IV: I'm Not Like Everybody Else
New York City, 1974
I: Prologue: Grossmann's Delicatessen:
Every mask in New York ate at Grossmann's.
It was open every day, all day and all night, except for between 3AM and 5AM for cleaning and re-stocking, and the place also sold beer, cigarettes, magazines and newspapers.
Why?
Well, It could have been because the Avengers Tower and the Baxter Building and the Hall of Justice were all within a few blocks, not to mention the homes and day-jobs of many of said masks, but there had to be dozens and dozens of restaurants in the same general area, and pretty much since Max Grossman opened the place in 1938, every mask in New York ate at Grossmann's.
So it was a question as to whether it was the chicken or the egg with Big Benny Grossman. Big Benny was seven feet tall and weighed over 300 pounds, and he wasn't musclebound, but he wasn't blubbery, either, just a huge mountain of a man. Especially standing next to his father and mother, because Max was five foot four and Sadie was only five feet tall.
Other than manning the counter on the night shift at the family business, which was from 8PM to 3AM, Benny concerned himself with three things.
Masks, Monty Python and Prog Rock with masks being first and foremost.
Grossmann's was a great place for a mask-obsessive to work, and Benny's three like minded friends, Skinny, Rosie and Crazy Paulie were there almost every night
They were a proud and motley band of freaks and lifelong outcasts, and despite the fact that Liv "Napalm" Napier ran with their crowd, Crazy Paulie was their Fearless Leader.
Liv, as the other masks well knew, had more important things to do.
Of late, though, there a pall had been cast over the chaotic but cheerful scene on Grossmann's late shift.
Almost a month before, Crazy Paulie had disappeared, allegedly for a seasonal job at a ski resort upstate, and Napalm was MIA again, as a result, word had it, of a car accident in which she was not at fault.
Grossmann's just didn't seem the same without Crazy Paulie strutting around, manning his corner table with his feet slung across it when his dinner wasn't there, holding court with his friends.
Nor did and evening seem like a evening without Liv walking through the doors and everyone yelling "Napalm", especially for those masks who knew that she was sidelined by a life-threatening injury from a fight with a new supervillain, followed by an unfortunate encounter in a bar upstate.
So it was a sign of better days when the door swung open and in swaggered Liv Napier.
She looked a bit pale and drawn, but she made a bravura effort to seem as though nothing was wrong.
"NAPALM!"
"Yeah, yeah. Hey? Where the fuck is Paulie?"
It was a general question that Liv addressed to everybody, but she didn't get an answer until she sat slowly down in a chair opposite Rosie and Skinny.
"He gotta job. Upstate. At a ski resort. For the winter."
"For wages? Paulie, workin' for wages? In a place colder n' snowier than this with no masks and no delis and nothin' but wall-ta-wall spoiled rich cunts of both genders? My ass! Tony! Hey, Tony!"
Across the dining area, Tony Stark was having a midnight turkey and swiss on sourdough with a pile of papers he wasn't too interested in.
"You called, Napalm.?"
"Yeah. You still ski?"
He took the opportunity to go and sit with Liv and her friends.
Tony was of the few masks who occasionally graced Crazy Paulie's group with his presence; he enjoyed their company.
Especially Liv's and Rosie's.
"Of course. If I quit, they would take away my permit to be a spoiled rich cunt." He joked.
"You see Paulie up there at that resort?" Liv asked.
"No. But that doesn't mean he wasn't there."
Actually, the two superheroes believed the converse.
Crazy Paulie was the son of the toughest little Irish cleaning lady in Bensonhurst and a Russian immigrant who had apparently been craved out of a large block of stone on the Siberian steppes. He stood six foot three and had long, thick wavy black hair that hung down to the middle of his back, and wore either a long beard reminicent of Rasputin or a handlebar moutache, sideburns, and a pointy goatee.
If you didn't notice Paulie, he was indeed not there.
They both noticed Rosie looking into her empty plate, and quietly exchanged looks.
"He writes me letters from there, Liv. He's there." Rosie said.
"What about you Napalm? How do you feel?" Tony asked
"I'm outa bed, an' the fucker finally quit draining. Now it only hurts ta move, instead of hurtin' just to breathe. The worst part of it ain't that I can't drink until I finish these fuckin' antibiotics. I can live with that. And it ain't that I can't fight until the wound is totally healed. I can afford to miss a few drinks and a few fights. But if that goddamn doctor don't let me screw, soon, I'm gonna hold a gun to his head and make 'im say its alright. I'm goin outa my fuckin' mind! I can't even get Eddie to fuckin' touch me. Not even a little head! I mean the doctor said no fuckin, he didn't say no head, no nothin'. I mean, that's got nothin' ta do with where I'm hurt! He says if I start thrashin' around I might hurt myself. Hurt myself! If I don't get my end off soon, I'm gonna shoot myself in the fuckin head! Thanks for asking."
"May I offer my services?" Tony replied.
Skinny started to choke on his sandwich.
"What if I do bust a stitch?" Liv asked.
"You won't. I'll hold you down."
"Fine. My car or yours?"
"I walked."
They both got up.
"I'll be back in a little bit, guys." Liv said.
Iron Man and Harlequin left together.
"Jesus, he works fast." Skinny observed.
***
They got in the back of Liv's car, but it was all business.
"What do you know that I don't, Napalm?"
"I think Paulie might be at Arkham. But I want to be wrong."
"I'll look into it."
"Tony, if he's there, don't tell me till I'm better. I can't take it. I been livin' with this ever since the day I got hurt, an'…just don't tell me till I'm all healed up."
Tony Stark was surprised; Liv looked like she might cry.
"Napalm, you have to say it to somebody."
"I can't!"
"They're only words. And I won't tell a soul. I promise. What you tell me stays in this car."
"Jesus, Tony, I think, and I hope I'm wrong, I fuckin' pray to God if He'll still listen to me that I'm wrong, but I think Paulie might be the Green Jackal."
"There. Now you said it. Do you feel better?"
"No. I feel a lot worse, thank you very fucking much."
"Why? I'm sure he isn't. I'll make a few calls. And when you're all better, I'll show you the proof that you were worried over nothing. Okay?"
"Yeah. Okay."
Liv got out of the car in a hurry.
She wasn't the best at resisting temptation.
It was a good thing, too, because the Comedian, still in his costume strolled in the door right after she and returned to her table.
Wisely, Iron Man abandoned the rest of his food for Skinny to eat and got another sandwich and went back to his original table.
Benny had a theory about his patrons Liv Napier and Eddie Blake, the original match made in Hell, and superhero partners Harlequin and Comedian.
He never missed an opportunity to test it.
In his quiet way, Benny observed that the Comedian glanced around the room, looking at all the diners for an equal amount of time, and that after Napalm turned her head to see who had come in the door she did not look back, again.
"The usual, sir?" Benny asked.
"Yeah, why not. Whatta night. Jesus Christ. I'll tell ya, Benny, I never knew how much easier it was with a partner to watch yer fuckin' back for youse until I had one and she got hurt. I'm countin' down the days, Benny. Coutin' down the fuckin' days."
Benny glanced over at the back of Napalm's head.
She didn't so much as twitch.
He got his tray, walked right past the table where Napalm was sitting and parked himself at a table across from the Nite Owl, who was obviously working and didn't want company, let alone somebody putting his wet beer bottle all over his papers.
"Hiya, Boy Scout. You mind?"
The Comedian spread his food and his elbows over as much of the table as he possibly could.
"Uhh, no, uhhh, not really. So, how is the Harlequin?"
Benny looked from Liv to the Comedian and back again as he ostensibly put some more cole slaw in the display unit.
"I'll tell you one thing, Boy Scout. She's not supposed to be up and around driving all over town yet. But she's gettin' better."
Benny sighed.
Two poker faced jokers.
Benny came from around the counter and sat down at his friends' table.
"I heard Paulie's in Canada. Logging in British Columbia." He volunteered.
"Yeah, and I heard he got a job polishin' the top of Lex Luthor's head, and now they're both havin' a chicken dinner in Jersey. Can we talk about something else?"
Benny noticed that Rosie was giving the Comedian one of her super-horny hot pants looks.
He looked back at Napalm, who was wolfing her sandwich, seemingly unconcerned.
"Rosie, don't stare. He might get the wrong idea." Skinny told her.
"I want him to get the wrong idea. I don't know what it is about that guy, bit he really turns me on. I mean more than other masks do. If he came into my booth, I'd press the button to open the glass and ask him if he wanted to be part of the show." She fairly panted.
"What about you, Liv?" Benny asked.
Liv shot the Comedian a brief derogatory look before returning to sandwich and chips demolition.
"He ain't a patch on Eddie Blake's ass." Liv replied.
"What if he hears you?" Skinny insisted.
"Fuck him. If he's gonna problem with me, he can come tell me about it."
"Oh come on, Napalm! I mean enough is too much! Everybody in this room besides me and Skinny and Rosie are masks and they all know that the Comedian is Eddie Blake and that you are the Harlequin!" Benny said.
Liv started to laugh.
