Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect

by Michael Bailey

  Copyright © 2014 by Michael Bailey

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2014

  ISBN-13: 978-1502340160

  ISBN-10: 150234016X

  Michael Bailey/Innsmouth Look Publishing www.innsmouthlook.com

  Cover illustrations Copyright © 2014 by Patricia Lupien

  Cover design by Patricia Lupien

  Book production by Amazon Create Space, www.createspace.com

  Edited by Jake D. Lewis

  To Joe Kubert and Mike Chen,

  who let me know I was chasing the wrong dream

  PART ONE: HIGH SCHOOL HELLCATS

  It’s been a weird winter.

  Weird by my standards, I mean; life hasn’t been normal for me since I got my powers from a dying extraterrestrial, but feuding sorceresses and demons attempting to literally raise Hell on Earth? That’s a bit much, even for me.

  Still, I would happily run out and fight every demon in creation to get away from the man who could prove to be my greatest enemy ever:

  Mom’s new boyfriend.

  ONE

  Ben sits on the opposite corner of the couch, looking as uncomfortable as I feel. We stare at each other in awkward silence, our mouths set in a line that, at a glance, might pass as thin smiles.

  “Dinner smells great,” he says, acknowledging the mouthwatering aroma of my mother’s lasagna, a hearty dish so dense with pasta, cheese, and assorted meats you could use it to patch up potholes. It’s one of her A-list meals, one she trots out for special occasions.

  “Yeah,” I grunt. Not much else to say, really; “food smells good” tends to be a self-affirming observation.

  Cue awkward silence the second.

  “I’m not good at small talk,” Ben says.

  “Me either. Well, the point of this dinner is to give us a chance to interrogate each other, so let’s get to it. When did you start dating my mother?”

  “Um, a couple of weeks ago? We’d gone out before — with after-work groups, I mean,” he begins. I unconsciously dig my fingernails into the armrest, and his voice dissolves into nonsensical white noise.

  A couple of weeks ago, my mother enjoyed a Friday night out with some co-workers. She didn’t come home until Saturday morning. She told me she had too much to drink, so she spent the night at a friend’s place. It’s important to note that she told me this while staring at the carpet guiltily, as if I’d caught her stealing money out of my purse. Conclusion: her “friend” is sitting across from me, and they did not simply have an innocent little sleepover — and now, they’re a thing. An item.

  A couple.

  I accept certain realities about my parents’ divorce. I know, logically, their marriage is done and gone. I know they’re never getting back together. I knew they would eventually move on and find someone else. What I didn’t expect is that it would happen for Mom this quickly; six months after the split, she already has a new boyfriend. That’s what pushes my mood far past mere discomfort and into the red zone.

  It takes a supreme effort of will to stomp that anger down and, for the sake of civility, say to Ben in a steady, level voice, “That’s cool.”

  “I know she hasn’t mentioned me to you at all,” Ben says, though he doesn’t seem bothered by this, “but she talks about you all the time.”

  “Often through clenched teeth, I’m sure.” Hey, I’m realistic. I know I can be a pain in the butt.

  “No. No, it’s all been good.” I cock a skeptical eyebrow. He smiles. “Okay, it’s been mostly good. I get the feeling you two are a lot alike.”

  “That’s what Dad thinks,” I say, putting a little too much emphasis on Dad. Scale it back, Carrie. Mom and I have been on relatively good terms lately, don’t screw it up by chewing out her —

  Her boyfriend.

  Grrrrrrrrggghhh...

  Mom emerges from the kitchen, carrying a plate of fresh bruschetta. “How’s it going out here?” she says.

  “Fine,” we say in unison.

  “Good,” Mom says. She sits in the easy chair near Ben — close enough to make it clear they’re together, but far enough apart to try to put me at ease. That’s the theory, anyway.

  “We’ve been talking about how you two met,” I say.

  Panic flashes across Mom’s face, ever so briefly. “Oh?”

  Ben jumps to the rescue. “Carrie was appropriately bored.”

  “I may have fallen asleep,” I say. Mom relaxes, smiles in relief, then excuses herself to tend to dinner.

