by Barry Lyga
He rummages through my bag again. "You'll need something to do while I'm gone..." He holds up the algebra book. "Not hardly." He shows me the English anthology.
I don't say anything, but my expression says it all.
"Then you've got exactly one option, kiddo." He reaches in, pulls something out, and tosses it to me. It lands in my lap.
"If she has to use the john, let her, but keep an eye on her," he says to Luce, who nods and yawns.
And then the cop leaves and I'm left here with Luce and a bent, twisted comic book in my lap.
Great.
Great.
This is the best thing ever. Shackled to a chair in a police station in the middle of the night. No one knows where I am. It's not like this is a heist movie and I've got a posse out there ready to bust me out of jail. And sure, Luce doesn't look all that tough, but I totally bet she could still tackle me if I tried the old "Let me go to the bathroom—oops, look, I'm running!" trick.
So I either give them my name and make things worse with Roger, or...
Or I sit here all friggin night and when Roger wakes up in the morning, he sees that I'm not home and ... and he calls the police looking for me.
Shit. I'm busted no matter what I do.
OK, so what do I so when I'm in a situation like this? Well, usually I tell someone off or run away from the situation or try to kill myself, but none of those are options right now.
The only option I have right now is in my lap.
Ugh.
I hate superheroes.
Captain Atom
I PEEL OPEN THE MYLAR SLEEVE and pull the comic book out. Captain Atom is the title. Right. Because that's totally a name that makes sense.
The cover's still as stupid as it ever was: I guess the guy on the cover is, in fact, Captain Atom himself. Because usually superhero comics aren't that clever, and besides, he has this symbol on his chest that I guess is supposed to be a stylized atomic symbol. Anyway, he's sort of tiny at the bottom, holding up the massive block of stone that's crumbling around him.
The first time I saw it, I thought it looked like a million other dumb superhero covers, but now that I'm actually studying it, it's sort of different. For one thing, he really looks like he's straining, which is kind of cool. And for another thing, he's so tiny compared to the stone and the whole cover. Usually superjerks are huge and bigger than life. This guy looks almost insignificant on the cover.
All right. I hold my breath to avoid the stink and open the comic and read it.
It doesn't suck. Not totally. Like Fanboy said, it's got Death in it, but...
I have to read it again. I flip back to the beginning and read it again. Slowly, this time. Paying a lot of attention. And then I read it a third time.
OK. OK, I have to take a second and think about this. I have to gather my thoughts. Because ... wow.
I hate to admit it, but it's not bad. It's not great, but there's a lot going on here. And there are only a couple of pages of stupid fight scenes, but even they sort of make sense in the overall story.
I look at the credit box. The first name is usually the writer, and in this case, that's a guy named Cary Bates. I've never heard of him. I bet Cal knows everything in the world about him. Fanboy, too.
Anyway. It's about this guy called Captain Atom (duh!), and that name isn't as totally idiotic as I thought because it turns out that his real name is Nathaniel Adam and he's a captain in the air force, so the Captain Atom thing is almost like a pun. That's already much cleverer than I would expect. When he's superheroing, he has this really shiny silver skin, but he's not the Silver Surfer, duh. Even I know that the Silver Surfer is a Marvel character and this is a DC comic.
So right away I was sort of impressed because they tell you that Captain Atom just turned fifty, which is cool. Superheroes are usually these young guys, but Captain Atom is old. So that's different.
I was a little lost because this is issue 42, so I've missed a lot, but Bates does a pretty good job of catching you up. So apparently it's Captain Atom's birthday and he wants to do some thing special: He wants to—and this is where it's a little weird—he wants to go to some astral plane and, like, build a clone of his dead wife there and talk to her about his problems. This guy in the story makes a joke that it would be quicker than therapy.
And you know what? I totally identify with that. Not the part about making a clone or whatever, but the part about...
I guess if you could talk to someone who's dead, it would make things a lot easier.
