[1]
It's one of the greatest fallacies that time gives much of anything but years and sadness. And time does this through the giving of memory. Without memory, time would be unarmed against humankind. Time is ravenous, tearing down dynasties and blowing away legacies like loose sand on a dune. The Fantastic Four was one of these dynasties. America's beloved family fell, and Time ran to greet them bringing years and sadness with him arm in arm. Time and memory, sadness and death.
It was just John and Benjamin now. Franklin, the darling of the family, the child who was supposed to have the capability to change the world, fell asleep after a car crash. He slept with his eyes open, attached to wires and electric screens, and never said a word since. Then Susan, the strong-willed and unbending flower, who died shortly afterward in Latveria aiding rebels against the dictator there. Hers was the twinkle and warm smile that would make colors more vibrant and the day feel longer, and hers was also the scowl that could turn a man to a stammering puddle. When she died, Reed left his son to the nurses and buried himself in his work and was rarely seen after that.
The Fantastic Four became the Terrific Two, the Dynamic Duo, the Dos Amigos, they could never decide nor did they ever come to care. On certain mornings, after a long and hard night, John would come back to his apartment with broken glass embedded in his skin or a couple of bullets in his arm, and Benjamin without so much as a scratch on him would try his best to clean John's wounds, mumbling, "These suits don't work like they used to." Benjamin's hands were clunky and awkward, leaving John to remove any foreign objects from his own body and stitch himself. If he couldn't reach the wound, he would reluctantly go the hospital and leave as soon as he was stitched while Benjamin waited at the apartment.
After a couple of years of tracking terrorists and drug dealers throughout New York City, John and Benjamin declared a personal war on human trafficking. They left their apartment and renovated a rundown maintenance garage. Coming home, they recalled the events of their last excursion and using newly learned information planned for the next. Dinner was always delicious though made with cheap and minimal ingredients—the chicken was never dry, the pasta was always rich, and no one could make a taco that rivaled John's. After dinner, at whatever time that happened to be, John took a shower or softly bathed if the wounds were severe enough while Benjamin silently trained.
Benjamin Grimm was physically invulnerable, perhaps even immortal, but his soul was not cold stone. When John fell asleep each morning, Benjamin would stay awake and read old comic books based on his time in the Fantastic Four. The comics romanticized the stories, changing key details and were sometimes based on events that never happened at all.
Benjamin frequently reread the comic about Reed Richard and Susan Storm's wedding. The panel with John walking his sister Susan down the aisle made Benjamin smile. He felt happy memories flood over him like a river of liquid gold and honey fragrance. But the happiest moments are often also the most painful. When Benjamin reached the panel where Susan says "I do," his mouth quivered and tears sloppily ran down his cheeks. He buried his face in his thick hands and sometimes was not able to finish the book. "I miss you," he told the girl in the panel out loud. Though some would say the artists were lazy when drawing her white gown, Benjamin thought she couldn't have looked more beautiful.
Benjamin also reread the comic about the birth of Reed and Susan's son Franklin. This comic didn't overwhelm Benjamin with emotion so much as make him feel hollow. The more he read, the more the colors splashing the pages turned gray. He felt dead, filled with regret. He never finished reading that one.
And finally, perhaps the comic he reread the most was the story of him meeting Alicia Masters. Alicia never existed. There was no one Benjamin knew by that name, nor was the character based on any real person. Yet in the comic, Alicia was very real. She was blind and she fell in love with him and accepted him for his inhuman appearance. This comic sometimes caused Benjamin to despise himself, sometimes the world, sometimes he would feel despair, sometimes hope. Sometimes he became so angry that when he struggled to turn the pages with his clumsy large fingers he would walk outside and uproot trees and pound them to mulch and grab parked cars and rip them to pieces, not caring who saw.
Both Benjamin's and John's worlds were shattered like unwanted glass bottles. They now hunched over the pieces with groping small child fingers, desperately trying to put the world back together again, though both in their own way. Benjamin tormented himself by clinging to the past and wallowing in sadness, unable to utter the word "goodbye." John, on the other hand, chose not to think about the past at all. Instead, he visited the prostitutes a lot, though that never did much for him. Benjamin once found a box of condoms in John's dresser but never asked him about it.
