Supers Box Set

by Kristofer Bartol

  “Hm.”

  “Like, life is just motion—onwards and always—towards nothing in particular, but not in a cynical way; rather, like, there’s purpose in living, and it’s a purpose you make, because you matter; you decide, as do we all, to do all the little things that,” he gathers his hands, “come together in a larger collaboration of the world—this society, and planet, and all its beings—and we go on, and we make experiences, and get wiser, and make progress towards what we—you know—towards what life is, man.”

  “You sound like one of those Greenwich Village kids.”

  “I’m not explaining this right,” Ajax says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Harmony was deep in that bohemian schtick, so she had all the right words; I’m just trying to remember what she said.”

  The nightprowler shifts his weight. “Take your time.”

  “It’s like…” he taps his foot. “The word ‘tao’ meant something, like ‘road’ or something like that.”

  “Road?”

  “That doesn’t sound right. Or, maybe—or it could be right. I don’t- I don’t know Chinese.”

  “Road.”

  “I don’t know, man.”

  “Road, like, journey.”

  “Shit,” Ajax pauses, “maybe it was road…”

  “Road…”

  “You ever hear about qi?”

  “Chee?”

  “‘Qi,’ man, qi—it’s like, energy and shit. Chinese energy, flows around the room and between people and through, like, all living things, man. There’s tao, which is all of- it’s everything, and then there’s qi, which is like the goo that strings everything together.”

  “I do not follow.”

  “Qi is like, the energy, man—I don’t know. Harmony would’ve explained this all a helluva lot easier.”

  “Okay.”

  “What I’m trying to say, um, so you say the world is chaos, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then explain the grand machine.”

  “I already did—and it was a long conversa-”

  “No, no, I- I don’t need- we don’t have to have that all over again, I’m just asking you to explain,” he inhales, “if the world is chaos, then how is there such an organized system controlling our society?”

  “Human greed.”

  “So people make the order; the rules.”

  “People.”

  “And physics.”

  Dark Patriot pauses. “And physics.”

  “And, what, you said the Four Elements?”

  Dark Patriot rubs his foot in the dry earth. “Yes—that, too.”

  “Okay, so there’s no God—so be it—but there’s some order; there’s some force at work.”

  Dark Patriot adjusts his cap under his hood. “Admittable.”

  “There’s the small choices—the chaos of contrasting decisions, and desire-”

  “And sin.”

  “Sure, and sin—and all the other components of free will—and then there’s the big things, like the orbiting of planets, or the repulsion of one atom against another, or the moon pulling on the tide. And the small things impact the big things, sure, but there’s still the mean massive power of those big things; those original systems that birthed the universe and contain it, and keep it going.”

  “Right.”

  “Look up man,” he says, gesturing to the moonlit sky, “look at all those damn stars.”

  Dark Patriot turns his head to the ceiling of night.

  “Your grand machine may control the world down here, but we humans got no influence up there.”

  “Hm.”

  “See,” he thwaps the nightprowler’s shoulder, “it’s all about give and take; push and pull-”

  “The moon pulling the tide.”

  Ajax bows inward, scooping the air with his cupped palm. “Like the moon pulling the tide.”

  “Natural balance.”

  “And that’s tao.”

  “Hm.”

  “You ever see a yin-yang?”

  “My palette is largely…domestic.”

  Ajax sighs. “It’s not a food, man, it’s that black-and-white swirly circle with the two dots.”

  “Ah,” Dark Patriot nods, “like on the Tibetan flag.”

  “Um—sure, I don’t know.”

  “South Korean flag.”

  “Maybe—but I’m not talking about flags.”

  “Mongolian flag.”

  “We’re not talking about flags.”

  “Vexillology—study of flags.”

  “I’m not talking about goddamn flags,” Ajax steams, “but you’re saying you have seen the symbol.”

  “Sometimes stickers, on car bumpers.”

  “Okay—so ‘yes,’ you’ve seen the yin-yang. That’s what I’m asking.”

  “I have seen it.”

