And then three bolts of lighting—amber, ruby, and emerald bolts of dazzling energy—pulverized the stage and the podium into smithereenlets.
All combatants jumped back from whomever they were pummeling or rolled away from whoever was pummeling them, crouching and quivering at the sight of the lightning, which had struck and remained in place. The bolts snapped and twisted and finally congealed into the black-light forms of three titans: a giant with the face of a jackal, another with the face of a flamingo, and a female giant holding what looked like a massive feather.
The Jackal stooped, gently picking up the sarcophagus of Hawk King and cradling it like a baby. The Woman pointed her feather like a lance, panning it across the crowd.
And then the Flamingo took each comrade by the hand, and the triumvirate transmuted themselves back into lightning.
And disappeared.
Peace Is Not Simply the Absence of War
Funerals are emotionally dynamic experiences, and even nonpowered humans may find themselves reacting in ways that frustrate or embarrass themselves and others: excessive sobbing, laughter, panic attacks, and incontinence, among many other overreactions, are common.
But for you in the superpowered community, careening through high-stakes careers and hobbled by overactive ids and the Icon Trap, outbursts and even violence at funerals are practically an occupational hazard.
To get a better understanding of how my sanity-supplicants were faring during this uniquely stressful time, I chose to observe them outside the clinical environment, seeking them out on their own turf where they’d be more able to process and safely/appropriately externalize/verbalize their psychemotional disturbances.
While a few of my patients retired postfunereally to the Fortress of Freedom, most made their way to a well-known eatery in midtown Bird Island, a cramped enclave on Bustle Avenue famous for its head-high smoked meat sandwiches and its heart attack–inducing cheesecake. Just as New York actors roosted at Sardi’s, Los Ditkos hyperhominids congregated at Soup ’n’ Heroes, an old-fashioned two-story deli dwarfed by surrounding skyscrapers and owned by brothers Jan and “Stack” Leeby, who still squabbled daily over who invented which soup and which sandwich. And almost as famous as Soup ’n’ Heroes’ founders was its manager, the eye-patched and affable S. Bruce Pippen.
Sadly, Soup ’n’ Heroes was no stranger to funeral receptions, and that day was crowded even more than usual. Its trademarked howling waiters merely whispered above the crowd’s murmurs, while the diner’s jukebox sat mutely, un-played. Draped with black cloth monogrammed with golden letters spelling HAWK KING, the deli’s mirrors reflected only shadows.
Despite my obvious capelessness, no one questioned my presence as I nudged my way through the overcapacity; I’d treated enough of these men, women, and cyborgs to have been accepted silently into their community.
Regret: the Ghost That Haunts the Living
There were almost as many heroes on the walls as there were between them: framed and autographed black-and-whites from the Golden Age to the Glitter Age, including shots of Gil Gamoid and the N-Kid. Despite complaints from some diners and even a few hyperhominids, manager Bruce had always refused to take them down. Regardless of Gil’s and the N-Kid’s poisonous paranoia and murderous, malevolent madness, old-time hero-watchers still adored those two F*O*O*J pioneers from Ur-Prime, the planet orbiting the distant Quasar Q-939.
Among the assembled mourners, only quiet clucking over the brawl remained, mixed with awe over the phantasmagoric apparition of Hawk King’s divine relatives. But then that soft conversing was crushed into absolute silence, enough to seem as if it had been the braying of an army of donkeys.
But after all, how could anyone utter a word when the world’s mightiest man ambled in after having announced his own self-imposed exile?
Mr. Piltdown could.
“Well, well, well—if it isn’t the world’s mightiest quitter,” he rumbled, not even in a mock-whisper. “To what do we mere mortals owe this anticlimactic farce of an honor?”
Despite his white dress cape with black trim and epaulets, Wally looked like a broken man, his shoulders hunched beyond even their usual enhunchment, like a show pony struggling beneath a morbidly obese rider.
“Jess wannid…to…I’ont know. Say g’bye t’folks? Proper-like. I didn’mean to have all that come out like it did at th’fun’ral.”