"Benny, my father's the fucking Joker. Do you think they'd let me be a fucking superhero when my father's the Joker? And besides, out of seven nights a week, I spend three or four with Eddie. If he was the Comedian, I'd know about it. Go make some egg salad or something, ya read too may of those mask scandal sheets." She said.
Benny went back behind the counter, and Liv finished her food.
"I'm beat, guys. Benny, can I leave the car here? I ain't got the jam to drive home ta Long Island. I'm gonna walk back to Eddie's. I got outa bed, I went ta work, I came here. That's a big day for me as fucked up as I still am." She said.
"Sure. I'll keep an eye on it for you, and tell my Dad in the morning. G'night, Napalm. Sorry to hassle you about the whole mask thing."
"It's your thing, Benny. I don't mind. I sure hope Paulie turns up, soon. Eddie don't believe he's workin' for wages, either."
"You know Paulie. He'll come back home with fifty bucks and some crazy story about how he was a roadie for Led Zeppelin or how he was drivin a truckload of scrap metal for Magneto to practise on, or some crazy shit." Benny opined.
He watched Liv walk towards the door, bid Tony Stark goodnight, yell "g'night" to everyone assembled and begin walking slowly down the street.
Lois Lane watched her go, and she knew Clark was watching too, and most likely, so were Dan and Liv's partner.
She shouldn't be walking alone.
Lois had an idea.
"Clark!"
"What, Lois?"
"Why don't you go walk that poor girl home?"
"But the whole place is full of superheroes and I don't even know where Mr. Blake lives."
"They've been saving the world all night. All we've been doing is eating bagels and working on a story. And she knows where she's going. Is chivalry dead?"
"No. You're right, Lois. I'll be right back."
Clark Kent opened the door.
"Miss Napier! Wait! Let me walk you home…wherever that is."
Benny shook his head.
Smooth, these masks were smooth.
***
Liv waited for Clark Kent to catch up to her.
"Thanks, Clark. I could use the company."
"Let me take your knapsack. You're doing too much too fast, Liv. I can see you still have your stitches in. And your ribs aren't quite knitted."
"I'm tired of lying around in bed! The doctor said I could go back to work."
"He said for half-days. There's something really bothering you, isn't there, Liv? You always look so worried and upset. Is it about your friend, Paulie?"
"Yeah, Clark. It is. I get the feeling something really bad has happened to him. I think he's…in a lot of trouble. I just wish he would come home."
They were at the Comedian's building.
"Have you investigated it?"
"That's just it. I'm afraid of what I would find."
"Wait until you're feeling better, Liv. Whatever it is your friend has done, nothing is unforgivable as long as he wants to make amends. You'll have to face it, and do what you can to help him."
"Why is it never easy, Clark?"
"Because doing the right thing is never easy. I know that's a real cornball Superman sentiment, but it's true. I'm sure your partner will be along soon. Make sure you all Bruce and tell him where you are. You know where I am if you need me."
"Thanks, Clark."
***
Liv was just climbing into in bed when Eddie came home about fifteen minutes later.
"Where are ya kid?"
"I'm in bed. I'm waitin' on ya."
He stomped into the room, looking furious.
Liv lay back, to enjoy the show.
Watching Eddie undress was the only kick she got anymore, and when he got really mad, it got her Mojo working.
Provided he wasn't mad at her.
"That goddamn Grossman kid, what the fuck is wrong with him?"
He pushed aside the clothes in his closet and pushed the button that opened the secret panel, then he started to unstrap his armor.
"Relax, Eddie. You know how these mask watchers are. Most of them think Tony is Batman and Bruce is Iron Man. They don't know shit."
She watched him hang up the chest and torso piece of his armour and he sat down on the end of the bed to take off his boots.
"Big stupid bastard. He thinks it's all fun and games. Every piece of shit scumbag motherfucker on three continents would be beatin' my door down if they knew I was the Comedian. Some fun for me."
He had sweated through his undershirt and angrily took it off, scrunched it into a ball and tossed it across the room, before shoving his boots into the closet panel.
Liv sucked in her breath, sharply.
"You could take 'em, Eddie."
"You bet your ass I could, kid. Kill 'em all. But that's not the fuckin' point."
Now he was standing there, with sweat glistening on his broad, hairy chest, cursing and scowling and muttering murderously as he angrily jammed down the zip on his leather pants, and tossed them into the closet, too.
Liv dipped one of her hands under the blankets.
She made a little sound, and Eddie suddenly realised what was going on without him in his bed.
"Where the fuck is your other hand, you dirty little pervert?" he asked.
"Take a wild guess, Eddie. Lemme have your shorts when you take 'em down. I wanna drape them over my face while I finish jerkin' off." She said.
Liv was only half-joking.
The Comedian yanked her hand out from under the blanket.
"Will you quit that? Jesus, I'm standin' here and you're playin with yourself!" He insisted
"That turns some guys on, yunno."
"Not me."
"Eddie, youse can't lie to me about shit like that when you're naked. C'mon, Eddie, ya won't touch me cos you're afraid I'll break into a million pieces, and then ya parade around the place naked. I'm dying, heah. I know we ain't allowed to ball, cos it'll bust my stitches, but ya gotta gimme somethin'."
"What if you start thrashin' around and bust a stitch?" he asked
"You can hold me down."
"Nobody can hold you down, baby." Eddie growled.
He threw back the blankets.
"Put your legs over my shoulders, doll. I'm gonna have you for desert."
***
Liv's favourite number later, she was feeling pretty good in the afterglow, drifting off to dreamland as Eddie rolled over on his side and put his arms around her.
"You make a great hot water bottle, kid. I'm freezin' as usual in this overpriced dump. I'm gonna break that box over the thermostat and shove the pieces up that fuckin' super's ass." He complained.
Liv laughed a little.
He was asleep in a few minutes, and Liv nodded off too, feeling too good to think about the pain in her side, and for a little while, she forgot all about Paulie.
Arkham Asylum, New York, 1970, a few weeks later
II: Paul
After dealing with the various hard cases on Riker's Island, and then spending the whole morning with the likes of the Penguin, Lex Luthor and the Green Goblin, Dr. Malcolm Long was almost glad to see Patient # 00036971, the Green Jackal, otherwise known as Paul Stavrogin.
He shuffled in, his broad shoulders rounded, and his hands in front of him in the prison-issue denims as if he was shackled, even though he wasn't.
"Good morning, Paul. How are you, today?"
"I'm gettin' by, Dr. Long." Paul said, and sat down.
He brushed his long hair out of his face, and absently rubbed his goatee.
It was a villainous gesture, but that was the extent of Paul Stavorgin's supervillainy.
Paul was an eccentric young man.
A very eccentric young man.
But having unusually long hair, and a tattoo on your chest that says "Live Freaky, Die Freaky" with a crown tattooed between the two phrases didn't make you a psychotic madman.
Those were Arkham's usual clientele.
In, Dr. Long's opinion, Paul really didn't belong at Arkham, and the fact that he had barely committed an amateurish attempt at robbery in a third-rate costume didn't make him a supervillain, let alone a candidate for an institution for the criminally insane.
For one thing, he didn't have any defined psychiatric disorders. He was eccentric, but also intelligent and creative and eccentricity often came with the territory of creativity
He had some symptoms of anxiety and minor depression, and Dr. Long was concerned with the way the young man's personality seemed to have change from what his records indicated. That alone was reason enough for Dr. Long to think that Paul should be transferred, immediately.
Arkham was doing him more harm than good.
He genuinely believed that the young man had made a terrible mistake born out of boredom, and an over-reliance on what had once been his hobby of following the news about superheroes and their opponents.
True temporary insanity, for which the boy should have been sentenced to Bellevue, and then a brief period of outpatient care.
Not be thrown into the lion's mouth at Arkham.
If it had any positive effect, though, Dr. Long surmised, it was that Paul had lost all interest in supervillainy.
"Have you been having any trouble with the other inmates, lately?"
"No, sir. Mr. Napier's found out that I'm a friend of his daughter's, so he's been looking out for me."
"Paul, I get the feeling that there are things you're not telling me. I may be able to get you an early release, or get you out of this horrible place, but you have to tell me the truth."
Paul looked across the table and the slightly-overweight black man, with his kindly face, and his cardigan sweater.
He seemed like a nice man, like he really cared.
Paul resisted the urge to lean over the table, and say he'd tell him whatever he wanted to get out of this horrible place.
"I'm no rat, Doc."
"I understand that. All I want to know is how you feel."
How did Paul feel?
He felt like when de decided to become a supervillain, he must have been out of his mind.
And he felt like a real asshole for blowing his opportunity to ball the Harlequin.
Paul was an outcast, he had been an outcast all his life. He was freak and all his friends were freaks, real freaks, not fake freaks who were freaky because freaky was the style.
They were the genuine article.
The real thing.
Live Freaky, Die Freaky.
And, other than rock musicians and other creative types, superheroes, and supervillains, were the kings and queens of freakdom, and despite the fact that Paul's mother cleaned a superhero's house and that he and his friend Benny were heavily involved in all matters mask, both real and fictional, the Harlequin was the first real mask who had ever paid any attention to Paul in any way.