  “Well, that’s…” he sighs, “that’s fucking qi, I guess. That’s all I was trying to say.”

  “Yin-yang is qi.”

  “Well, yeah—it’s the energy, man. It’s that balance of chaos and order; light and dark; positive and negative.”

  “Balance…”

  “Yeah—black and white, light and dark.”

  “Between which, on spectrum, is grey.” The nightprowler poses to his left. “World is grey. Case closed.”

  “No,” Ajax grimaces; lip crinkling under flared nostrils. “It’s a border; it’s a hard line between the white and the black, forever circling one another; balanced.”

  “Balanced.”

  “A border between light and-”

  “Dark,” grumbles the Dark Patriot, looking to the ground. “The middle ground between light and shadow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Between science and superstition.”

  “Yeah! See, that fits-in great with your grand machine theory, doesn’t it?”

  “Between the pit of man's fears…”

  “Wait—are you…”

  “...and the summit—”

  “You’re…”

  “—of his knowledge.”

  Ajax sighs. “You’re quoting the intro of the—”

  “You've just crossed over into…”

  “—Twilight Zone?”

  “The Twilight Zone!”

  Ajax slumps in his stance as his interest drains out his feet. “I was hoping to have a serious conversation.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “Little quick to apologize; it’s like you didn’t even think before answering.”

  Dark Patriot scratches the crook of his armpit. “I am sorry.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I just do not agree with the dichotomy."

  "What about it."

  "There is no good or evil; there's no light and dark. There's only one's character—conscious and action; uncertainty and choice; neither light nor dark, like the twilight hour, when the setting sun casts the world into a difficult hazy blue."

  "Right—when light yields to darkness."

  "It's not instantaneous. It's not day and night, it's a sun cycle. There is a spectrum of difference when you transfer from one to another. However, unlike the sun, which lives only briefly in those changeover hues, the human mind is rarely so aligned to one end of the spectrum. It lives in grey. Even lesser beings, like rabbits and frogs, can switch between choices we—as the observer—would deem 'good' or 'bad'. But who are we to decide?"

  "I'd say anything destructive is bad, and anything constructive is-"

  "You kill a cow to feed your family—destroys the cow, saves your family. Moral or immoral?"

  Radiation Brother shifts his weight.

  "New power station built outside town, burning coal. Keeps the hospital operating, but poisons the air. Moral or immoral?"

  "Okay, there's grey in the world; I concede."

  "I don't want concession. I want to prove the border between yin and yang is not black-and-white. Within that balance of natural forces, as you said, lies the little decisions that shape who we are, and the ex
periences we make. That border is grey, and so are we, and the world is what we make of it."

  "Grey."

  "The balance of black and white. If you commit too much to one side you become jaded, or cynical, or dumb."

  "Are we not cynics? Are we not convinced the world holds both good and bad alike?"

  "We decide to be good or bad. Whichever way you lean is where you'll reap your rewards."

  "And the rewards of the bad?"

  "Punishment."

  "Oh yeah? Like your grand machine, which clearly benefits the corrupt? When's their punishment gonna come? In the afterlife?"

  "No," Dark Patriot growls, clenching his fists. "That's where I come in."

  Ajax rears his head back, slowly nodding; producing a sly smile. "You know," he starts, "Harmony believed there was good in everybody."

  "I can't say I'd agree."

  "Neither could I—and, unfortunately, it seems she paid the price for her optimism."

  Dark Patriot looks to the illuminated skyline, shrouded in the cold April mist. "Youthful optimism."

  "So then, D.P., I wonder," Ajax shuffles forward. "What shade of grey are you?"

  The nightprowler turns on his heels and strides forward, slowly, like a wildcat on the prowl. "I am the color of the shadows," he says, gripping his lapel. "I am the pale light cast into the great dark empty."

  Ajax inflates his chest and flares his nostrils. "Can I ask something of you?"

  Dark Patriot pulls his cap down over his eyes, and he tilts his head toward the dusty pavement. "You want me to find Harmony's killer."