Mr. Piltdown, perhaps in irony, made a sound very much like the word harrumph. “No, of course not. You certainly didn’t intend to steal the funeral’s spotlight any more than that logos-powered lawn jockey did.” (Outside the therapeutic environment, it was clear that whatever inhibitions Mr. Piltdown might have had against unleashing his anticompassionate behavior were negated.) “No, your grandstanding just…‘happened,’ is that right?”
“What? I didn’—”
“No, of course you diddin,” sneered Mr. Piltdown. Reaching toward his boot, he removed his Squirrel Screen from its utility sheath. He unfurled it like a scroll, then plucked Wally’s framed photo from the wall and hung the screen from the now-free nail. Tabbing concealed buttons on his left long glove, he brought the screen to life and sifted among television channels.
Nearly every image was of Wally at the funeral dais uttering his resignation until finally cleaving skyward. The images were all identical. Evidently PNN had opted to sell the lucrative rights for the footage over maintaining the journalistic honor of an exclusive.
“Look, Festy, I never spected t’have m’speech all over th’TV like that—”
The image on Channel 101 switched to another event: Mr. Piltdown heckling Kareem before storming the platform; Mr. Piltdown racing toward Kareem who was yelling back “what, you gonna throw down right here in the middle of a—”; Flying Squirrel decking X-Man, only to be throat-punched in return before the melee of a thousand capes and tights burst out.
“This is outrageous! How in the hell did—?” said Mr. Piltdown. “Filthy goddamned media whores! There was another camera smuggled in there?”
The image then switched to a howling pack of journalists outside the wall of the Blue Pyramid complex.
CBS reporter: With the impending F*O*O*J election and this special relationship you’re claiming to have had with, uh, with Hawk King, not to mention the, the “fracas” allegedly begun by the Flying Squirrel during the funeral, do you think either of you will be disciplined by the F*L*A*C, or do you think you’re now a shoo-in for the post of Director of Operations?
X-Man (grinning): Well, Sheila, if there’s one thing I learned today [gingerly touching his belly], it’s that you can’t ever know for sure what’s gonna happen—
Reporters: (laughter)
CBS reporter: What about this scroll, this papyrus you mentioned? What’s it about?
X-Man: It was—The Instructions of Hawk King—it was Hawk King’s final analysis of what’s wrong with the planet and how to fix it before—
Second reporter: How will you be able to verify its authenticity?
X-Man: Trust me. Everyone’ll see. Everyone’ll know. Third reporter: Why are you waiting a week to reveal its contents?
X-Man: The country, the world, needs time to grieve. But as soon as the grieving’s done, like ol’ Joe Hill said, “We’ve got to organize—”
“Can you believe the nerve of that nattering negro nimrod?” said Mr. Piltdown to no one and everyone. “He’s exploiting the death of our leader to advance his own political career! He’s a goddamned polyp inside the colon of propriety!”
CBS reporter: Following release of this violent amateur video smuggled out of this morning’s funeral, an unscientific CBS phone-in poll found a majority of callers supporting the X-Man’s Five-Point Plan for F*O*O*J Renewal, favoring the so-called X Slate of candidates over the Squirrel Slate, and indicating that if the vote were today, and by a ratio of eight to one, they would support the X-Man over the Flying Squirrel for the post of Director of Operations—
Stabbing the keypad on his
glove and listening to his earbud, Mr. Piltdown paused a moment before hissing into his wrist: “Yes, tell him—I don’t goddamned care if he’s meeting with the affiliates, I own the goddamned network! You tell Finch-beck to get up footage of those Egyptian goddamned gods exploding into the funeral—that’s the most spectacular apparition ever recorded, should’ve been leading the news every five—
“What do you mean the footage was blank? All of it? How can it all be…? Fine, then just get up a poll—one of our polls—to answer this CBS swinewash before the beginning of the next commercial or the presidency of PNN will be open by the end of it!”
He stilettoed his finger into his hang-up key, then switched his screen back to PNN.
PNN was showing the same footage—some of it, anyway: that of Kareem hitting the Flying Squirrel, but not the strike by Mr. Piltdown which initiated it. Mr. Piltdown clicked through a dozen other channels; on all the stations owned by Piltdown Corp, the X-Man was the aggressor.
“See, Festus?” said Wally, his eyes like dead bulbs. “They done forgot about ol Omnip’tent Man an hour anna half later. I’m done. Yesterday’s man. Y’all were worried bout nuthin.”