So what if it was sort of negative?
She wanted to make it up to him.
Shit, she asked for it.
Literally.
There she was, underneath him, with an eerie look of wild unnatural lust in her wild, unnatural eyes, panting and sweating and asking him to do it to her, and what did he do?
Nothing.
All he did was hover over her and bleed.
She was a real good-looking chick, too.
Well, the parts he could see.
Thinking about it made him realise he was a failure as a supervillain. If he was a real supervillain, he would have thrown back his head and laughed an insane laugh and said something that was both witty, and filthy and done the dirty deed.
Given it too her good, too.
Then again, failure was nothing new to Paul.
He didn't have much of an excuse for it, being a miserable, pathetic fuckup and a complete and utter failure.
It wasn't as if Paul had been deprived as a kid. The Hell's Kitchen apartment he grew up in was decent, and when he was eight and his last aunt moved out in 1956, Uncle Eddie moved to his apartment in Manhattan full-time and just gave them his house in Bensonhurst.
It was a nice place on a nice block with a yard and they had a dog and a cat and everything and his dad had a pickup truck, a Chevy from just after the war and everything was pretty cool
He was smart enough, but he had been unremarkable in school because he was just never into it. He had brains, but he only seemed to use them to outsmart himself. Paul and his best friend, Skinny, they were outcasts, but they soon got too big to beat on, so the other kids just let them be.
Crazy Paulie, they called him, and Crazy Paulie he was, the craziest kid around in town, with a strut in his step and a mad glint in his eye, letting his hair grow long and his freak flag fly.
His last haircut had been in 1965, and he reported his high school to the ACLU when they tried to get him to shave off his beard and cut his hair.
No thank you.
Not today.
Not tomorrow.
Not ever, baby.
After an interesting conversation over a nine hour chess match with Magneto at the X-Mansion when Paulie was doing some odd jobs, he used to occasionally strut around Bensonhurst, and in his Uncle's swanky neighbourhood in Manhattan wearing a costume crown, telling people that he was the Freak King of New York, and that someday they would all bow before him.
He did it partly to see the looks on people's faces, and partly to prove to himself he could.
Paulie was like that.
That's why they called him Crazy Paulie.
Paulie went to college, his brother went to Vietnam, and Skinny got a job in construction, and had an accident involving some of his toes that made him 4-F.
At college, Paulie fell into the company of a few other freaks. There was Benny Grossman, who was devoted most of his life to comic books, superhero-watching, prog rock and Monty Python, and Rosie Juarez, a fellow mask-obsessive and pre-law student with a straight A average and a full scholarship who worked nights in a nudie booth in Times Square for kicks. The Harlequin, who, if you believed the tabloids, raised the pursuit of cheap thrills, fast cars, fast men and cold beer to an art form in her free time was one of Rosie's personal feminist heroines.
They were his merry band of pranksters, and he was their Fearless Leader.
Recent converts to the Way of All Freakiness, newly minted hippies and hairies and yippies and flower waifs gave them a respectful wide berth, for they were the Real Deal, the Genuine Article, proud freaks, outcasts all their lives.
Live Freaky, Die Freaky, baby.
Never surrender.
Paul got a scholarship to go to college, but only because his father, Ivan Stavrogin, a sometime garbage truck driver, had defected from Russia after having met and fallen hard for two Irish sisters, Paul's mother and his aunt.
After seeing his brother Patrick go off to 'Nam, Paul was motivated enough maintain a C average until the war was over, but after that he couldn't really motivate himself to keep it together, and failed out at the end of his junior year in 1972.
Having witness their son snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, Paul's mother, Edie, convinced Ivan, who seldom worked and never got around to marrying her even though it would have conferred citizenship on him, to get Paul a job with his company.
Ivan never got around to marrying Edie's sister Aggie, with whom he had Patrick, either.
He didn't want to make either woman jealous.
After Patrick came back from 'Nam, where he served with his uncle, he went to college on the GI Bill, and he was doing really well, making good grades and getting his life back together.
Patrick was a war hero and an honor student.
Bridget was an honor student, too.
Paul got fired from being a trash collector after six months.
Ivan quit in sympathy with his son, and went back on welfare.
It didn't bother either of them.
Paul, like his father and his Uncle, had nothing but contempt for nine to five shmucks. Like Clark Gable said in The Misfits, anything is better than wages. Working nine to five was for people who weren't smart enough to make money any other way, and Paulie looked at his year and a half of being unemployed as an adventure, the adventure which would culminate in him discovering what it was that he was going to do with his life.
Ivan brought in weekly under-the-table cash doing odd jobs around the neighbourhood.
Paulie was pulling down a small welfare check and food stamps, and he worked sporadically, doing even odder jobs than his father.
To Edie, his it seemed like all Paul did was listen to records, bum around, hang out with his friends in bars and coffee joints, follow the mask world, read comic books, smoke dope, run around in the streets acting like a lunatic, and screw his girlfriend, most of which she wished he wouldn't do in the house.
But he never asked her for money, and he shared his food stamps with the family so she let him alone.
Most of the time.
The family was just about used to Crazy Paulie being Crazy Paulie, but they were always looking for something constructive for him to do.
They were all sitting around the TV one night watching a rather breathless TV news segment about the Joker, when Ivan jokingly suggested his son's next career path.
"Why don't you become supervillain? You make lots of money and get on TV. All you need is name and costume."
"Are you crazy, Ivan?" Edith's sister, Aggie asked.
Aggie and Edith were the family's main breadwinners.
Aggie worked as a waitress and Edie cleaned houses. Their best customer was some superhero uptown who grew up poor in Brooklyn with no father and an Irish cleaning lady for a mother.
He paid them very generously, and gave them two or three hundred dollar bonuses and a bottle of Scotch on holidays and their birthdays. They lived fairly well, thanks to their superhero benefactor and with the help of Aggie and Edith's oldest brother.
"Paulie can't become a supervillain! A superhero puts the food on our table, and quite literally, the clothes on your lazy Bohunk back! Not with what Eddie dose for a living, are you nuts?"
Ivan shrugged.
"So? Paul don't have to fuck with Eddie. He can go be supervillain in Jersey. Paul, superhero has to register with government. Fuck government. Become supervillain."
"Ivan, what the fuck is the matter with you? This country saved your lazy Bohunk ass, and you get a check from the government every month!" Edith insisted.
"So? I'm an anarchist. Fuck government. And you both better stop with lazy Bohunk ass, or I get real lazy on both of you." Ivan replied.
"Jesus, Dad, don't talk about that shit!" Patrick said.
"What? You think you come from sky? You come from me and Aggie and your brother and sister come from me and Edith. I don't want no shame over it in my house." Ivan announced.
"Daddy, we're not ashamed of where we came from. We just don't need to hear the particulars. Hey Paul, I got a pair of green tights that are one size fits all. You oughta be green, you'll be the first Irish supervillain from Bensonhurst. Try 'em." Bridget suggested.
Bridget was in the 10th grade, and was mulling over an invitation to go to the Xavier Institute For Higher Learning. She was the family's only mutant, and, unlike in some other families, her family was proud that their little girl had a chance to be an X-Man.
Actually, they weren't too sure about Paulie, but they pretty much just thought he just took after Eddie and his mother, who were, in less gaudy ways than Paulie, pretty nuts.
Bridget was gifted with an advanced healing factor, and the ability to shapeshift into different forms to blend in with her environment, like a chameleon.
She also had a pretty mean left hook, but that was more of a family trait.
"Don't encourage your brother. You want a job, Paul? Finally? I'm glad ta hear it. Here's the want-ads. Look under "Wanted: Lazy Bum Like His Father" Edith quipped.
"You get that supervillain shit out of your mind, Paulie. You might be a grown man, but you're not too big for us to handle. Especially not your Uncle Eddie." Aggie warned.
"Paulie, you know I'm kidding, yes? You become any kind of villain, Eddie kill you, if I don't find you first. You become supervillain you better hope Eddie find you first. Okay, Edie, you win. I debase myself and embarrass family. I crawl on belly, like fucking weasel. I go back to work for piece of shit place that sack my son. Don't worry, Paulie. I try to get you job back." Ivan told him.
But Paul didn't want his job back, riding shotgun in the garbage truck with the old man. That was the last thing he wanted. He always thought he was cut out for something other than the nine to five racket, he just didn't know what it was, yet.
Like Uncle Eddie.
He hadn't ever knuckled under and become a mook.
Come to think of it, Paul wasn't quite sure what Uncle Eddie did for a living, but he wasn't a working stiff.
He wasn't a piece of shit suit, either. Every time Paul saw him he was dressed in his old fatigues or work-type clothes, like the old man. Both of them wore an undershirt pretty much all year round, and in the winter they wore work shirts over their undershirt, quilted ones when it got really cold.
Unlike Ivan, Uncle Eddie had a lot of money. A shitload of money. He lived in a big fucking swanky apartment uptown in Manhattan, and had a whole closet full of flashy suits that Paul had seldom seen him wearing.
