CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Media Circus
School sucks.
No, seriously, it sucks.
I'm bustin' my ass for these grades. See, it's a fairly simple equation. I don't pass, I can't go to prom. I also can't graduate. Which means my father will not allow me to live. So, let us elaborate.
Failing Grades + No Prom Equals One Pissed Off Rob.
Failing Grades + No Graduation Equals One Unhappy Pappy.
Speaking of equations, that's exactly what I was busy with. I found myself sitting at the lunch table, doing some homework from my calculus class. I swear to God I hate math. I think it was created specifically to torment me. I found myself working on a particularly hard equation while Angel and Brian chatted amongst themselves. I could barely hear them, or anybody for that matter. I was too busy pushing my brain to its limit. Before I knew it, I had accidentally snapped my fourth pencil in half.
"Fuckin' hell!" I exclaimed.
"Actually, I think the answer is six," Angel replied with a smirk.
"Goddamn I'll be glad when school is over," I sighed as I folded my arms on the table and sunk my face into them.
"No kiddin'. You can't keep going on breaking pencils like this," said Brian.
"Well, at least your grades have been improving," said Angel.
"This is true. But then there's the whole money situation. Even if I can go to prom, I'm not even sure I can pay for a tux. Which reminds me, have you guys decided what you're wearing?"
"I already bought my dress a week ago," said Angel.
"Damn man...how'd you manage that?" I asked.
"You know me. I've been pulling in extra hours at the diner," she replied.
Angel was the self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Waitress". How she managed to get extra hours at the diner and still get straight A's is completely beyond me.
"It's really pretty. Long, sleeveless, silver sequins. I even got glass slippers to go with it," she announced proudly.
"I always said you had a Cinderella complex..."
"Hush your face, negro," she replied.
"How 'bout you?" I asked, turning my head slightly toward Brian.
"Oh yeah, I got my tux a couple days ago. Pretty simple. Black jacket and pants, white shirt," he replied.
"Bowtie or regular tie?" Angel asked.
"Neither."
"Say what?"
"I'm not wearing a tie. I don't believe in 'em," said Brian.
"...you don't 'believe' in ties? They're not a religion, you know," I said.
"Brian, even for you, this is weird. Explain," Angel demanded.
"Ties are a choking hazard! What if somebody just decided to run by me and yank on my tie? I'd be killed!" Brian exclaimed.
Angel and I stared at Brian blankly for a few seconds. I could almost hear her blinking.
"Why...in the hell...would somebody run by...and yank your tie?" I asked, slowly raising my head to stare this crazy person in the eye.
"You never know, man...you never know..."
"Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth..." Angel said, turning her attention to me. "What about Tiffany? Has she gotten her dress yet?"
"I don't think so. I just asked her to the prom last night," I replied.
"When last night? I called you last night and your dad said you weren't home," said Angel.
"I didn't ask her over the phone."
"So...you were at her house last night?" asked Brian.
"At about eleven at night?" asked Angel.
"Yeah...so?"
Now it was my turn to be stared at blankly.
"...ew..." was all Angel could manage.
"Ya'll nasty..." Brian added.
"What are you two talking about?' I asked.
"C'mon Rob, we're all adults here," said Brian.
"At least two of us are, yes..." I replied.
"Brain, come on, this is personal. Don't ask Rob that," said Angel.
"I wanna know! Did you and Tiffany...ya know..."
"Shut up, Brian," I said, and I sank my face back into my arms.
"Speaking of Tiffany, she's absent again. You think she's still sick?" asked Angel.
"She said she wasn't feeling all that great yesterday. Maybe something's going around," I said.
"Or maybe Rob's just sleeping around..." Brian said under his breath.
I promptly hurled a balled up mass of paper into Brian's forehead, knocking him backwards and out of his seat.
"Okay...I deserved that..." Brian admitted from the floor.
Angel just shook her head and stared at the table.
"I need new friends..." she bemoaned.
Brian stood up, dusted himself off, and took his seat.
"Okay Angel, your turn," said Brian.
"My turn for what?" she asked, shooting him a glance that showed that she wouldn't hesitate to knock him back off his seat if he asked the wrong question.
"What about you and Andre? Ya'll did the nasty yet?" he asked with a smirk.
"Don't need to hear this..." I proclaimed without raising my head.
Angel simply closed her eyes and smiled.
"Brian, sweetie..."
"Yeah?"
"Nunya."
"Nunya?"
"Nunya goddamn business!" she screamed at him.
I couldn't help but chuckle a little at that one.
"It's not like we're asking if you and Alysha..." Angel began to say.
"We did," Brian said before she could finish.
"...ew..." Angel repeated.
"This almost makes me want to get back to my math homework..." I noted, still not bothering to raise my head.
Just then, as if I needed the aggravation, guess who decided to show up?
"What's goin' on, ya'll?" said Andre as he took a seat next to Angel.
Yippee...
"Hey baby," he said, giving her a kiss. She returned the kiss, so I simply closed my eyes and tried to pretend he wasn't there. It occurred to me that Brian, our resident pervert, was probably enjoying watching them kiss.
"Hey, did ya'll hear the news?" asked Andre.
"What news?" asked Angel.
"The cops are looking for that Spider-Man guy."
