Costumes

Just now, I almost started this by talking about how I was once a kid with hopes and dreams and things just didn’t work out and I turned to crime. I could slap myself, what an idiot. Anytime an ex-con or a thug or a henchman gets a chance to tell their story, they slop around some mess about how they once were wide-eyed, innocent little kids who looked up at the stars and had big notions about what the world was, they were slightly more perceptive and special than the people around them, but all the same things went wrong in the end, oh woe is them. Boo-hooing for their lost path and how things didn’t work out too great. The ol’ leg-breaker with a heart of gold and the world let me down routine. Shut the hell up already. We all thought we’d be superheroes when we were kids.

Anyway. I’m sorry I almost got off on the wrong foot.

Let me start the right way.

I wake up. I open my eyes and things shake. Puddles of blurriness wobble in and out and nothing feels like I’m looking at it. What am I looking at? Everything’s like rays of sunlight underwater, all shadows and blue light in shifting vertical lines.

Noise comes back in, and it’s that of waves crashing. That rhythmic swell and fade of white noise. Under the waves are the sound of a distant screaming girl. She keeps screaming the same noise. Insistent. I realize there are dozens of her. They all sound like my sister, but she’s been dead for five years.

Yeah, I don’t pull it together for a while.

In time I figure out that I’m lying in tall grass in the marsh. The waves were the wind through the cat-tails, and the seagulls were my sister. I think about how odd it was that a seagull sounded like Jessica. I can still hear her voice in those gull-cries. I don’t like it at all.

I stand up and see that I’m about a hundred yards from the road. I realize as I squint into the distance that I know this place- this is where we dump bodies.

It feels like my skin is the only thing holding my skull together. I touch my face and oh my god, I have had the living fuck beaten out of me.

So I begin slogging through the marsh to the road, making a pretty pitiful groaning noise. I think about what happened. I take out my phone to call for a car to come and pick me up, and as I look at my work number, I remember what happened. I start groaning louder. I put away my phone and keep walking.

I’m leaving town. Like, right now. I head in the direction of the bus station.

The guy I work for, my boss, is kinda famous. You’ve heard of him. You couldn’t really call him a mafia boss, or even the leader of a crime syndicate. He’s more like a terrorist with a flair for the theatrical, and he is absolutely ice-cold thundershit insane. My boss is the clown. You’ve seen him on the news, threatening horrific acts in purple suits and white greasepaint. Sometimes he even makes good on his threats. Usually, though, he’s stopped by the guy in the black cape and the pointy ears.

Yeah. That guy. You’ve heard of him, too.

It’s a strange industry, being a henchman in a town like this one. All the big bosses have a weird gimmick. The heroes have stranger ones. My boss and his enemy have the strangest gimmicks of all. I swear, if they ever met each other on the streets without their fancy colorful outfits, they’d probably rub the backs of their necks and make small talk. It’s like the idiot costumes are half the reason they do what they do in the first place. The henchmen, though, we just dress like normal people. Muscle shirts and jeans. Sometimes we get clown masks to wear, but that’s about it. Fine with me, I don’t need some frou-frou ballet tights to fight.

The big bitch of it is that the guys in the costumes always beat us. Always. They fight better, they can do crazy backflips, they can dodge bullets. One of the costume guys can’t be shot at all, or so the story goes. Bullets bounce right off of him. Luckily he doesn’t live around here.

Our local hero is bad enough though. He’s resourceful, he’s smart, he’s tough. He’s also a major asshole. I have my own issues with him, but no henchman in the city hasn’t been knocked out by him at least once.

Anyway. I was thinking about how he always seems to thwart my boss and the organization, and I came upon an idea.

Earlier today, I approached the boss while he was bending over a stack of amusement park blueprints. I could sense the others stiffen at their posts around the room. You didn’t talk to the boss out of turn. He didn’t even notice me, just kept turning maps over, examining buildings, grunting, giggling. I cleared my throat.

“What is it?” he snarled without turning.

“Sir? I’ve been thinking about the newest plan, and about all the jobs we’ve pulled up until now. I think I’ve detected a pattern that... I think maybe I can help the organization to become more profitable.”

“Have you.”

