by Rhys Thomas
At home in the evenings he would buy all his favorite types of takeaway food on separate nights of the week and watch a favorite film. Monday had been pizza and The Matrix. Tuesday, sausage, beans and chips and Pacific Rim. Wednesday, doner kebab and The Prestige. By keeping things regimented and ordered, Sam was able to create a stable state for his soul.
Travel was something he had often considered, but he was scared of flying and found just the sheer effort and the thought of going into unknown environments daunting. He knew and loved his hometown, so why leave it?
Day four was a day of pilgrimage. After his full English, he would drive up to the nearby forestry and take a long walk through the pines to a small pond fed by a natural spring inside the mountain. This was a place of deep-burned memory and had become something sacred to him; if he didn’t go back at regular intervals, he knew something inside him would break, and he would die.
As Sam made inroads into his breakfast, creating various combinations of tasty mouthfuls on his fork, his mind suddenly blipped and he felt his skin prickle. The image of the girl with red hair sprang into his mind.
“Sam?”
He looked across to the next table.
“How are you, Sam?”
His mind searched. Sitting at the table in a business suit was a man with graying temples. He was with a woman, also in a business suit. Then he remembered. It was his bank manager, from all those years ago, and his appetite fell away.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Great. That’s great.”
They stared at each other for a long moment and Sam resented the pity that had painted itself across the bank manager’s face. “You moved house, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” said Sam, his throat suddenly croaky.
“To the new builds on the edge of town?”
Sam nodded. The woman had obviously detected how loaded with unspoken information this exchange was, and stared down at her phone.
“That’s right.”
“You don’t bank with us anymore, do you?”
Sam shook his head, and the manager saw he was unable to speak.
“I understand. I hope everything’s working out for you okay.”
Sam tried to smile but grimaced. “It’s all fine,” he said, placing his knife and fork together on his plate.
The stillness in the air between them was heavy with the shared past experience. This man had been so kind to him. But Sam needed to get out of there. He couldn’t tell if it was the bank manager or the girl with red hair, but suddenly the soft cocoon of safety he’d diligently created over many years had cracked.
* * *
The air in the forestry was cold, but the sky was blue. The leaves on the trees were orange and drifting, and cold sunlight cut bright lines of light between the pines. Halfway up, a gravel track for the forestry trucks curled around the mountain and from here he could see right the way across his hometown. Apart from his two years at university, he could see all the places of his life in this one panorama. He paused there awhile, feeling the ebb and flow of the world against his face, trying to sync his heartbeat with that of the planet, and when the moment was ready to end he continued his climb.
He was so far from the road by now that the only sound was that of the wind moving through the great pines. He thought of things—his past, his present, his future—but knew it was best not to linger on bad things, and here he was thankful for the numbness he’d developed as a teenager and that had served him so well later in life.
The small pond, fed by the natural spring that bubbled up from underground, wasn’t far. Baby Christmas trees poked out from the jut of bedrock on the far side. His parents had brought him here once and told him how the water had healing properties. Sam had stared into the pool that day and spied a shiny penny at the bottom. Thick slants of sunlight came through the trees and shone across his mum and dad and now, when he thought of them, that image was the one that came to him most often; here on this mountain in better times. Now he took his own penny from his pocket and tossed it into the water. For the old gods. But he didn’t make a wish. He’d given up on those things long ago.
* * *
When he was thirteen years old, Sam was invited to one of the house parties the other kids went to most weekends. Though completely normal for them, to Sam it meant a great deal, even if when he thought of it the nerves almost made him throw up.
A few days before, in the schoolyard, the boys were standing in one group, the girls in another, and messengers were being dispatched between the two, until one of the boys returned with a sheepish look on his face. He was reluctant to say what had happened, but the others coaxed him until, at last, he caved and said, “The girls said they were going to make out with every boy in the party.” A frisson rippled along the circle. But then the boy looked at Sam, with his glasses and braces and acne, and added, “Everyone except Sam.”
It was a kind of numbness that descended on him that day in the schoolyard. Not an explosion of humiliation, not a wave of anger, but a cool mist that made him numb. He absorbed the news as a sponge absorbs water—quietly and without fanfare. The words made a slow percolation and came to a stop in his middle. All he thought was, That’s not very nice. In the years to come this would become his default reaction to most things.
Although there was no tumultuous outburst of emotion, the effect of what had been said hurt him tremendously over the next few days. He lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling with that numb density sitting inside him. He ran simulations of the party in his head; all the others paired off while he sat alone on a sofa with nothing to do. He went to his wardrobe several times and looked at the smart new sweater his father had bought for him especially for the party. His parents were as excited as he was that he would finally take part in a social event outside of school.
The night came and he went downstairs in his new clothes, where his parents were watching TV. They turned their faces toward him and gave great smiles of happiness. “You look great!” said his mum. “Very smart.”