  Apparently, we set the tone for the evening right off, because dinnertime conversation is sparse, dry, and inoffensive. There are no inquiries more probing than “How is school?” and “What do you do for work, exactly?” — standard getting-to-know-you chit-chat. The bland discourse continues through our dessert of tiramisu and Mom’s disgusting coffee. Normally Mom likes to throw a little Bailey’s Irish cream into her dessert-time coffee, but this time around she takes it straight, and doesn’t offer any boozy additives to Ben. Now that I think about it, she never broke out any wine to go with dinner. Minimizing the chance either of you might let something embarrassing or scandalizing slip out, Mother?

  That’s when it hits me: This night wasn’t about us trying to impress Ben; they were trying to impress me.

  Ben, thankfully, doesn’t linger long after we finish dessert. He gives Mom a chaste good-night kiss on the cheek (urge to kill rising), tells me how nice it was to finally meet me, and away he goes. He’s barely out the door when Mom hits me up for my opinion.

  “Well? What do you think?” she says hopefully.

  I highly doubt my approval, or lack thereof, matters for much, but I say, “I liked him.”

  She buys it, but Mom’s not going to let me leave it at that. “Honestly?”

  No. “Yeah. Honestly.”

  “I want you two to get along.”

  “I think we got along fine.”

  “Good,” she says. “I expect you’re going to see each other quite a bit.”

  “Cool,” I say, and I head upstairs.

  “Carrie?” I pause. Mom wrings her hands anxiously. “You really like Ben?”

  No, Mom, I hate him.

  “Yes, Mom. I like him.”

  She smiles, and in that moment, I realize what an exceptionally skilled liar I’ve become.

  I’m not proud of this.

  I’m too wound up to fall asleep right away, and I spend the night fading in and out. I wake up feeling like five miles of bad road, as my dad likes to say — less than ideal condition for enjoying a day of birthday festivities.

  Not mine, mind you; my birthday is about two weeks away. No, today is for celebrating the sixteenth anniversary of one Matthew William Steiger’s entry into the world. Today is also February 29, which is appropriate; it’s an odd day for an odd kid, who I expect will take full advantage of his privileges as the birthday boy and call for a day of odd activities.

  After wolfing down a couple of strawberry Pop-Tarts and power chugging a big mug of coffee, I head over to Sara’s house. She greets me with a furrowed brow.

  “Where’s Matt’s present?” she says.

  “Well, crap,” I say. “Back at my house, because I’m a moron.”

  “Let me finish breakfast, and we’ll run back and get it.” I follow Sara into the kitchen, where she proceeds to gobble down a corn muffin like she was in a corn muffin-eating contest.

 
“Slow down, girl. What, have you been taking eating lessons from Stuart?”

  “I need to get out of here.”

  I’m about to ask why when Mr. Danvers appears in the kitchen, dressed in a dark blue suit. “Oh, hello, Carrie,” he says. “Sara, I really think you should go with me.”

  “I told you, I have plans today,” Sara says through a mouthful of muffin.

  “And I told you, church is more important than that Steiger boy’s birthday party. You can go after church.”

  That Steiger boy?

  “Yeah, I could. Or, I could go to the party right now, like I planned. Come on, Carrie.”

  Sara brushes past her father. I follow, offering Daddy Danvers an apologetic smile, which he does not return.

  Once we’re out the door, I ask, “What was that all about?”

  “Ugghhh. Dad’s in one of his moods,” Sara says. “All week he’s been all gay agenda this and liberal media that, and this morning the fair-weather Catholic decided it’s time to church up again after, like, a year of not going.”

  “And he asked you to go with him.”

  “Repeatedly. In the strongest possible terms. He tried to get Mom to go too, but she gets to play the Get out of Church Because I’m Jewish Card.”

  “Can’t you play that card too?”

  “Technically, yes. If the mother is Jewish, by tradition the child is too, but if I try to claim immunity to Catholicism by virtue of Jewishness, all that’ll do is set the stage for yet another fight over my spiritual well-being,” Sara says. “You should’ve seen the Great Bat Mitzvah Blowout four years ago.”

  “Fun. Frustrating parents must be the motif today.”

  “Uh-oh, what’s going on now?”

  “Mom has a new boyfriend.”

