by David Beem
Dr. Cozen’s jaw falls open, and I wrest control of my body from Sigmund Freud, reaching out through the Collective Unconscious and imagining my brain pushing against an impossibly heavy—and endless—curtain.
Edger! Edger—listen to me!
Dad?
A flood of urgent imagery and emotions pour through our connection as—too late—the curtain pushes in, enveloping me with soft but overwhelming weight. I stumble as Freud is wrenched into the depths of the Collective Unconscious. Mary, sensing the change in my body language, bounds to her feet. She roots in her purse, pulls out cash, and then stuffs it in Cozen’s hands.
“I’m sorry for any inconvenience,” she says, grabbing my elbow and hurrying me out the door. Doctor Cozen’s astonished voice follows us on the way out.
“Mamma?”
In the hallway, Mary rounds on me, and I explain what happened. My dad’s presence!
“Edger, that’s incredible,” she says. “That means this is working. We’re getting your powers back. But, wait. You’re sure it was your dad?”
“Positive.”
“But how? Your dad can access the Collective Unconscious?”
I shake my head. “No. I mean, I don’t know. It’s not like the others. Not like Bruce Lee or Lieutenant Killmaster. It was kind of a mess. Jumbled.” My forehead tightens as I try again the trick with the psychic push. But this time, the curtain is too heavy. “Bah. No good. I can’t do it again.”
Mary’s eyebrows rise. “But you did it once. Maybe with practice?”
My shoulders slump. “Maybe. In the meantime… Dad was trying to tell me something without using words. It was like he was trying to send me pictures. Or, feelings…something.” I shake my head.
“Maybe Nigel can help.”
“Good idea.” Nigel? You there?
Of course.
“What is it?” asks Mary. “Is he there? Are you talking to him?”
I raise a hand and nod.
Did you understand Dad’s message?
Nigel releases a kind of psychic sigh. How to explain? He isn’t actually using the Collective Unconscious in the same way you do. He isn’t using words, per se. It’s very abstract, and—
But you understood it?
Well, of course I understood it.
And you can translate. I mean, into something specific?
If by “specific” you mean a request to meet him in the lobby of the Plaza, 8:30 sharp, Monday morning so he can help fix your problem, then yes.
Nigel, that’s terrific!
Also—he strongly advises you to bring your superhero ring.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The interior of the A-Team van is worse than smog over Beijing. Fabio powers the windows down another inch. He scrubs his tears away with the heel of his hand and shifts in his seat. The contact high isn’t too bad. As long as he can keep the dotted yellow line going down the middle of the van, he probably doesn’t need to pull over. Right? Not like there’s been much oncoming traffic. Just the one semi about a hundred miles ago. Fabio shudders. His horn had been like the four horsemen of the Apocalypse raining down Famine, Death, Conquest, and Frogs. And for what? Because Fabio had been doing seven miles per hour? The semi had been doing closer to warp factor nine! Not everybody’s got cruise control, people. Some have to do it the old-fashioned way: keep it reliably between seven and sixty-five miles per hour, rubberneck it for the cops, and pray to God the remaining munchies last to the next filling station.
“No, look,” says Wang from the back of the van. “If I use hashtag salvation, or hashtag miracles, all these Jesus people swoop in and give it a like. But if I use hashtag psychic, all these palm reader people swoop in and give it a like. But I can’t be associated with all that. Those people are kooks.”
“Ha-ha, kooks,” adds Shmuel, who, in the rearview mirror, Fabio spots rolling a caper-sized glob of earwax between thumb and forefinger. Shmuel smells it, then rubs it into a dry spot in between his knuckles. The van swerves, and Fabio wrenches his gaze—first to the dotted yellow line, aiming it down the middle, like so—then to the speedometer: twelve miles per hour.
“The fuck?” says Wang.
“I get dry skin in there, okay?” replies Shmuel.
“Johnny,” says Wang. “We’re building an actual motherfucking religion here. Do you understand what that means? It means we’re at the bottom floor, and we can only go up. But if we let Jesus and the palm readers into our hearts, we don’t go up. We go soft. And that means going nowhere. Fast.”
