True Heroes

by Gann, Myles

  True Heroes

  By

  Myles Gann

  True Heroes

  “To Carol and Alice, you know who you are.”

  Prologue

  June 6th, 2007

  “I hope you’ve heard this story before. I hope it is engrained into your senses. I hope you have learned everything you could possibly learn from it, and that you will hear it again simply for the entertainment. Those that have known it know it is not a short story. It is simple, and it is apparent. They would have you believe otherwise. Those that have heard it before would want it to dance, to sing, to juggle and cavort, but they do not know this story. We have lived this story and have never known. We have always known the truth, but never been able to grasp it. Everybody has heard it, but nobody is ever known for it.

  “This is the story we need to hear. I truly hope you have heard this before, but perhaps it is for the best that you have not. Here is what’s wrong, what’s right, and what the world truly is….”

  Chapter 1

  April 14th 2001

  There was a high-pressure system over the north-east United States. Anyone not looking at a weather map could tell this simply by looking at the streets. The sidewalks were trampled by feet towards each of the shaded horizons with one of infinite motivations driving them. Waves of sun catalyzed the incandescent march forward in melodically and systematically diverse ways. Thump, thump, thump; thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump; thump…thump. The symphony of the walkway greeted each individual conductor in their harmonic journey as the sun, still young in the annals of space, hadn’t yet broken the second trimester of its gloriously long life.

  Audrey Whitmor sat in the kitchen of her cramped home while awaiting the arrival of her son at the table. Her hands barely kept themselves still as they filled with an anxious fear that this would finally be the morning when her son didn’t make it to the table; that she would finally wander into his tiny room and find him sleeping entirely too long. She glowered at the filled coffee cup in front of her, shining within a beam of the intruding sun that weaved through the thin drapes covering the lone window. A glance at the lightly-paneled doorway her baby Caleb would be walking through at sometime aroused her distaste for the utter contrast of color with the furniture within the small room, and distracted her from her worry. From the brown refrigerator her husband said he’d found behind a church, hence the yellow cross painted on the door, to the disastrous green table her cup sat on which could topple over if the wind ever blew hard enough through an open window. The stained countertop barely hung from a hinge on the wall next to the sagging structure the family used as a sink. With the single pipe twisting into the one square of bare cement floor, the dripping water hardly ever found the proper path back to the grounding. The entire experience of the room left a bad film on Audrey that lessened her shine everywhere she went.

  She slung her eyes to the sideways wrist watch next to her cup and could hardly keep from yelling out her son’s name. Little Caleb was constantly reshuffled and tested from the smallest experiences, and her instincts rebelled constantly. A couple of nervous taps of her long fingernails later, she stood and retied her powder-blue robe before pouring her coffee down the drain in favor of a glass of orange juice from the fridge. Her eyes caught herself in the mirror next to the freak refrigerator and she was, for the first time in a while, pleased with how she looked in the morning. Her brown hair wasn’t its usual, untamed self and her still relatively young face looked well rested. It wasn’t that she felt older than her thirty-one years allowed, but she had to stay up with Caleb until he fell asleep and even later to see her husband get home on a nightly basis, increasing the strain that much more. She had to see him whenever she could to keep the rocky marriage on track, but she was very happy it was this way. Caleb didn’t need to follow the path his father had during his tumultuous youth.

  Caleb strode into the room as happy as any normal kid would be at his age. “Will you pour me some juice, Mom?”

  She let those thoughts pour out as the juice from the container filled her beautiful son’s glass. “You ready for school today, sweetie?”

  Caleb nodded happily, his eyes of soft, illuminous blue showing sparkles of excitement. He picked his homework off the wobbly table and threw it into his backpack. “You’re going to pick me up today, right?”

  Her smile faded and she shook her head in disappointment. “No, baby, Mommy has to work late today, so you’ll have to take the bus.”

  A pained look shrouded over the sparkles that had previously lit up the room. “But there’s weird people on the bus, an-and the kids that don’t take the bus make fun of the kids that do take the bus.” His eyes shifted, obviously searching for some other possibility to avoid the coming conclusion. “Can’t Daddy just come to get me?”

