The Moral of the Story – Red Turtle – Chapter 1

A/N: Perhaps now we should get the formalities out of the way, so they don't come to disrupt the story later:

1) I own nothing but my admiration to Dwayne McDuffie for creating Static Shock and all the Milestone comics. He's created a universe for us to play in, and that's quite an impressive feat.

2) The phrase "let me tell you a story" is how every issue of Tales of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles begins, and it's a fine beginning, so I adapted it here.

3) This story will contain religion (or the lack thereof) in it, as that is a cornerstone of morality in our current culture and something I wish to explore through the actions of our heroes and enemies. It is not my intention to portray any of this narrowly, or to frighten anyone. (please stay!)

4) Around this story you'll see quotes from all sides of morality, opening and closing each chapter to set the tone overall.

5) This story reflects a combination of my own life experiences and those reflected through the following works:

Bob Avakian, - author of many thoughtful works on religion and morality

With God On Their Side - this book was the principle inspiration for writing this story

Positive atheism – website source of about 90 percent of my quotes, both good and scary

And now on with the story:

"The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect."
-- Ronald Reagan, at an ecumenical prayer breakfast in Dallas on August 23, 1984, in "Quotable: Where Reagan and Religion Intersect" (Dallas Morning News: June 11, 2004)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Son, your cousins are going to be staying with us for a while", my father announced unceremoniously.

"For how long", I asked, figuring this was the gentlest way to try and figure out why. I couldn't think of any reason short of my uncle and aunt's death. They don't live far enough away to come for a vacation, and we didn't have enough room in the house to provide for that anyway. They've never even spent the night here.

Dad looks too stressed for this to be a social visit, but not stressed enough for anyone to have died or their house burned down. Over the years I've learned how to use the tiniest hint of emotions to extrapolate all the information I can.

I'm leaning towards divorce or some or family trouble.

"Indefinitely", he answers, "Their parents need to work some things out."

I silently congratulated myself for having figured so much out with so little information. Of course, about five minutes with backpack and I could find out if they had applied for divorce, had any trouble with the law, were in debt, if Mathew was having trouble in school, if they were seeing psychiatrists…

I forget I can do things like that. Its probably better that I don't.

"Where will they stay?" I asked, wondering if I was going to have clear out the basement. Already I was calculating the increased bathroom waiting time. One bathroom for five people…

"We'll work it out" he sighed.

Loosely translated, that meant, 'I don't feel like talking about this anymore why don't you go to your room'.

"I'll just go to my room now", I announced.

He nodded distractedly.

A few days later I found out what the arrangement was. It was decided that my girl cousin, Elizabeth, needed her own space, by virtue of being a teenage girl (16, slightly younger than me). We would clear out the attic for her, and work on making it habitual. My younger boy cousin, Mathew, who was fourteen, would share my room with me.

This transformed an already uncomfortable living situation with my parents into an unbearable one. Besides the fact that I didn't really know either of my cousins outside of the usual holiday get-togethers, and the inherit awkwardness of suddenly having them around all the time, this was going to make it impossible to maintain any shred of my secret identity at home. Sure there was always the danger of my Mom discovering something about Gear, like overhearing me talking to Virgil or something, but that didn't worry me too much. I knew my Mom, she probably wouldn't even tell my father, and she didn't really have any other friends or anything. She certainly wouldn't announce it to the world. And my father probably wouldn't notice if I was wearing my Gear uniform and fighting bang babies in the living room. But an unpredictable fourteen-year old living in the very same room with me was an entirely different story.

From now on, everything having to do in any way with Static or Gear needs to stay at the Gas Station, or maybe Virgil's house, which was closer than the Gas Station. It was also more protected, in that no one was going to go wondering around it and wonder what's inside. Virgil's house would be better in a lot of ways, because I trusted his family, even his sister who didn't yet know about us.

Maybe I could just move in with Virgil until this whole thing blows over. I'm almost 18 now anyway; legally I can almost do anything I want.

But, while I do stay there about 80 percent of the time, it's not the same as actually living there. Virgil would need his space eventually, and their home isn't much bigger than mine. Him and Daisy were getting pretty heavy lately, and he's not necessarily going to want me around when...

Shaking my head I shut that doorway of contradictions before they overwhelmed me. But the fact remained, as miserable as my home life was about to become, it would be infinitely better than the miserable possibilities presented by living with Virgil. I could potentially turn my only retreat into another hell. Even if I were able to turn it into a haven, in the very unlikely best-case scenario where Virgil and I are having orgies every night, living in such close quarters would eventually destroy our relationship.

It's the golden rule; after all, at least it should be among more young women I know. Never, ever move in with someone you love because you have nowhere else to go.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"From whatever vantage point one looks, it is unmistakable that there is what could be called a moral crisis in America. There has been, to a significant degree, a breakdown of 'traditional morality'. But the answer to this--at least the answer that is in the interests of the majority of people in the U.S. and the overwhelming majority of humanity--is not a more aggressive assertion of that 'traditional morality' but winning people to a radically different morality, in the process of and as a key part of radically transforming society and the world as a whole. It is not the tightening but the shattering of tradition's chains that is called for." Bob Avakian