Blackjack Messiah

by Ben Bequer

  I’m not even sure how my name managed to slip out in the first place. Some crazy guy gave it to me in a villains-only L.A. bar, a friend of Delphi and his girlfriend Serpentis who didn’t even know who I was when he came up with it, my villain name.

  Blackjack.

  My story in L.A. is over now, even though I was forbidden all travel and my passport taken from me. Like I couldn’t get a replacement in the black market.

  But I didn’t even need one to move to Miami. Hell, I didn’t even have stuff to bring with me. Everything I owned was pretty much thrown on a beach side to rot. The city of Malibu was nice enough to bill me $37,500 for the cleanup. They charged me, to clean up my shit from the beach, shit thrown there by the same superhero I was in jail for killing. It’s like a Kantian postulation in reverse.

  Walking through the Miami concourse felt like traveling through time. The decor was mid-80s, pastels and pastiche, with worn carpeting that was more of an embarrassment than anything. I felt hot already, and I live in what amounted to a desert city. Getting off the plane felt like someone had turned up the thermostat as hot as it went and forgotten about it. The humidity was also instantly noticeable, like walking into a sauna. It hit you in the chest like a hammer, and I went from semi-comfortable to instantly moist. There’s places in the human body that weren’t designed for this temperature and a big guy like me has them in larger proportions.

  It’s my size that draws the stares, the funny looks. I’m bigger than most people, bigger than almost everyone, and as a villain, I feel larger. I seem so to people that know of me, and I’m feared to be by those that don’t know who I am.

  If anonymity has its benefits, so does notoriety.

  Don’t think. Don’t breathe, just run, and hope for the best. Two of them were after me, buddies of the dead hero, eager for payback, but this was a bad spot to fight. A school a few blocks away, running through a shopping center full of people is a bad spot for me. The heroes can throw their powers with abandon, they don’t have to be measured, because whatever happens here, however it ends, I’m getting the blame for everything.

  Because I’m the scumbag villain.

  And because I killed their buddy a few nights ago.

  The authorities are still investigating, their thumbs up their butts, and by the time they rebuild this strip mall, they’ll come around to it.

  Blackjack killed Atmosphero.

  Well, who would blame me? Come to a villain’s house, better bring your A-game, or you might get split in two by a wedge of marble countertop used like a frisbee. Now these two clowns were after me, eager for payback. One was an unknown, though from the flashy red, white and blue of her costume, she had plans for the big time. She was a looker, too - top heavy with long brown hair. Her buddy had a matching costume, where the colors were reversed - boots red where hers where white, cape blue with white stars while her pattern was blue stars on a red cape. And so on. I could imagine them going through different variations with their designer team, settling on the reversed pattern after a long period of consideration. Knowing how these hero fucks worked, they put the thing on Facebook or Instagram and ran an unofficial poll among their fans.

  I don’t have fans. I don’t go on social media. I avoid that shit like the plague.

  I’m a villain and my name is Blackjack.

  And no, you haven’t heard of me and that’s a good thing. Villains don’t get design teams and matching costumes. I’m wearing jeans and a black T-shirt. My boots are the only thing out of the ordinary. Jet pack boots, with a few other tricks stashed in there.

  But I don’t want to start flying just yet. I don’t know who she is, but I recognize Mr. Blue with Red Stars Cape. His real name is Astral, and he fancies himself a protector of the weak. What I know if him is simple, the dude’s a bully, and he likes to beat up villains to a pulp, then wait around for the cameras so he can do one of those fisherman-with-the-shark pictures you see on the front of USA Today. Well, he’s not going to get me. I killed Atmosphero, and I’ll kill his stupid ass if he gets too close. The problem is, he’s a flyer and an energy projector. He can keep to the sky and pelt me with his light beams until I’m concussed, then he and tits over there can string me up for the cameras.

  I’m a strength and toughness villain. They call us “knockers” because it takes knocking us out to bring us down. So far, I’m 1-0 vs. heroes, and I don’t intend to lose to these two monkeys.

  How I became a villain isn’t anyone’s business. What’s important is that I’ve been doing it for a few years and it’s been going good. I do low-level crime, stuff that keeps me off the radar of peacocks like Astral and his fuckbuddy. That was, until I killed Atmosphero.

  Like his supername would imply, he had impressive weather powers and when you combine that with a six-foot frame and perfect hair put him high on the list of supers. He ran with a West coast group called Rising Sun, and these two fuckers chasing me must have want an audition for the open slot I made available by William Wallace’ing Atmosphero.

  Ahead was a Whole Foods and I slammed through a group of people to enter the food market. I figured it’s as good a place as any to lose these guys.

  I don’t want to fight.

  Well, I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. I wanted to grab Astral and rip off one of his legs, then use to to pummel his motorboat-buddy to unconsciousness. I wasn’t wanted for anything to my knowledge - there weren’t any outstanding charges yet - so these two fuckers are acting extra-judiciously, without any sort of sanction. Word got out, they spotted me, and they were bringing the pain.

  Yeah, there were few things I’d like better than to throw these two heroes through the produce department, but there were a million people here. While I could take a punch, civilians were going to get pulped if I throw down here.

  And guess who they were going to blame it on?

