CHAPTER V – JUBILEE
"I'd like a pack of Marlboro Lights, please."
The words hung in the air, mingling with the new-car smell.
No, no that's horrible. Jubilee shook her head, trying to erase the sound of her performance.
Deep breath. Be cool. Try again.
She watched herself in the rearview mirror this time, trying to look hard.
"Pack'a smokes."
Okay, that might work...
Wait, won't he ask what kind? That's, like, how people order stuff in movies. It sounds fake.
"Cuz it is fake, you spazz..."
Jubilee sighed and bent the mirror back away from her. It had been awhile since she'd broken any laws, and she was rusty. But time was running out to break this one. In a few days she could buy all the cigarettes she wanted, and be in no trouble at all.
So where was the fun in that?
It was kind of a mission, then. With a timer running out. She woke up early this morning, before the sun had even come up. She had woken up thinking about it, about her birthday, and resenting that feeling she had, where she just wished she could postpone it, just for a couple more months. I'm not grown up yet, I swear I'll do it, just not yet, I don't know why…
So going back to bed was impossible, with her brain tossing and turning like that. Instead, she got in her car and drove into town. On a mission. To break a law.
So that's what she did, she strolled right in the automatic doors (BING!) of the 7-11 nearest the Xavier Institute, just confident as all hell, walked right up the counter, and when the cashier turned around, she looked him right in the eye and...
...chickened out.
She just stood there, saying nothing, until it got too awkward and she knew she had to come up with some reason she was standing there - because what the hell is wrong with this girl, he must be thinking - so finally she mumbled something about needing the bathroom key, then took it and went to the bathroom and hyperventilated for a minute or two.
And all through that minute, or two, all she could think was I used to be cooler than this!
So she splashed some cold water on her face, shook it off, got herself together and vowed to try again.
So she walked out of that bathroom, just as confident as all hell, and walked right out of that 7-11 with her head held high, through the automatic doors (BING!) and back to her car.
And then the cashier chased after her, out of his store and into the parking lot, and banged on her driver's side window right as she was about to drive off, and she panicked as she rolled down the window, not remembering later what the hell she was saying with her mouth while her brain was telling her how does he know, I didnt even say the word cigarette, is everyone in this freaking town a psychic? No offense, some of my best friends are psychics…
But it turned out he just wanted the bathroom key back, so she shoved it through the cracked window with a shriek right as she sped away, thinking again and even deeper this this time: I used to be cooler than this.
And so then Jubilee just drove around for awhile, until she got her nerve back, looping a few miles further from the institute than she had planned that early morning, and then pulled into the first quick-stop she saw, just on the outskirts of downtown, in a neighborhood checkered with construction yards and warehouses.
Just as confident as all hell.
Now she was sitting alone in her car in the parking space next to the gas station, just out of the cashiers view, practicing her lines. No mistaskes this time.
It was a cute car. Volkswagen. Emerald green, brand new, and a gift: everyone at the institue had chipped in for her imminent birthday: what was unsaid among both parties was that a car, of course, is a 16th birthday present, and thus this was 2 years late. She didnt question it. She knew she had been grating on everyone that year, the not-so-sweet sixteen, and well into the next one too. Broke the swimming pool at one point, that was bad.
She had straightened out this year, and was finally being accepted as a peer. No more temper tantrums, or sneaking out and missing the Danger Room drills the next morning. Still, she wondered if the refrain in her head was a cpoincidence: I used to be cooler than this.
"Hey, pal. Can i get a pack of marbs?"
Say, that didnt sound too bad. She crooked the mirror back around to see her reflection, and tried again.
"Hey, pal. Pack of Marbs?" and she saw her lips crack a curled smile of pride at how damn genuine it sounded.
I got sounded good.
She put her hand on the door handle of the VW. She told her hand to lift it up, so that she could tell her legs to swing out, and walk through those doors, just as confident as all hell.
But wait.
I sound like a smoker. I still look like me!
Jubilee looked at herself in the mirror, and tried to pretend her eyes were that of the cashier in the gas station just a few yards away.
Something wasn't right.
She took off her visor-style sunglasses. Popper the collar of her yellow trenchcoat. Looked at the mirror again. Frowned. Put the glasses back on.
"Hey, pal. Pack of Marbs?"
Shook her head. Took the jacket off. Glasses back on. Try again.