  Her heart sank at Caleb’s sudden dismay and a full, calculated pause separated thoughts from words for a few minutes. Audrey knew how easily Caleb could ignite during arguments. He didn’t throw tantrums or cry, but something grabbed a hold of him and caused him to be excessively violent and strong. His fist had gone through a wall when he was merely six, and more recent incidents had seen skateboards and bicycles snapped at critical spots. That condition kept both of the men in her life at polar ends from one another, never to come together as long as she could help it. It was a glass floor when it came to telling either Caleb or his father too much about one another. Thomas Fink, the family physician and long-time friend, had assured her it would all work itself out when Caleb matured, but she had to be extremely careful until then for her own safety. Just the thought of the man she’d married sent her down a slide of complicated emotions that never seemed to end. Her husband was someone she knew she’d never be able to actively leave, but the balance had to be there; every missed event, mysterious gift, and subtle drop of love had to be perfected, or it simply wouldn’t work.

  She moved from the table and walked around to him while taking his small hand within hers. “Baby, Daddy has to sleep because he worked hard last night, again. You can ride the bus this last time. I promise I will do what I can to make sure I come get you from now on, even if I have to skip out of the diner early.”

  He smiled up at her, showing a glimpse of what she hoped was a future of charm and class, just like his father. He had been such a bad-ass all through college and through the beginning of their marriage, but Caleb’s birth changed him. His main argument had been that money was tight already and a baby would obviously exacerbate the problem further. Now, the only reason he came home, besides to sleep, was to drop off a few things co-workers didn’t want anymore. The refrigerator wasn’t the only thing he’d brought home, and she wasn’t entirely sure how these things helped them make ends meet.

  It was hard, and heartbreaking, keeping Caleb from wanting to love his father, but, with what they had both become, that distance was needed. “Yeah, yeah, I know.” He slid his chair away from the table and scooped up his backpack and began to walk over to where his shoes sat. “It’d just be nice to see him while he’s awake for a change.”

  Audrey looked after him as he walked out the door, thinking with an almost disgusted feeling, and not for the first time, that life would be so much simpler if her boy weren’t so special.

  - - -

  Caleb flipped another page in his Superman comic book, eagerly pinpointing the next panel and taking in the entirety of the impact it had on what he’d previously read. He smiled slightly at the quip in the panel and glanced around to make sure nobody had seen him smile. It was bad enough that he owned more comic books than anyone else he knew, making everyone assume he was a comic book nerd, and he surely didn’t need anything confirming that. ‘Remember when Stephen caught you last? He ruined like ten of them in the toilets.�
�� In truth, he’d never spent a cent on them, each subsequent issue a new gift from his mother. She would always hand him new stacks of them and say, “Here’s some new superhero comics for my little superhero!” ‘I love all the colorful panels that I can close my eyes and imagine later. Why does Mommy always gives me these? I guess I don’t care why she does it. They’re the best stories ever.’

  The bus squealed to a halt a few blocks before Caleb’s stop and let a brother-and-sister couple off. He leaned his head against the window. ‘Look at those two kids with their parents. All four look so happy. The mom swinging the daughter around while the dad flies the boy on his shoulder…that just seems right. All those smiles and laughs… I don’t care how young I am; I see that and I know in my heart that’s how everybody should be, always. Then why doesn’t Dad love me like that? Mommy says he’s with me in spirit, whatever that means, but he’s not with either of us at home. He keeps me in school and the house standing, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wanna see him.’

  Another squeal from the bus’ tires sounded terrible sounds in front of his stop. He threw his comic back into his pack and walked through the aisle. ‘Eyes forward, stare through the front windshield. Distracted—focus outside the windows and on the ceiling. No eye contact. Nobody here cares you’re getting off the bus. Oh crud! You hit her with your pack.’ “Sorry.”

