Enhanced

by Cosca, Paul

  I don’t know what he was. Some kind of monster. Some...engine of chaos. He helped lead hundreds of people to their deaths...but for what? I do my very best not to be prejudiced toward Enhanced people. I don’t want to be like the bigots I saw growing up, but it’s hard sometimes. I know that Enhanced people aren’t like that. But that son of a bitch ruined my happiness. He ruined her. And it would be one thing if I knew that bastard was dead, but...

  Harvey pulls out a small box. Inside are a few newspaper clippings.

  I never told Lydia about it. Probably wouldn’t have mattered too much anyway, because she was so far gone. But look at this. January, 1996. After Waco and Ruby Ridge, there were a lot of serious fundamentalist churches that got cagey, but maybe none more than the Eighth Divine Gospel. Some reports of sexual abuse slipped out and the FBI went to

  investigate, just to find themselves in another Waco out in Idaho. The standoff lasted for four weeks, and just before the raid was set to take place, the people living in the compound met in the main hall and shot themselves, one by one. Everyone was accounted for except for the man running it. Thomas Vargas. And the only thing left was spray painted in the main hall: “SEE YOU LATER! T.V.”

  March 15th, 1998

  His story told, Jackson looks both relieved and deeply tired.

  JACKSON: Hero. There was folks…especially folks back in the day, they’d call me hero. And you know, there was a time when they was right. Once we was a group of friends who liked to hang out and play cards and talk about how terrible the Bears was playin’…we was all friends, but sometimes we was more than that, too. Sometimes we was heroes. That’s not somethin’ we ever told each other, but that’s the truth of it. Back then, those five people were heroes. But all those people are gone now…even the person I was back then. All gone.

  There ain’t nothin’ worse than being the last…but that won’t be much longer either. I lasted longer than all the rest, but that just means I lasted long enough for this stupid body to break down. What set me up to be a hero also set me up to fail. Cancer. I got cancer all over, and I ain’t got but a month or two, probably. I stopped all the real bad treatment six months ago. Figured if I was gonna go, I might as well not be so nauseous. And it’s nice to have my hair back. Hell, I even picked up smoking…‘cause what the fuck does it matter now?

  I could’a been a real hero. On that day, I could’a pulled out my gun and shot that motherfucker. And whether or not people would’a known it, I would have been a hero. But I didn’t…some days I blame myself a lot, and some days I don’t. I don’t ever feel good on any of those days. If I had done what I planned that day, who knows how things might be different. Maybe there’d be heroes all over the place. I’d probably still be in jail, but I think that would’ve been worth it.

  But shit, man. Wishin’ don’t get you much, does it? At leat when you’re wishin’ about the past. Now wishin’ about the future…that’s different. Even though I won’t be around to see it, I sure hope that someday everybody’s able to move past all those awful things that happened. Really move past, not just forget. Maybe it will take waitin’ until all of us old folks who remember it are dead, but I hope the world can get there one day. Because I was a guy who didn’t have a damn thing goin’ for him…but nature decided I had somethin’ that could make me a hero, even for a moment. And I hope that me and my friends aren’t the last of the real heroes. Because man, if I’m the last superhero…I don’t know if I can die easy knowin’ that.

  September 10th, 2001

  Today, we’re back where superheroes began: Brooklyn. Tomorrow, Antoinette and I are meeting with my agent and the publisher handling the project. I’m hoping to get a little financial support so I can really finish this thing. I need to get back out to White Sands to interview Joseph Tresch, the man convicted of selling the RGR virus to terrorist organizations, and I need to get to Los Angeles to collect a few interviews about the riots, but then I’ll be pretty much done. This has taken up so much of my life…the thought that I might actually be done with this in a few months is astounding.

  We’ve arrived at one of the more unique spots in Brooklyn: White Tiger Dojo. This is one of the most striking examples of how attitudes towards the Enhanced are evolving (no pun intended). The owner and head teacher meets us at the door. At 6’4, with broad shoulders, she strikes an imposing figure. She wears white from head to toe, accented with black stripes. Her clothes are loose, and allow for enough ease of movement for her to teach classes. They look similar in construction to the outfits you’d find on any martial arts sensei, though I don’t think you’d find many others wearing masks. Her mask covers the top half of her face, letting her long, black hair flow over her shoulders. She takes great pains not to reveal her real name to anyone, so I know her only as others do, as White Tiger.

  Many suspect that White Tiger is a costumed crime fighter, but when I pose the question to her, she just laughs and says “Isn’t that illegal?” She began this studio four years ago, and it has since become one of the most lauded education programs in Brooklyn, and the only one that caters specifically to Enhanced Children (though all are welcome). When we get inside, she offers to let Antoinette change into her hero outfit. “This may be the only place in New York where being in a mask is less strange than being out of one,” she says. And she’s right. As she takes us around, I see that all of her students are masked.