“Yes sir. It’s just that I’ve noticed that all of our jobs these days seem to be centered around... you know... him.” I didn’t want to say his name, as it tended to trigger the boss’s more manic mood swings. You could talk about him, but you don’t say the B-word. “We rarely hit banks at all anymore, or pull ransom jobs that pay off. All our jobs seem to be elaborate traps for him, and we always manage to catch him. But then we give him time to escape, and you wind up in the asylum for a while until we manage to bust you out. So... I suggest we just kill him.”

The boss stopped shuffling papers and turned around. He leaned on the table and crossed his legs so that his right foot’s heel balanced and swayed against his left toe. He smelled terrible. He wore filthy spats over his dress shoes. “You suggest we just... kill him.” He wasn’t smiling.

“Yes sir. The next time we have him trapped, we just walk up and shoot him.”

He was staring at me. Everyone in the room was. I started to think I’d maybe done the wrong thing. Most guys in the crew just go along, try to fly under the radar. Maybe this was why.

“Well, like... like that last plan in the abandoned factory. We caught him, right? We knocked him out with that teddy bear bomb that turned out to just spew knockout gas when defused. We had him. But then we tied him up and suspended him from chains over an acid vat, you gave a very nice speech and we left.”

“Uh huh.”

“...and he escaped.”

The boss’s right foot kept swaying like a cobra’s head. “And you think that as soon as he’d passed out, we should have ‘juth walked up and thot him.’” He grinned. I have a bit of a lisp. I felt my ears blaze red as the other henchmen laughed. I can’t blame them, the boss likes it when people laugh at his jokes.

“I just think,” I went on, very hotly aware of my sibilant s sounds, “that with him out of the way for good, we can move on to other things. Hit banks again. Bomb city hall, for real, maybe. We can stop devoting all our time to trying to kill him and kill him by just cutting out the unnecessary steps. The... the showmanship.”

The boss drummed his fingers in a line, once, and stood erect. “You know, I think I haven’t given this sort of planning enough thought. Maybe taking the simpler path will let us achieve our goals. And what are our goals, again?”

His tone was oozing and sly. I’d clearly displeased him, but showing any sign that I was terrified would have set him on me like a dog. Or so I thought. I wish I’d just turned and run. Instead, I took a breath and voiced my impression of our entire mission statement. “To sow chaos and dischord, and to make enough money doing it to allow us to continue our operations.” I sensed that this hadn’t won him over yet, so I did my best sly wolf grin, conspiratorially, to show that we were all in the same crazy boat. “To spread some laughs in the world.”

This seemed to stop him, and he nodded. “Hmm. You know, that’s... that’s not bad. Maybe I’ve been hung up on the old spoilsport, when we could be getting back to what’s important.” He reached into his jacket. “On the other hand... no.”

A flurry of movement and a THWAP that seemed to fill any empty space in the world, and I was on the ground, bright lights flashing in my vision. What had he hit me with? This seemed to be more important than dealing with the situation at hand and defending myself. It had been wet. Or was I bleeding already?

He swung down on me again. And again. “You know, I think you’ve missed the point of what it is we do all this for. All of this- ALL... of... this...” He struck me with every word. “Is... for... him.”

He kicked me for a while, laughing. The toes of those shoes were wickedly sharp, and I went about the futile task of trying to protect my ribcage from the stabbing blows. As in any good beating, when you guard one area of your body, they kick another. Still you have to try. I sent my arms to where I needed them and was kicked in the face, the neck, the stomach, the crotch. Everywhere. If you haven’t had a beating like that in your life, I can only say fuck you.

He hit me again with whatever he was holding. It bashed against my skull, which in turn bashed against the grimy concrete floor. Then again. I was beyond defending myself at this point, but I was still present. Again he struck me, again, again, again. He dropped his weapon and I heard it slap to the floor. The boss knelt by my head. “We do this all because he and I need each other.” He tittered to himself, hee heeee, and said “He and I are the only two that matter. Us and our little dance. You? You’re just a regular person. You’re nothing.” He looked at the others that stood around the room. “Are we understood? Are we clear?” The other henchmen nodded.

“Good.” He stood and walked away. “Take him away, boys, he’s fish food. In fact, I’ve haddock with him!” This struck him as terribly funny and he threw back his head and laughed his long, cackling laugh.

I saw what the boss had beaten me with, lying nearby. It was the battered carcass of a mackerel. The darkness crept over it and the laughter echoed after me as I went.