  Radiation Brother inhales and nods.

  “Okay," the Dark Patriot growls, pressing his finger into the chest of the ebony giant. "But you have to do something for me.”

  Ajax leans in, and says, through gritted teeth… “Name it.”

  ( II | X )

  “October, nineteen-seventy,” the nightprowler grumbles beneath his breath. “Cold tonight.”

  He sits perched on a ledge, squatting on his toes, overlooking a dearth of the city’s vertical sprawl. The streets below lie unsettled in the orange glow of sizzling lampposts, and the dark of night hangs above, insomniatic; punctuated by the yellow specks of shallow windows towering above him.

  “This city’s a sundial, and we’re at the end of it…”

  He pulls his hood tighter around his ears.

  “Swallowed in shadow by the pillars of capitalism; the phallic monuments to the hubris of men…”

  He looks to the street below as he unwraps a candybar. He snaps the chocolate rod in half with one hand and lets the wrapper fall from the other.

  “The bigger the building, the bigger the shadow…”

  He watches the wrapper as it flutters to the pavement, settling on the cement behind a fast-walking man clad in black attire. The man crosses the street—looking both ways—and hurries into the darkness of an alley.

  “And the bigger the shadow,” Dark Patriot growls, rising to his feet, “the more places there are to hide.”

  He jumps, turning in the air; grabbing a drainpipe with the palms of his gloved hands; sliding down the side of the building, eight stories—as silent as a rat, save for the creaking of the pipe, and the sweeping chafe of leather abrading metal. His feet hit the sidewalk, but it goes unannounced.

  “The city that never sleeps, they call it; metropolis in the day, gotham in the night.”

  He plunges his hands into the deep pockets of his breezy trenchcoat.

  “Gotham—the romantic’s allusion to a city of fools, ‘Here where the goats are kept.’”

  He crosses the street; his eyes affixed on the shadows of the alleyway.

  “A combine of identities—the Empire City; the Five Boroughs; the Big Apple,” he mounts the curb, crossing into the darkness. “New Amsterdam; Caput Mundi; the Center of the Universe…”

  The shadows of the alleyway greet him like an old friend.

  “Eight million people living in their own bubble; in their own hurry; proud to receive the punishment of their peers—that scorn as cold as the wind; those insults as foul as the streets; that pace as indifferent as the boys in blue; and those cruel souls, tattered and torn like the flags of battlefields…

  “That’s what this city is,” he grumbles, treading through oily puddles, between trash heaps. “This city is a battlefield, and only the belligerent can survive it.”

  The fire escape above him rattles: footsteps thudding on the iron, old and groaning.

  He looks up. “Only those who own the night,” he mutters, leaping for the drop ladder; mantling the lowest platform. “Only those who find comfort in the shadows, with the rats—and the filth.”

  He ascends the fire escape as if riding a gale, bounding each stairway in two fevered leaps. He summits the rooftop, breathing hoarse, whereupon he's blindsided by the glint of a knife thrust toward him, and he parries; grabs and twists; armlock on his opponent; turning him, face-to-face.

  "Confession!" he shouts, drawing the man's hoodie cowl back, revealing his sweat-shined scrawny face; his sunken eyes and severe jowls. His dilated pupils flick back and forth between the piercing eyes of the Dark Patriot who lords over him.

  "Fuck you," the junkie spits. "I ain't sayin' shit."

  The nightprowler pulls the junkie's wrist, twisting his arm high behind his back; popping his shoulder out its socket and bringing his fingers behind his ear.

  The junkie aptly cries aloud.

  The Dark Patriot snarls, "Talk."

  "Okay, okay, okay," the junkie squeals. "I lifted a few T.V. sets out the old Radio Row storage lockers-"

  "Not that," he growls, twisting the junkie's wrist even further. "You know what I want to hear."

  The junkie screams, through gritted teeth, and whines, "What are you talking about?"

  "The girl!"

  "What girl!"

  Dark Patriot yanks the junkie's arm, tearing his pectoralis major from his humerus. "Patty Burke!"

