Sentinels

by Darius Brasher

  CHAPTER 5

  When Isaac and I had first moved into our Tennessee Heights rental and I had come to understand what Deshaun, Fidel, and the rest of Mitch’s drug-slinging crew were up to thanks to Deshaun’s offer of a housewarming gift, I was in a lather to put my Hero suit on and get rid of Mitch’s entire operation root and branch.

  “You know what happened when they killed off the cats on Australia’s Macquarie Island?” Isaac had asked me.

  “Huh? What the heck does that have to do with anything?”

  “In the late twentieth century, the cats were eating too many of the island’s birds. So, they had the bright idea to shoot all the cats. Any idea what happened?”

  “I’ve got the feeling that even if I don’t want to know, you’re going to tell me. You’re as bad as Neha, Mr. Know-It-All.”

  “That’s Captain Know-It-All. Have you forgotten I’m a superhero? Anyway, when they killed all the cats, they solved the problem of too many birds being killed all right. But they inadvertently caused a new problem. Little did they realize the cats had been keeping the island’s rabbit population under control. Without the cats, the rabbits bred like . . . well, like rabbits, with predictable results. Pretty soon the rabbits were eating everything in sight and causing an ecological disaster.”

  “And the moral of the story is what? That rabbits like to get it on? No duh. You know I grew up on a farm, right? You’re trying to teach Catholicism to the Pope. Let’s go find an Eskimo and you can tell him all about snow.”

  “If I’m Captain Know-It-All, you’re Offensive Lad. It’s Inuit, not Eskimo. Try to show some cultural sensitivity, you redneck cracker. Next you’ll be calling me the N-word.”

  “How come you get to call me names, but if I returned the favor, it would trigger a second Civil War?”

  Isaac had smiled smugly. “Reparations. You got years of my people’s free labor. I get this.”

  “Your people?” I snorted. “Your ancestors are from Jamaica, not the Deep South. You’re no more descended from slaves than I am.”

  Isaac had put his hand over his heart. “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you also do to me,” he intoned solemnly. “I learned that from the Bible. Or maybe it was a fortune cookie. I forget. Anyway, we seem to be diverging from the original topic. What were we talking about?”

  “The unfairness of reverse racism?”

  “Before that. I remember now. We were talking about Australia. The moral of the Australia story is that you shouldn’t remove a perceived problem without carefully studying the ecology first. Crime has an ecology just like nature does. We just moved into the neighborhood. Before we blindly bull ahead, let’s first make sure taking Mitch and his minions out won’t mean he’ll get replaced with an equal or worse problem.”

  Literally the next morning after that conversation, I stood on the front stoop of the house, locking up and about to walk to the subway to go to work. I saw a kid on a bike slowly peddle down the street. He couldn’t have been any older than thirteen. Long, lean and lanky, he was big for his age. He had a mini-Afro with a pick peeking out of the top of it. He peered carefully into each parked car as he leisurely pedaled by. His manner reminded me of a patient cat waiting to pounce on a careless mouse. I pretended to fumble with my keys so I could stay on the porch and watch him. Even without Heroic training, I would have known the kid was up to no good.

  He stopped almost in front of our house, leaning on his bike next to the car owned by my neighbor Saul. Saul was a public school teacher married to another teacher. Their row house shared a wall with ours. The kid pulled a metal rod off his bike. He smashed the rear window of Saul’s car. He stuck his hand inside the car, pulling out a laptop that Saul had stupidly left there.

  Before pedaling off with the computer tucked under his arm, the kid looked up and locked eyes with me. His unashamed and unafraid eyes held a challenge, as if to say, “What do you think you’re gonna do, white boy?”

  If he only knew.

  I was about to give the kid’s bike a discreet sideways push with my powers to send him sprawling when my intervention was made unnecessary. Deshaun was on drug slinging duty that morning, as he was every morning. As the kid approached where Deshaun sat, Deshaun hauled to his feet and took a couple of casual steps forward between two parked cars. Deshaun grabbed Saul’s laptop from the crook of the kid’s arm as he pedaled past, simultaneously yanking hard on the kid’s elbow with his other beefy hand.

