RADIO SILENCE

Author's Note: This story is pretty damn nasty. It discusses the abuse that our antihero suffered at the hands of his father, a psychopathic perverted sadist. It is violent, by not graphically so. There are no overt sexual descriptions, that is to say, no lemons, because that would be really, really, really sick. But this is a violent, ugly, troubling piece that tries to explain how it is the Comedian came by his violent, ugly, troubled side, and became one very conflicted superhero.

New York City. Eddie Blake's Apartment. Fall, 1970

I: Eddie

It was getting to be late, ten or eleven, and the Comedian did not have his costume on, yet.

This was largely to do with the fact that Eddie Blake was sitting in front of his TV that he wasn't watching with the radio on while he wasn't listening, in his GI-Issue OD boxers and A-line undershirt, drinking Johnnie Walker Black straight from the bottle.

He put the bottle down, and ran his hand through his hair, again, and then took another drink.

He knew he was drunk, incredibly drunk; indeed he was approaching the outer limits of one of the kid's drunks.

And that was bad.

Eddie understood why she drank as much as she did; after the war he had an 18 month Lost Weekend of his own, and pretty much for the same reason the kid had been having hers, albeit for a much longer time.

It was bad, but living with things?

That was worse.

He clenched his dog tags in his fist, and let them go, and rubbed his fingers along the scar on his face, and then the scar on the back of his neck, and stared at the burn scar in the palm of his left hand.

Then he ran that hand through his hair, and had another drink.

That was when the knock came on the door, heavy and insistent.

"Hey, Eddie? It's me. It's Liv. Ya busy?"

Eddie looked at the door.

Nobody ever came, not on this night.

It wasn't even Thursday.

But, nobody else was Trivelino J. Napier.

Fuck it, it's Thursday, somewhere.

"You got a key, kid. Use it."

She wasn't in her costume, and it wasn't her night off.

But she took off her M-65 jacket, slammed the door, and cursed, for no reason, and took off her dirty jump boots, and came and sat beside him on the couch.

"How's work been this week?"

She had been required to report to Mr. Director Blake her activities every Monday for two months, now, but it was something to say.

"Pretty quiet. Nothin' I didn't tell youse about, Monday. Well, there was one guy I ran into. He was looking for a little rape an' murder."

Liv reached into the knapsack she had thrown by her feet and pulled out a flask.

Drank.

Laughed.

"He got it, too."

"Yeah? Tell me, kid, how does a woman go about rapin' a man?"

Liv shrugged.

"First I gotta beat the son of a bitch within an' inch of his fuckin' life, but without hittin' him inna balls. That scares him. Makes him think you really know what he's doing. I wait till he's on the ground, then I give him a chance to get up on one knee, or both, or on all fours. Then, I cock my gun, and put it to his head. Then, I unzip the front of my costume, and I tell him to lick me. Then, when I come, he goes. Bang!"

She laughed.

Eddie turned and looked at her.

He was not amused.

"You really do that, kid? You can tell me the truth, ya know?"

"I've thought about it. I've met guys who deserved it. I've wanted to do it. Especially to this waste I ran into, yesterday. But, no. It seems like goin' a little bit too far. Ya know? One time, though, I gotta confess, I caught this cat, he was a big blond son of a bitch, real good-lookin', stealin' a TV from the back door of a pawn shop. He put it down when he saw me, and put up his hands, and told me he didn't want no trouble, just a TV, and it was his TV he'd hocked, anyway. Well, I told him that he could walk away free if he'd go down on me, and if he was pretty good at it, I'd let him take the TV, too."

Eddie laughed.

He couldn't help it, even the mood he was in.

"What happened?"

"Shit, I took him to Macy's, bought him a new TV, gave him a ride home and fucked him stupid. Kinda wish I still had his number."

Eddie laughed, again.

"Sometimes, kid, I wonder about you."

He took another drink.

"But you gotta point. You don't wanna start mixing fucking with killing. That was Pop's problem, I think. He liked fucking, and he liked killing people, an' hurtin' them, and somehow, he got it all mixed in, together. It twisted him. Or maybe he was born that way. I don't know."

The Comedian looked at the scar in his hand, again.

"I could never figure him out. For the other kids, it was easy. They hated him, and they were afraid of him. It wasn't that easy for me, or Ma, or Edie. He loved us. Ma, well, he always loved her, and me and Edie, we both looked like him, and he could see, even when we were little, it went deeper than just looks. We were his. He treated us different. Especially me. I was the apple of his eye. He was better to us, but he was worse, too. We didn't just get beat, or starved. Did I ever tell you about Paul? My older brother? He had red hair. Like my Ma's. And yours."

