Enhanced

by Cosca, Paul

  I’ve read some biographies on other heroes. And it really seems like just about everyone gets started in the same clunky way. There’s no guidebook for how to be a hero, or at least there wasn’t when we were starting out in the early 60s. Back then you just took a deep breath and tried to put your best foot forward. It’s trial and error, with emphasis on error.

  On our first trip out, we were going to take the cars from Lansing up to Detroit, which is only about ninety miles or so. But about a half hour in, James (that’s the kid who was driving the other car) slammed the brakes to avoid hitting a deer and I ran right into the back of him. The cars weren’t too banged up, but our bumpers had gotten stuck together. We were terrified of

  wrecking the cars, so we just drove like that, bumpers connected, all the way back to Lansing. After that we got a little better at car repair.

  We got better at all of it as we went along. James got hold of a police scanner and we hooked it up in his car. We’d spend our weekends driving around, trying to listen for crimes or accidents or whatnot. Most of the time it was too little, too late. We’d show up just in time for the police to be driving away, everything already fixed. But once and awhile we’d really hit on something.

  Outside Battle Creek, we ended up first on the scene at a house fire. Not something we were really qualified for, but we piled out anyway. The front door was blocked, but Flint was so big that he hopped up and pulled himself in a window on the second story. He handed down a couple of kids that had been trapped by the fire, and everyone made it out before the fire trucks showed up. We saved those kids. We did.

  We did this for a few years. Going all the time during the summers, then just during the weekends once some of us were in school. I was trying to get a degree in English, but I could never focus. Every time I’d get in a classroom, I would just be thinking about being out there, saving people. We’d picked up black coats, fedoras, and eye masks. We were a real hero team. Why would I want to be teaching English when I could be out there doing that?

  It was July, and a real hot one. It was 1967 then. We were out for the summer and up doing patrols almost near Cheboygan, at the top of the state. We were staying in a little motel off of highway 75, and I called my dad to let him know how we were doing. That’s when he told me about Detroit.

  The police up there had tried busting up an unlicensed bar, but got in way over their heads. They’d expected to find a dozen people or so, but there’d been damn near eighty, and the cops tried to arrest them all. Because this happened early Sunday morning, it had taken the police hours to get any

  kind of force together. By that point, they had a full blown race riot in the streets. Violence everywhere. Chaos. My dad said “Son, that’s the kind of place that really needs a hero. If you really are one, you better get there.” We were there by sunrise.

  James pulled over right before we got into the city, so I did too. We all got out and spent a few minutes looking at it. You could see the glow from the fires even that far away. Nobody in our group was over twenty-five. We were kids. We were kids who’d saved cats in trees and even a person or two...but this was a whole city that needed our help. And it was help they wouldn’t even want.

  Henry got us all together and did something unexpected: he got us to pray. Now, I know that probably seems like an odd thing to hear, The Cadillac Boys praying, but it’s true. We stood in a circle and bowed our heads and Flint said a little prayer for us. Not everyone prayed, I don’t think. But I know I felt better for it. We piled back into the cars and drove into the city.

  It was remarkably quiet. You could hear the fires, even from far away. Some of the buildings had firemen out front, trying to keep things contained. Other buildings, ones that were farther apart, were just left to burn. We drove slowly through the city, quietly looking at the hell we’d ended up in. It wasn’t long before we reached a police barricade. Henry got out of my car and talked with the officers. At first they laughed, then they looked at us for a good long time. I guess they finally figured out Henry was serious, because they pulled open the barricade and we got out of the cars and walked through.

  We started off just pushing cars back onto their tires and getting a lay of the land. The place was a war zone. Broken glass and debris everywhere. One big black hull of what used to be a building. There were people sleeping in the streets. It felt like we were in a whole other country. Or a different world.

  We were working on clearing some junk from a storefront when I heard a crash of glass. Flint was covered in bits of a broken bottle, but he wasn’t hurt. Just enough to make us all nervous.

  There was a big group that came out of one of the buildings. Twenty or thirty of them. Some had weapons, others just looked ready for a fight. Thank god nobody had guns, but it was enough. The seven of us found ourselves in the heart of madness. I...I ended up lost in it. My body does funny things with adrenaline. When it gets bad enough, I totally black out and that adrenaline takes over. I remember bits and pieces, but not much. Mostly I just know the darkness, swallowing me up.

  We went up against wave after wave of...you can call that group whatever you want, but they wanted to kill us. They wanted our lives that day. And we did what we had to to defend ourselves. Nobody really wants to see it that way, you know. They want to see us as nothing but barbarians, swooping in to knock people down. But that’s not really it at all. Maybe some things that happened that day were...questionable, but there’s no question that we helped keep that riot under control.

  I had gotten separated and was making my way back...I saw Flint battling a few guys and he flipped a car at their direction. I looked down an alleyway and I saw Henry...I don’t think he meant to be seen, but there he was. There was a woman in front of him. Kneeling in front of him. Her face was all bloody, but I only saw her for a moment. Henry grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. I saw a flash of metal and then there was blood all over the front of her. She didn’t make any noise. Henry saw me looking, but he just smiled and put the knife back in his belt. He patted me on the shoulder and said “Gotta make sure the right side wins, right?”