The human trafficking rings were becoming desperate, causing John to rely more and more on Benjamin to survive the brutal encounters. John finally decided he would retire and buy a ranch somewhere out in Texas. Because of him and Benjamin, the human trafficking in New York City was devastated, and many people had been returned to their families. But the illegal drug trafficking had spiked again, and John while cleaning his arm grazed by a bullet realized nothing he did made a difference. He realized his battle wasn't against evil men but against the evil in humanity and he would never win.
John cooked lamb for dinner that night, accompanied with freshly baked biscuits. While eating at their shabby table, John decided to tell Benjamin his plans. Benjamin dabbed his mouth with a crumbled napkin.
"So you really want to leave?" said Benjamin dryly.
"Ben, I'm tired. I can't keep this up."
"I don't want you to leave."
"I'm not bulletproof like you. I'm not a mountain with legs. Look," John gestured to his whole body. "I'm covered in scars and bruises and my suit is completely worn. I'm done."
Benjamin frowned. "Reed can make you a new one."
"No. I've tried calling him and he's never answered. He's completely shut everyone out."
"I don't want you to leave," repeated Benjamin. His voice sounded slightly detached.
"Ben, I want you to come with me," said John.
"I can't. We're not done."
"And we never will be. Kill one bad guy and another one appears."
"That's why we have to keep fighting. If we don't, no one will."
"The cops?"
"You know they can't take on what we do."
"Well I can't either."
Benjamin ran his hand over his head. "Johnny, I don't want you to be alone."
"Then come with me," said John.
"I already told you why I can't."
"And I already told you why I have to."
The two sat in silence for some time. Benjamin was hunched over with his hands tucked under his armpits. He looked up at John and said, "Will you at least send me your address?"
John smiled uncertainly. "I'll write you a letter."
They resumed eating their lamb in quiet.
[2]
John did in fact send Benjamin a letter. Benjamin couldn't open the envelope's fine seal because of his thick fingers—John knowing this probably hadn't put anything inside—but he could read the return address on the back of the envelope. After weary years of waging war on New York's underworld, he decided he would move in with John at his ranch.
John met Benjamin at the Wimberley station. John saw him leaning out the large brown metal door of a box car littered in graffiti. Benjamin concealed himself in an oversized trench coat and wide brim fedora. He had a hand on his fedora to keep it from blowing away.
The station was row after row of dirty cargo trains. The tracks split and joined together before finally veering in different directions away from the station. John stood and watched Benjamin's train come nearby. John was dark, his skin leathery from his long years spent living under the Texas sun. His beard was neatly trimmed, and his blonde hair fell to his shoulders. He wore a black felt hat, a white button-up with a black overcoat. His shoes looked as polished as his silver belt buckle that dazzled in the midday light. John fiddled with his coat sleeves to cope with his nervous excitement. He looked nice.
The train screeched and wheezed into the station, and Benjamin looked down and jumped off the moving train, his feet landing and skidding a little. He regained his balance and walked up to John, waving an arm wildly and carrying a green bag in the other. He smiled a wide and ecstatic grin, and John smiled back. They met, clasped hands and embraced.
"Johnny," Benjamin laughed, "you have a beard!" His voice bellowed like loud echoes in stone mountains.
"It's me, Ben, it's me," answered John.
The two embraced again and howled with laughter. Then Benjamin held John back by the shoulders and looked at him. "I've never been so bored in my life sitting in that train car," Benjamin said.
"And you've never smelled so bad either," said John.
It didn't take long to reach the moving van. Benjamin climbed into the storage space in the back, making the van creak. He asked if the van was a rental and John said it was. As Benjamin got in a comfortable sitting position with his bag in his lap, John pulled down the big metal door and walked to the front of the van, opened the driver's door and sat in the seat. There was a stain on the seat and the plastic that covered the dashboard was a little fogged up, but the van was in otherwise very good condition.
The drive to John's ranch was long and quiet. John once in a while heard some stirring in the back, but for the most part everything sounded completely still. John turned on the radio to pass the time. The pop music annoyed him, so he kept flipping the stations. Every news station was talking about the murdered governor of New York. Even some of the Spanish stations were mentioning something about "Nueva York." John decided he didn't like anything that was on and turned off the radio. He then quietly sang to himself about girls and whiskey.
John reached the rutty road that led to his ranch. The ranch was deep in the Texas hill country, in a valley beside a winding river. Right now the river was a shallow stream. The trees and shrubs looked dry and shouted with green, and the cicadas screamed their heads off in the hills. The van topped the rise above the little valley and descending John soon pulled up to his ranch house with its white wooden walls and bright blue door. He couldn't wait to show the place to Benjamin, Benjamin with his fedora and little green bag.
