Supers Box Set

by Kristofer Bartol

  “Well,” she reads, peering below the rims of her thin spectacles, “Mister Decatur, I'll be happy to give you a tour.” She motions to the room behind him. “Why don't you tell me a bit about your grandfather.”

  “My grandfather?”

  “For whom you’re touring?”

  Right—good old grampy,” he says, as she routes the desk. “He’s warm, and tall, and… wrinkled.”

  “He has,” she whispers, as if under surveillance, “powers though, right?”

  “Yes, um.” He wrings his hands; his eyes look elsewhere. “He’s strong, and he can fly.”

  “Quite a classic combination. We don’t see a lot of that anymore.” She brushes her gray-blonde hair aside. “So this is the dining room. Wait 'til you see it during Christmastime,” she gushes, feigning a silent burst of excitement. “It’s gorgeous—not that it isn’t now, of course.”

  A mighty spruce table spans the length of the room, with seats enough for twenty guests. The room is capped on either end by a bay window. An ornate fireplace of limestone and baroque brass stands opposite the table from them, split above by a chandelier of the Gilded Age.

  “We serve three meals a day and two light snacks between. Our chef accounts for dietary restrictions, if the Elder Decatur has any.”

  The Adjudicator frowns and shrugs.

  “Alrighty.” She motions toward the hall and strides around the corner, past the reception desk and into the adjacent library.

  The vaulted ceilings are stitched together by Gothic ribbing, like the nave of a cathedral. Hand-carved spruce bookshelves conceal centuries of knowledge behind paned glass. Two small writer's desks sit back-to-back in the center of the room.

  “Here's our larger library, where we host daily crafting activities. Our second, smaller library is reserved for reading; all physical activities are hosted in the bowling hall, a short walk north of here, and our nature activities are hosted in the conservatory, to the west.”

  “Hm,” the Adjudicator muses, examining a painting. “Is this real?”

  “The third owner was a bit of a collector.”

  Depicted: A man stands with walking cane atop a rocky outcrop, high above a sea of fog that drowns the surrounding mountaintops in mist. His black overcoat holds fast against the wind. He appears calm, though we cannot see his face.

  The Adjudicator touches the painting's frame, determining it to be gold-painted wood. He turns to Nancy, asking, “Are all the residents supers?”

  “Most, yes, genetically. Some are non-supers who've acted with enough gallantry to earn consideration.” She pauses, “Mister Decatur, does your grandfather receive a pension for civil or martial services rendered between the years nineteen-hundred and nineteen-sixty-three?”

  “Yes,” he blinks, recycling a recent observation, “President Bush Senior personally met with my grandfather to draft a registry. He has a photograph of them together, shaking hands; it’s center-stage on his mantelpiece.”

  “Oh, wow,” she croons, grinning like a bobcat.

  The sounds of a rumpus echo through the ceiling: tin clattering to the floor, hollow shouting, elbows thudding against stone, and a hoarse shriek. Nancy looks to the Adjudicator and, with a smile, excuses herself. She shuts her eyes and vanishes, instantly, in a curt puff of white dust.

  The Adjudicator recoils. He looks around, up, and behind him. The rumpus above stiffens.

  He slinks across the room and pokes his head into the adjoining library.

  Two old men sit next to each other in complimentary armchairs. They each hold an open book—one, “The Sun Also Rises;” the other, “East of Eden.” They’re separated by a brass floor lamp whose pink paper frustum—held aloft by extension arm—pours warm light upon them.

  The younger of the two old men rubs his eye with his fist, and his glasses teeter atop his knuckles, like a rowboat adrift at sea. He coughs—a prolonged wheeze—spewing spurts of smoke and ash; spitting sparks of hellfire and crumbled brimstone. He turns the book away from his combustion emulsion propulsion, and he coughs harder, turning inward.

  His elder companion slides his slippered feet away from the fallout, which settles on the carpet, on and around a crusty patch of blackened-and-bleached fibers.

  “Jesus Christ,” the elder shouts, with an abrupt and unexpected volume.

  The paper lampshade swivels away from his voice, latching shut on its extension arm.

  The elder ousts the fallen embers and sulphur with the soles of his slippers. “Watch where you cough, or you’ll light the room ablaze! Hudičev otrok, caado xun! Gottverdammt, abn aleahira!”

