the harvester drones couldn’t do was detect anything, and so Dr. Banner’s contribution was the equivalent of developing an olfactory sense in these harvester drones, converting them into mechanized bloodhounds hot on the scent of airborne radiation.

He didn’t collaborate to make money. He collaborated, performing his duties to the utmost of his capabilities, for the safety of humankind. He’d rather have left it at that. Someone is selling the harvester drones to someone else. The regulatory commission may have and probably has mandated that any sanctioned nuclear facility must use these harvester drones, so someone is profiting from this idea, an idea that wouldn’t have been possible if not for Dr. Banner’s collaboration.  

He could tell H about the harvester drones. H would want to sue for patent infringement or royalties or something. He’s not sure he’s up to that fight at the moment, the entanglement of it, bureaucratic tedium that will result in meeting in the middle somewhere. The back and forth, posturing, measuring of penises, where the middle is and whose side the middle is closer to. That’s what they’re counting on, that he doesn’t want the fight. What they’re not counting on is H, his well-compensated Rottweiler. 

Hulk and the drones

STEVE BIERSDORF

It’s first thing in the morning lucidity, unadulterated logic of a refreshed mind, reset-button clarity before the obfuscation of another day.

Hummingbirds are not indigenous, their migratory patterns are relatively provincial and they prefer humid subtropical. Not that seeing a hummingbird here is out of the question. And it’s the height of summer. Seeing four of them hovering around a red maple tree is unusual, nothing flowering there, no nectar to drink. If they were availing themselves of a flower bed they would be less conspicuous. They look enough like hummingbirds, though their bills are too short and their movements not fluid and the slightest bit too herky-jerky.

Regarding his reflection in the mirror, his face sleep-bloated, hair pushed from both sides of his head toward the center and pointed upward like a buzz saw, an inexplicable vertical crease beneath his left cheekbone. Downloading the grid map would have been a red flag, Dr. Banner accessing the grid map, and Hulk capable of breathtaking devastation, whatever his motives might be, and the appearance of the hummingbirds. He wonders what they know about what he knows about drones. If they’re insightful, they’ll assume correctly that the answer is plenty, but then they have four hummingbird drones hovering around a red maple and not flowers, betraying the level of competence with which he is dealing. He’s aware everything he does is under surveillance and has been, from the days of windowless vans and thumbnail-sized microphones in the receiver of his handset to now, every email read, every website visited like a muddy footprint, every inbound or outbound call or any text sent or received listened to, read, stored. Something about the drones makes him angry. Maybe it’s the unwarranted suspicion. Maybe it’s that they think he won’t know. 

Jade and Daley Hueman are bitmap images watching from behind a window screen, seeing Hulk backpedaling, lurching, dancing to some fractured beat, swatting at, what, huge flies? Giant mosquitoes?

“What on God’s green earth is he doing?”

“What are those?”

“Birds? Hummingbirds?”

“Why is he attacking them?”

“Maybe they’re attacking him.”

“Where’s my camera?”

Hulk wonders why the hummingbird drones don’t fly away under duress. Maybe the protocol for recalling the drones or overriding a command is more bureaucratic than it should be, or maybe the program’s too new for contingencies. Maybe no one has attacked these drones before and there isn’t precedence. It’s an algorithm missing from the program, making these drones better able to think on their feet. Not that they aren’t quick, impressively so. They dodge his slaps deftly, but they don’t fly away; they dart around him like giant bees, but they don’t attack. They’re half ingenious, prototypes, first or second generation in their evolution. It takes longer than it should, and Hulk feels like he’s waving at holograms. The first one rent into several semi-intact pieces, the next one ricocheting off his open hand and slamming into the wall of his apartment building, embedded in the aluminum siding almost intact. He catches one flush, looks it directly in its peephole, “film this,” and when he crushes it into bits, its guts explode from within his grasp like pulp from ripe fruit.

Hulk and the NFL

STEVE BIERSDORF

Sports talkers fixated on Hulk for a time, which is to say they obsessed about him. Which is to say that all day and late into the evening, turn on the TV and Hulk’s prospects as a professional football player were being contemplated, conjectured, mulled, kneaded, pulverized, tenderized, or bitterly disputed. To intrigued and fascinated conjecturers the subject of Hulk ranging from “good stuff” to “great stuff, compelling stuff, outstanding stuff,” even “amazing stuff,” any kind of stuff putting a capper on the segment before going to commercial. When Hulk became part of the daily sports lexicon he was hard to quit, a nagging, ringing addiction, Hulk the equivalent of two or three packs of cigarettes a day, the subject of Hulk chain-smoked from pre-dawn until late into the night on sports talk programs.

