by James Maxey
“You don’t know us,” I said, looking at the glass of water he offered me. I was thirsty as hell, but wasn’t certain I wanted to drink anything he offered me. “Doesn’t the Bible say something about not judging others?”
“It does,” said the reverend. “But if I see someone about to jump off a cliff, I don’t have the right to sit back and watch without trying to stop them.”
“Jenny and I jump off high places all the time,” I said. “We’re superheroes.”
“Let’s ditch the metaphor. You should let Jenny go. You’re bad for her.”
I clenched my jaw, my brain kicking into overdrive with a million insults I could hurl at him. Then, with a sigh, my body slackened, and I said, “I know.”
“You know?” he asked.
I took the glass and drained it in one swallow. I sat it on the table and wiped my lips. “I’ve always known.” I took a long, slow, shuddering breath. “You’re right. I’m bad for her. I’ve tried… I’ve tried to…” My words failed me.
“You’ve tried to think about the future,” he said.
“I’m not real good at that,” I admitted. “I mean, ever since I escaped the Butterfly House, I feel like everything I’ve done has been a reaction to other people’s choices about what I should be. Chopper wanted me to be Monkey-Boy, so I was Monkey-Boy. Then I got my ass handed to me by a supervillain, and decided I was tired of being a boy, so I became Monkey-Man. Then I joined the Legion, and they wanted me to be Sock Monkey, and so I was Sock Monkey. Then, through no fault of my own, I turned into a monster. A Big Ape.” I shook my head. “I’ve never had a chance to be Harry Moreau. I’ve got no idea who he’s even supposed to be. A hero? A fugitive? What if I’d wanted something normal for life? I mean, I’m good with tools. But I can’t believe any garage in the world would hire me as a mechanic.”
“You aren’t the only person your age struggling to find an identity,” he said.
“Yeah. But I’m the only one who’s had to do it covered in fucking fur,” I said.
He didn’t scold me about my language. He said, “Whatever you think you are, whatever you become, I can tell you have a hero’s heart.”
I smirked. “I keep it in a jar hidden in my closet.” Then I sighed, and said, “What if Jenny one day wanted kids?” I tilted the glass, staring at my distorted reflections in the wet ice. “I don’t think I can father a child.”
“You mean biologically?” he asked.
“Biologically. Emotionally,” I said. “Hell, even financially. I mean, I made pretty good money from licensing deals while I was Sock Monkey, but those days are gone. The other beast men I met… they scavenge. They steal. I mean, they do honest work, too. They’ve got tunnels up to, like, a dozen rooftop gardens. They grow most of their own food. It’s like the secret Amish animal men of New York.”
“But you don’t see yourself as a farmer,” he said.
“Nor am I going to go out and start robbing stores in the dead of night.” I tilted back the ice and let a cube slide onto my tongue. It gave a satisfying crunch as I crushed it between my teeth. “I don’t know that I have a future, Reverend, that doesn’t involve either a cage or a casket. I don’t want to take Jenny down with me.”
“I know you don’t,” he said. “I didn’t bring up this topic because I wanted to fight. I brought it up because I could sense it was something that bothered you. I figured it was something you needed to talk through.”
I sat the glass back down. “So now we’ve talked. But… I can’t even imagine how I’ll ever break up with her.”
“Just be honest with her,” he said.
“I’m not worried about hurting her,” I said. “I mean, I don’t want to hurt her, obviously. But I still can’t imagine I’m ever going to have any variation of this conversation with her. I’m not brave enough. Never will be.”
“I watched you wrestle a mechanical t-rex all the way out of Manhattan,” said the reverend. “You’ve got more courage than you know, and Jenny’s tougher than you imagine.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But it’s not that I might break her heart. It’s not that my heart would break.” I looked him directly in the eye. “Rev, you’ll never understand. If I didn’t have Jenny… if I don’t have Jenny, I have nothing. Nothing at all.”
“You might feel that way now—”
“I do,” I said. “Which is why I’m not letting her go.”
Chapter Eighteen
A Place of Pain
AFTER THE REVEREND and I had our little chat, I went to the guest bedroom and took a long, hot shower. The rev’s solar water heater lasted the better part of an hour, but after that the water was pretty cold and I was all out of shampoo anyway.
Before my growth spurt, I’d use two or three towels to dry off after showering. As Big Ape, I need, like, twenty. The reverend’s house robots apparently hadn’t gotten that memo, so I left a sopping trail across my bedroom before throwing myself onto the bed buck naked, hoping the ceiling fan and the desiccating desert air would dry me before my skin turned itchy. I closed my eyes to rest a few minutes and woke in darkness. A quick glance at the bedside clock told me my nap had lasted six hours.
I sat up, scratching my chest, which itched both from going to sleep with damp fur and from all the scabs of my recent battles. I stared around the darkened bedroom, aware of the absence of Jenny. Had she not come home? I sniffed the air and caught the faintest trace of her scent. She must have popped into the room, found me sleeping, and left without wanting to disturb me. That was considerate of her, I guess, though she should have known I wouldn’t mind if she’d slipped into the bed beside me.
