Rogues

by Darius Brasher

  “Surely they’d understand you only did it to help your father,” I said gently.

  Angel snorted.

  “You haven’t met my parents. With them, there’s a right thing to do, and a wrong thing to do. Black and white. It will shame them to their core to know I’ve done this. I can just hear my father now.” Angel effortlessly slipped into a Mexican accent: “I’d rather have died falling from that roof than see the day my son’s a thief.”

  “How’s your dad doing, by the way?”

  Angel smiled, the first genuine one I had seen from him. “That’s the one silver lining in this whole disaster. He’s on the mend. The doctors say he’ll be as good as new with a little rehab.”

  Angel’s eyes got wide as a six-pack of beer abruptly glided in from the gloom to hover in front of me. I pulled two of the bottles out, uncapped them with my powers, and leaned over to offer one to Angel. Angel looked at the proffered bottle like it might explode.

  “Did you conjure that out of thin air?” he asked incredulously.

  I smile. “No. I’m not a magician. There’s a convenience store two blocks north of here. I levitated the beer from there. I’ll go there afterward and pay for it.”

  Angel took the beer from my hand. “You’re a handy person to have around. Can you turn water into wine too?”

  “I’m still working on that one.”

  “Maybe skip that trick. Look how the first guy to figure it out wound up.” Angel glanced at the bottle’s label. “Corona. A Mexican beer. Huh. You racially profiling me, amigo?” It was the second genuine smile Angel had given me. I hoped it was a good sign.

  “A happy accident,” I said.

  We drank.

  Angel wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Though this is the first time I’ve ever stolen anything, it’s not the first time I’ve been accused of stealing something.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah. When I was about to start the second grade, my parents moved us from Texas to Iowa. There were better job opportunities for my parents, plus they had heard of a Catholic school there they thought would be good for me. The community we settled in was about as white as you could get without living in the Arctic Circle. No racial diversity. Hell, we were the diversity. My second day in the new school, a kid in my class told our teacher somebody took his Mickey Mouse watch. Since I was the new kid and the only brown kid, the teacher accused me of taking it. I denied it, of course. She didn’t believe me. Said I had to stand in the corner as punishment, and that she would tell my mother when she came to pick me up. Janis Worley. As long as I live, I’ll never forget that ugly bitch. Face like the surface of the moon. Tits like deflated tires. Breath like a Gila monster. I’ll also never forget her calling me a ‘thieving spic’ under her stinky breath as she dragged me into the corner.

  “I had to stand in the corner the rest of the day, furious, crying, and yet determined to not let anyone see that I was crying. First time anybody ever called me a spic. It wasn’t the last.” Angel drank more beer. “As it turned out, not only had I not stolen that kid’s watch, but nobody else had either. The dumb kid had taken his watch off and forgotten he had put it into his lunchbox. He didn’t find it until he got home from school that night. He told Miss Worley the next day. She didn’t even have the grace to apologize to me. What she thought of me was written all over her pockmarked face: ‘Even if you didn’t steal that watch, you’re going to steal something else. People like you are just no good.’” Staring off into the darkness below, Angel tapped the tip of his beer bottle against his chin. Almost to himself, he said, “I think that’s why I worked as hard as I did, pushed myself like I did, to try to make something of myself. To prove to all the Miss Worleys I’ve run into that they were wrong about me. About people who look like me.”

  He was crying heavily now. It was as if the years had rolled back, and I was looking at the face of that second grader crying in the corner.

  Angel jerked his head back up like he was waking from a dream. He lifted his beer in a toast. He said, “Well, here’s to you Miss Worley. Congratulations. You were right. I’m nothing but a thieving spic.” He drained his beer. He dropped the bottle. “A litterbug too.” The bottle disappeared into the darkness below. I did a quick scan of the park below with my telekinetic touch. Nobody was down there to get brained by the glass bottle. After a few seconds, I felt the glass smash on the asphalt trail that cut through the park.