I limp into the bus station and approach the ticket window.

“Help you?” The guy in the booth looks up at me and blinks. “Jesus.”

I catch a bit of my own reflection in the bulletproof glass. My face looks like a dozen pomegranates. Drool and blood slicks my chin. I wipe it.

The ticket man looks away and says “I’m... I’m sorry sir. How may I help you today?”

“It’s okay. One ticket to anywhere. Ohio I guess. Somewhere rural. Oklahoma.”

“Where in Oklahoma, sir? We got Tulsa and OK City.”

“I don’t know. Is there a place that’s got no heroes?”

“No heroes?” The man looks back at me and winces.

“No supers. No capes. No villains. Just people.”

In the end I get a ticket for Tulsa. It seems as good a plan as any. From there I could just wander out into the sticks and disappear. I get on the bus. As it rumbles to life, my head rattles against the window and it feels like a beehive. I groan and take my jacket off. There are fish scales on it. I pack it between my head and the window and try to settle in. It’s going to be a long night, but I want to get out of the city as quickly as possible.

We join the expressway and of course I can’t sleep. I just got god knows how many hours of shut-eye in the marsh. You’re not supposed to sleep with a concussion anyway, but I’d happily drop off to get out of this bus ride. Overnight bus trips you can’t sleep through are nothing but a chance to relive everything you ever did wrong in vivid color. A private, self-led tour through your own gallery of regrets. I don’t need the hassle. I try to think of TV shows, 60s songs, anything, but soon I’m walking those old halls and admiring the statuary.

It isn’t long before I get to Jessica. I linger here, as I always do.

Our parents hadn’t been dead long when she’d started coughing. We were sharing a hole in the wall in Little Beijing and the winter poured right in through the sheetrock. They treated her at the emergency room, but we didn’t have the money for continuing treatment and the drugs she needed.

I started to get desperate and made some inroads with local thugs. Started to take on jobs. Small stuff. My first job, we broke a lock on the back of a pawn shop and made away with over thirteen grand’s worth of stuff. My cut was twelve hundred. It was more money than Jessica and I had ever had in our lives. It paid for some drugs and a space heater and a really great take-out dinner. She didn’t eat any, but she smiled through it from her bed.

My second job, we were lifting TVs off the back of a box truck when all of a sudden the streetlights got smashed out and there was smoke everywhere. I heard the sounds of flour sacks being pounded and dropped from just outside my range of vision. Not knowing what to do, I stood there, wildly looking around. The noises stopped and a form walked out of the smoke. I’m embarrassed to admit it now but at first, with those pointy ears, I thought it was the devil. Of course it was just the hero in the damned cape.

At first I was scared, and then almost immediately, I was starstruck. I’d been a fan of this guy for years. All the kids loved him growing up. Who didn’t fantasize about being him, at least once? I imagine a lot of thugs about to take a beating from the guy had the same reaction their first time; a confused mix of leftover hero worship and panic. You’re still in awe of him, but it’s different when he’s walking toward you with fists clenched and you’re holding stolen goods.

Then I started to think about how this TV I was holding was for Jessica’s medicine. He wanted to take the medicine away and put me in jail. I got mad. “This is mine,” I said. “I’m taking it.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he growled, still walking toward me.

I dropped the TV and rushed at him. It was a mistake. It was over very quickly. I couldn’t even tell you what happened, but I woke up in the prison hospital with a shattered arm and a broken palate. He’d hit me so hard that the roof of my mouth actually cracked. It’s a very uncommon injury, the doctor told me. It’s how I got this lisp.

I did eight months, on account of being a first-time offender and that the damned hero didn’t even have the guts to turn up and testify against us. That doesn’t strike me as right. During that eight months, Jessica died. The money and drugs had dried up and I wasn’t there to take care of her.

I don’t even remember what it was that she had. Those goddamned medical names just slip right out.

Anyway, what with my lack of skills and the need to pay off doctor’s bills and the things we’d gotten on credit, I had to jump right back into pickup work for small syndicates and bosses. It’s not so bad. Sure, you hurt people, but you make a living and before long the people don’t matter as much anymore. I imagine it’s like working at a slaughterhouse. Cut yourself off from what your job is and just get it done.

