The Hero Without A Cool Name

by Stan Hendriks

  “Well, first of all, I’m not forgiving you for drugging me just yet, but… I do want to thank you for changing my brother’s life. To be honest, I’ve never seen him this happy and I’m glad that someone like you is looking after him.”

  “And I promise you that I will continue to look after him until my final day arrives.”

  Nathalie nods and Roy asks, “So, are we good?”

  “Well, it will take some time for me to comprehend this, but yes, we’re good.”

  As a bright smile appears on Roy’s face, he gives her a hug and says, “Thank you, sis, I’m happy that I no longer have to keep this a secret from you.”

  “I’m glad as well and sorry for what I’ve said to you at the police station. I... I—”

  “Don’t worry, if I were in your shoes, I would have said the exact same thing.”

  Nathalie then gets up and as she gives Roy another hug, she replies, “I’m glad to have my brother back, the happy one instead of the drunk one.”

  Roy laughs and says, “Yeah, yeah, very funny. But I’m also happy, things are going to be even better now, the same goes for our relationship.”

  Nathalie nods and replies, “Yes, I’m sure of that. But anyway, I would love to talk some more but I have business obligations which I need to deal with. But how about dinner at my place tonight so that we could talk some more about it? And next to that, it’s been a while since you last saw Tom, he misses you, you know.”

  “Sure, I’m down. What time?”

  “How about nine?”

  “Great, I will be there.”

  “Good, and maybe you two could come as well? I would love to know more about my brother’s mentor and his new best friend. Sorry, I was so rude to you, by the way.”

  “No problem, I’m used to women, especially those who are as gorgeous as you, to be kind of rude to me. But I would love to come to dinner,” Henry says.

  “Count me in as well, it’s been a while since I last enjoyed a good dinner,” Julian says.

  “Great to hear, alright then, see you at nine. And, whatever you have planned, please be careful, alright? You could die out there you know, even with the powers you have and the last thing I want is to bury my brother.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine. I have a great team around me you know,” Roy replies.

  With a smile, Nathalie nods and then walks out of Roy’s apartment. “Well, that went a lot better than I thought it would,” Henry says.

  “I know, right? I was sure she was going to kill me.”

  “Yeah, I can relate. The way she was staring at me from the moment she arrived was horrible. It felt like she was eating up my soul with her eyes!”

  “Don’t over exaggerate, melodramatic soul, and man up. Anyway, you said that someone needed a hero, so, speak up.”

  “Could you be nice for once? I did nothing wrong to you whatsoever,” Henry replies.

  “The meaner he is to you, the more he cares about you, trust me,” Roy chuckles.

  “Me being mean is not a form of showing that I care about you, me being mean is to show you that I don’t think you are worthy of my time.” Roy then winks at Henry and slightly shakes his head. “Anyhow, who needs a hero and why?”

  “Well, I called up a friend of mine who works at the police station and asked him how he was doing. Now, I’m going to sound like a bad guy, which I’m not, well because I did this I kind of am, but the only reason I called him was not because I wanted to know how he was doing, but because I needed to know if there were some criminal activities going on. And I don’t know how I did it, but he told me about a couple of drug dealers that deal drugs from an abandoned warehouse. And, now comes the good part, or the bad part, depends how you look at it, they also extort people out of their money, beat people up, and kill people in there!”

  “No way, we have to stop them then!” Roy says.

  “Hell yeah, and guess what, you’re going to stop them!” Henry replies.

  “Wait a minute, if the police are sure about what is going on in that particular warehouse, then how come they haven’t rushed into the place yet?” Julian asks.

  “Well, that’s the thing, they are planning on arresting them tonight. But my friend told me that they must have a mole at the station since every time they arrive and bust the doors of the warehouse down, the drug dealers are gone.”

  “At what time are they going to make another attempt to arrest these criminals?” Julian asks.

  “I don’t know, he said they were going to do it tonight.”

