Supers Box Set Read online

  SUPERS,

  acts I & II

  a novel by Kristofer Bartol

  SUPERS, acts I & II

  Copyright © 2019 Kristofer Bartol

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover designed by Kristofer Bartol.

  Title font: Niagara Engraved; also, Onyx, Letter Gothic Std. Photos from the public domain, incl. “Marker,” Ronald A. Wilson; “Wanderer above the sea of fog,” Caspar David Friedrich.

  For Leah, my wife, whose strength knows no bounds;

  For Kris & Deborah, my parents, whose moralistic childrearing taught me to seek absolutes in a grey world;

  And for all those who act authentically, honestly, and nobly—whether they go celebrated or unacknowledged; regardless of how small or difficult the feat may be—to help shape our world in infinite and immeasurable ways, through ethics, compassion, respect, truth, and integrity.

  Upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.

  — Alexander the Great, 326 BC

  The world's a stage, and we're all players.

  — Mike Milligan, 1975 AD

  ( I | I )

  Chalk lubricates the end of a wooden dowel, turned down towards a field of green felt. Clasped between a ringlet of fingers, the polished dowel slides forward and back, taunting a docile orb of white resin. The man behind the dowel raises an eyebrow, looking over his shoulder at his compatriots—drifters, bikers, lowlifes; men who’ve never won more than a game of billiards.

  The flared tip of his black coif falls over his brow, slick with brylcreem and sweat, a bead of which rolls down his mandible to settle in the crook of his cleft chin. He exhales, drawing back the dowel. His bicep bulges beneath his loose leather jacket. He attempts gentleness.

  On the apex of his concentration, a sharp ringing cuts the air, and he relinquishes the cue to the floor. The ringing blares again, followed by a click and a greeting. Only the jukebox defies the silence, as the pub’s patrons turn their eyes to the man in black. The bartender yelps.

  “Jude!” he shouts.

  The man in black wipes the chalk from his hands on his denim jeans. He looks up, met by a dozen patient stares, and half-empty beer steins held close by crusty hands.

  The bartender again, “Jude!”

  The man in black turns to the counter—old wood wearing epoxy and yellow stains.

  “The Grand National Bank on Fourth and Cherry!”

  The man nods curtly, contemplating behind a vacant glare. He inhales, eyes closed, and cracks his neck.

  Invigorated, he awakens, throwing off his leather jacket and unbuckling his belt. The bartender grabs a rope that hangs beside him; pulling it, a hatch in the ceiling rolls aside, allowing potent sunlight to bathe the man undressing. The ruffians of the bar watch with refined courtesy as the man removes his t-shirt, revealing a blue spandex suit beneath; the white star emblazoned on the front shines within the skewed cube of illumination that rains from above.

  Kicking off his jeans, the man shouts to the bartender, “Who?”

  “What?”

  He readies himself like a sprinter on a starting block, looking up to the hatch. “Who?”

  The bartender squints, and the man’s temper is lost.

  “Who, Sam? Who is it?”

  “Fogman!” shouts the bartender, “it’s Fogman!”

  The man unclenches his fists. The muscles in his arms, shoulders, and back relax, followed by the unwinding of his legs and the weakening of his stance. His arms fall to his side and his lips purse; he sucks on the inside of his cheek, like a disappointed child. He knocks twice on his thigh, nods, and scoops up his jeans, feeding one spandex leg in at a time.

  The patrons of the pub look-on in confusion. The bartender rewinds the hatch with a hesitance born of uncertainty. One shifty-eyed drifter scratches the underside of his bearded chin with the backs of his fingernails. He opens his mouth, exposing the last of his teeth.

  “Hey, Adjudicator,” primes the drifter. “Wh- Why you ain’t leavin’?”

  The man finishes the clasp on his belt; the last of the hatch’s light wipes away from his face.

  He sighs, turning to the bartender. “What did I do last year?”

  The bartender stares. “You mean like what?”

  “The big thing; what was the big thing last year, in all the headlines?”

  The bartender thinks while the Adjudicator pulls his t-shirt over his head.

  “Oh,” chimes the drifter, “yer talkin’ bout the Leviathan.”

