Born Normal
Once upon a time, celebrity was simple. Was the world a smaller place? Or was I a smaller person?
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For such a cold city, New York could easily burn the unsuspecting. Stamping through the midnight streets and grey February slush, Jean-Paul Beaubier welcomed the game. Hands thrust deeply in his pockets, he stumbled over a hardened chunk of snow, cursing the sidewalk maintenance just loudly enough to be noticed. Hurrying along the deserted street, he presented the perfect picture of an easy mark; six hundred-dollar overcoat over chic citywear designed for window shopping at Tiffany's, hardly the ideal outfit for a midnight stroll in neighborhoods where police fear to tread. His fine white hair swept by the wind and aquiline features drawn up into an artful impression of tension, he paused and shivered again.
Not cold, no, never that. Even before he erupted with the power of a god, the man alternately known as "Northstar" and "that flying faggot canuck," had an abnormally rapid metabolism; he never had to concern himself with such mundane concerns as hypothermia.
Still, there was no reason that the rough-and-tumble pickpocket that had been following him for blocks needed to know that. Stopping, he pulled his hands out of his pockets to rub them together. Precisely one and a half seconds later, the footsteps behind him stopped. Clumsy.
Jean-Paul looked up from his clenched hands. Feigning panic, a quick glance behind seemed to reassure him as the nameless thug took to the alley. Stupid too. Step faster now. Hurry kid, your next fix is getting away. Predictably, a slipshod echo followed. Closer.
Ten minutes, one bruise, and a botched mugging later, one man walked out of the alley, dusted off his overcoat, and jumped. He didn't touch the ground for twenty minutes. Why walk when you can fly?
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"Has it ever occurred to you that if you just settled down with a nice boy, you wouldn't want to do this anymore?"
The morning-after syndrome. 7:00 is entirely too early for this.
"Just get me the icepack Marie. I don't pay you for your opinions."
"No, you pay me for putting up with you. My opinions are part of the package."
"Icepack, Marie, please."
Downtown Manhattan. High rent, uptight neighbors, and areas with nicknames like "Dead Cat Square," so named because you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some nationally known figure there.
"Beating up random muggers isn't the healthiest way to take out your frustrations, Jean-Paul. Have you ever considered seeing someone about this?"
Holding the icepack to his forehead, he reached for a cup of coffee, straightened his bathrobe and changed the subject.
"What time was I scheduled for Cutting Edge today?"
"Eight. You should probably start getting ready, I know how long you take in the shower and it's a half-hour drive if you're lucky."
"If you drive." Jean smirked.
With an exasperated sigh, Marie flung a towel at the newly christened "political firebrand" and bestselling author. "You know where the shower is; I've got other things to do. I thought gay men were supposed to be tidier than this."
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"For the hundredth time Gene, it's not a matter of public safety, it's about civil rights!"
Cutting Edge, late-night infotainment at its worst; the most divisive issues and hottest names in politics pumped nightly into the homes of the jaded John Q. Public. Of course, most politicians have better things to do with their evenings than actually concern themselves with matters of informing the public. Hence the daytime tapings. Too damn early.
"Mr. Beaubier, we're all aware of your personal interest in the new argument about civil rights. It seems as though in failing to apply that logic to one abnormal status, you're trying to use it for another. And just as the militant homosexual movement has failed to recruit the public's support with their talk of "civil rights," Mutants aren't getting anywhere by claiming that they have no choice but to do what they do. The recent events in Genosha are a prime example of how mutants can choose to be a destructive factor, and of the need for security measures."
"That has nothing to do with it. People no more choose to be a mutant than they choose to be African-American or left handed. Regardless of how you feel about gay rights, you can't define genetic status as a matter of choice." He was starting to get personal. Don't let him badger you Jean- Paul. You've faced down worse.
"Regardless of whether it's a matter of choice, mutants are dangerous. Period. Something needs to be done about that. This bill is a step in the right direction."
"Making any use of mutant abilities, including those performed before the passage of this law a misdemeanor, increasing the punishments for mutants who are convicted of felonies, forcing mutant registration and neighborhood alerts like sex offenders..these are steps in the right direction? What happened to the Bill or Rights? Ex post facto is the kindest term I can apply to that bill."
The cameras were on close up of Jean-Paul, expecting his famous temper to get ahead of him. He was already clutching the sides of his chair like a lifeline. Deep breath. The public loves controversy, drama. They already had the former; Jean wasn't about to give them the satisfaction of the latter.
