No Contest

“A display of Western idiocy.”

“The election’s over.”

“Athletic idiocy.”

“That narrows it down to every professional or college sport played in America. Give me a hint.”

“Be silent and watch.”

The first race began, simulcast on a pair of fifty-foot video screens.

Remo was caught off guard by what he saw. “Are you effing kidding me?”

“I have ceased to be amazed by anything I see in this land of whites.”

“They’re naked!” Remo said.

“Yes.”

“They’re luging!”

“They are naked luging,” Chiun agreed. “Most perceptive.”

Remo’s highly focused vision brought every unpleasant detail into sharp relief. There was a field of five contestants starting from the hilltop and speeding down the long paved track. They were, undoubtedly, naked except for their safety helmets. Two men and three women were on their backs on luge boards, like oversize skateboards, and they picked up speed after the first turn. In the traditional luge pose, they were on their backs rolling feet first with their heads lifted to watch where they were going. And they were naked.

Their hands gripped the tiny wheeled luge platforms beneath them, and they leaned their bodies as their speed grew and they swept around the second curve—still naked.

“They’re not even attractive” Remo added insistently.

“And yet, see how the rabble appreciates it?”

“Woo-hoo!” shouted a man sitting at the end of the bleachers nearby, squinting through binoculars. “Lookit those woobies wobble!”

“Them cheeks are almost touching ground,” another spectator added.

“Hey, number six is really enjoying himself,” another said.

“Repulsive,” Chiun observed.

“At the very least,” Remo agreed.

The crowd began to chant. “Moguls. Moguls. Moguls.”

“Why do they summon Moguls?” Chiun asked.

“Those ridges in the racetrack are called moguls,” Remo explained. “When you go over them… This is gonna be gruesome.”

The five naked racers flew over the moguls, and the ridges created spectacular vibrations in their bodies, eliciting explosive cheers from the crowd. The lugers remained focused on their performance, and seconds later a large, powerful-looking woman with silver hair got the checkered flag.

“Man, that was a great one!” enthused the baby-faced middle-aged man sitting close by. “Hey, you guys, didn’t you even bring binoculars?”

“First time,” Remo explained, and stopped breathing. The smell of the man’s breakfast Budweisers was lethal.

“Come ’ere and look, then!” He was fiddling with a silver, brushed-aluminum box tucked between his legs and mounted with a slim bracket to his binoculars. “One of them new digital high-definition camcorders. Records right on to the DVD, too. I can zoom this sucker in so tight I can count body hairs.”

“Sweet,” Remo answered.

“Bought it just for ENL. Drive out twice a month from Tempe during the regular season. I have to keep the thing out of sight, though. Them a-holes at ESN, don’t like the audience making their own video. Cuts into their DVD sales.”

Remo looked the other way, which the baby-faced man took as a sign of extreme interest. “I pop these suckers in at parties and it brings the house down!”

“ENL?” Remo asked abruptly. “What’s the E for?”

Chiun ignored him.

“Hey, you really are a virgin.” The baby-faced man chortled. “E for Extreme, of course. Extreme Nude Luge.”

Remo said to Chiun, “Well, now I know why we’re here. Smitty thinks this has something to do with all the killings at the extreme sporting events, like those skydivers who got burned up in Montana.”

“The skydivers you allowed to be burned up over Montana,” Chiun corrected. “It is little surprise the Emperor is perturbed.”

“Hey, watch this,” the man with the camcorder said. “They’re about to make the result official.”

Remo watched. The five naked lugers were now standing around with their support teams, drinking Gatorade. The PA from a small wooden shack squawked to life. “In today’s first event, the winner is Mrs. Jean Hebbleman.”

The woman who had won, a solidly built giantess in her fifties, began whooping and jumping up and down with excitement—still naked. The man with the camcorder diligently recorded every second of it.

“That’s beautiful,” he murmured.

A family in the front row waved to Hebbleman. “You’re the greatest, Grandma!” shrieked a scruffy third-grader in a SpongeBob SquarePants shirt.

“Yee-uck,” Remo declared. “Little uncomfortable with all this, huh, Little Father?”

“It is horrid and vulgar.”

“Plain old luge is horrid and vulgar. They put on these tights, then roll downhill watching their packages the whole way. This is much worse.”

As the golf carts transported more contestants up to the hilltop starting line, Remo said, “I still haven’t figured out what’s so extreme about it.”

“Simply observe,” Chain said.