Normalized (The Complete Quartet)

by David Bussell

  Then it all went to balls. Soon as I got some change in my pocket I started spending – phone apps, movies, vintage video games, you name it. Can you believe I broke off nine hundred bucks for one of Stan Lee’s gallstones? What was I thinking? I’m telling you, if I had a dollar for every time I did something dumb with my money... well, that would help even things out a bit at least.

  April 17th

  Today my minder found the video cable to the PlayStation after I accidentally left it dangling out the back of the TV. Next thing I knew he was tossing my room for contraband. He found the rest of the games console in my closet, and a flip of my mattress later he’d found my smartphone too. He confiscated the lot. No more games, no more internet, no more anything. The whole kit and caboodle, consigned to the basement and locked away for good.

  All I have left now is my TV, my last portal to the outside world. I turned on the news. It was bad news. Several junctions past bad news even. According to early reports there’d been a mass jailbreak from supervillain sing sing last night. How it happened is only theory at this point; all anyone can say for sure is the Supermax’s power dampening collars glitched and a few dozen inmates decided they were done being guests of the state. Jesus. First Professor D’eath busts the brig and now the rest. That place is about as secure as my Mom’s AOL password.[76]

  The streets of NY are crawling with hoods. It’s havockout there, a regular assh*le jubilee. Reported felonies run the sweep from muggings and vandalism all the way to arson and aggravated battery. And that’s just the half of it...

  The Great Leveller turned Madison Square Garden into a parking lot,

  Pscho-delic spiked the Jerome Park Reservoir and now half the Bronx is off its tits,

  A chunk of the High Line got eaten by Power Lunch,

  Terrorbyte hacked the NY Stock Exchange and erased the NASDAQ,

  Heartbreaker shorted out every pacemaker in a hundred-mile radius,

  The Bank of New York had a hole kicked in it by Half-Ass,[77]

  And two square miles of Lower Manhattan got absolutely flattened by Diabollock.[78]

  The news report ran down the rest of the Supermax absentee roll call. I can’t say I was all that surprised to hear Mimix getting name-checked, but one name that came up did surprise me: Acro-Bat. A member of the Murder Circus slipped the most secure facility in the United States? That cream puff? And they were saying he was the breakout instigator no less! A witness claimed Acro-Bat headed up the charge and personally put a prison guard in intensive care. Apparently he’d managed to get the entire Circus out of there and clear a hole big enough for the rest of the prisoners to escape. Earned himself some bad guy stripes with that one for sure. How about that? I knew Acro-Bat was circus but I never had him down for a ringleader.[79]

  April 21st

  It’s only been a few days since the breakout and already New York’s become bad guy central. The new influx of crooks has given the criminal underbelly a killer set of abs. Citizens are running scared and the heavens are burning bright with C.H.A.M.P signals.[80]

  The public are demanding an urgent inquiry into the whole mess, the government are pointing the finger at C.H.A.M.P and the press are screaming for heads on pikes. No doubt about it, it’s a real soup sandwich. Birdy was going to need to pull off some major political razzmatazz to come out the other side of this one. So what the hell was he thinking going to Rex Kettner?

  Kettner’s the final word in herophobes. There’s no way that slimy jagoff wasn’t going to use his platform to take a big wet C.H.O.M.P out of my brother’s ass. Look what happened when I fell for his shtick – the guy took me apart. That alien pod exposé, the sh*tkicking he gave me over the bodies at the nuclear plant, not to mention the stolen plutonium – Kettner left me looking worse than a girl. A hundred girls!

  I knew why Birdy had booked the appearance though. Same reason I had, because he thought he could tackle the bad press head on and turn it into a win. He’d made a promise to put Professor D’eath behind bars, and not only had he failed to deliver on that, he actually had fewer prisoners than he started out with. This was damage control, plain and simple.

  “Thanks for stopping by,” said Kettner as Birdy took the couch to a tepid round of applause.

  “My pleasure, Rex.”

  “You’re not going to fly off on us like your brother are you? You know we still get a leak through the hole he left in our roof?”

  Birdy chuckled good-naturedly. “Don’t worry, Rex, these wings are only for show.”

  Kettner offered a painted-on smile – the kind that doesn’t quite touch the eyes.

  “Now, a month ago you told us Professor D’eath would be back behind bars before the week was out. Tell me, did you have a particular week in mind?”

  The audience snickered. A few jeers too.

  “Come on now,” Rex chided. “Let’s not be rude to our guest.”

  The crowd quietened and Birdy continued.

  “The Professor’s capture is taking a little longer than anticipated, I accept that, but we are making inroads.”

  Kettner leaned forward in his chair and put a sympathetic hand on Birdy’s knee.

  “Good. That’s good to hear. And what about the prison break, tell us what happened there.”

  Birdy hung his wings and made a face like a Hugh Grant mugshot.

  “Oh boy,” he said, “we really laid an egg there, huh?”

