Suicide Slums
"South Side!" The young, miscreants who called themselves the One Hundred screamed as they walked down Main Street in the Suicide Slums of Metropolis. Ten years ago they didn't have any powers or weight behind their misdeeds, but not today; they've changed the entire game in the dilapidated side of town. I had never seen a gang like the One Hundred in all my days. Often, I wondered if Superman would take time out of his busy schedule to stop the violence, drugs, and corrupt politicians infecting the slums, but he hadn't tried yet. In fact, I'm not sure if he ever took the time to fly over the blighted area
The One Hundred wore their long, black trench coats with lengthy, dirty brown dreadlocks. I could see the gun bulges on their right hips. It was like they weren't trying to hide their weapons. I sat on the steps of my apartment building, Towering Heights, and watched the hoodlums as they meandered down the street. After the gun turn-in happened the previous week, I thought the cops took most of the weapons out of the neighborhood. I helped organize the guns for rent buyback, but it was only for one month of rent. Most of the other apartment building owners participated in the exchange, and I felt good about that. It wasn't the first time that I organized some kind of gun buyback, but it was only a week later, and I think more guns bled into the streets than in the three previous years combined.
Leroy Johnson rode his odd shaped bicycle down the avenue. His large afro poofed out in all directions, and he wore wide, black sunglasses that extended past his shoulders. Often, he was short on salutations, but not today for some reason. His bike had a large front wheel and a small back wheel. It was a silly looking, pedal driven thing that made me laugh when I saw him. Leroy was about twenty-one years old, but as far as I could tell, he was a pretty good guy. "Mister Ryan, how are you doing today?" Leroy asked as he rode past my apartment complex.
"Pretty good, Leroy," I said. "What's with the long ass greeting?"
"I have a job interview tomorrow," he said, "I thought I should sophisticate my greeting."
I smiled. "It can't hurt, son."
Misses Jenkin's kids played a game of jacks next to the stairway, and I looked on without any care at all. More often than not, she had her kids roaming up and down the slums without any guidance at all. She suffered from depression and hopped from one sordid relationship to the next. Tyrese was her oldest boy, and I think he was transgender. She had him wearing girl clothes, and I didn't understand the reason unless he was transgender. I was born in nineteen eighty-five, and I looked at the world differently. In addition, I came from a well-to-do, metahuman enriched black family who followed a stringent set of rules, but I've tried to live an inconspicuous life. That meant absolutely no dating outside of my race whatsoever. When I turned twenty, I was in my third year at the University. I announced to my father that I planned on marrying an Asian girl named Sue Tran. A lot of my so-called friends clowned me when I announced Sue and I would marry because she was an ordinary, right-off-the-boat Asian girl with absolutely no flare. She was a Rocket Scientist. She was part of my study group in advance, Calculus for Physics Students. She was so plain that she often asked questions like, "Do I need to wear a dress? Is makeup needed for this event?" In fact, I gave her a book of sexually explicit Calculus problems after our first study session. When she finished with the book, which was about a week later, we sat at Pho Noodles in Little Africa on an urban side of town in National City. She wore her hair approximately shoulder length at the time, almond-shaped eyes, puffy cheeks, and innocent looking. Her beige clothes were utilitarian in nature. She wore a shirt similar to something a Game Warden would wear: two chest pockets, military design, and everything had a purpose. She had a beige dress that hung past her knees. It was close to the high school uniform she wore back in Vietnam.
"What are you getting?" I asked as she looked at the menu. She had it held all the way up to her face.
She looked over the top of the menu, and said, "I'm going for the Hu Tieu Nam Vang. I love that."
I smiled at her because I knew what she was trying to do. For the American palate, the Hu Tieu Nam Vang tasted like a bowl full of pig butts. I knew of the dish because Pho Noodles wasn't my first time in the Asian jungle. I had tried every dish on the menu by the time I turned sixteen, the same year I graduated from high school. I didn't wake up one day and start dating Asian girls. I always had to do it on the down-low because my father would disown me if he found out my thirst. But when Sue ordered the Hu Tieu Nam Vang, I assumed she wanted to turn me off. I just had that feeling.
"I'm getting the Pork Baguette," I said, "Do you want to share some Pork Spring Rolls?"