Mr. Piltdown sneered again, turning his back on ever-more shoulder-hunched Wally. Behind him was the famous photograph of Omnipotent Man hovering beside Mount F*O*O*J-more, where the last son of Argon had used his legendary chisel-vision to carve the giant busts of the F*O*O*J’s founders following victory in the Götterdämmerung. Beneath their gazes, he’d hewn the phrase ENDURING TRIUMPH.
I called him over and drew his attention to the picture.
“This’s been a tough day for you, Wally, hasn’t it?”
“Yessir, ma’am-doctor.”
“You know, Wally, looking at that famous photograph, reflecting upon all the pain and loss and the sense of lostness that you’re feeling now, with your resignation in this age of peace you helped create…I wonder if you can see how the slogan you carved might be ironic?”
He looked at the photograph, squinted. “Whaddaya mean?”
“Well, enduring doesn’t only mean ‘lasting.’ It means ‘getting through’ or ‘surviving despite.’ ”
He chewed his lip. “I…I’ont follow ya, ma’am.”
“ ‘Enduring’—see, it means…Okay, that’s fine, Wally. Look, where are you going now?”
“Back to An’ar’tica.”
“Antarctica? Why Antarctica?”
“I’m retirin…so I’m gon retire to my Stronghold of Standing-on-My-Own-Two-Feetitude. T’live out my days. ’Merica don’need me no more.”
“Wally, I think you’re making a mistake, leaving like this before you’ve processed all your unresolved issues…but all I ask you to do is come see me at least once before you go, okay?” He looked doubtful. “Please, Wally. I’m worried about you.”
He breathed in, his chest inflating to its fridgelike volume and grandeur. But he was still looking at the floor.
“Kay, doc. But on’y for you.” He tilted his head up, looked me in the eye. “Know why?”
“Tell me.”
“Cuz you wannid to hep us. To hep me. I’s always sposta be th’one savin evrabody. An th’on’y person other’n you who ever tried savin me…was that man we done laid to rest t’day.
“An even with all m’pow’rs, m’dadblasted, planet-shakin, worldifyin pow’rs,” he said, the corners of his mouth curling down as if he’d sucked up rotten milk, “I cain’t bring Hawk King back anymore’n I can grab a coupla fistfuls a yesterday.”
He sniffled, touched my arm gently with his massive hand, and then pushed open the door before walking out, out and away.
When Heaven Shrivels, Whither the Earth?
For Wally, the death of his icon was only at that moment becoming truly real. While nonpowered citizens live daily with the reality of their powerlessness and have no choice but to make their peace with it, for you as a hyperhominid, facing the fact of your own ultimate powerlessness can be devastating. I asked Wally to come see me to ensure that he, a savior suddenly bereft of his own savior figure, wouldn’t plunge perpetually into the jackbooted tentacles of the slavering mouth of the black hole of despair.
Others, however, were legendary for their capacity to slough off the slivery yoke of mourning to don the newly dry-cleaned uniform of self-actualization.
Mr. Piltdown was not one of them. Hampered by his own over-glorification of his mentor and pinned to the mat of political intrigue by his contempt for Kareem, Mr. Piltdown was haranguing anyone who would listen—in this case, Dow-Man, the Downsizer, and Smithing Wesson—with his diatribe about the day’s events. I took a seat within hearing distance, signaling S. Bruce Pippen for a piece of Original Leeby’s Cosmic Cheesecake.
“—nerve of that knot-muscled blunder-boor to come here, just for the sake of appearances. Watchtower hasn’t stepped foot inside this establishment in years. Yes, Soup ’n’ Heroes might be cramped, run-down, with passé blue-collar kitsch for cuisine and blue-haired biddies named Madge and Eunice serving low-end coffee, but for those of us who honor tradition—”
“I haven’t seen you here once in the last year, Squirrel,” deadpanned Original Fabulous Man, swiveling around on his counter stool.
“Maybe if you didn’t spend all your time here in a men’s room stall,” said Mr. Piltdown, his cohorts snickering viciously at his riposte, “you would have.”