  The junkie bangs his foot against the rooftop, squealing in agony. "What about her!"

  "Confession!" he yells, twisting the junkie's wrist clockwise; torquing the fibers around his elbow.

  "Oh, Jesus Christ!" he moans, "Okay! I'll talk—but it wasn't me, I swear!"

  "Then who!"

  "I'll talk, just let go'a me!"

  Dark Patriot relinquishes the bent arm, and the junkie flops forward onto his chest. He rolls over, clutching his torn shoulder.

  "Christ," the junkie gripes, "I think you broke my arm."

  From the inside of his trenchcoat, Dark Patriot produces a foot-long black sap—a beavertail-shaped leather pouch, weighted in one end by a molded lump of iron. He thwaps the leaden sap in his open palm as he stares through the junkie.

  The junkie winces, and stutters, "What's that for?"

  "Talk."

  "I already said it wasn't me."

  "Then who."

  "I don't know," the junkie insists, scooting himself backwards. "Musta been one'a the other guys."

  Dark Patriot thwaps his palm again with the sap. "Names."

  "I- I don't know! There's a bunch'a guys who'd do that shit for free, let alone for what they were offering."

  “Offering?”

  “Yeah, man—five G’s to do it clean but mean.”

  The nightprowler snarls; nostrils flaring and lip curling. “Names.”

  “They didn’t use names!” the junkie asserts, cradling his swelling arm. “Two guys in suits, shades, with manila envelopes; everyone noticed them immediately, they were so outta place. But they never used names.”

  “So you spoke with them.”

  Eyes wide and jaw low, the junkie stares ahead, petrified; recalibrating. “Um,” he stutters, “I mean, they spoke to everyone at the bar, one at a time, so at one point yeah they spoke to me.”

  “Hm.” Another thwap of the sap against his palm. “Description.”

  “I told you, man! Sunglasses, dark suits! One was bald—I don’t know!�
��

  “Verbiage.”

  “What?”

  “Words they used.”

  “I dunno—stiff talk, and lots of… implying, like—oh, what’s the word?” He shuts his eyes and taps his foot. “Like, they were saying vague things but in a way we both knew what they were really saying.”

  “Subtext.”

  “Subtext—yeah. And they used lingo they didn’t own—like a T.V. detective: He knows the lines, and he’s confident, but the words aren’t natural in his mouth; he doesn’t live with those words, you know? And these guys were confident but not the actor-kind of confident; like, the kind where they controlled the situation; like how a cop can feel comfortable approaching a-”

  “Walked like a cop?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Guy not bald: hair long or short?”

  “Buzzcut, man—but I’m telling you, these couldn’ta been cops. You see what happened to that little girl? That was some gruesome shit. I can’t imagine a cop paying somebody to do that. Goes against their code of ethics, doesn’t it?”

  “Sad.”

  “What?” the junkie blenches. “What’s sad?”

  “You have faith in the system that despises you.”

  “Huh?”

  “They ask you to harm the girl?”

  “Yeah, sure, but I turned ‘em down! I can get pussy whenever I want, man—I didn’t need it handed to me on some nine-year-old platter. And the risk would’ve been too high to get wrong.”

  “Wrong?”

  “Like—prints, man; fluids. They told me they’re working on shit to identify you by your fluids, and I’d have to wear an inside-out condom! That’s fucking disgusting, man. I do lifts and break-ins, not any of that hands-dirty shit. My conches is clean.”

  “Conscience.”

  “Conscious—whatever.”

  “Hm.”

  “That’s all I know, man.”

  “Why the condom? If they wanted a rape, then why a condom?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Tell me!”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Who framed John Burke!”

  “I don’t fucking know!”

  Dark Patriot reels his arm and swings the sap, striking the junkie across the lower jaw.

  The junkie falls to his side, uncaught by his dislocated arm. He writhes on the rooftop as his jaw hangs crooked in his mouth. He begins to pant—exasperated and delirious, on an emotional crescendo.