A rumor began, more than likely started by a producer of one of these sports talk programs, out of fresh material, nothing new or breaking, in the dead zone following the previous scandal with nothing probative on the horizon, the middle of baseball season and not far along enough yet for pennant races, past the conclusions of the NBA and NHL seasons and weeks after the NFL draft, weeks before training camp. Everyone in agreement Hulk would make an amazing football player, the conjecture centering on where Hulk would play. Quarterback was out of the question. Or was it? He might have a cannon for an arm, and he could nullify any team’s pass rush. Imagine, you might not even need blockers with Hulk at QB, line up with a center and nine receivers. Hulk would set the West Coast Offense back a hundred years. Why not Hulk as fullback, who couldn’t he block? Opening holes for the team’s tailback to run through, but then why not give the football to Hulk and let him run over anyone foolish enough to try and bring him down? Or Hulk on defense. How about at nose tackle? Forget about running the football against any defense with Hulk anchoring the nose. And how much salary could he command? Imagine the signing bonus, the guaranteed money. Worthy of Croesus, or that modern-day Croesus, Jeff Bezos.

Turn on ESPN and it was Hulk all the time. It got so sports bars began sponsoring drinking games, turn on ESPN and drink whenever they say Hulk, beers served with shot glasses for these occasions and Hulk to thank for brisk bar sales, Hulk also to thank for a spike in summer OWIs.

And how it snowballed from there, someone in player personnel from one team assuming these sports talkers had gotten the rumor from someone in player personnel from another team, possibly a division rival. The focus turned to which team would take the plunge, NFL insiders probing the front offices of various teams and the New York Jets was to be the consensus “best fit,” ample room under the salary cap, a major media market, holes along their defensive front, no running game to speak of, and question marks at the quarterback position. The rumor propagating like snails in a fish tank, after the requisite no comment from the team’s coach and front office, from the general manager and director of pro player personnel on down to the PR flaks, nobody confirming or denying the rumor, by not denying it confirming it in the minds of the many.

Until early on into training camp, a late July morning and the Jets arranging a scrimmage to see exactly what Hulk could do, how he’d fit in, a closed scrimmage with no media until the Jets could get a handle on what they were dealing with.

Hulk lined up at nose tackle, Hulk the only player on the field not in helmet and pads. Hulk shirtless and barefoot in stretch pants past the knee like culottes from a big-and-tall men’s store, Hulk like a big green cartoon in the middle of the defensive front, a man playing with puffy children. Hulk down in a three-point stance, the quarterback barking signals, the ball snapped, the center surging into Hulk as though to move him off the line of scrimmage.

With his large right hand Hulk grabbing a handful of the center’s jersey and front of his pads, pivoting on his back foot as he tossed the center effortlessly behind him, the 300-pound center like a missile fired diagonally across the field and crashing into several tubs of Gatorade, a Gatorade explosion, a tsunami of red Gatorade.

A few holy shits, a Jesus, and several players doubled over, gasping, unable to inhale enough to maintain laughing so hard. They would recall the sound of the big center projectile whistling by, speculating that if he hadn’t been obstructed he might have broken the sound barrier. Said one player: “From when he turned and flung him, when Hulk released the guy from his hand to when the guy slammed into the Gatorade seemed like it was instantaneous. And we’re talking about a distance of 30 to 40 yards and a 300-pound offensive lineman.” 

Before he could say it was fun while it lasted it was over, Hulk’s professional football career relegated to a single play in a training camp scrimmage. The NFL needed a legitimate reason why Hulk couldn’t play other than he was too powerful, and so gamma radiation was quickly added to the league’s list of banned substances.   

Hulk and the bank manager

STEVE BIERSDORF

At seven feet tall and a thousand pounds, entrances to most dwellings are a problem, the notable exception being bay doors. Hulk makes the effort when the mood strikes him, stooping, bending, contorting, shimmying. With his umbrella insurance policy, patience isn’t necessarily required of him, as long as he can stomach the escalating premium. What impatience looks like: steel or wood doors torn from their hinges and tossed aside like sheets of cardboard, plowed-through door frames. shoulder-contoured sections of missing wall, scattered glass fragments. 

