Break: An Urban Hero's Journey
Page 2
The next day I headed to my best friend’s house. Actually my best friend Dean is in the army rangers right now. Before he left, I made a promise to him that I would look after his family like they were mine. That’s why I treat his little brother Von like he’s my little brother. When I got to his house, his best friend Neil was there. (Neil is also one of my best friends. He goes to school for nursing and physical therapy; they’re both Filipino, Neil is half.) When I got in the house I went downstairs, and as usual Von was on the computer playing an MMO named World of Warcraft. Von’s pretty good with computers, which is why he’s probably always on it. Neil was in the basement lifting weights. He’s working on getting abs, his goal is to have a six pack by end of summer. I say he should just work on 2 abs then use a magic marker to make it six. He says I’m lucky because the only reason I have abs is because of my black genes. As soon as I saw them, they asked if i was OK. I said I was better than OK. I started lifting up my shirt and said, “Von, Neil, you gotta see this.”
Neil saw me lifting my shirt and said, “What, the accident gave you another row of abs.” I said, “No, even better,” then I went diesel. Neil looked at me and said in a monotone voice, “I hate you so much right now.” Von turned awayfrom his game and said, “Dude, what the hell . . . how’d this happen?” I said, “I know, right? After the accident I woke up and had this ability.” Neil said, “Dude, that sucks. You’re the only one I know that could get in an accident and come out in better shape. I got into an accident last year and I ain’t come out of it with superpowers, just a weird clicking noise when I touch my toes.” Von said, “I don’t think choking on a chicken wing bone counts as an accident.” Neil said, “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about when I sprained my ankle playing ball.” I said, “OK, I don’t think they’re on the same level.” Neil said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Neil, you sprained your ankle trying to dribble the ball between your legs, I tackled my mom out of the way of a speeding car and put a dent in a van, with my head!” Neil said, “OK, I could see how yours might be a little more life-threatening, but mastering that Iverson move is dangerous to, just saying.”
Von said, “So are you like stronger now or something?” I said, “Hell yeah! Check this out.” I then grabbed the curling weights he was using earlier and lifted it with one hand. I then said, “Cool, right? Jacked one second and normal the next. I can Jack on and off any time I want.” Von says, laughing, “You were doing that way before you got those powers,” and both Neil and Von began to laugh hysterically. I said, “OK, both you guys suck. But anyways, who’s up to going to the mall so I can build my supply of extremely tight shirts for me to show this body off in the club.” Neil said, “Sorry, no can do, man. I gotta study for a test.” I said, “OK. Von, how about you?” Von said, “Sorry, man, my guild needs me right now. We’re about to attack a major boss.” I said, “I worry about you sometimes, Von. But if no one’s coming, I’ll go on my own. Catch you guys later. I gotta get ready for work tomorrow anyways. I still gotta pay bills.” The rest of the week I went to work like normal. I usually work from Monday to Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., so at night I would go free-running on the roofs in my neighborhood freaking them out. I mean wouldn't you be if you heard footsteps on your roof? For some reason I’ve had a lot of extra energyeverysince the accident. I figured that free-running was the only way to get rid of the excess energy. It was so freeing and I would clear the gap between house like I was Jordan, except for one time when I slammed into the side of someone's house, but we don’t talk about that. Wink, Wink.
On Friday I decided to do a double shift at work to make extra money for those doctor’s bills. That same night Von and Neil went to a Filipino function in Jersey City hosted by a family and close friend. It was around 11:00 p.m., and Von, who didn’t care for these functions much, went outside to get some air. While he was sitting on the front steps, he heard some noise two buildings down. He went to check it out. He peeked around the corner and saw four guys in the alley. It looked like a drug boss with his two thugs standing next to him. The boss was talking to a guy, and it sounded like the guy was short on the money this week or something. Out of nowhere one of the boss’s thugs pulled out a gun and shot the guy. The guy fell back then began to squirm coughing up blood. The boss walked over to the guy and stood over him, he then pulled out a gun and shot the guy point-blank. After the boss shot the guy, he looked up and saw Von peeking at the corner. He then told his thugs to go after him. Von took off and tried to get back to the building where the function was, but right before he got in front of the steps, one of the thugs shot Von in the back. Von hit the floor and lay motionless. The guys caught up with Von on the floor and waited for the boss to get there. When the boss got there, he stood over Von’s motionless body and slowly pulled out his gun. He pointed his gun at Von’s head, but before he pulled the trigger, Neil came out the front door with some of Von’s family members. The boss and his thugs ran off so no one would see their faces. Neil ran over to Von then flipped him over. He checked Von’s pulse and said, “Someone call the ambulance! Von’s alive but his pulse is low.” They rushed Von to the hospital. Around that time, I had just gotten home from working the double shift and was very tired. I knocked out the second I lay down.