  “Well, next time that is something you should ask. And a free tip, start by telling us that we have little time to plan everything out and tell us the whole story at once, understood?”

  “Yes, I understand, Mr. Herrick.”

  “Good, and I can’t believe I’m saying this but, decent job, for the most part at least. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to buy us something to drink and eat and after that, we need to make a plan quick,” Julian says, as he then walks out of the apartment.

  “Nice one, Henry, and I told you that he secretly likes you.”

  “Yes, this is actually the first time he gave me some sort of compliment and it… it feels amazing. I should have recorded that moment.”

  Roy laughs and says, “But anyway, let’s already try to come up with a decent plan since we also have to be at my sister’s house at nine.”

  “Sure, but, by the way, do you think I might have a chance with your sister?”

  “She’s married and not only that, her husband, Tom, is a six-foot-five former champion cage fighter. So, if I were you, I wouldn’t try anything,” Roy replies, as he pads Henry on his shoulder.

  Later that day, in the evening, Roy and Julian are standing on the corner of a street looking at the abandoned warehouse in the distance. They see cars driving into the warehouse and people walking in an out. But what concerns them is that there are two men constantly patrolling around the warehouse. “They must be guarding the place, I don’t know why they would constantly walk around it otherwise,” Roy says.

  “I guess you’re right and they might even carry some kind of firearm, we don’t know. Which puts this mission at risk and makes me doubt if we should go through with this.”

  “Yeah, there goes the plan we spend all day trying to come up with.”

  “Well, the plan wasn’t that good anyway. Since we had little information about this place and the people in it, there was no viable way we could have planned this out the right way. We knew from the beginning that we were going in blind, which is yet another huge mistake we are making. We should have done some recon on this place; we really should have. I don’t know why I didn’t come up with the idea to recon this place first, to be honest. Lately, my mind seems to be cloudy and my intelligence is failing me tremendously, which is strange.”

  “Guys, can you hear me? How is everything looking out there?” Henry asks.

  Roy presses on his earpiece with his finger and replies, “We can hear you and it isn’t looking too good. They have guards outside which may carry guns. Well, I’m actually pretty sure they carry guns.”

  “Oh shit, so, what now?”

  “I don’t know, man, I really don’t know. One part of me tells me not to do it since it’s… well, dangerous, but the other part of me tells me that I should go in there and stop them.”

  “I mean, that’s what heroes do, don’t they?”

  “It’s not as simple as that, melodramatic soul. Heroes indeed try everything they possibly can to stop crime and criminals, but they also don’t go in blind.”

  “So, you guys are coming back and let the police try to arrest them?”

  “No, we can’t. We have to do something about this. The police are going to fail to arrest them anyway,” Roy replies.

  “You’re right. Alright, I guess we have no other choice but to do this dumbest way possible. Let’s just hope that luck is on our side and that our criminals dropped out of high school or better, that t
hey never attended high school in the first place. But, melodramatic soul, you have to stop talking from now on since Roy and I will need to be able to concentrate.”

  “Got ya, over and out.”

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  “You got the ski mask on you, yes?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Good, well, I’m going to play the angry father that wants answers and who wants to speak to the one that has been giving his addicted son drugs. So, as soon as the guards walk past each other I’m going to approach them to distract them both. And as soon as I got their attention, you sneak into the warehouse, preferably from the back. Understood?”

  “I understand, but will you be fine?”

  “Do not worry a single second about me, I will be fine. But I can’t say the same about those guards,” Julian replies with a wink. “Alright, go, it’s time.”

  Roy nods and then runs off into an alley which eventually leads to another side of the warehouse while Julian walks straight towards the warehouse. And as soon as the guards walk past each other, Julian shouts, while at the same time waving his arms around, “Hey, assholes!” Both guards are slightly confused but immediately take a stand as Julian walks up to them. “Who is the asshole that keeps selling drugs to my kid, huh?! Don’t you know how many lives you are ruining?! My kid took an overdose yesterday and he nearly died! Now let me speak to the person who’s in charge, now!”

