Ganke was still asleep when Miles got back in the room. He dressed quickly—jeans and a sweatshirt—then slipped out of the room again and headed downstairs. It was Sunday morning. A familiar time of day—usually when Miles would be walking to church with his mother.
“Father Jamie’s got a word for us, Miles,” his mother would say, the sound of her high heels clacking up the sidewalk. But Miles was never that enthused about it. However, this Sunday, Miles was yearning to sit next to his mother in the pew while she passed him candy. The two of them sharing a hymnal, singing off-key. So he headed to where he’d never gone the entire time he’d been at Brooklyn Visions Academy—to the campus chapel.
The weather wasn’t nearly as beautiful as it had been earlier in the week, but it was definitely just as peaceful. The sunlight of daybreak was now being overshadowed by the gloom of clouds. A light rain fell, which usually would’ve been a turnoff, but on this particular morning was refreshing.
The chapel was located on the other side of campus, so Miles meandered down the littered cobblestone pathways between palatial buildings, all marble and brick. He walked past the store, figured Winnie was probably there. Thought about stopping in, but decided to keep moving. He passed the library, EX NIHILO NIHIL FIT engraved in the white stone above the gigantic double doors. Mrs. Tripley was probably in there, asleep. An image of her dressed like Mary Shelley—which was basically her dressed in a black ball gown—curled up between the stacks popped in Miles’s head. It made him smile.
He continued on, and eventually got to the quad, where the raindrops pimpled and dimpled the fountain water. Miles flashed back to the open mic. Instantly, the drizzle felt colder, his sweatshirt, slowly wetting, now heavier than it was a few steps before. So he moved on, and just beyond the quad was the chapel.
It was a small white building, two steps, nothing fancy or ornate. Nowhere near as regal as the rest of the campus. The doors were closed, but Miles figured the church was always open. Maybe he could go to confession, get some things off his chest, apologize for what he wanted to do to the Warden—what he was planning to do. His mother would be proud of him if she knew he’d gone. But when Miles climbed the steps and got to the door, yanked the tarnished brass handle, the door didn’t budge. Miles yanked again. It was locked. So he sat down on the steps and waited.
It wasn’t long before people started showing up. But they weren’t other students looking for a quiet place to pray. Instead they were men dressed in green jumpsuits and dirty boots, carrying trash bags and poles with a spike on the end. The maintenance workers were cleaning up the mess made the night before—the candy wrappers and soda cans and candy wrappers and more candy wrappers.
Miles watched as they punched the spike through small bits of paper, then shook them into the bags. It reminded him of what his father had made him do a week before, cleaning up the trash on his block. The only difference was that these guys were getting paid for it. Still, Miles couldn’t help but think about his dad telling him that he was responsible for his block, and that being a hero wasn’t always just the big things, but also the small things, like picking up trash. Miles stood up and walked over to one of the guys.
“Morning.” Miles spoke to a guy who had a hood yanked over his head and earbuds in his ears. The guy snatched an earbud out.
“What you say?”
“I said, good morning,” Miles repeated.
The guy nodded. “Morning.” Then he started to put the bud back in his ear when Miles stopped him.
“Sorry, but can I ask you something?” Miles started. The guy nodded again. “You think I can maybe help out?”
“Help out?” The guy snorted. “Yo, little man wanna help out,” he said, turning to the guys around him.
“Help out?” a different guy wearing an orange hat said. He had a toothpick sticking out from the side of his mouth. “Um…you do know we cleaning this crap up, right?”
“Yeah, I know.”
They all looked around at each other. Shrugged. Then Earbuds gave Miles his spiked pole. “I’ll hold the bag,” he said, obviously happy to be passing off some of the work. “We already did one walk-through, and now we walking through again, heading back toward the dorms.”
“Cool.”
As they moved from one part of campus to the next, the maintenance crew made small talk with Miles, but mainly Miles just listened as they conversed with each other about their weekends.
“Yo, any of y’all ever had the catfish at Peaches?” Orange Hat asked.
“Peaches?” This from a guy with a beard, low but thick like black felt.
