by Tom King
And he wanted to tell Herc this even though he wasn’t supposed to. Not that Herc deserved to know or’d done anything special, but things were bad, and it was a good story, and it should be told, but Felix doesn’t tell it; and instead they go on, jostling back and forth, drinks sipped and slipped, pouring over edges everywhere.
Felix keeps the story inside him, and he likes it there, it glows a little, burns against the moisture that pours in, boiling it, melting it, transforming it into a thin steam that rises again, beats back against his lips, bounces lightly on his tongue demanding to be told, until he closes his mouth and lets it worm back down into him, a myth untold, circling back down to become its own fuel to fend off the pour, keeping a few things solid.
At the end of the evening, after the girl bartender who looks as old as his daughter should be kicks them out and she’s screaming about something and they’re laughing about something, they go out to the curb, and it’s raining, and they both aim their mouths upward to gather the falling driblets, let them pool in their mouths and slosh between their teeth and gums. There’s so much; it goes on forever, and it never fills them.
“There was something,” Herc says, spitting onto the pavement below. “You were saying something before about something. What were you saying?”
Felix gargles the water in his mouth and lets more come in. He’s got nothing to say; he’s too wet, soaked through. They all come back. He’ll wait until then, when all the brown and all the water leaks out of him, when he’s dry, and they all come back, and he greets them, hugs them close, shows them what he’s learned, that he’s dry now, all dry—he’ll start the story then.
“I remember,” Herc says. “I remember I wanted to tell you something, a secret. Like my mom. Like her story about Zeus and the rape and the gods. I don’t think anyone raped her. Or, I don’t know, maybe someone did, but Zeus—who believes that bullshit, right? Anyway, never met the guy, so maybe it was nothing then. Just something she told people. But what the hell, right? I’m still here, right? I kept going, and I had powers, and I’m still here.”
His mouth overflowing, Felix smiles at the bigger man and waits for them to come back. They’ll come back soon. They have to. It repeats in his head, and it has a beat to it like the heart in his hand, in her chest, pumping metal through blood. They all come back. They all come back. This guy’s too drunk now anyway; he’ll tell the story later. There’ll be time later. They all come back. They all come back. Water pours from the sky, glancing off his face, nose, eyes, before heading down. They all come back. They all come back.
“You hear that! I don’t care anymore! I’m still here! I’m still here!” Herc continues to shout into the melted night.
Devil Girl #84
DG sips at her wine and measures the man sitting across from her, comparing him to the boy. “You’ve done bad things, Soldier. Kind of very bad things.”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Pen, Prophetier, stopping the powers. That’s, y’know, not good.”
Soldier grunts, juts his chin out.
“Y’know people saw you, right? Everyone’s looking for you.”
Soldier squints under the bright light of the place. All the lamps’re out, but there’s enough afternoon sun left to fill the Devil’s house.
“I’m leaving,” Soldier says. “I came to say good-bye.”
“Oh, give me a freaking break.”
“I’m done.”
“You? You’re running away? The Soldier of Freedom? Can you imagine?” She imitates his drawl. “Another battle lost. What cost? What cost?” She laughs.
“I’m leaving. I won’t see you again.”
“C’mon now.” DG wipes the hair from her eyes. “Seriously, we’ll find a way out. We always do.”
“It’s like you said, I’ve done some bad things. I can’t see any good coming of me being around now. I’m sorry.”
“We can fix this.”
“No, I did it. I killed the boy. It’s not getting fixed.”
“Oh, don’t be so blah! What’ve I been telling you since the very tippy-top of things?” She lifts her glass, rests her lips in the wine. “Everyone comes back.” She takes a long sip.
Soldier doesn’t reply, and they sit for a few moments in silence. DG picks at a stain on her red dress, scraping off some forgotten yellow with her nail. She’d worn it for him. She’d always worn it for him.
“I think I ought to go,” he says.
“Wait, just wait.”