"Okay," she said.
I was only seventeen at the time, a wealthy black kid from Metropolis who rode into National City University as a legacy. When the waitress, a slender well-rounded Asian woman, named Veronica Le dropped off the Spring Rolls and drinks, she gave me an awful stare. She wore a lot of makeup, thin, and I could tell she spent a lot of time in the gym because she had chiseled abs like a washboard. All the waitresses dressed like they worked in strip clubs after hours, and do to my sleek, black Porsche, the ladies-regardless of looks-gave me more attention than I deserved.
"I'm going to wash my hands," I said as I smiled at Sue. With the cola in her hand, she took a sip and then set it back on the table.
"Okay," she said.
When I bounced over to the bathrooms, Veronica shoved my left shoulder from behind. I turned around to see who pushed me, and then she said, "Is that your girlfriend?" She was probably only five-foot-one, and she scowled at me like I did something to her personally.
"She will be soon," I said with a smile.
"You're kidding, right? That plain Jane, square looking nerd is what you go for?" She asked. I almost laughed as she stood in front of me emotionless. She put her arms akimbo and tilted her head to the left side.
"Yes," I said as I ran into the bathroom, washed my hands, and then dried them in the blower. I almost expected people to act that way because of my choices in women. I thought she was a tad bold to confront me in the middle of the eatery like that, especially when Sue sat only a few seats away. People often hated my choices in women, but their opinions didn't matter to me. When a tall, in-shape black man with money, a nice car, and his own apartment doesn't go for the CoverGirl, everybody hates him. When I sat back down, the other waitress gave us our food and slipped me a note.
"You sick, nigga!" The note said. I knew it was from Veronica, and she was upset because I wasn't chasing her. It was obvious. "You could have me, but you're too busy chasing a FOB." I balled up the note, put it in my side pocket, and pretty much erased her nonsense from my mind. I really didn't have time for her shenanigans in the first place.
Sue took one of the tender Spring Rolls, dipped it into the sweet peanut sauce, and stuffed the tip of it into her mouth. It made a crunching noise as she chewed into the lettuce filled wrap. "This is really good," she said with a smile. She wore some of the peanut sauce on her face, but I didn't mind. I just wanted her to enjoy her meal. She then put some bean sprouts into her soup, sucked on the noodles loudly, and smiled at me as half her food hung out her mouth. She was being messy as a way to turn me off, but I was laughing on the inside. She was eating with her mouth open, and then when Veronica strolled by the table from around the corner, she said aloud, "Oh my fucking gawd!"
"Sue?" I said.
"Yeah," she said with a mouth full of food.
"I know what you're doing," I said, "The Calculus problems were probably over the top, but I do like you."
She dropped her chopsticks and looked down at the table. She pushed her glasses up on her face, and said, "Why?"
"Yeah, why?" Veronica said from around the corner.
"Why not?" I said. "Mind your business, Veronica."
She shimmeyed her way out of the booth and turned around in front of me. "I'm frumpy. I'm a FOB. I'm contrary to everything somebody like you should desire."
"And you know what I should desire?" I asked. "How presumptuous!" I looked at her for a moment, and said, "Well, you're going to either be my girlfriend or you're not going to be my girlfriend," I said. "It's really that simple."
I brought her family to the United States to see us marry, and nobody from my side of the family came to the wedding. In fact, by the time we signed the marriage certificate, my father completely cut me out of the will and tried to starve me so I'd divorce Sue. By the time we graduated from college with our Master degrees, we were completely broke. I was twenty-three and Sue was twenty-four and pregnant. I had a mountain full of college debt, and about two thousand dollars in cash. We loaded up the Porsche, drove back to Metropolis, and I begged my father to lend me some money, but he refused to do so.
Sue and I found the High Tower Apartments, and I sat up my little computer in the living room. She was only three months pregnant at the time and immediately found a job at the Vietnamese Eatery at the end of Main Street. I parked my black, desk chair in front of my computer, and wrote a novel called, "My Little Asian Girl." It was basically about Sue, and how she saved my soul. I spent every hour of every day for two months to write that novel. I barely touched Sue. When I finished the book, I realized I had become estranged from her. I sent the book to an Asian book publisher, and they printed it, but it only sold two hundred copies in the United States.
