Outside she sees a flatbed truck with a bulldozer on it accelerating hard towards the north end of town. As the truck roars past her, Topper throws her a little wave. He appears to be standing high above the wheel on a naked woman’s lap.
“Oh my God,” says Agnes. She is certain that she has just seen the first Harbinger of the Apocalypse.
At the far end of main street, Topper flattens a few parking meters and a defenseless shrub. Squeezed onto the bench seat next to Topper, are the Sheriff and a man named Clarence Johnson. The Sheriff is laughing so hard Topper can’t even hear the engine. Hims Chapel is a very small, and very dull, place. This evening is already the third best time the Sheriff has ever had. And, just like the stripper that Topper is using to work the pedals for him, this night is frighteningly young.
After taking out the parking meters Topper overcorrects, hops a curb, mangles a stop sign and then manages to wrestle the rig back onto to the road.
“Whattya call this thing?” asks Topper.
“Suicide Knob,” answers Clarence. He should know, it’s his truck.
“I LIKE IT!” cries Topper.
From the reasonable end of town, Agnes watches the truck disappear. Coins from the parking meters rain down on the pavement, spinning and shimmering to a rest. As the sound of the truck fades into the distance Agnes asks the night, “How did this happen?”
The night does not answer. But in small towns, boredom is always to blame.
So it was that Topper, Clarence Johnson, and Sheriff Cooper wound up drinking together in a small sad strip club off Alabama State highway 109. They bought each other lap dances, talked the coarse language of men and generally enjoyed themselves.
After he was pretty sure the Sheriff was drunk enough to tell the truth, Topper asks, “So whattya know about this Rielly woman?” Despite intoxication, Topper was still very much on the job.
“She owns most of the county. But I never did like her though. Rich. And not just rich, thinks she’s better than everybody else. Looks down on people,” slurs Sheriff Cooper.
“I hate people who look down on me,” says Topper. They all laughed. “Except for her,” Topper says, pointing at one of the women, “she can look down on me anytime.”
“You a’right boy, you all right,” says Sheriff Cooper. “I like a fella knows how to enjoy himself.” Glasses of brown liquor clink together and dive down throats.
“It’s just a shame you’re only half a man,” says Clarence, needling Topper out of pure boredom.
“Half a man? Sheriff, you need to arrest this man. He’s got bullshit pouring out of his mouth. Can’t be sanitary.” The men roar in laughter.
“No, no, I like you and everything little man, but it’s not like you can do an honest days work,” says Clarence.
“Honest day’s work!” cries Topper. “I’m a friggin lawyer. If I did an honest days work, I’d be out of a job.” Topper points to the sheriff, “And so would he!” More laughter.
Topper indicates a half-naked women walking by. “Finally, they bring out the good looking ones.” The other men grunt their agreement. The women have not changed at all. The liquor has just worked its sacred and profane magic.
Clarence still won’t let it go. “Yeah, you’d have to be a lawyer. Me? I made my way by driving a truck. Then I bought a truck. Then I bought another truck and got somebody to drive the first one. I’m a self-made man.”
“Not me,” says the sheriff as he stares at pair of giant breasts, “My uncle got me this job.”
Clarence points at Topper. His finger floats and bobs in time with the slow waltz of alcohol sieving through his liver. “But you, little man, you couldn’t drive a truck. No way.” He holds his hand out over the floor, “You must be at least this tall to ride this ride.”
The Sheriff laughs a little too loud.
“Whattya mean I can’t drive a truck?” Topper says, suddenly very serious.
“No way. No how.”
“You mean like one of those trucks you’ve got out front? I can’t drive one of those trucks? Is that what you mean?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“You gonna put some money behind that, or are you all talk?” Topper asks.
This gets the Sheriff’s attention. “Boys, boys, I’m afraid I can’t let you gamble in this county, unless I’m in on it. I got 500 says the midget can’t drive.”
“I got five thousand says the midget can’t drive. If anybody will cover it,” says Clarence, thinking that he is calling Topper’s bluff.
