Chapter 5: Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain
A thirteen year old version of Mom stared at him in his nightmare. She looked so different from the Mom he remembered, being even shorter than him and staring at him with dead eyes and a face spattered with blood while standing in her burning house next to the bodies of her mom and little sister.
"Let's switch places, Claus. Let's see how you like growing up in my world."
"M-mom? You're scaring me..." He took one shaky step back.
"Didn't you say you were a brave boy?"
"I lied! I'm sorry, I just wanted to look cool in front of Lucas and make you and Dad proud of me, but I got scared and fucked everything up when something actually bad happened!"
"Then you must have taken after your father instead of me..."
When he woke up in a cold sweat, everything felt so wrong. It took all his restraint not to scream and wake everyone up.
They were all sleeping peacefully like everything was fine. Lucas still clung to him, Grandpa snored in his sleeping bag, and Dad slept like a rock as if his and Mom's bed wasn't forever half empty. He couldn't explain this feeling. It was like the walls were closing in on him and he couldn't breathe. Like he didn't belong here, or in his quarters at the Empire Porky Building, or anywhere. His heart should have been beating so fast but it refused to. Even his CPU looked at Lucas and still saw the pain he'd caused him, still saw the nightmare, calculated his threat level. Extreme. A psychic as strong as him, maybe stronger with the Franklin Badge to stop his lightning. Only his compassion had held him back in both their battles, and now he had no cannon or sword to fight with.
He tried to reason with his racing mind, Lucas wouldn't hurt him, it was okay, everything was fine, this didn't make any sense, so why was he so scared? No, he wasn't just scared of Lucas, but for him too, Lucas was helpless before him now sleeping peacefully, what if he went back to being that mindless machine, what if he-
Claus ran out the door before he knew what he was doing. He shivered even though it was a relatively warm summer night.
Then he was standing in front of the fence blocking off the small coastal cliffside south of their house. If he was going to hurt anyone because he was scared, it couldn't be Lucas. Never again. He hyperventilated but his heart wouldn't beat at all let alone fast.
It would be so easy. To just...jump. He probably couldn't even swim with only one arm. And if drowning hurt too much, he knew from experience he wouldn't survive shocking himself, maybe that would knock him out this time. A few sparks flew from his hand.
"No no fuck I can't do that I promised!" He backed away as fast as he could. But he couldn't make the thoughts stop. He tried holding his head between his hands, but he only had one hand. His hair tingled from static.
Then he felt something across his telepathic link with Lucas. Like his panic had spread to him and woken him up.
No no no not again please be okay please be okay please be okay-! Lucas thought and Claus heard without meaning to.
"Don't do it!" Lucas yelled after running out the door.
"I wasn't going to! I mean, I was, but I can't 'cause I promised, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to but I had a nightmare and I woke up and everything felt wrong and I thought, I thought-!"
"Just calm down and get away from there!" Lucas was breathing fast too trying not to cry.
He took a few steps closer to Lucas uneasily but then Lucas closed the distance and tried to hug him so he put his hand out gesturing for him to stay away.
"No, don't come any closer, what if I hurt you?!"
"Huh?!" The confusion seemed to knock some of the panic out of him. "But you wouldn't! I don't get it!"
"But I thought about it! I can still feel it, this machine stuff in my head, I know Dr. Andonuts said it can't control me, but what if he's wrong, I wouldn't think something so bad if he was right!"
"Just breathe!" Lucas took a deep breath himself trying to calm himself down. "He's not wrong. I know you're scared but you'll be okay."
"But, but I-"
"Just tell me what happened."
"I already said, I had a nightmare but I woke up and I couldn't breathe and I don't know, I just, I can't-"
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Just tell me a few things you can see."
"Huh?!" Now he was the one confused. "Why?"
"Just do it, please, it'll help you feel better."
"I can see you, and the grass, and the sheep, oh shit, I scared the sheep, I'm sorry!"
"It's okay, they'll be fine."
