Another set of identical Sues straddled good and evil.
They were the mavericks, and they shared the same aim as the rest of the Mary Sue clans. Poor Shadow Boy was harassed left and right by girls too beautiful and too perfect to be real, in a manner of speaking, and who fought each other to the death over him. How he managed to work alongside Magnifiman while being dogged like that by gaggles of swooning fangirls always fascinated me.
At the same time—and I was embarrassed by this fact—I’d actually begun to harbor vague jealous feelings toward the Shadow Boy subplot. If I were only halfway decent in role-playing games, I’d have created a gay character who’d give Mary Sue a run for her—or their—money.
* * * *
The Happy Willows incident kept Vintage City buzzing for a few days afterward. Frantic families visited their relatives as well as those poor residents who’d no family left. I suppose, if anything good came out of that, it would be all that attention and outpouring of concern for complete strangers. I wouldn’t be surprised if families adopted some of them on the spot and took them out for the weekend.
The next time I met up with Althea, she was livid and leaving a trail of froth wherever she went.
I figured something was about to blow, judging from the “Death to the Stupid World” look on her face throughout our Geometry class. Normally she’d be happier than heck—even bordering on the smug, at least whenever she looked at me while working on proofs.
“The Trill attacked Happy Willows!” she roared as we took our spot in the cafeteria. I stared at the mess of tasteless glop, dry bread, crumbly chips, and poison-in-a-soda-can that sat in a miserable group on my lunch tray. I really should bring a bagged lunch before Renaissance High’s cafeteria murdered me with Health Department-sanctioned meals. I waited for my stomach to stop turning by toying with my glop—spaghetti, in other words—with my limp plastic fork. Peter had needed to swing by the counselor’s office for a quick conversation about his university choices, so he wasn’t able to join us.
“He did? No kidding.” I tried to be cute. Apparently my charm meter wasn’t cranked up high enough.
“The son of a bitch!”
“What’s up?”
“My grandma was there!”
Now that, I didn’t know. My knowledge of Althea’s background had been nothing more than snippets she’d been willing to share. There was her pharmacist mom, her deadbeat dad—who’d fled the country rather than take up his share of the responsibility in raising a daughter—and her favorite but seriously dead uncle. I never liked pushing people into telling me more, so I never pursued the subject.
“No kidding. Is she okay?”
Althea nodded, her brows tightly drawn. “Yeah, she is, thank God. Everyone involved is okay.”
“I hope she didn’t get manhandled.”
“Manhandled? She was the one who kicked down the door of the second floor conference room!” She looked at me, her expression alternating between fury and awe. The froth was still there, though. “It was a drop-kick, too, they said! Can you believe that? A drop-kick! And she’s eighty years old!” Then she paused and hesitated. Fury and awe turned to guilt, and she blushed. “God, what I’d give to see her in action. Mom always said that Grandma never took shit from anybody. Even set the dogs on my dad when he came around to take my mom out for a date.” She paused again, and this time, she grinned. “What if she had a walker? Can you imagine what she would’ve done with it?”
“Probably use it to jam elevators. Or reshape it with her bare hands into some other weapon.”
“She’s totally hardcore.”
“Your grandma’s bitchin’.”
“For real.”
I patted her shoulder in sympathy and support. It was always good when someone sorted through her crisis without much outside help.
Chapter 17
Mom’s birthday was two days away, so Dad and I went out to shop for a present. It was Friday afternoon. Dad went to work early that day in order to leave two hours before his usual shift ended. He wanted to be stealthy about it, but judging from the little gleam in Mom’s eyes that morning at the breakfast-table, I was sure she knew.
Then again, I guess having Dad pull the same thing year after year pretty much gave her an idea. We decided to take the bus because the car was in pretty bad shape, and Dad didn’t want to give it reason to break down further.
Dad always towed me around when out shopping for Mom. For better or for worse, I was his fashion advisor and his financial consultant—not that it mattered much, really, since the man rarely ever listened in the end. I used to whine about it, demanding to know why Liz didn’t take the job. Apparently she used to do it, I was told, but she turned out to be on the high maintenance end of things when it came to gift-giving, and she was fired, like, pretty quickly.
We walked past the smaller stores, stopping here and there and surveying their merchandise. Dad wanted to get Mom a new sweater and didn’t have a single clue as to what would work the best. How long had they been married again?
“Here, you know what’s trendy,” he said as we stopped before a shop that specialized in handmade stuff from Nepal.
“Dad, those things are really cool, but they’re also pretty expensive.” A small hand-sewn bag that had only enough room for a wallet, a makeup kit, and keys cost forty bucks. What were the chances of that same item costing a buck or two to produce?
“Your mom likes these,” he replied, pointing to a printed cotton patch top. It was one of those loose, comfortable things with long sleeves and a bodice that could hide every sin imaginable in one galaxy-sized mass.
The patterns in the patches were pretty funky—flowers and geometric shapes that were forced together. I was sure any pedestrian wearing that shirt would never have to worry about being run over by inattentive motorists.
“It costs seventy bucks. Yikes.”
“But your mom will love it.”
“Dad…”
He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Eric, you’re no help here.”