He remembered taking off his glasses and cleaning a smudge from them with the sleeve of his new sweater. They warned him off drink and drugs and sent him on his way. Sam left the house and collected the hidden backpack from the hedge in the front garden and, instead of making his way to the party, he went to his Batcave in the woods. He’d brought a blanket, a torch and a hot-water bottle and in the darkness of winter he took out his Batman comics and read by torchlight, read for hours in the cold of the night, a tiny sphere of light emanating from the roots of the hanging tree, until at last it was time to go home.
* * *
When he returned from the party, his parents asked how it had gone and he said, Fine. And the truth was, it was fine. He’d enjoyed himself in his Batcave. He’d lost himself in that other world of superheroes, where people needn’t worry about social hierarchy and girls and teenage cruelty, because they were too busy being good people.
Comics for Sam became not just a love affair but a crutch. Slowly but surely he accrued a collection. He discovered the extended universe of Batman, and also the Detective Comics, which predominantly featured the Caped Crusader. He watched and rewatched the two Tim Burton Batman films, and the greatest day of his life was when he read, aged fourteen, a letter he himself had penned to the Batman letters column.
He collected other comics too, but nothing ever compared to the Batman. The Flash was entertaining but light, Superman a little too conventional, Green Lantern was excellent but lacked the realism Sam now craved, and he didn’t get on at all with anything in the Marvel universe. Nothing had the dark power of Batman, and the discovery of adult comics like Watchmen, Sandman and Preacher were still years away. Slowly, the world of comics and the world of reality merged into one. And so, for Sam, comics became things with their very own superpowers, chiefly the ability to deflect the gaze of the world away from him.
THE PHANTASM #004
And Man Might Fly
All quiet on the Western Front. A night like any other. Save for the movement of shadow in some anonymous alleyway. The railroad station lies empty tonight. A crack of light appears in the alleyway, which widens to throw an angle of illumination on the wet lane. He moves quickly, from the shadows, sleek, catlike, the only sound the clicking of gears on his bicycle. His bicycle is painted black so even that looks like a shadow. The man emerging from the doorway jolts with shock as our hero approaches, as if appearing directly in front of him from some unknown dimension.
The Phantasm takes the merchandise. “You do good work,” he says, before one-eightying his bike and sprinting headlong down the alleyway. All he hears is his contact calling after him, “Be careful.” And then, “You really should be wearing a helmet.”
He cycles through a maze of backstreets until he is in the secluded lane behind his house. Here he dismounts and takes the merchandise to the Black Phantom, puts said merchandise in the boot and drives away. The mask of his costume he pulls off. Appearing normal will draw the least attention. Into the city he goes, the deep dark city of a million secrets and twice as many broken hearts. He knows the streets well, could drive these roads blindfolded if he wasn’t a law-abiding citizen. But tonight he needs to travel just one path. He parks up in a dangerous area of town. People don’t come here. Tramp Alley, they call it, a hive of dropouts and ne’er-do-wells. Crime, it is assumed, originates right at the bottom.
Cowl back on, our hero stalks forward with the merchandise. The bums don’t even notice as he glides past. He is the night, the night is him. Ahead, a wooden table with halogen lamps on top, an urn of bubbling soup, bearded charity workers and church-aid helpers.
The phantom is running now, the merchandise slung across his back. All together, the charity workers turn their heads and regard this vision of justice thundering pell-mell toward them. Their mouths fall open as the Phantasm holds aloft the merchandise and hurls it with both arms toward a man of perhaps forty-five, who sees the parcel in the air and dives clear. The merchandise impacts the ground and half a dozen sandwiches spill onto the dirty floor.
“It’s from your friends in high places,” our hero tells the freezing charity workers.
“Greggs?” says a woman, inspecting one of the strewn sandwiches.
“From the rich—” and our hero indicates the skyscrapers blazing over the city like giant gods “—to the poor.” He swings his arm around to encompass in his arc the collection of down-and-outs.
“Are you donating this?”
“Yes,” he says.
“Why are you dressed like that?” says someone else, an elderly lady.
What a triumph of philosophical thought, this question, but there is no time to explain the answer.
“Nourish these men,” our hero demands, turning on his heel and scaling the five-foot wall opposite the charity table.
On the other side is perhaps a thirty-foot drop, something he wasn’t expecting. But it’s too late now. To turn back would not be becoming of a twenty-first-century hero. The top of an enormous conifer tree is ten feet away and, without a thought for safety, our man leaps for it. But ten feet is an awfully long way and he finds himself, for a moment, flying. He is weightless and without fear. The wind whistles about his face as he plummets, but his forward momentum carries him, at last, into the welcoming branches of the tree, which tear and claw at his uniform, and are surprisingly painful against the body.
He comes to rest about halfway up and glances out of the foliage to the charity workers looking over the edge of the wall.
“Are you okay?” says one.
“Yup. I’m fine.” He waves his hand in reassurance.
“Are you stuck?”
He pauses. “Should be able to find a way down.”