“Fast implies we’ll get there,” says Ralph. “Getting nowhere fast beats passing through it slow.”
Fabio checks the speedometer: nine miles per hour. He leans on the gas. Then, by force of habit, he checks the rearview mirror for the black car about a mile behind them. He spots it and exhales a sigh. He’s been through a lot with that car. It’d be a shame for their paths to diverge now. It’s nice to be on the road with other responsible drivers who understand the value of keeping it under the speed limit.
“Don’t you see?” asks Wang. “These evangelical unconditional-love types are too chicken to join us. They aren’t ready for the socioeconomic change, man!”
“Yeah,” replies Shmuel. “They’d have to get rid of their arsenals?”
“That’s right, Shmuel. And without their guns, they’d have to vote Democrat, and if they’re voting Democrat, that means they’re here illegally.”
“Yeah,” says Shmuel. “And they’d be the subject of deportation? And not even eternal salivation can save you from being the subject of deportation?”
“They’d be subject to deportation,” says Wang. “And it’s salvation, dumbass! Salvation!”
“That’s what I said?”
“No. It isn’t. You said sal-i-vation—which is drool—which is what you got on your IQ test.”
“I didn’t take an IQ test?”
“No shit, Sherlock. They don’t let people like you take ’em because you’ll cut yourself because they can’t childproof paper.”
In the rearview mirror, Shmuel lights another joint. Fabio frowns and refocuses on the dotted yellow line. He inches the window down a bit farther—not too far, though. Mistakes like that cost you the highway wind blowing everything all to hell.
“Sterling, Colorado,” says Ralph from out of nowhere. A profound feeling of synchronicity shakes Fabio to his underpants.
“Whoa,” he says, pointing to the green sign on the side of the road that says Sterling, Colorado. “That’s so weird. That literally says Sterling, Colorado on it.”
“Do—ood,” says Wang. “It’s a sign.”
“That’s because it is a fucking sign!” says Johnny, braying with laughter.
“No, no, no,” says Wang. “This is a sign from our lord and savior Zarathustra!”
“That green sign right there?” asks Shmuel. “Zarathustra put that there?”
“Yes, Shmuel—don’t you see? Consuelo lives there!”
“In the sign?” asks Shmuel.
“Consuelo?” asks Ralph. “Who’s Consuelo?”
“Our dealer,” says Wang. “Ran off with that one Cluck-n-Pray chick and our Black Ops 4. We’ve got to stop. Even if it weren’t miraculous divine intervention. We need to replenish supplies.”
“That sounds like a good reason for divine intervention,” says Johnny.
“Stop!” yells Wang.
Fabio slams on the brakes. His seat belt squeezes his chest. Half-eaten chip bags, empty beer bottles, boxes of whip cream cans, jugs of Listerine, and two sets of fake breasts skid across the floor. Fabio pants, gazing straight out with his arms locked on the wheel. His heart is knocking in his chest. In the rearview mirror, Ralph whips out his camera and starts filming.
“I didn’t mean we had to stop here,” says Wang.
“We could’ve died, you guys!” says Fabio.
“At nine miles an hour?” asks Johnny.
“Quick—start driving again. Before the cops come?”
says Shmuel.
“Derp. To Sterling,” says Johnny. “My art demands we stop for the Harry Potter.”
“We could’ve died,” Fabio says again, using his turn signal, then shutting it off. Right. First, he needs to get to the exit. He leans on the gas and mutters, “We could’ve died. And we never would’ve seen Sterling.” His heart swells with emotion. “It’s just so sad.”
About a mile behind them, a black car also resumes its twelve-miles-per-hour cross-country trek.
CHAPTER Fifteen
By the time the sun starts going down, it’s clear we’re not going to solve my superpower problem today. Mary’s hungry and my feet are pulsing. We stop at a Mexican place on West 55th, nab two seats, order.
“We made good progress today,” she says, sitting across from me with a heaping plate of carne asada chips. “Freud, and your dad,” she adds, listing them on her thumb and finger.
“Well,” I say, “zjeść, zjadać wszystoko!”