  His walk continued until he came to the open steps out of the bus, which he jumped down in one hop. When he landed, it started to happen again. Not as much as it had before, but for a few seconds, he felt his muscles tighten and grow, the world’s offering to his senses became much more intense, and his eyes brightened their already brilliant blue color. Every thought flowed through his mind quicker and every step was made with the echo and grace of a giant amongst a village. The entire world, for those few seconds, was stripped down to its most basic ideas and motions where only Caleb could reign.

  Those seconds passed as he walked along and everything returned to normal, but such a quick transition sent his head spinning. The usual headache was worse as he stumbled away from the moving bus, drawing a concerned stare from a sixth-grade girl glancing out the window. He continued to stumble until he ran into a shady tree, which he sat beneath in an effort to regain himself. The cool shade helped the headache as he closed his eyes and started to take in the air deeply. ‘Again with that crazy feeling. I love how it makes everything better, but I hate how it takes everything away from me. The world looks golden, all the pretty waves slithering through the air….’ He tried to open his eyes but the mixture of opening them and looking up shot a spear of pain through his skull. ‘I wonder if that’s how the world really is.’ A sudden shadow covered his body. The local bully and his gang were looking down on him as they would a dog they were about to kick. ‘Twice in one week. Did I do something wrong?’ Stephen Cole peered down from the center of the tiny group and spoke louder than the rest. “Look at this brat! I didn’t think they let trash wander this far away from the dump.”

  Caleb sighed. ‘What is it between us? Is he totally jealous of me? I’m ten and in the same fifth-grade classes as you. Does that embarrass you? Two years older than me and you think you deserve more? What right do you have to make fun of me at all? Even if you do, how can I help that I’m sick, or skinny, or poor? It’s the opposite of you; you’re overweight, tear the sleeves off nice shirts and wear them around, and your big arms make sure that no one can argue with your power. Other people make fun of me too, but there is just something really nasty about you. You go out of your way to make people sad and to rub their faces in the smallest weakness that they’re not guilty for. There’s no justice, not even a good reason for that. Maybe that’s why I can’t stand you.’

  The boys were still chuckling over what Stephen had said as Caleb responded. “Yeah, and you have plenty of room to talk. Neanderthals like you have to make fun of smaller kids to make yourself feel better.”

  Caleb’s face must’ve contorted a little as Stephen smiled and added, “Aw did I hurt the little baby’s feelings? Too bad. The truth hurts doesn’t it? If you go back to your dump home back in the hole you belong in, then we’d never have to smell your trashy stench again!”

  His blood started to pump a little faster as Caleb’s fist clenched. That gigantic feeling was starting to amplify his vision and body again, but he didn’t want it to. Even as Stephen grabbed Caleb’s collar and slowly lifted his weight from the ground, his thoughts screamed control. ‘No, keep it inside…but I can feel what it wants to do. These guys have always tried to hurt me and others. I could stop it, I bet. I could beat them and that’d fix everything. If it didn’t, I’d be just as bad as them.’ While lifting him, Stephen’s grin turned into a grim line of shock as Caleb’s eyes began to light up as they had before and his fingers curled into his hand as tightly as they could.

  “Hey! Put him down, moron!”

  That shout broke the haze in his mind and Caleb’s feet almost instantly touched the earth again. The feminine voice continued to talk and move closer but Caleb couldn’t make out what she was saying anymore simply because he had looked at her face and was frozen. Her actual name was Carol. He turned away before she could notice his staring. Her usually angelic voice continued to raise its volume and become increasingly accusatory towards the bunch of bullies, most of whom were almost cowering from her. ‘I guess they’re smart enough to know that messing with her meant messing with her boyfriend, and he’s really crazy.’

  She continued to tell them off as they walked away with their heads hung. Once they were out of earshot, Carol turned towards Caleb as he was trying desperately to erase what blush was left in his cheeks and asked, “Those idiots didn’t hurt you, did they?”

  “N-no, they couldn’t hurt me if they tried.”