“Yeah, Peaches. You know, the spot Benji used to wait tables at. Over there off Macdonough,” Orange Hat explained. Miles’s ears perked when he heard the name. Benji, Benji. Where have I…? He wiped rain from his forehead and pushed the stake through the heart of a fun-size Snickers wrapper.
“Where Benji at, anyway? Ain’t he supposed to be here?” Toothpick asked, shaking his head.
“Ain’t nobody seen him since Monday, when he came to work all lumped up. After that, no call, no show,” Black Felt said. Miles glanced up, then immediately darted his eyes back down at the ground searching for the next piece of litter. Benji. Not…not the one from the basketball court. Can’t be, Miles thought.
“He probably off trying out for the Knicks, again.” This was from a guy named Ricky, a short dude with tall-dude pants on, bunched and gathered around the tops of his boots.
“He ain’t never tried out for the Knicks,” Earbud said.
“He told me he did,” Ricky said.
“He also told you he had proof he had the highest vertical on earth.” Everyone burst into laughter. Everyone but Miles.
“He probably just quit this crappy job,” Earbud said, opening the trash bag so Miles could shake off the spike. The drizzle finally started to let up.
“Without telling us?” Toothpick asked. “I called him and everything. Twice.”
“And he ain’t hit you back?” Black Felt asked.
“Nah. And that was days ago. It’s like he just disappeared.”
“What you mean, disappeared?” Now Miles butted in. He didn’t mean to, but he just couldn’t help it. The four green-suited men shot glances at him.
“You know Benji?” Ricky asked, his tone slightly harder than it was seconds before. His voice made it clear he was half asking sincerely, and half telling Miles to mind his own business.
“Um…nah. I just…”
And before Miles could try to hack up the rest of the words lodged in his throat, Orange Hat jumped back in. “Yo, whatever. The point is, if y’all ain’t never had the catfish from that spot, Peaches, do yourself a favor. They got the cornmeal batter and all that. Mad good.” He reached over and grabbed the trash-stabber from Miles, signaling that the job was done. They were back in front of the dorms. “You too, shorty,” Orange Hat said to Miles. “I’m sure it’s probably better than what y’all eating at this bland-ass school.”
“Good morning, uh…I was gonna say sunshine, but you’re soaking wet, so…good morning, rainstorm,” Ganke said as Miles came back in the room. Ganke was sitting in his desk chair scooping cereal from a bowl, watching TV.
Miles didn’t respond. Just sat on his bed and cradled his face in his hands. Benji didn’t deserve to be snatched. And even though Miles wasn’t sure if it had actually happened to Benji, he had a feeling, one deep in the pit of his stomach, that that was the case.
“You good?” Ganke asked, spinning his chair toward Miles. Miles continued to hide his face.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice muffled by his hands. “Went down to the chapel.” Miles lifted his face.
“The campus chapel?” Ganke sounded surprised. “What, your mother came to you in your dreams and told you to get your butt up for church?” Miles didn’t laugh.
“It wasn’t open. Too early, I guess. But I still got a message.” Suddenly, Miles got up from the bed, squatted, and reached underneath the twin fr
ame. He swiped a few times, before finally knocking forward his web-shooters. He set them on the bed, then dug back into the closet and pulled out his suit again. “And now I have to deliver one.”
“Miles, what are you doing?” Ganke asked. Miles continued to get dressed. “Miles.” Ganke set his bowl on his desk. “It’s not even eight in the morning.”
“Look, I slept on it. Just like you told me.” Miles peeled off his wet clothes, dried himself off with his towel, then stretched the suit over his body like a second skin. “And now I have to go.”
He grabbed his mask, walked over to the mirror.
Ganke stood up.
Miles slowly rolled the mask down over his forehead, then over his eyes. Like always, he closed them for a split second, just until the holes lined up. Then he opened them and continued stretching the mask over his nose, mouth, and chin. He looked at himself in the mirror again. Spider-Man.