  “Right,” says the Adjudicator, fastening his leather jacket. “Big fish in a big pond. Tell me: With what does the butcher carve a hog?”

  The drifter calculates. “Cleaver.”

  “Now, when he goes home, does he cut-up a microwaved chicken cordon bleu with that same knife?”

  “Naw,” the drifter scratches, “prolly a bread knife.”

  “Right—a bread knife. Cleaver would be overkill. You don’t spend a cleaver’s blade on a chicken cordon bleu.” He retrieves his cue stick from the floor. “If it were Hominid, or Husk, or Luminary—three fresh and hearty steaks—then in all likelihood I would’ve flown on down there.” He levels the cue stick with the felt table, aiming at the docile white ball. “But Fogman ain’t no steak, and I ain’t risking the bridle on some chicken cordon bleu.”

  He pumps the cue into the ball, leading it to strike another with the snap of a bullwhip, to ricochet into the corner pocket. The cue ball rolls to a stop on the green.

  “Naw,” the Adjudicator says, lifting the cue stick and reapplying chalk to the tip, to squeak like the wonky wheel of a grocery cart. “Leave the microwave dinners for the cops, I say.” He blows the tip clean of its excess blue dust. “All knives are hungry to cut, one way or another.”

  ( I | II )

  A blue stripe spans the roof of a white car, bumper to bumper, split in the middle by a set of flashing red and blue lights. She roars down the city streets, cleared by a succession of green lights and the parted tides of traffic. The driver's side window rolls down and a pale, hairy arm protrudes to rub-out a spent cigar on the exterior door. Ash smears the decal, “Metro Police 371.”

  The cruiser locks its brakes and skids to a stop, cantered in the middle of the road. Across the street sits a stout sign, engraved in bronze, “Grand National Bank,” and a flight of stone steps leading up to a misshapen cube of fog, fifty feet high and two-hundred feet wide. An American flag breaches the top of the dense cloud.

  Officer Raymond Tessio peers out his window at the geometric fog, pulling his aviator sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to uncover his cold brown eyes. He turns to look at his partner, Officer Cesar Singleton, and they share a vacant expression, void of enthusiasm. Singleton shakes a small plastic container under his nose, dropping two chiclets into his fat mouth. He itches the paper-thin black caterpillar growing above his upper lip.

  Tessio smooths his palm over the sheen of his scalp, textured like a leather glove. He sighs and lowers the volume on their stereo, quieting the sentimental rock stylings of Bryan Adams, and replacing the din with the staticky chatter of their comrades’ transmissions. He lifts the receiver to his chapped lips, combing the squawk-box with his chestnut bristles, thick, like those of a walrus or a midwestern cowboy.

  “Dispatch, this is car three-seven-one,” Tessio reports, eyeballing the cube of haze. “Can confirm,” he sighs, “Fogman present at Grand National Bank.”

  The radio crackles. Officer Singleton kn
eads his gum with his incisors, beyond flared lips.

  “Copy,” says a woman through the radio, with a tone as dismal as the officers’ eyes. “Proceed as usual.”

  “Ten-four.” Tessio hangs the receiver. He thumbs the bridge of his sunglasses so they’re flush with his face, and he wets the ends of his mustache with a lateral sweep of his tongue. Singleton yawns, bellowing the sandman’s roar, capped by a gentle cough to keep his gum out of his throat. He looks to Tessio with half-lidded eyes, swallowing his pride before stepping out of the cruiser. He closes the door and twists his torso, stretching his back and shoulders.

  Singleton bends down to the passenger window, looking inside. He bangs his fist on the roof of the car, resounding metallic. “Ray,” he says, “let’s go. I’ve gotta pick-up my kids in forty minutes.”

  Tessio groans and climbs out of his seat. He slams the door behind him.

  The two officers trudge across the street. They look to the cement sidewalk, swinging their arms and mounting the stone stairs in a limping swagger. Singleton’s shoes scrape the granite with every step.

  “Cesar, man,” Tessio groans, gesturing below, “lift your damn feet when you walk.”

  “I’ve been walking over forty years now, Ray, I think I’ve got it.”