  I know...I know it. I should I have left right then. I should have got back in the car and driven right back to Lansing. But these guys were my brothers. And more than that, Henry was our leader. And when your brother

  does something terrible, you don’t just take it at face value. You assume that there must have been some reason for doing it. You assume you don’t have the whole story. We were in war right then. The regular rules just didn’t apply. And in a situation like that, if you put your trust in a man and tell him to lead you, then you don’t question the choices he has to make. So I let it go.

  The day was brutal for everyone, but by the end of it, it became clear that we’d helped do something good. The riot was over by the time the sun came down, and a lot of people ended up in jail. The fires were mostly out. Yes, people got injured and yes, people died. But before we left the police chief himself came down and told us that if we hadn’t gotten in there, things would have been a lot worse. Sometimes the direct way is the one that makes things better. Those atom bombs that dropped on Japan were horrible, but a ground war would have been so much worse. That’s what we told ourselves. It’s what I still believe.

  There is food sitting on the table. It’s been here awhile, but neither of us has eaten. He finishes his glass of wine and refills it.

  I’m not ashamed of what we did there. There in Detroit. I think we saved that city. But I guess...I can’t say the same thing about Chicago. I wish I could. But there were lines crossed that day.

  We drove on back to Lansing, pretty quiet the whole way. We were all bruised up pretty bad. Flint had a couple broken ribs. My eyes were both black. Stevie, who was the smallest of us, his shoulder ended up totally smashed. He never did recover fully from it, and he ended up dropping out of the group. Henry found a replacement...not someone I would have picked. I guess he was more like Henry. Or the kind of guy that Henry was st
arting to become. He told us his name was Mad Jack, and it was a fitting title. With this new guy joining us and Henry in the lead, I could tell we were heading down a bad path. But I didn’t say anything.

  We stopped patrols, and that was as disappointing to me as anything

  else. Henry said that those patrols were wasting our time. He said our time would be better spent training. The way he saw it, Detroit was just the beginning. Soon, we’d be seeing riots like that all over the place. He felt that the very fabric of society was going to come apart, with the blacks being to blame. He said we needed to be prepared for war.

  We went into the forests every weekend and ran drills. We learned to hone our powers, and fight with guns. Target practice. We all got guns, and we taught ourselves to kill...any pretense about defending others was gone. I hated it, but I went along with it. And I went along with it because these were the same guys who’d helped pull kids out of a burning house. They were the same. And I figured if we went along far enough, we’d get back to being those guys again. But...that never happened.

  April 4th, 1968, you know what happened then, right? Some stupid bastard gunned down Dr. King. I hadn’t even heard the news when the black Cadillac rolled into my yard. Henry told me to suit up and roll out, and off we went. Henry figured that this was going to trigger huge riots all over the place. And while Detroit was closer, Chicago was bigger, so the riot there would be bigger. And Henry was dead on.

  By the time we got there, it was complete chaos. It made Detroit look like Disneyland. Men and women were pouring into the streets. Police in full riot gear stood by, and there were fires cropping up all over the place. We stepped out of the cars and went through the barricade. We didn’t talk to the police and they didn’t stop us. They knew who we were.

  The crowd was different this time. We were different. The whole situation had changed, and I could feel it right away. It felt like we were all balanced on a razor’s edge, and then it all tipped over. Someone threw a stone. Just a stone. Thrown from one sinner to another. And then Flint was on him. I watched him bend that boy backwards, in half, and then the mob was rushing toward us. Henry fired the shotgun he was carrying and then it

  was war.

  I remember bits and pieces from that day. I remember seeing Jeremiah, a man I’d called my brother, knocking a young girl to her knees and turning her head to mist with his gun. Someone bashed Jeremiah’s head in with a brick. I may have been the one to do it. I truly don’t know. I remember an apartment building caught fire and Flint pushed a bus over, blocking the exit. Blocking the only way out. I remember hearing the screams of the people inside. I remember seeing another group of Enhanced heroes and realized they were fighting us. I wondered which of us were the good guys. I got lost in it all, the adrenaline pumping.

  We spent the whole day there, and by the time the work was done, the dead littered the streets. Somehow we made our way back to the cars, and by the time I really came out of it, we were on the road headed back north. I didn’t know then how many people had died, but I knew this wasn’t Detroit. There was nobody thanking us. And we’d lost a couple of our own, too. Two of us were gone before we got back to the cars. Flint was with us, but fading fast. He died in the car on the way home. We didn’t dare go to a hospital.

  We’d been on the news this time. They’d even had a news helicopter up there until the smoke got too thick. The whole world saw our work. When I got home, my dad had packed all of my things and had it all sitting on the porch. I loaded it back into the car and left. I never said goodbye. And I knew that I didn’t deserve to.

  I never spoke to the rest of the group again, but I tried to keep up with how they were. At least one of them got heavy into drugs and died in the 70s. Mad Jack, the replacement that Henry brought in, actually became a well-known artist, but he died in the AIDS epidemic in the 80s. Henry went to prison, where I guess I knew he’d always go. Something got twisted up in Henry. He changed, and not for the better. I had hoped that maybe he’d come back out of that and see how awful he’d gotten. But I guess he never

  did. As far as I know, he’s still in prison.