"The founding fathers certainly didn't have mutants in mind when they wrote the constitution. It's absurd to assume that Thomas Jefferson would have approved a right to privacy to someone, something rather, that can read minds or blow up whole cities with a thought."
"So mutants are second-class citizens now?"
"Don't turn it into one of those debates, Mr. Beabier. This isn't personal; this is simply the United States taking steps to protect the public. We're all Americans, even you now. Surely you can see the need for that."
"Alright gentlemen, that's all the time we have today. This has been Cutting Edge with Richard O'Kelley. Or guests were Gene Dent, lobbyist for America the Human, and Jean-Paul Beaubier, former
Olympic medallist and author of Born Normal. Remember, your greatest weapon doesn't lie in your gun drawer, it's in between your ears."
Dent got up and stepped toward the still-fuming Beabier. The frenetic hustle of after-show spin doctoring covered their conversation. He had the swagger and sneer of the unquestioned victor, and he didn't bother to hide it. Jean knew that Cutting Edge was going to give Gene the last word, that it was going to favor him outrageously in the debate. Somehow, he thought he could get past that despite the odds, that the unquestionable rightness of his cause would somehow come through. Maybe it was naiveté, maybe it was arrogance. In either case, he had failed, and it tasted bitter, bitter.
"Well Canuck, you put on a good show." He smirked. "You still lost though. Beginning to rethink that green card yet?" Still grinning, he waited for a reaction.
"No monsieur, I am not. Perhaps it is childish of me, but I still have a little faith that a nation that has sacrificed so much for idealism will find itself, in the end, still faithful to its ideals." He got up out of his chair and looked at Dent with all of the consideration he would apply to a dead cockroach in his favorite restaurant. Dusting some ash off of his palm, he finished. "You may, perhaps, know how to twist the debate and avoid the real questions, but the people are not so easily fooled." If only I believed that myself. "Now, if you'll excuse me." He brushed past the sneering pundit, still brushing off his palm with a handkerchief.
"Maybe you should consider it, freak." The call trailed after him off of the soundstage. "America doesn't like queers or mutants. But then you already know that, dontcha?"
It was hours before anyone in the studio noticed the perfectly detailed handprints that Jean-Paul had burned into the armrests of his chair during the taping.
Stepping outside, Jean-Paul started walking, too bent to fly.
Once upon a time, celebrity was simple. Was the world a smaller place? Or was I a smaller person?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------
For such a cold city, New York could easily burn the unsuspecting. Stamping through the midnight streets and grey February slush, Jean-Paul Beaubier welcomed the game. Hands thrust deeply in his pockets, he stumbled over a hardened chunk of snow, cursing the sidewalk maintenance just loudly enough to be noticed. Hurrying along the deserted street, he presented the perfect picture of an easy mark; six hundred-dollar overcoat over chic citywear designed for window shopping at Tiffany's, hardly the ideal outfit for a midnight stroll in neighborhoods where police fear to tread. His fine white hair swept by the wind and aquiline features drawn up into an artful impression of tension, he paused and shivered again.
Not cold, no, never that. Even before he erupted with the power of a god, the man alternately known as "Northstar" and "that flying faggot canuck," had an abnormally rapid metabolism; he never had to concern himself with such mundane concerns as hypothermia.
Still, there was no reason that the rough-and-tumble pickpocket that had been following him for blocks needed to know that. Stopping, he pulled his hands out of his pockets to rub them together. Precisely one and a half seconds later, the footsteps behind him stopped. Clumsy.
Jean-Paul looked up from his clenched hands. Feigning panic, a quick glance behind seemed to reassure him as the nameless thug took to the alley. Stupid too. Step faster now. Hurry kid, your next fix is getting away. Predictably, a slipshod echo followed. Closer.
Ten minutes, one bruise, and a botched mugging later, one man walked out of the alley, dusted off his overcoat, and jumped. He didn't touch the ground for twenty minutes. Why walk when you can fly?
____________________________________________________________________________ __________
"Has it ever occurred to you that if you just settled down with a nice boy, you wouldn't want to do this anymore?"
The morning-after syndrome. 7:00 is entirely too early for this.
"Just get me the icepack Marie. I don't pay you for your opinions."
"No, you pay me for putting up with you. My opinions are part of the package."
"Icepack, Marie, please."
Downtown Manhattan. High rent, uptight neighbors, and areas with nicknames like "Dead Cat Square," so named because you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some nationally known figure there.
"Beating up random muggers isn't the healthiest way to take out your frustrations, Jean-Paul. Have you ever considered seeing someone about this?"
