Thursday, November 21 1963, 6:37 p.m.
I couldn't describe the euphoria I felt as I left Wayne Wilson's little house. I left Mark there after helping him all afternoon to dust and clear the place of anything out of order. I left him the little cart: he's going to need it again. Just like Wayne before he dissipated into the Void, I'm now buoyed by a sense of accomplishment.
As I turn the corner onto Avon Street, the neon lights of the movie theater and the street lamps flicker on, with a clattering sound in the falling night. The whole neighborhood smells of grilled meat and rustles with the conversations of the Dallas citizens awaiting Kennedy's visit. It doesn't matter what tomorrow brings, really.
I cross in front of Rosati and Sons, about to head back towards the Mansion down the dusty back streets. Far less troubled than last time, I glance at the alley into which we've all arrived. At peace with this era, now. I'm even about to smile. Yet something makes me squint, intrigued.
There on the ground, i can see a huge stain of what looks to me like corn-soup vomit, or something similar. Disproportionate compared to what a human being can throw up. And at the end of the alley, against the back door of the Morty's building belonging to the man named Eliott, I catch a glimpse of Luther's large silhouette, crossing his arms with an air of helplessness.
Do you know what I call this kind of situation? A 'Hargreevism'. And I think I'm going to enjoy one of them tonight, in all its glory. I skirt around the horrible stinking pool that splashes its disgusting projections all the way onto the brick wall of Commerce and Knox, and walk towards the one who seems to be sulking, dressed in a black turtleneck sweater.
"Hey, Luther," I say, shoving my hands into the pockets of my gardening overalls.
He looks at me, possibly wondering what I'm doing in this get-up, and asks in a dull voice while chewing on a piece of jerky:
"Why didn't you come when Klaus did?"
I arch a puzzled eyebrow and briefly look back in the direction of the infamous puke behind me, seized with doubt. When there's vomit on the floor and I hear his name, I always tend to make the connection in spite of myself.
"Klaus came here?"
Luther chews and looks at me.
"Diego went to tell you about the gathering point and time. Klaus was the only one on time, I would have thought it would have been thanks to you."
"He was on time..."
The very fact that I feel the need to repeat these words to convince myself speaks volumes. I suspect it was still Ben, at the helm of the ship, but the question that comes to mind above all is:
"But - wait, he was on time for what? What was this 'gathering' about?"
Luther breathes a deep sigh, and turns his gaze to the top of the brick wall, as if he can see something there that I can't. Or rather, as if he's remembering what happened earlier, with disappointment.
"Five had a briefcase. Calibrated to get us home by 2pm."
"Are you kidding?"
My voice practically breaks as I exclaim this. But in front of me, Luther keeps chewing sullenly, looking at me with his little blue eyes.
"I suck at making quips, why would I joke about this."
"What the hell happened? Why was Klaus the only one on time?"
"I don't know. Even Diego didn't come back. Where were you, why weren't you with him?"
"Sometimes I do have a life of my own, see..."
I look at the ground, thinking. Gathering everyone together out of the blue doesn't seem so simple to me.
"I was... gardening at some friends'."
"Some friends..."
Luther stares at me for a moment, in a way that says a lot about his own lack of social connection now. I suspect he's very lonely, deep down. But he shrugs his colossal shoulders.
"It doesn't matter, anyway: it was a fiasco. Five is furious. He keeps repeating that it was a simple task, that all we had to do was be at the right place at the right time... He called us 'suckers'".
He shakes his head helplessly.
"I can't get him out of the pad."
"How did he manage to get a briefcase?"
"No idea, he said 'no questions asked'. But it looked difficult enough for him to blame us to death for not being able to leave."
I can guess so. Those briefcases are the property of the Temps Commission, and I can easily imagine that they're guarded as closely as high-tech equipment in a military facility. Suddenly, I regret a little not having agreed to join in with his 'Plan B' when he asked me to: I see he's still struggling - and alone - to get us all home. 'Oikade'. And I wonder if we'll get another opportunity to do so, now that this chance has been missed.
"Do you want to come in?", Luther asks me before adding, a little oddly, "I've been doing some cleaning".
I sigh, shrug, and finally answer him, telling myself that the two of us didn't really get to talk after the 'light supper':
"Okay."
07:36 pm
Five refused to allow us to enter the bedroom, and even though Luther asked if I could make myself intangible to get through the door, I didn't agree to do so. If Five needs to think, if he needs to be alone, then we have to respect that.
So here we are, sitting on the sofas in the makeshift living room, in what seems to me to have once been a TV and electronics store. The kind that sold all the appliances that Merelec then had to repair. I could have felt comfortable here, I think, very comfortable indeed. If it hadn't been for that strange pungent smell, mixed with the detergent Luther used to clean I don't know what. A whole plate of dried meat is now on the table in front of him, along with a large bowl of colorful cereals that he obviously intends to eat without milk, just like popcorn.
"Are you going to eat all that?", I ask, intrigued.