“I ought to go.” He slips his hand across the table, toward her own. A few inches from her fingers, he stops and holds back, taps his thumb on the wood a few times.
“Do you want me to forgive you?” she asks.
“No.” Soldier stands.
“I will, y’know, if you want.”
“No. I don’t want any of that.”
DG rubs her finger over a red nail. She tries to smile. “Can I at least tell you something?”
“I think I ought to go.”
“I probably told you this. I mean, I know I probably told you this, but still, I like my boyfriend, Runt. I really like him.” DG looks down and tucks a few threads of red hair behind her ear.
Soldier wraps his fingers over the back of his chair.
“I never had a boyfriend before,” she says, looking up. “Because I was the Devil or whatever. Before I would’ve gone on forever, right? And we’d still be meeting in those icky kind of places. You and me with all that. But now I have an end. Out there. Like way out there. Now, I just sort of stop.” DG makes a pop noise. “So I have to like grow and stuff. Pick up new lessons or whatever. I can’t go on forever. I end. So I’ve got to change—I’ve got to actually fall in love and get married and have kids so that Runt and his kids can be there when I die or whatever.”
DG puts her hands on the table, stares at her painted nails, remembers the millions that bowed before her, burned before her, all of them begging for release. She’d painted her nails for them too; because she wanted to look pretty just to be mean.
“Look,” Soldier says, “I wasn’t—”
“I’m going to die now, Soldier,” DG says. “Since The Blue. So now I get Runt. Like for real. Get it, Soldier? Do you get it, kind of?”
He opens his mouth, licks his lips, and shuts his mouth again. God, she used to yell at him for licking his lips. It only dries them and gets you to lick them more.
“Do you fucking get it, Soldier?”
“You shouldn’t swear.”
“Ugh. My God! You were easier when you were smaller.” DG stands up and crosses the gap between them. She takes Soldier’s hand in her own, lets his crust run along her silk. She speaks in a soft voice. “I forgive you. That’s what I mean. I forgive you.”
He doesn’t move, and she leans into him, embracing him, feeling the strength he has left hesitate and then tug her close. He’s much taller, but his legs are weak, and he puts his weight on her, lets his head fall to her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“We all thought you were over. In that field. It was Pen’s story, right? It wasn’t yours. You were supposed to go away.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“But you didn’t.” She’s whispering now. “You came back. And then what? You killed Prophetier. You killed Pen, for God’s sake. And it’s all over. And then what? What comes then? When do you end, Soldier? When do you die?”
They hold each other close and for a while, and she feels his cold nose push into her neck, and it tickles a little, just as it used to tickle a little when he was a little boy, half-asleep from the stories, pushing his face into her neck, seeking warmth and rest.
When he finally talks, his lips graze her skin. “Thank you. I should’ve said it before. Thank you.” He breaks the hug and lightly pushes her away. Soldier picks his cane up off the floor and leans on it, preparing to go.
DG wipes her wet eye. “Ultimate’s dead, okay? Pen’s dead. He’s dead. But you’re not. Runt’s not.
I’m not. Not yet.”
The Soldier of Freedom pulls a white kerchief from his pocket and hands it to her. There’s a moment’s silence as she cleans her face, trying not to smear any mascara so she doesn’t look all crappy. When she’s done, she hands it back to him: her arm outstretched, her elbow arched, the kerchief pinched between thumb and forefinger, hanging neatly; and he grips it with his big hand, crumpling it into his fist.
“Don’t go,” she says, through small whimpers. “Listen to me. For once, okay? Don’t go. Okay? Okay?”
During the wars, during all those wars, she’d always cried after he left. She cried because she knew they’d see each other again, or they wouldn’t ever see each other again.
“I liked Pen,” Soldier says. “He was all right, good kid.”
“Yeah. Yeah, me too.”
“I’m sorry for him, what I’ve done.”
“I know.”