  The bike went one way and the kid went the other. The kid collided with a loud thump into the back of a parked car. He slid down and sprawled on the ground, yelling bloody murder all the while.

  Deshaun looked down at the kid dispassionately. He told the kid to shut up as he’d wake up the entire neighborhood. When the kid didn’t, Deshaun kicked him in the ribs a couple of times. The kicks didn’t appear to come from a place of anger. Deshaun’s manner was more like a doctor administering a needle to a patient who needed a vaccine.

  With one arm, Deshaun dragged the kid off the ground. The kid struggled. Deshaun let go of him long enough to smack the back of his head with an open palm a few times until the kid stopped squirming. With Saul’s computer in one big hand and the back of the kid’s neck in the other, Deshaun then frog-marched the kid down the sidewalk and up the short stairs to Saul’s porch. They were now on the same level as I was and about ten feet away. The side of the kid’s face was already beginning to swell from where he had slammed into the parked car.

  Deshaun nodded at me in brief acknowledgement. He pounded on Saul’s door with his foot. Since it didn’t look like I needed to intervene, I just stood there and gawked. It was like watching a play.

  After a few moments, Saul opened the door. He was a Hispanic guy a few years older than I. His surprise at the tableau in front of him was evident on his brown face. The surprise increased when Deshaun thrust the computer into Saul’s hands.

  “This here’s Mr. Saul. Tell him what you did,” Deshaun rumbled at the kid.

  “I ain’t do shit,” the kid said sullenly.

  Another meaty slap to the back of the head. The kid cried out and recoiled from the blow, only to be jerked upright again by Deshaun’s hand, which had quickly resumed its place around the back of his neck.

  “Mind your fucking language,” Deshaun said. “Show some respect when talking to your elders. Now again, tell Mr. Saul what you did.”

  The kid said, “I found that computer on the street under the busted window of a car. Picked it up and was gonna turn it into lost and found with the cops.”

  That tall tale elicited more smacks from Deshaun and more howls from the kid. Saul glanced at me, disbelief at what he was witnessing evident on his face. Finally, the actual story of what the kid had done was loosen by Deshaun’s blows. The truth spilled out of the kid’s mouth like a waterfall.

  “Tell him you’re sorry, and that it won’t happen again,” Deshaun said after the kid finished.

  “I’m awful sorry Mr. Saul. I won’t do it again. Promise.” The kid had been smacked so many times I believed that he actually was sorry.

  Saul went out to his car to assess the damage. Meanwhile, Deshaun and the kid spoke for a few moments at the foot of Saul’s stairs. I lingered, not even trying to pretend that I wasn’t listening in. It’s only eavesdropping and therefore rude if people don’t know you’re listening. I think I read that in an etiquette book somewhere.

  “What’s your name?” Deshaun asked the kid.

  “Lamar.”

  “You new around here, Lamar?”

  “Yeah. Mom just moved us here a couple of weeks ago.”

  “I thought so. If you were from around here, you’d know the deal.” Deshaun hesitated. “You got a cell phone, my man?”

  The fact Lamar thought about lying was written all over his young face. “Yeah,” he finally said, no doubt avoiding the temptation to lie by remembering how it had felt when Deshaun had cuffed him.

  Deshaun stuck his hand ou
t. “Hand it over.”

  “Why?” Lamar asked, his voice cracking.

  “Because actions have consequences. Unless you got the money to fix that man’s window.”

  “I ain’t got no money.”

  “Big shock. Then hand the phone over.”

  Reluctantly, Lamar pulled a smartphone out of his back pocket. He gave it to Deshaun. Deshaun dropped it to the concrete sidewalk. He ground it underfoot. Lamar looked down at the debris like he was going to cry.

  Deshaun said, “Mr. Saul lost a window, now you lost a phone. Karma’s a bitch. Remember that the next time you come around here. Tennessee Heights is off limits for any of your foolishness. If you wanna bust up people’s windows and steal they shit, do it somewheres else. This is a nice quiet neighborhood, and I’m gonna keep it that way. Now get outta here. Remember what I told you.”

