Hero (36 page)

But he held tight. The twitch moved up my legs; my fingers began to jerk and shudder. I knew this feeling from before, and I desperately wanted it to go away, but he grasped me tighter and clung to me.

And finally I let go. I forgot about my body entirely—the convulsions, the rage, the despair over Ruth's death, all of it— and I let myself disappear and melt into him. His embrace was vast and inviting.

I gave myself over to him and absorbed all the warmth of that massive dark body as it poured heat into mine. It felt warmer and better than the morphine drip when I'd had surgery, better than the feeling of utter peace I'd had when I fell asleep in the backseat of the car as my parents drove me home from my sixth birthday party at the miniature golf course.

The next thing I knew, tears streamed down my face like I was a giant leaking bag of saline. Dark Hero held me as long as it took to empty every last bit of pain inside. He clutched the back of my head and I sobbed into the refuge of his broad, safe shoulder.

When I grew calm, we collected Ruth with great care, fastened the lid of her coffin to last forever, and lowered her into the grave. Dark Hero had removed the unconscious old man from the hole and put him in the back of the truck alongside his partner. I heard the clang of the young man's head smack against the side of the truck's door as Dark Hero tossed him inside. Whenever those two finally woke up, they'd think twice about robbing anyone again, dead or alive.

The mist lifted, and the sun eventually came out from behind the clouds, although it hung low in the sky. Sweat dripped from the ends of my hair, and I felt grime on my neck where my necklace was fastened. I'd been shoveling for two hours and I was finally done. I knelt down to Ruth's grave, kissed the dirt, felt the granules of earth stick to my lips, and said good-bye to my friend.

I stood up to leave and observed a perfect stillness throughout the cemetery, row upon row of uniform headstones. I looked for him, but Dark Hero was gone.

A note lay on top of Ruth's headstone. I opened the slip of paper, and the words leaped out at me.

Follow your father.

CHAPTER THIRTY

FROM STUDYING MY father's old case files in the League archives, I learned that the secret to following someone is simple. Never get too close. It sounds easy, but it requires a surprising amount of patience, and it's why most people can't do it. Your instinct is to watch them so closely that the only person who's really on display ends up being you. Sometimes you have to fight the urge to do something, fight the urge to go when your body says go. More often than not, you have to fight the ever-present need for instant gratification.

I sat at a bus stop and waited for hours until I was certain Dad's shift at the factory had begun. People came and went fromr the seat next to me on the bench. The last woman, an elderly lady with a three-pronged cane, offered me her elbow and asked me if I needed some help when the bus pulled up and I didn't move. I looked at my watch and told her no thank you. Even though I knew Dad's shift had already begun, I decided to wait for the next bus, just to be sure.

I arrived outside the factory and spotted the light on inside the security guard shack. It was laughable how easy it was to pass by security. The chain-link fence had a thin layer of barbed wire strung across the top like one long pathetic strand of Christmas tree tinsel. There was a black-and-white-striped rail that blocked incoming cars from entering. I waited and listened to the two security guards shouting at their portable TV in the guard shack—a basketball game not going their way. Since I wasn't in a car, I just walked inside around the rail. The security guards never even looked up.

Security wasn't much of an issue inside, either. The real problem was figuring out where to go. The first time I passed a factory worker in uniform, I breathed deep and easy and walked by as if nothing were out of the ordinary. No one said anything to me. They weren't paid enough to care if something seemed out of place.

I passed by an austere cafeteria, which looked like something from two or three decades ago. It boasted modern technology in the form of a giant microwave, surely one of the first models ever made, because it was as big as our laundry machine. In the corner a TV was broadcasting mostly static, and a guy fiddled with its antenna. Maybe we weren't the only people in the world without cable.

I passed down a narrow corridor, turned the corner, and found myself at the door to the factory floor. The hum of machinery became a roar whenever someone opened it, and I had to restrain myself from covering my ears—a sure tip-off that I didn't belong there. I peered through the window in the door and saw hundreds of workers spread out among stations across a vast floor. It reminded me of the ant farm I'd had when I was a little boy, the sand and dirty caverns replaced with chrome and concrete. This was the world in which my father struggled to make sure I would have a better life.