Her eyes widen. “God bless you.”
“Thank you,” I reply, digging into my huevos rancheros with a fork and knife.
“What was that?”
“Something Gran says. Said.”
“Which means…?”
I shrug. “I always thought it was like, mangia, mangia—but for us Polaks.”
“You never asked her what she was saying?” she asks, chewing her straw.
“No. You know. Context. I guess she could’ve been telling me I had carrots in my ears, but that felt like a leap.”
Mary smiles and sets her drink down. She catches me looking at her chewed-up straw, shrugs, then digs into her chips. I let my gaze cruise over her shoulder to peer out the front window.
“You miss her,” she says.
“Of course. I didn’t realize how hard it’d be to keep letting her think I’m dead. Being pretend dead just goes on and on.”
“You know we’ve got those cameras in her place. If you want to see her—”
“No.” I shake my head. “That’s her life. It’s private. It’s just… All this makes me wish I could talk to Dad on the reg. He’s been ‘fake dead’ for twenty years. And by the way, if he could do that trick with Collective Unconscious all along, why hasn’t he used it before now?”
Mary nods and slurps her Coke. I look out the window again, and a bus goes by with a Star Wars poster on the side: The Phantom Menace.
“Oh—look, look!” I point.
Mary’s on her feet. Her chair kicks over. She’s three feet from our table! Her right hand stuffed inside her leather jacket, her gaze tracks mine. She spots the Star Wars poster. Her shoulders slump.
One table over from ours, a glob of sour cream slides from a taco to splat on a tray in front of a wide-eyed kid who’s gaping at Mary like she’s his new favorite TV show. Two tables from him, a group of hipster guys are admiring/pretending not to admire the action hero in the black leather jacket and yoga pants.
Mary’s hand slides out of her jacket. She fixes a strand of hair behind her ear. She rights her chair and takes a seat. Arms at her sides, she fixes her firm attention on her dinner. I lean forward and lower my voice.
“Nice moves, hot stuff.”
“Stop talking. Eat.”
I skim the faces around us. A bald man pretending we’re not here. A teenage girl admiring the group of hipster guys admiring Mary. And Taco Kid, still absorbed in his favorite new show. Mary wipes her napkin on her face and inadvertently smears refried beans across her cheek.
“Edger. I thought your life was in danger. You scared me.”
“I keep forgetting the ‘loyal protector’ part of your job description. Sorry.”
She shovels in another bite. I open my mouth, meaning to tell her about the refried beans, but now she’s talking with her mouth full.
“What’s the big deal about Star Wars anyway?”
“They must be doing a rerelease or something. Maybe a musical?”
Her head tips down. “A Star Wars musical?”
“I mean, that was The Phantom Menace.”
Still chowing down, she gives me her so-what face.
“I never told you this story?” I ask. “Dad and I camped out all night to see that. Just him and me. We had this R2-D2 lantern, I remember. It was so cool. You’d press his head and he’d beep and the light would come on. But when it was dark, all the star stickers we’d stuck on the inside of the tent would glow. That was the best night of my life.”
“Camping out in a parking lot?” she asks, chewing on her straw again. “For a movie?”
I shrug.
She sits back in her seat, smiling on one side, the side with the refried beans still marring her cheek. I tug a napkin out of the dispenser, dab it in my water, and gesture for her to lean in.
“Come on.”
“What?” she says, touching her face, then blushing. “Oh.”
My hand doesn’t shake as I caress her cheek through the napkin. Her hand slides over mine. I freeze, search her features, try to get a read on her. Holding eye contact, she slides the napkin out of my fingers, suppresses a smile, and then she’s surveying the empty seats to our right as she finishes the job. I sit back in my seat. My eyes go unfocused.
“It isn’t that the movie was so great,” I say. “It’s that it was the last big thing we did together. I don’t know. We used to fish sometimes. We built a rocket and let it off in the park. We’d shoot hoops while the grill was getting warm before dinner.”
“Sounds like he was a good dad.”
Her voice snaps me out of it. Her hands are on the table. She’s stopped eating, but her plate’s still full.