Of course, beside me isn’t really the way she normally sleeps. I take up a lot of the bed, and lots of time she sleeps on top of me, right in the center of my chest, like a cat or something. Maybe she’d seen my injuries and didn’t want to hurt me? Whatever. I missed her and wasn’t sure I could wait until morning to see her.
As hungry as I was to see her, I was even hungrier for a sandwich. When I’d first gotten to the ranch, I’d been so hot and thirsty that I hadn’t bothered to eat. Now, I hoped I’d find an entire roasted pig waiting for me in the refrigerator. Though, two seconds after that image popped into my head, the image of the pig-boy I’d met among the new-men crept into my brain. Damn it, I’d better not see his face every time I got hungry for a BLT. Fortunately, all the new-men were hybrids of mammals. With any luck, the reverend would have some fried chicken in the fridge.
I walked on all fours down the hall to the kitchen, my back hurting too much to bother with walking upright. The lights were on and I heard what sounded like a washing machine. I vaguely remembered noticing a laundry room just off the kitchen. Maybe the robots were washing more towels. Before I reached the kitchen, above the smell of detergent I caught a familiar scent. Jenny!
I entered the kitchen and found her sitting at the table, pouring a glass of milk. She looked up at me as I came into the room, her expression utterly neutral. I smiled broadly, happy to see her, but my smile faltered for the briefest instant as I absorbed the changes in her appearance. Ever since I’d been with her, Jenny had been in a punk phase, with a wardrobe of about a hundred black t-shirts adorned with band names or sarcastic quips and skinny black jeans with an equal ratio of holes to fabric. She had studs and hoops stuck through every part of her face it was fashionable to pierce.
Tonight, all her piercings had been removed. Her hair was still boyishly short, but combed neatly. Weirdest of all, she was wearing a cotton dress with pale blue and white checkers, like something you might see on a farmer’s wife in a movie.
She stared at me for a moment without speaking. I could tell she was studying me as I absorbed all the changes in her.
“You, um, undercover?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I’m glad you’re back. I was worried about you.”
“You talk to the reverend yet?” I asked. “He tell you what I found out?”
She nodded.
“You’re going to chase down Technosaur and rescue your mother.”
“Yep,” I said, then tilted my head slightly. “You said you.”
“Yes?”
“Not we?”
She turned her head slightly away, looking toward the laundry room, where the washing machine was whirring loudly through a spin cycle.
“I… I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“I think it would be a great idea,” I said. “I mean, this is right in your skill set. First, we’re going to sneak in, and you’re great at sneaking. Then we’re going to hit Technosaur hard and fast and take her out, and you’re great at that sort of fast, aggressive fighting as well. You can melt her whole robo-army to slag.”
A pained expression flickered across her face. “The reverend has the right arsenal for the job,” she said. “And it sounds like his jet’s going to be pretty full. He says you’ve got two animal-girls coming with you.”
I crossed my arms. “Is that what this is about?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did the reverend tell you about Sasha?”
“The gorilla girl?”
“You really don’t have a thing to worry about,” I said.
She tilted her head. “You think I’m jealous?”
“I—” I shut my mouth, realizing that question could get me into a lot of trouble no matter how I answered it. I finally decided on, “You really don’t have any reason to be.”
“I’m not jealous,” she said. “I know you love me. I trust you.”
“Good,” I said. “So what’s the problem?”
“I—” Now it was her turn to pause as she considered her words. “I’m busy.” Just then the washing machine stopped.
“Busy?” I asked, as she rose and headed for the laundry room.
“Since I got back, I’ve been helping out at the reverend’s church,” she said.
“Doing what?”
“A little of everything,” she said. “They run a shelter out of the basement. A family just arrived last night. And when I say family, I mean, like, a village. Three grandparents, an aunt, the husband and wife, and twelve kids, though they’re not all siblings. Some are cousins. They were being smuggled across the border by a coyote whose truck broke down. He went off saying he was going to get help, and three days later he hadn’t returned. The reverend spotted the truck while he was flying back from Dallas with some supplies. Another day and they might have died. They were completely out of water.”
“So they’re illegals?” I asked. “Shouldn’t they be turned over to the border patrol?”
She shook her head as she pulled clothes out of the washing machine and started transferring them to the dryer. “They come from an area where the Mexican government is more or less in all-out war with one of the drug cartels. The father let the cartel use part of his land for growing drugs, but for some reason the cartel thinks the father has been a snitch for the government.”
“Was he?” I asked.
“Who cares?” she said. “They were going to kill him. If he ran alone, they’d kill his family to teach him a lesson. That’s why the whole family had to run, and why we need to shelter them.”
“Assuming any of this is true,” I said. “Maybe it’s a story they made up to keep from getting sent back.”
She narrowed her eyes as she kept pulling clothes from the washer. “As someone on the run from the law yourself, you might be a little more sympathetic.”
“Sorry,” I said. “You’re right.” I took note of the clothes she was stuffing into the dryer, small jeans and shirts, kids’ stuff.
“Are you doing their laundry?” I asked.