  “You’re going to speak to no one, and if you don’t get up out of my face then bad things are going to happen!”

  “Yeah, and stop making so much damn noise, are you crazy?!”

  Julian then continues to shout while Roy, with his blue ski mask on, carefully climbs through a small window at the back of the warehouse. It is fairly dark inside of the warehouse and it is completely filled with wooden, dusty, boxes that contain many different kinds of drugs in them! As Roy stares his eyes out at all the drugs, he carefully climbs over some of the boxes and makes his way past them until he sees a small, dimmed, light. Underneath the light is a rusty steel desk and behind it is a man seated on a stool. The man is fairly muscular and his whole body is covered in tattoos. Roy takes a good look and sees that the man is weighing cocaine and putting it in small bags with a handgun behind his belt! “Ah, shit!” Roy says. “Come on, Roy, man up, at least he’s alone!” But then, the man shouts, “Hey, what’s all that noise?! Keep it down! Benny, go look outside, now!” All of a sudden, another man who was apparently standing really close to Roy, almost runs out of the warehouse with his hand on his gun! “Oh my God!” Roy says, as his heart almost pounds out of his chest. “That could have ended so badly! But then again, what I’m about to do might end up badly as well. Each second, it’s starting to look more like a lose, lose situation for me. But come on, you’re a hero now!” Roy then lies his hand on his chest and closes his eyes for a moment. “Just breathe, Roy, you got this!” But then, when Roy opens his eyes again, he sees that the man, who was seated behind the desk, is now standing in front of him with a serious angry expression on his face! “You’re not going to do anything you little punk!” the man says, as he grabs Roy by his shirt and throws him towards the desk! Roy makes a hard landing and the man continues, “Who the fuck is you?! And why are you sneaking around in my warehouse?!”

  With some grunting, Roy slowly gets back up on his feet and immediately holds his hands slightly up. “Please, wait! Please, I can explain.”

  As the man grabs his gun from behind his belt, a smirk appears on his face and he says, “Go on, explain!”

  “I… I, uhm… actually, I came here to stop you!” Roy’s eyes then start to shine, and he turns the gun into a banana! “Yeah, how about that?! Not so tough anymore now without your gun, eh? Your days of hurting other people are over!” But to his surprise, the man doesn’t seem to be impressed at all. “Wait… are you not in shock or something? Because you should be. What I just did is literally impossible, you know that, right?”

  The man chuckles somewhat and as he throws the banana away, he replies, “I don’t know how you just did that you little punk, but I don’t need a gun to kill you!” The man then starts running towards Roy and Roy mumbles, “Oh no.” The man then hits Roy right on his face and Roy immediately falls to the ground with blood coming out of his nose! But the man doesn’t stop there! He immediately jumps on top of Roy, rips his ski mask off, and keeps on hitting him while shouting, “You stupid junkie! You should have known not to mess with me!”

  As Roy tries his best to block the punches with his arms, he knows that he isn’t going to last much longer this way! But then, he notices a piece of brick that is laying close to him and without hesitation, he grabs it, turns it into a hammer, and hits the man right on his head with it! The man’s eyes immediately roll back as he then falls flat on his back! Roy takes a couple of very deep and relieving breaths and while in a lot of pain, he quickly gets up and limps towards the exit of the warehouse. Outside, Julian, who has three passed out guards lying in front of him, sees Roy, whose face is completely bruised up, coming out of the warehouse. “Roy!” he says, as he runs towards him. “Good God are you alright?! What happened in there?!”

  “Well,” Roy replies, with a bit of grunting. “Everything went great at first. I was all alone with the boss but since I may have talked too loudly to myself, he found me and tossed me away like I weighed nothing. Then he grabbed his gun, but I used my powers to change it. But I guess I never thought about what would happen after that since the boss simply tossed his gun, banana I mean, away and started to beat me up. Luckily, I saw a piece of brick which I turned into a hammer otherwise things could have ended much worse.”

