Chronological markers: this scene fits in as a deleted scene from The Umbrella Academy, season 3, at the very end of episode 1 (when Marcus discovers the Kugelblitz in the basement of Hargreeves Mansion and disappears).
Suggested soundtrack: Florence the Machine - Mother ; Always on the Run - Lenny Kravitz. TW: reference to drug and alcohol use.
April 2 2019, 09:58 pm
The evening was already well underway when I finally found Klaus at the bar, deep in conversation with the lobsters. I think he was talking to them about Ben: about how he had recently lost him a second time, wondering whether – in some way – he had found him again or not. I don't know if he realizes just how different Sparrow Ben is. For me, it only took a split second to notice.
How is it possible that, starting from the same point – genetically and experientially – a person can become so different? This question brings me back to Five's words about our Doppelgängers. I wonder about how 'Ben' and his feathered flock were raised. From the little I've seen of them, they seemed, on the whole, rather arrogant and self-assured, yet competent and outwardly united. Even their ridiculous cube. Clearly, everything the Umbrella Academy has never been.
Something Klaus told me – while we were leaving the Hotel Obsidian to reconnect a bit more with our past – left me thoughtful: amid this morning's brawl, Reginald Hargreeves allegedly told him that - after witnessing the failure of his first selection - he had ultimately decided not to adopt them, and got this ego-inflated bunch instead. 'Failure' is a word Hargreeves probably doesn't use often, but I'm wary of his statements, which can always be a form of manipulation.
We made our way up Seventh Avenue, where the hustle and bustle are always dense until very late in the evening. We headed into the alleys we used to hang out in, where the clubs and bars of The City are nestled, and where we used to drown our mishaps in spirits and wild concerts. The scene of many encounters we often regretted, of a few epic misadventures we now try to joke about. But above all – often – of bursts of laughter and - sometimes - moments of grace.
We needed to check that these places were still there... and to rediscover that part of ourselves, in the late hours of our first night here.
As the waiter places our glasses of cachaça on the golden oak table, I sigh with contentment. We toast in memory of the happy days in Rio, which we carry within us, even if they happened in another time. I won't bother Klaus tonight about his blood alcohol level: he seems to be finding his marks, and for now, that's what matters to me.
"It's mind-boggling," he tells me. "Even the world spirits menu is the same, down to the last letter." "What's incredible is that you forgot the owner's name, but you remember that."
I smile while absentmindedly scribbling on my napkin. A square, inside another, and yet another, next to concentric hexagons, which I'm about to connect. Again. He watches me quietly, without saying anything, then lifts his head to observe the room around us.
Located on the ground floor of a low brick building typical of this neighborhood in The City, the Nexus Bar occupies number 505 on the street. From the outside, behind verdigris-colored woodwork, it's hard to imagine the stunning interior nestled within. Mahogany-paneled walls, inspired by modernism like a work by Gaudí, with bottles and mirrors reflecting the golden glow of lanterns. This place is a facade, a cover, for a small concert hall hidden in the basement, hosting illegal underground events. Accessible through a single door leading to a narrow staircase that descends into the depths of this city that never sleeps. And Klaus casually asks me:
"What was your girlfriend's name again, the one who first got us in here? Sigrid?" "Ingrid." I draw another line on the napkin, ending it with a dot. "She's also the one who ended up dumping me and getting us blacklisted because she found you too clingy. Like Lloyd, in the end. And maybe also because at the time, you decided to learn to play the kazoo." "Hey, don't belittle my talent: I was a virtuoso." He leans in and whispers to me: "But what luck that the owner didn't recognize us."
I look up from my drawing and turn my head towards the bearded hipster currently serving draft beers.
"You've probably noticed, Klaus, that it's not exactly the only thing that has changed since we came back." He sighs, still looking at my drawing. "You mean... in addition to the DC Comics parody that has restyled Dad's latrines?"
I lift my pen for a moment, which I pilfered from the White Buffalo suite at the Hotel Obsidian. A breach of the squatter's discretion code, my dear specialist would say, but I need to be able to scribble.