The next morning I woke up with ten missed calls and a bunch of texts. When I checked my phone, I found out Von was at the hospital. I hopped in my hooptie(an old car) and sped over there. When I got to the hospital, I found out what room Von was in and ran up the stairs. Neil was in the room with Von. I asked Neil if Von was OK. He told me Von had just come out of surgery and was going to be OK, but the danger wasn’t over; he was still in a comma. I asked Neil “What happened and who did this?!” Neil told me he didn’t know exactly what happened, just that when they came out front, they saw some guys standing over Von on the floor. I asked if he saw what the guys looked like. Neil said he didn’t get to see them that good; all he could tell me was that the one standing over Von had a bald head and a tattoo on his left arm of a Scorpion with a cobra head on its tail. I went over to Von’s side and put my hand on his hand and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll find out who did this to you and make them pay.”
I started walking out the room, and Neil asked where I was going. Itold him, “Don’t worry, just watch over Von.” I then headed home right away. I realized what I was about to do was stupid maybe even crazy, but Von was like a little brother to me and I had promised his brother I’d watch after him. Some big brother I was. When I got home, I went into my drawers and found some black Halloween face paint. Later that night, I put on the black face paint and put on a hoodie. I then drove back over to Jersey City to try and find out who shot Von. I parked my car in a mall parking lot and headed to the roofs of the buildings in Jersey City. I didn’t know where to start, so I headed to the middle of town at Journal Square. It didn’t seem like anything was going on; then I saw a woman leave from the train station and started heading toward an alley.
I thought to myself, “ What are you doing, lady?” I didn’t think women actually went down dark alleys by themselves. I thought that only happens in movies. I then saw a bald-headed guy follow her into the alley. I jumped over to the roof of the building the alley was next to. When I got there, the bald man had gotten hold of the woman and was trying to rape her. I jumped down and landed on the man. The guy screamed, “Ahhhh, you broke my freakin legs!” While standing on the guy’s back, I asked the lady if she was OK. She answered by screaming and running out the alley. I mumbled to myself, “OK, don’t worry about thanking me, it’s not like I saved your life or anything.”
The guy I was standing on screamed, “Get off my freakin back you physco.” I looked down at him then told him to shut up as I punched him in the head, knocking him out. A few minutes later, I slapped the guy in the face to wake him up. The guy woke up and realized that he was being held over the side of a building with one hand. He said, “Holy crap, man, who the hell are you? What do you
want?” while he clung to my arm trying not to fall. I said, “Me . . . umm, it doesn’t matter who I am, just answer my questions.” I then said to him, “I know you’re not the guy I’m looking for, but what can you tell me about a bald man with a tattoo on his left arm of a scorpion with the head ofa cobra on the tail?”
The guy said, “Nothing, man, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I said to him, “OK, there’s no reason to keep you up here then”; then I dropped him. He screamed, “No wait!” and I reached down and caught him with the same hand before he even dropped to my foot level. I then said, “Oh, now you wanna talk. Before I dropped you, you knew nothing about a guy with that tattoo.” The guy said, “Sorry, man, I’ll tell you anything you wanna know.” I stood up, lifting him with the same arm, and began walking around the edge of the building roof slowly with the guy clinging for life. I then told him, “OK, tell me what you know about this guy.”
