Chapter Twelve

I ran over to Bang Bang Burgers and picked up three JBBs or Juicy Bang Burgers with Firecracker Fries that were actually fried sweet potatoes with three cups of sweet, Bang Bang Sauce. Thong asked me to get him a Graveyard Shake, which was a chocolate shake with a thick, deep chocolate brownie on top. We sat at Sue's booth, enjoyed our food, and watched the people flow into the area. Honestly, people were having so much fun that I don't think anybody was leaving. When the announcement of James JJ. Johnson Junior's birth happened, the crowd went into an uproar and started chanting his name. Every year, for the last four years, he sang for the crowd. They loved JJ.

I don't know what I was thinking when I bought three JBBs because after I bit into my burger, I was already full. Who needed a triple meat patty burger in the first place? I only ate breakfast, the caramel apple, and now it was almost five o'clock in the afternoon, and I felt defeated by the triple meat burger in front of me. I looked over at Thong, and he was choking his triple meat burger down like it was nothing.

"This is barely enough," he said with a mouth full of food. He took another bite of his JBB as an affront to my manhood.

I took the third bite out of my JBB, and I actually thought about faking an illness because I wasn't going to be able to finish. My son sat next to me and kept chewing and chewing, and then he started in on his shake. I still had a full Graveyard Shake, and Thong was shoveling the burger and fries in his mouth like he was eating the baby meal. "Boy, you shouldn't eat so fast!"

"What's wrong, Daddy? You can't hang?" He laughed. "It feels good to be eating as a family, doesn't it?"

"That's right," Sue said in agreement. "I hope we can have more dinners together."

Suddenly, I realized that maybe I made a mistake eating with my wife and son, and also spending all day with her because the signals were mixed. During our college years, I never had one reservation about her. But now, I don't think I can move past the fact that she killed a man over drug money.

In the background, I heard several police sirens blurring loudly. I only ate half of my burger, and then started on my shake. The hospital was only about a mile from the park, and it looked like legions of cop cars headed that way. The police officers in the park talked into their radios, and most of them headed out of the park. I didn't know what could cause so many officers to leave that fast.

"Eight officers down!" Exclaimed one of the cops. "The suspect is a metahuman. His name is Bay Nelson."

I saw Jefferson Pierce dancing in the middle of the field with a group of other people, and then I walked over to him. When I tapped him on the shoulder, he quickly turned to me. "You need to get to the hospital."

"Why? What's going on?" He asked.

"I don't know the full story, but the cops are searching for a young man your daughter was with. He killed eight cops."

"Dear, God," he said with a grimace. "Immediately he ran out of the park, and I ran to the other side of the street, behind some houses. Most of the people in Freeland attended the Carnival, and I hoped they remained focused on the music. I didn't have a fancy costume like some of the other superheroes. The smell of barbeque permeated throughout the entire area. I looked down at the ground for a moment and then took flight. When I looked down at the ground, I saw tons of cops scouring the neighborhoods. Once I landed on top of the medical facility, I could hear the cops through the walls cursing the young woman.

Emergency Room…

I ran into the emergency room, and JJ stood next to the vending machines by the end of the hallway caring a black box. He was way over six-feet tall, but I could tell he was just a kid. He looked me in the face, and said, "It's bad. Real bad."

"Yes. I heard Bay took out eight cops," I said.

"No. That's not the bad part," he said, "Something has changed the timeline. We're off course. Way off course."

I looked at him for a moment, and then asked, "What do you mean?"

"I mean time," he said. He walked over to the newspaper machine, and pulled out one, and then said, "Read article three."

The article had to do with more deaths than births in the United States, and around the world. At first, it didn't seem like a huge problem.

"Bay's momma is Doctor Gina Nelson," he said, "The cops shot her, and she died right after arriving at the hospital. She also had stage four cervical cancer. According to Orion, my Doraxian Palm Computer, she wasn't supposed to die until twenty seventy. It's her work that saved millions in the future."

"Why did they shoot her?" I asked. "That's insane."

"I believe that Bay found her convulsing, and tried to rush her to the hospital," he said, "I read some of Jennifer's thoughts, and that's what I surmised from all the madness going on in her head. Listen, whatever happens, you should get your boy home as soon as possible. The cops are riled up. To them, every black boy looks like Bay."

Moments later…

I ran out to the parking lot of the hospital, and Jefferson Pierce walked with his daughter to his car. She appeared to be okay physically, but I didn't know how she might be on the mental level. When I walked across the street, I saw a cop roll past me, and then he slammed on the breaks. It was now dark outside, and the cop in the passenger seat stepped out of the car. Grimacing, he walked over to me and told me to stand where he could see my hands.