Anyway, something goes wrong with the plan to visit the astral plane and instead Captain Atom dies. Which, in superhero comics, is no big deal because people get better from death like they get better from a cold. But it was still really well done. And Captain Atom ends up in a little boat somewhere with Death. Gaiman's Death. The cool goth girl from Sandman.
But that's not all. There's this other guy there, too. A black guy in funky armor and—I swear to God—these skis. And Death says that the black guy is also Death!
Now, this sort of blew my mind. She explains that there are different versions of Death. That she is Death as Comforting Release. And that the black guy with the skis is Death as the Race Everyone Runs ... and loses.
I never thought of that before. I mean, I loved the way Gaiman wrote Death as this friendly presence, this comfort, this big relaxing sigh at the end of life. But it never occurred to me that Death is also something inevitable. Something everyone faces, no matter what. And that's what the black skier represents.
So then Death (the girl version) takes Captain Atom to purgatory. Because he has to work out his sins if he wants to go to Heaven and see his wife. And that totally blew me away, because for one thing, it's a superhero comic and it's saying that superheroes are sinners. That sort of surprised me.
And the other thing was that I realized this whole thing was about a guy who missed his dead wife and just wanted to see her. And he was willing to die and go through Purgatory to do it.
Would Roger do that? Would Roger be willing to go through all of that to see Mom again?
What if...
What if I'm the only thing keeping him here? What if he really does miss Mom, but he can't join her—won't join her—because he...
OK. So, anyway:
Captain Atom goes through all these levels of Purgatory. It's pretty cool because he actually meets Destiny, the oldest of the Endless, the big brother to Dream and Death from Sandman. And Destiny tells him that he has to work off his sins and Captain Atom goes to do it.
Anyway, eventually he works off his sins and he gets to Heaven, where he sees his wife. And I have to admit that the more I looked at those panels, the more I got into the book because I couldn't help seeing my dad and my mom there, even though I tried not to. I tried really hard.
And then there's some kind of mystical mumbo jumbo about how Captain Atom can't stay and then Death and the black skier show up again and reveal that Captain Atom has to return to life to fight another version of Death: This one is called Nekron (which is a stupid name, but whatever) and he's "Death as the ultimate opponent."
That's where it ends. Captain Atom has to return to life and fight this Nekron guy.
So, like I said, I read it a bunch of times. It took like an hour to read it three or four times.
I feel like my head's been messed with.
I mean, yeah, it's got some Sandman characters in it, even though it's a superhero comic. But it's not like what you normally expect from a superhero comic. And it's nothing like a Sandman comic, either. It's this different thing, this different way of looking at the same characters and ideas.
I always thought that superhero comics couldn't do that kind of stuff.
But, you know, Sandman is all about Morpheus needing to change. Right? The whole series is about how he has to evolve. But he won't. So he dies. But death is a change, so maybe he does change, finally.
And this Captain Atom comic ... it's all about change, too. Captai
n Atom has to admit his sins and overcome them. That's change. And he has to die in order to change, too.
And now Death is so different. I mean the character, but also the idea—little-d death. I guess they're the same thing. They're supposed to be.
I was never afraid of death. Death made sense to me. Death was like Neil said: comforting. When Mom was sick—toward the end, especially—I always heard people saying that death would be a blessing. She could finally rest, they would say.
If it was good for her, why not for everyone? Why shouldn't I slit my wrists and get some blessing of my own? I couldn't find any here on earth—that much I knew for sure.
But...
But what if Death isn't a comfort? Or at least, what if it's not just comfort? What if Death is a bunch of different things, de pending? Like sometimes it's comfort and sometimes it's just this inevitable conclusion and sometimes it's "Nekron, Lord of the Unliving!" I don't know.
I don't know what it means.
Seventy-four
"CHANGE YOUR MIND YET?"
I almost jump out of my skin. I've been staring at the last page of the comic book (a huge splash panel of Nekron himself, a really gross skeletal-looking guy) for, like, forever. The cop has come back.