  Sara’s jaw falls open. “No way.”

  “Uh-huh. I met the new suitor last night. Ben and Mom and I, we had a lovely little dinner together,” I say. “Ben was so interested in me and my life and my friends. He wanted to know all about me so we could become the bestest of friends.”

  “I don’t know how to ask this delicately,” Sara says, “but do you think this is the guy your mom spent the night with that time?”

  “Oh, I know it is. Mom was twitchy all night.”

  “You didn’t bring it up?”

  “God, no. Things were uncomfortable enough without me asking Ben if he got busy with my mother.”

  “Can I ask you something?” Sara says. I know what that means: she has a question I might not like, but doesn’t want me to blow up at her. “Do you think you might be misdirecting your anger?”

  “Misdirecting my anger?”

  “Yeah. You know: You think you’re angry at Ben because he’s dating your mom, but you’re really angry at your mom because she’s with someone who isn’t your dad?”

  “Where’d you get that from?”

  “You spend a lot of time talking to a psychologist,” she says, referring to Mindforce, “you pick up some things. Well?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Is Ben a decent guy?”

  I shrug. “I guess. He seems okay.”

  “Look, you know I’m on your side, but maybe you should give him a fair chance, and not hate on him right off when he hasn’t actually done anything to deserve it.”

  “Hmph. Aren’t I supposed to be the grounded, rational one?”

  Sara smiles. “I’m expanding my repertoire.”

  TWO

  After swinging back by my place to grab Matt’s gift, Sara and I hike over to Casa de Steiger. The detour makes us fashionably late; Stuart and Missy are already there, a fact Matt impresses upon us in his own inimitably blunt way.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he says. “I told you, festivities begin at nine sharp. Sharp.”

  “What a charming host he is,” I say to Sara. “I forgot your present at home. I had to run back and get it.”

  “Oh. All right, then. Tardiness forgiven.”

  “And so gracious, too,” Sara says.

  As birthday boy, Matt gets to call the day, which is not what I would call overly ambitious; he announces an itinerary that begins with gaming until noon, when pizza is to be delivered, at which point we will indulge in (or be subjected to, depending on your tastes in cinema) some not-so-classic action films from the eighties that I’ve never heard of: Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, Cloak & Dagger, and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, which Matt insists gets better with subsequent viewings. I remain skeptical.

  “Dude, Die Hard isn’t on the list?” Stuart says.

  “No, because Die Hard is a Christmas movie,” Matt says. “Duh.”

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  “Hey, I was about to make some grilled cheeses,” Matt says to me. “You want one?”

  “Grilled cheese sandwiches for breakfast?” I say.

  “I can put bacon in yours to make it more breakfasty.”

  “Say yes, they’re awesome,” Missy says. “They’re like, wicked unhealthy for you because they’re all buttery and cheesy but they’re soooo gooooooood.”

  “They’re bread and cheese sandwiches,” I say, unconvinced. “They’re not all that special.”

  Matt snorts. “Maybe not the way you make them, but the Steigers have elevated them to an art form. Walk this way,” he says, loping off with a pronounced limp.

  “If I could walk that way...”

  Matt beams at me. “There’s hope for you yet.”

  The kitchen is set up for grilled cheese production, complete with precooked bacon and thin-sliced tomato. Matt places one of those stovetop griddle plates onto the burners then fires them up, carefully setting the heat to medium-high.

  “First, you need real butter,” he begins, “and it has to be completely softened, so you can cover the bread without shredding it.”

  The bread is thick slices of country white, which is important because the coarse texture holds the butter better, Matt explains. He slathers butter on like he’s slapping cement on a brick, then each piece of bread gets a slice of mozzarella, for texture, and to seal in the slices of cheddar and fontina he lays down. He grabs a glass shaker filled with dark spices, and dusts the bread before laying the two sandwich halves on the hot griddle.

  “Before grilling — and this is the most important part — each slice of bread is sprinkled lightly with the Steiger Secret Spice Blend,” Matt says.

  “And what is the Steiger Secret Spice Blend?”

  Mr. Steiger answers for Matt. “He can’t tell you. If he divulges the secret recipe, I’m obligated to disown him.”

