37
There is a knock at Nancy Cathall’s apartment window. She thinks, perhaps, she has imagined it. It’s nearly noon and she has been up and all night chasing down the story of the dinosaur-riding apes that turned out to be an illusion of some new villain named Fake Out. She has filed six different stories with The Daily Rebel, determined to show up Kira Endrich who has not let up on her since Lazlo was arrested in the middle of class. She knows Kira is still out there, still chasing the Kid Rapscallion story, still looking for Vegas’ hero to get his side of the story, but Nancy has come to realize that Kira simply wants this story more than she does, and so she had gone home to go to bed and sleep the rest of the day away.
The knocking persists, however, so she opens her curtains and finds a badly injured Kid Rapscallion standing on her fire escape. Eyes wide open and adrenaline ripping through her body, Nancy opens the window and catches him as he falls into her small apartment.
“What …?”
Kid Rapscallion leans on her and lets him lead her to a chair at her kitchen table.
Nancy stands next to him, her mouth finding itself unable to give voice to the right question, so all she mutters is, “What happened?”
Kid looks up at her, peels off his domino mask, and asks, “Are you ready to be famous?”
38
THE DAILY REBEL
KID RAP SAVES CITY!!!
AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THE
MAN WHO SAVED LAS VEGAS
Nancy Cathall
At 10:18 last night, the first dinosaur was spotted on our city’s famous strip. Within moments, panic gripped locals and tourists alike as the dinosaurs and their gorilla riders began terrorizing the city.
Except it was all an illusion.
Only one man understood that it was all fake, and that man was Kid Rapscallion, Las Vegas’ new protector.
It has been a sometimes rocky two months for the Kid, but after his victory over Fake Out, a new villain of unknown identity or origin, locals have been quick to heap praise on the young hero.
“He’s the best,” Carson Cuellers, owner of the Grand Vegas, said. “The best. He can stay in the nicest suite in my hotel anytime he wants. He saved this city billions, so it’s the least the Grand Vegas can do to honor him!”
When this reporter caught up to Kid Rapscallion at Mercy Me Hospital, where he was visiting kids who had been injured in the panic of Fake Out’s illusion, he was hesitant to talk, but agreed to a short interview in order to help the public understand what happened.
“The first thing that needs to be made clear,” Kid Rapscallion said, “is that Fake Out is in custody at the Stockade, where she will be held until trial.”
On the identity of Fake Out and why she had placed the city under a mass illusion, Kid Rapscallion was forthright in his answer. “The Revolutionaries know who she is,” he explained, “but they are holding her identity until trial, as is standard procedure. As for the reasons why she did what she did, after apprehending her in the Grand Vegas’ security room, she revealed to me that she did this as an attempt to earn a performers’ contract with one of the local casinos. I do not consider her a threat, and the Revolutionaries agree with this assessment.”
When I pressed Kid Rapscallion on further details, he insisted that he had other hospitals to visit, but that he would provide me with further details later this week. Stay tuned to the Daily Rebel for future details about Kid’s first major victory since arriving from San Francisco.”
PART
THREE
2015
1
I can’t sleep.
Being back in Vegas, seeing Nancy, and thinking of everything that went down here during my three years as the city’s hero has unsettled me more than I thought it would. I hate being back. I told myself I could go back whenever I wanted to, but I’m as good at convincing myself I wasn't worried about coming back as I was at believing I wasn’t an addict.
I try to turn in early because time always passes faster when you’re old cold, but after an hour of tossing and turning and it still only being 10:47, I figure I might as well get up and go do something.
I decide to work out, which I know is a terrible idea, but maybe if I huff and puff for 30 minutes I’ll tire myself out enough to pass out in lieu of falling asleep. What I really want to do is snort a big bag of coke and drift away to oblivion, but without my superpowers, cocaine affects my physiology just like everyone else. The reason I did so much coke when I was Kid Rapscallion was because it helped me forget all the stuff that was going on in my life. It evened out the steroid serum I was taking, but I’d have to do ten to fifteen times the amount of cocaine a normal person would to get the same response, so it was much less addictive.
