JMJ

Chapter Fourteen

Only Human

Sanford looked back at me one last time, beleaguered with too many emotions for one face. It looked as painful as having your lips pulled out to the sides, really. I just shrugged back and smiled, hoping for a good clean look back. It wasn't over. I was confident. Just because I had to stay longer didn't mean he had to feel awkward about leaving first.

"Go on, get outa here, Sanford!" I said leaning back against the wall on the far side of the room.

Sanford sighed but still could not quite shuffle out the open door; according to Utonium leaving the door open to the vault was worse than leaving the fridge open, but I wasn't gunna be the one to reprimand him.

"You're gunna die of boredom in heres."

"Nah, just go into a coma, but it won't be forever, so whatever," I said. "Besides I deserve it."

Another total mess of expressions morphed into his facial muscles, shifting his eyes back into slits and his lips to curl like something curdled in his mind and overflowed a little.

"This sure did do something to you, Ace," he said.

"Better or worse?" I asked curiously.

Hey, his face was cure. Now it was just plain embarrassment. "I…" he huffed.

"Just keep in touch, 'kay? If I'm not thrown into prison for life after this, I'll need a wingman to start a new 'gang'. One that's a not so 'gangrene'."

"Well, we can't be green anymore, that's for sure," said Sanford.

"That's not what I meant," I said.

"You mean one that's not… well, y'knows, illegal?" he looked guilty just saying the word.

Something like that, I thought.

I wasn't even sure what I meant, but it was then that Sanford's mom came through the door— the real door to the vault's big science project gym— out of my sight. Sanford could see her, and I watched his eyes leap as I heard her running down our "hall" at the sight of Sanford's nose sticking out the vault. His whole body was out then and the vault shut automatically behind him.

He forgot everything else, and I was fine with that. I didn't have to see clearly through the window to know what details went with those motherly exclamations, those withheld chokes and mutters from the son, or the embrace. It was a tight one. Sanford sounded guilty again. The mom was petting his sweaty hair and hardly noticing the smell. She pushed a blank strand out of his eyes before plopping his promise back on his head and situating it in that womanly just-so kind of way.

I realized suddenly that I was burning holes into the floor with my glare and my chest was combusting with tight breaths.

C'mon, you're happy for Sanford, don't be such a loser, I thought to myself. At least one of your little cronies had a home to go back to after all this.

"I love you so much," the mother said.

My stomach tightened now too as if stubbornly refusing to eat what it was being given even though there was no food in sight, except maybe the annoying food for thought I was trying to brush away anyway.

"I love you… too…" Sanford choked. "Mom."

It must have been the first time he'd said it out loud to her. Never asked, of course, but there was no other explanation for how that mother choked back in surprise. I lifted my head just enough to see the blurry colored shapes in the steamed window again like someone peaking into an old style laundry. They were standing apart at arm's length. The mother had her arms still on his shoulders, but the son was looking down in shame. Maybe tearing up. Maybe suddenly remembering me inside. I could hear a sniffle.

"I'm sorry."

"No, no, no," said the good old mother like in some fairy tale, and she was ushering him away from the nightmares he was leaving behind.

I heard the outer door shut. It echoed emptily behind them. My loneliness hovered over me now like a bad roommate relieved that company was finally gone. It could pick up on his bad habits double time.

I moaned and pulled my hands over my face as I threw my eyes to the ceiling.

But I wasn't alone for long.

There came a knock first just to alert me to this fact. I thumped my head back against the wall and looked at Pr. Utonium ready to tell me my progress. I must have looked pretty miserable, and I knew Utonium was professor enough to know why. I think I felt like letting someone know anyway even with just a sulk. But when his eyes softened, mine hardened back to my Ace-mode.

"So, how long do I have left before I go home sweet home to prison?" I snorted. "Heard Sanford's gunna have a sort of house arrest for his crimes. Can't go anywhere without supervision from his house or drive a car or anything like that, but sounds pretty good. Y'know. Fitting. He never was more than a minion. Without anyone to be a minion to he'll be alright."

"Ace," Utonium started.

"Just tell me the update," I grumbled; I couldn't look at him anymore.

"Well, if you'll step outside a moment, we'll have a more thorough look at you."

"The levels of the 'S' you read from the outside's good enough for me," I retorted.