He was fifty years old, he still had all his hair, girls Paul's age were still nuts about him, and he was in bite the bullet commando good shape.
You could punch him in the stomach with brass knuckles on, like in From Russia With Love and he'd still smile before he broke your face.
He drove a tank in World War II, and in Vietnam he was some big Special Forces dude, and got Patrick on his staff, so Paul always got the idea maybe Uncle Eddie worked for the CIA or the FBI or the defense department or some kind of undercover badass government shit.
Still, Paul was very close to his Uncle Eddie. His middle name was Edward, and he had grown up to look just like his namesake. The resemblance lent itself to more than just looks. Paul didn't back his cockiness and bravado up with ultraviolence, but on the odd occasion some redneck or neighbourhood bully would try him, he could hold his own.
They were both proud men who did exactly what they wanted, when they wanted, and didn't mind taking the consequences, night owls who were disdainful of regular people and their regular hours, cagey opportunists just one step ahead of settling down and settling for less and becoming a regular Joe.
As long as he could remember, Paul had idolised his Uncle Eddie, even though they had differences of political opinion. In fact, Uncle Eddie was almost like a second Dad to him. Paul knew his Uncle was some kind of bad motherfucker, but he had already figured out that if you didn't give Uncle Eddie a reason, then he wasn't going to show you how bad he was.
Even his girlfriend was a bad motherfucker. Liv "Napalm" Napier was the toughest person Paulie ever met next to his Uncle Eddie, and certainly cut from the same mould.
Paulie always suspected her of secretly being in the mask biz, on one side of the cape or the other.
Napalm got him the X-Mansion gig.
She taught evolutionary biology there once a week, and on those days helped Wolverine teach combat.
That's how tough Napalm was.
She was in a real bad way before she met Eddie, Napalm was, she'd got to the point where if the booze didn't kill her then a car wreck or a bullet would, but nobody was tough enough to get her in line.
Nobody but Uncle Eddie.
Paulie credited himself with that match made in a polygamous Hell. He told Uncle Eddie about his friend Napalm, maybe finding her a job doing what he did and they just hit it off.
Like the rest of them, Liv was pretty smart, a lifelong freak and outcast, and worked nights.
Well, Rosie worked nights, and Benny worked nights at Grossmann's Deli around the corner from Uncle Eddie's building, but Paul was just a night owl.
When he had no work to do and nothing else, sometimes he just road around on the subway all night, scribbling story ideas in a notebook, following masks around, but most nights you could find him at the corner table at Grossmann's, back to the wall, feet on the table, smoking and crowing in his cocky bravado that he was the freakiest of them all, mask-watching and keeping Benny company.
Grossmann's Deli.
"Paul?"
"Call me Paulie, Dr. Long. And it's kind of stupid."
"Tell me, anyway."
"I had this dream last night. I dreamt I was sitting in the corner booth at Grossmann's Deli, having a pastrami sandwich on rye with swiss cheese, with my friend Skinny and Rosie. Rosie's my Old Lady, but she's one of my best friends, too. Anyway, I don't know why, but I think every superhero and half the supervillians in New York eat at Grossmann's. They do have the best corned beef in Manhattan, though. Anyway, in my dream, it was about midnight, and it was just us and Mr. Grossman's son Benny, and at a table on the other side of the room Captain America was having a sandwich with Tony Stark, and Skinny was telling me again all the reasons he thinks Tony Stark is Iron Man, and then my friend Liv, Mr. Napier's daughter, came in, and we all yelled "Napalm!" like we always do when she comes into a room cos that's her nickname, and nothing really happened, but I woke up and I felt like crying, because stuck in this place it seem to me I'll never be able to go back to my old life again, or my old self, and right now that's all I want. For this to be over, so I can get out and go back to school, maybe, and just be Paul Stavrogin, again."
Dr. Long smiled.
He reached across the table and grasped Paul's shoulder.
"That's perfectly normal, Paulie. And there's no reason you can't leave this place and go on with your life. I think this personality change in you is temporary, due to the trauma of your arrest and incarceration. But until you've faced those things about yourself that made you decided to put on those tights and that cape and do what you did, I can't help you."
Paul wanted to tell Dr, Long what he told Uncle Eddie, but he knew better than that.
Just before he started running around Bensonhurst in a pair of tights and a cape him, Liv and Uncle Eddie came into Grossman's around one in the morning, and Paul sat there with his Uncle and talked to him for two or three hours about how desperate he felt long after Liv went home.
"I dunno, Uncle Eddie. Lotta my friends went to Nam, didn't come back. Guys I went to college with who were never gonna settle down, they were gonna let their freak flag fly, they met a chick someplace. At a commune. At a rally. At the A & P. Got married. Cut their hair. Knuckled under. Well, I don't wanna. I know you can't understand why I got such long hair, but it means somethin' ta me. It means the cocksuckers haven't got me yet. Haven't got me to do what I'm supposed to do. Be what I'm supposed to be. No offence to Ma and Dad, but if I thought I hadda cut my hair and drive a garbage truck and marry some girl and have kids and live in Bensonhurst forever, Jesus, I'd slit my fuckin' wrists. Problem is, I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do with my life. All I know is what I don't wanna do. You understand, don'tcha?" Paul finally finished, as Benny was closing up for the night, at four in the morning.
"So you been sayin', all night. Sure I do, kid. Ya see me livin' in a row-house with some broad who got fat on me and fucks the milkman and one or two of our kids looks just like him? At least you're smaert enough to know it's a fuckin' trap and that ya don't wanna fall into it. That's' half the battle, Paulie. But, it's been almost two years since ya flunked outa school. How many fuckin' shopping days do ya think you're gonna get before Christmas? My life kinda chose me, I didn't choose it. But you, ya can do anything ya want to, kid. Not like when I was a kid, I didn't have no choices and no opportunities. Why dontcha go back to college? So ya lost your scholarship, so what? I can getcha a new one. I can getcha ten fuckin' scholarships. Or get a fuckin' job, someplace. Nothin' serous. Just somethin' ta do to make a little dough while ya try to figure out whatcha gonna do. Liv, she knows a guy around here has a garage. Guy named Joe. He'll hire ya. You can still work nights. Shit, go out and buy a musical fuckin' instrument, join a band. Musicians always work nights. Send somea them stories ya wrote to a magazine. Ya can work at night and write during the day. Or ya can work here. Ya sit here all night, anyway, ask Max to give you a job helpin' Benny. Do somethin'. Just as long as it's on the up and up. Cos if ya don't so somethin' soon, you'tre gonna start pickin' up some bad habits. When ya don't know what to do with yourself an ya got alla time in the world, that's whenya get your ass into trouble. You'll get desperate ta bust out, and you'll take the wrong way."
That was good advice, and sitting in Arkham completely screwed, Paul realised it just hwo good it had been.
Everything Uncle Eddie said to him that night made a whole helluva lot of sense to him now.
Something on the up and up.
Uncle Eddie wouldn't be too happy if his nephew was a supervillain.
Nobody was really serious about the idea, not even Ivan, and none of the family though that Paul was, either.
But he got to liking the whole supervillian idea.
He had spent most of his life engrossed in the world of masks, why not join it?
Supervillains were all pretty freaky.
Why not get paid to be freaky?
Besides, if Magneto did take over the world, someday, and when that happened, if Paul was going to be made King of New York, ruler of all Magneto's homo sapien slaves, he had to start somewhere.
Now that was a sick fucking diabolical supervillain plan if Paul ever heard one.
Like he told Mr. Lehnsherr, he was a peaceful man, and he tried to love his brother, even though his fellow men were usually kicking him in the face, literally or figuratively, and he did like Professor X's version of the world better.
But, if the shit went down, Paul didn't want to be under it.
In the end, fate would decide.
And Paul decided to let fate decide whether his adventures in maskdom let him to heroism or villainy.
That would be a gooddamn great origin story.
And anything's better than wages.
But, like his father said, you had to do something, or know something of have powers to be a superhero. Just to be a trainee for the Avengers or the Justice League, and you had to be a mutant and go to X-Man school to be an X-Man, and you at least had to have an in to be considered.
Supervillains didn't have structure.
All you needed was a costume, a story and a dastardly plan.
He shaved his beard down to a goatee, thinking that looked more debonair. He went out and bought a green cape and a green leotard and a green mask leftover from St. Patrick's Day, and ordered an iron-on of the Egyptian god Anubis from a comic book and put it on the front of the leotard, because he knew he had to be the green something, and the name of the place his father was born in Russia meant "jackal" in English.
He started running around the neighbourhood with his hair in a ponytail stuffed down the back of the leotard, which had four snaps on the bottom that he fastened over his tights. When people asked him what the fuck he was doing and who the hell he was, he told them that he was the Green Jackal, and fate would decide whether he was friend to man, or foe.
And one mysterious line and a half-assed costume got him the kind of respect that no one had ever shown him in all the freaky days of his outcast life.
He had done it half for a lark, like the time he told Skinny that if Lois Lane really married Clark Kent even though she was in love with Superman, he'd come to Grossman's during rush hour, naked, with a Superman "S" painted on his chest and stand at the counter and eat a head cheese sandwich.
