Supers Box Set

by Kristofer Bartol

  “The vessel departs in two minutes,” the chipper commander continues. “Price of admission stands at only One Human Soul, so shred yourself of this mortal coil and take the adventure of a lifetime today!”

  Three men in skin-tight black neoprene drop a plank from the lead boat to the commander’s, crossing over to share words. Their quiet conversation exudes tension, telegraphed by the furrowing of brows, the gesticulating of arms, and the anxious handling of shouldered rifles.

  The three men acquiesce and return to the lead boat, taking their plank with them. The commander hollers after them, “Stay with the Alpha and keep your eyes peeled,” adding, "uh—please!"

  He sidles-up beside Candyman and feigns a laugh. “Frogmen, amiright?”

  Candyman shrugs.

  The commander falls solemn. “Our UDT boys get antsy when we take delays. We’ll bring you guys as far as you need without deviating from our course, alright?”

  “The village ain’t far. I’ll let you know when we need to disembark.”

  “Aye-aye.”

  Candyman grunts.

  The ships’ motors regurgitate mud and, ever-quicker, leave the marshlands for the verdant unknown.

  As the armored monitor navigates the cloudy brown canal, guiding her five ducklings, the foliage along the riverbank grows denser, thicker, and taller. Bamboo shoots reach skyward like the walls of a fortress. The fronds of towering reedy palms bow to the sun, unfurling like orchids. Their leaves overlap, high across the canal, forming an inadvertent canopy; shielding the waters from the sun’s harsh light.

  Private Page leans against the cold, immovable plane of the patrol boat’s cabin walls. His back stiffens against the metal, unable to determine if it’s comfortable.

  He props his arms on his tucked knees, and he stares ahead at the passing jungle. Innumerable shades of green stare back at him, scrolling endlessly like a zoetrope. The rippling wakes of the preceding boats charge ahead and away; their diminutive waves breaking against the current to lap like raucous partygoers at the riverbank, moistening further the ever-wet soil.

  Ahead, cautiously moored against the embankment, a canoe lingers. Its occupants—two slant-eyed females, with cheap white blouses, flat obsidian hair, and woven conical hats—hold their oars across their chests, in folded arms. Their eyes, though greatly concealed, burn bright with contempt; lased upon Private Page, staring through him. And he, with a vacant mien, stares back.

  The jungle reclaims his attention—a lush oversaturation, too complicated to digest… a parade of monotonous greens, inebriating him with fatigue… a verdant hypnosis, commanding him to dream…

  His eyes shut for only a moment, or longer, and he is awoken by a cold prick on his scalp. He looks up at the canopy palms, no longer streaming sunbeams. Beyond the limp ferns are a cluster of dark clouds, overcast and grey in all directions. Then, from above, another cold prick; a droplet on his forehead, and another.

  First, trickling; a noteworthy pitter patter—sostenuto; portamento della voce—and sprinkling, hastening, enlivening—precipitando; portato—like a boulder canting off its fulcrum, surrendering its stability to greater forces—articulated legato; allegro—coming forth in vibrant curtains, like the first movement of Beethoven in C minor—brisk; impassioned; presto agitato—accelerating, pummeling—allegro—and culminating—vivace—in a shower—rubato—in a torrent—stringendo—in a flood.

  Submersion in a breathable sea; a squall without gales. The first monsoon of the year breaks against the windward face of the karst mountains, drowning the land, and sousing its inhabitants.

  And so it would rain, nearly every day hence, like clockwork. In fact, the US Air Force had begun Round Two of Operation Popeye—the cloud-seeding of Laos and Cambodia—using silver iodide crystals in the upper troposphere, between the tenth and twentieth northern parallels, to encourage cloud formation; to worsen and prolong the rainy season, in hopes of drenching and disabling the Ho Chi Minh Trail. For five years, the 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron “made mud, not war” under the command of SecDef Robert McNamara and SecState Henry Kissinger.