"You had the world, Nick Ryan," she said as she stood in front me, "You failed as a son, as a husband, and now a novelist."
At the time, we didn't have anything. She had a lot more than I did though. She stood by the coffee table with her suitcase, seven months pregnant, and divorce papers. She set the papers on the coffee table, and I cried in front of her. Slowly, I walked over to the papers, and she didn't want anything from me except her freedom. "Don't you want half my income?" I asked.
She burst out into laughter. It was a cruel laugh. "Nick, you have nothing," she said. "My brother lives in Gotham. It's time for me to leave. Find your dignity."
I brought her suitcase down the stairs, and I begged her not to go, but she wasn't listening. She stood outside the apartment complex as I sat on the steps watching her. She turned around, looked me directly in my face, and stared at me for what seemed like hours. "Can we not go back to what we had?"
She shook her head in disagreement. And when her brother pulled up in his SUV, she disappeared from my life for a long while.
When I walked back up the stairs, I dragged my feet. I thought, I barely have two dimes to rub together. Everything I've touched has turned to shit. I thought about diving out the bedroom window of my cozy apartment onto into the middle of the street. I even walked over to the window, but the phone kept ringing in the background. I hated that phone. It sat on the nightstand next to my side of the bed. I only imagined it was some bill collector on the other end reminding me that my life was a complete and utter failure. I eventually ran out the apartment building, walked down the street, and then when I walked into the Asian Eatery, a sixteen-year-old Korean girl walked up to me with an enormous smile on her face. She wore braces on her top teeth, glasses, and a ponytail.
"Mister Ryan, can you sign my book?" She asked softly. She held the book up to her chest.
"Yes," I said.
"You're an amazing writer," she said, "All the FOBs love your book. You make us beautiful."
She hugged me and then walked out of the restaurant. It caught me off guard because I didn't expect that kind of reaction to the book.
I purchased a Pork sandwich, consumed it, and then walked back home. I heard some gunfire coming from a few blocks over, but I didn't think anything about it. When I returned to my apartment, I checked the mail and received an official-looking letter. It was an envelope from my publishing company. The envelope had been opened and then resealed. At the time, I didn't think too much about the tattered package. I didn't think it would be much of anything if anything at all. It was an actual check for nearly five million dollars. I gasped. When I contacted my publisher, he said he had been trying to contact me all week. For some reason, the book took off in China, Japan, Vietnam, and parts of Russia and a few other Asian countries.
"You're like the FOBs' dream," he told me. "You've created a masterpiece that gave them pride."
For hours, I sat at the dinner table, held the check in my right hand, and stared at it in disbelief. I thought about calling Sue, but she didn't leave a telephone number. I always had my father's money until he cut me off, and now that I had the gratuity check, it seemed so little without Sue. But at the same time, she made the choice to leave me. My thoughts fluttered from one idea to the next like the wings of a hummingbird, and I tried to close the door on the chapter in my life that dealt with her, but it was hard. At the moment, I didn't have a clear grasp on why she left.
After I finished my first book tour, I made an additional two million dollars. I sent Sue six thousand dollars the next day, and she returned the money to me in a letter. She also told me to never contact her again. Due to the fact it was a certified letter, I obeyed to a certain degree. I quickly closed the book on that relationship but didn't start dating because I spent a considerable amount of time fighting Sue in a court of law for the custody of Tong Ryan, my son.
My father, Doctor Demetrius Ryan, gave me my share of Ryan Corp, but due to my past racial transgressions, I didn't have a say in the inner workings of the company. I split the money up into twenty-four different banks around the globe but decided to remain in the slums to be closer to people who resembled me. My father's metahuman powers dealt with mind manipulation, telepathy, telekinesis, and he was able to bring together the right minds and built his corporation. I had similar metahuman abilities including strength, flight, and speed, and even though I had a vast amount of training, I shelved my gifts after I left National City University. Up until I left for the University, I trained privately with the Deceptions, a highly secretive clan of mind manipulators.
I purchased my apartment complex at the age of twenty-seven, and then wrote another novel loosely based on Sue called, "She Broke Me." That novel sold millions of copies overseas, and I made twenty-five million dollars from it. Thong was ten-years-old and attended a Catholic school called Saint Michaels. We didn't know what happened to Sue. I believed she resided in Gotham, but I never stayed in contact once I had full custody of my son. I hadn't seen her in nearly five years.