Soldier pauses, leans into his cane. “I’ve got some things, things I want sent on to Anna. Would you do that for me?”
“Of course. Always.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“Always.”
Soldier reaches into his pocket and takes out a leather case. He opens it and unfolds a pair of glasses. “That thing you said. About endings and all. That’s pretty good.” He puts the glasses on and places the case back into his pocket. “That was a good story.”
“Sure.”
“It had to end. It had to.”
“Like a destiny, kind of.”
“Yeah, suppose it’s like that.”
“Except not, right?”
Soldier steps back. “Good-bye.”
“Until next time,” she says.
Soldier’s eyes dip down and then soar back to her, and he smiles, and he tips a hat he’s not wearing, an old-style hat maybe. The chiseled jaw, the dark pulled skin, the thin black hair stretched back: he’s grown up so handsome, so sweet. Before he can turn, she bends forward and kisses him on the cheek, and he turns, and he’s gone.
Later, she starts to clean the apartment: Runt’s coming over for dinner. Under Soldier’s chair she finds one of his guns, Carolina she thinks, propped up against a leg. For a while she searches everywhere, hoping to find the other one. But she can’t, and eventually she gives up and sits back at her table, the weapon placed in a drawer in her room. After lighting a cigarette, she waves circles through the smoke, trying to make it go away, knowing Runt doesn’t like it.
3
Ultimate, The Man With A Metal Face #584
Of course, a few days after he died, Anna knew she was pregnant. A silly tryst back at the hospital while she was recovering, and now—it was all so predictable; she didn’t even need the tests, but she got them anyway, eventually. They can’t say yet if it’s a boy or a girl (but Anna has decided it’s a girl). The doctors say that, regardless, it seems healthy—healthy and strong.
It’s a nice day outside, but Anna feels like staying in, so she sits alone in the corner chair in their apartment, running her finger up and down the scar in the middle of her chest. It’s fun to play with somehow: its purple hills and steep edges have such an alien texture, so different from her own, rather plain, skin. She tries to stick her nail under it, to see if it’ll just slip off.
She shuts her eyes and lays her head back into the giving cushion. What a nice day it is outside, sunny and pristine and nice. After a while, she allows her finger to dip lower again, to follow the direction of the line down her abdomen, down to her belly button. Her nail drags outward toward her hips, then draws a circle around her stomach, tickling her in a few spots.
Here, where the girl will grow: how big Anna’ll get as the baby expands and becomes someone real. If she wanted, she could name her Penny or Penelope or something like that. Penelope was Felix’s daughter and she owed him so much for the surgery, so that might be nice. But it’s all much too corny; it’ll have to be something normal—like Claire or Elizabeth. She’ll think of something, she’s sure.
God, her parents’ll be so, so excited when she tells them: it’s going to be a whole scene full of jumping and screaming and all the rest of it. And her brother, who was never that big a fan of this particular union, even he’ll be caught up in it. They’ll be sad too, the way everyone is around her these days; but they’ll be happy too just the same.
She’s going to need clothes and cribs and all that crap. And the paper. At some point she’ll have to tell her boss. She can already picture it: she’ll be one of those absurdly bloated women reporters, waddling after some deputy mayor, shouting for him to slow down so she can get the quote without her water breaking.
She circles her stomach, and she laughs, keeping her eyes closed. Her bare toes tuck into the fluffed rug beneath her, seeking warmth before arching away and then settling down once again among the soft strands of fabric.
She sleeps and dreams of heroes. When she wakes, she’s scared, and she cries out.
To calm herself, she takes a book off a nearby shelf and flips through the pages. Since the funeral, DG’d taken to sending her gifts; a lot of those heroes had, but DG even more than most. She especially likes to send books that seemed as if they’d make nice reading for the baby someday; not really children’s books, but classics, the kind you end up reading when you’re a child, though you always mean to return to them: The Red Badge of Courage, Huckleberry Finn, Little Women, that kind of thing.
