Prodigy

They said I was a child prodigy. At age three, I could mix any chemicals together and get a specific result. Whatever I wanted, I could make. If I wanted green, I could make it. If I wanted bubbly, I could make that, too. If I wanted bang, it wasn’t outside of my reach. And, I could make them all out of any chemicals I found, but the especially fun ones were under the sink. There was nothing they wouldn’t do for me.

I don’t remember much about the fire. Luckily, I was found outside the house when the firetrucks arrived. They told me years later that I was mesmerized by the flames, in shock thay said. And, they got me to safety just before the explosion that sent debris flying like bullets and shockwaves that shattered neighboring windows. The arson investigation found no cause for the fire, but it did note that the gas was turned off prior to combustion, and the build-up of heated fumes caused the explosion. I just remember how pretty the flames looked, dancing like crazy cartoons, and the explosion that sounded like fireworks. Oh, and that my mom and dad wouldn’t let me have ice cream for dinner, which made me pretty mad.

My foster parents were nice. They kept trying to cheer me up by making me watch cartoons and stuff, but I don’t think I was too interested in them anymore. They were flat compared to the flames. They didn’t have any smell and heat. They were boring. The fosters were boring. But there was one thing I liked. There was this show the dad watched, after my bedtime. I would sneak out of bed to watch it in secret. The one thing I really remember about it was the main character’s favorite line: If you can’t laugh, then what’s the point of life? He said it at the end of every show, and it was the only thing that made sense out of the whole thing.

Grade school was tough. No one believed that I was way above the rest of my class and that I was bored with finger paints and number wheels. I wanted something interesting, but they thought I was just being naughty, and they sent me to the Principal’s office a lot. That’s when I discovered that the janitor’s closet was on the way, and one day when I was sent to see Mr. Zimmerman again, I made a little detour. It was just a harmless smoke bomb, but it got me suspended from school for a while and in real trouble with the fosters. They grounded me, took away everything that made my life worthwhile. You can’t blame me for being mad about it.

The autopsies revealed that the fosters had suffocated in their sleep, and they blamed radon for it. It was a miracle, they said, that I wasn’t harmed. A few nights later, the principal’s car was vandalized. They didn’t know what kind of acid was used, but it ate right through the door and one tire. He was targetted, they said, because there were no further incidents like it in town, but they never figured out who had done it or why or how.

I read on my own after that. Since no one was going to put me in a challenging class, I would challenge myself. I read the whole school library by the time I graduated to middle school, and then I tackled that one. A middle school library is like a mix of a real one and one in a grade school. You see a lot of the same picture books and simple readers mixed with the young adult stuff. I ignored everything I had already consumed and devoured the new, and by the end of the first semester I had read everything there, and nothing was satisfying.

I noticed, though, that the kids around me were grouping up and pairing off, and I recognized the concept of friendship, so I decided to explore it a little. I observed a particular kid that was also friendless, getting a handle on his quirks and his habits before I approached him. It was easy to convince him I had the same interests and tastes as he did, and before the day was over I was his best friend. And for the rest of that semester, he was mine.

Classes were easy for me. I could have gotten straight A’s if I had wanted, but I no longer cared if anyone knew how smart I was. I had other projects to challenge me, and getting moved up several grades would only take time away from them. Besides, I had quite the experiment going, already.

In the second year of our friendship, I decided to see just how much I could make my friend do for me. I learned that a single word was all it took to manipulate someone, if it was used just right. I didn’t use childish manipulations, idiotic words like “chicken” or phrases like, “I dare you!” Those were too far beneath me, and they offered no challenge. No, I used ordinary words, twisted just right and put in just the right order to get the results I wanted. And it didn’t just work on my friend. There was a bully at school that tormented us, and he had a girlfriend. All I had to do was mention the word “pregnant” and they broke up, and then the word “aides” drove the boy close to suicide. That was a good day.

It turned out, though, that my friend really wasn’t my friend. He started getting snippy with me, and then he told me he didn’t want to be friends anymore. I guess he was growing up. That was fine, though, because I had what I needed. If I wanted another friend, I could easily get one. People were like chemicals to me, now. They did whatever I wanted them to do.

We studied anatomy in high school and biology, and there I had an epiphony. It was during the autopsy of a frog that I realized that, like frogs, people were the same alive or dead. Corpses had the same insides and outsides as the living, they just didn’t think anymore. And then, I realized that eventually, we all stop thinking and just lay there and decay, and for a second I think my heart flickered. But it all made sense. We were all on a path to death, and after we died, nothing we ever did would matter anymore. Nothing we ever learned would matter. Nothing we ever discovered or accomplished would matter to us. And if that didn’t matter, then people didn’t matter. It was all a complete waste of time, especially school. So I decided to leave.

I couldn’t just walk out, though. There were authorities that would frown on it. They would eventually catch me and make me go to school, even if they had to lock me in one until I was eighteen. No, I couldn’t just walk out. Besides, I had something much more dramatic in mind.

They never found the real cause of the explosion in the chemistry lab. The investigation showed that it was due to my negligence. I had mixed the wrong chemicals together and somehow created a blast that disintegrated me, except for a few charred remains. It was, I have to say, one of my finest moments, and it wouldn’t have been possible except for all of the preparation. It was fairly easy to create a serial killer to get the parts I needed, and the chemicals did what I told them. The hardest part was sneaking out unseen during the blast, but the long hours of training myself to be a magician paid off, and it proved that I didn’t need school to continue my education.