My eyes tracked up high above the workers and found a windowed box hanging in the air. I decided this was the owner's office, because a grim man in an ill-fitting pin-striped suit stood on a platform adjacent to the box and watched over the work below.

The factory owner stood up straight, his legs stiff, his hands clasped behind the small of his back. He had two deputies that leaned against the rail in front of him. I wasn't sure what they were looking at, or why they needed to maintain a vigilant watch. Was it really necessary? I looked for my dad on the floor, but there were too many people, and from that far away it was next to impossible to see faces, especially those covered with hard hats and goggles.

I turned to leave and smacked into a worker. Major points for stealth.

"What's your problem?" the guy said.

"Sorry, I'm new."

The guy raised the brim of his hat to check me out. His cheeks were covered with acne—he was barely a year or two older than I was.

"Oh." He eyed me up and down. "Where's your uniform?"

I hadn't thought of a good excuse, because I hadn't really counted on stopping to talk to anyone. He sensed my hesitation. I looked at the door and figured I could make a break for it.

"The hell are you waiting for?" he said. "Let's get you suited up."

Brad Stemple took me back to the locker room and let me borrow his spare uniform. We stepped out onto the factory floor, ready for the shift, and I was careful not to look up at the factory owner and his deputies. I didn't want to look like one of those tourists wandering around the city who's never seen a skyscraper. I kept my eyes peeled for my father as we lumbered on toward our station.

It was difficult to take in the sight of all the workers at once. I tried to observe them individually, see if I could pick out familiar traits that would give away my dad, but it was hard to see them as a whole. It also made me very uncomfortable to pose as one of them when I hadn't worked as hard as any of them.

Suddenly we were in a sea of workers, which made it next to impossible for me to make sure I didn't bump into Dad. I strapped on a pair of goggles.

"You don't need those," Brad said.

"Oh," I said, but kept them on.

We stood in line to grab crates. I have no idea what was in them. It was our job to hoist the heavy boxes off the conveyor belt and carry them to another conveyor belt on the other side of the room. Why they didn't have a conveyor belt to connect the two, I don't know.

By around my third or fourth box, I thought I was going to die. All my intense physical training with the League, and here I was teetering on the edge of exhaustion because I faced a shift of heavy lifting. Thoughts of permanent damage to my back consumed me for the first hour. How did these guys manage? I remembered my mom telling me to lift with my knees not my back.

I have no idea at what point during the shift I noticed a big, powerful man a couple of stations over who worked twice as fast as everyone else in his group. He carried two boxes at a time.

I pushed the construction cap down over my eyes as far as I could go without totally blocking my vision. Brad was mid-sentence when I interrupted him.

"Who's that guy?" I motioned toward the powerful man.

Brad took his eyes off his crate and looked over at me. "Him? He's a real hoss, isn't he? A brick shithouse. Far as I can tell, everyone here thinks he's the best employee in the plant. Never misses a day of work. Always gets the twenty-dollar bill at the end of the year for perfect attendance. You like beer?"

I kept working as Brad rattled on about his prodigious capacity for malt liquor. And I kept watching the powerful man's massive frame move gracefully across the floor as he deposited two crates at a time on the conveyor belt, smooth as a card dealer. Once I thought I saw him glimpse up at the factory owner on his stage up in the sky.

I followed his line of sight and saw the factory owner unclasp his hands from behind his back, step forward, and whisper to one of his deputies. The man disappeared down a winding metal path of stairs and catwalks. As I picked up another crate and hauled it across the room, I spotted the deputy crossing the floor toward the powerful man.

A siren wailed, and everyone in our part of the plant seemed to know to stop working, so I stood there with my box pulling my arms to the floor until Brad told me it was okay to set it down. The deputy called for everyone's attention. Even the whir and grind of the machines ceased to echo.