Benjamin got settled and John made burgers for dinner. Benjamin ate almost a tray-full, each in two or three bites. He commented that some of them tasted a little underdone. He found a guest bedroom prepared for him with a plain white streamer hanging from the ceiling saying "Welcome home."
In the rosy dawn Benjamin was awakened by the chill of pain that came to him at intervals. It was a rustle and a threat of pain; it scampered up from his side and across his abdomen, a nibbling pinch and then a little grab and then a hard catch and finally a fierce grip as though huge metal pliers had wrenched him. When that relaxed he felt a soreness like a bruise. It didn't last very long, but while it went on the outside world was blotted out, and he seemed to be listening to the struggle in his body. It was a new and strange sound to him.
When only the soreness remained he saw how the dawn had come silver to the windows. He smelled the good morning rippling the curtains, bringing in the odor of grass and roots and dry earth. After that sounds joined the parade of perception—sparrows haggling among themselves, a choir of dogs monotonously berating the sky and the trees, a blue jay's squawk of false excitement, the sharp warning of a black grackle stomping through the grass and the answering whisper of a small brown female scurrying somewhere nearby. The canopy of trees chattered with excitement, where a lady squirrel, who was quite big, hypocritically protested the horror of being lustfully pinned down by a scrawny wreck of a male she could have blasted with one blow of her tail.
The starting of an engine and the sound of a vehicle pulling away—probably John returning the moving van—suddenly brought memory into the procession. Benjamin remembered how Susan had once said, sitting at the table, "I told Tony I was renaming the car Valerie and—do you know?—he said, 'No renaming cars.' 'Why not?' I asked him, and he said, 'It's that rare worst of bad luck. Stick with the original name.' 'I don't like it.' 'Stick with the original name,' he told me. And if the sky's blue, I'm renaming the car Valerie."
And Reed said patiently, "Why are you always testing, Sue? The name Jessica's just as good if not better."
"I won't let an old wives' tale push me," Susan said.
And Reed said with his oblivious simplicity, "You're already pushed by your own contentiousness."
"Well someone's got to nose-thumb fate, otherwise we'll never do anything and just hide ourselves away from sadness and death."
And of course she renamed the car Valerie and nose-thumbed sadness and death until they came for her.
Benjamin heard her words as if she was speaking right in front of him and, as he remembered, the walls around him became the walls of the Baxter Building, and people were walking around the house. Sadness and death, he thought, and death and sadness, and it wrenched in his stomach against the soreness. You just have to wait long enough and it will come.
He heard the cars driving and honking in the traffic below and the sirens blare and then fade only to blare again. He heard Reed pound furiously on a keyboard and occasionally scribble something on paper. Then Franklin wandered about, looking in unlikely places for his shoes, and at last found them where he had left them under the bed.
He heard Susan hacking at a cutting board in the kitchen while nodding and mouthing the words to a song being played on her phone.
And John had stolen Reed's stapler and with a flaming hand was boiling water in a metal bowl. Spread out before him were tape, dental floss, and an absurd number of boxes of gelatin. John couldn't stop grinning.
When Reed found his stapler suspended in green gelatin, he shouted "Johnny!" and marched off to find him.
"Oh, Johnny," said Benjamin, and his lips moved.
John's fearlessness was as huge as his terror. His despair balanced his hope, and himself was a pitted battlefield of his own forces. He was confused now, but Benjamin could steer and guide him, the way a parent guides a child learning to ride a bike without training wheels.
Benjamin lay part in pain and a part of him dangled in sleep while the morning brightened against the window. He remembered that Franklin was going to lead the Fourth of July Captain America March right alongside no less than the Captain himself, Steve Rogers. And Reed was combing Franklin's hair and had not started ironing his clothes. Benjamin struggled to get up. They were in a hurry, and here he lay drowsing.
He cried, "I'll get it done, Franklin. It will be ready."
He sat up in his bed and threw off the covers and rushed barefooted through the Baxter Building. In the hall everyone was gone to the bedrooms. In the bedroom, with the beds neat-made, they were all in the kitchen, and in the kitchen—they dispersed and, along with the Baxter Building, were gone. Sadness and death. The wave receded and left him in dry awakeness.
The ranch house was clear, scrubbed and immaculate, curtains washed, windows polished, it was hard to believe it was John's. But as much as John cleaned—the ironed curtains did not hang quite straight and there were streaks on the windows and a square showed on the table when a book was moved.