He looked down briefly, and then looking at me again said, "It's going a little slower than I'd hoped, but further examination may give us more insight."

I sighed, relenting to his earnestness. "Oh, fine."

At least it would be a distraction from that revolting reunion I'd just witnessed. I was feeling a little sick, I had to admit, but after dying not too long ago, it was not so bad. Besides, some of the sick wasn't physical anyway.

The Professor had me in the washing machine lava lamp again. I closed my eyes, but my mind was not on the flashing colors. I needed to think.

No.

Deep down I knew that I didn't need any more thinking. Decision was needed now. I knew what I had to do. It had been growing on my mind, creeping like a blackmailer ready for his payment only it was all in my head. I wouldn't escape if I didn't let it out in the open, though.

Colors flashed behind closed lids. Then they ended. I noticed the sudden blackness more than the light that had been swirling before that.

I stepped out into lab.

Utonium was smiling again. "I think we may have our answer. Just some adjustments to the chamber. You should wait out here a moment while I adjust that."

Blinking and wincing in the fresh beam of a skylight, I looked at him with a wrinkled nose.

"Where?" I asked hazily.

"If you like you can just follow me."

I shrugged. "Sure."

I looked down at my hand as we went. It was close to normal color again. A little pale yellowish, maybe, but not too creepy. I looked at myself in the glass of an indoor office window and made out my reflection enough to see that the face that stared back was a haggard mess, but I looked like some dumb kid who just got out of bed and not a monster. I touched my fangs with my tongue. They were receding back to normal choppers. I was human.

I breathed in and breathed out as we came back to the appropriate door. It was really pretty wide open space we entered with other science projects to outshine at the next adult science fair. My tank was off to the side with the window and door to the wall, like I said, but instead of slipping into the makeshift hall, Utonium led me to the back of the tank where he opened a panel and started messing around tall and straight and eyes glued to his know-how.

I stood for a few moments watching, or just staring like at flames and not really observing anything.

He noticed me over his shoulder suddenly and hooked a stool with his foot to drag it over for me to sit on.

I was kind of dizzy. I still had a long ways to go and Utonium had told me more than once that all those chemicals leaving my body was hard on it. No pain, no gain, right? With a sigh of relief to be taking a load off despite myself, I resented even still how weak and woozy I must have looked for him to save me in my plight like that. I put my chin in my hand, the Thinker style.

You don't have an excuse, a voice inside my head told me.

A conscience? A guardian angel was more likely. I didn't think I had much of a conscience left to be as pushy as this voice was being. The clarity was like a hole in the clouds pouring down on Moses in some bible movie.

I swallowed hard on my sticky throat that felt so dry out in this cold dry space. A shiver too. I was only in shorts and tee and no shoes or socks. I was unused to the chill outside my sauna, but it was more than that.

It was the chill of choices.

I had to do it.

I have to do it for my own sake. It's my only chance to regain my life.

Now?

Now.

But that "now" lasted a long time. Utonium finished before I got my act together. With the panel up and sealed, he turned and looked at me up and down.

"Ace?" he asked.

"No," I muttered very weakly.

I stared into the floor like I'd melt into putty… but I'd already done enough of that. I glared at Utonium, and he flinched.

"'No?'" he pressed remaining cool otherwise.

I was just a punk kid. I was no monster. I knew that now. Maybe at one time I was a pretty monstrous kid, but I wasn't even that now. I was a kid in limbo. I could be nothing if I let myself, but there was something funny about being a kid that I never thought about before. Though a lot of times people had said so around me and made me laugh I remembered now. A child grows up, is what they all used to say— police and the like— and a child has to choose what he is going to grow up to be. Simple, right?

Yet it felt so philosophically profound then despite myself.

I hated emotions.

I hated thinking about deep stuff.

But this had nothing to do with emotions, nothing to do with anything even all that deep, except the simple depth of what life just was.

Was I going to grow up into some monstrous mutant pound dog lurking in prison shadows forgotten to time and space? Or was I going to grow up to be a man. Yuck! That word sounded gross in my head. "Man". But it was just a reflex. A man was not a guy who was stiff, boring, old, grumpy, and lame. A man was just a boy who has come to understand life and has the courage to face it head-on in the right way. I think the world forgot that somewhere along the line.

I understood life now, but could I face it?