I got this. There's no reason to wait.
…right? Maybe there's a reason to wait.
I'll just wait, if there's a reason to wait. Wait, yeah. Just a little. Wait and then I go. Confident. Cool.
She looked through the windows of the 7-11 and saw a customer. Some guy. She couldn't do this with an audience.
Okay, I'll just wait until he leaves. I'm not afraid, I'm just waiting until the time is right. Once that guy leaves…
…
Across the street, Tyrone popped the magazine out of the TEC-9. Counted the bullets. Imagined where they'd go, whose life they would take, if he had to pull the trigger. Counted the years in jail, in his mind.
But he reminded himself not to say anything about that. The ghetto axiom never to show weakness.
He thrust the magazine back into the TEC-9, and turned to his cohort in the driver's seat.
"Clickety-clack, we good homie!"
Jay, in the driver's seat, turned to him, disapproving. "Man, stow the gat! You trying to get us locked up before we even pulled the job?"
Jay snatched the TEC-9 out of his hands, and tucked it in the pocket of his sweatshirt.
"Oh, yeah. I uh…I'll do the shotgun then."
They had been parked in the green Monte Carlo across the street from the quick-stop for what seemed like an hour now, but he knew the adrenaline in his veins had been distorting time – adrenaline he shouldn't have been feeling at all if he was really hardcore like he said he was, because this was a textbook holdup after all. But he knew he had been bragging about jobs that never happened for weeks now, and so now it was time to prove how hard he was, or duck out.
Now or never. Time to be a criminal, or slink off to community college. Like a punk.
And he wasn't no punk.
So he wasn't put off by the cameras in the 7-11 pointed at the doors, or the height measurement marks pasted right next to the doorways, so that they would have a wanted poster all ready to go if you did what he was about to do, or the shotgun that might be under the counter.
Or even the teenage girl that he saw parked next to the 7-11, sitting in her VW, and who seemed to be talking to herself in her rearview mirror, or something. Taking her sunglasses on and off. Whatever.
There was a customer in the store right now, that was the only reason they hadn't sprung yet. Once he left, it was on.
It was on.
Tyrone took a deep breath, steadying himself. He turned to Jay.
"No shooting, right? In and out?"
"Yeah, straight up, dog. Ain't gonna be the first time this dude got robbed, it's business as usual. We just getting' paid!"
Tyrone sighed.
"No blasting. We just get the money, we don't hurt nobody. Promise?"
Jay gestured with the TEC-9, masked behind his pocket, and flashed Tyrone a grin.
"No promises."
Tyrone leaned against the dash, trying to fill up his lungs with oxygen. It seemed like he hadn't been able to draw a breath all morning. He was all tight inside. Like he knew something horrible was about to happen.
Sometimes, your worst fears aren't bad enough.
Then the guy in the quick-stop left. He got in his car and drove off. The coast was clear.
Except for that girl in the VW. Talking to herself.
Jay elbowed Tyrone.
"Let's make some paper, dog!"
And then Jay opened his door and stepped out of the car. And Tyrone did the same, following him. Trying to get tough enough in his head to handle what he was about to do.
But as they approached the entrance of the 7-11, guns in hand, ready to shoot anyone who stood in their way, he saw that teenage girl step out of her VW, heading into the quick-stop ahead of them. Not even seeing them. Just the back of a yellow trench coat in front of them, passing through the automatic doors.
But it was now or never. And he wasn't no punk.
…
The cashier was turned away when she walked in, checking the count on his cash drawer. Perfect.
Jubilee heard the doors slide open (BING!), and felt her body tense up. Apprehensive. She told her nerves to shut up.
What's the worst that could happen? He probably sells five-hundred packs of smokes a day. This will be business as usual. He won't even remember you ten minutes after you leave. You're freaking out over nothing. Just be cool, stroll up to the counter, and say it.
So she did just that.
Jubilee expected her hand to tremble as she took it from her pocket and ran it through her hair, feigning nonchalance. But it didn't shake at all.
I got this. Now just say your line. And be cool.
She stopped at the counter.
The cashier turned around.
He looked right at her.
She opened her mouth to say the words. Just as confident as all hell.
"Hey, pal. Pack of Marbs?"
And the cashier… stopped.
His eyes went wide. Like the back-side of white china dinner plates. The opposite of business as usual.