“And I think what you said last night was right. You kill the head, the feet die too. That old man is the head. And I have stop him. He’s hurting so many people. People we know. People we don’t know. People who aren’t even alive yet, man. He’s hurting my family, people in my neighborhood, me…I just, I won’t be able to do anything until I do this. What good is it being a hero if I can’t even save myself?”
“And you’re sure about all this?” Ganke asked. He looked at Miles without an ounce of joke on his face, no snark in his voice. Just Ganke, the closest person Miles had to a brother. Someone who loved him.
“I’m sure.” Miles nodded. “I’m not guessing. I know these things. And knowledge is power.”
“And with great power…”
“Comes great responsibility,” Miles finished, holding his hand up for Ganke. Ganke slapped his palm in Miles’s, gripped it tight—eye to eye—before Miles turned to the window, shoved it open, camouflaged himself into red brick against blue sky, and climbed out.
Miles crawled along the side of the building before jumping to the ground and running across the campus to the auditorium. Once he got back to the same door he’d followed Mr. Chamberlain into the night before, he bent the steel back just enough to slip inside. Miles came out of camouflage and leaped from the steps down into the tunnel, where the light was swallowed by the tunnel’s darkness, water splashing him. He sprinted through the tunnel like an express train. His brain wouldn’t quit racing—his family name, the suspension, his uncle, his father, his neighborhood, Austin, everyone who came before him, everyone coming after him.
Everyone coming after him.
After a few minutes of flashing through the tunnel, Miles reached the overhead double doors. He listened. He could hear the crickets jumping through the field, an airplane in the sky still miles from passing overhead. But not the sound of grass blades bending, which meant no feet. He pushed the gate open, climbed out, and looked behind him. The fence, higher than most buildings, blocked off the back stone wall of the prison.
He ran toward the house, slipped right back to the window he had peered through the night before. He hunkered down like a soldier waiting on the order to attack. The Warden was there, dressed in trousers and a white dress shirt, sitting in a huge chair, sipping from a mug. The sun shone through the window, filtered through the crystal trinkets in the cabinet against the wall, creating a kaleidoscope of rainbows, which would’ve been a beautiful image under different circumstances. An image meant for an art gallery or a museum.
A white cat came from behind the couch, the color of fresh snow. It leaped onto the couch, cozied up on the leg of the old man, who stroked its fur gently. Miles could hear the cat’s purring, a soft, satisfied rumble, as the cat licked around its own mouth, stretching it into a fang-brandishing yawn. Again, Miles looked on, mesmerized by how sweet it all seemed. A rich man enjoying Sunday morning with his pet cat. Miles had always wanted a pet. Not a cat, though. He preferred dogs, but his father always said having a dog was like having another child, another mouth to feed. And who’s gonna walk it? And what if it bites you, Miles? his father would say. And whenever Miles would try to argue that it wouldn’t bite, his father would say, If it got teeth, it’ll bite.
And that sweet-looking cat had teeth. And so did that seemingly helpless old man, whose weathered body looked like it was papier-mâché. He had teeth too. Teeth that apparently had fallen into the mug he was sipping from, because he stuck his finger in and dug one out as if it were a chip of ice. Miles watched as the Warden positioned it back into whatever slot it had slipped from and pressed it with his thumb to his top row, seemingly forcing this disgusting chomper back into his gum line.
Gross. Miles shuddered. And just then the Warden glanced over at the window. Miles was still camouflaged but felt the need to drop below the windowsill anyway. He immediately felt silly, and stood up, knowing that he looked like grass, sky, stone, and gate. The Warden set his cup down on a side table, rose to his feet, the cat jumping from his lap to the floor. He walked over to the window, stood in front of it, gazing out into the field, ogling the prison, the big cement block, the construction on the side of it for expansion. He looked at it as if it were a shiny car, or a child he was proud of—his baby. Miles stood right in front of him, inhaling the age from the Warden’s skin through the glass. It smelled like sweat and soil. But Miles wasn’t concerned, and instead turned his attention to the cat, who he knew could see him. Take it easy, kitty. Take it easy. The cat looked at Miles, its tail waving back and forth the same way it he’d seen a few days before when a similar cat, if not the same cat, was on Neek’s stoop. Suddenly, the cat, who had been glaring at Miles, went into attack mode—back arched, hair spiked, hissing. Calm down, kitty, Miles said to himself, putting a finger to his mouth in a shushing gesture. The Warden took a step back, drawing Miles’s eyes to him. His face hardened into viciousness.