“I still have my membership card, Squirrel. I’m still fully paid up. And I’ll remember what you said on ratification day.”
“You do that,” said Mr. Piltdown. “Assuming you can tell the difference between a voting box and what I believe you people refer to as a ‘glory hole.’ ”
“Right now, Squirrel!” said Original Fabulous Man, standing to his full six and a half feet and shoving his rainbow flag off of his immense biceps.
“Somebawdy here wanna get banned?”
It was S. Bruce Pippen speaking, his non-eye-patched eye alternating glowers with both men. “Cuz I am itchin to ban somebawdy! Snappin and fightin in here, on the day a Hawk King’s fun’ral, like a coupla dawgs out in the street. Samatta witchu guys?”
“Sorry, Bruce,” said Original Fabulous Man. “I’ll stop if he stops.”
“I’ve already stopped,” said Mr. Piltdown, turning back to his own group while Pippen monitored a moment for compliance before putting my cheesecake on my table. “Can’t you do sumthin about these mugs, Doc?”
“I’ll do my best, Bruce,” I reassured him. He winked, then glared at the would-be combatants before limping back to the kitchen.
“Anyway,” said Mr. Piltdown, “Watchtower’s a fraud and a liar. Always hinting about his pathetic secret identity as some unnamed intrepid metropolitan reporter—”
“You mean he aint?” asked Smithing Wesson.
“Hardly. He’s actually the ‘acclaimed’ advice columnist of ‘Ask Aunt Edna’ in The Blandton Gazette-Dispatch.”
“An advice columnist? You kiddin me? What a sham artist!”
“Indeed. It’s one thing to lie to the public, but to us? So what does this ‘resignation’ mean, anyway? Nothing but a failed publicity stunt.”
“From what I heard,” said the Downsizer, leaning forward and checking each man’s face in turn, “this is for real. I heard Wally’s so depressed he’s thinking about getting the ol’ snip-snip.”
“Naw, no way!” said Smithing Wesson.
“Yeah. Depoweration.”
“Hah!” sneered Mr. Piltdown. “Well, regardless, he may as well’ve done so decades ago for all the good he’s ever done. Certainly with his…mm…problem—”
“Oh, y’mean,” said Smithing Wesson, “with the…?” He crushed his fist repeatedly, a mysterious gesture.
“Wait, you mean with the—?” added the Downsizer, flicking his fingers at the side of his eyes with equal mystery.
“I thought those was just rumors,” said Smithing Wesson.
“Far from it, gentlemen,” said the Squirrel. “And
while I hate to give credit to any lunatic utterance of that refugee from the Laboratory of Apoplectic Baboons, we are now in a dire security situation. Much as I’m loath to concede the point, brain-power aside, Wally was our ultimate line of defense. Combine that with Hawk King’s intellect, and our planet was safe. But now…”
“So whaddaya sayin, Fess?” said Wesson. “You sayin the King really was murdered?”
“If he was, my friend, then I suspect the mastermind behind it will attempt to bury several more hatchets in the livers of our individual brothers…before he drives a combine over us all.”
“You think it’s Warmaster Set? Or,” whispered the Downsizer before he gulped, “Menton?”
The name, uttered even in a hush, chilled the already quiet room, drawing icy glares.
“I think I’d rather not say,” said Festus, “just yet.”
“Now wait a second, Squirrel—back up to Wally,” said Wesson. “What’s with this Wally stuff you guys were hinting about? Are you talking about those rumors a him bein like Fabulous Man and them?”
“No, not specifically,” said Mr. Piltdown, “though it wouldn’t surprise me. Wally’s never been married, never had a girlfriend to anyone’s knowledge despite that sham of a high-profile relationship with Ticker-Tape Girl in 1947 and then Princess Astra in the early eighties. The nickname Impotent Man didn’t get whispered for nothing—”
“Festus!”
Mr. Piltdown looked up into the eyes of the ravenish woman standing in front of him, draped in black. All whispering around the deli died.
“Our King iss dett, Festus,” said Iron Lass, glaring at him from behind her veil. “Iss zis respect? Unt Vally, however flawt he might be, vuss vun of us. Unt now…now our two mightiest are gone…unt neizer vun even set goodtbye…to me.”
Minister Faust Page 12