  Like a student released from the principal’s office, Lamar scurried away. He retrieved his bike which lay in the middle of the street. He pedaled away, glancing back at Deshaun.

  Deshaun looked up at where I still stood on the porch.

  “Kids these days. If you don’t watch em, the whole neighborhood’ll go to hell,” he said.

  “You’re doing the Lord’s work,” I had responded. Deshaun’s dark eyes had narrowed dangerously a touch, perhaps suspecting I was making fun of him. Then, with an almost imperceptible shrug of dismissal, he ambled back over to his usual spot. He resumed leaning against the short wall, waiting for a customer to come by to get a fix.

  Later Saul told me four hundred dollar bills were in his mailbox the next day with only the words “For your car window” scrawled on the front of the plain white envelope the money was in. Though there was no proof the money was from Deshaun, it certainly wasn’t from the Tooth Fairy. I guess Deshaun and his boss Mitch figured four hundred dollars were a small price to pay for the people in the neighborhood to continue to overlook the drug deals that happened every day right outside our doors.

  That incident with Lamar and Deshaun had been my first indication that maybe uprooting Mitch and the people under him like Deshaun would have unintended consequences as Isaac had suggested. My subsequent conversations with the Wests across the street and other people who had been in the neighborhood for years made me conclude that doing something about Mitch would be a mistake and might result in him being replaced by someone much worse. Apparently, before Mitch had come along and imposed a rough form of peace and justice on the neighborhood to minimize the number of times the police came around, Tennessee Heights had been as dangerous as a warzone. Despite the fact Mitch was a dope dealer, the longtime residents of Tennessee Heights respected him and what he had done for the neighborhood.

  So, I had given up on the idea of taking care of Mitch and his crew as Kinetic. It really burned my butt to see people openly flouting the law, though. Back on the farm, life had seemed simpler, more black and white.

  Then again, I had just gotten finished lying in wait for Antonio and beating him up. Maybe those of us who illegally broke into glass houses should not throw stones.

  * * *

  With Deshaun simultaneously waiting for customers and standing guard over the neighborhood on the other side of the closed front door, I climbed the stairs to the second floor of our house. Out of habit I avoided stepping on the next to the last stair from the top. That stair creaked loudly when you put your weight on it. Though the house had undergone some minor cosmetic renovations since its construction over a hundred years ago, the creaks and groans the house made when you stepped on certain spots indicated the house’s age. The noises the house made suited me just fine. Even if an intruder got past our high-tech alarm system, the creakiness would alert us to a stranger’s presence.

  The second floor consisted of bedrooms for me and Isaac, and a bathroom we shared. Bertrand’s bedroom was in the basement, along with a small bedroom he exclusively used. He worked as a freelance translator. He often saw Isaac and me leave the house together late at night, dressed in regular clothes, with our Hero costumes stuffed into a duffel bag. We were usually going out to patrol the city, but Bertrand did not know that. He had no idea we were Heroes. He just thought we were security conscious night owls.

  I went into my bedroom. Nothing was on its off-white walls except scuff marks and holes left by a procession of tenants over the years. The room was bigger than the bedroom in the mobile home I had lived in with Dad on the farm, but not by much. It was more than enough for my needs, though. I lived a pretty spartan existence, a habit I had picked up from my time in the Academy. It’s not like I owned a lot of stuff anyway. The room contained a cheap bed, a chest of drawers with framed pictures of my parents and Neha on top, and a bookcase stuffed full of books. As I hadn’t seen or spoken to Neha since she rejected me when I told her I was in love with her, I knew I should take her picture down. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  The books were my prized possessions. I had bought most of them since moving to Astor City. As busy as I was, I still loved to read. After all, before I met Isaac and Neha, books had been my best friends. After Mom died when I was twelve, Dad and I were too poor to afford to buy books. I spent a lot of time in public libraries as a kid as a result. Now that I was an adult and had a job, it gave me great pleasure to own books. Though my tastes ran to mostly science fiction and fantasy growing up, my time at the Academy and as an Apprentice had ignited an interest in history. As a result, most of the books in my bedroom’s bookcase were biographies and histories.