The oven was warming, with orange light showing behind the lid's murky glass. The microwave's digital clock flashed the time in bright green.
From outside came the closing of a car door. Then came a whistle as calm and cheerful as a mockingbird's and pitched high and sweet. The whistling wove a delicate melody. Then John's steps sounded on the porch, and he came in twirling car keys around his finger. He tossed the keys on a table.
"You're up," he said. "I went to return the moving van and pick up my truck." His face was lighted with joy. "The sun's up and it's no time to be idle."
"You sound like Reed," Benjamin said.
John's joy hardened to fierceness. "Yes," he said loudly. "And we'll have those old days again, right here. I've felt like an astronaut stranded on a lonely planet. But now you're here, and I'll show you. I'm going to rekindle life with life." John snapped his fingers and lit his thumb aflame. "Don't you hear? This house is going to be alive."
"I'm glad I came," Benjamin said, and he thought in desolation how brittle John was now and how easy to shatter, and how he would have to protect him.
"You must have spent forever getting the house so clean," he said.
"No problem," said John. "One room at a time was all."
"Is that your secret?"
"That, and that I invented a machine that cleans rooms no problem."
"You hate science."
"Not yesterday. That's when I invented it. It runs on steam and nuclear radiation. And today, cows—I'm going to raise millions of them, every single one white with black splotches. And tomorrow, the cutest little bottles of milk you ever saw will come through on a conveyor belt—here! I'll draw it."
"I want to draw some breakfast," Benjamin said.
"Big guy, you'll have it," he cried, and turned on the stove, whistling. Blue flame licked the black metal grate. John turned to Benjamin. "I'm going to make peach cobbler later."
Benjamin said, "I don't like peaches."
"You don't like peaches?" John shouted.
Benjamin thought miserably, If his is real, why can't my heart be light? Why can't I climb out of my cardboard box? I will, he roared inside himself. If he can—I will.
He said, "Johnny!"
"Yes."
"I want cereal with purple milk."
[3]
Orion's belt and fiery orange head disappeared from the night sky and the summer stars shone in their place. The green grass that lasted on the hills far into June turned yellow. The heads of the wild oats were so heavy with seed that they hung over on their stalks. The little springs trickled on late in the summer. The range cattle staggered under their fat and their hides shown with health. It was a year of plenty in the hills of Texas.
John Storm labored like a native Texan, not only with his strong arms and rough hands but also with his heart and spirit. Several cows mooed on the property. He painted the ranch house a bold and clean gray accented with white trim and columns and an earth-red door and then he whitewashed the sheds. He took firearm classes and frequently visited the shooting range and bought himself a Smith and Wesson .38. He bought a new riding lawn mower and a fly rod and after much deliberation bought a horse.
That was not all—he labored with humor and good spirits. Benjamin had to rise very early to get in his hand at the housework before John had it all done. He watched John's great red happiness, and it was not light as it was many, many years ago. It did not rise out of his soul and come floating up. He was manufacturing happiness as cleverly as he knew how, molding it and shaping it.
Benjamin, who had friends all over the world, had no confidants. When his trouble had come upon him he had not talked about it. And the pains were a secret in himself.
When John found him rigid and tight from the grabbing pain and cried in alarm, "Ben what's the matter?" he controlled his face and answered, "A little knot in my stomach, that's all. Just a little knot. I'm alright now." And in a moment they were laughing.
They laughed a great deal, as though to reassure themselves. Only when Benjamin went to bed did his loss fall on him, bleak and unendurable. And John lay in the dark of his room, puzzled as a child. He could hear his own heart beating and rasping a little in its beat. His mind fell away from thought and clung for safety to little plans, chores, cattle.
Sometimes in the summer evenings they sat on the front porch to watch the afterglow clinging to the tops of the western hills and to feel the breeze drawn into the valley by the rising day-heated air. Usually they sat silently while Benjamin smoked a cigar and John breathed in peacefulness. They had always operated under an unstated code to never reveal matters deep on their hearts and minds.
It was startling to both of them when Benjamin said one evening on the porch, "Johnny, why don't you get married?"
John looked quickly at him and away. He said, "Who'd have me?"
"Is that a joke or do you really mean it?"
John pulled up the side of his shirt to show a canvas of thick scars. With every scar came a history of people he burned alive. "Who'd have me?" he said again. "Who'd want a thing like me?"