Damn! How does he know?!
Then she saw the barrel of the shotgun, as it passed over her shoulder. Pointed right into the cashier's saucer eyes.
…
Tyrone wasn't supposed to be the voice this time, but he spoke first. A reflex.
"All the money, now!"
He was so scared, his own voice made him tense up. He had practiced this in the mirror, but it was different in practice. And there was this girl, here. He felt bad about that. She was probably piss-scared: how old could she be, fifteen? Sixteen, tops?
The cashier was scared, that was for sure. He was piling money onto the counter in stacks, haphazard, with bills floating away in the breeze from the rotating fan next to him.
…
Jubilee had frozen, but just for a few moments. Just long enough to process that she was actually almost glad the place was getting robbed.
Now this, she could deal with.
Better than the guy with the shotgun could deal with it, that was for sure. The barrel was quivering and quaking next to her, ready to go off at any sudden jolt. Obvious that the man at the other end of the barrel was even more scared than the cashier.
"Have you like never done this before?" she said over her shoulder.
She rolled her eyes as she said it, then remembered that she had settled for "sunglasses-off." Gunman saw her mean expression. Oh well.
"Shut up, bitch!"
She blew a gum bubble. Snapped it.
"Whatever."
Then Jubilee snapped her fingers, and a brilliant, pink trail of spark and flame zipped out from the sound, jumping from her fingerless-gloved hand and arcing back, over her shoulder.
Down the barrel of the shotgun.
The pink spark-ball, a ground-bloom-flower but much, much hotter, corkscrewed down the barrel in the blink of an eye – which, as it happened, was exactly what the man holding the shotgun was doing in that moment: blinking, which is what most people do when they flinch, which is what most people would do if some crazy girl who talks to herself started shooting firecrackers out of her hands right before them – like a skateboarder looping down a pipe.
Tyrone pulled the trigger on the shotgun. The cashier wet himself.
Fortunately for the cashier, the spark hit the shell that was resting in the breech of the shotgun before the hammer did, detonating its load an instant before it would have been sent out the business end.
The effect of this, the igniting force entering the wrong end of the shotgun, contacting the wrong end of the shell, was that the buckshot exploded outward, unfocused. The blast sheared the barrel from the wooden stock of the gun, splitting it in half, and instantly scorching Tyrone's hands as he held the site of the chemical reaction.
Jay, still training his pistol on the cashier, had turned his head to see this, and reacted with more disgust than shock. "Man, who is this bitch, one o'them mutant freaks?!"
Tyrone couldn't reply, as he was occupied tossing the pink ball of sparks back and forth, from one hand to the other like a hot potato, yelping with pain each time, higher and higher in pitch.
Jay swung the TEC-9 over to Jubilee's head, taking aim just in time to see his own helping of sparks, arcing over the gun's sights and straight into his face.
Jay pulled the trigger. The gun went off. Again and again, emptying the clip into the blazing wall of white light in front of him that was all he could see, and he hoped it was where that mutant girl's smug face was.
All was quiet.
I got her. Split her damn head open.
Jay's vision slowly returned. He braced himself for the gore he was about to behold.
…but was staring at bullet-holes, spread wildly on the wall.
No, not the wall. The ceiling. Jay realized he had fallen backward into a display of mesquite BBQ potato chips before opening fire.
The mutant girl leaned over him, entering his field of view.
"Y'know, if I was on the roof, you might have really frightened me just now."
Another bubble-gum bubble. Another snap. Jay flinched, dropping the empty TEC-9, but there was no light-show this time. Just bubble gum popping.
"Tyrone! Get the—" but as Jay turned over on his mattress of crinkling potato chip bags, he heard the bing! of a customer leaving, the doors whooshing open, and saw Tyrone sprinting away across the street, damn near getting creamed by a passing dump-truck in the process.
"Tyrone!"
He got up and chased after him, tripping over the shotgun's charred walnut stock on the floor, and taking out a rack of Slim-Jims as he tried to regain his balance on his way out the door. Bing!
"Thank you, come again!" Jubilee said it in a mock Indian accent, then winced, looking over to the cashier. "Um, sorry."
…
Jubilee tucked the cigarettes into her trench-coat pocket, switching them out for her keys. He hadn't carded her, but that was no surprise. How could he? He didn't even charge her. He was her new #1 fan. Totally doesn't count.