I tried to position my hands, and then I heard Sue scream telepathically, and I flinched. "You killed my boy!"

I panicked. I didn't know what she meant. "Let me see your hands, shit skin!" The cop screamed at the top of his lungs. He was enraged over the death of his comrades, and then when he threw me into the cop car, I hit the top of it face first. When I tried to enter Thong's mind, all I felt was the pain, and then I began to panic. I felt blood pouring down my face, and into my eyes. When I reached up to wipe the blood off my face, the cop put the barrel of his gun against my forehead, and screamed, "If you move again, shit skin, I will kill your monkey ass." But at the same time, I was in a state of shock. I sensed my son's pain, and I needed to get to him.

His partner stood on the other side of me while he kicked my legs apart. I tried to maintain my composure, but it was hard. "Listen, Thong," I said telepathically. "Think to me." I used a mental deception technique called the mirage where it allowed an image of myself to stand in my place while I continued my journey down the street. I had stepped away while the cop had his gun pointed to an image of me, and then I made the image reach for the cops gun, and he ended up shooting his partner multiple times in the face.

"What have I done?" He screamed. He looked over at me, pointed his gun at me, and then I went into his mind. Slowly, he placed the gun behind his left ear, pulled the trigger, and blood shot directly into the air. I looked at him as he convulsed in the middle of the street and then flew back over to the park where the cops began their harassment of all the black men in the crowd. They had stopped the music, and had most of the black men, young and old, on the ground in the entire park.

I looked around for my son, and several cops stood over him as he lay on the ground dying. The rage inside of me was hidden like a deadly snake all my life, but it was there. I spent my life trying to be the calm son, and when I saw the cops hovering over my child's body, something inside of me snapped. That image of my child dead on the ground made an indelible mark on my soul. I looked over at Sue's booth, and it was completely emptied. I didn't see her anywhere in the park.

"Why are you doing this?" A young man asked. "We're just trying to have a good time. You have us laying on the ground like animals! You killed Mister Ryan's kid!"

"Shut the fuck up!" The cop exclaimed as he had his weapon by his side. "The damn punk kid shouldn't have tried to run."

"Shoot yourself," I whispered softly. The cop raised his weapon to his forehead, and his hands began to shake like another force was stopping him from obeying my command. I didn't realize he had the power to resist my powers, so I tried harder to make him shoot himself. I wanted all the cops dead for taking my boy, and nothing was going to stand in the way of my revenge.

"Quit!" JJ said to me telepathically. "Release him."

"He killed my boy," I replied telepathically. "If you saw what he did…"

'You're a freaking Deceiver," he said, "Deceive the cops into leaving, and bring the boy to me."

I was so angry that I wanted to kill them all for violating the rights of American citizens. Everybody in the park had the right to go about their day without being tormented by the cops. And now I had to experience the loss of my only offspring, the one person that I loved with all my heart. And according to the radio broadcast, Bay was the one who killed the eight cops. Before I had a chance to do anything, JJ must have already done it for me because the cops abruptly left.

Back at the Hospital…

I raced into the emergency room with Thong, and JJ met me at the entrance way with the black box in his right hand. He took me into an unoccupied room on the first floor. My son wasn't breathing at all, but that didn't stop JJ from doing what needed to be done. I paced back and forth, and to be honest, I feared for Sue in the process as well. The cops took her only boy in front of her eyes, and I know she wasn't going to take it well. I tried several times to enter into her mind, but she blocked me. Since I brought her back to life with the Lazarus Pit and with my blood, she was able to perform the same feats as any Deceiver.

JJ placed an electronic device on Thong's belly, and then he looked back at me and said, "The bullet went clean through."

"Narcotizing the patient," the computer said.

What only took twenty minutes felt like twenty hours for me, and when Thong called out to me, I was elated beyond belief. I held him so close to me that I didn't want to let go. "Get him home. To your Metropolis home because this place is a powderkeg," JJ said with a grimace.

I watched the young man place his instrument back into the case, and then he walked out of the room. Before I took Thong home, I dropped by Sue's Bistro to tell her that our boy was okay, but I didn't see her. I looked around the entire area, but I didn't see any sign of her.

"Daddy, is Momma okay?" He asked with a concerned look on his face.

I tried to find my comforting voice, but I didn't know exactly what to say, "I think she'll be okay."

Late in the evening….

After I took my boy to our Metropolis home, he looked at me for a moment, and said, "Please go find my Momma."