Topper smiles and pulls a gigantic roll of bills out of his pocket. “I’ll cover all the action.”
“There ain’t no way in hell,” says Clarence.
“Ah, bullshit. I’ll drive your Tonka truck, all I need is a good pair of legs,” Topper says, slapping the nearest stripper on the thigh. He peels off a couple hundred and says, “C’mon Darlin’, now I’m going to sit on your lap for a while.”
Chapter Nineteen
Excelsior Fights the Hurricane
This time it is a hurricane. Whatever, thinks Excelsior. He is still pissed at that snotty waiter from that French restaurant. He’s ready to uncork on just about anybody or anything. It’s odd though, in 70 years they’ve never asked him to fight a hurricane.
Excelsior isn’t sure he can pull it off. But so what? If he fails, maybe they’ll stop calling him all the time. And then a black thought – What if he messes up on purpose? Just drops the ball? Would it be over? Could he take a night off? Love a woman? Have a family? Would they take the pager back? Maybe throwing the game is the smart thing to do. Because if he stops this hurricane, will they call him for every hurricane? But deep inside, he knows he can’t throw the game.
Nobody understands. Nobody appreciates his situation. All those crazy bastards with gadgets and powers coming out of the woodwork. And he has to stop them. He doesn’t know how his powers work, not really. And he certainly doesn’t how some freaky alien ray gun works. And what about chemical warfare? His skin might be impenetrable but what about his lungs? The whole thing is risky. Excelsior meant higher, not indestructible. Not necessarily. And when he gets hit, or shot or bombed, it hurts. Excelsior is a good deal more nervous than most people know.
Last year, he had been hit with a beam weapon and was unable to feel his leg for two months. And then, after the “incident” with Sinestro, he forgot all the words he knew that began with the letter ‘r’. He’s still not sure he has them all back yet. At least he no longer locks up when somebody asks him if he needs a receipt.
Coming across the panhandle, Excelsior slows a little. Daytona rushes past him on the left. Orlando on his right. He skims the ground at 150 feet. Less chance of getting messed up in air traffic down here. The worst he might do is rattle some windows. He decides he doesn’t care. A flick of a thought and he has broken the sound barrier. He can feel the air compress in a wedge in front of him. What is a mere mathematical consideration for students of aerodynamics is something he can actually feel with his fingertips. It’s good. He’s going to need to move a lot of air tonight.
Thinking it might be useful, he rips the top off a water tower in Hollywood, FL. But who knows? It’s not like there’s a playbook for this kind of thing. He grips the wedge of metal so tightly that steel seeps between his fingers. Then he sets his heroic jaw and accelerates.
The sound of the wind whipping past the edges of the metal is an angry, ceaseless ripping. He loves the sound. He is mighty. A god set to do battle with the elements. He gives it more speed. Below and behind him the windows of a strip mall shatter as he passes
As Miami Beach disappears beneath him, he tries to remember which way hurricanes spin. Clockwise? Counter? Does it matter? He decides to head directly into the wind and batter the storm into submission. Should he start from the bottom or the top? He decides it is best to cut it off at the knees like a quarterback you want to cripple. Get angry. Get tough. Time to end this thing’s career.
Even as he amps
himself up, he feels the air get colder and thicker. It takes a greater effort to maintain his speed. The sky and the sea become the same shade of grey. Visibility drops to zero. And then he hears the howl. As if the world is dying. The storm sounds hungry, eager to teach him a lesson about power.
It is 500 miles wide, 400,000 times bigger than a man. It is nothing more than a heartless, unpredictable, inevitable and remorseless set of natural coincidences. But to Excelsior it seems the storm has an evil will of its own. Excelsior is dwarfed, humbled by the wall of wind and water before him. And inside the costume, inside his bowels, he knows fear.
He puts it from his mind. Isn’t he a hero? Heroes don’t feel fear. Or don’t have time to feel fear flying that fast. There is nothing to do but fly the pattern. Get it done. He banks to the right and gives it all he is worth. In spite of the rain and the wind, the metal grows hot in his hands. He grips it tighter and loves the pain.