The bus is rumbling well out of the city, and I’m staring off at nothing in particular. I’m not crying. I’ve spent way too many late nights replaying this shit in my head to have it bring me down that far anymore, but the added bonus of the boss’s betrayal has this whole thing colored differently.

It’s funny that after trying to get away from the caped hero, I took shelter with the one guy that wanted to be around him more than anything. It’s what you might call a codependent relationship or whatever. Those two deserve each other. In the end it didn’t matter, I just took a different beating. Nothing’s been worth it.

You? You’re just a regular person. You’re nothing.

That bubbled up out of nowhere. The boss’s white face, grinning into my broken one, telling me I’m nothing. I clench my jaw and it hurts from the beating, which makes me clench harder. Costumes run this city. Colorful dopes in tight-fitting spandex, lording over us from the rooftops. All we do is try to clean up their mess and deal with human problems as we can with our police departments and construction sites. I’ve never felt like such an ant.

You’re just a regular person.

I hate them.

You’re nothing.

My blood’s racing and I need to calm down. It’s not going to do me any good to have a coronary on my way to Tulsa. My eyes are probably bloodshot enough. Still, though, the closer I get to Oklahoma, the angrier I get. I’m thinking about Jessica, and me, and her life, and mine, and how none of it’s added up to a fucking thing, just because my boss and his archenemy don’t have the balls to kill each other.

It isn’t long before I come to an idea, and then a plan, and then a decision. I get off the bus in Decatur and hop the next one back to the city.

The first thing I do is get checked out by a doctor. Not a real doctor, but a hack that lost his license and works on crooks for cash. There’s a ton of them in this city. He says I don’t have a concussion, wraps my head in bandages and gives me a bottle of expired painkillers.

Secondly, I get to work. I need to recall everything I can about the boss’s latest scheme, the one he was working on yesterday before my untimely firing. It’s not hard, as I’d paid extra attention so that I could make my case to him for all the good it did me. Amusement park. An ambush. A nefarious deathtrap. I think I can work with this.

The plan was set to go off on Thursday night, if I remember correctly. I’ve got two days. I begin stocking up. I revisit my apartment and remove the emergency fund I had stashed in the bathroom light fixture. I feel like I’m going to get caught as I walk out, but no one’s around. They thought I was dead, and I’m not worth tailing anyway. It’s another layer of insult to the nearly fatal injury.

At the hardware store I pick up a basic tool kit, a flashlight, a pair of binoculars, gloves, a sleeping bag, a power drill, an amp meter, a remote car starter kit.

I go to the amusement park around three in the afternoon. Before I do anything, I put on my gloves. I must remember to leave my gloves on. If this goes as planned, I can’t leave any prints. Not on a wall, not on a window, not on an apple core. Nothing.

The fence is just open and I walk right in. Dry leaves blow across the yellow-brown grass that’s growing over everything. Ancient smiling clown faces, peeling with paint, hang everywhere. The place is falling apart in grand style. I do a sweep of the grounds. I don’t touch anything. Bumper cars. Big top. Roller coaster. I see myself in the funhouse mirror. The lumps in my face are leaking yellow stuff through the gauze.

Some areas have clearly been used by the boss before, with faded green spray painted arrows, HA HA painted in purple. An old pop-gun with a BANG! flag hanging from the barrel lies in the weeds. There are only so many abandoned amusement parks in any city.

The henchmen should be arriving after nightfall, to work on the site under cover of darkness. I climb a ladder up into one of a half-dozen creaking industrial watchtowers that overlooks the entire park, lay out my sleeping bag and items, and wait.

This tower must be a hundred feet tall, rickety and splintered. As tall as it is, you barely notice it against the other buildings surrounding the park. That’s this city- everything’s got something else looming over it. Even the highest point in the city has looming dark clouds, which sometimes seem to be part of its black architecture. I lay back against the wall as the sun crawls behind the buildings, topped with their enormous plaster iconography. The hat factory has a giant hat, the toy factory has a weathered and two-story tall tin soldier, and so forth. The city used to be a great basis for industry. That was decades ago. Now... well, good riddance. I can’t wait to leave.

The henchmen arrive around eight, dressed in orange jumpsuits like night-shift crewmen. They begin their renovations. I watch everything from my perch. My hands are sweating, but I do not take off my gloves.