Or so I always told myself.
2
When I hit the gym there’s a kid sitting on a bench over by the dumbbells, playing with his PlayStation Vita and oblivious to the rest of the world. I get a sudden urge to call Melody, but that risks getting the courts involved, and I damn sure don’t need a new arrest of my record.
I stay on the other side of the gym from the kid and his too-loud machine and start doing a series of leg presses, starting with the lowest weight and advancing to bigger weights after a set of ten presses. I’m soon out of breath and ready to quit, when the door opens and a voice I did not want to hear enters.
“I’ll be buggered by a bettlejack,” a loud, friendly voice calls out. “How ya doing, Jason?”
I finish the last press and swing my legs off the side of the bench. A tall, thin, black man with short, green hair reaches out a hand and I take it, even though I know it’s going to hurt. “If it isn’t my favorite Black Martian,” I smile back, wincing at the power of his grip. “How’s it hanging, Ro’meo?”
“Good, good,” he smiles. “Nancy said you were in town.”
“Were you able to follow what she was saying with all the expletives she laid in?”
“Nah, she didn’t swear,” he says. “Cory was there.”
“Cory?” I ask, momentarily confused. “Oh, right. Her son. Well, your son, too, right.”
“Right,” he says and the smile diminishes just enough for me to see it.
“Pity about the green hair,” I say. “Well, I mean, it looks good on you, but … yeah, pity about the kid’s helmet, yeah? A kinetic helmet, Nancy called it? Must be hard for the kid.”
Ro’meo’s eyes go wide and he starts to laugh. “Oh, Jesus, she really told you all that? I thought she was kidding. Good God, Jason, you really do get under her skin, don’t you?” He looks across the room to where the kid is still blissfully playing a video game. “Cory, come here, son, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
3
He’s just a normal kid. Sure, he’s got some Martian DNA in him, but Nancy apparently made Ro’meo use some kind of genetic suppression birth control that prevents most non-similar DNA from being passed on to kids.
Think about the scientific genius that went into that bit of science.
But we can’t cure hunger or poverty.
Superheroes, yeah?
4
“I’m a probability analyst,” Ro’meo explains. I’m back at Diner 1950 for the second time tonight, though MARILYN is nowhere in sight. The whole place — including the staff — looks like it was pulled out of the 1950s and plopped down on the first basement floor of the Grand Vegas because someone decided tourists wanted to come to Las Vegas to eat at a restaurant from sixty years ago. Our waitress is dressed as Jumpsuit Elvis because Las Vegas, but she’s cute (if a little chubby), looks a bit like Duplication Girl, and spends most of her time at our table looking at me instead of Ro’meo or even Cory. I spend most of my time trying not to make eye contact. I would comment on all of this, except that Ro’meo is paying for the meal and I don’t want to upset him.
“I don’t know what that means,” I say, seeing no point in pretending otherwise. Cory sits next to his dad, looking very much like any other kid on the planet with a blac
k dad and a white mom. He’s been forced to put his GameBoy away, but that was only a problem until the french fries and mint chocolate shake came.
“Back in my old life I was employed by my government to assess the probability of Earth-based threats,” Ro’meo explains. “Whenever we’d get a blip from Earth about the return of a villain or the emergence of a new hero, I’d assess whether that blip was a threat we needed to be concerned with or not.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask. “What was your assessment of me?”
Ro’meo shrugs. “Don’t know. You weren’t analyzed by my office. I worked in Conflict Analysis, mostly.”
“That doesn’t even sound like a real job.”
