Big Superhero Action

by Raymond Embrack

  “You retarded or something?”

  The child stared at the floor.

  Motorchrist took out a cell phone.

  He said, “Her Blue Majesty. It’s Motorchrist.”

  He waited.

  He said, “Got a male child.”

  He waited.

  He said, “He looks like a retard or a mutant.”

  He waited.

  He turned the phone camera on Duff.

  He put the phone back to his ear.

  “Yeah.”

  He waited.

  “Today.”

  He waited.

  “Twenty.”

  He waited.

  “Fifteen.”

  He waited.

  “Fuck you—fifteen.”

  He waited.

  “Twelve.”

  He waited.

  “Yeah. We can do that.”

  He waited.

  “Yeah.”

  He waited.

  “Fuck it. Whatever he can out-run and kill.”

  He waited.

  “Right.”

  The call ended. Motorchrist grabbed Duff by the hair. The boy made a short whine.

  “You’ll be with us a while, kid.”

  38

  Manhattan, a bar at 61st and Madison. Nell Newport was doing Cosmos with Her Blue Majesty.

  HBM: “Did you hear about the Mortons?”

  Nell: “No.”

  “The Mortons have an eleven-year-old son. The son comes home one day with his teacher. His teacher is a hot babe. The teacher tells them the son has a crush on her. The teacher believes in supporting his early sexual development, so she creates a supportive environment by wearing bikinis with heels and letting him do whatever he wants with her. He fondles her large boobs, kisses her, molests her. The Mortons are so impressed with her commitment to the child, the whole family starts getting it on with her.”

  Nell made a face. “Does that sound out-of-bounds to you? Including your child in a world?”

  “It’s edgy.”

  “I’d be uncomfortable with that.”

  “Comfort isn’t the point.”

  “No?”

  “You can have art or you can have comfort.”

  “I’m on pins and needles.”

  “You’ll get through it,” HBM said.

  “I feel like I’m about to die.”

  “Feel it. Find the sex.”

  “I’ve never felt this much dread.”

  “I’m here for you, Nell.”

  Nell was wearing a tight long-sleeved black leather dress that ended at the very top of her thighs, nearly exposing her shaved pelvis. Her legs were bare above tall boots with six-inch heels. They left the bar, crossed the street. HBM’s hand clutched Nell’s as they passed Barney’s, entered an office building with a brown marble lobby.

  “God in heaven,” she muttered into Nell’s shoulder. Not many people around but a black water delivery guy was staring.

  “Remember that it isn’t you,” Her Blue Majesty told her. “It’s the world you’re playing. And it’s very expensive. Leave it all to your Blue Majesty.”

  “Oh God.”

  “I have to leave you now.”

  “Not yet.”

  “You have to be alone.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Find the sex, Nell. Have fun.”

  “You … “

  Her Blue Majesty headed for the exit, leaving Nell perched atop the heels, afraid to move. Two women passed behind her chattering in French.

  Nell prayed for a sudden death.

  A man in a dark suit appeared, headed toward Nell. When he reached Nell, he snagged her by the arm.

  He took her to a door marked Authorized personnel only, went through them into a white corridor, took her up the corridor. It was fine with her to be out of the lobby wherever they were headed.

  The man went to a door, took Nell inside. The room was an office, small, the walls in hard white paint. The man left, closed the door behind him.

  An older man in a cheap suit was waiting. The man was short and bony with dead eyes and sunken bony cheeks. He stared hard at Nell. Nell shrank under his stare. Then she corrected herself, raised her chin. Even adjusted for context, the situation still weighed too much, sinking her chin into her collar as her hands still tugged the dress downward.

  The man said, “What is your problem, Miss?”

  “I…uh …”

  “There are standards of public appearance.”

  “I know.”

  “Your private parts are exposed to public view.”

  “I…know … that.”

  “Then explain yourself, Miss.”

  “Well … oh, I … my … oh boy. Okay … I feel slightly dumb, right now. This is a lot to process. I can’t remember the script. Give me a moment. Sorry …”

  “Sit down,” he said.

  Nell went to a white vinyl chair, sat legs together.

  The man said, “Since you want to show your privates, open your legs.”

  Nell parted her legs.

  “Wider.”

  Nell spread her knees wider.

  “You must be some kind of freak,” he said. “What are you, an exhibitionist? Are you a pervert? What are you? You’re a perverted freak,” he barked, spittle hitting her face. “Say it!”

  “I’m a perverted freak!”

  “You’re a whore! Say it, whore!”

  “I’m a whore!”

  “Filthy whore freak!”

  Nell came apart, crying like a five-year-old.

  The man stood over her, foam collecting in one corner of his slack lips. He taunted her like a schoolboy. “Look at the crying whore! Keep your legs wide open, crying whore!”

  Nell kept her knees spread. The man knelt before her. He crawled in closer, until his face was an inch from her crotch. He leaned in until his lips touched her. Nell stopped sobbing. The tears passed, she was now watching the head between her thighs, the man’s unseen mouth performing oral sex on her. Performance was the word for it. It reminded her of a hard-core porn movie she’d watched in college once. She slid lower in the chair, legs widening until it strained her hips. It was already the best oral sex she’d ever had.