He did it, too.
But, when people started treating him like he really was a mask, Paulie got to thinking.
Brooklyn had produced a few masks. Captain America was from Red Hook. The Comedian and the Joker were both from his mother's old neighbourhood, East New York.
Which side of the cape would the Green Jackal, the first mask out of Bensonhurst be on?
Maybe, just maybe, he thought, he could really do it.
It felt good, though, just to put the costume on and be the Green Jackal, it made him feel like a whole new man, a better man, a man who could do any fucking thing he wanted to.
This was it.
This was what he was supposed to do.
Be the Green Jackal.
He was all the sudden the man he always wanted to be, and he didn't even have to work for it.
That should have tipped him off that it was bogus.
It wasn't even like he did it on purpose, his crime, when he finally did it.
Screwed the pooch, like Aunt Aggie always said.
Anyway, Paul wasn't too discreet about his costume; he kept in it a brown paper sack in the back of his Beetle. Rosie found it there, and she went nuts over it; she told him that she really wanted to make it with a mask, and, could he please, please, please put the costume on.
So, Paul put the costume on.
It was like magic. Paul was already hornier than the average bear, but the new man in his costume was like the Great God Pan.
The Green Jackal.
Ruthless and pitiless, a diabolical character, loved by women, feared by men.
Then Rosie she started telling him she wanted him to do it to her at work, with the costume on.
Paul was not sure if he was cool with that, but Rosie promised him it would be on her break, and nobody would see, and she never did it in the booth, and so on.
Now Rosie was pretty cool and they got along well, she was basically Paul's girlfriend, although neither of them ever said as much, and Paul didn't mind her occasional harmless crazy shit, because she was the only chick he ever met who was as horny as he was and they were really good friends, too. So one fine winter afternoon, Paul had a liquid lunch, went home, put his costume in a new paper bag from the A& P , and got on the subway to go to Manhattan.
He figured, what the fuck, why not make it Rosie's lucky day?
He put his foot down when she said she wanted them to do it in the booth so whoever put their quarter in could watch, so she locked up her booth and still, Rosie really seemed to like it and Paul had a good time, too.
Anyway, he started bragging to her that he had all these dastardly schemes planned and Rosie just laughed and told him that he ought to be smart and stay out of crime and if he really wanted to make some dough he should use the costume to get parts in porno, and she knew some people who could get him into that.
Which pissed Paul off.
He was already pissed off because she lied to him about locking the door to the booth, because the window opened up when they were right in the middle of it, and he couldn't get it to close again until the guy's time was up, and Paul was right in the middle of it, it wasn't like he could just quit.
Peep shows and pornos, was that what he was going to do with his life?
That wasn't who the Green Jackal was. Some half-assed porn star.
He was something grander, something bigger, something better, like his fellow masks in the headlines and the comic books.
Paulie knew he hadn't decided to become a mask so he could make cheap fuck flicks in a basement in Queens and get the crabs.
He had to show Rosie and show the world, show them what Paul Edward Stavrogin Blake was really made of.
So he took the switchblade from Rosie's purse without her knowing and he just left the porno shop, and decided to let fate show him her hand.
If he had seen a guy stealing a purse from an old lady, he would have foiled the robbery and become a superhero.
But, as it turned out the first thing he saw was a drugstore, so he went in and held the place up and became a supervillain.
By such slender threads hang our destinies.
Had he just been a robber, the owner would have called the cops, but since he was wearing a costume, albeit a half-assed, piece of shit, homemade costume, the owner called the Superhero Defence Hotline.
At the time, Paul didn't know that such a thing existed, and he just about shit himself when his half-assed attempt to engage in supervillainy was interrupted by some genuine superheroes.
Everything went wrong, terribly wrong.
He ran out and crashed into someone as big as him, and found himself eye to eye with his Uncle Eddie, who was inexplicably dressed like the Comedian.
Paul wondered was why his Uncle Eddie was dressed up like the Comedian.
"You in a hurry, asshole?" the Comedian asked, wryly, in Uncle Eddie's familiar rumble of a Brooklyn accent.
Paul realised then that he his Uncle Eddie was the Comedian.
Fate had pulled a Joker out of the deck.
He turned tail and ran like Hell.
"Leave him go, kid. He's just some punk in his sister's tights. He ain't worth it." The Comedian said to the Harlequin, but when Paul turned around she was right on his heels.
Paul was pretty sure that he hadn't been recognised, but the Harlequin chased him despite what her partner told her.
She cornered him in a dimly lit basement and despite the fact that at some point in his panicked attempts to prevent her from killing him, she fell on Rosie's knife, the Harlequin beat him up pretty good.
He hadn't rolled her over on her back because he was looking to give it to her, he just wanted to get away, and when she reached up and tore his mask off, at first she looked confused, and then she got real interested all the sudden, a funny look on her face as she peered at him in the muted daylight.
The costume.
It had to be the costume.
And then, not only did Paul, who was one of the biggest guys on his block get his ass handed to him by a girl half his size, he couldn't even get it up for her, further humiliating himself as a man and a supervillian.
At his trial, Paul was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and sent to Arkham Asylum for a six month term. Rosie knew the truth, but he wouldn't let her, or any of his family come visit him, and he had her tell Benny the same thing that his mother told Uncle Eddie, which was that Paul got a good-paying job at a resort hotel upstate for the skiing season.
"I'm a freak, Doc. An outcast. And I've been a freak and an outcast all my life, and so have all my friends. That's not what bothers me. I don't wanna have a nice normal life with a job in the city and 2.5 kids and a Chevy in the garage on Long Island, like everybody else."
Paul was about to tell Dr. Long that what he wanted, the way he really felt was that he couldn't wait to get back out on the street so that he could show everyone in New York what side of the cape he was really on, to show them he was the Green Jackal, superhero, friend to man and freak and mutant, alike, because he finally realised what it was he wanted to do with his life and that was to be as mask, that he was the Green Jackal.
Yeah. Tell him that shit, Paulie, and you can kiss your transfer out of this funhouse hellhole goodbye.
"But …uhhh…I just didn't know how to get out from under it. I guess the Green Jackal was a shortcut to me havin' to stand up and be my own man and work for what I wanted." Paul said.
Dr. Long beamed a great smile.
Bingo.
He was a nice man, and Paulie liked talking to him, and some of the things the shrink said actually helped, but he was a nine to fiver, a regular Joe, and a mask's truth was something he could never understand.
"That's very good, Paul. I'm so glad that you realised that. We'll work through this, yet. Now, I'm sorry, I have to see some other patients today, but we'll talk again, tomorrow. Alright?"
Paul got up.
He was a very big man, but he spoke quietly, and moved quietly, and you hardly noticed until he stood up and you took a look at him, Dr. Long thought.
"Okay. I don't wanna miss lunch, anyway." Paul said
He walked away from the doctor's office, past the rows of padded cells where the less tractable patients were being held.
The door to one opened, and the Joker emerged, brushing some white lint off of his suit.
"Ten minutes, Greenie! A new record!"
"That's pretty good, Jack."
"Don't look so glum, Greenie. Don't let that two-bit shrink in there fill your head up with his lies and bullshit. What did you tell him, today?"
"Whatever I thought would get me outa this Mad Hatter's tea party from Hell and back on the street fast enough." Paul said.
"Mad Hatter's tea party from hell? Oh, I like that. I really do. I'll make it the theme of the bash I throw for myself when I make parole. And that's the spirit, Greenie. Don't let the sons of bitches get to you, and put the ring in your nose and the bit in your mouth."
"Yunno, Jack, that's what my Uncle Eddie always tells me."
"Then your Uncle Eddie must be a very smart man."
***
Of all the inmates, the Joker and his colleague the Penguin had taken the most interest in Paul.
He seemed like such a poor, lost soul.
"There he is, Jack. I told you he would show up for lunch. One thing about Greenie, he never misses a meal, even though all they feed us is this disgusting slop."
"Look at him, Oswald. Sitting there staring at his food like he hadn't got a friend in the world. That poor kid. He's so depressed. Defeated. Utterly bereft. I was talking to him this morning after that shrink got done with him, and the poor lad was so depressed. You can tell the boy thinks he's nothing but a piece of shit and an utter failure. And what's he going to do when they let him out?" the Joker noted.
He and the Penguin collected their trays.
"Without his mask? What would happen to any of us, without our masks? Despair. Doom. Oblivion. He'll probably end up some junkie bum shoved into a garbage can. Six months from now his mother will be going to the morgue to identify his half-decomposed remains. What a waste, Jack." The Penguin replied.
"Well, I think we should help him. We need some new blood. The League has some new heroes, all those X-Men are kids, the Society needs some new villains. The world's changing, Oswald. We have to change with it. Get some kids into the mix. Close this Generation Gap."
"Get someone for Livy to play with?"
"Yes. Exactly. It'll be good for the boy. Make a man out of him. Let's go sit with Gloomy Gus."
Paul went from looking depressed to looking nervous when the Joker and the Penguin came and sat with him.