Ro’meo smiles. I’d only ever met him a few times, as his relationship with Nance was starting back when mine was ending, but I find he's a likable guy. He’s certainly got all the traits I lack: dependability, boringness, and a firm grasp of who he is and what he wants. I suppose Nancy deserves someone like him over me, and I don’t say that out of pity. I have no interest in settling down and having kids. Jula and I gave it a go, of course, but I could never get past the original fact that Nancy and I were using each other: her to get ahead in her career and me to make sure my side of the story was always told to the public.
It wasn’t until that damn Kira Erdrich figured everything out that our lives went to hell.
Ro’meo finishes chewing a large bit of burger. “Let’s say the 20-Sided Dice —”
“Ugh,” I say, pushing an image of Melody out of my head, “remember when they tried to go by the name Ico … Inky … what the hell was it?”
“Icosahedron,” Ro’meo smiles. “So, let’s say 20-Sided Dice gets in a fight with Lee O. Pard in Reno. It was my job to determine the probability of that fight spilling into Martian territory, either directly or as an eventual consequence.”
“20SD and Pard?” I laugh. “Not very likely, I bet.”
“You’d bet wrong, then,” Ro’meo explains. “10 was a Purple Martian.”
I blink. “Get out. Really? Huh. I never knew. They liked to keep themselves all cloaked up in black.”
Ro’meo bites down on a crinkly cut fry, looks at Cory with a sideways glance, and asks, “So when you and 16 …”
“Well,” I half-smile, “that was an exception, wasn’t it?”
Ro’meo finishes off his fry and we eat in silence for a few minutes. I can see he’s building up to something, but the presence of his kid is forcing him to ask it in a delicate manner. I guess at what he’s getting at, so I just come out and say it when I’ve finished off my third burger of the night.
“I’m only in town for a couple of days,” I say. “In and out,” I add, then think, given my relationship with Ro’meo’s wife that this was not the best choice of words. “I’m just stopping here on the way to LA. I’m doing an interview for a new reality show.”
“Legacy,” Ro’meo nods. “Nancy’s already given them an interview.” He smiles. “Or three.”
I can’t stop my eyes from bulging out. “Seriously? For, uh, for the show about me?”
Ro’meo nods. I can see the impression of his tongue running around the inside of his mouth, collecting any stray bits of meat, bread, and potato. He keeps his eyes on me as he speaks to his son. “Hey, Cory, what would you say is the probability that we’re gonna see Mr. Kitmore after tonight?”
“Zero, dad,” Cory says, sipping on his milkshake. “Absolute zero.”
5
“Are you sure?” Ro’meo asks. “It’s late and Cory needs to get home, but it’s not a school night. You’re welcome to —”
“No, no, you guys go ahead,” I say, waving the thought aside. Like I’m going to … what? Hang out with the guy Nancy left me for (not that I didn’t deserve it) and the kid she had with him (not that I want a kid)? I’ll pass.
“I’m just going to sit here a bit,” I say, holding up my nearly empty milkshake glass. “I want to finish this off. Thanks for dinner. Tell Nancy the green hair bit sold it.”
6
“I hear you used to be Kid Rapscallion,” Female Jumpsuit Elvis says.
“I was,” I say, smiling. Halfway through the meal I decided I wanted to have sex with her because I haven’t had sex with anyone but my right hand in months.
“My mom had the biggest crush on you when I was a baby,” she says, picks up Ro’meo’s money, and leaves.
Well.
That hurt a bit.
7
I’m in a sour mood as I leave Diner 1950. I blame half of it on Fat Jumpsuit Elvis and her mom and the other half on all the carbs that have been pumped into my stomach tonight.
“Hey!” Jumpsuit Elvis calls. I turn back in time for her to kiss my cheek and slip a piece of paper in my pocket.
“Mommy will be so jealous,” she whispers, hugs me, and takes a selfie with the two of us.
The slip of paper says, “Your suite. 1 am.”