  His macho routine mixed with the stammer made her smile a little as she unwrinkled his jacket sleeves and shirt. ‘What the heck are you doing? Don’t mess this up.’ Her hand rubbed against his bare skin and sent a warming wave of confusion throughout his body. ‘Girls are weird, but that still feels really, really good,’ he thought. “You should be more careful with how you insult Neanderthals like him. I won’t always be around to save your little hide.”

  Caleb smiled, glad to feel some of the tension within him go away, and responded, “Hehe. Funny thing is I called him the same thing. I’m not sure he knows what that word means.”

  She laughed a sweet laugh that had the same harmonic perfection as some people did when they sang their hearts out. He watched with amazing interest as her hand moved her bangs out of her face and uncoiled slowly back down to her side. Such a simple motion was made elegant with her as the medium, and Caleb couldn’t turn away. Her voice broke his haze of interest slightly. “So, um, what was up earlier when you got off the bus? You looked pretty dizzy or something with all that stumbling you were doing.”

  The memory of those few seconds when he had no control sobered him of her infectious drug immediately. ‘I can’t ever forget about those times I lost control and hurt something.’ “It’s kinda weird. I’m not entirely sure what it is, but it happens sometimes just when I run around a lot, or when I get upset.”

  She smiled slightly despite his seriousness. “Well, I think you should try to describe it for me. Please?”

  Caleb may as well have been putty in her hands; she could’ve asked him to go play in the middle of the street and all Caleb would’ve wondered is what game she meant. Because of this, his mind wouldn’t think for him. Words, however, found a way to roll off his tongue as if they were coming from another, living, thinking part of his body. “When that happens to me, it feels like someone has taken a blindfold off my eyes. Like I can finally see the world for what it really is and what happens behind what I see every day. I feel like I can reach those things through my strength and vision alone, but like I said, I have no idea why it’s like that.”

  Caleb allowed his eyes to wander for a bit before looking back up to Carol. He noticed
her surprise was like she hadn’t expected such a scenic answer from someone his age and she couldn’t quite articulate an answer to follow it. Her green eyes seemed lost at sea—not entirely sure how to proceed with the conversation while seemingly probing his soul for truth and validity. She blinked away their eye contact and responded finally. “Wow that sounds like something anybody would want to experience. How about you show me sometime?”

  “Um, well, um, maybe when I figure out how it works—”

  “Caroline Allison Edwards! In this house, now!”

  An older lady sporting an incredibly bright blue Moo-Moo with neon-color flower patterns was waving and shaking her hand from one of the sardine-packed houses across the street. Carol seemed a bit embarrassed—‘Irritation and fidgety hands,’—by her calling, but Caleb couldn’t appear happier to divert attention away from his stammering words. She waved a little and readjusted her backpack before addressing Caleb again. “I guess I’ll see you at school sometime, Caleb.” ‘She knows my name? How’d that one happen?’ She turned and ran off towards her impatient caller as Caleb stayed in that question until after she’d gone. “Hey Caleb!”

  He spun on his heels at Carol’s heavenly tone. “Yeah?”

  “When you figure out that feeling, I’m the first one you tell, okay?”

  Caleb smiled a different kind of smile, not fueled by a chuckle or a passing necessity, but given a sole purpose by the happiness he felt over her even wanting to talk to him. ‘I don’t remember my face ever hurting when I smile.’ “You got it!”

  Another smile—‘Mine must’ve looked like that a moment ago,’—and she turned to run to her waiting relative. ‘She even runs elegantly.’ He quickly spotted the origin of squealing tires down the street. ‘The driver’s not stopping. Stop. Carol, stop.’ She noticed the car—‘Thirty feet away now,’—and froze like the most beautiful deer. Caleb’s eyes widened, like anyone’s would, but also adopted something that was all his own. ‘No! Everything stop! Jump out of the….’ The internal sirens of his mind and heart, sudden clenching of his stomach, and building grief started to calm and muffle, his teeth and fists started to resume their normal posture, and the blue of his eyes ignited into a powdery azure flame, glowing eerily bright.