  Little did they expect, however, that the clouds would blow with the winds, abandoning the Ho Chi Minh Trail and falling upon the highlands and floodplains of Vietnam—the exact terrains occupied by desperate Americans and their local loyalists. With Popeye being a clandestine operation, neither of the civil war’s belligerents were prepared for the beyond-average rainfall that was to plague them, bringing with it an inescapable discomfort, futile exasperation, swollen rats, megalithic mosquitos, malaria, yellow fever, pneumonia, sepsis, gangrene, and a bevy of other infections and diseases.

  Still, Popeye continued. South Vietnam was soaked into oblivion. Firebases sank into the mud; battlegrounds became bogs; boots, tires, and treads were pulled from their vessels. Roads washed-out, hillsides crumbled, and convoys were forced to ford nasty rivers. Bombers and helicopters were grounded, as all flight clearance was revoked under thunderclouds and fog—too much for Boy Cumulus alone to blow away. And so mobility slowed to a crawl, and the war would go on for twice as long.

  Radiation Brother eyes Pvt. Page, stewing—saturated—beneath his poncho. Page glowers upon detection, and he flips a bird to the ebony giant, though he inevitably concedes a smile.

  The motor of the monitor ahead grumbles, and halts, and each successive patrol boat slows to a stop. Page pulls his rain-slick hood aside, listening beyond the downpour for signs of whatever impedes them.

  Hearing nothing beyond the din of rainfall, he approaches Radiation Brother to inquire, and the turret of the monitor swivels toward the riverbank. Both men pause, and the occupants of five patrol boats stand still; their eyes glued to the turret.

  “What’s-” Page starts, and with a stiff pop the armored turret spits a rope of plasmic flame—a thirty-foot arc of thick, intense orange glow, dousing the jungle palms in dragon’s breath; torching a throng of trees and ferns.

  The monitor’s engine rumbles back to life and the convoy resumes upriver. In passing, Pvt. Page gawks alongside Radiation Brother, watching the conflagrating foliage grow closer; hissing, crackling, and popping, the fire dances in the ferns, climbing thin tree trunks to sizzle and snap the branches above. Among the falling fronds are two crispy, blackened gooks, wrapped-up in their harnesses and dangling in death.

  Radiation Brother shakes his head.

  “That’s almost sad,” Pvt. Page mumbles; his eyes glazing over.

  “You never get used to seeing it.”

  “Yeah, I… suppose not.”

  “When I was a kid,” Radiation Brother prefaces, “you know, me and my family lived in the Bronx. It wasn’t the best neighborhood, but we made due with what we had. The community was tight, man—everyone was family. Parents made sure no kids went hungry, even if they wasn't their own. They’d float some cash if you was short on bills; they’d keep the doors open and unlocked. We’d play with the kids from every house on the block—and with all the apartment kids, too—at this vacant lot kitty-corner to mine. Baseball, kickball, tag… Sometimes we'd crack the fire hydrant on a hot summer day and play in the waters. The guys from Public Works never seemed to care, so long as it didn't go to waste. We was at the end of the line of all the city's problems. Ass-end of the power grid; evening trash pick-up; barely ever any police patrols…”

  He leans against the railing.

  “There's this one kid who lived in the house across from mine. Malcolm. He was a little older than me, and real tough; a real slugger. Whenever we'd play ball, Mal would send it soaring over our heads, and into the street. He once broke his own bedroom window; we called it a grand slam, to benefit the coincidence. Incredible guy. He coulda been a real superstar someday.”

  He cranes his neck.

  “One of those hot summer nights, after we'd all gone to bed, I woke to this, noise—this screaming—see, all these people were gathered on the sidewalk outside. I could hear 'em, and it rattled me, so I threw open my cur
tains to check it out… and Malcolm's house is on fire. The whole thing is burning, with fire like… hands; like fiery fingers clawing at the windows. And they punch-out the glass, and it sounds like a lion, roaring, as the fires suck the outside air in.”

  He palms his eyes, as if to rub-out something only he sees.

  “When the- The fire department was slow, man. We lived on the ass-end of the lines. That fire grew big, and quick… So I'm watching it unfold from across the street, kneeling by the window with my elbows up, like I'm watching a parade go by. I think everyone's gotten out, right? Little do I know Malcolm was in his bedroom still, and the fire was spreading up to the back of the house.”

  His hands gesticulate over the railing, indifferent to the rain.