  Angel stared at where the bottle had disappeared. It looked like he was steeling himself to push off the railing. “Hey, that reminds me of a joke,” he said. “What do you call a thousand lawyers who jump off a bridge?”

  I shrugged, afraid Angel was about to do his best beer bottle imitation.

  “A good start. Gimme another of those beers. I need all the liquid courage I can get.”

  I floated another beer to him. While he was drinking, he wasn’t jumping.

  Angel drank. “Hey, how far down do you suppose the ground is, anyway? I didn’t even hear that bottle break.”

  My mind had already reflexively crunched the numbers. “A shade over two hundred and fifty-six feet,” I said.

  Angel looked at me like I was a wizard again. “How do you know that?”

  I shrugged. “Simple math. It took the bottle a hair over four seconds to hit the ground. Plug that into the acceleration due to gravity formula, and there’s the answer.” Angel looked at me as if I had split the atom. “There’s more to being a Hero than flying around and delivering beer to people, you know.”

  “Apparently. I for one certainly hadn’t been counting how long it took the bottle to hit the ground.”

  “I pay attention to small details like that. You never know when a detail is going to save your or someone else’s life. I learned the importance of noticing details at Hero Academy. It gave me a grounding in the math I just used, too.”

  “Tell me about that. The Academy, I mean.”

  “I’d rather talk about you.”

  “Dude, I’m sick of talking about me. I want to hear about you. I’m a fan.”

  So, I told Angel about my time at the Academy. Angel was a good listener, interrupting only to ask clarifying questions. I imagined he was a pretty good lawyer.

  Talking about my Academy days must have loosened my tongue. The beer probably helped. Plus, if Angel was listening to me, he wasn’t listening to the whistling of the wind as he plunged off the bridge. Regardless of why, before I knew it, I also told him about Mom dying from cancer, how I had been bullied much of my life, Dad’s murder, how I finally found a sense of belonging when I met Neha and Isaac, my fight against Iceburn, how Amazing Man had not thought I was tough enough to handle the Trials, the attempts on my life before and during the Trials, Hammer’s death during them, me cheating during them, me swearing the Hero’s Oath, Hannah’s death, my confrontation with the Sentinels, Neha’s death, and the fact that now I spent every waking hour preparing to defend the world against the major crisis the Sentinels had warned about. I even told him how I had imprisoned Mad Dog in The Mountain. It was the first time I told anybody that. I did not tell him my true identity, of course, nor that of Isaac and Neha.

  “Jesus!” Angel said once I had finished. “That’s quite a story. You’ve been through a lot.”

  I shrugged. “It is what it is.” I drank more beer.

  “You obviously feel bad about a lot of the things you’ve done. You’ve gotta love Catholic guilt. We have that in common.”

  “It’s not merely Catholic guilt,” I said. “The guilt I feel is for good reason. Dad would still be alive if I had left the farm with Amazing Man to learn to use my powers. Hannah would still be alive if I hadn’t confronted Mad Dog. Smoke would still be alive if I had handled things with the Sentinels differently or if I had been more adept in the use of my enhanced powers.”

  “I don’t know, man. It sounds like you did the best you could. I won’t pretend that I know what the life of a Hero is like. I sit behind
a computer most of the day. The most dangerous thing I do is risk a paper cut. But it seems to me that’s all you can do—the best you can with what you have, and let the chips fall where they may.”

  I twisted to look Angel in the eye.

  “And is this the best you can do, sitting up here screwing up the courage to kill yourself? What about your parents? What about the clients you’re abandoning? They need you.”

  Angel held my gaze for a moment, then looked away. “Of course this is not the best I can do. Don’t you think I know that? But I’m too afraid to face my problems. I’m not brave like you.”

  “Brave? Me?” I laughed out loud. “I’m scared all the time.”

  Angel looked surprised. “Really? Of what?”

  “I’m scared every time I get into a fight with somebody. Scared I’m going to get hurt. Or killed. Scared an innocent will get hurt or killed because of me. Scared that someone else I care about will get killed. I’m scared that when the crisis I told you about comes, I won’t be ready for it. But, right this second, mostly I’m scared that you’re going to jump. And, to be perfectly honest, I’m scared that I’ll follow your lead and jump too. Another person dying because I’ve fallen short again is more than I think I can stand.”