"You told me that your father threw him down a couple flights of stairs and killed him."

"Yeah, well, Pop, he got turned on by hurtin' people. Especially anything he could get that was weaker or smaller than him. Paul was like my Ma. He was quiet an' good an' gentle. A natural A-1 fuckin' target for Pop. When he had a mind to, he'd make Paul go and get him the Vaseline from the john, and he'd take him in the kitchen, where the radio was, an' give it to him. His own kid. And he did it in the kitchen, because he wanted to listen to the radio. The fuckin' radio, can youse believe it? That was thing about Pop. He was stone cold fuckin' nuts. Paul never screamed. He was too fuckin' sacred to scream. Well, when Paul was about ten, and me and Edie, we were six or so, Paul told him to get it himself. The fuckin' Vaseline. He didn't even say no to Pop. Just told him to get the fuckin' Vaseline himself. The thing was, Pop didn't even look mad. He picked Paul up and carried him out of the apartment, and Ma follows him, screaming. We all followed. And Pop threw him over the railing. Paul fell down two floors, hit the stairs and rolled down another flight, and you could tell he was dead. By this time Ma stopped yelling. She just went down and got him, and Pop herded us all back into the apartment. None of us said anything. We was too scared."

The Comedian got up, went over to the cabinet above the bar, got another bottle, brought it back, sat down, opened it, and had another drink.

He pointed with his right hand at the scar n his left hand.

"He did this to my hand, too. I stole some food, because we were all hungry. Pa had a lot of money, but he never gave much to us. Ma sued to do laundry. I was only ten, all I could get work doing was selling papers. Pop thought it made him look bad, in the neighbourhood. He put the gas on the stove, and turned the flame up high, and he held my hand over it. I just stood there and looked him right in the eye, and when the pain got so bad I thought I would scream, I spit right in his face. And he beat the shit out of me. I got up and spit in his face, agin. He laughed, told me I was a good boy, I learned fast. Took me in the bathroom, cleaned me up, and gave me fifty cents."

The Comedian drank, wiped his mouth and laughed, mirthlessly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"I don't even know what the son of a bitch was trying to teach me. That life was cruel? That people were assholes? That you had to be hard? That pain didn't hurt? Thanks to Pop, I'll tell you what, I can take a whole lot of fuckin' pain before it slows my ass down. When he taught me to drive when I was eight, and shoot when I was ten, and fight, when I was six, that was something, I knew what he was fuckin' drivin' at. I still can't figure it out. Maybe you just can't figure out a psychotic crazy fuckin' lunatic. That same year, after four years of leavin' us alone, and limitin' himself to fuckin' punks in jail, or makin' punks outa his non-payin' customers, we're sitting inna kitchen. He's been alright, for awhile. He wasn't always crazy. He'd go through time when he was like anybody's father. He'd smack you when he was drunk, and you got in his way, but he wasn't beatin' us or Ma up, and he was payin' for us to eat, and he'd take us places and give us kids money to go see a movie, or somethin. When I was little, before Paul died, Pop was my fuckin' hero. I usedta think he was the biggest, strongest, greatest man in the whole fuckin' world. I'd wait outside on the stoop for him to come home, md an' Edie and we'd run after his car when he left inna morning. Hell, he'd been actin' pretty normal for so long, me an' Edie, we started waitin' for him at night, again. We were kids. He was our goddamn father, for Chrissake, yunno? Then, outa nowhere, he'd go crazy, and he'd be crazy for a long time. The only time you could be sure you were in the clear was when he wa sin jail, and then, we practically starved without him. Anyway, we're in the kitchen, listenin' to the fuckin' radio. Pop hauls off and smacks me in the face so hard I fall off the chair, and he tells me to go and get the Vaseline. Well, you know me. I picked up the chair and sat in it and told him I hoped his dick was big enough that he could go fuck himself."

Eddie laughed and lit a cigar.

"I'll bet that was the wrong answer." Liv interjected.