“We only have a limited budget. Can’t we go somewhere cheaper? I’m sure Mom won’t mind.”
“We’re not going to your second-hand store.”
“You know what I mean, Dad.”
“I always thought that gay men knew how to choose clothes.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him—even peered over my glasses and not through them, very schoolmarm-like. It was always strange pulling something off like this. At five-foot-five, Dad stood five inches shorter than me, and not only did he look like WKRP in Cincinnati’s Les Nessman, but he had that jittery thing going, too. Even his glasses seemed the perfect match for the neurotic newsman. One of my earliest memories was turning to Mom during the opening credits of the series’ gazillion reruns and asking her if Dad was an actor and if “that weird little guy with glasses” was really him. Couldn’t remember her response, though maybe it’s a good thing my brain was a blank.
“You’ll say that I’m bound for musical theater, next.”
Dad looked sincerely puzzled. “Well—aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Huh.”
“Dad, I want to get a Ph.D. in Literature, I can’t stand dandies, and I think musical theater’s overrated.”
I actually had a bit of a crush on Joshua Bell ever since I’d seen him perform on PBS one time. Channel-surfing while almost catatonic with boredom can yield good results. But Joshua was classical music, not musical theater, thank God. I’d yet to scrounge up enough money to buy a used CD of his recordings, so he could serenade me at night.
“If you can’t stand dandies, what’s with the Smurf blood hair thing, then?”
“That’s not foppery.” Yes, another thank-you-vocab-quiz moment.
“Poppy what?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
“Well, you’re still being fussy about your look. You even have one of those things.” He pointed at my friendship bracelet.
I hope
d I didn’t blush. “Dad, it’s called being a teenager. A lot of kids have this.”
“Sure.”
We ambled on to another shop and peered through the display window. I’d already moved on. Apparently Dad hadn’t.
“Eric, if you’re aiming for a Ph.D. in Literature, you’d better do something about your grades—especially Chemistry and Geometry,” he said, scrunching his face against the glass.
“I don’t see why I should,” I replied sulkily. “I don’t need science and math for a degree in literature.”
“Not a good excuse, son. Try again.”
I sighed and scratched my head. “I’m working on it. Chemistry and Geometry, I mean—not another excuse.”
It was already nearing dinner. We decided that a bit of food in our bellies should help us with the decision-making. We were too far from Uncle Chung’s, so we looked around for Chinese food and ended up in Vintage City’s only mall. Flanked by smaller independent shops, the Emporium Grande loomed a good three stories above pedestrians, its façade given the same dated, weathered fate as its humbler neighbors. Talk about being forced into the status quo. I could only imagine the snide conversations whispered between the empty shops at night while Vintage City slept:
“Think you’re too special for us, eh?”
“Check yourself out. Slap you with rotting bricks, and you’re not that grand, after all.”
“Oh, dear. You’ve got new grime over by the main entrance.”
“No, that’s a piss stain. My, my. Drunks love you, don’t they?”
“Yak, yak, yak. Bite me. I still smell better than you losers.”
The food court in the mall was in the basement, in a manner of speaking. The Emporium Grande was like three rectangular donuts stacked atop each other. All the shops were in the periphery. Each floor opened up in the center area, so that shoppers could rest against steel and glass rails while peering over to watch other people mill around in the food court, which was one level below ground. Potted plants and bland-looking water fountains littered the scene, with scattered tables and benches covering every inch of available space that was there. Everywhere I turned, I found harried parents, idle teenagers, and screaming children. I could barely hold a conversation with Dad without shouting outright into his ear.
God, I hated the mall.
Dad and I hustled over to the Dragon Terrace, which was Dad’s second favorite Chinese food joint. We ordered something edible and inexpensive and eventually found a free table, quickly claiming it before a giant of a man with a wicked mullet and tattoos covering his arms could reach it. Behind him a train of five surly children stomped.
A couple of those kids broke the monotony by turning around and pounding each other’s skulls with their fists. Their dad didn’t appear to know what was going on behind him—or he plain didn’t care.
Dad and I ate our meal in relative silence, given the noise around us. The hubbub of usual mall activity, though, didn’t compare to what came several moments into our meal.
Something crashed right through the roof and hurtled down toward the basement. Before it could hit anything or anyone, however, it stopped about a dozen feet above the basement floor—or more specifically directly above this poor woman, who was trying to eat pizza while breastfeeding her baby.
Debris rained all over the place—plaster and wood, but no glass, thank God. People screamed. Most scrambled for safety toward the food stands, which lined the periphery of the food court, while those who couldn’t vacate their tables dove under them, the breastfeeding woman included. I seriously wondered if her baby had torn away at her boob the way it clung to her while she moved quickly around. I might not be female, but, ow—I thought I felt my own nipples shrivel in sympathy pain.
I peered out from under our table. Hovering above us were two grappling figures—Magnifiman and someone in a black bodysuit and a red velvet cloak and hood. My jaw dropped to the floor as I stared, bug-eyed, at the two of them. They were locked in serious hand-to-hand combat, with their arms and legs tangled as they writhed and struggled against each other. They reminded me of gigantic snakes fighting each other from the way they rolled around and slithered in the air—as if they were on solid ground the whole time.