A kid didn't stay a kid forever. A kid that forces himself to stay a kid only mutates into something inhuman like Dr. Form obviously did. A kid to a goat, or something. He looked like a man, but underneath he was less a man than Mojo Jojo. It was harder to stay only human than it seemed, I realized then; though, why? I couldn't exactly say.

Oh, this cheesy stuff just wouldn't let up till I said it, would it?

Nope, my mind sneered.

I sneered back and even chuckled just for touch.

"Not 'Ace'," I said confidently. Pfft. Funny my 'ace in the hole' to get out of a hole is to get rid of my Ace. Funny how life works out.

Utonium gave me respectful silence as he waited for me to finish.

"Patrick Alexander DiDio."

Utonium gaped. His eyes were as blank as a fish's. It almost made me wish I hadn't said it and to take back everything I'd thought about him being a prime example of a guy that could act his age, but I just rolled my eyes. I rolled them against myself, not him. Then I chuckled again.

"I used to go by 'Alex'. Well, before I took up being called 'Ace'. My dad's Tony DiDio. Anthony Alexander DiDio. Maybe you could… y'know, call him? Tell 'im where I am. Maybe where I've been and all. He deserves to know… don't you think?"

Utonium smiled slowly. A moment passed. He nodded.

"I think, Mr. DiDio," he said with an amusement that had nothing to do with humor, "you should just talk to him."

My insides squirmed, but it was too late to back out now.

"Yeah," I cracked, and cleared my throat. "That would work!"

Hardest thing I've ever done. Period. Nothing compares. Never will.

I bit my lip when the phone was in my hands. I couldn't believe that they were so sweaty even in that store-dry space. The research center had the old man prepared for me with introductions and all, but very little. It was up to me in the end.

"Alex?"

The tears were instantaneous along with the choke in my throat to hear that voice say that name. I wasn't prepared for that— for my own reaction. I gulped, but my voice still cracked as I said that foreign address on my own tongue, "Dad?" I had tried to sound casual, chipper even, but it was no use. The weary, whiny tone of a kid who'd changed his mind about running away from home was all that was allowed me.

I hated it, but I couldn't do anything about it. All words abandoned me then anyway. That was not like me normally, but there was nothing normal about this. I had thought I'd planned out my speech pretty well and confidently, but now I was more helpless than a baby. I knew if I opened my mouth again, I'd just blubber something unintelligible.

I shook my head, and tried to get back some control.

"Are you… in serious pain?" asked that voice I recognized pretty well as my dad's even if I never imagined it with so much consternation for me and my welfare… at least, not that I recalled.

Maybe I didn't remember him right.

I couldn't answer. I just couldn't. Even this guy I always knew as weak and wretched had more strength to speak than I did.

"Alex? This is real, isn't it?"

At last I swallowed hard enough to regain my voice box.

"I… dunno. Maybe you should… come in person?"

"Yes. Yes. I… yes."

We agreed on tomorrow morning. Whatever work he had been doing didn't seem to matter. It swelled in me that he had even wanted to come right away if it was possible, but it was me who wanted to wait. I couldn't deal with this without some space in between. Today had been long enough. Tomorrow. 8:30. It was done.

I gave the phone back to Shelby who'd got me started with it. She assured him this was real. She told him how to get here. I sat down shivering, legs and arms like noodles. Right there on the floor I slid my back against the wall, staring helplessly but grimly and even calmly, but pretty blankly.

For years I'd told myself my dad hated me, but I'd known all along that wasn't true. Not really. He had problems. I'd known that. I'd been too much for him to handle. Depression does that to people. Not that I was giving him an excuse but 'hate'? That had never been it. Not for me towards him either. What was it? I shrugged, and after Shelby was done on the phone she looked down at me with sympathy.

I looked up at her after a moment, and this stupid thought came into my head.

Why can't she just be my mom?

I clicked the roof of my mouth. Her hand was suddenly beside me offering to help me up, but I got up on my own.

"It's cool, it's cool," I muttered fully in control again.

"Are you sure?" asked Shelby, her large eyes accentuated by her round glasses.

"Sure, sure, whatever, just got lightheaded. It's normal. Utonium said so," I said brushing myself off, "I just need to get de-juiced some more in my tank, I bet."

I led my own way back to the tank, and she followed behind. Funny thing was she was smiling when I peaked back at her. Funnier thing was, I liked that better than her puckered lip.