  I opened my small closet and stowed my messenger bag on top of the shelf. The inside of the closet appeared smaller than it had when I first moved into the house because I had used the carpentry skills Dad had taught me to build a hiding place on the left side of the closet. I had built a similar hiding place in Isaac’s closet in his bedroom. Just as Isaac’s did, my hiding place contained my Heroic paraphernalia. The only Hero-related stuff the hidden area didn’t contain was the wrist communicator I already had on and always wore. Inside of it was: The greenish-black mask whose technology obscured my features when I put it on. My armored Kinetic costume, which was dark green on top and black on the bottom. A police scanner. The thick gold ring with the imprint of a masked man on the face of it that I received along with my Hero’s license. My Hero’s license, which looked pretty much like a college diploma, except I didn’t know any college diplomas that had been signed by the current chairman of the Heroes’ Guild’s executive committee, Pitbull, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Metahuman Affairs, and the President of the United States.

  My two capes were also in this hiding place—a red one from when I graduated the Academy, and a snow white one I got at my Hero swearing-in ceremony. I usually only wore a cape on ceremonial occasions because a cape was a mighty handy thing for an opponent to grab and choke you with.

  The door to my Heroic hideaway looked like nothing more than the narrow side wall of my closet. Apply a little pressure here and a little more there, though, and the “wall” slid open to reveal my hidden things. The hidden area was tiny, barely big enough for me to squeeze inside of. The Batcave it wasn’t. Being a somewhat freshly minted Hero, perhaps it was too soon for me to have a full-scale lair. I looked forward to the day when I had a lair containing an Alfred who would cater to my every whim.

  Looking at the door to my hideaway caused a fresh stab of guilt to my conscience. The image of Antonio’s bloody face staring up at me was still fresh in my mind. What kind of Hero was I to beat Antonio as I had? Yes, I had been trying to protect Hannah. But did the end justify the means? Lawyers said that when a fellow lawyer was appointed to the judiciary, he often came down with an acute case of robe-itis—that is, putting on the judge’s robe and all the power it represented went to the lawyer’s head, making him behave in ways he never would before he became a judge. Had I contracted the Hero equivalent? Did I have cape-itis? Had I let the authority to use my powers my license granted go to my head? Did being a Hero make me think
the rules—both the explicit legal ones and the implicit moral ones—didn’t apply to me?

  I stared at the hidden door my costume hung behind. My stomach twisted. I had planned on going out on patrol after I ate and once darkness fell. The thought of donning my costume and mask and the high ideals they were supposed to represent so recently after having violated those ideals at Antonio’s made me sick. Maybe all work and no play made Theo a dull bully.

  I needed a break. The city would have to hobble along without Kinetic tonight.

  I pulled off my dress shoes, khakis, and button-down shirt. I tossed the clothes into my laundry basket. Already feeling the stresses of the work day draining out of me, I put on shorts and a tee shirt instead. I padded back downstairs and into the kitchen.

  I examined the contents of the refrigerator with a critical eye, trying to decide what I was in the mood for. I tended to eat both clean and prodigiously. In addition to our almost nightly patrols, Isaac and I both worked out several times a week, and my body constantly needed refueling. The Academy and the Old Man had pounded into my head the importance of being as fit and strong as possible since you never knew when you would have to rely on the strength of your body instead of the strength of your superpowers. Thanks to years of training, though I was not the scrawny kid I used to be, neither was I as big and muscular as I intended to eventually be. As Athena had always admonished us when we didn’t seem to be giving our all during Academy training, “Somewhere out there is someone who’s training his tail off while you infants are slacking, whining about how tired you are and how much your body aches. And, when you meet that non-slacker, he will beat you. Battles are won or lost long before they are actually joined by your level of preparation.”

  Plus, though I was not overly vain, being buff looks much better in tight costumes than being pudgy does. Though almost all Heroes were fit—every two years the Guild required us to pass a rigorous fitness exam to maintain our licenses in active status—I had seen a few costumed supervillains with flabby arms and potbellies. It was not a good look.