"Hello, Jack. Hello, Mr. Cobblepot."
"You look awfully depressed this afternoon, Paulie." The Penguin said.
"It's the food. Yunno I lost ten pounds since I came here? I can hardy stomach this shit. I'd just about kill somebody for a corned beef sandwich and a pickle. Or some pizza. Or a goddamn beer."
"Why didn't you say something before, Greenie? I have connections, you know. I can get you whatever you want." The Joker assured him.
"How about ten minutes alone with my Old Lady?" Paul asked.
"Ten minutes? What about an hour? That's child's play. You tell her to bring you a corned beef sandwich and a pickle from Grossmann's, and wear something sexy the next time she comes to see you, and good old Joker will take care of the rest."
"Why would you wanna do that for me."
"Well, you and my Livy are friends. And besides, we supervillains have to stick together."
Paul actually held his nose as he opened his mouth and shoved in a forkful of mystery meat.
"I don't think I'm much of a supervillian, Jack. My Old Lady, she's kinda freaky, she thinks she can get me into a porno movie. Maybe I'll do it." He said, grimacing as he swallowed.
"What do they make this slop outa, ground donkey balls?"
The Joker and the Penguin looked at eachother and nodded.
"Don't you think that's a bit demeaning to you as a man, let alone a supervillain?" the Joker asked.
"Anything's better than wages." Paul answered.
"Quite right, my boy. But still, what do you think the Harlequin is going to think of you if you just up and quit? Or start making blue movies? That's no way for one of us to make a living." the Penguin asked.
"She'll never give you a second thought, that's what." The Joker agreed.
"But I ain't the villainous type." Paul protested.
"Dear boy, you don't have to be a vicious psychopathic killer to be a supervillain. It helps, but you don't have to be. Why, you can be in it for the money. Or for political reasons. Or just for the hell of it. For any reason you like, really." The Joker argued.
"I don't?"
"Of course not. Take Lex, for example. He hates Superman. Wants to see him dead, but nobody else. He's interested in power, so his plans all revolve around that. And our associate, the Riddler, he's not really a violent fellow at all. He enjoys the game. There are all kinds of crime, my boy. I'm sure you can find something that suits your personality. Art heists and jewel thieving, I would say. What do you think, Jack?"
"Yes, most likely, Oswald. And there's a lot of money in that, Paul. And a lot of press. Women. Foreign travel. The Jet set, Paulie. It always makes the news. Very impressive. And exciting. Besides, well, should we tell him?"
Penguin didn't know where his old compadre was going, but he played along.
"Oh no, Jack."
"Maybe he won't believe us. Edgar? Edgar come and sit with us. Paul, this is Edgar Jacobi. You probably know him as Moloch. Edgar, tell our newest recruit here what you think the Harlequin's partner is like."
Penguin gave Joker a quizzical look and Joker nodded, slightly, and when Penguin began to realise the true nature of Joker's mad plan, he had to suppress a diabolical laugh.
That's why Jack Napier was the Dictator For Life of the Society of Supervillains.
Because he was the best.
Moloch sat down with his tray, and looked over both shoulders.
"That no-good son-of-a-bitch! He's a sorry excuse for a man! Didja ever read that Under the Hood book? I've done some horrible things, sure, but I never did anything like that to a woman! The man's a pig. A slime. A piece of shit. He thinks he's James Bond with a License to Kill but he's more like Jack the Ripper. The Comedian, he don't bother to harm somebody if he don't have to kill them, he just kills 'em. Men, women, little kids, he doesn't give a fuck. I'll tell you what, I feel sorry for that girl who works with him. God only knows what he does to her, the sadistic bastard. I can't run out of bad things to say about that fuckin' prick." He said.
"I had no idea." The Penguin said.
"I'm shocked." The Joker added.
Paul had to sit on himself to restrain his anger.
Take it easy, Paulie. If you let these guys know that you're the Comedian's nephew, you're dead meat.
"Hey! The guy's an American hero! He's in the goddamn history books, for that Iwo Jima thing. I mean, he couldn't really be that bad, could he? I'm tellin' you, I don't buy that shit! I don't wanna hear that shit!" Paul protested, trying to hold his tongue.
"Jesus, all you Micks from the boroughs do stick together, dontcha? Just like the Wops do. Listen, kid, when I tellya that the Comedian is a bad man, I mean worse than anything you could ever imagine. I know. I'm his arch-enemy, I know the cocksucker better than his friends do. I'm not some dumb half-Mick half-Bohunk who thinks anybody from the old neighbourhood can't be all that bad. That goddamn Comedian sunnuvabitch, he's the fuckin' worst. I can't help it if you're too much of a half-assed mask worshipper to know it." Moloch maintained.
That was all for Paul.
He thought back to his earliest memory.
His father and his uncle were in the backyard, digging a hole for the barbecue pit they were going to build. It was a hot day and even though his mother told him to stay in the house and let the men work, Paul took off his shirt and grabbed his toy shovel and bucket that he took to Jones Beach with him, and crawled into the hole and started digging.
"Whatcha doin, there, Paulie?" Uncle Eddie asked.
"Ma said the men was workin. So here I am."
Uncle Eddie laughed and his father lifted him out of the hole.
"Digging hole don't make you man, Paulie." Ivan said.
"That's right, kid. Yunno what makes you a man? Ya gotta stand up. Ya gotta be a stand up guy. Never take a dive." Uncle Eddie said.
"Right. You stand up and take what's coming. Don't let nobody make punk out of you." Ivan agreedd.
Paulie hadn't been too sure what they mean then, but he knew now, and he supposed it went double for jail, where guys might want to make you a punk, literally.
And triple for when some pointy-eared jumped-up drug pusher in a magician suit started insulting you and your family.
Paul stood up just like John Wayne in the movies.
He pushed himself away from the table with both hands and sprang to his feet.
Letting the chair scrape behind him so everybody could see that Paul Stavrogin was nobody's fool.
"Hey, fuck you, Magic Man! You keep that shit up, I don't give a shit who the fuck you are, you're gonna end up with my foot in your ass! I've never been a failure with my dick or my fists, and since you ain't my type, I hope ya like swallowin' your own teeth!" Paul shot back.
Wow. That was a great line.
"What the fuck is your problem? You the Comedian's boyfriend?" Moloch asked.
Paul hadn't been himself, lately. He was confused, and lost and depressed, he'd lost himself and he didn't know when he'd be meeting up with himself again.
It was a terrible feeling, but just for that moment, he felt pretty good and sure and positive about hauling Uncle Eddie's arch-nemesis across the table and pounding on him until the orderlies came and shot him up with Thorazine.
That was pretty much the most violent thought that Paul had ever had, but as it was also the clearest in a month, he decided to go with it.
With a snarled curse, Paul lunged across the table, going right from Gentle Giant to Incredible Hulk, and the Joker and the Penguin leapt to their feet to restrain him and calm him down before an orderly noticed the ruckus.
"I'm no fuckin' punk! Not now, not tomorrow, not ever! You're dead, Magic Man! You hear me? You're a fuckin' walking dead man!"
Paul couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth.
Jesus, I sound like Uncle Eddie but I know I ain't got the jam to back it up, not with these guys. They're pros. I'm in over my head. I'm in over my head. I'm in over…fuck it, I don't care.
I'm gonna kill this motherfucker.
"Take it easy, kid! Take is easy! Nobody's callin' you a punk. I know the Comedian. Motherfucker's a lot of things but I know he ain't a fag, and you don't seem too queenly, yourself. I was just testin' ya. Seein' if you had any real balls for what we got planned for you." Moloch said, throwing his hands up in the air and laughing.
"Planned for me?" Paul asked.
"Oho, you see, Edgar? The lad can do something besides mope! I was right about him! What we're getting at here, my boy, is that we think you have talent. We'd like to invite you to join The Society." The Joker finished.
Paul's mouth went slack in shock.
He sort of fell into his chair.
"Me? Me, in the Secret Society of Super-Villains. I…I don't know what to say."
The two villains smiled at each other.
Gotcha!
"Try saying yes, dear boy." Oswald suggested .
Paul though about it.
The Society.
That meant money, and power and really being somebody important.
The Harlequin would have to be impressed with him, then.
He
could be her arch-nemesis, and they could be secret lovers, like
Batman and Catwoman.
Everybody would be impressed by him, if he
was in The Society.
He pictured himself driving around the neighbourhood in a big fancy car, throwing money and his weight around, just like a Mafioso, only better.
And he could hire all his friends to be his henchmen.
The Green Jackal, Black Knight of the Society, Freak King of New York, American Outlaw Master of All He Surveyed.
Fate was showing him a few more of the cards in her hand.
Three of a kind.
Grrrooooovy.
"Jesus, me in The Society. All my life I been an outcast, nobody ever wanted me to join nothin'. I mean, this is my only chance to do somethin', right? To be someone, to really be a man. My own man. Well, you know what? I'm tired of being a nobody. I'm tired of being a loser and a goddamn joke. I'm the Green Jackal."
Paul began to get a mad and resolute gleam in his eye.