"Yeah. It sure as fuck was. Pop went crazy. He grabs me, and he's punchin' me and rippin' my clothes, and I was hittin' him back, or tryin', ya know? I mean, I'm ten, and Pop, he was as big as I am, now. But I wasn't gonna let him do it. I found some fuckin' strength, somewhere. And I'm fuckin' screamin'. I'm screamin' like you wouldn't believe. He put his hand over my mouth and I bit his finger down to the bone. He had the water on, and he put his belt around my neck, and put it through the buckle and pulled it, tighter and tighter. Then he fills the sink up with water and sticks my head in it. Cold water. Ice fuckin' cold. And its winter. He got one of my hands hand behind my back , and I'm kickin', and squirmin', an I got my other hand in the water. There was a knife in there, from dinner, and I reached back with it and I was lashin' out, blindly sinkin' it in, stabbin' as hard as I can. Finally, Pop swears, and he lets me go, and I kinda fell out of the sink, and he's standin' here with this knife in his guts. Now Pop was a mutie, and he didn't heal the way Jimmy does, but he healed good enough. And he was fuckin' mad. He's standin 'there with this knife in his guts, and his pants are around his ankles; his dick's stickin out an' it looks like a fuckin' club he's gonna beat me to death with. Jesus, I was just a little kid, when I was ten. If he woulda stuck that in me it woulda fuckin' killed me. An' I just lay there on the floor, all beat up wet an' freezin' and half-strangled an' bloody, and I laughed at him. I said, yeah, Pop, it sure does look like you got enough there to fuck yourself. Hell, I'd like to see you try it. There ain't shit on the radio tonight."

Liv blurted out a laugh, and clapped her hand over her mouth.

"Oh fuck, Eddie, I'm sorry! I am. But…"

"Go ahead, laugh. It's funny. I was bein' funny when I said it, and Pop, he laughed. He laughed so hard tears came out of his eyes. You know what he said, then?"

"Nope."

"Eddie, you're my son, you're a chip off the old block. That's' another good lesson for you. That's what he said. He took the knife out, and he picked me up and took me down to your grandmother's apartment, and she put me back together. He almost broke my neck, and drowned me, he broke five of my ribs and mashed my face into hamburger, an' he dislocated my knee an' my shoulder, but he never made a punk out of me. Never tried again, either."

Eddie took another drink.

"I was thinkin' about that, the night Edie and me killed him. I was thinkin' about my hand, and him tryna make a punk outa me, and him killin' one of my sisters and four of my brothers. I was thinkin' about all the times he beat me up, an' put cigarettes out on me, hit me with bottles and jabbed at me with the busted ends. I was thinkin' about Edie. She started hookin' when she was 12, and that's' when Pop started screwin' her. I don't mean rapin' her, either. She'd come home, late, worn out, after days on the street and he'd cry over it. Give her a fuckin' bath, an' tell her he knew what a hard world it was, and how all those men had no right to treat her that way, because she was his little princess. Then he'd take her inna living room, an' screw her, right onna couch. The other kids, they were little, and asleep, but I could hear them. I could hear her sayin' Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, the same way we could hear Ma sayin' Mickey, Mickey, Mickey through the wall. And Edie would sit there after he went to bed an' cry. I'd come out, and she'd try to explain herself. He was her father, an' she loved him, an' he was bein' nice to her, an' kind. It was better than' nothin'. The son of a bitch! That was the lowest thing he ever did. I was thinkin' about that, and I'm sure Edie was too, when he was fightin' us to the death, inna kitchen. We couldn't stop killin 'him, even after we knew that mutie or no, he was gonna die."

Eddie stopped talking, and put his head in his hands.

Liv put her arm around him.

"I was so damn scared when I knew he was gonna die. I mean, I was 13, and I knew, with Pop gone, I was the man of the house. What was I supposed to do? And, Jesus Christ, I had just killed my own father. I cried. Edie cried. We started thinkin' then about waitin' for him to come home, and runnin' to meet him, and he'd pick us up, one in each arm, and swing us up in the air. About goin' to the movies, and how if one of the little kids cried and somebody said somethin' Pop would break their nose and tell them his kids did what they wanted. About Coney Island and nickels for the goddamn ice cream truck, and all that shit. About Ma, and how much she loved him as much as he hated him and feared him. It was awaful. Fuckin' awful. We got down on the floor beside him, in all the blood, and we took his hands and cried."

Liv was crying; there were tears running down her face in a steady stream.