"Rodrigo didn't recognize me at the hardware store. And I went to my old place: it seems Granny never lived there, but in the streets behind the theaters on Crescent Boulevard. I found her in the directory." "Good grief. That's what you call a social ascent, my dear. Over there, the square meter costs an arm, a leg, and half a kidney."
We exchange a knowing look and both sip our cachaças for a moment, trying to organize our thoughts. I suspect Klaus's are already drifting away, but against all odds, he finally says:
"Do you know what Five said at dinner? He thinks that we all have 'doppelgängers' somewhere in the world. They might be sharpshooters, stunt performers, interior decorators, or dog breeders, since Dad never brought us all together."
I nod while retracing some lines in my drawing. Five and I also discussed it, and what troubles me is more that Granny lives here, with no trace of me. Klaus rests his chin in the palm of his 'Hello' hand.
"I wonder if you've become a bassist in a punk band, or CEO of a mega i-tech corporation. If I'm the face of a line of iridescent lingerie. But most importantly..." As I look up from my sketch, I see his expression change. "... do you remember the check stub I stole from Dad's drawer?"
I put down my pen, abandoning the idea of drawing, or even drinking. Because I know where he's heading with this... and because I painfully remember what the event he's about to recall.
We had only known each other for a few months when it happened. When - as often - he sneaked into Hargreeves Mansion, from which he'd been kicked out, to search the safe and get a few items to pawn. Before Pogo locked the door with high-security padlocks. He had found that check stub by chance, a remnant from the distant day when he had been 'adopted' from an unknown woman living in Pennsylvania. Sold, in reality. For the measly price of 3000 dollars, obnoxiously written on the white paper in typewriter letters.
3000 dollars.
This was the value he felt his 'adopted' father attached to his life, just as much as that 'mother,' who had sold him. A brutal and derisory price, when a person's existence shouldn't ever be monetized. But that is Klaus's other curse: to constantly have had his being and his body possessed by others: by his father, by ghosts, lovers and pimps. By drugs and liquor. Even by Ben at some point.
This realization cost him far more than what his burglary brought him, and probably at least once his life. For several weeks, I saw him truly at rock bottom before he managed to pull himself back up, as he always has. I remember it as a truly dark time, when I didn't know him well enough to really help, and he relied on unbelievable amounts of Xanax to get through it.
"Did you keep it?" I stammer. "Did you have it with you in Dallas?" He blinks. "It never left my 'safety deposit boxes'."
That's what he usually calls the bottoms of his briefs and the insides of his shoe heels: where he's historically hidden a vast range of 'treasures', and a shitload of pills and tablets. And he adds:
"Even more than going to check out my alter-ego's gorgeous rear end... it's 'her' I'd like to meet".
The woman who literally sold him for a pittance, yet against whom he seems to harbor no resentment. On the contrary. At this very moment, above the geometric drawing that almost seems to speak to me, I understand that he finally feels ready to take a step that had previously terrified him: to search for the one who – surprisingly and unexpectedly – gave him life on the day we were all born.
"Rachel," I murmur, because – of her – that's all I remember. "Do you think it's a good idea, Klaus..."
There's a little pain in my voice, but he shakes his head, as if driven by a will beyond himself.
"You know, Rin... I think that if we're lucky enough to still have people like that, we need to find them. I lost Ben. I almost lost you. I lost Dave again. So if my mother is out there somewhere... before we're thrown into a time where she and Taylor Swift might not exist again... I just need to meet her."
Addictions and fixations are, for Klaus, just two sides of the same coin: silences and noises to drown out another sound – that of the ghosts he constantly struggles to ignore. Attachment has always been dazzling in him, just as his relentless search for affection: two more of his life impulses.
"I want to go tomorrow," he tells me. "I can take one of the cars provided by the hotel. It's a five-hour drive: we can make it there and back in a day and even be back for a cocktail and a foot bath in the evening."
My eyes narrow with a hint of sadness. Now that she seems within reach, this woman he knows nothing about has already become his new beacon in the night. When Klaus is determined, believe me, he usually gets what he wants. With a tenacity that is futile to try to thwart. And I can understand his desire, deep down, because I've felt something similar about Granny.