She covered her sigh with the purr of the motor starting.
She shuffled around on her iPod at a red light, plugged into the car's stereo with a white cord. A playlist of her favorite songs. None of them sounded any good. Just bland noise, blurring together. Boring.
This was the effect of adrenaline wearing off.
Hey, that was pretty fun! It's been too long since we had any action. Who needs illegal cigarette purchases when you can get shot at?
She laughed to herself. Then choked on it when she saw the rearview mirror: a green Monte Carlo, growing fast on the horizon, weaving around traffic.
They were back, and they had picked up some friends. The two guys from the 7-11 were up front (the one with the un-burned hands driving, naturally) and there were two big guys in back, leaning out their windows, guns at the ready.
Ah, crap.
She popped a quick left turn, darting through oncoming traffic, and floored it. They did the same, making her fight to keep her lead.
Jubilee wound her VW through a grocery store parking lot, honking her horn as she sped past pedestrians and cars, clearing a path. Emerged on the other side, back into the streets, then right down an alley.
She checked the mirror. Still there. And now they were gaining on her.
A burning-rubber drift back onto the main road, and then she ducked toward the highway. Heading back to the institute.
And then she saw it. Or rather, saw him: a naked man, walking up the middle of the street, away from her. Whoa, what the heck?
She couldn't slow down, of course. Not with the hooptie full of gangbangers just two blocks or so behind her, gaining fast. She was just going to drive around the naked guy.
The kinda short naked guy, she noticed. And he wasn't even walking, so much as just…shambling up the road. A bum, maybe. Recovering from a drunken jag. Probably he didn't even know he was walking in the middle of the street. Thinks it's a sidewalk.
A short, naked, hairy guy. The details were becoming clearer as she got near, about to pass him.
"It can be…"
She passed him, a blur. She whipped her head back and saw him.
Logan.
She slammed on the breaks, swinging unwillingly into a 180, facing him. She got out of the car before it even had come to a rest.
Wolverine hadn't seemed to notice her skid, or the burnt rubber and smoke. He just kept shambling forward, muttering something to himself, tugging at his own head of hair. Jubilee rushed up to him. "Logan!"
Finally he stopped, looked up at her. Blinking. Recognizing her, but seemingly unsure if she was real or a hallucination.
"Logan, what the hell are you doing? Why are you…" – and she looked him and down, trying to convey, trying not to stare – "…you know!"
She was waiting for him to speak when the Monto Carlo skidded to a stop, just behind them. This time, Wolverine noticed.
Metal clunking of doors opening, and guns being cocked. "Bitch, you chose the wrong ni-"
SNIK'T
All four of the gangbangers froze, as the nude Wolverine turned to them, teeth bared. They didn't even seem to notice the claws. The look on his face was scary enough: the expression of a man who had maybe just killed somebody, and had an appetite for more. And it spooked them all so bad in that moment, they were scared like kindergarteners caught fighting.
They all got back in the car, slow, at the same time, but not saying anything about it to each other. Not having to. The Monte Carlo turned around and drove off, five under the speed limit.
Wolverine turned back to Jubilee. She saw the look on his face in the split second before he put it away, and she jumped.
"Hey! Hey!"
He popped the claws back in. Some of the haze in his eyes seemed to go with them.
"Jubilee?"
"Yeah! Logan, what the hell are you doing?"
"Where's Jean?"
"What? What are you talking about?"
"Was she at home?"
"I don't know, I was on my way home. From, uh, I was… well, forget that. Why are you walking in the middle of the street? What happened to your clothes?"
He almost looked like he was going to cry.
"I don't know. I don't know where she is…"
And that's when Jubilee started to realize just how serious the situation was. This wasn't going to be a funny story. Something very bad had happened.
She scrambled to think of what to do, not used to being the responsible one in any group. Maybe he's hurt, she thought, and looked him over, this time too scared to be bashful.
But he appeared unharmed. He just kept rubbing the back of his shoulder, as if reaching for a knife stuck in his back. Scratching there.
She took off her trench-coat and wrapped it around him, like a blanket, and led him to the VW.
"Let's go back to the institute, okay? I'll drive. Maybe Jean's there, at home. Maybe everything's okay, okay?"
But she knew that neither of those maybes were going to prove true.
Sometimes, your worst fears aren't bad enough.
…