  As for me, I really did my best to turn my life around. I was part of something awful...but surely a life can be defined by more than just one terrible act, can’t it? Surely enough good deeds can clean even the most stained soul?

  I started a not-for-profit about fifteen years ago with the wealth I gained in my work. It’s a scholarship program for children in Chicago, giving those kids a chance for a better life. It’s not perfect...I’m not perfect. But it’s something. I’m trying. I don’t want to die thinking that the only thing I brought to the world was misery.

  And maybe it wasn’t all bad. I remember that group of heroes who rose against us that day, and I know they went on to help a lot of people. Heroes were born that day, even if the trial was by fire.

  What matters to me...you live your life as best as you can. You make some kind of positive mark in the world and hope it’s enough. You look back at the end of it all and you see that you’ve been a good person. Even if you’ve done some bad things, you can look back and still say you’re a good person. That’s what matters.

  We say our goodbyes and he makes his way out of the restaurant, talking to people as he goes. To anyone without my knowledge, he seems like the kindest, most open person you could ever meet. I believe that if he was asked, he would literally give the shirt off his back without hesitation. But sitting here, watching him shake hands with numerous people, I am reminded of a meeting I had a few months ago.

  I managed to find the man Stanley refers to as Henry. His name is Hank Castle, and he makes his home at White Sands Penitentiary. He is in prison for life for murder. I spoke with Hank for some time and, considering the circumstances, he was actually a rather calm and well-adjusted guy. However, when I told him I was going to meet Stanley, his whole attitude changed. He wouldn’t say much about his former team member, but he did say this: “You be careful of that slimy prick. Here’s all you need to know about

  him. I’m in here, most everyone else is dead, and there’s one motherfucker still out there. Does that make him a good guy? Or the guy who didn’t get caught?”

  That’s exactly what I wonder, as this warm and gracious-seeming man makes his way out of the restaurant. History, it is said, is written by the winners. So what kind of history have I been told today?

  February 2nd, 2000

  Boston is blustery and cold today; the snow whips its way down the streets, and my scarf flails wildly behind me. I take shelter in the lobby of today’s destination, shaking off the snow that has bunched up around my shoulders. The Robert Kennedy Presidential Library is technically open today, but I’m the only visitor. Most people will wait for better weather to do this kind of sightseeing. But the director of the library (a distant Kennedy cousin) happily shows me around.

  While JFK built the fire under the issue of civil rights, it was Robert who was truly passionate for it. When Robert Kennedy won the 1968 election, he did so on a wave of enthusiasm from his brother’s reign. Camelot was the kingdom that everyone wanted to be a part of, and the Kennedys were the closest thing we had to royalty. Unfortunately, while the young prince easily beat Richard Nixon, his power was all but gutted when an overwhelming wave of Republicans were voted into the house and senate.

  When Robert Kennedy took office he, like many presidents before him, was briefed on the government’s involvement with the RGR virus. While he recognized the strategic benefits of the Enhanced Special Ops program (and the positive changes that Truman had made to it), he was horrified to learn about the Tuskegee project. One of his first acts as president was to completely dismantle the project. Though he was not able to get many of his promises and ideas past the obstinate congress, the dismantling of the Tuskegee project became one of his greatest achievements, even if most people never knew about it.

  I’m here today to watch another of his great contributions to the Enhanced movement
. Though not everyone remembers this speech, one of the first he made after his inauguration, it is iconic within the Enhanced community. The director of the library and I settle in the comfortable chairs inside the screening room, and an unseen projectionist queues up the speech for us.

  ROBERT KENNEDY: Good evening. Good evening to all men and women. All boys and girls. Good evening to all of the united citizens of these United States of America. I would like to welcome you all to a new era.

  It’s 1969, and we’re just one year away from a brand new decade. It is my fondest hope and most sincere wish that we reach this new decade as one, truly united nation. I extend this to all individuals, not just the privileged few. The time has passed for us to hold up a few at the expense of the many. This is a new era, and a new era demands that we be one people. Not black or white. Not rich or poor. All races. All creeds. All genders and ages and economic levels. All stepping forward together into the dawn of a new day.

  Since I became president, it has come to my attention that there is a group of individuals out there within these United States who have never been properly acknowledged or recognized. Many brave individuals within this group have fought and died to protect our freedom and liberty. Other citizens, with or without their knowledge, have been involved in programs that have left them fundamentally changed. These men and women, enhanced though they may be, are united with us. They are the same as us. We are together, and together we will usher in a new wave of change.

  I will say, in no uncertain terms, that there is no greater cause for me than that of civil rights for all citizens. As president, I will fight every moment of every day, till the very end of my time in office, to see that every American citizen is on equal ground. Once every citizen knows equality and freedom...once they know they can look their brothers and sisters in the eye and not be looked down on...once this happens, then we can say and know that we live in the greatest country in the world. God bless us. And God bless the United States.