I wake up at noon the next day. The henchmen left around five a.m.. I yawn and wish I’d brought a toothbrush. It’s just as well, several of my molars feel loose anyway. Mackerel are bad for your teeth. I giggle at this as I climb down the ladder with my bag of tools and get a start on the day. The action will start tonight.

I’ve only got two changes to make to one of the rides, but it’s going to take a while. I find the utilities map and locate the water pump. I get to work.

When I’m finished, it’s around six. I double check and everything seems to be in place. I climb the ladder to my watchtower. There, I eat a can of fruit cocktail and watch another sunset glow away between the alleys.

The henchmen return. Tonight they’re not wearing their jumpsuits. They’re dressed for their real job, in black tank tops and camo pants, black boots and clown masks. Submachine guns slung along the shoulders of some, spiked bats, pipes and pistols for others. They spread all over the park and turn on the power. With a grinding start that reminds me of a worn-down record player coming to life, warbling caliope music begins playing through shitty speakers and colored lights warm the garish clown-faced attractions as they spin in place or bob slowly up and down. Everyone turns their eyes to the sky and waits, including me.

In a half hour, we see it: a stenciled spotlight haunting the underside of the clouds. The hero’s signal. He comes when the police turn it on. Seeing it never fails to give me the creeps. I check to see that the car starter is still in my pocket. It won’t be long now.

In another twenty minutes, movement catches my eye. It’s his shadow on the bulding opposite me, stretched to about fifty feet wide. He’s gliding on his outstretched cape and then in a flash the shadow is gone. I hunch down in my watchtower and look around with wide eyes, trying to see into the darkness lining the park as best I can.

A furtive thump on the roof above me. I barely suppress a gasp and almost drop my binoculars. If he hears me in here the whole plan is shot. A bit of his cape slips over the front of the roof. It’s a slippery black satin and that texture, seeing the light ripple darkly along it, fills me with the urge to run. Go back to the bus station, or better yet, just hurl myself to the ground now and save the trouble. I focus all my energy on breathing calmly and quietly.

He’s taking in the park, the placement of the henchmen, who has what weapon. In a moment he’s gone again, gliding away, extending his legs to kick one of the thugs. I’m pretty sure it’s Terry. Nice enough guy.

I watch him sneak from shadow to shadow, taking out henchmen with every stop, and then he’s off to the next. From my perspective here in the watchtower I follow it all. Seeing him work like this really humanizes him. Most of the thugs in the city don’t think he’s human at all. Some even think he’s a ghost. Despite myself, I’m a bit let down. It’s like watching a magician work with his tricks exposed.

Soon it’s just him and the boss and the boss’s two bodyguards. They have a brief showdown. I can’t hear everything that’s being said, but the boss has pulled one of his cartoonish guns from his jacket. It’s a purple snubnose with a barrel that must be about four inches in diameter. He says some line and laughs. I’m sure it was a good one, the boss always has great lines. He pulls the trigger and a cloud of confetti and streamers explodes from the barrel. The hero, blinded, is attacked and beaten down by the thugs. They don’t beat him to death, they just bash him around a bit and then carry him to the trap he’s going to escape from.

This time it’s the tunnel of love. The boss has had it fitted with animatronic cupids that fire real arrows as the subject, locked into his seat, moves slowly toward the tunnel’s mouth. Should take about thirty seconds to reach the kill-zone, which is plenty of time for the hero to get free. Standard stuff. They bolt the hero into the minecart. He’s snarling something. The boss is cackling his mad laughter and capering.

No one seems to notice that the water of the tunnel’s track has risen several inches overnight and now floods the platform. The boss is about to push the red button. He’s saying some new line, some false farewell that’ll tie into the tunnel of love somehow. You’ve got a date... with death, perhaps.

I press the button on the car starter.

The four of them start jerking as the current hits the water. I give them several seconds of it, then turn it off and begin my scramble down the ladder. I’m almost afraid one of them will be awake by the time I get to them, but they’re all down, and no one’s dead. The trickiest part was working out the amperage to down four people with just a track battery and a couple of inches of filthy water. In my time as a henchman I’ve done some light electrical work, so I guess I owe the boss for this one.

I slap handcuffs on the henchmen and the boss. I check the hero’s restraints and he’s locked in really well, but metal bar and handcuffs or no, he’s going to pick this and escape in no time. I’ve seen it before. I have other precautions for him, and I take them.