Hulk isn’t happy with his bank when they EFT the funds from his account to cover the damages. For how much they assess his account for he’s paid up for future demolition. He doesn’t find out until he’s at the branch checking his balance, the teller nervously rifling her keyboard, a mad plastic scramble, pause, mad plastic scramble, circular mouse glide, mouse click, mouse glide, mouse click, mad plastic scramble, mouse glide, mouse click, mouse click, mouse click, mad plastic scramble, mouse glide, mouse click. He’s huge and full of muscles and he’s green for God’s sake, he’s gruff, none of the usual spry quips or weather-related banter, Hulk’s an economist of the language. The waterline rises perceptibly when Hulk’s in the pond and the fish are perfectly still, when Hulk arrives to the sound of shattering glass.  

The bank could have let him know. It would have seemed less like they were helping themselves to his funds, as if as stewards of his money the bank is entitled to some of it, or any of it, at their discretion. He has enough of it that they can’t resist, not offering him the opportunity to negotiate the amount or compare repair estimates.  

“Excuse me, Dave, the Hulk’s out here and he’d like a word with you.”

Dave the Branch Manager smiling absurdly, at how emaciated, how atrophied he is by comparison, as he introduces himself to Hulk. Dave apologizing, Hulk absolutely should have been notified, Dave politely denying Hulk’s request to transfer the funds back to his account, theoretically, numbers electronically transferred out, numbers transferred back in, a little 10-key action and a couple of mouse clicks to determine how much money he does or doesn’t have.

“I’m sorry, sir, I can’t do that.”

The words hang echoless and still in the air. People are listening and pretending not to, anxious to see how Hulk will respond, but he doesn’t, instead lumbering back toward the compromised entrance. Dave following hesitantly, not sure if he needs to, wondering if Hulk is leaving, hoping so, wishing it would be that easy even if it never is. Hulk pauses at the entrance, surveying the damage, looking over the twisted metal frame and jagged shards of glass, Hulk pointing out that there is no structural damage to the wall, yet. Though he refers to himself in the third person and speaks monosyllabically, eschewing adjectives or prepositions and disdaining conjunctions, he has Dr. Banner’s nuclear physicist brain. 

If this isn’t enough to sway Dave, Hulk gives him something else to consider.

“Hulk could make big stink.”

Ah, yes. Hulk the celebrity, a case to be made for the too-small twin doors as discriminatory toward people of stature. There has to be a would-be civil rights attorney ready to take up the cause, soliciting other Americans of stature to join a class action with Hulk as high-profile fellow plaintiff. 

Hulk isn’t just another customer, Hulk is one the bank’s highest net-worth depositors, with his paid appearances at poker runs and ultimate fights and MMA main events and tractor pulls, the endorsements, royalties from sales of Hulk-trademarked paraphernalia like beach towels, Christmas cards with Hulk depicted in Santa regalia, Hasbro Marvel The Incredible Hulk Talking Smash Bash Fists™, Hulk hands beer holders.

“Let me see what I can do.”

Dave knows if he promises to see what he can do he’s committed to doing something, as far as the customer is concerned, and it gets worse if he sees what he can do and it turns out he can’t do anything. Consulting Lisa the District Manager seems wise, Lisa as cover, let Lisa make the call, but then he picks up the phone and thinks a few moves ahead. Knowing exactly what call she’ll make, and who she’ll let deliver the bad news, Hulk a hulking mass of human capable of breathtaking devastation. 

Nearby in the lobby, on opposing sides of a desk too out in the open, the branch mortgage specialist trying to close a loan, the customer sitting back, arms folded.

“If you can’t tell me what the work gap fee is for, I’m out. Seems kind of outrageous that you don’t even know what you’re charging me for.”

“I understand, sir, I wish I could tell you, I don’t determine the closing costs. I have nothing to do with that.”

“You represent the bank and the bank determines the closing costs, so in my eyes you’re the bank.”

“We’re talking about a hundred and twenty-five dollars.”

They’re both looking down at a long list of closing costs and avoiding eye contact, the branch mortgage specialist referencing the hundred twenty-five by pointing to it with his bank-logo pen. 

“Okay, if you think that’s an insignificant amount, why don’t you waive it?”

