Half Jack

Riddler

All the terrible parts of my life happened in basements. I hated basements in general--just the moist stink, the sense of nasty and the dirty and the slimy no good world that lurked beneath every shining surface, every seemingly successful happy family, every disgustingly dumb prideful ape who called himself "man". There I sat at the foot of the wooden, creaky stairs with a single shining bulb above my head. My cane resting between my legs and the one crippled good for nothing appendage stretched out like captain ahab's peg leg.

(I will catch the black bat I will catch the black bat)

I sucked in the cancer ridden, dank air. I relived memories of my father's "puzzles" and "games", revisited getting high like they were chapters in an old book. I would plan my traps in here, I decided. Because I was better than my father. I could do better and torture better. I could love better. I beamed.

My smile turned into a quick frown after several minutes. The water had been running far too long for a bath. Much too long. I turned to leave.

I shouldn't have gone into the damn bathroom. Why the fuck did I do that? I was brilliant and already knew what she was trying to do. I went in anyways.

"Evvie!" I dragged her bobbing body up by the shoulders and shut the water off. Water, water everywhere. Her wrists--the trap--were the only thing dry. Stupid. She probably wanted to off herself by her own means. Keep her diginity. What's dignity to a naked person.

Oh god, it hit me right then and there, miserably. She was naked. I rolled my eyes and struggled, flinched getting her slippery body out of the tub and laid her on the floor.

I slapped her face angrily, yelled her name. She wouldn't move. She looked like a dead fish. I sneered my lips back in disgust.

(you're going to have to perform cpr and you know it too)

Shit.

Angel

People good or bad have nightmares.

But the nightmares continued. And they leaked, seeped over the strong dam of my mind, built pressure. So much pressure that soon my mind broke. The water rushed forth with so much fury and force that I had no time to know exactly how to stop it. I could feel it cracking as I washed dishes one afternoon, right before heading out to pick Homer up. I was looking out of the window, at the sky, which suddenly began to change. Storm clouds billowed up before me like a hellish battalion arriving to warn me of something terrible, and three great birds took shape as a giant pain ripped through my skull. So painful that I dropped one of the white porcelain dishes to the kitchen floor. A strange sound like a siren pitched through my mind. I watched the pretty white china fall and split apart in small peices, and it was as if I could feel the shards burrowing into my brain with the force of a bullet.

Three birds. Purple green red. Red. Drip drip drip, plink plink plink

(mad birds don't deserve to die in such a sorry state)

Harvey's voice, "son took the gun. son took the gun."

I lurched towards the counter. The air in my lungs burned unbearably and I could feel my eyes grow larger, larger still. I grasped my cell phone desperately, dialing a number by muscle memory.

My mouth called softly in a voice that wasn't my own, "Help."

And I crashed, crashed. Just like the plate to the floor.

Bruce

I kicked down the door to her apartment. I wasn't sure what was going on after that strange phone call, but if I was going to investigate, I would do it the Bruce Wayne way.

"Angel? Angel?! Oh fu--"

She was on the floor crying, looking off into the window and saying nonsense. There was a round object being spun in her hand. She kept ...ranting... about how the garden was in dischord and the birds were flying away.

"She'll sing again." She laughed. And what I heard in that laughter was something I'd heard before, something that sent chills up the base of my spine. Madness.

"No. No, no, no. Come on Angel. Come on Honey. Stay with me."

(why do we fall bruce

so we can get back up)

And just like that, an Angel fell.

Homer

Sis was late.

Where the hell was she?

I sat down on the sidewalk and kicked my feet, bowing my head to the gutter. Minutes passed, cars drove by. I lifted my head to each one even though I knew it wasn't her. With every minute, worry and fear grew. Nothing would distract me. Nothing.

"Hey Jimmy." I said before Gordy Boy even got halfway across the street. He'd always walk all the way from the high school to bully me with his goons. Alone I could scare him with my purple eyes all I wanted, but with his big friends behind him it was a different story every time. Stupid jocks.

"Looky look it's Homer. Tell us Homie boy when you dream do you dream in color?"

"Sure, maybe if I were gay like you." Seriously, what kind of an insult was that?

Gay was an ignorant and wholly inappropriate thing to say for me, but that was the language these apes spoke.

They laughed and took my backpack from me. I could hear them running back a few steps like they were gonna hide it but I didn't care. I almost had the mind to just pull out Harvey's gun and scare them but I was too focused on Angel and the fact that she wasn't here yet.

They threw my backpack around and whooped like retarded animals, banging insults into my eardrums.

"It's like old times, you waiting around outside like a dumbass."

"One-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater..." They sang that song because of my eyes. Usually they were my source of empowerment. But now I regretted giving my shades away. I would go to penguin for some new ones later that week. That old fart would buy me anything.

"He could just walk home but he's such a baby, wants to show off his sister like a trophy."

"Cause she'll do anything for him cause she feels so so-wwy about what happened."

"Momma went crazy Momma went crazy."

"And someday Sis and Homie will end up just. Like. Her."

"Cause he's just a FREAK."

"Guys..." I could hear Jim suddenly warn.

"FREAK. FREAK. FREAK." They still called.

Something inside me snapped. It was like someone smashed a plate over my head. It was so unexpected, I didn't even know exactly what was happening.

A lot of people "see" red when they attack someone else. I didn't exactly see colors then, but I did smell blood.

There was an animal sound, like a mad dog charging. I think it was my voice, but it sounded like someone else.

(FRRREE-AK GET EM GET EM WHAT'S A GOON TO A GOBLIN nothing nothing)

I went after Jim first, kicking him hard in the groin. I knew I couldn't do anything more and he was gonna call his Dad so I moved fast. I could hear one of the two other boys--Brandon--coming forward to punch me. I spun and bluntly forced the hard palm of my hand into his nose and it cracked, gushed. He cried and fell to the ground. The other one, Devin, whimpered as he dropped my bag to the ground and started running. But for a not-so-little-kid I was fast, and used the backpack to knock him to the cement sidewalk. I then got on top of him and punched. One two one two. I could fell his head whip around and I could smell the blood in his mouth. I wiped the blood on the white of my shirt, I didn't like the feel of it on my hands.

I don't know how long it was, but as soon as I felt Jim's Dad pulling me up and yelling "woah woah woah" I spit on Devin for good measure, growling and sputtering nonsense.

I touched the gun in my coat pocket. Then it was like somebody flipped a coin, and I was calm.