The sky explodes with moisture, as if the sea has been ripped from the ocean floor. He chokes on the air. Yet still he flies faster and faster in tighter and tighter spirals. He yells at the top of his lungs. His hands grip through the metal in several places. Of course he is more than human. But even he has limits. And reaching beyond the limits is a test of will, rather than power.
Around and around and around and around. Until finally the wind drops. He slows and catches a glimpse of the stars. He has broken the storm.
But this time, the laws of physics cannot be denied. Even as Excelsior stops circling, the fluid in the center of his skull keeps spinning at a frightening rate. Dizziness overcomes him. The horizon spins. The now flat ocean exchanges places with the sky again and again as he fights to make progress towards land.
He hits the beach like an artillery shell. Sand explodes outward. In the bottom of a crater, he vomits seawater. Exhausted, he collapses into his own vomit. Is this victory? He doesn’t care. All he wants to do is lie here for a moment.
Curious faces peer over the lip of the crater. There are a thousand questions they could ask, “Are you okay? Do you need anything? Can we help?” But when a small boy speaks from the crowd he asks the question on everyone’s mind. “Did you save us?”
Excelsior nods as he wipes a strand of spittle from his chin. “Yeah kid, today, I did.”
Excelsior stands up. He doesn’t want them to see him like this. But as soon as he’s up, his legs give out. Only his ability to fly prevents him from collapsing onto the sand again. He throws the boy what he hopes is a jaunty salute, and heads up into the sky.
He flies East with all the speed he can manage. What he needs now is the sun. The light of the sun, which will somehow regenerate his powers. He had once joked with Gus that they should test his blood for chlorophyl. A good joke because there is no needle that will pierce his skin.
As he crosses the coast of Africa, he really begins to feel it. This time, he might not make it back to the light. Might have to lay himself out along the plain and wait for sunrise. But just as he gives up hope, he sees the first glimmer of dawn. At the speed he’s going it takes seconds for him to be engulfed in the light. He feels the power roar back into him. He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know why. But in the light of a new day, he is somehow made whole again. What does he care of how and why? He stopped the hurricane. It’s a pure win.
Chapter Twenty
Marauding Through The Night
“Faster you dolt! Faster!” screams Agnes as if the British Empire was losing India all over again. The deputy doesn’t need much encouragement to pour the gas to his rattley old patrol car. The flashing lights, the blaring sirens and the roar of the wheels against the road are really the only perks his job offers. Sometimes he drives far out into the county at night and pretends to be chasing someone. Just to relieve the boredom of it all.
But this? This is different. This is a real chase. And it is exciting. At first he had resisted the strange woman’s urgings to chase down the truck. She had used all kinds of words he didn’t understand. Words like ‘Miscreant’ and ‘Commonweal’. But when she said ‘Hot Pursuit’ – well hell, wasn’t that his job?
“Tallyho!” Agnes cries. She slaps the Deputy on the shoulder and points through a stand of scrub pines. There, on the far side of a long flat curve, is the Semi with a bulldozer on the back. The patrol car strains to create acceleration.
Inside the truck, Clarence has passed out cradling a bottle of bourbon. The sheriff’s has devoted all his attention to the stripper. Topper doesn’t care. He has The Rielly Estate pulled up on the GPS and is making for it with as much speed as he can muster. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that he can’t put his foot on the floor and is relying on the stripper’s legs. Every few minutes he has to stomp on her knee to get her to return her foot to the pedal. This has been awkward, to say the least, but now the lunacy in the truck cab has settled into an orderly pattern. He kicks the stripper, the stripper moans, the sheriff thinks he’s doing well and the truck goes faster.
But it is an inherently unstable system. If you take away any one of its components this diabolical apparatus will collapse under the weight of its own absurdity. This does not concern Topper. He doesn’t like to think in terms of theory. All theory ever does for Topper is tell him what he can’t do. And Topper doesn’t like being told what to do.