"And he told us not to cry, that we done good, we passed the last test. He said he'd come home to die that he'd rather die at our hands than in the State's chair. He asked us to bury him with his children that he'd killed, he said he'd loved all 12 of us, and the dead kids were better off that way, and that he loved Ma, and he made me promised to take care of Ma, and Aggie and Edie, and the little kids, and I promised. I been takin' care of my family ever since. And then he died. He died in our kitchen, with the fuckin' radio on, 33 years ago. Tonight. I'm glad I killed him, I hated him enough. I'm glad he's fuckin' dead, and if he came back I'd kill him all over again. I hadda do it. He woulda killed us all, sooner or later. But he was my goddamn father. I loved him, too. Fuck, sometimes I miss the son of a bitch. I feel guilty as shit. Jesus, sometimes it makes me wish I was fuckin' dead, too, just to be rid of it."

Eddie stopped talking.

Liv got the feeling he was crying, too.

She held onto him for a long time, and then he lifted his head up, and took another drink, and lit another cigar.

"To this day, kid, I can't look at a jar of Vaseline without feelin' like I either wanna throw up or kill somebody. I don't listen to music inna kitchen, an' if I find out some son of a bitch has made a punk out of a man, or raped a little kid, I hafta kill him. With my bare hands. I hafta. That's way I hate that sunnuvabitch Veidt so bad. After I beat him up, I could tell by the way he looked at me, he was already somebody's punk, and he wanted to be mine. Pop, he would have choked ol' Ozzy half to death with his belt and fucked him one foot into the grave, but shit, I ain't gonna do anything like that. I hate that fuckin' sick bastard for wantin' me to. For thinkin' I would."

Eddie rubbed the scar on the back of his neck, again, the scar that Liv had always thought looked like it was from a strap or a belt; like somebody had tried to choke him to death or hang him.

"You know why I ain't afraid to go to Hell?"

"Because of your father?"

"That's' right. My Pop, he's down there stokin' the kettles full of sons of bitches I sent down there to him, laughin'. He's burnin' an' smokin' and toastin'. But he's laughin' just the same. Someday. I'll be down there with him. Laughin' away. I don't mind goin' to Hell, I don't mind bein' there for eternity, if it's there, because Pop, he'll be there. Waitin'."

Liv wiped her tear-stained face on her sleeve, sniffed, reached across Eddie for the bottle and took a good, long, stiff drink.

Eddie took the bottle from her.

"Hey, hey, hey, kid. Don't do that. Jesus, I didn't mean ta unload all this horrible shit on you. I never told that shit to anybody. To Sal, a little. To explain myself. For what I almost did to her. You're gonna be alright, kid? Right?"

"Well, yeah, Eddie. I mean, ya gotta tell somebody these things. Why not me, right? I seen some things, I been through some shit. I understand you. Eddie. I always have. An' you understand me. So we can tell each other these things. Right?"

"Yeah, kid. That's right."

Eddie looked at his watch; it was past midnight.

"Fuck it, I ain't goin' to work, tonight. I'm tired, an' I'm drunk, an I feel like an old man. Put the booze away for me, kid. I don't wanna drink, anymore."

Eddie got up, he turned off the TV and the radio.

"I'm gonna go to bed."

"Okay, Eddie."

Liv picked up her knapsack, and followed him.

Impulsively, he grabbed her, and hugged her little body that was both hard and soft against him as close as he could, putting his chin on top of her head.

She hugged him back, with all her scars and all her tattoos and all her heart that was black as midnight in a coal mine on the outside, but that was really solid gold.

Gold as the sun, bright as her sunny, thousand watt smile.

"You're a good woman, Liv. Don't ever let anybody convince youse otherwise. They don't know nothin'. They don't know shit."

"I don't care what they think, Eddie. I'm right where I'm supposedta be." She said.

Liv closed her eyes, tightly, against Eddie's chest.

"I love you, Eddie. I swear to God I do. An' you know how I hate to say shit like this. But I'm with you. And you ain't goin' to no Hell, Eddie. Because I'm not. An' I won't let them take you from me. Never. No matter what."

Eddie chuckled, softly, and let her go, and they both walked into the bedroom.

"Are you savin me', kid, or am I savin' you?" he asked.

"Both," Liv said.

The Comedian went to bed tired and drunk, but he woke up around five in the morning consumed with fierce need and fierce lust.

The Harlequin woke up fast and woke up hot, and their hellfire consumed them.

And the sun came up in the morning the way it always had, and their lives went on the way they always did.

And, as for Michael Patrick Blake, AKA Good Lookin' Mickey Blake, AKA Mick the Merciless, one of the most feared, pitiless, and infamous gangsters in the history of New York City, he remained where he had been since 1937.

Waiting.