This was his only chance to do something, to be someone, to really be a man.
He wasn't just a loser anymore. Call it fate, call it karma, call it luck, but he felt like that part of his life was over, like the old Paul was a dead man, dead and buried.
Dead and all his drab and dreary years of failure dead with him.
This was it.
He was right all along.
This was his one way ticket out of Palookaville.
He was the Green Jackal, supervillian, arch-nemesis of the Harlequin.
Let the games begin.
"Fuck it. I'll do it, I'm crazy enough. Count me in."
The boy looked both ways, reached into his Arkham jumpsuit and pulled a small notebook out of the waistband of his undershorts.
The three experienced villains bent over the table, conspiratorially.
"These are my plans for a costume and a hideout. I ain't got the money, though."
The Joker took the notebook and spirited it away, before Moloch could get a good look at it.
"Don't worry about it. The Society will provide you with some seed money. Now, I'll go over these plans with the other members, and we'll talk, soon." The Joker promised him.
He got up with his tray.
"Looking forward to working with you, young man." The Penguin said.
The three villains left their new recruit alone with his thoughts.
"Jack, are you sure we're square with Eddie? The last thing I need is him waitin' outside the door when I come out to kick my ass." Moloch inquired.
"Of course I'm sure. We buy the kid his costume, give him a little Society money, he gets out, comes up with some crack-brained scheme, my Liv foils him. He's so scared he gets out of the supervillain game, forever, and goes off into the sunset with this crazy girl he knows. Livvie gets that little confidence boost she needs to leave her Troubles behind, once and for all. Everybody's happy." The Joker assured him.
Moloch looked over at Paul, who had a mad and faraway look in his eye.
"Why the fuck you suppose he jumped to that bastard Comedian's defence like that?"
The Joker shrugged.
"Who knows? It's probably like you said about the old neighbourhood. The boy isn't really one of us, anyway. Listen, Edgar, I don't want you getting your vendetta against Eddie in on this. He's an old friend of mine. And if anything happens to my little girl, I'll know that crazy kid had nothing to do with it. Do you get me?"
"Sure, Jack. I understand."
"I hope you do. Or you'll end up swallowing a lot more than your teeth."
Batman's opponents waited until Moloch was on his way.
"Do you think he noticed, Oswald?"
"No. He didn't seem to notice that young Paulie looks an awful lot like your old friend Eddie Blake."
"But we noticed, didn't we? And Edgar is such a tiresome, second-rate thug. An embarrassment. An embarrassment who has been encroaching on too many of our plans, of late. And a thorn in, as you say, my old friend's side."
"Are you plotting something diabolical, my dear Jack?"
"Of course I am, my dear Oswald. Of course I am."
II: Eddie
The Comedian couldn't figure out some of the small-time shit that his partner fucked around with, but she was young and full of piss, wind and excitement, and one thing about street work, it was a lot simpler than government jobs, cleaner and more to the point.
Made you feel like you were out there doing what a mask was really supposed to do.
He stood in the hallway of the rundown tenement, leaning againt the wall with his foot up against it and his arms folded across his chest, smoking and waiting.
"Hey, Mister Comedian? Wotcha doin here?"
Some poor black kid who had the misfortune to live in this miserable, God-forsaken dump.
"I'm workin, kid. Go back in your apartment and stay there. Things are gonna get rough"
"No shit? You gonna kill somebody?"
"Probably."
"Can I watch?"
"No, kiddo. This ain't TV. You might get hurt."
"Well, after he's dead, can I have his money?"
"Sure, kid. Why not. Go home, now. An' no peekin' through a crack in the door."
The Comedian watched the kid scurry back to his apartment and noted the number on the door.
Nice kid.
Smart kid.
Probably be a goddamn lawyer for the NAACP someday.
A man came up the stairs, and without looking behind him, pulled a gun, and went to the door of the apartment Liv was in.
The Comedian moved up behind him, knocked the gun out of his hand, and spun him around.
Skinny white kid.
Junkie thug.
"Hey, punk, if you like fuckin' breathing, you get the fuck outa here."
"Fuck you, old man! You take that shit and shove—"
Eddie was not interested in the rest of Skinny Junkie Thug's comment.
He grabbed the punk's head in both of his hands, lifted him into the air and, twisting his wrists, abruptly, snapped his neck.
He was pretty sure that he saw the light leaving the punk's eyes, but, just to make sure, after the body hit the ground, he fired a bullet right between the thug's eyes.
"Man, that shit was cool! Just like TV!"
"Get back in your goddamn door, kid!" Eddie yelled.
The body jumped, it's heels hammered on the floor and an apartment door closer to the Comedian opened.
A middle-aged black woman poked her head out.
"What the hell?"
"Don't worry about it, lady. We're on your side. Just your friendly neighbourhood superheroes, comin' down to take out the trash." The Comedian assured her.
"I never thought I'd see no goddamn superheroes in this neighbourhood."
"None of the good ones, anyway." The Comedian cracked.
"He's dead. That's good enough for me." The woman said, and shut her door.
Hearing his partner roar, Eddie stepped back from the door as it bulged outward and splintered, the kid on top of this big, fat guy who was either a spic or a nigger, Eddie couldn't tell.
He tried to crawl away and the Comedian kicked him in his already bloody and mashed face, then put his foot and most of his weight on the man's balls.
He screamed.
"Shut the fuck up, asshole! People are tryin' ta sleep. It's a weeknight." Liv told him.
She put her gloved hand into a bag and produced a syringe which contained a nice hot shot of heroin and strychnine for the hot shot on the ground.
She straddled his bulk, punched him in the throat, and rolled up his sleeve.
"I'll split, man. I'll do it. I will. I'm gone. I'll never sell another ounce of dope! Not an ounce! I swear!" he croaked
"Baby, I told youse you get the fuck outa here two weeks ago, and I told youse that if you didn't, I'd be back and you'd be dead. You bet your ass you're going. With your friend over there whose brains are all over the wall. Straight to Hell."
Liv stabbed the spike into his vein, and pushed the plunger in.
"Say goodbye, motherfucker!'
Most of the doors in the hallway opened, and residents from upper floors and lower floors came out to peer over the stairwells at the tableau.
The Comedian, with his foot on the living man's balls, holstering his smoking gun, casually puffing his cigar, the lifeless body lying beside him, its neck at an unnatural angle, blood and bone and brains all over the wall and the floor.
The Harlequin on top of the living man, holding his bulk down as he foamed, at the mouth convulsed, and then, finally, died.
The Comedian drew his gun.
"Don't shoot him. I didn't go to all the trouble to OD him so you could shoot him!"
"Amateur theatrics. When they find the spike in him, his friends out there will get the message. What did I tell you about confirming your kills?"
"Well, better safe than sorry."
The Harlequin got up, breathing hard, pulled her gun and fired a bullet into the second corpse's head, right between the eyes.
As they were putting their guns away, a little bald Italian man came down the hallway, with a janitor's cart.
He was the Super.
"They're dead? Good. I know it's a lousy thing to say, but we don't know how to thank you. We called the cops, an the cops took 'em in, let 'em out the next day. They came back here and beat the shit outa me. There was no trial, they pled out. And they were back. Terrorisin' the place. That was justice?" the little man asked.
"This time, Mr Bartoletti, you needed street justice." the Harlequin said
"Street justice is the only fuckin' justice there is. Cops ain't worth shit, politicians ain't worth shit. They're a fuckin' joke. I know. If it wasn't for us fuckin' masks this country would be even further down the toilet than it already is." The Comedian volunteered.
"You got that right, my friend." Mr. Bartoletti agreed.
"Anybody else you know, Mr. Bartoletti, if they can't or won't go to the cops, or the government, or the law, tell them to call the Harlequin. No matter what they need. I'm not just Murder Incorporated, yunno. Anybody has trouble, of any kind, no matter how big or how small, you call the Harlequin."
Mr. Bartoletti nodded.
"That's what you do?"
"That's what I do. Somebody has to give a damn about the little guy." Harlequin said
"Don't worry about cleanup, pal. I got people who do that. Show's over, folks. Everybody just go to bed, and you can rest easy tonight. These two won't be making any trouble around here, anymore." The Comedian announced.
He crouched down and rifled the dead men's pockets.
The little boy who he'd promised the money to ran over.
"Five hundred bucks. That ain't hay, kid. Don't spend it all in one place."
"I ain't. I'm gonna give it to my Momma."
Some of the residents thanked the two masks, some of them just went quietly to bed, and as the hallway emptied, the Harlequin and the Comedian went back out onto the street.
Eddie
stopped at the police callbox.
"Hello, Jimbo? Guess who?
Cleanup on aisle three. That's right. You got it. G'night."
They began walking to the car.
"You okay, kid?"
"Just
a split lip, Eddie. You?"
"You know me, kid. I like working
on American soil. Especially in my town. Makes me feel like I'm
doin' somethin' right. You hungry?"
"Starving. I wore myself out, wrestling with that big bastard."
"Grossmann's?"
"Yeah. That sounds good."