It’s almost as if she knew, but that doesn’t surprise Anna. These people always know all sorts of things, patterns in their little game that seem so relevant they study them eternally, as if the world itself were constantly at stake. She can’t help but to roll her eyes for what must be the millionth time.
The tome she’s apparently chosen is the Aeneid, and she thumbs through the pages without purpose or intention, finally settling on a place near the middle but closer to the end. Anna can vaguely recall she was supposed to have finished this thing in college, but she can’t remember ever even starting. A long, nice day ahead of her, she reads a little of the text out loud to her little girl.
The poetry is lovely and flowing, and she eventually grows distracted and places the book down in her lap. She should call someone and get out and enjoy the day. She finds again that her hand is drawing circles around her center, outlining their daughter.
Her eyes dash back and forth across the room, and her body quivers violently: another villain creeps inside their place and steals everything. Taking a deep breath and then exhaling as loudly as she possibly can, Anna tries to sigh it out of her, let all that pernicious air escape so that their child can only breathe in what is pure, a world untouched by the creeping villains that’ll always be there, kept barely at bay by the heroes who never give up, who always come back.
Her hand reaches back to her scar—to the skin over the metal, to the secret she’d promised to keep—but it doesn’t rest there, and it soon returns to circle her center.
Next to the scattering of Soldier’s books lie a pile of comics; they’d been left there by Sicko when he used to come over almost every other day, before Ultimate killed him on the other side of this room. She reaches out and trades the Virgil for a few comics, starts going through the pages without any real purpose.
Lord how Sicko’d tried to suck her husband into these stupid things, like getting him to join a cult or something. And Pen, of course, had gone right along with it, as a child would, taking it all much too seriously. How he’d burrow his nose into one of these funny books, shouting out nonsensical observations from time to time, to which she always responded with a nod, a smile, and yet another roll of her eyes.
Pencils and inks. Boxes and pictures. Circles and words. Silly men in silly tights saving a silly world. Boys imagining themselves to be myths because they can’t get a real job and do something useful with their lives.
As she flips, the pages begin to blur, the colors begin to run together, until only the backgrounds seem to stand out, all those heroes
silhouetted in flight against all those clear, well-lit skies: it all becomes blue, all blue, until she reaches the end and groups them together on her lap.
It’s quiet, and it’s such a nice day outside, and after a while she picks out one of the comics, an odd book where some super-masked-men travel back in time to join some ancient-toga men and sail the world on a quest for a fleece, and she reads it aloud to her daughter, taking time to present each of the pictures in turn to the circle at her center.
About halfway through she pauses and brings her hand to her stomach. “He saved us,” she says. “That silly boy saved us all. What are we going to do without him?”
There’s no answer, so she finishes reading the comic and places it back on the shelf. It must’ve been neat, to be there all those years ago, with a mission and a sense of right: one person determined to declare himself against chaotic given, to say that he can help the helpless, change the changeless; it’s ridiculous, but it’s nice, like the day outside that she should finally see before it runs away.
She picks up her phone to call her brother so they can go for a walk and she can tell him about the girl. Again, as she dials, she circles the outline of their child against her skin.
What must it be like for her, hearing all this? She’s nothing; she is the story untold, and here Anna is, stupidly regaling her with stupid words and stupid pictures. Jesus, it must be so bizarre, deep in there, trying to understand this useless blabber. Like in the comic: bearded Neptune posed on the ocean’s floor, squinting curiously upward through leagues of opaque water as the bow of the Argo breaches his liquid-metal sky, scattering sunlight through the once endless blue, marking the coming of man into the world of gods.
Acknowledgments
A note on translation. The quotations of Dante’s Paradiso found in the epigraph, art, and text of the novel were derived from combining several translations of the Paradiso with my own translation of the original Italian. I relied especially on the brilliant translations and commentaries of Mark Musa and Allen Mendelbaum.