The other day, I'd already noticed that the three hot dogs he'd bought had barely been the equivalent of an appetizer for him. I don't really know what he usually eats, and it seems plausible that he needs large quantities, but it's still impressive. And he nods casually.
"I'm hungry all the time. I'm compensating, ever since Jack Ruby kicked me out."
"Jack Ruby?"
I open astonished eyes. Jack Ruby. The man who will shoot Lee Harvey Oswald, just two days after Kennedy's assassination. So he was his boss.
"I heard you fought in a wrestling room."
"Among other things. I also worked as a bodyguard and occasionally as a bouncer. Basically there's not much I know how to do."
I take a piece of jerky too and bite into it, nearly breaking my teeth. It hurts to hear Luther's words, because they are an echo of so many times when Klaus, too, has told me that he felt worthless and without a reason to exist. The contrast with the Luther I knew in 2019 strikes me even more. He's no longer trying to be a leader, not at all: at least he's realized that it's futile. But it seems to me that his blindness is now replaced by depression, as if he's lost the only purpose he had under his father's control.
"You're capable of doing a number of things, I'm sure, Luther," I tell him. "You'd do as well as anyone at a sales or service job. Unless the place is cramped, of course."
I reflect, while he keeps looking down at the bowl of cereals on his lap.
"You followed a lot of scientific protocols precisely when you were on the Moon, so you can be very rigorous. And even on a physical level: your qualities can be used for more than just fighting. You can work on building sites, in materials handling... or as a volunteer fireman, you're used to emergency situations like that..."
He shakes his head, chewing.
"I don't feel like it anymore, I don't have the motivation. I was fine, at Ruby's, because... I had someone to tell me what to do."
My lips purse. All his life, his father had done exactly that: he dictated to him what to do, making the most of his obedience and desire to give satisfaction. I understand that this is exactly what he tried to find again when he found himself alone.
"You looked for... a kind of surrogate Reginald..."
He looks at me, and sits up straight, his piece of meat suspended to the side of his mouth.
"Absolutely not," he denies, though deep down, he's mostly embarrassed that I've seen through him. "I really wouldn't try to replace him, that bastard. He sent me to the Moon, alone, completely alone, to the point where I thought I was going to die of seclusion. Who got rid of me when I gave everything and was the last one left. And all that after turning me into this... fucking gorilla who can't even walk across a room without bumping into the furniture corners."
I blink.
"You seem to be the one most openly resentful of him now..."
"If I could crush his monocle in my fist, I think I would."
I can tell the words don't come easily to him, but they're crystal-clear in their honesty. Just as when Grace was deactivated in 2019, I can feel that Luther is at ease with me, and this unsettles me. To think that it was so hard for me to talk to him in the first place.
I watch him gobble handfuls of cereals, and I can tell he's not doing as well as he claims. I wonder if he knows about Allison and Ray. Of course he does. I won't talk about that. And anyway, he's the one asking me:
"And what about you? Klaus told me you'd been the Yoko Ono of his cult."
"Did he? So what was he? John Lennon if he'd turned into a Kardashian? He's such an asshole."
I smile anyway.
"But yes. I have to admit, it's been an incredible time, with travel that changes you for life. I owe him a certain form of security in this era, and I have no problem admitting that. But after that... I got a job."
"Oh?"
I nod with a smile.
"At a small electronics repair business."
He engulfs a new batch of cereal. Luther knows that in 2019, when the Apocalypse was literally upon us, I was already desperately clinging to my job. I went to work on April 1st, the day the world ended. I'd have done it tomorrow as well, if I'd still had a job. He looks at me and observes:
"Working is important to you."
I laugh softly.
"Yes. It's a far cry from the punk I used to be, who refused society's rules and lived on illegal odd jobs, eh?"
"Illegal? Really?"
"Yeah, I was like that. You know. 'Anarchy is order'."
I gaze at him. With his simple question, he's confirming what I suspected: he doesn't make the connection between me and what happened the day he 'accidentally killed' me.
"I've been wondering, Luther..."
Since 2019, I haven't thought about it much. I finally stopped trying again and again to find an opportunity to talk to Klaus about it, because we were exploring other aspects of existence, including on the other side of the world. But Ben's words - this morning - unsettled me, and I'm even more confused now that I'm face to face with Luther, with a weird, rabid urge to probe what he really remembers. And now he's waiting for me to finish the question that's on the edge of my lips.
"... do you remember... arresting an invisible spy at The City's City Hall, around spring 2006?"
So many times I've imagined talking to Klaus about that day. I sometimes dreamt about it, as if I'd really done it, only to wake up with the painful realization that I hadn't. At no time had I expected that it would be with Luther that I would dare to talk about it for the first time. He looks at me as he chews his 'fruit loops', launched by Kellogg's last year, and frowns his light eyebrows.
"What do you mean, invisible?"
I stare at him.
"Invisible like me."
He stops chewing, as if connections are being forced into his brain.
"You? You were spying at the City Hall?"
I sigh.
"That's the kind of job I was doing back then. I'm not proud of it, you know."
He shrugs.