  So I ran. I was neither nice nor polite. I didn’t say excuse me, or beg anyone’s pardon. People either parted a way for me, or I threw them on their ass, cart-full of shit along with them. As I stormed through the supermarket, I created a wake out of anything in my way, screaming people included.

  Sure, there’ll be a broken bone or two - like I gave a fuck. Don’t be old. Don’t be in my way. Hell, I was saving lives here - lives they’d tack on to whatever sentence I get thrown at me for killing Atmosphero.

  “Halt, villain!” the heroine said, and I almost wanted to stop and laugh, but instead, I grabbed a cart full of groceries and hurled it in her direction, decleating the hero.

  Her buddy wasn’t chasing, and that could only mean one thing…

  The punch caught me across the jaw and sent me flying into the juice case. I crashed into the thing, feeling a thousand glass and plastic jars of orange, pineapple and carrot juices explode and spill on me. I fell into a heap and he landed, standing contraposte, like a hero victorious.

  His mistake.

  I fired the rocket boots and return the favor, hitting him two-fisted in the nuts. My momentum carried my nutshot across the produce section into a supporting beam, which collapsed under the force and sent part of the roof crashing down on us.

  As I stood, Ms. Tits - as I was calling the newbie super-heroine - dug me out of the fallen rubble and plastic and slugged me like a pro.

  She was clearly the stronger of the two, and back I flew into the juice rack for another bath of pulpy shit.

  “Simon!” I heard her scream as I pulled myself out of a concave crack in the wall. I was woozy, feeling a trickle of blood coming from the edge of my left brow. After shaking my head, I targeted her. She was picking up her injured partner from the ground. His suit was a mess, shredded and covered with dust and blood.

  “Alright, fuck this,” I said, stomping at her and taking a handful of her hair in my hand. I lifted her into the air, Vader-style, by the clump of hair, feeling the strands ripping in my grasp. She screamed, letting her semi-conscious partner fall to the ground, and a moment later, something struck my hea
d from behind.

  Hard.

  I put her down, still holding on to her brown locks and keeping her prone as I looked for the new threat.

  It was Captain Miraculous.

  This wasn’t some wannabe poser with a pretty costume. This guy was the real deal, an internationally recognized big-time hero and the leader of Rising Sun. He’d been fighting villains like me since I was in diapers.

  I was in trouble.

  “Surrender, Blackjack,” he said, as his shield returned to his hand. He wasn’t posing for the cameras. This guy was ready for a fight, and he wasn’t the kind to be fucked with lightly. I scanned around for the rest of his team. The captain never ran without his partner, Black Karma, who also happened to be his wife. She was as deadly as he was, but thankfully, the guy was alone.

  “They attacked me,” I said, not bothering to let go of the girl. She fought, but the tearing of her hair kept her at bay.

  “You know what you did,” Miraculous said.

  “The guy also attacked me. I was chilling on my porch, drinking a beer when your asshole friend jumped me.”

  He shrugged, “Cost of your line of business.”

  “Remember that when I come fuck with you when you’re watching your kids at some school play.”

  “There’s no need for that,” he said, clearly uncomfortable with my whole line of reasoning. A memory in the back of my head rattled at the moment, recalling an article on a magazine with Miraculous, Karma and their lovely kids.

  “Ah, so you deserve your privacy, huh? Fucking hypocrite.”

  “Make this easy on yourself,” he said, stepping closer. Another couple of seconds and he was going to jump me. Then I’d wake with some power-dampening collar on my neck or wrists, a camera in my face. The curious thing was that he wasn’t delaying. My threat to the girl was real - he was worried about her. How old was that article? Could this be his kids?

  I lifted her off her knees. She wailed and scratched at me.

  “I’ll make this easy,” I said.

  “No,” he shouted, losing his composure.

  They were his kids.

  I let her go.

  It was a gamble on my part, that he’d be the goodie-two-shoes he was supposed to be. I had killed one of his teammates, but now I was letting go of his daughter. She drew herself away, holding her head in pain. Tits was out of the fight for now, but she was still in shape to join it later.

  “What?” Miraculous said.

  Damn it. The stupid fool was going to need me to spell it out for him.

  “She’s important to you, right?”

  He clenched his teeth, answering with a simple nod after almost ten seconds.

  “There,” I said. “She’s safe.”

  “You want me to let you go,” he said, but the tone told me he didn’t like my plan at all.

  I shrugged, “There’s no charges on me, are there?”

  He said nothing.

  “There might be,” I conceded. “There probably will be, but right now, at this moment...these two attacked an innocent civilian.”

  The captain looked past me at his injured son. He wasn’t going to walk it off. The kid needed medical help.

  “If you want to do this,” I said, waving my arms to the place. A dozen people were huddled against the walls, or in corners, and his two children were injured.

  “No,” he said, answering fast. “Go.”

  I brushed my shoulders, though it was just a gesture, I was caked in crap and juice pulp. As I walked past him, he grabbed my arm.

  “You’re going to pay for Atmosphero,” he snarled.

  I leaned in, “What would you do if I broke into your house, tried you kill you...and your kids?”

  He looked away and let me go.

  As I left the place, he and the girl went up to the boy, checking his injuries. I figured he had a shattered pelvis, both femurs and possibly a dislocated coccyx. He’d live.

  And I was still free.