  “Ya know, had I known then what I was capable of now, I coulda gone across there, gotten him out, and the whole thing would've been fine. But I wouldn't know 'til a few years later, when they barred me from athletics. No, instead, I watched that house burn, just like all my neighbors; like all of those standing outside my window.”

  He stares up at the grey sky, beyond the drooping canopy.

  “By the time the firemen came, I was outside on the street with everyone else. The trucks pulling-in made cause for us to disperse, and I followed a group of folks to the vacant lot. And we looked up. There, hanging out of his bedroom window, with the fires licking at the air, was Malcolm,” he clears his throat. “Seemed he’d tied his sheets together like a rope, to climb down from his window, but he must've gotten all tangled-up… and the fire sucked the air outta his lungs.”

  He sighs.

  “So, we're all just staring up at Mal, silent, trying to figure out if what we're seeing is what we're seeing, cos he's all burnt, blacker than black; the blackest I'd ever seen somebody. But I knew it was him,” he nods, slowly. “And I carried that with me for a while after,” he looks down, “and I think maybe I still do.”

  He scratches the base of his palm, and he rubs together the heels of his massive hands.

  Pvt. Page looks on from beneath the brow of his moist hood, blinking; remembering the rain. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out.

  Radiation Brother looks over at him. “Sorry if that's a shit story.”

  “No, Radia-” he stops, “no, man, it's fine. Sometimes you gotta talk about the past. That's why we keep records of it, huh?”

  Radiation Brother shrugs, and nods.

  “Say, Ajax…”

  Radiation Brother cocks an eyebrow.

  “Who said you can't play sports?”

  He snorts, smiling. “Oh, uh, the school district. I bulked-up by the time I was a sophomore, so it was by the grace of my size they even let me on varsity—but when they found out I was a super, that was it.”

  “Shit.”

  “That's why I got into all this,” he gestures around him. “I had to be useful; to keep busy; to inspire other kids like me to never lay down, just cos some cog-nosed pasty pudge didn't want his son getting bested by a nigger. That's what they feared—being shown up; feeling lesser. They wanted me in the streets, so I went to the streets, and every time they stepped out of line I made sure I was there to lay them down.”

  “Woof. That's, uh…”

  “Predictable?”

  “Sad.”

  “I guess,” he shrugs. “You mess with the bull, you get the horns. Only now,” he looks to his comrades, “I work for the big regime, so they aren't ‘getting the horns’ so much as telling me where to give 'em.”

  “Yeah, I know how you feel.”

  He glares. “Do you? Or do you think you know how I feel?”

  “Oh, um,” he squints away, “I’ve felt similarly before.”

  “Similar? What’s similar? What compares, huh?”

  “I guess, um…”

  “You were more or less a single-parent home, Mike, and that's a bummer, but half the kids I grew-up with lived in single-parent homes, in rathole neighborhoods, with hundred-year-old plumbing, unreliable electricity, no police presence, and—even worse—if we did ever see a cop, we were immediately under suspicion, if not threat. A majority black neighborhood yet all the cops were white, and none of them lived anywhere near us. You think Malcolm would've died if he were a white boy in a white neighborhood? No—he'd be back in Flushing Meadows hitting fly balls over the fence.”

  Pvt. Page stares, ghost-faced and shivering.

  “Shit,” Ajax sighs, “I don't know why I'm taking all this out on some kid too young to know what's good, let alone what's going on next door. Not that you shouldn't know—everyone should know—but, well, you know what I'm saying.”

  “Yeah, man—sure.”

  “Here's what's straight, man: My dad fought the Second World War just like a half-million other Americans. He wasn't drafted, neither—he chose to go. He wanted to earn the respect of his peers; prove that black men aren't no Sambo-types; that we're strong.”

  He flexes his arms and punches the air like a boxer working his opponent on the ropes.

  “He came back a war hero—got a bronze star in France. And after two days of revelry he was back to be treated like any old cotton-picker, as if he were only walking down Main Street cos he was between taverns. So he got a job, right? Labor, of course. Nothing better for the colored man than back-breaking opportunity.

