Author's Introduction:
While I'm working on chapter 10 of Breathless, I thought I'd try out something new, too.
Blame Falcon. This was his idea. ; )
The Girl With A Star-Spangled Heart
a G.I. Joe alternate-universe story by Firestar9mm
Prologue: All The Wonder
The wonder of the world is gone, I know for sure
All the wonder that I want I found in her.
(Finger Eleven, Slow Chemical)
His brother did this every time he came home, which, in the last years of his life (or at least, that was what Vincent and everyone else thought at the time, and there was no reason to doubt it until much, much later) was all too seldom.
Sometimes it was at the breakfast table, after Conrad had offered to help Mama clear the dishes and she had cheerfully rebuffed him, thrilled to be able to do even the smallest chore for her son the real American hero; Conrad would find a pencil or a ballpoint pen and start with a napkin, maybe just the eyes, a lock of ballpoint-inked hair framing them before twisting down near the barest hint of a smile. Then he'd ask Vince to find him some paper.
Sometimes in the afternoon Conrad would pause in the middle of a chore, realizing that the cardboard box he was about to flatten and discard would serve better as a canvas for her popped hip in chalk, the jaunty angle of a proud salute. Eventually it became real paper, pens with real ink, cardstock with charcoals and, in the very rare instance that Conrad was home for more than a weekend pass, large, painted posters in a riot of color.
But the image was the same every time; a big-eyed, long-lashed redhead, the kind of made-up beauty Vincent saw in his mother's magazines on a glossy page with perfume samples tucked in beside her. Only in Conrad's pictures she wasn't selling anything but America; her smile entreated the Falcone household to Keep 'Em Flying, her salute assuring them she'd always Fight For Liberty. Her long tail of hair was always streaming like a victory banner in the sketches, and when Vincent's father, Conrad's stepfather, mentioned that one night before supper while Conrad was sitting at the table dashing off yet another sketch of that same lovely smile, those same alluring eyes, he unwittingly gave a name to the ink-and-paint redhead marching proudly across any drawing surface Conrad could find. Miss Victory she became, and Miss Victory ruled Conrad's war-tormented brain with all the cruel loveliness of any imaginary goddess.
...at least, they had thought that was what she was, and at the time, they had no reason to doubt her falsehood any more than they had reason to doubt the reality of Conrad's being killed in action.
"How's Miss Victory?" Vincent's father Max would ask teasingly when the conversation lulled, and rather than getting annoyed, Conrad's winter-blue gaze would lighten dreamily. He'd respond with "Flying high," maybe, or "Giving them blood and hell, no doubt," but would never say anything more. How's Miss Victory became a loving inquiry that was far more fun and safe than asking Conrad how work was going, given the givens, but as Vincent grew up, a child's curiosity would make him the only one brave enough to ask the question that should have occurred to everyone else long ago.
"Who is Miss Victory?" Vincent had asked one longer, lazier day when Conrad, lying on his belly on the carpet as though he were no older than Vincent himself, had dazzled him with an effortless drawing of the military goddess in, of all things, Vincent's broken and nubby Crayolas. As was her way, Miss Victory had worn even something as simple as crayons like a badge of honor; rather than making her look silly, the bright crimson wax only made her hair look more spectacular over her true-blue eyes. For one unsettling moment, Vincent had thought she might reach off the page of his coloring book and take his hand, ask him to come and fight the good fight with her.
Again, Conrad's eyes had become hazy, a slow smile curling one corner of his strong mouth. "Just a dream girl," he said, tilting his head to appraise his handiwork as though he had uncovered the drawing rather than created it.
Being young, Vincent could only take the response at face value, and had asked, "So you made her up?"