"How long have I been here?" I ask, and then remember that I'm not supposed to be talking.
He grins. "Talking, are we? Ready to give me your name and cut the crap?" He checks his watch. "And an hour, maybe hour and a half."
Yeah, it's like two in the morning. And I'm all messed up. It's not just lack of sleep. Or stressing over being arrested. It's more than that.
It's Jecca. It's Captain Atom. It's Death and Nekron and Morpheus and all of it.
It's Mom. It's Dad.
I don't know to put it into words. All those people, all of those characters ... Connecting. Interacting. Some for real. Some in my head.
Look, maybe in life there are certain people ... like Captain Atom and his wife. They matched up. So maybe we match up with people. And maybe we don't forget about those people. Maybe we can't forget about them.
"Someday," Kennedy said, "you'll find someone who appreciates not just what you do, but how you do it."
And if I do? What if I did already? What if I already found that person and he's as far away from me now as Mom is from Dad, as far away as Captain Atom's wife is?
Would I be willing to go through Purgatory? Confront my sins?
Could I do that?
"I go off-shift in a half-hour, kid," the cop says, "so you better—"
I interrupt him before I can think too hard about it. "My name is Kyra Sellers."
Seventy-five
MY HEART RACES AS HE takes down my information—name, address, phone number, all of that. Is this what "being responsible" or "taking responsibility for your actions" feels like? Yuck.
I'm not a total idiot, by the way. I give him my cell number instead of the house number.
"Go ahead and call your dad to pick you up," he says, nodding to the phone between us on his desk. He's still typing in the computer. I'm no longer handcuffed.
"I can't," I say, and it's the best kind of lie—the kind that spills out so easily that most people assume it's true. "He's on vacation."
The cop snorts laughter. "Hey, Kyra, you've been a real kick tonight and all, but if you think I'm gonna let you walk out that door without parental supervision, you're nuts."
"No, no, I know. I'm staying with a friend. Can I call him instead?"
He laughs some more. "You're not having your boyfriend come and get you."
"It'll be his mom." I hope.
His eyes narrow in suspicion. "Give me a name."
Oh, crap. I can't remember ... Fanboy's last name, sure, I know that, but I can't remember his mom's—
Ah. Wait. "Marchetti," I say.
"Like the park?"
I never realized that. "Yeah, like the park."
He looks up the name in the phone book and then calls the number. I know it by heart, but I guess he wants to be sure I'm not trying to pull a fast one.
He frowns into the phone and holds out the receiver so I can hear. "Busy signal. We'll try again later."
But I know there's only one reason for a busy signal at two in the morning: Fanboy's up and on the 'net. It could be busy until the sun comes up if he's really working hard.
"Can I use your computer?" I ask.
It takes some convincing, but he finally lets me at the computer. I don't have my buddy list, but I have Fanboy's username memorized anyway. I fire up a chat program, log in, and, sure enough, XianWalker76 is online.
Promethea387: Hi. I have sort of a HUGE favor to ask you...
Goth Purgatory
IT'S NOT THE EASIEST THING in the world to explain that you're under arrest and you need to be picked up at the police station please please please while you're in chat and there's a cop looking over your shoulder, but I somehow get Fanboy to agree to get his mom and come get me.
The cop (whose name—I swear to God—is Roger. Can you believe it? I barely believe it) sits with me on the front steps of the police station and waits with me. Now that he's got me in his computer, he seems much more relaxed and almost vaguely cool.
"Sorry if I stopped you from catching bigtime drug smugglers," I tell him.
"Nothing going on tonight. Another time." He looks over at me. "You don't do any of that shit, do you?"
"Dude, I don't even drink." I think about it. "I smoke, though. Just cigarettes."
"That shit'll kill you, too. Lung cancer and all."
"Yeah, I know."
He shrugs. "I smoke, too. Stupid. But there you go."