"It sounds to me as though you really mean it." Benjamin sullenly turned over his rock hands and examined them. Then he violated their unspoken code. "Do you believe in destined love?"
"No," he said shortly.
"That everyone has somebody meant for them?" he continued as though John had not answered.
John did not speak again until the afterglow was nearly gone and the stars filled every gap in the sky. Suddenly a pair of warm yellow lights came over the hill and started its way down.
Benjamin slowly rose from his chair. He said, "I'm going inside to make some coffee" and stepped inside the house.
John waited and a large black vehicle pulled up to his driveway. The lights didn't turn off and both front doors opened and out stepped two men in uniforms. One of them asked "Are you John Storm?" and John said "Yes." They continued, "Are you the same John Storm that served on the Fantastic Four?" and John said "Want an autograph?"
"We're SHIELD, sir, and we're looking for Benjamin Grimm. We have reason to believe he's here," said one of the officers.
"Sure thing," John said. "I'll take you to him."
John led the two men into his home saying, "Ben we have company."
Benjamin appeared from the kitchen. He nodded, "Officers."
The two men pulled out their guns and approached him shouting, "Benjamin Grimm, you are under arrest for the murder of Governor Orrin Kelsey." They approached him like they would a rabid animal.
"You were going to let that monster walk," said Benjamin heatedly.
The two men began saying "You have the right to remain silent" and they burst into flame midsentence. They screamed and screamed and then they slumped to the floor and were motionless. Behind them John stood with his hands on fire. "Amateurs," he said, and Benjamin pulled a rug over them to smother the flames.
"I never did get used to that smell," said Benjamin.
"Me neither."
"That was just their warning shot."
"I know."
Silence filled the house again. Benjamin tossed the bodies outside and John turned on the lamp in the living room. The horsehair sofa he had rebuilt raised its gooseneck against the wall, and the white carpet had tacks worn light between the doors. He sat on the sofa, and Benjamin sat down by the round center table. They left the black vehicle outside on.
Benjamin looked at the wall and then at John and said, "I have explaining to do."
"I put two and two together," said John. "Forget it."
Benjamin listened to the crickets and frogs outside. He said, "Have you ever thought that our whole world right now is the valley and a few drives to the store, and don't you miss traveling like we used to? I do."
"I do too," said John.
"Well, isn't that strange?"
"We've never had a reason to."
"But we've never had a reason not to. We could go to Paris and to Rome or to Jerusalem. I would love to see the Colloseum again."
John watched him suspiciously, expecting some kind of joke. "How could we?" he asked. "I could barely afford the horse."
"We wouldn't have to stay in fancy places. We could take the cheapest plane tickets," Benjamin said and he caught himself and remembered why he had to take the cargo train and moving van. "We could get a boat. That's how my great grandfather came from Ireland. And we could go to Ireland."
Still John watched him, but a raw stinging was beginning his eyes.
Benjamin went on, "We could take a year for multiple jobs, save every penny. I'm sure I can find something. Reed will help us. And next summer you could sell the cows and horse and we could go. We don't have a reason not to."
John got up and went outside. He looked up at the summer stars, at blue Venus and red Mars. His hands flexed at his sides, closed to fists and opened. Then he turned and went back into the house. Benjamin had not moved.
"Do you want to go, Ben?"
"Yes." He then added, "More than anything."
"Then we will go!"
"Do you want to go?"
"Yes more than anything," John said, and then, "Egypt—have you given thought to Egypt?"
"Athens," Benjamin said.
"Constantinople!"
"Bethlehem!"
"Yes, Bethlehem," he said.
They waited until they could hear the helicopters and the sounds of vehicles surrounding their house.
"I'm going to go change," said John. "These are good clothes and I don't want to fight naked."
John disappeared into his bedroom and came back wearing worn blue fabric. He hadn't worn the suit in years and it felt strange to him.
He looked at Benjamin and said suddenly, "Ben, I don't think I'm going to survive this one."
"You will," said Benjamin.
"I feel it and I don't care."
Benjamin felt a burning in his chest and wanted to shout "I'm sorry Johnny!" and wished he had left John alone and stayed in New York. He could hear footsteps on the porch. He looked out a window at the night black like the ocean floor and hated himself. He wondered why he really came, or whether John wanted him there. And as he wondered the whisper of pain grew up from his side.