Theory says that the bumblebee can’t fly. But the little bumblebee says, “screw it” and flies anyway. And, if the bumblebee can get away with it, then Topper figures he can too. If this was the way it had to be, then this was the way it had to be. Topper doesn’t care if he has to out drink every redneck and shitkicker from here to the Mason Dixon Line. Edwin is in trouble, and he is going to come through for him.
Topper sees flashing blue lights in the truck’s side mirror. He yells in the Sheriff’s face, “It’s the cops. You told me you were the law!”
The shouting brings Clarence back around. He doesn’t immediately open his eyes, but instead reviews recent events. He remembers losing a bet. He remembers not liking it. He remembers drinking heavily. His sides hurt. Has he been in a fight? There had been laughter. Lots of laughter. Probably before losing the bet. He doesn’t like to lose. Why would he laugh after losing? Something isn’t right here, but everything is so sloshy in his head, Clarence can’t begin to put these facts together. Until he hears the air horn.
And with the horn blast, a key fact drops into place. He’s in a truck. He hears a child yell, “Holy Shit and thar she blows! It’s Liberace’s outhouse!” But what kind of child would yell that?
Clarence opens his eyes. In front of them is a hill. At the bottom is a white planation house covered with blurry – he rubs his eyes – frilly white bits. Focus doesn’t make the place look any better to Clarence.
“Yessir,” says the sheriff, “That’s the Widow Rielly’s place. Most ridiculous goddamned thing in the county.”
Underneath the Sheriff’s smokey, crackling laugh, Clarence hears a woman giggle. What is going on here? He almost has it, but clearly he is missing some key piece of information. He leans forward slowly. Nothing catastrophic happens, so he decides to turn his head. And then he sees a midget in a suit. The midget’s tiny hands rest on the steering wheel and most of his body is cradled between a naked woman’s fake breasts.
Topper pulls on the air horn again and it all falls into place for Clarence. As he opens his mouth to speak, he is slammed backwards into the seat. The truck roars forward as Topper shrieks, “Muwahhhhhhh!” The horizon dips and bucks as the truck tears through the fields. Clearly something must be done. Can’t anyone see that?
“Double Clutch. Double Clutchhhhhh!” cries Topper over the sound of grinding metal.
As the house grows larger and larger in the truck’s front windshield, Clarence’s common sense finally breaks through. It has been surrounded and outnumbered for most of the evening, but it has not given up. Now clear of the haze of alcohol and hormones and stupidity, it has just enough energy left over to send Clarenc
e one clear message – “It’s your truck.”
Clarence dives across the sheriff and grabs the wheel. The wheel spins and it slings Topper into the window. Topper swears and spits and fights for control, but it is too late. This party has gone on too long. And now it is time for physics to step in.
In any high school physics class, they will tell you that inertia is the tendency of an object to remain at rest. This sounds very polite. Very Newtonian. But the fact is inertia is an object’s resistance to change. And resistance is never polite. When the object in question is 80,000 pounds of tractor, trailer and bulldozer, the resistance isn’t just rude, it’s vigorous.
In that same high school physics class they will prove this to you by bludgeoning you with all manner of word problems. And one of these word problems might go something like this: A 5,000 pound Tractor attached to a 75,000 pound trailer is traveling across an immaculately maintained lawn (coefficient of friction .024) at 50 feet per second towards an elaborately decorated manor house. If the tractor trailer is 125 feet away from the house then how many feet will the truck slide before (and after) hitting the house and completely destroying it? You may assume the house’s mass is negligible, because the poor structure doesn’t stand a chance.
Don’t bother to sharpen a pencil or pull out scrap paper, because if you’re ever faced with this problem in real life the only answer that will help you is “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!” And even a 6th grade drop out from the Alabama Public school system can tell you this.
“We all gonna die!” yells the stripper, finding the correct answer even though she is pretty sure higher math was what you did when you used numbers larger than 20.
* * * *
Edwin Windsor and Dr. Loeb have left the pig sty. After a brief (yet pointless) effort to clean himself, Edwin is now in search of transportation. He hears the sound of an air horn in the distance. Dr. Loeb asks, “What is zat?”
How To Succeed in Evil Page 10