***
After they got done eating, they returned to Eddie's apartment, which was just around the corner.
Liv was too tired to drive home; she and Eddie took a shower and went to bed, and she fell asleep, immediately.
It was her first night back at work as the Harlequin since she'd almost been fatally wounded, so Eddie really couldn't blame her.
Tomorrow was another day.
It just happened to be the day she was going to be inducted into the Justice League, and Kent liked to do these things early, so it was just as well that the kid got some sleep.
***
Right on the heels of that day, one of the best days Eddie could remember, came one of the worst.
The kind of day which started out fucking lousy, and was only going to get worse.
Early and lousy, with the phone ringing, persistently.
"Liv…wake up. C'mon, wake up. Go answer that fuckin' phone."
"Why don't you?"
"Cos you're 25 years younger than I am. C'mon."
"Goddamn it, Eddie, you're only an old man when it suits ya. Okay. I got it."
She stumbled out of the bedroom, swearing.
He heard her laughing at someone, and had just about fallen back to sleep when the screaming started.
"…your're gonna do what? You listen to me, chief, if you do that I will muthafuckin' kill youse, …ya muthafucker! D'you understand! I know exactly where the fuck you are, and I will go the fuck down there and I will fuckin' stick my fuckin' fist into your silicone fuckin' chest and I will rip your muthafuckin' livin', beatin' fuckin' heart out, and the last fuckin' thing you'll see is me, crushin' it in my muthafuckin' fist while you die, ya cocksucker!"
Eddie chuckled a little to himself and rolled over.
Then things got serious.
"…what am I gonna give you? Give you? This is what I'm gonna fuckin' give you, ya cunt…"
BLAM!
"…an' I'm comin' over right now to give it to you! You know who I am? Well, I'll tell ya! I'm Trivelino J. Napier! They call me Napalm. You know what Napalm does? It burns things down! You don't fuck with my father, and you sure as hell don't fuck with me!"
Yes, Eddie, that was a gunshot in your living room.
Eddie jumped out of bed in time to see the kid standing there with a smoking gun in her hand, having fired it into his bulletproof vest, holding the phone next to the muzzle of the gun.
"Yeah, I thought so! Fuck you. Fuck you very much. Don't bother Mr. Blake ever again. Ever. Or I'll slice your fuckin' tits off with piano wire! "
Liv slammed the phone down.
She picked up the receiver and slammed it repeatedly against the coffee table, then hung it up again, snarling in fury.
"Motherfucker! Where's my fuckin' clothes!" she bawled.
"What the fuck was that? Are you crazy? Shootin' fuckin' guns in the fuckin house at eight in the fuckin' morning?"
"Don't fuck with me right now, Eddie!"
"Don't point that fuckin' gun at me! Just who the fuck do you think you are?"
Liv tossed the gun onto the couch.
"There! It's not pointed at you, anymore!"
She turned around and walked back into the bedroom.
"Who the fuck was on the phone? Don't just walk away from me!"
He grabbed Liv's shoulder and spun her around, angrily, and she shoved him away, just as angrily.
"Some chick who wants ten large from you or they'll send your girlfriend the pictures of you fucking her and two of her friends. I laughed at her, I said I was the closest thing you had to that and I didn't give a shit. So she said you were telling her you had a government job and she was sendin' them to the papers. So I put the fear of God into the bitches, and they ain't doin' nothin' now. Nice goin' Eddie. Real fuckin' professional."
"Fuck you, bitch! You musta fucked half of New York!"
"Yeah, but I don't brag that I work for Dr. Manhattan, and I sure as fuckin' hell never had my picture taken, doin it, you dumb motherfucker!" Liv shot back.
She slammed the bedroom door shut and locked it, and the Comedian put his fist through it, but by that time Liv was dressed.
She backed up against the wall in mock fear as Eddie unlocked the door and threw it open.
"Go on, Eddie! Fuckin' hit me! Take your best shot! If you're ready to go, I'm ready to go! It's been too goddamn long since the last time I threw down on your ass!"
"Get your ass the fuck outa here! Now!"
"I'm goin! I'm goin'!"
She pushed a button on the bracelet her arm, giving him the one arm salute and the finger at the same time.
Eddie Blake threw something against the wall, it turned out to be a mug after it broke, and got back into bed.
"Fuck it." He muttered, and went back to bed.
***
The evening did not go much better, interesting as it always was to fly around with the Boy Scout and the Inkblot, in his jumped-up zeppelin, looking for an old lady's cat to get out of a tree.
He was just killing time until he had to go pick up that degenerate fuck the Green Jackal, beat a little sense into him and then get on his way to DC for the Summit.
Since he and the kid had become partners, Danny Boy made an attempt to make nice with him, and he didn't notice the Comedian not being in the mood.
"Look, Danny Boy, just drive this fuckin' thing. I'm not in the goddamn mood to make small talk."
"Why? Is there something wrong with Liv? Is it about that Green Jackal guy?"
DING!
And the little man wins a big cigar.
"What the fuck is it with you and my partner? No, there's nothin' fuckin' wrong with her! Why? Are you innarested or something? What, did you fuck her, too?"
"No! The subject never came up."
"Bullshit! If you have a dick and it comes up, so does the fuckin' subject."
The Comedian was angry, he was always angry, but there was a hint of exasperated desperation in his voice.
Like Liv had finally done something so weird, so bizarre, so unbelievably degenerate that even he couldn't fathom it.
Something like interrupting her beating of the Green Jackal to make a pass at him.
At least that was the rumour.
Liv had once made a pass at him, under altogether different circumstances, and Dan had uncategorically turned her down.
She was a beautiful girl, but she was too crazy for him.
Still, he decided to continue to lie.
"I guess I'm not her type."
The Comedian laughed, cheerlessly.
"Not her type? Bullshit! You're her type. Rorschach is her type. He's got a dick and a pulse. That's her type. All that kid wants is a bottle of whiskey, a stiff cock and a warm mouth in the dark. Fuckin' shanty Irish whore." He said.
"Harlequin's not that bad. At all." Rorschach grunted.
Dan felt his face turning red.
The Comedian continued his tirade.
"I mean, I've heard of masks screwing their arch-enemies, and I've heard of people that masks have screwed becoming their arch-enemies, but did you ever pause in the middle of beating up some broad who had a knife on her or a gun and was trying to kill you to think, hey, maybe I'd like to fuck this one? Well, didja?"
"No. No, not like that, no." Dan replied.
"Jesus, if it was a man did what she did, they'd be takin' his mask and throwin' his as in jail for rape. And now that big dumb prick the Green Jackal is gettin' out early, and if I was him, I'd be going back to see if the offer was still open. Well, fuck him. If he touches my partner, so much as touches a hair on her head, I'll tear his cock out by the roots! With my bare fuckin' hands! And if he goes after her, that motherfucker is gonna die like no man has ever fuckin' died, before. They'll have to send him home to his mother in ten different shoeboxes."
"That's right, Comedian. Harlequin can't help the way she is. It's her nature. She fights it, but it's hard to fight your nature. Someone has to protect her." Rorschach piped in.
"You're prob'ly right. And I have to go to DC."
"I don't."
"She'll know that you're there. She probably knows what you smell like. Kid's like a goddamn animal, sometimes, always sniffin' around."
"Then if she needs backup, she'll know she has it." Rorschach promised.
"I'll keep an eye on her, too, Comedian. I'm sure it was just some kind of weird passing thing. She might have mistaken him for somebody else. Or maybe it was hormonal. PMS, or something." The Nite Owl volunteered.
"Thanks." The Comedian said, tersely.
Dan thought that might have been the nicest thing the Comedian had said to him since 1963.
***
Following his most exciting evening, and in an extremely rotten moon, Eddie Blake drove to Arkham, to pick up the Green Jackal.
Now, there had to be something about the son of a bitch that made Liv do what she did, and the Comedian was determined to find out what it was.
That kind of shit wasn't normal behaviour, even for Liv.
He must have said something to her, otr did something to her.
Wait a minute.
Stop the presses.
Did something to her?
Maybe the kid was just playing it off, and this Green Jackal had been trying to rape her.
The Comedian gripped his steering wheel so hard he almost bent the metal.
In that case, the Devil was going to have to start another kettle of boiling oil in hell, because Eddie Blake would be sending the Green Jackal straight to him.
Or, maybe he'd just kill the bastard, regardless, on general principles, for whatever it was he did or said that made Liv try and take a crack at him.
The kid could find a new arch-nemesis.
At the very least, Eddie was going teach the little bastard a lesson he's never forget in supervillain etiquette beat the little bastard until he was grovelling at his boots and bleeding on the ground and begging not to be hit again.
That, of course, was when the real fun started.
After he got done with the son of a bitch, the villainous bastard would be glad to be with the Devil in Hell, just to get the hell away from the wrath of Edward Morgan Blake.
The Comedian smiled to himself, laughed a little, lit a fresh cigar, shifted into a higher gear and stomped on the accelerator.
"Greenie, whoever the fuck you are, you been fuckin' with the wrong son-of-a bitch."
He started to laugh in earnest, then, as he sped down the road.