Every so often a fist would appear above either man’s head. Then it would vanish, and a loud crack would be heard as blows were dealt. Grunts, snarls—all kinds of primal sounds added to the rawness of the scene.
“Holy cow,” I breathed. Then, suddenly remembering my dad, I glanced over my shoulder to see if he was okay.
He huddled under the table behind me, but he had his head bowed to the floor and his hands and arms covering it defensively. His poor battered hat had tumbled off and now lay in a useless heap under one of the benches. “Dad, you okay?”
He nodded but didn’t budge from where he was.
There was another crash above us, and more people screamed as water and glass this time fell all over the place. I looked out in time to find Magnifiman and The Devil’s Trill—it was pretty obvious he was the other guy—soaking wet as they lunged for each other from opposite directions. They were thrown against the first level railing, shattering a huge portion of it. The Trill vanished past the gap they’d made with a roar of anger and pain, while Magnifiman broke his momentum by turning himself over like a cat in mid-flight and kicking hard against the now damaged first level floor. Using it like a trampoline, he heaved and flung himself away from where the Trill had gone. This allowed him enough distance as he hovered, panting with fists clenched far above us and close to the gigantic hole he and his enemy had made in the roof. Magnifiman struck a very admirable figure, I must say. Around us, the mall lost power, and only a few lights remained functional.
Blinking against tiny bits of debris that continued to fall on us, I caught sight of the early evening sky above.
“Come on, buddy,” Magnifiman growled. “We’re not done yet.”
“No, we aren’t,” the Trill hissed from somewhere in the dusty shadows of the first level. It was strange hearing his voice. All this time, he’d been nothing more than some shadowy figure whose existence depended on word of mouth, newspaper articles, and the occasional thug. Now he was there, in flesh and blood. Though I never saw his face, I was sure it was the same one I’d spotted in that abandoned building not too long ago—staring at me in the darkness, grinning before melting into the night.
His voice was high and thin. It reminded me of the twang of a guitar string.
Then the Trill flew out of the shadows. That he could fly surprised the hell out of me. He went straight for Magnifiman, who waited, gauging the time to perfection, then leaping out of harm’s way a split second before the Trill reached him. He flew out into open air and vanished, the Trill crashing against the railing of the topmost level this time, destroying a smaller portion compared to the one on the first level. People who dared to peek out and watch the fight dove back under cover. The Trill came out from his blunder quickly and flew through the hole in the roof, following Magnifiman in a surreal game of tag.
Those of us left behind continued to cower, waiting and listening. Somewhere outside, we could hear more shattering glass, wood, and plaster as well as occasional shouts and grunts.
Then a figure appeared, crouching on the edge of the damaged roof and peering inside. He leapt gracefully from the roof and landed on the undamaged portion of the top level’s railing. He balanced on the rounded, slippery steel rail seemingly without effort as he continued to survey the devastation left behind by his partner. Against the near darkness, one could barely make out his silhouette, but I knew it was Magnifiman’s partner. I tried to catch as much as I could from where I huddled, but a loud boom from somewhere outside shook the earth, and I quickly ducked back down. People around me screamed again.
“Don’t worry!” a voice from above called down to us. “You’re all safe in here. Whatever you do, don’t step outside until the police and the paramedics come.”
My heart
stopped. “Wha—Peter?”
“They’re coming! Please, everyone, stay where you are!”
I felt my universe come to a complete standstill. Oh, my God. “Peter?” I stammered again. My voice was weak, and it came out more like a whisper than a call. Even my dad, who was less than three feet away, wouldn’t have been able to hear me.
There were some shuffling sounds and then another rain of dust and plaster, but the guy—Shadow Boy, I told myself over and over—didn’t talk again. Yes, Shadow Boy. Not Peter. It couldn’t be Peter. I crawled halfway out and braved the debris as I looked up, but the figure was gone. Somewhere in the distance, police and ambulance sirens wailed. Every so often, there’d be the sounds of something breaking, but those noises grew more and more distant. I was sure Magnifiman and his partner were trying to draw their enemy as far away from the downtown area as they could.
But who the hell cared about that? Little by little, stunned and terrified shoppers crawled out of their hiding-places. Some cried, some whipped out their cell phones, and almost everyone began to talk at the same time.
“This is ridiculous!” the tattooed guy with the mullet snarled nearby. “What the hell are they doing, fighting like that—and in front of so many kids? You try to raise your children right, keep ‘em away from violent video games and TV shows and movies, and then this happens!”
“Yeah,” a woman piped up, but I couldn’t see where she was. “And they blame parents for all those violent, screwed-up kids.”
“I’m writing a letter of complaint to the Mayor’s office. This shit ain’t right,” the man said, earning himself a few scattered words of approval. Then one of his kids pulled hard at his sister’s ponytail, and Tattoo Dad turned and gave the boy a loud smack upside the head, nearly sending the kid tumbling forward. “Didn’t I tell you to stop doing that shit? Didn’t I?” he cried. The boy shrank back, whimpering and rubbing his head.
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