Wait. No way…He can’t.…
But he could. Somehow, he too could see Miles.
The Warden took off running, the cat dashing back behind the couch. Miles took a few steps back, then, like a human missile, torpedoed through the window. The glass exploded into the room, jagged shards everywhere, as Miles went from human missile straight into a forward roll, up onto his feet, and into an attack stride. He reached the Warden before the Warden reached the cat-o’-nine-tails hanging on the wall. Miles grabbed him by the shoulder—a shoulder that felt like a doorknob beneath fabric—whipping the ancient man around.
The Warden, in a fit of panic, took a wild swing, aiming for Miles’s face. Miles backed away, avoiding the punch, but it still created some space between them. Then the Warden squared up, lifted his hands, old-school-style, wheeling his fists around almost as if he was doing some kind of dance. A salsa.
“You fool. You didn’t think I could see you, did you?” he said, still winding up. “But when you’ve lived centuries, you have a different kind of vision. You can see all the things that don’t seem to be really there.” His lip curled up into a snarl, his teeth broken off like wood. “Like opportunity.” Then he came charging at Miles, his fists flying much faster and much harder than Miles expected.
Left, left, duck. Then the Warden surprised Miles by throwing a right uppercut to his chin. He bit down on his tongue. Heard his teeth cut the flesh. Blood filled his mouth, along with a searing sting. Before Miles could recover, the Warden threw two more punches, stiff jabs to Miles’s nose. Miles’s ears rang, and his eyes watered as he was totally caught off guard by the Warden’s speed and strength. Isn’t this man hundreds of years old? Why is he not falling apart? But there was no time to think about any of these things because the Warden cocked his leg up and planted a foot in Miles’s chest, knocking him back against the massive front door. Then the old man came rushing. He threw a flurry of punches, combinations that most boxers couldn’t throw. Miles did his best to block as many as he could before finally, in a state of desperation, he grabbed a lamp off the side table next to him—the shade, red, green, and purple stained glass—and cracked it over the Warden�
��s head. The glass shattered, bright-colored shards falling like sprinkles on a sundae. Exactly like in Miles’s nightmare.
Almost exactly.
The Warden hit the floor, and Miles shot some web to trap him there, but only a small amount came sputtering from the shooter. Oh no. Don’t tell me.… The Warden, smirking again, rolled backward and back up onto his feet. Blood dripped from his ashen face, but it wasn’t red. It was blue. And thick. It ran down his white shirt and across the mosaic tile floor.
Miles tried to shoot web again. But nothing.
“Oh, what a splendid sight,” the Warden teased, dabbing the blood from his face with a finger. “What becomes of the spider that’s lost its web? Does it still have the right to bear the name of spider?” Then, before Miles could attack, the Warden stretched his arms out like wings and grabbed the edges of the room. It was as if everything—the room, the floor, the couches, the paintings, the blood and glass, even Miles himself—was all just some kind of strange projection being shown on a huge piece of fabric. Like it wasn’t real. Like it could be grabbed, folded. And that’s exactly what the Warden did. Gripped the edges of the room, the seams of whatever Miles could see, and pulled them closer, like drawing curtains, folding in—folding up—reality. He closed the world in, more and more, tighter and tighter, until finally clapping the entire room in on Miles. Everything went dark for a split second, and when Miles could see again, the Warden opening his hands wide, Miles had absolutely no idea where he was. Or who he was. He patted his chest; the webbing on the suit was unfamiliar. Miles couldn’t think of his name. Or where he was from. Or what he was doing in a bodysuit in the middle of nowhere. It was as if he’d been erased. As if there was no Rio and Jefferson, no Aaron, no Ganke. No Spider-Man. Tabula rasa.
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