"I'd like to," I say. "The problem is that..." Sensing my hesitation, he immediately assumes he's going to be a burden and needs to justify himself. "Rin, I need emotional support, it's not just to keep the passenger seat warm." And I immediately try to reassure him, not even looking at my drawing anymore. "I know. I know. It's not that I don't want to. But I already have an appointment tomorrow, and I'm really sorry. Ask Five? After all, he's retired."
He freezes and raises an eyebrow with a look of confusion tinged with the familiar echoes of his abandonment complex.
"An appointment? I thought you only had a trial day the day after tomorrow for your job at the screwdrivers wonderland." I nod and then dare to meet his moss-green eyes again. "That's correct. Tomorrow... Granny has agreed to meet me for lunch."
I can see the understanding in his eyes as he realizes that our search for connections isn't all that different. He sighs, gradually accepting that I won't be going with him, but that it's not out of rejection. He finally takes a sip of cachaça and says:
"It's okay. I understand."
I introduced myself as a niece, and I'm still trembling from it. At this moment, we understand each other. I found in the White Buffalo suite a small book of Lakota, Dakota and Nakota sayings. In the circular dance of the present, the past, and the future, they say that we are the fruits of the seeds planted by our ancestors. If we still have one person, just one, who is at the origin of what we are, then tomorrow will be the day to meet them.
But they are not the only ones who weave us. And I wonder...
"Klaus," I say, my hand reaching his forearm across my drawing in the middle of the table. A gesture I don't make often, except when I know he will really need it. "Have you wondered if Dave's still out there somewhere?"
Between the buttons of the waistcoat he was already wearing just a few hours ago in the sixties, the chain holding his dog tags glimmers, under the lanterns of the Nexus. The name of this bar suddenly seems almost predestined, as it draws its origin from the notion of link and connection.
I can imagine he's already thought about it. But he, who tried everything in the sixties, to the point of exhaustion, raises his tired eyes from the lines of my drawing, and says:
"About him, Rinny..." He looks down at his lap. "... No, I don't want to know."
In the entirety of his being, I can feel how sincere he is, how he rejects the very essence of this idea. I remain still, giving him the time he needs to elaborate. He eventually swirls his glass of cachaça and then admits:
"If he is out there somewhere, he will have lived his life, you know. Completely different from the one I knew. And if he died on the front for one reason or another... this time, he would have enlisted because of me."
I can't express how sad it makes me to hear him say that. Not because he's choosing not to know, but because it breaks my heart that he's doing it when the answer is possibly within reach. A couple of hours by bus away, somewhere on the streets of Cleveland.
I do understand, however, the difference between meeting this mother he never actually had, and getting to see again the Dave we left behind in the sixties: the one who was not yet the person he had loved, and already no longer him as well. He takes a deep breath and finishes:
"I want to remember his face as I knew him. Not a kid, nor a gramps. On the day I die, I want to take with me the image of him that my damaged memory still holds onto. Certainly not to meet an old man who might not even recognize me."
In these words, there are no more jokes, no more quips, not even the playful tone he uses almost all the time. At this moment, I am glad I didn't get a response to the call I tried to make to the Cleveland Veterans Center. That I only left a vague message on an answering machine. I won't follow up. I must respect his wishes. He lifts his glass of cachaça, sniffles, and I admire his strength of will.
"I'll ask Five to come with me tomorrow," he murmurs. "And if... Rachel... isn't there, we'll go somewhere else if necessary, in the following days." "If that's the case, I'll go with you, as soon as I can."
I smile at him and look again at the drawing on the napkin. Oh. There's a line missing. I don't even know how I know. And he frowns.
"You're obsessed with that weird barcode, aren't you." I draw the missing line and nod slowly. Of course, he must have noticed. "This thing... resonates somewhere inside me. Like a connection. Like... a Nexus. I only feel right when I have it in front of me: that's why I keep drawing it." He takes a sip and shrugs. "Why don't you get it tattooed?"