"We were on a lot of missions, you know. Especially at City Hall".
Just one of many of the Academy's actions, clearly.
"I'd been paid to... destroy controversial urban planning documents."
"Oh. The 'HE Project'."
I look at him, suddenly realizing that, as the Academy's designated 'Number One', Luther does have some form of memory of their missions. In my youth, I hadn't really been interested in what I'd been charged with shredding. But that name, which appeared on the documents as a red logo consisting of a capital H and three horizontal lines, I remember it now.
"It's quite possible," I say,frowning slightly. "All I know is that the project never happened after all..."
He resumes eating.
"That bastard of Dad was behind the complex. A whole bunch of skyscrapers, in which he imagined one day setting up businesses he was in the process of founding. In finance, construction, real estate, medical research. His office was filled with all that, at the time".
"He obviously had opponents".
"Despite all the bribes he gave."
Luther grins acerbically.
"But then it was you? We let the police pick you up when you turned visible again."
I sigh again, even more deeply than the first time. Without the slightest lingering doubt, I've come to the conclusion that Luther has no idea that he did anything to me that day. And he adds:
"We left quite quickly: Dad had promised to let us go bowling".
This sentence almost causes me to stop breathing. That day affected my life more than any other, and what Luther remembers most is that their father had promised them to go to Super Star Lanes? Really, Luther is completely oblivious to having accidentally killed me. He was already gone when I came to, with only Klaus standing there. I don't think there's any point in me telling him now: he'd blame himself for nothing. And he's patting me on the shoulder right now anyway, making me flinch.
"You know what? You did the right thing by destroying half his building permits, that old bugger. If I could go back, I would too. And the plans for his goddamn moon station, too. Yeah. But everything would have come to a standstill anyway."
I tilt my head quizzically.
"What do you mean, 'a standstill'?"
He grabs two pieces of jerky, which he starts chewing at once.
"When Ben died..." he says, shaking his head, eyes unfocused, "From that moment on, everything began to drift away."
I squint, letting him carry on, realizing that this could be an important conversation.
"He'd already lost Five...", I tell him, but he shakes his head.
"Somehow, I think he was always convinced that Five would come back. But Ben..."
He takes a deep breath, raising his colossal chest.
"Something broke that day. His disappointment was immeasurable. His anger, too. Indescribable. As if everything he'd built up over the years had to be rethought from scratch. And he... accused us of being responsible for it".
And certainly Luther more than any of the others, as Number One. I'm guessing it was a terrible time for him, and not just for the loss of his brother. I tell myself I've often underestimated just how much Hargreeves's stranglehold could have hurt Luther too, whom I'd sometimes seen as a form of privileged one. He finally looks at me.
"Missions became less frequent. Diego left, then... then everyone did. He let them go".
"He even kicked Klaus out."
"He'd only come home to sneak into his office and make the hallway stink with his bong."
I smile sadly. If he hadn't cut Klaus off at that moment: probably, I'd never have met him. But I wonder why Hargreeves gave up on his Academy at this point. Was it really a blow to his plans as Luther suggests? Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but I even wonder if he hadn't counted on this blow and Ben's death, in order to later - even a decade later - reunite the 'team' of his children. And Luther adds:
"And I... I stayed, devoted against all odds... until he finally got rid of me. What a fool I was."
I smile weakly at him.
"It doesn't matter, Luther. What matters is that now you're clear-sighted about him, and I think that's great."
Unlike Ben - who remained stuck at the age of 17 - Luther has evolved. A lot. He's less impulsive, and has now completely shaken off his belief in himself as a charismatic leader, to the point where his self-confidence seems painfully eroded. And above all - really - he's no longer the obedient implementer of his father's decisions. It's a big change, and it was already the impression I'd had after our 'light suppers'. Luther, on his own, is a major setback for Reginald's stranglehold, and a kind of symbol of the erosion of his system of control and terror.
"Well, I feel like shit," he says. "I can't even really fight anymore, because of this".
I pat his huge forearm gently, on the black mesh of his turtleneck: it doesn't surprise me that his 'super-strength' is so conditioned by his self-esteem.
"You're just finishing deconstructing what you were. You feel down now, but I'm sure you'll bounce back... if tomorrow we don't all burn under the nukes."
We both give a sarcastic sigh. I give up on my piece of jerky, which is really impossible to chew. And finally, as I get up to finally go home and change out of these dirt-filled overalls, I say to him:
"Good luck with Five. I'm sure that tomorrow morning, he'll come up with a brilliant idea.
Notes:
This time, I wanted to give some space to Luther, about the huge mutation (no pun intended) he's been going through since the beginning of season 1. He's a character with a huge growth, often underestimated. Rin is aware of this, and I think she likes him now.
You may have recognized the skyscraper complex Reginald was working on in 2006: you probably know he'll eventually achieve his goal, as season 3 literally ends with the sight of this complex, fully completed.
Ben's death undoubtedly marked a turning point in Hargreeves's plans, and initiated the ' disbanding' of the Academy. Season 4 will probably tell us how...
Any comment will make my day!