Holding the icepack to his forehead, he reached for a cup of coffee, straightened his bathrobe and changed the subject.
"What time was I scheduled for Cutting Edge today?"
"Eight. You should probably start getting ready, I know how long you take in the shower and it's a half-hour drive if you're lucky."
"If you drive." Jean smirked.
With an exasperated sigh, Marie flung a towel at the newly christened "political firebrand" and bestselling author. "You know where the shower is; I've got other things to do. I thought gay men were supposed to be tidier than this."
____________________________________________________________________________ __________
"For the hundredth time Gene, it's not a matter of public safety, it's about civil rights!"
Cutting Edge, late-night infotainment at its worst; the most divisive issues and hottest names in politics pumped nightly into the homes of the jaded John Q. Public. Of course, most politicians have better things to do with their evenings than actually concern themselves with matters of informing the public. Hence the daytime tapings. Too damn early.
"Mr. Beaubier, we're all aware of your personal interest in the new argument about civil rights. It seems as though in failing to apply that logic to one abnormal status, you're trying to use it for another. And just as the militant homosexual movement has failed to recruit the public's support with their talk of "civil rights," Mutants aren't getting anywhere by claiming that they have no choice but to do what they do. The recent events in Genosha are a prime example of how mutants can choose to be a destructive factor, and of the need for security measures."
"That has nothing to do with it. People no more choose to be a mutant than they choose to be African-American or left handed. Regardless of how you feel about gay rights, you can't define genetic status as a matter of choice." He was starting to get personal. Don't let him badger you Jean- Paul. You've faced down worse.
"Regardless of whether it's a matter of choice, mutants are dangerous. Period. Something needs to be done about that. This bill is a step in the right direction."
"Making any use of mutant abilities, including those performed before the passage of this law a misdemeanor, increasing the punishments for mutants who are convicted of felonies, forcing mutant registration and neighborhood alerts like sex offenders..these are steps in the right direction? What happened to the Bill or Rights? Ex post facto is the kindest term I can apply to that bill."
The cameras were on close up of Jean-Paul, expecting his famous temper to get ahead of him. He was already clutching the sides of his chair like a lifeline. Deep breath. The public loves controversy, drama. They already had the former; Jean wasn't about to give them the satisfaction of the latter.
"The founding fathers certainly didn't have mutants in mind when they wrote the constitution. It's absurd to assume that Thomas Jefferson would have approved a right to privacy to someone, something rather, that can read minds or blow up whole cities with a thought."
"So mutants are second-class citizens now?"
"Don't turn it into one of those debates, Mr. Beabier. This isn't personal; this is simply the United States taking steps to protect the public. We're all Americans, even you now. Surely you can see the need for that."
"Alright gentlemen, that's all the time we have today. This has been Cutting Edge with Richard O'Kelley. Or guests were Gene Dent, lobbyist for America the Human, and Jean-Paul Beaubier, former
Olympic medallist and author of Born Normal. Remember, your greatest weapon doesn't lie in your gun drawer, it's in between your ears."
Dent got up and stepped toward the still-fuming Beabier. The frenetic hustle of after-show spin doctoring covered their conversation. He had the swagger and sneer of the unquestioned victor, and he didn't bother to hide it. Jean knew that Cutting Edge was going to give Gene the last word, that it was going to favor him outrageously in the debate. Somehow, he thought he could get past that despite the odds, that the unquestionable rightness of his cause would somehow come through. Maybe it was naiveté, maybe it was arrogance. In either case, he had failed, and it tasted bitter, bitter.
"Well Canuck, you put on a good show." He smirked. "You still lost though. Beginning to rethink that green card yet?" Still grinning, he waited for a reaction.
"No monsieur, I am not. Perhaps it is childish of me, but I still have a little faith that a nation that has sacrificed so much for idealism will find itself, in the end, still faithful to its ideals." He got up out of his chair and looked at Dent with all of the consideration he would apply to a dead cockroach in his favorite restaurant. Dusting some ash off of his palm, he finished. "You may, perhaps, know how to twist the debate and avoid the real questions, but the people are not so easily fooled." If only I believed that myself. "Now, if you'll excuse me." He brushed past the sneering pundit, still brushing off his palm with a handkerchief.
"Maybe you should consider it, freak." The call trailed after him off of the soundstage. "America doesn't like queers or mutants. But then you already know that, dontcha?"
It was hours before anyone in the studio noticed the perfectly detailed handprints that Jean-Paul had burned into the armrests of his chair during the taping.
Stepping outside, Jean-Paul started walking, too bent to fly.