Hero (35 page)

"C'mon!" My voice broke like a little boy's. "We're losing her!"

Larry's CPR compressions shook her body. I thought I heard a rib crack. I could feel Scarlett's breath blow out of the hole in Ruth's chest.

"WHERE'S THE FUCKING AMBULANCE!" Scarlett screamed.

Then Ruth coughed and suddenly came to, and opened her eyes for just a moment. She began to say something through her bloodstained lips, and Scarlett leaned in close to listen. I kept my hands welded to Ruth's chest, covering the wound, and then I experienced a new sensation I'd never felt when using my powers before.

My hands went cold.

Ruth struggled to whisper a few words to Scarlett. I leaned over and looked right into her eyes.

"You've got to help me, Ruth! Fight it!"

I didn't want her to see me cry. Scarlett was bawling, and Larry put his arm around her.

The corners of Ruth's mouth raised ever so slightly, and she looked at me with heavy, sleepy eyes.

"I was wrong," she said, her voice weak, barely audible. "About what happens after ..."

"Don't go, Ruth! PLEASE!"

Her eyes suddenly lit up as if she saw something else. Her face looked joyful, and tears of happiness, relief, and joy rolled down her cheeks. She whispered her final words to me.

"He's there, Thom," she said. "He waited for me."

Ruth's eyes rolled back in her head. I gently closed her eyelids.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

RUTH'S FUNERAL WAS a simple, unadorned affair, much like her life. Even though it was summer, the day was gray and a chilly mist drizzled in the air. The funeral home attendant asked if I'd like to say a few words, but I declined. Ruth had always been the one with something to say.

Scarlett wore a black dress that was far too short for a funeral, and bawled throughout the ceremony. She wouldn't let Golden Boy stand near her. Each time he approached to lend her some comfort, she'd slip through the scant crowd to another pew. Larry sneezed uncontrollably throughout the whole service.

Ruth deserved a better memorial than this; Ruth deserved a better life. She was my friend, and she never gave a shit that I was gay. She actually believed in me, and now I didn't see how I was going to go on without her. There was a tremendous bouquet of expensive flowers on the altar from the League. How generous. It was so big that it dwarfed the casket. In fact, it took me a few minutes to realize there even was a casket. A reporter or two lingered by the door. No one from the League bothered to attend.

I turned around and scanned the crowd. Maybe I hoped to catch someone from her life lurking in the background. A relative, her old partner from the Wrecking Balls, anyone I could share a memory with. Anything to keep her memory alive just a little bit longer.

I thought I saw someone dressed in black hiding in the foyer. I excused myself and stole out of the pew to see who it was. My shiny black Sunday school shoes looked brand new, and they were smooth on the bottom because I rarely wore them. As a result I slipped on the carpet in the middle of the aisle, and everyone saw me drop. Shit! The last thing I wanted to do was make a mockery of Ruth's service. As I started to get up from the floor, I made eye contact with Scarlett, who grinned and stifled a laugh.

I thought for a second and realized that no one would have enjoyed me sprawled out on the floor of her funeral more than Ruth. She would have been cackling louder than anyone. I chuckled and began to push myself off the floor.

And suddenly I was standing face-to-face with a new guest.

"Hello, Thom," my father said.

Dad always looked good in his black suit. His broad shoulders filled out the jacket, and he looked more comfortable and relaxed than he ever did in his starched factory uniform.

"Sorry I'm late," he whispered. "How's it going?"

A real barrel of laughs, Dad, it's a funeral.

"Where have you been?" I asked, loud enough for the peo-ple in the back of the chapel to turn around and look at us.

Dad tilted his head and stared at me. It sounded like an accusation from his own son, and I didn't mean it to come out that way, but I'd been thinking about it since Justice asked me the same question. I thought about the clean uniform in the washing machine and how I'd seen so little of him lately.

I rubbed the back of my neck, felt the leather string of the necklace Mom had given me. I went to reach for the ring, to feel the perfect circle between my fingers, but I stopped short. I couldn't tell him about seeing Mom. I kept myself from even thinking about it.

We hadn't really talked about anything since I'd decided to step forward at the news conference. I bit down on my lip to stop it from quivering.