Now that I'm thirty-three-years old, and I see a young boy dressed like a girl, I find it kind of confusing. Goodwill had clothes for the boy. There was no reason to put him in a dress unless he was trans, and it just meant he had a hard life ahead of him. Suicide Slums preyed on the weak, and when it came to the LGBT Community, there wasn't an overtly weak one in the group. Suddenly, I heard some gunfire emanating from around the corner. I grabbed the kids, pulled them into the house, and the oldest one had a few words for me.
"Mister Ryan, I'm not afraid of no gunfire," Tyrese said as he stood in front of me in his dress. "I'll be dead before I'm twenty-one, anyway."
He was probably right I thought because a multitude of outside sources snuffed out black lives on the daily. At first, I thought the box of guns found in a dark alley was a myth or local folklore. The Gotham slums had their box of gun stories and so did Little Africa. Suicide Slums, also, had their box of guns in an alley story. I think every black enclave had a story about a stash of guns appearing in the middle of some alley. But one day, about two years ago, I watched several white men wearing black suits drop a box of guns in the alley behind my apartment complex. When they drove off, I immediately ran over to the box, opened it, and saw a plethora of weapons. I tried my best to understand the reasoning behind the stash of weapons, but it always brought me to a dark place mentally. I had those guns inventoried, and sent to the Metropolis Police Department. Unfortunately, the same guns made their way back onto the streets of Suicide Slums.
When I walked back outside, I heard several women screaming. I ran towards the panicking women and saw two, well dressed black ladies crying over a black, male teenager. One of the women wore a red blouse, a short fro, and appeared to be a professional woman. The other lady had a black dress, long, black hair, and dark skin. I looked down at the boy for a moment, and It looked like he took a bullet in his stomach, and when I came upon the scene, the women were performing CPR. "He just died!" The woman in red said. He didn't look older than fourteen, but I couldn't tell. She looked back at me, and said, "Can he not hear our cries? Do we not matter to him?"
"It doesn't matter," the lady in black said, "Superman will never take time out of his busy schedule to help us." I could tell the entire situation stressed her.
I looked at them lamenting over their dead son. The boy's blood-drenched their clothes. I tried to think of something uplifting to say. I knelt beside the boy's body, and said, "We can't wait for Superman to recognize our humanity. We have to stop the violence on our own."
"I called the ambulance nearly thirty minutes ago," one of the ladies said. "He was still alive then."
"Do you have a clue who pulled the trigger?" I asked.
"No," the woman in red said. "They're killing us."
I placed the back of my right hand against the boy's left temple. For at least three days after death, I could extract memories from a dead body. I went into the child's mind and saw him buying some soda pop and candy from Big Pops. When he walked out into the middle of the street, a fast-moving, white-hot car pulled up to him, and put a bullet into his stomach. The perpetrator looked like a member of the Blasian Knights, an organized gang of Asian and black mixed hoodlums of all calibers.
"It was most likely the Blasian Knights," I said softly.
"BKs?" The lady in black asked. "But why?"
I looked over at the ladies crying, and then the lady in red whispered into the other woman's ear. I don't know what they said, but after that, nobody said another word about the Blasian Knights.
It took the ambulance forty-five minutes to arrive on the scene, and I looked at the men with utter disgust. Their lackadaisical attitudes rubbed me the wrong way. It was like they didn't care their tardiness caused the teen's death. "You could have saved him if you had arrived sooner," I said with a scowl on my face.
"Yeah! Yeah!" One of the paramedics said with a smirk on his face. Out of nowhere, the woman in red pulled out a gun, shot the paramedic in the head, and then gunned down the second one. He tried to run, but she shot him in the back. It happened so fast that I didn't know what to make of it. She began screaming, and then all I heard was a series of gunshots. She then turned the gun on herself, and the other woman screamed so loud that I thought my ears would bleed. I found that moment in time most disturbing because if I had been paying attention, I could have used my metahuman powers to persuade her. For thousands of years, telepaths and empaths have used their abilities to change humankind. That was not the case now.