  White Tiger turns over her class to a special guest: a superhero from Chicago

  named Dark Heart. I watch from the back of the room as she talks about dealing with crime on the street. She takes them through moves and holds that she uses in her work, and...is this really the same girl I met in Detroit three years ago? She is so at ease. So confident. She has truly come into her own, and it’s beautiful to see. The girl who once wondered if her life was beyond hope is now helping other Enhanced kids see that the opportunities are truly endless. Antoinette...Annie. She’s Annie to me now, and she has been for some time. Annie keeps on surprising me. She refuses to give in. She’s completely unwilling to be bested. As happy as she is right now, I wonder if this kind of work would be good for her in Chicago? Something to think about.

  Soon that class is over, and we look in on another class of younger students. White Tiger teaches this one.

  ANNIE: God, can you feel it? Look at them. That’s the future. We’re so far out from ‘77 now. I’ve never felt farther from it. I don’t want to be insensitive or anything. There was a tragedy. It was horrible. But what’s happening here is so far removed from that. I feel like there’s something being reborn right here. One day, there won’t be anyone around who really remembers what happened on that day. But I don’t even think we’ll have to wait that long to start seeing real change. We’re getting close to coming full circle. I can feel it. Can you imagine Can you imagine what it would have been like to grow up in the 50s? If you were Enhanced like these kids…like me…you could open up the newspaper and see real life heroes. The ultimate role models. In the 60s they were completely mainstream, working right alongside the police. Some kids dream of being astronauts or firemen...but for Enhanced kids like us, there’s no more exciting dream than being a superhero. Because the potential is there. And someone has the nerve to try and tell these kids that they shouldn’t have that dream? Forget that. Forget it. I’m here, and if I can do what I did...rising up out of nothing and doing what I can to make the world better...if I can do that, then anyone can. We’ll give

  these kids something to read about in the papers. We’ll give them heroes.

  There were dark days. There was tragedy. But the dark days are over, and the tragedy is long gone. We can’t let what happened all those years ago be the thing that defines us as a community. Not anymore. We are better than that. Stronger than that. Maybe we had to hide once. Bury our gifts. But just look. Look at these kids. In another decade, they are going to be the ones making the decisions and running the world. Do you know what can change in ten years? If I have
anything to say about it, the next generation is going to be one of heroes. Strong, capable men and women who use their gifts to make the world a better place. And when the next tragedy strikes, it’s going to be heroes who step up and make things right again. Society may have changed, but heroism has not. And in the end, that’s what really matters.

  September 11th, 2001: Meeting with RJ @ WTC - North

  On the morning of September 11th, 2001, my uncle was meeting with his agent, RJ Golden, at the office of the publisher that was handling this project at the time. The office was in the North tower of the World Trade Center. What happened that day is, of course, a matter of history. When the towers fell that day, 343 paramedics and firefighters, twenty-three NYPD officers, and thirty-four superheroes lost their lives. Most of the thirty-four Enhanced heroes were members of the Big Apple Supers, a not-for-profit that mostly mentored children. But on that day, they proved that the spirit of superheroism lives on, even in a time where it is not condoned.

  My uncle lived through that day, though Antoinette Cooper, who saved him, did not. The publisher he was working with was mostly wiped out that day, and my uncle never pursued the project professionally again.

  Many people do not understand the guilt of survivors. My uncle, and I through him, understand it all too well. To live through an event where so many others have died can be a truly horrible thing. Besides the PTSD that thousands of others walked away with that day, he also had to live with the knowledge that he was specifically chosen and taken out when others were not. For many, the pressure inherent in such knowledge is too much to bear. As it was for him.

  I don’t care to spell out the details of his life after that day. Suffice it to say, he could not come to grips with the complicated feelings that arose out of the event, and in 2003, he took his own life.

  I was close to my uncle as a child, but he grew distant from the family in the last years of his life. When he died, most of his possessions were willed to charity. A few boxes full of writings were willed to me, but I honestly didn’t want to look through them. It felt too much like snooping. But as I finally read through them, I realized that he had given this to me so that I might present it to others. This is the first time that the history of the Enhanced community has been documented on this kind of scale. And since many of the people my uncle interviewed have now passed away, this is the only written chronicle of many of their lives. As it was for him.

  Now, ten years after his death, I wonder what my uncle would think about how the world has turned out. I wonder what he’d think of the Taliban Sentinels. The Kreeg amendment. The drastic overhaul of Detroit, and the multitude of heroes that have come from it. In the last decade, it has felt like the entire world has shifted beneath our feet. And who knows what the future holds? As Antoinette said, do you know how much the world can change in ten years?

  Paul Cosca

  March 6th, 2013

  Paul Cosca is a writer, director, and actor living in the pacific northwest with his wife Briana. He graduated from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in Chicago. He is author of many plays, including the critically acclaimed Wolf. For more information, or to contact Paul, please visit his website at www.paulcosca.com