Chapter 2 – Visiting Old Friends
The rest of the week at work finished fine.
Sunday Warren hit the yacht with his partners at the firm and his friends.
I told him I would meet him later. I have plans of my own.
I have a couple people to visit.
I drive into North Salem, Creek River Cemetery.
Find the old oak tree and beneath it lays Professor Charles Xavier and next to him Jean Summers.
I stand over them. It has been twelve years today for Charles – leukemia. And it has been over sixteen years for Jean she never saw the Towers come down. She never joined this alternate reality with the rest of us.
We raised Rachel, then I raised Rachel. She is twenty-two now.
The mutants are all assimilated or they joined their local police departments, some joined the Bureau. Those that still had that taste for combat. No more need for our school after the federal government trains all mutants up to high school. After that they can decide whether to assimilate, or fight.
At eighteen they can also decide whether or not to let go of their powers with a little needle. Most do. When I was eighteen all I worried about was getting laid, red laser beams do not help my chances in that department.
Charles fought the good fight for us, until the fight was not there any more, until we were filed and organized. And bad mutants you say? Well you better be careful who hears you, because that's like saying bad African Americans, or Latinos, or Caucasians. There just are mutants that are misguided and they are not following the laws of their country.
Pretty simple once you break it down.
Charles, we were all there on this day. 2003. He wanted to let go. I miss you. I miss our school. I miss the days when life made sense. I think I miss the logic most of all. The mission. The clear lines. The purpose. We were soldiers and all you asked was to protect. And I knew my role. I knew where I stood. Now – now – my mind is like the crevasse left by the Towers.
Jean. Our Jean…my Jean.
Jean died while attempting to give birth to our second. I, we, professionals told her she was too old even for a mutant, but she did not hear of it. She wanted it. She thought she was inhuman. And the baby and her never made it.
Next to Jean is a tiny tomb marked: Jillian Summers.
I want to cry. On cue like some actor, but it has been sixteen years. What tears can I muster after sixteen years?
I loved her.
She loved me.
Loved me with her whole body. She was like a bald eagle that only a rare man can capture and I did. Was she like a trophy to me you ask? In many ways she was. She had rooms in her personality, places she would store things, and hide things from the world and me. Until they just erupted and there you have it. She held things in until they consumed her. She thought she was in control until she lost it completely. Intimately she was violent, bi-polar, and as dangerous as any enemy I ever faced. The tragedy was that I was hopelessly addicted to her and anyone similar, hence all the girlfriends past and in between.
How can someone so normal marry and fall in love with so many dangerous women?
A philosopher would argue that the foundation to my argument is illogical. If the later is correct there is no way the former could be true, hence I am as mad as everyone else in Wonderland.
You flaming bitch –
- you always had to have things your fucking way.
No one could stop you.
I could not stop you and I have been in enough therapy to not carry the guilt of your death. I carried that supposed burden long enough.
I do not own a car. I cabbed it out here. I happen to drive past 1407 Graymalkin Lane. And I promised myself that I will not look, but as we drive past the blurry familiar trees, I renegotiate with myself. I see the glory of what was and maybe it was the light playing with the window, but for just a fraction of a second I swore I saw a shape looking out of Xavier's study.