“Well, come on,” I say. “You must have some good memories of your dad. Mary, you’re a good person. He couldn’t have been all bad. Tell me about life before the ‘people zoo.’”
She sighs. Her thumb scratches her earlobe as she peers out the window at passing traffic. “Okay. One,” she says, leaning back in her seat. Her legs open and close with nervous energy. “We used to have a place in Victoria. We’d go shooting, or skiing. This time it was shooting. We’d pretend we were shooting the bad guys. I got to name the targets.”
“Name ’em?” I laugh. “Like, what? Oddjob? Jaws? Ivana Humpalot?”
Lopsided smile; she shakes her head. “I was too little to have seen those movies. I gave them my own names: Scum-Sucking Bad Person Man. Or The Very Bad Man Who is About to Die.”
“Ah. The classics. Did you ever run into Taste My Sweet Justice Dog Breath? I hear he’s pretty dangerous. As target sheets go, I mean.”
She nods. “He died screaming. Anyway, one day Daddy got it in his head we were going to make bread after. Ha—it came out like a brick. But we ate it. We ate it with melted butter sitting by that great big fireplace in our winter home. It was our last Christmastime. It was snowing.”
She stares into space for a minute before releasing another sigh. Her legs stop fidgeting. She sits forward and snatches another chip, then scoops a glob of steak and guac into her mouth.
“So what happened?” I ask.
Her diamond-blue eyes find mine. “Daddy became Scum-Sucking Bad Person Man.”
After supper, we head underground for a train. A sax player is busking by the stairs—Careless Whisper, by Wham!
You’ve forgotten our other assignment, says Nigel.
I haven’t forgotten, I reply, dread and frustration mixing in my stomach. Oh, man. I don’t know what I’m doing. Alex’s side mission doesn’t feel right. Besides, who’s to say Mary’s even capable of killing her own father?
Her father, says Nigel. You must mean Scum-Sucking Bad Person Man. Hello? Weren’t you listening to her? She. Is going. To kill him.
No. I don’t believe it. And it’s not right, tricking her. Mary trusts me.
She doesn’t trust you, you idiot. She’s told you nothing. She drugged you! Look—if you don’t do this, I will.
You will?
Watch me. You’re not thinking straight. I’ve taken
control of your body once, I can do it again.
Nigel, piss off. And anyway, I’ve made up my mind. No body snatcher required.
“Hey,” I say, centering Mary’s shoulders so we’re looking straight at each other, then picking a piece of lint off her jacket. I force myself to stand up straighter and square my own shoulders. Steady eye contact. Come on, Edge. You can do this.
“I think we should phone in an anonymous tip to your dad about tomorrow morning.”
“What?” Her lips part and tip down. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I still don’t have my powers, and I really don’t want to do that sermon. So let’s call it off. Your dad gets an anonymous tip, from me. I can use the suit. It’s got a voice changer and an untraceable line. It’ll take less than a minute.”
“You want my dad’s phone number? Are you insane?”
“Mary—if your dad doesn’t go to mass in the morning, Nigel and I don’t have to pull a sermon out of our collective psychic asses.”
“My father is a high-ranking Nostradamus official, Edger. I do not want you talking to him.”
“Come on, Mary. Let’s just call in the tip, and then you and I can take the day to work on my powers some more. I’ll keep it under twenty seconds. What could go wrong?”
She takes a step away, her forehead tensing. The train speeds in, screeches, stops. We board. My pulse is racing as we grab the rail. The uneven clamor of the train gobbling up track quickens, and then evens out into a steady rhythm.
“Twenty seconds,” she says out of nowhere. “And you will not call him again.”
“Psh—of course not,” I say, waving it away.
“Edger. It is imperative you have no other contact with my father. Do you understand?”
I swallow before answering. “Of course.”
Mary averts her eyes. In the recesses of my subconscious, Nigel sighs.
Well done, he says. And that concludes our object lesson in manipulating the manipulator.
HISTORIC WEIRDNESS AT CHRISTINE AND CONSUELO’S HOUSE AS CHRONICLED BY HERODOTUS (C. 484—C. 425 BCE)