  “Whatever, man. But if I call your mom and tell her you’re shuffling like a-”

  Singleton lifts his knees, striding like a drum major. He snickers. “Don’t tell my mom, man!”

  Tessio cracks a smile.

  They stop at the top of the steps, to face a smooth wall of swirling gray fog. Tessio leans in to listen as his thumb unclasps his holster, readying his pistol. From beyond the misty barrier blares a muffled alarm, syncopated by distant shouts, careless footsteps, and a woman’s whimper.

  Singleton unhooks a pair of handcuffs from his belt and readies them in one hand; with the other, he shakes loose two more chiclets from their box, into his damp mouth. He clears his throat.

  The shouting within the geometric haze becomes clear: “Stay down, stay down,” asserts a tired male, “I am not against shooting any and all of you! I have a gun—a very clean gun—and I will use it if I need to.”

  Tessio looks to his partner with furrowed brow and pursed lips; he shakes his head and clasps closed his holster.

  The voice within reaffirms his copper-plated potential, suggesting he might even have a second gun—and it, too, is very clean. Tessio and Singleton step quietly away from each other, and closer to the fog, flanking the main thoroughfare. The voice within grows nearer, and more spirited.

  Singleton leans in to listen as Tessio holds aloft a finger—a sign of patience. The voice beyond the wall of Jovian fog sings self-praises. Ever-louder, he shouts, “and if anyone asks, tell ‘em you had your pennies lifted by the maestro of mist! Your cash boxes bungled by the ethereal evader! Your vault plundered by the crown prince of the clouds; the harbinger of haze; the irrepressible, indefatigable specter of the wind… Fogman!”

  Out from the turbulent swirls leaps a man clad in cloth—torn, browned, and dirty—with unkempt gray hair and wild eyes. Wispy tails of smog cling to him as he falls away from the cube of haze. Each of his hands clutch a plastic grocery bag stuffed with loose dollar bills.

  Fogman grins as he bounds out the murk, only for Officers Tessio and Singleton to grab him by the shoulders and heave him to the floor. Fogman lands square on his back, knocked free of his breath and left gasping for air. Singleton flips him over and binds his wrists with handcuffs. Tessio scoops-up the two plastic bags of loose cash and flings them underhand into the fog, which begins to disapparate—taken by the wind, in curls and phases, uncovering an ornate, century-old testament to stonemasonry.

  Singleton and Tessio lift Fogman to his feet and walk him down the steps, wheezing all the way. They load him into the back of their cruiser and flash each other a raised brow. Tessio starts the engine and calls-in via squawk-box the successful annulment of The Heist at Grand National Bank. Dispatch confirms, and Singleton shrouds Fogman’s coughing-fit with the synth-pop musings of Duran Duran.

  As the cruiser starts down the road, and the two officers begin to nod along to “Hungry Like the Wolf,” a sudden blanket of cream-colored clouds enshrouds the vehicle. Tessio stomps on the brakes, and the car lurches. Fogman chuckles.

  “Fogman, goddamnit,” Tessio yells, “let-up on the cloud cover!”

  Fogman’s playful snickering morphs into belly-laughter.

  Grumbling, Tessio snatches the receiver. “Dispatch, this is car three-seven-one. I need an escort.”

  A woman’s voice crackles through: “Fogman again?”

  Tessio confirms. Singleton exhales a bilabial trill and cozies himself into the corner of his seat, arms-crossed and eyes closed.

  Fogman smiles at Tessio through the rearview mirror. His wrinkled, dirty face seems evermore boyish the rosier it becomes. He opens his mouth.

  “Guess—”

  “No,” Tessio interrupts.

  “Guess how many dollars I have… in my pants.”

  “Zip your lips, Fogman.”

  “Take a guess.”

  “No!”

  “How many dollars—”

  “Quiet!”

  “I have in my-”

  “Ten!” shouts Singleton, eyes still closed.

  Fogman leers at Tessio through the rearview. “Lower.”

  Tessio tells his partner to ignore the perp, but Singleton murmurs, “Nine.”

  “Lower,” Fogman croons, rattling his larynx.

