Patrick McLean - How To Succeed in Evil

The subtitle on the TV changes to “Riots Break Out.” Now the camera crew follows the boy with the tattoo on his face from car to car as he stomps windshields and kicks in headlights. And there it is. How can one make money from a spokesmodel for destruction? For anarchy? For worse than anarchy.

Once the question is properly phrased, the answer is obvious.

“Agnes?” Edwin’s voice cracks from days of disuse. He tries again, this time a little louder, “Agnes?” She comes quickly, fueled by the hope that her beloved Edwin has returned to himself. At first Edwin says nothing. He stands and unrolls his sleeves. He straightens his tie. Once again he dons his jacket of severe grey. Then he buttons the middle button and turns to his secretary.

“I need two things. I need a fashion designer, one with talent, but who will use English in a way that I can understand. And I need Barry’s current location.”

Agnes makes a note. “Designer, check. As for Barry, Topper has him.”

Edwin’s eyebrows shoot up. “Topper? Really? One can never be sure what he will do next.”

“Yes,” says Agnes, “but one can certainly fear.”

Excelsior lays on the ground in the center of a pulverized concrete outline of his body. Because Excelsior is so proud, it will be difficult for him to ever admit that he was knocked unconscious, so, let’s just say that, right this moment, he’s just not very interested in opening his eyes. That is, until someone starts kicking him in the ribs.

Ordinarily, this kick wouldn’t hurt Excelsior, but he’s just been through the beating of his life (so far) and his ribs are a little tender. He cries out in pain. Then he opens his eyes and sees the ugliest man he has ever known.

“Jesus Gus, lay off.” Gus does no such thing. He continues his generous application of shoe leather.

“C’mon lard-ass. No laying down on the job. You ah, ack, ack, ack,” the cough silences Gus.

“Easy Gus, Easy,” says Excelsior. He sits up and instantly regrets it.

Gus hacks and spits. Even before the hunk of lung butter hits the sidewalk, the old man crams another cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “C’mon pissant, you’re not going to spread the blinding light of American sunshine lying down there on your duff.”

“I don’t feel so good.”

Gus lights the cigarette. On the side of the lighter, the faded memory of an Airborne logo is almost visible. The smoke that Gus exhales from the first drag is so strong it is more blue than white. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he continues, “Now you know what I feel like when I get out of bed. Candyass. So far you’re the only hero in the entire history of walking tall, kicking ass and shitting bullets hasn’t had to carry on after he’s had a beat down. Time to tough, tough, auHooooo hough hough hough.” Gus coughs his lungs down to a wheeze once again.

Excelsior gets to his feet. Jesus this hurts. He hasn’t ever hurt like this before. He feels a little nauseous. This sucks. He reaches out to comfort Gus, but Gus slaps his hand away.

“TOUGHEN YOU UP,” Gus roars with surprising force. “What? You turning fag on me now boy? Is that what you’re doing? Don’t you go all sensitive on me just because you got your ass kicked. That’s how it starts. Saw a whole platoon go fag during the Battle of the Bulge.”

“Up close and personal?”

“You keep joking flyboy, I know what it means to take a beating and keep on going.”

“Yeah, you look it.”

“Aw you’re just jealous ‘cause I’m so goddamned pretty,” Gus’ skin draws tight across his skull as his faceleather twists into a smile.

“Okay, okay. You win. You’re tough. The only guy who could kick your ass is John Wayne.”

“Bullshit. He was an actor. I’m the real thing.”

“So where is he?” Excelsior asks as three vertebrae in his back realign with distressingly loud pops.

“You mean the guy who cleaned your clock?”

“No, the ... I mean… yeah,” Excelsior says. It finally sinks in that he has, for the first time, been defeated.

“He’s over there a ways.”

“All right,” Excelsior says as he rolls his neck, “I’ll be right back.”

“No you don’t. We’ve got orders.”

“Orders?”

“We’re falling back. We going to regroup.”

“Fall BACK!” Excelsior discovers that it hurts to yell with a broken rib. He was also learning that it hurts to breath, hurts to stand, hurts to twist — in fact, he was beginning to get the idea that everything hurts when you have a broken rib. Was this the way ordinary people felt all the time?

“Protocol. We’ve got to come up with a game plan.”

“But he just got lucky.”

“No he didn’t.”

“You didn’t even see what happened,” says Excelsior.

“Saw the whole thing on satellite. You got your tights-wearing ass handed to you.”

“I was careless.”

“Like that’s a surprise. Now listen to me son,” Excelsior hates it when Gus calls him son. They are almost the same age. He figures that Gus is upset because he’s grown older while Excelsior hasn’t. But Gus is always pissed, so how could he tell? Excelsior wonders if the only thing holding the old man together is anger.

“Son,” Gus repeats himself to make sure he has Excelsior’s attention, “We ain’t ever seen anything you couldn’t beat without really trying. Now I know you’ll get him. I know you will. You’ll beat his ass until it glows like a ring-tailed baboon.”

“Yeah I will.”

“But right now, we’ve got orders to pull back. Re-group and come up with a game plan. We keep making this thing angry and it’s just going to destroy more of the city. Hurt more people. You don’t want that, do you?”

Excelsior sulks. He says “No,” when what he means is, “I don’t care. I just want to get back into the fight.”

Gus is pleased to hear rage and frustration in Excelsior’s voice. Of course they’d known this day would come. But you can never know — really know — how a man will react to losing. In Gus’ mind it was combat. The guy you thought was the toughest hombre for miles would sometimes go to pieces after the first artillery shell. While the little guy you figured was only good for making coffee would come walking back from the battle with a leg full of shrapnel and spear full of scalps. Sure, Excelsior had lost, but it hadn’t taken the fight out of him. That was good.

They walk off together. Gus tries not to cough. Excelsior tries not to limp.

Deep within the brothel, the Cromoglodon is sleeping. His gigantic chest heaves up and down in a way that is out of proportion with the tiny snoring noises he is making. Next to him, a blond girl named Selene hugs herself in a sheet and weeps with relief.

She doesn’t know exactly how it can be, but the child-man sleeping next to her is responsible for the destruction outside. If he is angered, he could easily destroy this building and everyone in it. It isn’t the most comfortable of situations, but it isn’t exactly unfamiliar to Selene. All manner of powerful men come to the Evanston Street brothel. Men who could, with a word or a wave of a hand, also obliterate the building and everyone in it if they aren’t kept happy. You don’t need superpowers to do damage. But Selene knows many, many ways to make a man happy.

Selene has been with a lot of men. It has not always been pleasant, gentle or even consensual. But now she is lucky enough to work in a good establishment. The clientele is exclusive and the rates are high. A girl like Selene can do much worse. Most girls like Selene do.