I looked up to him with sad eyes. Neither of us said a word for the longest time. Neither of us moved.

I couldn't read his expression. It was solemn, his eyes deep with pain. But there was something more in his face, and I couldn't tell if it was disappointment, fear, or something worse, maybe anger. His chest heaved as he drew in a long breath. I thought he wanted to speak to me, but maybe he didn't know what to say.

I didn't know what to say either, but I knew one thing with all my heart: I needed him to hold me. Like all those times when I was sick and he came upstairs to my room and held me through the night and told me everything was going to be okay. I was racked with pain and guilt and grief, and I missed Ruth so much. If he just held me I could cling to the idea that my father could somehow fix everything.

As he looked at me, suddenly I caught a glimpse that he was fighting just as hard as I was to hold back tears. But he didn't move forward. His arms remained at his sides. He couldn't bring himself to touch me.

I reached out to hug him, and the minute I stepped toward him I knew it had been a grave mistake.

He winced and pushed my hands away.

Without meeting my eyes, he turned his back on me and walked out of the memorial chapel with strong, even strides.

I stood alone in the aisle, stunned. I knew everyone in the chapel had seen it, but it didn't matter what they thought. I had seen it.

The service ended, and Larry called me over to a side exit with Scarlett and Golden Boy. We snuck into the back room, where Ruth's casket had been taken. Larry looked to Golden Boy, who did a quick loop of the place.

"We good?" Larry asked.

Golden Boy nodded.

"We only have a minute before they take her away," Larry said, and opened the lid of her casket.

Ruth was perfectly white, her skin alabaster, her face at peace, her cheekbones smooth and lifted, her lips so full and red that you couldn't even tell where they'd been sewn shut by the embalmer. Unfortunately, they'd smeared a shade of tacky green eye shadow on her eyelids that she'd never have worn herself. Sure, she was a ballbuster, but she had terrific taste. She always knew how to work with what she had, and she was a great lady.

Scarlett leaned over the casket and placed her hand gently on Ruth's. She ran her young, slender fingers over Ruth's spindly digits, and then held up Ruth's limp hand and stroked it like she was caressing a baby. She stopped at Ruth's ring finger.

The only piece of jewelry Ruth wore was her League probationary ring. We looked at each other, and then at Ruth's four bare fingers. None of us said another word. We didn't need to.

Scarlett slid the League probationary ring off her own finger and held it up with a sad but determined look on her face. Larry, Golden Boy, and I slid our rings off our fingers, too, and held them up.

Scarlett whispered something into Ruth's rosy, powdered ear and slid her ring onto Ruth's pinky finger, then stood up to make room for Larry. Larry leaned over the casket, gave Ruth a sweet kiss on her forehead, and slipped his ring onto Ruth's middle finger. He smiled a little that he'd got the one finger she'd used the most in life. Golden Boy moved up, careful to step around Scarlett, and gently held Ruth's hand and slipped his ring on her index finger. He laid her hands back on her chest in a crossed position and closed his eyes, his lips moving in a silent prayer.

Then it was my turn. I reached in the casket and grabbed hold of Ruth and hugged her as tightly as I possibly could without snapping any of her brittle bones, and I slid my League ring onto her thumb and carefully laid her back on the worm-proof satin cushion, and closed the lid.

We stood there for a long time over our fallen teammate. We didn't need to speak. We all knew it was over. Then slowly,

one by one, we each went our separate ways without saying so much as good-bye.

I couldn't bring myself to leave the funeral home. As soon as I saw the last car leave, I doubled back round to the delivery docks by the garage. Ruth's casket was sitting alone on the loading dock, waiting to be taken to the cemetery. Ruth didn't have any sort of life insurance; the League had paid the amount necessary to meet the minimum of the state health board's burial requirements.

Maybe the funeral home had forgotten about her and left the casket, and it would remain on the loading dock until someone bothered to ask what the hell it was doing there. Maybe there'd been a shift change, and the guys who left her there had already gone home.

Fire welled up in my belly as I watched Ruth's casket sit there for what seemed like hours. I told myself if someone didn't come soon I was going to drag it to the road, hail a cab, and bury it myself in my own damn backyard.