Shit. I just remembered. "Are you gonna arrest me for smoking?"
"No. I didn't see you smoke. I didn't find cigarettes on you."
"OK."
Headlights flash out on the road and then a car turns into the police station parking lot.
"Watch yourself," Roger the Cop says. "don't do stupid shit."
"I'm trying."
He squints at the car, sees an adult, and goes inside after patting me on the shoulder.
I watch the car come to a stop a little ways away from me. I can make out Fanboy's mom in the front seat. Fanboy gets out from the back seat and comes over to me.
He has this walk ... This weird way of walking. Hands in his pocket. He walks like he doesn't know where he's going. Like each step could lead him somewhere terrible or somewhere wonderful. And he's OK with it either way because at least he'll get to see something amazing. He's all bundled up against the cold, with a hat and a heavy coat, and the coat makes him look ten times bigger up top than down below, which is sort of funny, but I just smile. I don't laugh; I just smile.
I'm all messed up, just seeing him. I'm still so angry at him. So hurt. Hurt that I was replaced.
But there's something else, too. Something that might be bigger than the anger. I'm not going to call it love. That's not my word. I don't know what to call it, but I know that it's the feeling I got in my drug haze in the hospital, the wanting for him to come rescue me, the tug, the pull. Wanting him to lend me a jacket when I'm cold.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey. Uh, thanks." I look over at the car. "How pissed is your mom?"
He looks over his shoulder at the car. "Not nearly as pissed as you'd think, if you want to know the truth. Betta was keeping her up anyway. And sometimes only a car ride will get her to sleep. So in a weird way, it sort of worked out."
"Oh. That's good."
I don't know what else to say.
"I asked her to let me talk to you a little bit before we left," he says. He's not sitting down. Just standing in front of me, his hands still in his pockets. He's bundled up against the cold and then, suddenly, miraculously, he does it. He does the magical thing:
No, he doesn't strip off his jacket and put it over my shoulders. It's like negative ten million degrees out here and he doesn't want to die. No, he takes off his hat, and—before I can move�
��he jams it over my head, right over my scarf.
"Your head must get cold," he says.
So, he surprises me and then I go ahead and surprise both of us because I start crying.
I don't mean to. I don't want to. It just happens. It catches both of us off-guard and I'm too shocked to cover it up or anything, so I just sit there, crying.
"Hey, uh, Kyra? Kyra, it's gonna be OK. I can ... Do you want me to talk to your dad? Like, I could go in first or something?"
Shit. That just makes it worse. Why does he have to be nice to me sometimes? At the worst times?
I shake my head. "No. No. don't do that. This is my crap and I have to deal with it. I have to take my medicine."
He shuts up and lets me cry a little bit. The car door opens and I figure, like, great. Great. Now it's over. I don't even get a chance to talk to him and even though I have no idea what to say...
Another door opens and then his mom walks by, holding the baby, who's fussing. "I'm going inside to borrow their bathroom and change her," she says to Fanboy. "So wrap it up in ten minutes or so, OK?"
He tells her that's fine and she disappears inside. Ten minutes. I have ten minutes. I don't know what to say.
So I do what I always do—I stop thinking about it. I just let it come out.
I wipe away the tears and I glare at him. "I was so damn angry at you. I hated you so much."
He just stands there, his lips pressed together. I can't tell what he's thinking. He watches me.
"I was so pissed. I ... I'm the one who left that note on your car." Am I confessing? Or showing off how mean I can be? I don't know.
"Yeah. I actually figured that."
What?
"I mean," he goes on, "Dina wouldn't have written that. And she's away at college; why would she come back and leave me a note like that anyway?"
"And I'm the one who called and pretended to be from the hospital." Oh, God, it feels good to say it. Good and bad. That's Purgatory for you.
He sucks in a breath. "I sort of figured ... I wasn't sure, but ... Well, I knew something was going on. But I didn't know why."