I hate to admit that my ego is buoyed by this. I walk through the casino floor, listening to all the bells and whistles, trying not to let any of the tobacco smoke touch my lungs (because I’ll snort coke off a Kripstan Gurgleback but I won’t do tobacco) and just generally being miserable.
I have no idea where my life went wrong because it went wrong in so many different places and at so many different times.
So where can I point the figure and say, Change that moment and everything turns out okay.
Divorcing Jula?
Marrying Jula?
Publishing Sex, Drugs, and Capes?
Going to work for CNO?
Breaking into Flack’s lab?
Rapscallion’s trial?
Or do I have to go all the way back to the start of my journey and say the only moment worth changing is the moment it all started. I used to envy kids like Cory, who grew up in the life. Ro’meo and Nancy might not be an active superhero and cape reporter, but Cory’s life isn’t going to be normal. I always felt a step behind heroes like that.
Maybe that’s why I fell for Belle.
Or maybe it was her legs.
PART
FOUR
1994
1
The San Francisco day is cold and wet and Mrs. Sandra Flack is nervous about the boy sitting across from her in the back of her husband’s limousine. His name is Jason and he is twelve years old. The suit his foster parents had put him in is dark blue on top and black on the bottom and Sandra cannot wait to never look at it, again.
The boy’s dark hair has been combed tight against his head, and he says little. Sandra is glad her fears did not come to pass; for weeks it has seemed to her as if the Donaldsons were going to adopt Jason for themselves. Her first inclination, of course, was to think they were just doing it to extort money out of her, but that was proven false and her fears about losing Jason did not come to pass.
Rain begins to pelt the window and she believes this to be an auspicious start. Sandra was born in Pennsylvania and raised by an honest-to-goodness Quaker minister and she is not opposed to seeing the world at large as a message from God. Today’s rain makes her worry about bad things to come.
But then Jason smiles, says, “I love the rain. May I play in the rain, ma’am?” and everything is okay.
But she does not let him play in the rain.
2
“I thought we were adopting the black girl?” Francis Flack asks his wife as she joins him in the shower.
“Where were you?” she asks. “It’s Jason’s first night in this family and you couldn’t even make it home to see him.”
“Oh, darling,” Francis says, kissing Sandra’s forehead, “you know how it is at work. But,” he says, turning away from her, “what happened to the black girl?” He picks up a photo of Jason his foster parents have provided and frowns.
Sandra has been married to Francis long enough to know he’s frowning even though he’s facing away from her. There is a distinct slump of his shoulders and a lack of comment about this boy that has just entered
their family that tells her he is not happy.
“What?” she asks.
“He … I’m sure it’s not intentional … but he looks like me, don’t you think?”
“It turns out I wanted a boy,” Sandra says in a form of non-response, and rolls her eyes. Her husband has always been aloof, always preferring the business over the home life, but this is a stretch, even for him. She engages the temporary thought of making him have sex with her, but he increasingly repulses her. It drives Sandra into fits of rage when her friends tell her how lucky she is to have such a fit and handsome husband, but Sandra would trade Francis’ abs for their husbands’ blubber if he showed her any interest or passion.
They are a show couple, all performance for others and with little use for each other. If he could get her pregnant …
But he can’t, of course.
Which is why Jason is here.
If it bothers Francis that Jason looks like him, well, that was the point of not adopting the black girl, wasn’t it?
3
“Hello, there … er, Champ,” Francis smiles as Jason enters the kitchen for breakfast. “We have not been formally introduced,” he says, putting his slice of buttered toast back on the island counter top and offering the young boy his hand. “You can call me Francis.”
Jason shakes his hand as he yawns. “Why wouldn’t I call you dad?”
“Well, because Francis is my name!” the older man says, chuckling to himself.
He has always found himself funnier than most other people find him.
“Now,” Francis says, turning serious, “what should I call you?”
4
He is in the house six months before “Sport” and “Champ” and “Slugger” are replaced by “Jason.”
Used to Be: The Kid Rapscallion Story Page 7