“These are clothes members of the church have donated,” she said. “All of it was clean already, but we still have to wash it one more time before giving it to the family. There’s a washer and dryer at the shelter, but there’s enough clothes there to keep it going for a week.”
“So you’re not going to help us fight Technosaur because you’re busy with laundry?”
Her shoulders sagged. She kept her eyes on the dryer as she turned some knobs. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
“It’s just, you know, there are a lot of people in the world who can wash clothes,” I said. “Not as many people can melt robots by cussing at them.”
She started the dryer and came back into the kitchen. “You hungry?” she asked.
“Jesus Christ, yes,” I said. “But, um, not for bacon.”
She raised one eyebrow quizzically as she went to the refrigerator. “How about some red beans and rice? Emily made some for dinner.”
“Does it have sausage in it?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said.
Sorry, pig-boy, I thought. “Sounds good.”
“I don’t expect you to understand, but I’m done,” she said as she pulled out the Tupperware container.
“Done?”
“With violence,” she said.
“Um, that’s kind of part of a superhero’s job,” I said.
“Then I’m done being a superhero,” she said.
“Ah,” I said. “Why?”
“Because I don’t think that’s what God put me on earth to do,” she said.
“Since when do you care about what God wants?”
“I’ve cared for a long time,” she said. “When I went to church with the reverend, I finally heard stuff I needed to hear. Things that I’d heard before, but never really understood.”
“Great,” I said.
“Great?”
“I’m happy for you,” I said. “Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve been working through all your emotional trauma. You were dealing with the effects of brainwashing, of mind-control, of the Butterfly House, and underneath all that still trying to process the terrible stuff that happened to you as a child.”
“The sexual abuse,” she said.
“You think I don’t know all the pain you carry around?”
“How can you not?” she asked. “You’ve seen me at my angriest. You know the dark places I go to when I’m screaming at people, burning them.”
“And doesn’t that screaming help? You can’t keep all that pain bottled up.”
“I don’t want to keep it bottled up,” she said. “I want to turn it into something else. Instead of anger, I want it to be empathy. I want it to motivate me to help others through their pain.”
“You already do that,” I said. “I’d be a mess without you.”
She smiled gently. “You’re so good to me, Harry. Honestly, I might have killed myself if you hadn’t joined the Legion so soon after the Victorian messed with my head. You’ve been the best part of my life.”
“But you’re still haunted,” I said.
She nodded.
“Look, I’m glad you think the church can help you,” I said. “I mean, I want you to be happy. Whatever works for you, I’ll support it.”
“I don’t think the church can help me,” she said. “I know it can. I know it has.” She put the bowl into the microwave and set the timer. “The first time I went to church with the reverend, I looked around and saw all the other women. Some were older, some were younger, but all of them looked happy.” She picked up her glass of milk. “Happy not in a surface way. There was something deeper going on.”
“You think Stacey is happy?”
She frowned.
“I’m not trying to argue with you but I really don’t see Stacey smile very often.”
“He’s got a lot on his shoulders,” she said.
“He thinks he’s doing the Lord’s work,” I said. “He thinks the Lord answers his prayers for peace by filling him with righteous anger.”
“The reverend knows what’s in his heart,” she said.
“And right now what’s in his heart is the need to go hunt Technosaur. If God wants him to go, why not you?”
“I need you to respect my choice,” she said. “I don’t want to fight anymore. I never, ever, want to set
another person on fire.”
“How about robots?” I said.
“I don’t want to use my powers anymore, period,” she said. “I don’t want to cuss anymore.”
“Oh Lord,” I said, rolling my eyes despite myself.
“All that bad language came from a place of pain,” she said. “Every minute of my waking life, those words screamed inside my skull. Shouting them didn’t get rid of them. It just amplified them. They took over my whole personality, defining who I was. I mean, my superhero identity is just my name with the word ‘screaming’ in front of it.” The microwave beeped. “Volunteering at the shelter… helping people who really need help… that’s made the voices fall silent.”
“The Lord gave Reverend Rifle a good eye and a steady hand so he shoots bad guys. The Lord gave you the ability to set people on fire with a few choice words. Isn’t it a sin not to use the power he gave you?”
“Don’t pull that on me, Harry,” she said, taking the bowl of red beans and rice from the microwave.
“Pull what?”
“Pull the whole ‘what the Lord wants’ card.”
“You’re the one who brought it up!”
“Yes. And I’m the one struggling with her choices, because I’m the one who believes that there is a God, and that he has a plan for me. You don’t believe.”
“I…” I crossed my arms. “I don’t. You’re right.”
“When you were in foster homes, you never went to church?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said. “When I was, like, eight. And my foster father at the time used to beat me with a belt, until I smashed his fucking face.” I clenched my jaw, fighting back the anger that swelled inside me with the memory. My eyes went wide. “Holy shit,” I whispered. “You told me your father was really religious, and he abused you.”
“Those two facts have nothing to do with each other,” she said.
“I would think they have everything to do with each other.”
“My father lost the battle with his demons,” she said. “That isn’t a reason to reject religion. If anything, it’s a warning to embrace it.”
“You honestly think demons caused your father to abuse you?”