  The man set her on the desk, went back between her thighs mouth first.

  Her face upside-down, Nell looked up to where the naked little Down’s Syndrome boy in a dog collar knelt watching them. Neal Newport stood behind him watching, holding the dog collar. Neal was in a suit. Kneeling at his shoes, the boy was oddly grotesquely compelling, his eyes wide, taking her in breathing through his mouth like an animal.

  39

  Casey knew she could do it. The right song was a song from the future. It had no name. As it played the effect happened. The effect was cleansing. It was so pure and perfect it made her cry. She felt it everywhere and deeper than there was depth.

  She felt it cleanse away the corruption in layers that swirled around her in a chunky mist that faded to mist to spray. It was like standing in fresh spring rain. And it was wise and perfect and so beautiful it was unbearable. The mist swirled becoming vapor. Her vision became clearer through the vapor of what was becoming pure and healed.

  She felt Duff’s brain waking to its new self. His new intelligence and awareness rose to her fingertips. He was crying too and she spread his hot teardrops across his cheeks. The mist became dry clarity. It cradled him in his cleansed state. She stepped back hair in her eyes, exhausted from alien joy. The song ended. She turned off the Walkman, took off the earphones.

  Duff looked at her with a penetrating gaze, the brain behind it overwhelmed with itself, its receptors filling with consciousness then the world. His hands went to his mouth. His hands went to his skull, massaged it.

  Casey asked him, “What’s your name?”

  “Duff Nash,” he spoke clearly.

  “How do you feel?”

  He said, “How do I look?”

  “You look good.”

  “How…do…I…loo
k? How. Do. I. Look? How do I look? How do I look? What did you do, Casey?”

  “I made you not a retard.”

  “How?”

  “It’s the song. It’s a song from the future.”

  “What song?”

  “It doesn’t have a name yet. It’s European. Electronic.”

  “Where are we?”

  “I got us away from them.”

  “Away from who?”

  “Her Blue Majesty.”

  “The pretty blue hair woman?”

  “I escaped tonight and took you with me. I had you hang onto my back while I went out the window. You thought I was a theme park ride. I climbed down the wall of the building like a spider, jumped the rest of the way. We landed on the awning in front. I jumped down to the sidewalk. The doorman didn’t see us. Then we simply walked away.”

  “Her Blue Majesty,” he said.

  “She runs the sex division of the OSD. We were the only kids there. She kept you prisoner. She kept you in a cage like a dog.”

  “She made me do stuff.”

  “I know. She made us all do stuff. She used me for porn, she sold me for sex.”

  “What did she make me do?”

  “You don’t need to know, Duff.”

  She took him by the hand and took him along the beach.

  “Where are we going?” he said.

  “I’m taking you to a city orphanage.”

  “Are you going there too?”

  “No. I’m too old.”

  “I have Down’s Syndrome. My crazy uncle Luke the Baptist…he took me to this city, he was gonna get me cured.”

  “Guess he didn’t.”

  “We lived in West Virginia. Me and my Mom and Dad. Then my uncle stole me and took me here. He believed God lives here. He said God would cure me. In West Virginia he was into making meth. Here he got a house and had a meth lab.”

  “I never heard you talk so much, Duff.”

  “It’s like I know stuff now and I can say the stuff I know.”

  “What happened to the crazy uncle?”

  “He sold bad meth to the Motorchrists and they killed him. Then they sold me to Her Blue Majesty.”

  “You’ve had a hard life, Duff.”

  “You too, probably.”

  “I guess.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Egypt.”

  “Really?”

  “No. I’m from Texas.”

  “How’d you get here?”

  “I don’t know. I was moved from Texas when I was fifteen when I died.”

  “You died?”

  “What I know I know the same way I know what I dream was my dream. You just know.”

  Duff said, “I should call home.”

  “Okay. You should call them. But you can’t go home.”

  “Why not?”

  “If you do you’ll have Down’s again.”

  “How come?”

  “The healing only works when you’re here.”

  “Oh.”

  She had to gaze at him. He was so clean and innocent.

  He said, “Is that your superpower?”

  “I get stuff from the future.”

  “You get music from the future?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “I have another superpower. It’s…it sounds dumb.”

  “What is it?”

  “My…my looks…can addict people.”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “You’re a kid, you don’t get the effect. But it effects people like a drug.”

  “Wow. How does that work?”

  “I don’t know but it’s growing stronger. One day it will control people. Now imagine what Her Blue Majesty would do with that. She’d exploit the fuck out of it. She’d grind me into powder and bottle me as a new drink.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “You child. It’s the worst. Worse than being pimped and porned-out. She uses people up then kills them off. Then she would use you until you were too old to use. Then the OSD would kill you to save costs.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Now you’re getting it, Duff. But that won’t happen to us.”

  “What now?”

  “You go to an orphanage. Get in touch with your parents. See what happens.”

  “What about you?”

  “Me? I don’t know. Maybe I could be a superhero.”

  “Like one who’s beautiful?”