Lucas would later tell him these odd questions about his senses that somehow worked in distracting him from his panic were called grounding exercises, and that this was called a panic attack. He'd say that he learned such terms for these things from Kumatora, and she'd learned them from one of her coworkers during one particularly bad night at the club. But for now, he didn't give any such labels and continued to ask such questions or just remind him that he was safe and this would pass until Claus's head stopped spinning, at least to the point he could think enough to say what happened.
"It started when I had a nightmare, so I woke up scared, and then you were there, and I guess that robot part of me was scared of you...so I...so it thought about...hurting you." Claus said in a quiet monotone voice. "That's why I ran out here and thought about...but I wasn't gonna do it! I promised I wouldn't but I scared you anyways, I'm sorry, you trusted me and I just hurt you again!" Claus sobbed his monotone long gone.
"You didn't hurt me, I'm okay."
"I mean I hurt your feelings!"
"You didn't-okay, you did scare me, but it's my job to worry about you, I'm your brother."
"It's supposed to be the other way around, I'm older..."
"Only by a few minutes, and Mom wanted us both to help each other out when we're older, so here we are." Lucas said. "...Do you know what an intrusive thought is?"
"Huh?"
"You said you thought about hurting me, then yourself, but you didn't want to."
"That wasn't me! I mean, the first one..."
"It doesn't have to be someone else for you to not be a bad person. It's okay if it was you."
"No it's not!"
"It is, really. Intrusive thoughts are thoughts you don't want to have, and anyone can get them, you don't have to be a cyborg. I promise nothing's controlling you anymore or making you think anything weird."
"Really?" Claus could sort of get the idea, he'd had some thoughts he didn't necessarily want to when he was little, but not as dark as this.
"Yeah...I've had thoughts about hurting myself too, that doesn't mean I wanted to."
"You have?!"
"Yeah...but it's what you do that matters. You didn't hurt yourself, so you didn't break your promise to me, and you didn't hurt me either. You only thought about it, and that's not your fault."
"It still doesn't feel okay. But even if this is okay, you don't get it, there was something else! I didn't say what happened in the nightmare."
"You don't have to."
"I don't care, I should. I saw Mom, but it wasn't like when I...died...it was all wrong, she was so young like Grandpa remembered her, and she said mean things I know she'd never say! She said I should switch places with her and live in her world!"
Lucas had an appropriately haunted look, but also this weird feeling of deja vu Claus could just barely pick up on. Surely he'd crossed a line and even Lucas would see how wrong his thoughts really were.
"I know it's wrong, I'm sorry, I know the real Mom wouldn't say that and I was imagining her hating me like I hate myself!"
"No, I'm not mad, it's okay! I'm just worried! I'm so sorry you had such a bad dream, I know you know she wouldn't be mean like that, you just said so. Nightmares are kind of like intrusive thoughts, too, it's not like we wanna have dreams that scare us or make us sad. They're not your fault either. I'm sorry, it was a mistake to give Grandpa his memories back right away, we shoulda waited until you were feelin' bett-"
"No, it's better this way, Grandpa shouldn't have to wait on me!"
"He wouldn't want to hurt your feelings either."
"Yeah, but..." He wanted to say Lucas was wrong, but then again..."What if this happens again? What if next time I can't control myself? I'm scared..."
"It won't come to that."
"How do you know?!" It felt like they'd had this conversation before and he was just going backwards.
"I, well...sorry...I know I don't know for sure, but I believe in you." Lucas said looking apologetic. "I can't make you stop having nightmares, but we don't have to keep sleeping in the same bed. You wanted a separate bed three years ago too, right?"
"Yeah, but it's different now, I actually miss sleeping like this..."
"Me too, but we don't have to right now if it'll just make you feel worse. We don't even have to sleep here. It's not just you: sometimes it was easier for me to sleep when me and Duster and Kuma and Boney were traveling, and sometimes it was hard when it was just me and Dad at home. Some nights he didn't even come home..."
"Oh...it was lonely sleeping without me and Mom there?" Who had hushed away Lucas's nightmares the past three years? Who had tugged on his shirt waking him up so he didn't sleep past noon? "I'm sorry, that's my fault..."