“Do you want an ambulance?”
The scent of the tree is strong. Sap has found its way under his mask and is sticky. He gets himself upright. Inside the tree there are hundreds of tiny dead twigs that fall into his collar. But this is no normal man and with great effort he pushes the soles of his boots against the tree and slowly descends. The charity workers are on their way, and he must free himself before they reach him. He picks up his speed of descent until he believes he is safe to jump.
He takes a deep breath and propels himself from the tree. The branches are weaker than he expected and he is unable to generate much thrust. He is upended and falling headfirst. With one last gasp he grasps the dense branches in his gloved hands and, just as his grip fails, he is feetfirst again. He slams into the ground and buckles. His bottom teeth hit his top, and even he is shocked by the force. He glances back up at the tree. He’s made a hell of a mess. There’s a big gash cut out of it where he snapped the branches with his feet, but he can’t worry about that now for he must make good his escape. On bended knee he surveys his surroundings. He is in a churchyard, hemmed in by a tall brick wall. Voices are coming from the entrance. But our man is a shadow, and when they reach the tree into which he leaped they will find no sign of anyone at all. The Black Phantom is not far away, and within seconds he has gained it and is speeding off into the dark night.
4
WHEN HE CHECKED the mirror, it was worse than he’d thought. An enormous America-shaped bruise had consumed the left side of his rib cage all the way down to his kidney. The tree had cut him along his side, despite the padded top. Little scabs had formed in inch-long lines. His left ankle was sprained from where he’d hit the ground, and he could hardly walk.
He drew himself a bath and lit a cinnamon-scented candle. Once submerged in the weightlessness of the tub, his injuries didn’t feel so bad. He imagined the soothing properties of the hot water working on his muscles, the untangling of frayed sinew networks.
Jumping off the wall had been a stupid idea. It was the suit’s fault, and the false sense of invincibility it gave him. When he pulled on the simple black mask, everything else—his life, his job, his bills, responsibilities, stresses, fears, the effect of a crushing loneliness—fell away. To don the mask, to be removed just for a few hours from normal life to the safe places he had found between the pages of his books and comics, was to experience true freedom. In a way he was more himself when dressed as the Phantasm than he was as Sam Holloway. But everyone wears a mask, he told himself, to a greater or lesser extent.
* * *
When he left for the pub that night, the cold hurt his bones. He loaded his stuff into the boot of the car and looked up at the sky. It was a crescent moon with crisp stars. He liked this time of year; the changing of the seasons from summer to autumn. The coming of the dark nights put in his head the promise of cozy evenings hunkering down in his living room with a large mug of hot chocolate topped with marshmallows and squirty cream, and a scary book—perhaps his beautiful leather-bound edition of H. P. Lovecraft’s horror stories.
When he got to the pub, his friends were near the back, in the little snug between the toilets and the back door. The kit for the evening—sleeping bags, folding chairs, backpacks, aluminium flasks plus, of course, all the astronomy gear—was strewn about the floor. Sitting at another table, the long wide one next to the fireplace, were the rest of the expedition. They were older than Sam and his friends, ranging in age from midthirties to midfifties. Graham, with his big beard and bottle green fleece, was leaning over, saying something conspiratorial to the enraptured group about the adventure on which they were about to embark.
Tango was dressed in full orienteering getup: salopettes, sturdy boots, a skintight latex top. His coat hung over the back of the chair.
“What time are we leaving?” said Sam.
Blotchy finished his lasagna and said, “After the drinks are gone. The meteors won’t enter the atmosphere until later.”
As he made this statement, Tango’s gaze slipped away from Sam to something
moving behind him. He felt a tug at his arm. Turning, Sam’s eyes fell on the girl with red hair, and his heart leaped.
“Hey,” she said.
“Oh,” said Sam, suddenly conscious of the beady eyes of his friends. “Hi.”
She was wrapped in a thick winter coat with her book sticking out of the pocket. “How’s it going?”
“I’m fine,” said Sam. He tried to focus his attention on his racing heart, trying by pure concentration to slow its rhythm. “Yeah, good. It’s cold out, though.”
“Yeah, yeah. Freezing.”
Be zen. He took a breath. She nodded at the heap of bags under and around the table.
“Are you going camping?”
“We’re going up to the mountains,” he said, turning from his friends to face her, glad they were too socially awkward to make fun of him.
“Why?”
At this point Sam wished he wasn’t quite so tremendously nerdy. It would have been so much easier if he and his friends were going somewhere normal.
“It’s stupid, really.”
He wished he could be one of those people who found social interaction easy. In university, before he’d dropped out, he’d been more confident. He felt his friends eavesdropping, so he took a step back from the table.
“What’s your name?” he said.
“Sarah. I’m Sarah.”
“I’m Sam.”
“Hi, Sam.”
“I’m really sorry, but...do we know each other?”
“I met you the other night? At the bar?”
“Right, right. Yeah. I mean from before.”