“I meant in relation to the amount of your mortgage, or what you’ll save in interest with the lower rate we’re, I’m, offering you, or…”

Hulk wanders over and stands near and facing them and their negotiation suspends, both men turning to him, watching him from their sitting positions without a word. Where ordinarily they might wonder if they can help him, implying that he’s inserting himself into their private business. It’s the ever-loving Hulk, though, and Jesus he’s big up close. Hulk harrumphs like a buffalo about to charge. 

Dave knows, Lisa the DM will say, “DO NOT put the funds back in his account.” Hulk could react one of several ways and none of them good. Taking out the entire wall around the entranceway, charges of discrimination/negative media attention, taking his high net worth to a competitor, tanking the branch’s P & L and costing everyone their bonus, his included. If he isn’t fired. And always that threat, the unspoken possibility force-placing any directive no matter how poorly conceived, or for failing to meet assigned quotas for opening new checking or savings accounts or CD’s. 

“How are your numbers?” 

Always the first thing out of Lisa’s mouth when she sees him, when she calls, and she calls two or three times a day if she doesn’t visit. She calls between meetings, on her way in, at lunch, driving to her next meeting, on her way home, if she’s away at training. Checking accounts, savings accounts, CD’s, referrals to the investment guy or the mortgage specialist, more, more, more, more this month than last, more next month than this, grow or die, make the numbers go up or lose your job. Open more CD’s, when the branch pays less than one percent interest for balances of less than $25,000 with maturities under three years. Terrify then mollify them, tell them how risky the stock market is, the older they are the more risk averse they need to be, and CD’s are FDIC insured. As if that works.

“From now on, Dr. Ban…Hulk…I’d ask you to please approach at the drive-thru window rather than coming inside, that way we can avoid this situation,” his voice tailing away. Telling Hulk to do anything is absurd. Hulk ignores him, waiting on the teller to print a slip showing the credit back to his account, the teller fat-fingering the keyboard, oops, backspace, retype, “here you are sir,” the receipt tiny in his hand. 

Hulk ambles back through the open entranceway, squeezing daylight into corners as he passes through, ducking slightly, out into the parking lot and into a deep knee bend, disappearing into the air like falling up. Inadvertently destroying a section of parking lot where he pushes off, depressing the pavement and leaving a pothole that would bend any axle or snap any CV joint, ruin any expensive rim, flatten a tire, initiate a small claims action if not immediately repaired. 

Dave sighing as he surveys the damage, wondering what he’ll put for his reason for leaving this position on the application for his next one. They always want to know. 

As much as he does it Hulk enjoys leaping, launching himself, airborne bull soaring over a world of china, quickly being somewhere else from where he just was, sometimes as far as a zip code away. In much the same way as firing a bullet up into the sky, knowing the bullet will land, but where? As inconsequential as where the bullet might land, where Hulk might land surely isn’t. At half a ton, anywhere Hulk lands he leaves a mark. Dr. Banner calculates Hulk’s velocity at over a thousand pounds freefalling from an estimated height of three thousand feet, and the PSI when he lands is off the charts, registering at the lowest end of a base-10 logarithmic scale. 

Hulk knows where the parks are within the metropolitan area or the open spaces in the suburbs or outlying areas, cabbage fields, manicured lawns surrounding office buildings, golf courses, and he catapults himself to these places. To minimize the potential damage, wherever he lands is wherever he lands, no amount of flailing mid-air will change that. Hulk crashing into an OBGYN clinic at the edge of a park once, slamming down in front of a woman with her legs up in stirrups waiting to be examined.  

When he lands on soft ground, he leaves deep foot prints like tree stumps ripped from the earth, more than once on a golf course, the grounds crews opting to create bunkers wherever the Hulk may have landed, by digging out the impacted grounds and filling in the excavated area with imported sand, a finer grain. 

Quite the sight for the golfers, the green speck in the sky growing quickly in size and landing suddenly and with enough impact to deliver a tremor throughout most of the eighteen-hole course, leaves trembling like astonished murmurs, water hazards rippling like visible echoes from his abrupt arrival. 

He lands in an outlying area near the freeway and runs south on the freeway into the downtown area, crumpling the freeway like a mishandled bag of potato chips spilled in his wake. It takes forever to fix the freeway, an important artery to the downtown business district, traffic snarls at all hours and particularly suffocating during rush hour. 

Fuckin’ Hulk.