The man said that the guy I was looking for was the leader of the gang call D Venoms. I then asked him where I could find the man. He said he didn’t know. I lifted up my pinky of the hand holding him up and told him that any more wrong answers and I might not be able to hold him up much longer. He said, “Wait, I don’t know, but someone who’s in the gang might know. They have the same tattoo as him, except theirs has a regular snake head on the tail, the boss has a king cobra.” I then asked him where I could find the gang members. He said he didn’t know, so let go with the ring finger; scared he swore he was telling the truth. He said just look around the city they’re on every major block. I told him, “OK, that’s all I needed for now.” He then asked me, trembling if I was going to put him back on the roof now. I told him, “no” and let go of him. He screamed for his life as he fell landing in a trash Dumpster. I then looked over the edge and tossed him his cell phone that I took when I had knocked him out.
I yelled down to him, “I hope you don’t mind, I called the police to come get you. Don’t go anywhere. Oh wait, you can’t, your legs are broken.” I then walked away, laughing while he screamed, “You Freakin psycho! I’ll kill you next time man!” I have no remorse for thugs like him. It’s people like him that hurt Von. I don’t care how many guys like him I have hurt, they have it coming. I will find the guy that hurt Von and I will make them pay. It was getting late so I figured I’d call it quits for the night. I had to get some rest, and at least I knew where to start now.
The next day I visited Von to see if he was doing any better, but he was still in a coma. Seeing him like that only fueled my anger and determination to find who did this to him. On my drive home I got a call from an old friend who happened to be a comic fanatic. He wanted to know if I wanted to get something to eat at this restaurant, that had twenty-cent hot wings. I had like ten bucks, so doing the math that meant it might be enough to fill me so I accepted the invite. I told him I was down and I walked to talk to him about something. Imet him at the restaurant, but food wasn’t the only thing on my mind.
He asked me how I was doing and what was on my mind. I said, “nothing really, but…” He said, “Shoot” I continued by asking, “What would be a good black superhero name?” He said, “OK, that came out of nowhere.” I replied, “I know, but do you have any ideas for cool black superhero names?” He said, “OK”; then he started giving me some names that made me rethink if it was a good idea to ask him. Names like the Dark Desperado, Milk Chocolate Marauder, Kung Fro Bro, the Ebony Bandit, Negro Hero, and my personal favorite, The Hershey Crusader. There was a couple more, but I’d probably get fined by the FCC just for saying them. He’s definitely something else. After we ate and caught up on what we’ve been up to, minus the whole crime fighting thing, we bumped fist and told each other to keep in touch. Driving home, I kept trying to think of a good hero’s name. It was so bad that I started thinking that some of the names my friend said earlier didn’t sound so bad. I needed something that would make criminals jump when they hear it, something that when someone mentions it sent chills down bad guys spine. I thought about my name and realized it was right in front of me the whole time. Spears, but take off the S at the end it becomes a deadly weapon. Spear… yea that sounds good, because I don’t want to strike fear in myenemies, Iwant to spear it into them. As simple as it was, Spear was the perfect name for me.