  Singleton relents, “Eight.”

  Fogman braces his shoulders against the headrest and arcs his back, using his shackled hands to slide his pants down to his knees, unfurling eight dollar bills from his crotch. He imitates the dinging bell of a slot machine as he shakes loose the grimy cash, and he laughs.

  Tessio presses his face against the steering wheel. Singleton buries himself into the corner, clamping his eyes shut.

  “Fogman,” Tessio pleads, staring through the rearview, “lift your cloud so we can leave—please!”

  Singleton adds, “You’re only delaying the inevitable.”

  Fogman rocks his head side-to-side as he stamps his feet against the carpeted floor, and he laughs.

  Singleton snaps, “I gotta pick-up my kids, man!” He whines, “They’re in school!”

  “I am the maestro of mist! The ethereal evader!”

  “You’re in the backseat of a cruiser, ya fuggin’ drug-addled idiot! You haven’t evaded anything!”

  “The harbinger of haze!”

  Streamlets of fog seep-in through the dashboard vents.

  Tessio swats the air before him with fanned hands. “Enough with the goddamn fog!”

  Shrill, the vagrant cheers, “Fogman strikes again!”

  ( I | III )

  Dime-sized stains of evaporated moisture bespeckle the upper-half of a bruised locker door. A brown thumb presses a white wad of gum to the black metal, stamping another stain among a hundred likewise silhouettes.

  The same thumb hooks the underside of a cotton collar, pulling a white t-shirt up a man’s neck and over his head. His bare back, brown and bruised, is stained with ink, black and faded: a gothic crucifix from blade to blade, the length of his spine. He carries a lifetime upon his shoulders, from 1977 to 1985. Within the gothic crossbar resides the name “RAMÓN SINGLETON.”

  The officer opens his locker and discards his t-shirt, taking instead a stick of deodorant and applying it liberally to his armpits. A sharp hissing preludes a wet mist, wafting into Singleton’s personal bubble. He chokes on the pungent moisture and waves the air clear of it.

  Sergeant Tessio leans in behind him, holding aloft a can of aerosol body spray—its trigger engaged. He whispers, “Fogman strikes again!”

  Singleton thrusts his elbow behind him until he finds his mark, turning to deliver four superficial punches to his partner’s bare abdomen. Tessio laughs as he parries the blows. The pendant on his necklace—a
Star of David—bounces in-and-out his matted bushels of chest hair.

  “I’ve had my fill of Fogman for the day,” Singleton says, snatching the aerosol can from Tessio’s hand. “But thanks, Ray.” He spritzes Tessio with three bursts of artificial cologne before tossing the can back to him.

  Singleton props his foot up and loosens his shoelaces. Tessio bobbles his head in delight, turning back to his locker and shelving the can. His hand rediscovers a folded paper there, which he removes and flicks at his partner. Singleton shrugs-off the impact.

  “Did you see that?”

  “No, Ray, I felt it.”

  Tessio pantomimes the grabbing of Singleton’s head and kneeing it, emphasized with a plosive guffaw.

  “Did you read it, is what I’m saying.”

  “I didn’t get one, whatever it is.”

  “Everyone got one.”

  “Well I didn’t. What’s in it?”

  “Word from on high. Baumgartner is being made lieutenant: Homicide.”

  “Shit,” Singleton sighs, dropping his shoulders. “You gotta be kidding me… I'm old enough to be his dad.”

  “Yeah, well, you aren't. Frankly,” Tessio leans in, whispering, “I smell some kinda nepotism or some shit. If you recall, in oh-five, it was Baumgartner Senior who bagged and flipped Jack Frost—so maybe if that had been you or I-”

  “What's she go by now? Ice Baby?”

  “Ice Ice Baby, I heard.”

  “Fucking millennials.” Singleton shakes his head.

  “So Baumgartner Senior dies on the hunt for El Odio, twenty-ten, doesn't get his full credit for the flip, and passes the glory on to his son.”

  “Yeah, and what's his son ever done? Direct a few traffic flows around construction; interrogate a few disgruntled spouses with painted hands; maybe bag a dealer or two—we've done all that.”