  Angel was quiet. He just stared at me. Another car zoomed by, illuminating both of us.

  I said, “Let’s make a deal. If you’ll climb down from here and face your fears, I’ll do what I can to help. My lawyer Laura Leonard is one of the best in the city. She can help you deal with the bar. Maybe she can keep you out of jail, too. If anybody can do it, she can.”

  “I don’t have the money for a high-priced attorney.” Angel snorted softly. “I don’t have the money for an any priced attorney.”

  “You don’t need money. I’ll pay her for you.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that. You’ve got enough things to worry about without taking on a charity case.”

  “Believe me, it’s not a problem. Thanks to my newfound fame, I’ve got more money than I know what to do with.” I smiled slightly. “Remember, I’m raking in all those underwear royalties.”

  Angel hesitated. Clearly, he was wavering.

  I said, “I think the reason you feel so terrible is because you know you’re running from your problems. Like I did, you took an oath. In your case it was to put the interests of your clients ahead of your own. You know you’re breaking it by coming up here and trying to end it all. I’m willing to bet that if you jump your last thoughts will be of how you wish you hadn’t left your clients in the lurch. I know it’s hard and I know it’s scary, but you have an obligation to something bigger than yourself. You have to try to live up to it. You have to face the consequences of what you’ve done, and then move on. If a dumb hick like me can do it, I know you can.”

  “I don’t think you’re a dumb hick,” Angel said slowly. “Seems to me you’re pretty smart. How else could you do all you’ve done?”

  “Believe me, I’ve had a lot of help. Let me return the favor and help you now.”

  The rain lessened, turning into a fine mist. It gave the headlights of an oncoming car an otherworldly glow.

  “All right,” Angel finally said. “If you can do what you need to do despite your fears, then I guess I can too. I’ll tell the bar what I’ve done and face the consequences.” He swung a leg back over the railing. “C’mon. I’ll walk back home and get the ball rolling. Before I change my mind. As Macbeth said, if something unpleasant has to be done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly.”

  It seemed like a bad time to remind him that Macbeth had died at the end of the play, so I didn’t. “Hold on a second,” I said instead.

  Angel paused. His legs straddled the railing.

  “Can we stay and talk for a while?” I asked. “Not too many know my story. Not all of it, at any rate. It’s good to be completely honest with someone for a change.” The loneliness I usually suppressed with frenetic activity pressed on my chest like a weight.

  “Sure, man, sure.” Angel swung his leg back over. “It would be an honor.”

  Despite saying I wanted to talk, for a little while, we didn’t talk at all. We just sat there and drank beer in companionable silence.

  Angel broke the quiet. “If I ask you a question, will you give me an honest answer?”

  “Sure. Why not? As long as I get to ask you one too.”

  “Deal,” Angel said. “You go first.”

  “Your cousin isn’t the one who wears Omega underwear, is he?”

  Angel blushed and looked sheepish. “Guilty as charged. Matter of fact, I’ve got a pair of them on now. It was the only clean underwear I had left. Laundry hasn’t been much of a priority lately.” Angel shook his head. “Like I said, you’re no dummy.”

  “Me? You’re the one who casually quotes Macbeth.”

  “I’ve got the nuns of my Catholic school to thank for that. Those ladies didn’t play around. You’d get smacked with a ruler if you weren’t up to snuff. I can speak Latin like a Roman centurion because of them. Fat lot of good that’s done me. Not a lot of demand for a thieving lawyer who’s fluent in a dead language. Alright, my turn.”

  “Shoot.”

  Angel looked at me earnestly. He said, “If I had jumped, would you really have let me fall?”

  I thought of Mom, Dad, Hannah, and Neha. About how I understood despair and the temptation to end it all. About how I understood feeling utterly alone. Who was I to stop someone from doing something I had half a mind to do myself?

  “Yes,” I said.