  “How many times,” the younger heaves, exasperated. “Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain!”

  His eye reddens like a hot coal, and he rubs it out with the heel of his palm.

  As the elder spot-cleans the floor with his foot, and the other coughs smog into an open book, the Adjudicator screeps through the room, passing through without notice.

  Franciscan plants offset an oak throne with a plush seat pillow. A stained glass bay window douses it and a grand piano in colored light. The creme marble fireplace uplifts two cherubic brass oil lamps and a baroque mantel clock. Above, an Edwardian fresco of celestial angels is truncated and divvied by gilded ribs.

  A placard on a metal stand—one likely repurposed from the discount display of a shuttered Sears—depicts an autumnal tableau and, in the forefront, a black horse with frocked and headless rider. Sunset casts its orange glow on an old wooden mill and waterwheel, dipping sweetly into a gentle river slowed by a rickety dam. The trees abound blaze with half of our known colors.

  The titling above the horseman suggests he's “The Headless Hessian; The Spirit of White Plains.” Sharp, kitschy verbiage insists that all summertime visitors return in the upcoming season for a spooky tour and potential ghost sighting, hosted by the National Registry of Historic Places and New York State Historic Preservation Society. “The Spirit of White Plains is known to patrol these lands,” it reads, “well-armed and be-headed, as if on an eternal nightwatch for something yet to crest the horizon.”

  The Adjudicator steps into the next room: a parlor blanketed with Florentine blue carpet, detailed with gold ribbons and fleur-de-lis; the furthest wall made trapezoidal by the alcove of a wide bay window, and thereupon hangs a woman with tan, shriveled skin. She crawls along the wall, clinging to it like thrown buttered bread—sticking, but ever-slightly slipping.

  She smells putrid, even from a distance. She yammers in quiet Spanish, speaking to the wind. Her palms and toes thump and squeak across the bay window glass, ruffling over the curtains and scratching up the wall, to the ceiling. She crawls past the Adjudicator, overhead.

  He turns his gaze and spies a lean, malnourished old man with a headful of plush white hair, kneeling before a fish tank, pressing his face against the glass while wiping algal scum from the inside rim. An angelfish inside the tank stares at the lean old man, and he flares his puckered lips in reply.

  “Don't mind him,” grumbles a voice nearby.

  The Adjudicator turns to see an old man confined to a wheelchair. Pale, gaunt ankles dangle beneath the billows of navy-blue sweatpants—the department store variety, and well-saturated with natural emissions. The man’s starved and jaundiced hands cross over a black sweater; elbows propped upon the armrests of his mobile seat.

  His lower lip protrudes as if it were in want of a cigarette. He stifles a cough, and the tendons of his neck flex like a banyan tree. His jawline, once defined, sags on either side. He carries an opulent, mauve bag beneath each eye; too-heavy to go in the overhead compartment, they instead hang below his glassy gaze, sullen, transfixed, and with eternal patience.

  “Fishboy ain’t got no friends outside the Osteichthyes,” he says, in a gravel drawl. “Hm, but you don’t know Fishboy. Too young… Maybe you seen him on the cafeteria walls; the Greenpeace posterchild. ‘Recycle, recycle.’ ‘Ocean trash chokes sea turtles.’ Etcetera.”

 
; The Adjudicator squints. “What?”

  “Place seems more an asylum than a cemetery, huh? Tejanas climbing on walls; nurses can’t tell if she’s shit herself, on account of the odor. Natural odor. The kind that keeps lovers away. And they call it a power.”

  In one swift gesture—simultaneously too quickly to register and too slow to ignore—the old man lights a cigarette and tucks it between his lips. The Adjudicator blinks twice and double-takes.

  “Hm,” grunts the old man, flashing his eyebrows. “You ain’t seen speed before?”

  “No, it’s just-”

  “You surprised to see it from an old man, is all; an old man bound to a chair.” He exhales grey. “Well this burnt-out old speedster can still use his arms.”

  “Well, I’m sure with proper physical therapy…” The Adjudicator crinkles his lip, smug. “We of the newer generation have a greater understanding of physiology, biomechanics, training—you know.”