When I got home I looked for some red face paint. After putting the shape of spear heads over each eye, along with black face paint, I looked in the mirror. Justice had a new name, and its name was Spear. Over the next couple of nights, I went on the hunt for the gang members of the D Venoms. I ended up saving more than my share of innocent people, “Who would have thought there was so much violence in the world,” I thought to myself sarcastically. One night on one of my runs I spotted a kid about to get jumped by some gang members. They had him cornered, outnumbered four to one. They pushed him in an dark alley, and something told me they weren’t challenging him to a Yu-Gi-Oh card duel in the shadow realm. I hopped over to the roof of the alley way. From the roof I saw they had the tattoo of a scorpion with the snake on the tail. One of them pulled out a knife, and that’s when I jumped into action. I jumped down and caught the guy with a flying punch to the head, knocking him out. The other guys jumped back, but you could see they were pissed I knocked out their fellow member. I looked over my shoulder and told the kid I saved to, “Get back, I’ll take care of them.” One of the gang members said, “Dude, are you crazy? Knocking out our new recruit like that. You know who we are?” I told them, “Yea, and for one of the biggest gangs in this town, you guys are really hard to find.” One of them said, “This ain’t Halloween bruh. You must have a death wish if you looking for us.” I replied back, “Not so much a death wish… it’s more like I hate filth like you, and enjoy kicking your butts.” One replied, “This cat think he funny, well funny gets you killed around here. But, before you die, what do you call yourself looking like that?” as he chuckled. I replied back, “Spear” They all begin to laugh. After the guy in front stopped laughing he said, “Spear, wait. I heard that name before. Your the fool running around beating up dudes asking bout us. Hope it was worth it, because today you die.” One of them then pulled out a knife. I looked around quickly, saw a pipe, then picked it up. I said, “Ha, pipe beats knife.” Then the guy in front chuckled as he pulled out a gun and said, “Gun beats pipe.” In that moment, the only thing running through my mind was,
Holy crap, he’s got a gun, why didn’t I think about that? W hat do I do?! The man with the gun then pulled the trigger and it seemed like time came to a halt. Everything was moving so super slow it was as if I pressed the slow button on the world. I heard the click of the trigger, the explosion of the bullet as it shot out of the gun barrel. I watched the spiral of the bullet as it came straight at me, but it was like my body was frozen. When the bullet got inches from my head, my body just reacted, and hit the bullet away with the pipe sending it flying into the brick wall. I looked at my hand in total shock. I looked at the wall with the bullet stuck in it. In my head the only thing I was thinking was, “What just happened?” The three guys looked confused since they couldn’t follow my moves; they didn’t see me hit the bullet away. One guy yelled, “How’d you miss him from there?” The guy with the guy replied, “I don’t know I was aiming straight at him, but I won’t miss this time.” The guy with the gun pulled the trigger three more times, but this time I was ready. I hit all three bullets away right in front of them. They couldn’t believe their eyes. I said, “Ha, what now?” confidently. The other two then pulled out a gun. I thought to myself, “Maybe I shouldn’t gloat until I actually beat them.” All three began to shoot at me, but my reflexes were so fast that I was able to hit every bullet away. In fact I started hitting them back at the gang members. Two got hit in the leg, and one got hit in the shoulder. They all hit the ground after that and dropped their guns. They scrambled to their feet and began to run off. I wasn’t done with them. I had questions I needed answered.
I looked back and asked the
kid I saved if he was OK. He said, “yeah” so I told him to get home and call the police, these guys weren’t getting away that easily. I chased after them, but they split up, so I just went after the one that seemed to be in charge of the other three. I jumped to the rooftops and followed him until he stopped in an alley to catch his breath, thinking he lost me. He rested his back against the wall; that’s when I jumped down right in front of him. He pulled out a knife, but I took it away from him, pushed him against the wall, then stabbed the knife through his hand jamming it into the brick wall. I then covered his mouth so he couldn’t scream. I then told him to shut up or I’d give him something to cry about. (Wow, déjà vu, I just got flashbacks of getting butt whippings as a child.) Anyways, I told him I was going to move my hand from his mouth and ask him some questions. I told him if he screams, I’d make sure he won’t have any fingers left to shoot any gun. He nodded his head, agreeing to my terms. I asked him where I could find the leader and what his name was. I need to know the name of the man I was going to kill. He told me the leaders name was Razor and much more. As I backed away, he screamed, “What, ain’t you gonna take the knife out my hand?” I jumped up to the roof as he screamed. “Wait! you can’t leave me like this!” I jumped back down. I told him, “I almost forgot to leave you a little present.” It was a plastic bag with the guns they dropped. You could hear the police sirens coming down the street, so I placed the bag of guns against the wall across from him. He screamed, “You can’t do this, man. I told you everything you wanted to know. You promised to let me go.” I looked at him and said, “The only thing I agreed to is letting you keep your fingers.” I then ran out the alley and hit a car in front of the alley setting off the alarm for the cops’ passing to notice. I then jumped back to the rooftops. I now had a name and a place to find the real man in charge. When I got home I realized I needed a weapon. I needed some sort of weapon, but I don’t like guns. I thought about it and the pipe came in handy, but a regular pipe would wear down to easily. I thought about it and designed a perfect weapon for me to use.