  CHAPTER 6

  I walked aimlessly around my apartment. I was drinking an aggressive cabernet sauvignon. That was how the salesman at the wine shop had described it: aggressive. If he thought a bottle of fermented grapes was aggressive, clearly he had never dealt with Rogues.

  It was the day after I had sat on the bridge with Angel. I drank straight from the wine bottle as I went from room to room. I didn’t need no stinkin’ glass. Glasses were for guys with friends and family who might think he was a wino if he didn’t use them. I had no family, and few friends. Besides, no need to stand on formality when I was alone. I was almost always alone. Nobody here but the Three Amigos: myself, me, and cabernet makes three. That was usual. Well, outside of the cabernet part. What was unusual was for me to drink this much in such a short period of time. First the beers with Angel, now this bottle of wine, my second one of the day. As Truman was fond of saying, alcohol and superpowers did not make for a good combo. What the hell did Truman know, anyway? Nothing but a spoilsport gumshoe who liked to ruin my good time, that’s what he was.

  I belched, covering my mouth like a gentleman. True grace was observing the niceties even when no one was around. Huh. That was a great line. It was a wonder no one had offered me my own etiquette column. I’d have to call Stan Langley, my old boss at the Astor City Times, and demand an explanation for the oversight.

  I was tipsy, and rapidly becoming more than tipsy. Perhaps this was how alcoholism started. I hoped I skipped the vomiting and blackout phase and went straight to the hooking up with random women phase. Dear God: I’d like to skip the cirrhosis phase as well. Please and thank you.

  My place was the penthouse apartment on top of a mid-rise, mixed-use building on the edge of downtown Astor City, within walking distance of Apex Fitness. Retail stores were on the bottom floors of the building; residential apartments were on the top floors. I owned the building. I bought it months ago after assuming a substantial mortgage using my income from Omega merchandise as collateral. Well, I should say that a corporation owned the building, with a series of shell companies between it and me. But pierce all the corporate veils and slice through all the legal mumbo jumbo, and I was the owner. Laura had set the whole legal house of cards up. I only vaguely understood it. It likely would have taken the combined efforts of Clarence Darrow and Learned Hand to unravel all the companies and legal fictions that hid the connection between the corporation whose name this building w
as in and Theodore Conley. Learned Hand was a famous judge and legal thinker, not a Metahuman as his name would make one think. A waste of a perfectly good superhero name.

  My apartment was much bigger than the mobile home Dad and I had lived in when he died. It made me feel guilty that I lived high on the hog in this big place while Dad moldered in his grave. But, Dad had been the one who had emphasized the value of owning real estate. He often said real estate was a solid investment because God was not making any more of it.

  My dark hardwood floors felt cold against my bare feet as I wandered around. I grabbed the edge of a door, stopping myself from falling. No, stumbled around was more like it. If Mom were still around, she would say I needed to put shoes on before I caught cold. Little did she know her little boy had grown up to be the possessor of the Omega suit, which not only reduced my need for sleep, but apparently made me immune from minor illnesses as well. I had not gotten so much as a sore throat since the suit had become a part of me. However, since one can never be too careful about catching cold, I took another swig of wine. It warmed me from the inside, starting in my stomach and radiating outward. Nature’s antifreeze. I wondered if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention knew about it.

  I ambled from room to room, restless, feeling as though I was looking for something, though I knew my apartment and its contents like my tongue knew the inside of my mouth:

  Floor to ceiling windows on one side of the apartment afforded a stunning view of the twin giants of Star Tower and the UWant Building. Parts of the glass could swing open, letting me fly out of here when I needed to. There was a kitchen, library, living room, bathroom, and a large bedroom. The huge walk-in closet in the bedroom was a quarter of the size it had been when I moved in. Three-fourths of it, walled off and concealed thanks to the carpentry skills I had picked up from Dad, contained my Heroic paraphernalia. Stored there were my red Academy graduation cape, the white cape I received with my Hero’s license, my license, and the huge gold ring with the masked man on the face of it that had come with the license.