  “Guys, are you there? Is everything alright?”

  “Things didn’t go as planned, melodramatic soul. We’re coming back right now. Call the police and tell them you heard gunshots at the warehouse then they can come and arrest these fools.”

  “Will do.”

  “Come let’s take you home,” Julian says, as he puts Roy’s arm around his shoulder and helps him walk towards his apartment.

  About thirty minutes later, Roy is lying on his bed while he’s holding a bag of ice against his eye. Henry, who is seated close by him, says, “Damn, I still can’t believe it. That could have gone so wrong. You could have died, man.”

  “I know, I know, but I’m still here, thankfully. I… I never really stood still by the fact that after I changed his gun, I actually had to fight him. I don’t know why but haven’t thought about that for a second. I wasn’t prepared and that nearly costs me my life.”

  “Yeah, we can’t let this happen ever again. Never. I can’t lose my best friend and the world can’t lose its next big hero.”

  “I know, but I’m not going anywhere, at least, let’s hope so,” Roy replies, as a smile appears on his face. Henry smiles as well and Roy continues, “But where did Mr. Herrick go to anyway?”

  “I honestly have no clue, he said he was going for a walk. I think he might be feeling guilty for what happened to you.”

  “I know, but he shouldn’t feel guilty, after all, it was my fault that I didn’t come prepared.” Roy then sits up and as he looks at the clock, he continues, “But we should go to my sister’s house, it’s almost nine o’clock.”

  “Really? Are you sure you want to go to your sister’s house looking like that?”

  “Not really, but I already canceled way too many appointments with her and on top of that, she knows who I am and what I’m doing now, so, it doesn’t matter. Yes, she may freak out, she actually definitely will, but it doesn’t matter. Let’s just go there and celebrate that despite me almost dying, we still got those criminals arrested.”

  “You damn right about that! Once again, the new hero of the world has saved the day! But, what about Mr. Herrick, by the way?”

  “He will know where to find us.”

  “Okay, well, let me call a taxi.”

  “Yeah, and then I will somewhat freshen myself up.�
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  About twenty minutes later, in a prosperous neighborhood just outside of Detroit, a taxi stops in front of a very modern and luxurious looking villa. Roy, who has changed into some cleaner and nicer looking clothes, steps out of the taxi with Henry and while Roy pays the taxi driver, Henry stares his eyes out at the villa. As the taxi drives away again, Henry says, “Wow! Your sister’s house looks absolutely amazing!”

  “Just wait until you see the insides.”

  Roy and Henry then walk up to the front door and Henry says, “I didn’t even know this neighborhood existed.”

  “Most people don’t know about it, only the ones with at the very least six figures on their bank account know about this place,” Roy replies, as he rings the doorbell.

  Tom opens the door with a bright smile, but his smile quickly fades away as he sees Roy’s face. “Jesus, Roy, what happened to you?!”

  “I got into a little fight last night but don’t worry, I’m fine.”

  “How is the other guy looking?”

  “A lot worse,” Roy replies with a smile. “I’ve watched a lot of your fighting videos you know which helped me out.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, but if you’re ever looking for some more tips and tricks then know that I would be more than willing to give you some training.”

  “No… well, now that I think about it, that would actually be great. If you could come by sometime next week then that would be awesome.”

  “Of course, and by the way, besides your face, you actually look great. I’m glad to see that you picked yourself back up again.”

  “Yeah, wasn’t easy but everything is going great now. Anyway, this is Henry, a close friend of mine.”

  With a serious and slightly angry expression on his face, Tom looks Henry straight in his eyes and Henry carefully takes a step back while saying, “Please… please don’t hurt me. I… I… uhm, I didn’t know Mrs. Tabby was married. My… my sincere apologies.”