  “That is kinda lame, isn’t it? But if I leave town I go back to being dead. But here I can be a superhero.”

  “One who’s beautiful and hears music from the future?”

  “And can heal people to one song. Don’t forget that. That’s a legit superpower.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I have a name for my superhero.”

  “What?”

  “Teenage Cleopatra.”

  40

  Mmmmgghhh!

  Staring up at the plates JKM pictured Mmmmgghhh! in a speech balloon above his head. He was in Gold’s Gym bench pressing six hundred pounds. He held it for exactly four breaths then used his arms to resist gravity enough for the steel bar to not crush his face coming back down. The clank shook the bench. His guns fell to his sides blazing, the blowtorch shooting across his delts, searing every muscle above the waist. His lungs clawed at the oxygen. Six hundred was his personal max. For someone born with the name January Kosinski that was pretty fucking awesome. What he’d do post-op would be massive.

  He looked around at the hulks cranking iron. His connection worked out after three p.m., the guy who did his shooting-up in the right hip. There was no drug testing for superheroes.

  The Halo’s face popped over his sweaty one. There was the chance that she would find him at the gym.

  She said, “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. Forget it.”

  “I saw you on TV, you asshole. They said you did it.”

  “Whatever.”

  Now she was almost in tears.

  “What did you fucking do?” she said.

  “You told me to fuck off.”

  “What did you do?”

  He flexed his eight-pack, sat up on the bench, stood. The wetness of his back was even wetter than the bench, shorts drenched, even his bare feet leaving wet footprints.

  “I went into the club to find who hit you. I looked in the men’s room, found a dead guy. I called the police. Told them I did it.”

  “Why the fuck did you do that?”

  “Between the two of us, which one would survive better in prison? Three guesses. Not you. How do I know which prison they’d send us to? Would they send you to men’s prison because you have a wiener? Or me to women’s because I don’t? I’d do better in men’s than you would. I’d do better in women’s than you would in men’s. Fuck, I’d do better in women’s than you would in women’s.”

  Before him the Halo turned atop her high heels in a circle like a spastic Wonder Woman, flapped her arms, shook her head. Then she grabbed him by the skull. Hopelessly avoiding the sweaty spots, she wrapped her arms around him, choked him in her perfume. She kissed his cheeks, his lips, his forehead. It felt good. He didn’t know what to do so he kept talking.

  “I confessed to the killing. Then I pled guilty. Sort of. I pled not guilty so I could cop a plea. I got second degree murder. The judge gave me two years. I start serving in three months.”

  “You assumed I did it,” she said.

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You beat him to death.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How?”

  “With a beer bottle.”

  “Maybe you would do well in prison.”

  “You had my back all along. After the way I treated you. I’m so sorry I told you to fuck off.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t go in with you. It would’a never went down that way.”

  “At least it made me a hero for the first time.”

  He put a h
and under her fading black eye, gave her cheek a gentle caress. He almost admired her; he couldn’t remember his first time crushing an enemy.

  She pouted. “Now we’ll never get The Corpus.”

  He was thinking now. “Maybe The Corpus doesn’t watch the news.”

  She looked up. “You think?”

  “If you were The Corpus would you watch the news?”

  “Yeah. To see who needs his help.”

  “Fuck.”

  “But maybe he missed the story.”

  Two days later they found The Corpus on Lower Brutalia Avenue. He was sitting on a curb in a crunched Thinker pose. Across the street: fire trucks outside an apartment building spewing black smoke. The air was thick with the reek of burning building. The sight of flames was obscene, blackening three window frames. JKM was a man without fear but he in would no way have stepped one step closer to that building. Heights he could deal with, he sprung from rooftop to rooftop. He had zero claustrophobia, hid between the bricks in a brick wall and crawled up manholes. In NYC he had spent sewer surveillance up to his cape in sewer rats. He had been attacked by dogs and hit by cars. He had stopped knives and bullets. He had broken more bones than he could keep track. He had spent months on his back under needles and tubes. But fire was out. Even a barbecue grill freaked him out. Firemen were beyond his comprehension. With a twitch of his thick neck, that annoyed him.

  They squatted to either side of The Corpus and watched with him.

  Above his perched fist The Corpus’ chin started going up and down. “The building is empty. No one lives there. The building was torched by an OSD street gang for fun.”

  “Sociopathic baby creeps,” JKM said.

  “I only heal the body. The mind…that’s another superhero. The work is without end.”

  The Halo said, “How are you? You seem…disturbed somehow…”

  “There are things I pick up,” The Corpus began. “I have the luxury of collecting data without inventing the technology to collect it. Yet the mountain has to be climbed before one can reach the top. Science exists only to act out the truth. Ancient conversations are happening between here and the sun. We are still learning with each planet. Each one is different. Yet technology seeks to make us all the same. Everything is passworded and encrypted. People are over-teched. They mistake the toy for the function of play. They’ve lost the way. They need to be taken back to the elements. To retribution. To atonement. To abasement. To commitment. To obedience. And they want it. They seek it. They’ll always need somebody like me to give it to them.”