He raised his hands, apologized for the interruption, and announced that unfortunately one of the toilets in the men's room had exploded and he needed a volunteer to clean it up. I thought that was a really strange reason to stop work on the floor, but I kept my mouth shut.

No one stepped forward, no one said a word, and all eyes zeroed in on the powerful man. The duty was meant for him alone. I didn't want him to have to clean up a room full of shit, and I stepped forward to volunteer, but Brad yanked me back.

"What are you, crazy?" he whispered.

The deputy foreman handed the big man a mop. He took it and, keeping his head high, walked out of the room to clean up the mess. The factory owner, high above on his platform, looked pleased.

The machines buzzed back to life, and everyone went back to work, business as usual.

I leaned over to Brad. I felt like I was one of the last remaining humans in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and someone was going to point the finger at me and scream any second now.

"What was that all about? What's he doing on bathroom patrol—shouldn't he be running this place?"

Brad lifted my crate off the floor and handed it back to me. "He just worked his way up to foreman after years on the floor." Brad dropped a crate on the conveyor belt, and it landed with a heavy thud. "But he lost it."

"Why?"

Brad looked over to make sure the foreman wasn't watching. He took a breather and rubbed his back before picking up another crate. "His kid likes dick."

"Oh." I nodded.

Shit.

My heart sank and I wanted to ask what the hell that had to do with anything, but I knew better. It had everything to do with everything. We picked up our crates and began to carry them across the room.

"His kid likes dick, said it on national TV or something," Brad continued. "The owner's a big Christian, has a lot of power in that world, his pop was a famous televangelist, you know."

My heart sank further into the crate as I laid it on the conveyor belt and watched it make the slow journey toward the door, where my father had disappeared.

"They demoted him for that?"

"No." Brad's eyes lit up, delighted to tell the rest of the story. "That's the punch line. After twenty years on the job, he'd just been promoted to foreman. Everyone was sure he'd lose his job, all things considered. But rumor has it the factory owner pulled him aside when the news broke about his son and said he understood, because he has a daughter who's been a heroin addict for years, stealing shit from him and his wife for years, in and out of jail. After that thing on TV, he called the guy into his office, lit up two cigars, handed him one. Said he knew what he was going through, these kids choosing to go to hell after all the sacrifices they'd made for them. The owner gave him the break of a lifetime and offered him an even bigger promotion—asked him to run the whole goddamn plant for him. Said it was the right thing to do for someone going through the same thing as him."

"So what happened? What did he say to the owner?" I asked.

"Nothing, the way I heard it," Brad said. "He punched the shit out of the conveyor belt. Then he went in the locker room and put on his old workman's uniform. Picked up crates and started working."

I looked up at the factory owner watching over his domain. My father returned to the floor, his head held high, to grab a bucket. I knelt down to tie my shoe so he wouldn't see me when he passed by us. I noticed Brad shut up and start carrying his crate at an extrafast pace as my dad moved by. Brad was suddenly a soldier on his best behavior.

The factory owner stared down at Dad, and Dad refused to look back up, refused to make eye contact with the man as he left the room. Stone-faced, the owner turned and disappeared into his window-box office.

After my father had left the floor, Brad revved up the engine on his mouth again.

"Phew," he said. "Close one."

I looked at Brad's face and recognized what he'd felt as my father passed. Fear.

"What was that about?" I asked. "So what if he heard you talking?"

Brad swallowed and set his box down carefully, motioned for me to lean in closer.

"Don't you know who that is?" he whispered at me, his eyes wide. "It's Hal Creed, man. Major-fucking-Might!"

*  *  *

I changed back into my clothes during our fifteen-minute break, and I remained in a stall in the men's locker room when the whistle blew to signal the break had ended. I could see Brad's shoes scamper up and down the floor as he looked for me, and I lifted my feet up out of sight. He was the kind of guy who'd check the stalls, no matter what he heard coming from them. I heard him walk out and the door shut behind him. Then I waited. Better safe than sorry.