And when soldiers in black uniforms burst into the house, John became a silhouette of fire and he and Benjamin slaughtered them. Benjamin ran for the vehicles outside and John flew above him. A bullet dug deep in John's thigh, and he screamed and blasted several helicopters with a meteoric jet of fire. Benjamin lifted a large vehicle and smashed it onto several screaming soldiers. The grenades and missiles didn't faze him and the soldiers realized this and retreated. Benjamin picked up a broken helicopter blade and threw it at one of the soldiers running away. The blade stuck in his back and split his skull. Benjamin thought, This can't be everything.
More helicopters rose over the valley hills like a volley of arrows. An endless file of yellow headlights made their way down the old dirt road to the ranch. Clouds filled the sky and faintly rumbled. Benjamin felt a drop of rain. The faint rumble became a crack of lightning and suddenly a torrent of rain fell over the valley like a curtain.
John's golden form extinguished and he stood nervously by Benjamin with a hand pressed on a bloody leg. The Human Torch was done. The helicopters were very close and John shouted "I guess this is it for me" over the rain.
Benjamin shouted back, "I'm sorry I should never have come here."
The helicopters came but did not shoot. They hovered like vultures eyeing carrion. The vehicles with their yellow headlights reached the property and surrounded it. Lightning flashed and turned a corner of the sky white, followed by a thunder that made the ground tremor. A man in a cape plummeted from the sky. He hit the ground and made a small crater. There was a hammer in his hand.
"Benjamin Grimm," shouted the man, "on your knee or I will kill you." His face was stoic.
Benjamin looked at the corpses and debris surrounding him. He said, "The only god I serve is Mars."
The man charged at Benjamin. Their duel was primordial in its power and biblical in its destruction. The spectating helicopters became grim black angels silently heralding Judgment Day. The earth shook and the sky roared a white-flash scream. And after a long struggle, Benjamin stood over a defeated god.
The helicopters fled and the vehicles fled and the storm whimpered and died. John ran up to Benjamin but found no words to say.
The house had somehow remained intact. Benjamin left and went inside while John studied the man on the ground. The moon shone and the stars swam in the sky. The night was calm.
The next morning John and Benjamin found the bodies and wreckage mysteriously gone. SHIELD didn't return to John's ranch after that. As always, John and Benjamin found themselves looking for a new home. The neighbors didn't live very close but they didn't have to live close to have heard the bullets and rockets from last night. John sold his cows and was ready to sell his horse. He and Benjamin would move back to New York and maybe even try to reconnect with Reed.
Driving up the road to his ranch, John kept thinking about Europe. The possibility of tramping around Ireland and France and Spain was absurd, but he let the idea take hold in his head and he toyed with it. How could they make enough money to go? And suddenly he realized he didn't even know how much they'd need. He easily could find a job in New York, but what could Ben do? They might spend the day figuring.
He half expected Benjamin to run out of the house when he drove up. He would put on his best face and tell a joke. But Benjamin didn't run out. Maybe taking a nap, he thought. He watered the horse and stabled it and pitched hay into the manger.
Benjamin was laying on the gooseneck sofa when John came in. "Taking a nap?" he asked, and then he saw the weak look on Ben's face. "Ben," he cried, "what's the matter?"
Benjamin rallied himself against the pain. "Just a stomach ache," he said. "A pretty sever one."
John frowned. "You don't get stomach aches."
"I did this time."
"Oh," said John. "I can fix up a stomach ache." He went to the kitchen and brought back a glass of pearly liquid. John handed it to him.
Benjamin asked, "What is it?"
"Good old-fashioned salts."
Benjamin drank it obediently and made a face. "That's terrible."
"I heard it's a good recipe. Now you lie still," John said. "I'll rustle up some lunch."
Benjamin could hear John knocking about in the kitchen. The pain roared through his body. And on top of the pain there was fear. He could feel the medicine burn down his stomach. After a while he dragged himself to the newly-installed toilet and tried to vomit the salts. He became winded and felt he couldn't breathe. When he tried to straighten up, the stone muscles over his stomach were set and he could not break free.
Later John brought him some scrambled eggs. Benjamin shook his head slowly. "I can't," he said, smiling. "I think I'll just go to bed."
"The salts should work pretty soon," John assured him. "Then you'll be alright." He watched him weakly climb into bed. "What do you suppose you ate to cause it?"