  “Sure, all the other men returning from war got the benefits of the G.I. Bill—college classes, white collar jobs, nice homes with front yards—and they worked in business, and finance, and auto sales, and universities, and all sorts of government engineering, like rockets and engines. But us negroes? If we were lucky we could work in the same building, but with nowhere near as nice of accommodations. Business? Try the mailroom. Autoshop? Grease monkey. University? Fuckin’ janitor.

  “And you know what? Ol’ blackie never said a word of dishonor; never cussed or cried or said ‘It ain't fair,’ he just took what he could get. For centuries, the negro has laid down on the command of the white man. He's been a slave his whole life, whether he's lived in the north or the south; the Antebellum or the Gilded Age. And he's still a slave.”

  “But the Emancipation Proc-”

  “Emancipation my ass. Negroes don't anymore get the whips and shackles, but they still get the proverbial kind! The kind that denies you a loan, or puts you on the assembly line, or delegates you to a Bronx hovel when nothing else is affordable.” He sighs. “And we’re not asking for the moon, here; we don’t want to flip the tables, just to even things out, so we don’t hafta starve and shiver and take disease, or steal in desperation. Of course, they want us to steal, so they can enslave us by the thirteenth amendment and put us back in the yoke.

  “The system is rigged, man. It's rigged by the elite against all men of all colors and creeds. It's rigged against the white woman who is ‘too dainty’ to do a day's labor. It's rigged against the Mexican who can't prove his smarts cos he speaks poor English. It's rigged against the Asians and the Slavs who society says are subhuman. And it's rigged against the college kid who can't buy his way out of a military draft, or can't get a job because he don't yet have enough the right experience.”

  Page sinks into his skin and looks away.

  “I'm not saying it's all whites against all coloreds, I'm saying that it's a rigged system, and the men at the controls are all old white men with incomprehensible amounts of money—and when they have the power to shape society, they shape it to fit their preferences, the same way a child molds sand into castles, or decides which of her dolls is the princess based on how much it looks like herself.

  “Now, this might all be some lecture to you, but I know you've seen the paper; maybe even read or heard the words of the Reverend Martin Luther King Junior. That man knows what's good, and he knows what's straight. He'll be the first black president, man. He's gonna change the world—you'll see. Like he said, ‘Now's the time to rise from the dark valley of segregation to the sunlit path of justice. Now's the time to change racial injustice into the solid
rock of brotherhood.’”

  Page smiles, aware. “Radiation Brother; brotherhood. I get it.”

  Ajax nods. “Yeah, man,” he smiles, “you got it. And you gotta keep getting it. And once you have it, you gotta tell other people. Because until everybody knows, the black child will never know a world of respect, or safety, or confidence; and America will never know tranquility, peace, or harmony.”

  He smiles, swept away by memories.

  “You know, I have a girl back in the states…” he croons. “Wonderful girl who goes by that name—Harmony. That's what she's working for, after all. She's gifted. She has this aura of pure serenity—it's incredible. She can melt the bitterness of a crooked old heart, and she can drain mobs of their rage.” He chuckles, “Only flaw she has is she can't be everywhere at once.”

  His smile fades.

  “Well, yeah—that, and… I know I'm a bit of a stubborn bull, so my opinion's biased, but she puts too much trust in people. People who've hurt her or others; people who are so cruel it runs down to their bones. She says everyone can change; everyone can come around… Me, I think that's naïve, and yet I'm glad she believes it. I'm happy she believes it. I'm proud. There are too many cynics out there, like myself—and your dad—so to have someone full of faith… Someone who believes against all doubt and precedent that there's a brighter future, and they're willing to fight for it.”

  “She sounds wonderful. How come I've never heard of her?”

  “Man, I couldn't tell you. My guess is the gatekeepers don't want her to catch fame, cos once people believe in her, she'll change the world. She's rare like that—one of those special few who can brighten the world so long as people don't tear her down first. And the gatekeepers want just that, cos it fucks with their agenda.”

  “The faceless elite?”

  “Now you know what's straight,” he winks. “Ain't it crazy how the system is scared of some afro-urban flower child? Just cos she rallies college kids at Berkeley, and leads marches on Capitol Hill? You know why? She's got heart—courage and compassion. The two things that can change the world, and she's got them both.