I immediately shot my head up, probably faster than I should have given that I had a secret identity to protect.
"Why?" I asked.
"He's a suspect in a murder. Some crackhead bitch got killed in an alley a couple months back and they think he had somethin' to do with...hold up...that was your mom, wasn't it? Well ain't that funny!"
"Andre, come on.." Angel tried to shut him up.
"That ain't cool," Brian said.
"Aw, come on, he knows I didn't mean anything by it. Right, Rob? For real, it slipped my mind that it was your mom that got her throat ripped out," said Andre.
"Andre, seriously, cut it out," Angel demanded.
"It ain't like he cared about his mom anyway! C'mon Rob, you used to hate her! You were probably happy that Spider-Man guy did you a favor."
I found myself staring at Andre, and I was very seriously contemplating killing him on the spot. Instead, I just stood up and made my way to the exit. I could hear Angel yelling at him as I left, and I could hear him laughing. Something just told me to leave. I walked up to the third floor, where my locker was. I opened it up, removing my backpack from it. I glanced around to make sure nobody was around. Luckily for me, everyone was either in class or had lunch. I closed my locker and turned toward the window. Taking one last look around, I jumped out of the window and scurried to the roof of the building.
I removed my costume from the bag, and once again I found myself staring at the mask. I didn't want to believe what I just heard. I would find out for myself.
Within seconds I was in costume and swinging through the city. It was normally a great way to clear my head, but I was still reeling from what I just heard Andre say. Aside from the fact that I wanted to rip his throat out the same way that Osborn had ripped out my mother's, I couldn't believe what he said: the police thought that I killed my own mother.
Maybe he was just talking shit. He's prone to saying stupid stuff without thinking. That had to be it. This couldn't be true.
I made my way into Center City, the heart of Philadelphia. My destination was Broad and Market, which was the location of City Hall. Finding it was easy enough. I knew the town like the back of my hand. Swing past JFK Boulevard and onto Market, make a left at 20th Street, and swing down past 15th Street. The next street, which one would expect to be called14th, was actually called Broad Street. Even with my mind so pre-occupied, I didn't need to concentrate too much to follow this path. Within a few minutes, I had arrived at City Hall. Perching on the side of the building, I looked down at a newspaper stand. I lowered myself, upside down, on a webline toward the stand until I found myself face to face with the merchant.
"Good afternoon. Can I have a copy of the Daily News, please?" I asked, trying to be polite as possible despite the fact that I was actually seething under my mask.
"You...you're Spider-Man..." he studdered.
"Yes, I am. One Daily News, please," I repeated.
"They say you're a murderer..."
"They're wrong. Can I have the paper?"
He continued to stutter and stammer. I didn't have the time nor the patience. I dropped two quarters onto the counter, grabbed a Daily News, and tugged on the web, pulling myself back up to the wall.
Swinging off of the wall, I made it to the roof of a nearby building and climbed to the top. I sat down and stared at the front page.
"SPIDER-MAN: MURDERER?
A Look At Philadelphia's Masked Man of Mystery"
What I found truly baffling was that there was a picture of me on the cover. In it, I was clinging to a wall. I had no idea who could have taken the picture. The name given for the photo was "Anonymous". I turned the page and began to read the story.
"Masked men have often held a certain mystique with the people of this country. Much beloved fictional characters as Zorro, The Shadow, and The Phantom have captivated the hearts of Americans, and our neighbors, for decades. But how can we be expected to react when fiction becomes reality? When real men put on masks and take the law into their own hands, where do you draw the line?
"Of course there have been some rumors circulating for the last few months. There's the rumor of a secret group of teenagers with mutant powers operating somewhere in New York. There are urban legends, such as the biker with the flaming skull in Las Vegas or the gigantic green monster in Arizona. And of course we've all heard the rumors of the government super team that's supposedly being led by none other than a rejuvenated World War II hero. Usually these stories are brushed off and thought of as nothing more than tall tales.
But then we come to Spider-Man. For the past several months, he too has been considered nothing more than an urban legend. But as you have seen on our front page, there is photographic evidence of the existence of the so-called Spider-Man. In the following pages, you will find even more photos.
The question is: Are these legitimate pictures? And if so, just who, or what, is this Spider-Man? What's his agenda? And what is his connection to the murder of a Philadelphia woman just a few months ago?"
My heart skipped a beat when I read that last part. I continued to read the article, which detailed the investigation, and how I had come to be called a suspect. I continued reading, and then I turned the pages until I found the pictures.
There was another picture of me, swinging from a webline. From the height I was at, one would have to be almost as high in the air as me to have taken such a picture.
There was another picture of me, hanging upside down from a web.
But the last picture, that one got to me...
In the last picture, I was standing in an alley. And below me was a body.
It was my mother...
I stared at the picture in shock. It must have been taken shortly after I put my mask back on, just before I left the alley. My mother's body lay at my feet in a pool of blood.
At this point, it never occurred to me to go back to school. I didn't care. I would reread the article four more times. But something struck me as odd as I read the article.
When I fought Mark in that alley, I killed three of his friends before Osborn killed my mother.
But according to the article, the only body found in the alley was my mom's...
END OF CHAPTER SIXTEEN