But I had another challenge to face. I would have to support myself somehow. The thought of an ordinary job left a foul taste in my mouth. I was better than that. I deserved better than that. Plus, I would need a place to stay where no one knew me, or questioned that someone of my age was running around during school hours. After a short brain-storming session, I decided on a part of town they called “the wrong side of the tracks.” And let me tell you, that was an education in itself. I saw humanity for what it really was, when you removed the fear of punishment. Animals. Greedy animals looking out for themselves, willing to do whatever it took to get what they wanted. Animals I could tame and harness for my own purposes. Things that were already well on their way to oblivion. It was yet another challenge, and I was ready to face it.

Those years weren’t easy, though. I manipulated my way into becoming a numbers runner for the local gang, and worked my way up, living off my earnings while I pursued my education. It felt like I had two lives to live or two full-time jobs, but somehow I got through on little sleep and sometimes, just as little to eat. I grew strong, though, and tall, and I worked my way up in the organization by making others fall. A few of them tried to get revenge, but for some reason, they never survived the attempt. Something always happened to stop them, but nothing that could get traced to me.

Then, one day, the cappo gave me a new name and a new mission. There was a new wave of custumed hero out there, scaring his boys and putting them behind bars. That wasn’t good for business, so the cappo had an idea. If the cops could have their masked man, then he could, too. But his guy would have a red metal bucket over his head, and a pistol in each hand. At least, that’s what it looked like to me. And, his guy would rob and kill mercilessly, and the best part was, if the guy got himself killed or caught, then they could just get someone else to put on the bucket. As long as the guy was out there scaring people, the cappo didn’t care who it was.

It was a suicide job, and that’s why the cappo gave it to me. He didn’t like me. He couldn’t just kill me, because I had too many of his men on my side, already, but he didn’t like the direction I was headed, and I didn’t dissuade him. I never said out loud that I wanted his position, and I never confided that in anyone, either. My rise was just a matter of coincidence, that’s all. I can’t help it if the cappo thought otherwise. But it looked like my rise was about to end. I couldn’t refuse the bucket without getting him angry with me, so I became his scarecrow. It was my first mistake, ever.

When he showed up to stop us, I knew I was looking at my exact opposite. He was dark and mysterious, hiding himself behind a black hood and cape, but I saw right away that he was a broken man. He was fast, agile, and something else I wasn’t: a terrific fighter. I couldn’t help it. I abandoned my men and ran.

They said it was a playing card company, but what playing card company had huge vats of acid hanging around in it? I learned long ago that it was just a front for the gang’s drug operation. The acid used to “bleach the paper” was the same stuff they used in the street drug, Harlequin, but it was so cleverly disguised that OSHA kept completely missing the connection. I knew it was there. I knew about it for a long time, and I’d completely explored it inside and out, so I figured I could shake my pursuer inside. That was the second mistake I had ever made.

He was relentless. He spoke to me as we were running, telling me that I wasn’t going to harm any more people. I have no idea where he had the breath to speak, let alone yell, but he did, and that’s when I realized that there was a mistake negative one: I didn’t know the cappo had already sent the bucket out on a few jobs without me.

My head was spinning and I had no idea why. Maybe it was the acid fumes, I don’t know. Somehow, I ended up on the catwalk, which is the worst place to be if one is trying to escape pursuit. There was only one way to go and no other exit, and the thing was on chains so if I moved too fast, it swayed dangerously underneath me. I was forced to slow down, and I knew that he was going to get me, so I turned and drew my guns.

I could tell they were unloaded by their weight. I couldn’t understand how I missed that, then I remembered that the cappo himself had shoved them into my pockets, then patted me on the back like he was my dad. Mistake number three: I should have checked them right away.

My head was swimming too much to think of another plan, so I stuck with pointing the guns and bluffing my way out. But he wasn’t having any of that. One second he was standing there, all dramatic with his black cape draped over his arm in front of him, looking like Dracula, the next the cape swept back and two bats darted at me. There was a metallic clang and my pistols flew out of my hands. I panicked, and that was my fouth mistake.

I tried to catch the pistols before they were completely lost. I think that’s what they call desperation. Anyway, the catwalk didn’t like it and swung itself way over to the side and dumped me off. As I fell, I turned in an attempt to grab the catwalk, and I saw his hand reaching for me. I saw his eyes wide with that look that they get when they realize what they’ve done and are desperate to fix it, and they can’t. I saw a man desperate to keep everyone alive, even me, and willing to go to great lengths to do it. In a way, we were opposite sides to the same coin. We both knew where humanity was headed, but he was trying to prolong their suffering and I wasn’t.

I don’t remember the splash or the burning. I remember the betrayal. The chemicals that had served my whim for these many years, that had obeyed my orders, that had cheered me up when I was down and avenged me when I was offended, that had protected me from the worst that the cappo had at his command, those chemicals had decided to rebel. No, the burning didn’t hurt, the bleaching of my skin or the twisting of my hair, or the spasm that had seized my face from contact with concentrated toxins that were the base of Harlequin, none of that hurt worse than the betrayal. For a second, I wondered if that’s what my middle school friend felt, and then I had to laugh. Because if you can’t laugh, then what’s the point of life?