  “What? What do I know?” he grumbles. “We knew training. What do you know? You know exercise routines, and weightlifting; we got and stayed fit through action. I busted more crime in my first year than you've busted in your whole career thus far.”

  “Well, old man,” he guffaws, “I’ll have you know, I was the one who took-out Leviathan.” The Adjudicator waggles his eyebrows.

  The old man concedes no humors or adulation. He stares, dry-eyed and stiff-lipped. “And?”

  “What do you mean ‘and,’ old man?”

  “Do you expect a revelry? Triumphant bugles, banners over the street, ticker-tape confetti; the high school marching band playing ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’?” He flares his nostrils. “You did your job; if the newsies sing your praises, leave it to ‘em, but don’t get haughty. What’s important is what’s next.”

  “What’s next?” the Adjudicator scoffs. “It’s slim-pickens these days; crime doesn’t pay the way it did when you walked the night, jumping across rooftops and snatching cat burglars. The dastardly and disillusioned are too intimidated these days. Too scared these days.”

  “Please,” he growls, “that’s an excuse for laziness. There’s always someone prowling in the dark. There’s always someone to defend and protect; someone being taken advantage of. You just aren’t looking for them. You don’t care about people…”

  “Where do you get off saying I do or don’t care?”

  “Being a big muscle boy doesn’t make you a hero,” he says, taking a drag from his cigarette. “It just makes you strong. What you do with that strength determines whether or not you’re a hero.”

  “I clean the streets,” the Adjudicator protests, thrusting his arm down between them; bridling his temper. “I’m out there killing monsters; taking-down toughs more powerful than you ever seen, let alone fought.” He sneers, nodding involuntarily, and he grins. “Evil is afraid of me. Yeah—when I walk the streets, evil stays home.”

  The old man snorts, dismissive. “Oh, ‘evil stays home,’ huh? Well, newsflash, kid: evil isn’t afraid of anyone. Evil doesn’t walk the streets; it lives beneath them. It lies dormant in every heart. It lurks in the quiet recesses nobody thinks to upturn, and it only comes out when it's fully-matured. Your job is to-”

  “‘Job’?" he scoffs. "You know, they instituted rules a while back—after you retired, no doubt—the kind of rules that outlaw this line of work. So when you say ‘job’ I have no idea what you're referring to. I do this at my own risk. I do it as a choice.”

  “Kid, you're fooling yourself. You don't have a choice. You were born with a privilege and you have a corresponding duty to contribute to the best of your ability. That’s the social contract for us all: everybody contributes or everybody dies.” He leans forward, creaking his chair, “You know what Robert Kennedy once said?”

  “The actor?”

  “Politician.”

  “Oh—pretty close though, huh?”

  “Sure," the old man concedes. "Anyway, Kennedy believed the problem with power is how frequently it's used irresponsibly, and indulgently, and he preached that 'men of power' ought to live for the public rather than off the public. He said, uh, ‘Few of us have the power to change history, but each time a man stands-up against injustice, or fights for progress, he sends-out a ripple of hope; and with enough ripples, soon you'll have an earthquake that can topple even the mightiest walls of oppression.’ And it's the duty of the powerful to make those ripples, like stones in a pond, and to represent those who can't make their own.”

  “Okay, and, I already do that,” he boasts. “I’m a man of the people. I make splashes big enough for the whole country. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a magazine, but I’m America’s Hero Number One—according to GQ, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, TIME… You and your ripples… I make ripples. I make big fuckin’ ripples. I fight the people’s demons on the regular.”

  “Sure you do, Mister Big One—you handicap the maniacs and mischief-makers; the tangible threats—but let me ask you this: Who do you do it for? The people, or yourself?”

  The Adjudicator opens his mouth, sneering, for a rebuttal, but his face contorts in silence—and he pauses.

  The old man flashes his eyebrows, reclines in his wheelchair, and puffs his cigarette.

  The Adjudicator stares beyond him—his eyes possessed, transfixed on the bare wall.

  In a sudden, curt puff of white dust, Nancy reappears beside the Adjudicator, shaking him free of his trance.

  She smiles. “Sorry for the delay, Mister Decatur. I see you’ve met the legendary Blue Streak.” She turns to the old man, speaking louder and slower, “And how are you this afternoon? Sharing some conversation with the visitors, huh?”