Benjamin lay in his bedroom and his will battled the pain. About three o'clock in the afternoon his will began to lose its fight. He called, "Johnny! Johnny!" John opened the door. He had a travel magazine in his hand. "Johnny," said Benjamin, "I'm sorry. But I'm really sick, Johnny. I'm very sick."
John sat down on the edge of the bed in the blue light from the window. "How bad?"
"Awful."
"I'll sit with you," John said. "Maybe you can get some sleep. It'll be gone in the morning. The salts will do the job."
Benjamin's will took hold again and he lay still while John quietly read his magazine. He stopped when he thought Benjamin had fallen asleep, and he dozed in his chair.
A thin scream awakened him. He stepped beside the struggling bed sheets. Benjamin's eyes were milky and crazy, like those of a maddened animal. His mouth corners erupted thick bubbles and his face was on fire. John put his hand under the cover and on Benjamin's stomach. His skin and muscles were rock and always organically moved and shifted. Now they were locked like petrified tree or cold iron. And then Benjamin's struggle stopped and his head fell back and the light glinted on his half-closed eyes.
John ran to the living room and flung himself to his phone. "Stark! Get him! I don't care. Get him! Get him, goddam it."
Tony Stark's voice answered, "Yes! Johnny? Yes—yes, I hear. What's the matter with him. Is his stomach hard—well harder than normal? What did you do? Salts! You goddam fool!"
Then Stark controlled his anger. "Johnny," he said, "Johnny, pull yourself together. Go back and lay cold cloths—cold as you can get them. Keep changing the cloths and I'll be out as fast as I can. Do you hear me? Johnny, do you hear me?"
Stark hung up. In angry weariness he put on his red and yellow armor and called out, "Jarvis, I'm going to Texas. Call Stephen Strange and Reed Richard. Tell them to meet me at Johnny Storm's house. Forward them the address. If Reed argues tell him Ben is—dying."
[4]
John came flying back to the ranch a day after Ben's funeral, postured straight and prim, his shoulders and chin in. He looked like a slow and solemn meteor.
It had been the largest funeral he had ever seen. It was held in New York City and just about every costumed superhero attended and over a hundred thousand people held and raised candles. John thought that Reed had given the best speech.
John had done everything perfectly. His long and golden hair was brushed, his beard trimmed, and his blue suit was stitched and polished and without a wrinkle. Not even the Surfer could have held himself in more dignity than John as he flew back to the old house. A hawk driving down on something below with doubled fists did not make him turn his head.
At the barn he landed, checked and watered his horse, held him a moment at the door, haltered him, and put rolled barley in the box beside the manger. When the barley was finished he led the bay horse out and turned him free to graze on every unfenced inch of the world.
In the house the furniture, chairs, and stove seemed to shrink back and away from him in distaste. A stool avoided him as he went to the living room. He held an unlit cigarette between his fingers. The lamp in the living room was fair and lonely. A flame ran quickly around John's fingertip like a match wick and then stood up a full yellow inch. Unlike a lighter with its propane, his flame kept the cigarette's sulfur taste. John lit his cigarette.
John sat down in the evening and placed his lips on the cigarette and looked around. His eyes avoided the horsehair sofa. A slight noise of mice in the kitchen made him turn, and he saw his shadow on the wall and the shadow of smoky fumes rising from his lips.
He thought dawdling, protective thoughts, sitting under the lamp, but he knew that pretty soon his name would be called and he would have to go up before the bench with himself as judge and his own crimes as jurors.
And his name was called, shrilly in his ears. His mind walked in to face the accusers: Vanity, which charged him with being ill dressed and scar-ridden and vulgar; and Lust, slipping him the money for his whoring; Dishonesty, to make him pretend to be a hero with good and thought he did not have; Laziness and Gluttony arm in arm. John felt comforted by these because they screened the great Gray One in the back seat, waiting—the gray and dreadful crime. He dredged up lesser things, used small sins almost like virtues to save himself. There were Covetousness of Reed's money, Treason toward his mother's God, Theft of time and hope, sick Rejection of Love.
Susan spoke softly but her voice filled the room. "Be good, be pure, be great, be Johnny Storm."
John ignored his sister. He said, "I'm busy greeting my friends," and nodded to Discourtesy and Ugliness and Unfilial Conduct and Unkempt Fingernails. Then he started with Vanity again. The Gray One shouldered up in front. It was too late to stall with baby sins. The Gray One was Murder.