I stay frozen, watching him as he finishes his glass, shaking it to get the last few drops. Sometimes, Klaus's very practical wisdom is as valuable as that of the Lakota. I don't know if it's truly a good idea: I'm well aware that there are tattoos that you come to regret. But he has always used his own tattoos to exorcize his curses, and what he just said strikes a chord in me that I didn't know I had.
"You're right." My eyes narrow as if I might cry. "Go to Ink Empire. Even at midnight, they'll fit you in and give you credit until your paycheck. I'll come with you."
He doesn't ask me for anything more. He doesn't even try to understand why this pattern resonates so deeply with me. All he knows is that I need it, and that's enough for him. I nod, I smile at him. And he declares, as he clinks his glass on the golden oak:
"Then off we go. Damn, I hope Spike is still alive."
00:18 am
Never has the sting of the needle felt so bittersweet. Through the colorful window of Ink Empire, the lights of Seventh Avenue dance in the night: the red lights of cars, the traffic signals. This, and the tall facade of the Hotel Obsidian, whose sign stands out in crimsom neon above the infinity of its windows, on the inky sky.
I'm glad Klaus stayed, even though he's annoying Sebastian, the tattoo artist, with a thousand questions about the range of needles he can use. He's also talked a lot with the so-called Spike, the iguana who naps under a lamp keeping him nice and warm.
My own mind is empty, as I mentally follow the trace of the dermograph, in spite of myself. I know what I'm doing. I'm binding myself more than necessary to Hargreeves's plans. But instead of submitting to him, my feeling is that I can - by doing this - regain control. No longer be anxiously tossed around, but standing firm.
I've decided to find out what his manipulations are all about: where he comes from and where he thinks he's going. That's my resolution tonight. And if Klaus weren't busy comparing the size of the needles to that of the median vein in his elbow, he would see that I am no longer teary-eyed. I am determined, yes, and it's all thanks to him.
I surrender, and the pattern unfolds on my skin: lines lining up, squares closing in on themselves, dots marking their place with almost mathematical precision. In Dune, which Dave may have once loved so much, Herbert said that 'There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe.' At this moment, I feel like I am one with it. I close my eyes, almost smiling.
*Zzzzzmmmmm*
Suddenly, the lights go out in the tattoo parlour, on the avenue, and in the hotel beyond. The hum of the tattoo machine stops, as does Sebastian's hand, and even Klaus's comments.
"What the hell", he muses at the sudden power outage. "Did the guys at the hydroelectric dam fall asleep on the switch?"
I frown, even harder than both of them. Because - I - could feel it, that wave of indescribable energy that passed over the neighborhood. Over the city. I don't know. Like the sea pulling back just before a tsunami. There's a moment of calm, a few seconds where I hold my breath, my heart beating to the rhythm of the sting on my skin. And then I feel it coming back. That tide of energy. Like a galloping horse, like the swell, crashing against a dike. For a moment, I almost feel fear, while neither Klaus nor Sebastian, of course, can sense anything in the dark.
*SHHHHRAAAAAA*
Such is the sound I might have almost perceived, had it been audible. And the lights come back on. And the tattoo machine starts buzzing again.
"Wow. It's rare for that to happen," Sebastian says as he gets back to work. "Relax, kiddo, it's all good. I didn't slip up."
I'm breathless, shaken by the fear and the strange sensation of what just happened. But I can tell they haven't noticed anything, so I try to steady myself. I close my eyes again and focus on the sensations of the tattoo, which will be a part of me forever.
Klaus laughs softly but stops and looks under the violet light, before finally asking:
"Does Spike have some kind of invisibility ability or something?"
Notes:
Tonight, Rin made a decision. Maybe it will be risky, maybe it's even a bad idea. But she has given up on confusion and chosen resolution. Her desire to understand Reginald Hargreeves is taking over, and this is certainly the most daring decision possible.
I'll be honest, I initially planned to go in search of Dave in Cleveland, and Klaus's internal logic made me reconsider. Today, through his words, I can understand why this storyline has been dropped in Season 3, even though I would have liked it to be justified. I know the production has choices to make. But it doesn't matter: for me, at least it's explained here now.
The Kugelblitz gave its first blast. And as usual, any comment will make my day!