  There was an awkward pause, then, to everyone’s surprise, Kettner bust a gut.

  “Ha, brilliant! Laid an egg! Give it up for Birdy everyone!”

  It was looking like Kettner was going to give Birdy a fair shake after all, but no go, bro. That’s all part of Kettner’s game – sprinkle gardenia petals under your feet, then soon as you’re comfortable, out come the tacks.

  “Let’s move onto something else,” said Kettner, sweetly. “Do you like games?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “Then why don’t you join me for a brand new segment of the show I call... Swing and a Miss.”

  The house band zinged out a theme tune and before Birdy knew it Kettner had herded him to the other end of the stage.

  “So what’s the game?” Birdy asked.

  “First you put on this blindfold.”

  He handed over a strip of cloth.

  “You know, I usually make do with just the one mask,” Birdy joked.

  Kettner pounded him on the back and laughed a little too loud. The audience followed along, applauding like Birdy was an episode of Cheers. The camera even picked one looker out of the crowd aiming a ‘call me’ sign in his direction. Birdy winked back at her then gamely tied the blindfold around his head.

  “Trust the quip master to give me stick!” said Kettner. “Speaking of which...”

  A stagehand passed Birdy a stick.

  “What’s this?” he asked, blindfolded. “Are we playing piñata?”

  “Something like that,” Kettner replied.

  Unseen by my brother, a papier-mâché figure descended from the rafters on a length of wire. It was a bloated caricature of his likeness, complete with tiny wings and a Looney Toons sign in its hand that read ‘LAME DUCK.’

  The crowd started to laugh but Kettner held his finger to his lips.

  “Are you ready to play, Birdy?

  “Sure.”

  “Then let’s see what you’re made of – go go go!”

  The band belted out something pacey and Birdy started swinging. The audience clapped along and after a couple of wide shots Birdy landed a hit and split the belly of his effigy wide open, spilling its contents onto the studio floor.

  A big cheer went up the moment the audience caught sight of what had escaped – action figures of the prison runaways, dozens of them, liberated from their flimsy jail. They were motorized too, meaning the ones landing right side up were able to scatter and take flight. The figure modelled on Acro-Bat even made it far enough to disappear under a stage curtain.

  Now don’t get me wrong
, I usually enjoy political comedy like I enjoy helping an ex move apartment, but this was a masterstroke. Kettner had my brother reaming himself and he couldn’t even taste the stink. It was pure disaster porn. I may hate everything Kettner stands for but I’m telling you, in that moment, I’d have ass-carried his baby.

  “Did I win?” asked Birdy, tugging off his blindfold. His face fell as he discovered he’d been played.

  “Sorry, Birdy,” said Kettner. “I didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers.”

  The audience stomped and made obnoxious hooting noises.

  “Come on, Rex, don’t be that guy.”

  “Oh, you don’t like it when someone derails the conversation with a cheap bird pun? Am I heron this right?”

  The band drummer tapped out a rimshot. The crowd was at fever pitch now.

  Birdy tore off his mic and tossed it in Kettner’s lap. “I’m out of here.”

  He marched off but accidentally slipped on one of the action figures and took a header into the audience. He landed face-first in the cleavage of the ‘call me’ girl, who swatted at his head with her purse, transforming real life into a Benny Hill sketch.[81]

  “Are you okay?” Kettner asked as Birdy gathered himself.

  “I’m fine,” he retaliated.

  “Sure you didn’t hurt yourself with that swan dive?”

  Birdy didn’t dignify him with an answer, just strode off set and punched through an emergency exit.

  Kettner had one left in the hopper. “Chicken.”

  Just as well Birdy wasn’t around to respond to that – they’d have needed to hit the swear button so many times it would have sounded like he was talking in Morse Code.

  April 26th

  My birthday

  Can you believe it was only a year ago that a thousand capes linked arms and spelled the words ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ over the New York skyline just for me?[82]

  There wouldn’t be any festivities this year though. Not since Professor D’eath took the cut out of my strut. Not since my former colleagues wrote me out of the continuity and mothballed me in this Godforsaken place. Not since I went from being a national treasure to just being buried like one.

  Well, nuts to that. I was done with this place. I didn’t care what the rules had to say, I was getting out of here. Back to the Big Apple. Whatever happened to me in the city it couldn’t be any worse than this. At least there I’d die with my boots on. Better that than dying of boredom and Cheetos Poisoning.

  I waited until night time, gathered up some things and made to give this town the old heave ho. As I stuffed my bug-out bag I started to consider my exit strategy. How exactly was I going to take my leave of this place? The windows were bolted, upstairs and down. The back door was sealed shut. The front door was in direct sight of my bodyguard—

  —except it wasn’t. His chair was empty. By some miracle he’d wandered off from his post and left the lock to the front door undone. About time fate threw me a bone!

  I slipped outside and dropped to the ground, keeping my profile low by crawling across the lawn on my belly like a garden slug. I didn’t get far.

  “Where you going, sweetheart?”