But two guys in drab uniforms finally pulled up in a paneled truck. One of them wasn't much older than I was. They lifted Ruth's casket and loaded it into the back of the truck, which had no sign painted on its side. It could have just as easily been delivering newspapers or cupcakes.

I'd picked up a few things about sneaking around from my father that came in handy from time to time. The workmen had no idea I'd slipped into the back of the truck when they closed the door and drove off.

*  * *

We came to a bumpy stop at the burial site, and I quietly slipped out the back before they came to get the casket. I stole behind a large headstone and watched them carry Ruth's casket to the spot they'd dug.

What a shitty job, hauling caskets that nobody cared about. The older workman huffed and grunted as they lifted Ruth's coffin. His mottled forehead was wet, and I couldn't tell if it was sweat or drizzle. The radio blared from the front seat of the truck.

A few feet away from the hole, the old-timer tripped over a clump of dirt and stumbled to the ground. The young guy tried to keep his end of the casket up, but the sudden shift in weight was too much for him. Ruth's coffin went tumbling out of their hands, and the lid flew open when it hit the ground.

It took every ounce of self-control I could summon to remain still for the following seconds. They looked at the casket on its side. I could see Ruth's pale, limp arm stretched out on the ground, her forearm covered with grit that slowly melted into a muddy trickle in the drizzle.

They stood and stared at the mess they'd made, and the young guy got this look on his face, his eyes squinting in a fond memory.

"Looks kinda like my grandmother," he said.

They stood for a moment and watched. Then the old-timer patted his partner on the back. "C'mon, let's do this."

He knelt down in the dirt and carefully lifted Ruth's arm. Holding her hand up, he saw the five rings. He licked his thumb and began wiping the mud off them. Then he motioned to his partner.

"Get my bag."                         

The young guy disappeared in the back of the truck and came back with a huge toolbox. He reached in the toolbox and pulled out what I thought was the biggest pair of hedge clippers I'd ever seen. The handles were long, but the blades were short nubs, a tool perfectly designed to cut something thick and tough.

The old-timer slid our four rings off Ruth's hand, but he couldn't manage to pry my ring off her thumb. The woman was tenacious, even in death. The young worker pulled open the long handles of the clippers, and the old-timer steadied Ruth's hand so that the blades zeroed in on Ruth's thumb.

I yanked the clippers out of the young guy's hands by the sharp end and whacked him across the face with the heavy wooden handles as hard as I could. I heard something crack as I hit him.

I wheeled around and swung at the old man. His mouth was open in astonishment, and I swatted him down like a fly. He hit the ground and I kicked him into the open grave. He landed on his back with a dull thud.

Blood dripped down from my hands, still gripping the sharp open blades of the clippers, but I couldn't feel anything. I grabbed the clippers by the handles and raised them high in the air with the full intention of driving the blades down and spearing the old man through the heart like the vampire he was.

The old man looked up from the grave, his eyes pleading for mercy, and then he passed out.

I stood there, my hands raised, ready to plunge down—but I couldn't.

Something grabbed my shoulder and whipped me around, and I stumbled in the mud and dropped the giant clippers. I stood and found myself face-to-face with Dark Hero.

I reached for the clippers with my slashed hands, ready to fight. He'd been begging for a dose of his own medicine for a long time now. Who the fuck did he think he was, following me around everywhere, dishing out his own brutality whenever he saw fit? I wasn't going to kill either of these two bozos, and I certainly didn't rough them up any more than he would have. In fact, I was a kitten with them compared to what Dark Hero would have done if he'd stumbled across the same scene.

I knew he was the faster one, the better fighter, and he'd get in the first shot. But I was possessed, ready to inflict some serious damage. I could probably manage one good slash with the cutters before he put me down. He'd never forget messing with me.

I raised the clippers in front of me, and he batted them out of my hands. It only took him a millisecond to grab me.

And he brought me in to his massive, dark body and hugged me as tightly as I'd ever been held by anyone in my whole life.

I was so shocked by this move that my body fired off like I'd been plugged into an electrical socket. My toes began to twitch. For Dark Hero, holding me must have been like trying to contain an earthquake.