John's hand felt the chill of the glass and saw the pearly liquid with the dissolving crystals still turning over and lucent bubbles rising, and he repeated aloud in the empty, empty room, "This will do the job. Just wait till morning. You'll feel fine then." That's how it had sounded, exactly how, and the walls and chairs and the lamp had all heard it and they could prove it. There was no place in all the world for John Storm to live. But it wasn't for lack of trying. He shuffled possibilities like cards. London? No! Egypt—pyramids in Egypt and the Sphinx. No! Paris? No! Now wait—they do all your sins lots better. No! Well, stand aside and maybe we'll come back to you. Bethlehem? Dear God, no! It would be lonely there for a stranger."
And here interpolated—it's so hard to remember how you die or when. An eyebrow raised or a whisper—they may be it; or a night mottled with splashed light until powder-driven lead finds your secret and lets out the fluid in you.
Now this is true, John Storm was dead and he had only to do a few descent things to make it final. It was just Reed now.
The sofa cricked in criticism, and Tom looked at it and at the tall and slender lamp to which the sofa referred. "Thank you," John said to the sofa. "I hadn't noticed it," and he turned off the lamp and smushed his cigarette in the ash tray.
His mind dozed. Murder slapped him aware again. Now Red John, Gum John, was too tired to kill himself. That takes some doing, with maybe pain and maybe hell.
He remembered that his mother had a strong distaste for suicide, feeling that it combined three things of which she strongly disapproved—bad manners, cowardice, and sin. It was almost as bad as adultery or stealing—maybe just as bad. There must be a way to avoid his mother's disapproval. She could make one suffer if she disapproved.
Susan wouldn't make it hard, but on the other hand you couldn't avoid Susan because she was in the air every place. John had to tell Susan. He said, "My sister, I'm sorry. I can't help it. You overestimated me. You were wrong. I wish I could justify the love and the pride you squandered on me. Maybe you could figure a way out, but I can't. I cannot live. I've killed Ben and I want to sleep."
And his mind spoke for his sister's absence, saying, "Why, I can understand how that would be. There are so many patterns to choose from in the arc from birth back to birth again. But let's think how we can make it all right with Mother. Why are you so impatient, dear?"
"I can't wait, that's why," John said. "I can't wait anymore."
"Why, sure you can, my brother, my darling. You're grown great as I knew you would. Open that table drawer and then make use of that thing you call your head."
John opened the drawer and saw a small stack of notebook paper and a package of envelopes to match and two gnawed and crippled pencils and in the dust corner at the back a few stamps. He laid out the paper and sharpened the pencils with his pocketknife. A phone call or email felt cheap.
He wrote, "Dear Mother, I hope you keep yourself well. I am going to plan to spend more time with you. Tony Stark asked me for Thanksgiving and you know I'll be there. His butler Jarvis can cook a turkey nearly to match yours, but I know you will never believe that. I've had a stroke of good luck. Bought a horse for fifteen hundred dollars—a gelding, and he looks like a blood-horse to me. I got him cheap because he has taken a dislike to humanity. His former owner spent more time on his own back than on the gelding's. I must say he's a pretty cute article. He's thrown me twice but I'll get him yet, and if I can break him I'll have one of the best horses in the whole county. And you can be sure I'll break him if it takes all winter. I don't know why I can go on about him, only the man I bought him from said a funny thing. He said, 'That horse is so mean he'd eat a man right off his back.' Well, remember what Dad used to say when he went to perform a surgery? 'Come back with your shield or on it.' I'll stop by Thanksgiving to see you. Your son Johnny."
He wondered if it was good enough, but he was too tired to do it again. He added, "P.S. I got a hand cramp writing this letter. I can see why it's a dead art."
On another sheet he wrote, "Dear Reed, No matter what you yourself may think—please help me now. For my mother's sake—please. I was killed by a horse—thrown and kicked in the head—please! Your friend Johnny."
He stamped the letters and put them in his pocket and he asked Susan, "Is that all right?"
In his bedroom he broke open a new box of shells and put one of them in the cylinder of his well-oiled Smith and Wesson .38 and he set the loaded chamber one space to the left of the firing pin. He paused and looked at Benjamin's comics on the dresser. He had found them in Benjamin's small green bag. Alicia Masters stared right at him, laughing and embracing Benjamin.
His horse standing sleepily near the fence came to his whistle and stood drowsing while he saddled up.
It was five o'clock in the morning when he dropped the letters in the post office at Wimberley and mounted and turned his horse south toward the misty blue hills.
He rode slow and solemn.