It’s time.

I pass smelling salts under the boss’s nose. He comes to with a jerk and groggily looks around. His arms pull against the handcuffs as he gets his bearings. He sees me waking up the hero. I put the smelling salts back in my pocket.

I remember I’m wrapped up in bandages. “It’s me,” I say. “The regular person.”

It still takes him a few moments. “You.” He begins to laugh. “Fishface! Lisp-boy! I didn’t think you had it in you. Ha ha! Looks like you found a costume after all. Could use a little sprucing up. Some hemming around the edges perhaps, hee hee heeee!”

I look to the hero. “I see you squirming for your lockpicks. Don’t bother. Look at your fingers. He looks down to see them, smashed, every one. It only took a minute with the hammer. I got all the tarsal bones in his hands, too. He’s not escaping this time.

“Guh,” he says. The boss just laughs harder, as if this is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. It may well be. All those punchlines, and guh takes the cake.

I take out my gun and the laughter stops. The boss is staring at me very seriously. I’ve never seen him so concerned. This new expression feels like sunshine on my face, welcome and warming. I turn to the hero, who is staring at his shattered hands.

“You,” I say. “You should have let me go, man. My sister died.”

He looks up and starts to say something. I think it’s “what?” I shoot him in the face, right in the upper lip. Teeth and blood fan out in a spray. The boss begins screaming. I shoot again, in the hole I’d made. I like the feeling and empty the entire gun into the hero’s head. The boss screams a gobbling, furious shriek. His eyes are wild yellow and green marbles that turn like they’re bouncing off walls as they roll.

“Like that,” I say. I open the gun and the spent shells ticky-tack a marimba rhythm on the minecart’s fiberglass body. The screams take another shape, turning from panic and shock to rage. I begin reloading the gun and look at him. He’s bitten clean through his lip. He smells awful, like burnt hair and badly-spiced meat. He radiates a chemical hate smell that almost shines like light.

I clack the gun shut and he lunges at me, free of his handcuffs. Surprised, I step back and stumble, slipping on the platform. He’s on me. We tumble through the shallow water and the gun skitters away. He’s screaming hellishly and trying to grab at my neck, but his hands have melted. I’d taken away the hero’s escape tools, but didn’t count on the boss’s novelty squirt flower. He keeps it filled with acid, and the squeezebulb is always just up his sleeve in case he needs it. He must have pinched the bulb off and let his hands bubble away to red-pink froth and bones. He must hate me more than he’s ever hated anything. Even as I struggle, this pleases me.

He’s screaming and flecks of blood and spit-foam are spraying my bandages. I think he’s trying to bite me. He’s deceptively strong in his madness.

Of course he’s strong, I think. I’m just a regular person.

I’m the one laughing now. My grasping hand finds something in the water. It’s the hammer I’d discarded after breaking the hero’s hands, and I whip it up in an arc. It smacks cleanly against the side of the boss’s face, and something there breaks audibly. I laugh harder and hit him again. He stops fighting and the screams turn to groans. It’s hysterical, so I hit him again.

I keep hitting him for a while. It was just that funny.

I sit the boss’s body in the minecart next to the hero. His pulped head lolls against the hero’s broad black shoulder. It’s perfect. They really were made for each other.

I light the tunnel of love on fire and hit the red button, activating the minecart. It crawls through the water toward the fiery tunnel. The cupids, lit by the flames, begin firing their arrows. The minecart disappears into the tunnel with its lovers.

As I walk away I catch my reflection in the ticket booth’s glass. I stop and wonder.

Looks like you found a costume after all.

With the two of them dead, I could really make a splash in this town. The game is about to change around here and I could get a jump on things. I could keep the bandages and gloves and become some mystery man, some dark figure no one would ever mess with. No one but other costumes.

Of course, the practical thing would just be to get the hell out of town. Jump right back on the bus to Tulsa. Go and stay gone.

God damn me. I was a wide-eyed innocent kid once, and I did have hopes and dreams. One was to wear a cape. I would run around on the lawn with a beach towel tied around my neck. I was strong, I could fly, and no one could defeat me. It was the best bright time of my life.

Under the noise of the approaching sirens and the fire, I hear the screaming of seagulls.