Snapping out of his reverie, Conrad had blinked, his smile flickering like a broken light bulb—and although Vince wouldn't recognize it till he was much older and feeling it himself, there was a terrible bewilderment in his half-brother's face, as though he could not comprehend the depth of his own feelings and it terrified him. It would be years before Vincent knew the meaning of that expression and the awful power of the emotion behind it—but he'd rescued the moment with a brave, loud laugh. Ruffling Vincent's hair, he said cheerfully, "It sure seems that way, doesn't it?"
Luckily (or perhaps unluckily, as there wouldn't be many more answers after this, not for a very, very long time), Max had come into the living room at that point, having heard the tail end of the conversation. "Far better than any dream girl, Conrad, would be a real one. When are you going to slow down and let all the hometown girls catch up to you? You're all they talk about when you're here. Any one of them would kill to have half the attention you give Miss Victory over there." He'd nodded at the crayon drawing, his smile all for Conrad's wasted artistic talent and not for the redhead who kept enticing him back into battle; Max more than any other member of the family seemed to sense the unhealthiness of Conrad's obsession with a paper doll girl.
But Conrad hadn't flagged; tilting his face innocently up to his stepfather, he'd simply responded, "She needs me, Max."
"She's got plenty of boys to back the attack, son," Max had sighed, offering Conrad a hand to help him to his feet before scooping Vincent up to balance him on his hip and enjoy the last moments before the boy would get too big for such affections. "Leave her to her battlefield."
"I'd rather bring her home," had been Conrad's answer, and again, it was on the tip of Vincent's tongue to ask Who?
But Max had given in, clapping his stepson on the shoulder and proclaiming, sadly but truthfully, "I'm proud of you, Conrad."
Vincent had let it go, hooking his chin over his father's shoulder to watch the grateful smile slowly bloom on his half-brother's face, and then Mama was calling them all in for lunch.
Now, years later, Vincent still had the crayon drawing of Miss Victory in full face, head and shoulders with her gloved, star-spangled hand angled over those too-blue eyes. Not all of Conrad's pictures had survived the first time Vincent had tried drinking, at sixteen with a bottle of whiskey and plenty of fuel for the fire he'd made to burn the witch at the stake. He'd drunk in Conrad's room, surrounded by the smell of his brother's cologne and his football trophies, finally falling off the bed to tangle in Conrad's bedspread in his haste to implement the gutsy, alcohol-fueled decision to torch the siren who had sung Conrad to his death with her smiles and salutes.
Max had seen the smoke before the fire, the way he hadn't seen Conrad's death coming, the way none of them had, and he'd raced out to haul Vincent away from the blaze by his scruff before working to put out the fire. But it had been the sight of his mother—the sound of her panicked scream—that had sobered Vincent up far faster than the jerky motion of his father's hand on his neck yanking him to safety—as soon as Mama had seen that Vincent was all right, she'd tried to save the few sketches and posters he'd already managed to light up. At the time, it hadn't occurred to Vince that he'd been about to ruin one of the few things left of Conrad, of the beautiful world that had sprawled out inside his brother's brain, and he had felt instantly guilty as he watched his mother cry silently, the charred edges of the cardstock in her hands still glowing with stray embers. She'd seemed to be searching Miss Victory's pen-and-ink face for the answers.
Even as he had rolled on his side and the whiskey had burned its way back up his throat to be vomited out into the grass, Vincent could have told her not to bother. Goddesses never answered.
But that, he told himself as he brushed his hair back this morning and straightened his tie, had been a long time ago. Dream girls and dead soldiers had long since faded away, and there was no more Conrad, the same as there had never really been a Miss Victory.
Or so he had thought.
Author's Notes:
Seriously, it's just a prologue. There is a real story behind this, but I figured I'd wait until chapter one proper to drop a bucket of blood on everyone at the prom. Thoughts?
The title of this piece, "The Girl With A Star-Spangled Heart", is derived from a WWII propaganda poster encouraging women to join the workforce (there are also many other propaganda posters referenced in the text). I love propaganda posters and own many, and if it's one that empowers women and is patriotic—well, that's the trifecta, isn't it?