  “You’d disown me on my birthday?” Matt says, playing offended.

  “For violating the sacred trust of the Steiger Secret Spice Blend? I’d drop you like a bad habit.”

  “Yeah, no, that’s fair.”

  “Morning, Mr. Steiger,” I say.

  “Good morning, Carrie.” Daddy Steiger says as he skirts past us to prep a travel mug of coffee. “I’ll be out of your hair in a minute, pal.”

  “What, you have to work again?” Matt says. He tosses a couple of tomato slices onto the melty cheese, then presses the two halves together. “Jeez, you need to tell off that slave-driver boss of yours.”

  “Yeah, he’s an ogre. It’s tax time, Matt, you know I’m eyeball-deep in work.”

  “Why do you have to do it? You have minions.”

  “I like to lead by example. And I don’t have minions; they’re called employees.”

  “You’re so PC it’s sickening.”

  Mr. Steiger caps his coffee cup. “Your scorn: another cross I have to bear. You have a good birthday with your friends. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  “You two are so adorable,” I say. “You should take that act on the road.”

  “It’ll never happen. Not as long as he demands top billing.” With a quick jab of his spatula, Matt chops the sandwich in half, then scoops it onto a
paper plate. “Give it a minute to cool, unless you’re into molten cheese scorching the roof of your mouth.”

  I wait. I sample. Matt looks to me for his compliment — which, damn him, I have to give, because this sandwich is way more delicious than grilled cheese has any right to be.

  “It’s passable,” I say.

  “By which you mean awesome.”

  “We want some awesome, too,” Stuart shouts from the living room. “Hop to it, cookie! Chop chop!”

  Matt cranks out six more sandwiches, half of which go to Stuart the human incinerator. Once those are gone, and we’re sure Matt’s mom is out the door for her weekly shopping trip, we move on to the gift-giving phase of the day.

  Round one is part of a cool birthday tradition the group has: a music exchange. Years ago Sara and Stuart, in an effort to break Matt of his slavish and inexplicable devotion to one-hit wonders of the seventies and eighties, burned CDs of their preferred musical tastes, and it became a thing. In the interest of further expanding Matt’s musical horizons (which, sadly, remain rooted in cheesy pop of the past), I’m introducing him to the greatest Chicks Who Rock of the past fifty years: Grace Slick, Janis Joplin, Joan Jett, Chrissie Hynde, the sisters Wilson, Pat Benatar, Liz Phair, Nina Gordon and Louise Post, Amanda Palmer, Amy Lee. The mix culminates with Patti Smith’s Because the Night (which she co-wrote with Bruce Springsteen, because of course I’m not going to pass on a chance to bring a little of the Boss into someone’s life).

  “Time for the main event,” Sara says, handing the gift-wrapped package to Matt. “This is from all of us.”

  Matt tears off the wrapping paper to reveal a large cardboard box. He opens it, beholds its contents, then looks at us, uncertain yet excited.

  “You’ll want to thank Natalie, too,” I say. “She kindly acted as our consultant, and called in a few favors on our behalf.”

  “Then...this is what I think it is?” Matt says.

  “Go try it on.”

  Matt is off like a shot. He returns several minutes later, and I must say, he’s quite impressive in his new super-hero uniform.

  The boots and black military pants were easy grabs, thanks to the local army-navy store. The rest of it is specialized gear, which is where Natalie came in. The facemask is a modified protective mask like paintball players wear. Natalie replaced the goggles’ plastic lens with the same impact-resistant polymer my flight goggles are made of, then installed a spare Protectorate comm system in the mask itself. At a glance, the shirt looks like a normal long-sleeved black shirt with deep blue accents, but the material is two layers of woven Kevlar. Between those layers are what Natalie called “ballistics level IIIA shock plates,” which are capable of stopping a nine millimeter full metal jacket bullet. The leather gloves, intended to go on under his magic gloves, have a thin but dense padding along the knuckles and the heel of the palm, to minimize any damage to the wearer when throwing punches (Matt does not need to break any more fingers). The pièce de résistance, the new trench coat, is a shorter cut than Matt’s battered old wreck of a coat, which makes it harder to trip over and gives opponents less to grab onto.