  I looked over my shoulder to see my bodyguard sat on a patio chair smoking a cigar. Tremendous. Once again I’d messed up worse than a bomb in a sperm bank.

  “What are you doing out here?” I said. “What if someone saw you sat there dressed like Secret Service?”

  “What does it matter, no one’s coming for you. Everyone already forgot you exist.”

  I stood and dusted myself off. “I want you to tell me right now – when do I get out of here?”

  He laughed. “Don’t you get it? There is no out of here. No one wants you limping around like a raped ape making everyone feel sad.”

  “Then what about the last guy they sent to this place? What about Brown Note?”

  “No one told you?” He took a long drag on his cigar. “Guy swallowed a bunch of pills and washed them down with a half bottle of rye. Topped himself right where you sleep.”

  He exhaled a thick lance of smoke and grinned. That’s when I saw the lighter in his hand. It was my dad’s Zippo.

  “Where did you get that?” I asked.

  “Found it in your room, what’s the big deal?”

  What a gaping assh*le. I squared up to him, nose-to-snout.

  “Take it again and I will step inside of you with my boots on.”

  He snorted. “Sure you will, buttercup.”

  He twisted my arm behind my back and frogmarched me back inside.

  At least now I know why they really put me here. I was here to be hidden. Out of sight, out of mind – dress me up in pleated Dockers and throw away the key. So what if I spent a lifetime performing miracles for these ingrates, now I’m just some nimrod who fell down the stairs carrying a stack of pies. I guess that’s the way things are, one minute you’re Vanilla Ice, the next... you’re Vanilla Ice. I might as well be dead. At least that way I’d get to be a martyr. Instead I have to live in the crater of my own myth. Helpless. Forsaken. Normalized.[83]

  I found what I was looking for just where I’d left it, hidden inside the toilet cistern in a Ziploc baggie. Half a bottle of rye – Brown Note’s leftovers – recovered from the trunk in the basement. I held the bottle up to the light and saw fingerprints on the glass; Brown Note’s ghostly remains. My eyes turned glossy. There they were, those feelings again. I whipped off the bottle cap and baptized them in firewater.

  April 27th

  I woke up to a knife of sunlight slicing through my eyelids and stabbing my brain meat. Without superpowers to soak up last night’s bruiser juice my head felt like it had got itself pregnant. I’ve never known anything like it. My throat was dry as cotton and my stomach burned like I’d spent the night chugging napalm. I was so alcohol-rich that if you tried taking my blood sample the blood would have attacked you. Great. On top of everything else it turns out I’m a goddamned lightweight.

  There was a crashing noise from outside. It sounded like Stomp had moved off Broadway and into my skull. I pulled back the drapes to see garbage men emptying the trash. My bodyguard was there too, sat on the front deck smoking another cigar. Just the sight of him made me retch. I lay back down, rolled over and let the day die.

  When I finally crawled out of bed I threw up so bad I thought a license plate might come out. After that I curled up in the shower under a jet of water so scalding it could have purged the imaginary chiggers off a meth head. I couldn’t go on like this, nothing to do and nothing to live for. Washed up. Ruined. A beautiful luminescent deep-sea fish that got dragged out of the water and broke the surface looking like an ugly sac of gray goo.

  I had to be free, and if I couldn’t escape for real there was only one other way I knew to get gone. Call it the coward’s way out if you like, but if you ask me Brown Note had the right idea. Given a choice between irrelevance and oblivion, I say hit the delete button. It was high time I retconned my life.

  I found a pen and paper and scribbled my goodbye note.

  This whole planet can eat my f*ck.

  Yours,

  Captain Might.

  It might not have been poetry, but it definitely had integrity.

  I trudged to the kitchen, stuck my head in the oven and turned on the gas. I waited for my life to flash before my eyes but all I got was the smell of butane. Butane and grilled cheese. There were blobs of the stuff glued to base of the oven and the aroma was delicious. It really put me in the mood for pizza, so I ditched the suicide and decided to order takeout instead. I guess I can’t have been fully committed to the killing myself thing if I was ready to jack it all in for a Dominoes. You live and learn. Literally, in this case.

  I turned off the gas, went to the front door and called outside to my bodyguard.

  “You gotta hook me up with some pizza.”

  He opened the door and stepped inside, smoothing down his lapels. “Sure thing, buddy,” he said, “let me just grab my phone,
” then he reached inside his jacket.

  Weird. The guy had been a human obstruction since we got here and suddenly he was acting like my college roomie. Something stank, and it wasn’t just the situation – there was an actual stink in the room, a real reek. It smelled like an old dog with a case of the Hershey squirts, and I knew that smell...

  I looked up just in time to see the knife tip aimed at my forehead. I ducked it with a hair to spare and the blade buried itself in the wall behind me. My bodyguard’s face shifted and squirmed then I saw the man I knew I already I was dealing with. It was Mimix – Professor D’eath’s shape-shifter cohort – back like an unflushable turd.