  He scowls, “I’m old, not retarded, Nancy.” He shelves his cigarette between his lips and unlocks his wheels. “Y’can talk to me like a normal fucking adult,” he grumbles, turning himself around and rolling away.

  Nancy leans toward the Adjudicator, whispering, “He’s a little cranky today.”

  “No I’m not!” Blue Streak shouts back.

  Nancy flashes her eyebrows and shrugs, smiling.

  “Sorry for the delay,” she says, again.

  “Oh, that’s no problem,” he replies. “You, uh, didn’t mention you were a super.”

  She looks aside and back. “You didn’t ask,” she winks. “Mutate, actually.”

  “Oh, really?” his brow crinkles. “If you don’t mind my asking…”

  “North Tower, World Trade Center.”

  His face flushes to pale. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

  “Yeah—so that’s… what it is.”

  “I am so sorry.”

  “Hey, I mean…” she wraps her arms across her chest, concealing her old wounds, “I’m alive, aren’t I? Crushed to dust like everyone else, only to reappear elsewhere. That’s a miracle, right?”

  “Doesn’t- If you-” he stutters, “So you’re one of the First Responders?”

  “I presume you’ve seen my trading card?” she asks, feigning elitism. “Number four of seven. Support class.”

  “Support class?”

  She shrugs. “Bureaucratic pukes always want to put labels on things. Like ‘support class,’ whatever that means… I suppose it’s because my strongest power is gift-wrapping from a quarter-mile away.” She smiles. “That, and the, uh, teleportation—clearly. Not much when compared to your powers, right, Mister Decatur?”

  The Adjudicator’s eyes bulge, and his heart pounds in his chest. He wrings his hands, now cold, clammy, and slick with sweat. He stammers, “My- compared to my what?”

  She cocks an eyebrow and frowns, dismissive. “Really?”

  The Adjudicator feigns ignorance.

  She raises her hand, tilting it back as if pointing behind her. From down the hall comes the guestbook, floating; hurtling, and swiftly finding a roost in her open hand. She turns the page and points to a signature.

  “‘Jude Decatur’? You gotta develop a new pseudonym, Jude.” She smirks. “It’s a little o
n-the-nose.”

  He shivers and wrings his hands. “Look, Nancy, please; you can’t tell anyone.”

  She recoils. “What? Who would I tell?” She shakes herself loose of her indignation. “We’re in the same boat, you and I. One breed, one creed—or so they say.”

  He sighs, relaxing his shoulders and lilting his head. “Sorry,” he blushes, “there’s not a lot of people I can trust, you know? Only a small circle of outcasts—drifters, vagabonds…”

  She shrugs, “Hey, what am I if not an outcast? An old woman survives a skyscraper collapse and gains the ability to travel while standing still. Let’s just say society isn’t ready to embrace such wonderment.”

  “Yeah, I suppose,” he says. “You know, for a second I thought you were telepathic.”

  She laughs. “Look, if you don’t want people to recognize you, I have two recommendations: one, wear a mask, or two, don’t mug so much for the television cameras.”

  “Sure,” he smiles.

  “Then, if I could guess, you don’t actually have a grandfather looking for a bed?”

  “Um,” he leaks, “correct.”

  “Yeah, I thought not. We don’t have availability anyway.” She nudges his ribs. “My instincts tell me you’re looking to get an autograph, but I’m not sure who from.”

  “Yeah, see,” he blushes, “I was hoping to meet Captain Centennial. I heard he lives here.”

  “Oh,” she blurts, “oh, he lives here alright. That racket earlier was him—another episode.”

  “Episode?”

  “Dementia,” she nods. “He’s coming up on his own centennial, and time isn’t on his side. He thinks he’s back in Nazi Germany, mistaking nurses for ‘Gerry;’ thinking we’re holding him captive for medical experiments. Sometimes we can talk him out of the delusion but usually he needs a sedative.”

  “And today?”

  “Sedative.”

  “Oh.”

  “Hey,” she shrugs, “you’re welcome to try and talk with him. It might not be a fruitful conversation, but if something goes awry—well—you’re strong enough to contend.” She winks. “Upstairs, to the right; first door on the left.”