"It's not, really. You wanted to come back home, it's not your fault you couldn't." Technically, it was, since he wouldn't have survived his battle with the Mecha-Drago if not for the people who turned him into the Commander, but then again, he wouldn't have fought it...her in the first place if not for them, either.
"I know, but I don't wanna have to sleep somewhere else, I really want to stay here. This is home, right?" If it wasn't, then what was? It had to be home enough without Mom, somehow.
"Remember the saying about home being where the heart is? You don't have to live here all the time, but that doesn't mean you can't come back, and anywhere can be home as long as you're with people you care about."
Lucas kept telling him such tidbits of wisdom in the days to come. He'd say how Claus had already been forced to live like an adult moving out and working, so it wasn't fair to force himself to stay rooted like a kid if it hurt him.
He ended up staying up the rest of that night. It was only a few hours until dawn, anyways. Lucas couldn't get back to sleep either. At first he lied when Dad got up that he just happened to get up earlier rather than staying up, but Lucas didn't even need to say anything for his Lucas-shaped conscience to get him to fess up to the whole breakdown. He was surprisingly understanding. Why did everyone's basic compassion surprise him now? Too many days of superiors snapping at the slightest provocation.
Grandpa was in shambles once he got the whole story, insisting even more than Lucas it was all his fault. What was he thinking giving him all this baggage at once? Claus tried to remind him he was the one who was asking so much not to be coddled, he could've said he didn't want to hear it yet. It was his own fault trying to carry more than he could handle, wasn't it? He had to console him like this while Dad was getting breakfast ready.
Apparently, that wasn't so common around here anymore.
Dad did know a few good recipes for breakfast and other meals, but Mom's and now Lucas's omelets weren't among them. Lucas must have spent more time memorizing Mom's whole catalogue. But milk and tortillas were more than good enough to take all these meds he needed now with. Dad's hands weren't shaky anymore, and he insisted on making breakfast for everyone now that that was the case instead of the other way around. He asked Tessie a little while later if he could have his memories back, but she insisted he wait the full three days for all the alcohol to be out of his system, so one more to go. Doctor's orders.
Speaking of doctors...
"Can you get rid of the robot eye, I mean the prosthetic eye already? You said you don't have the equipment for it here, but that means you have it somewhere else, right? It's not like the earthquake could've destroyed all the labs..." He asked Dr. Andonuts later that day. Only Lucas had come with him this time, his family was trying not to treat him like glass as much despite how much he'd earned it. The implication went unsaid that despite all the doctor's earnest remorse, he wouldn't leave Claus alone in a room with him anytime soon.
"No, but there's obviously nothing left of the facilities at the Empire Porky Building, and the Chimera Lab is in ruins too. I'm afraid there wasn't much left of it in the first place after the Ultimate Chimera's rampage. Alas, I can't say we didn't have it coming."
"Can you get rid of it or not? Sorry, but I'm tired of seeing this in the mirror, it's creepy."
"Believe me, I understand, and yes I can."
"Okay, so when can we start? Where do I have to go where you can get it out?"
"There's just one problem...removing it is one thing, but leaving the socket completely empty wouldn't be good for your health."
"But you said you could get rid of it!"
"And I can, I just can't leave the eye socket empty afterwards. That wouldn't be healthy even for a normal eye, and in your case, it hooks up directly to your cybernetic hemisphere, so we can't have that exposed to open air or have your tissues trying to fill in the gap." Then he explained a few things about the history of prosthetic eyes, how at first they had no vision at all and merely prevented the problems that came from the eyeball being entirely gone and made sure you could still blink and open and close the eyelid, then there were bionic eyes that restored at least some vision, and now they had an even more advanced version, with his in particular being made to link up to his cybernetics.
"I still don't like it, I thought you could just take it out and be done with it." It wasn't his fault he was an ignorant hillbilly.
"I suppose I should have explained it all more clearly...but you don't like it because it looks unnatural, right?"
"It is unnatural! I'd rather be stuck with being blind in one eye than replacing it with this thing."
"If I'd had my way, I would've given you that option, but Porky insisted otherwise...I can't give you your blinded eye back, unfortunately, it's gone for good. But I can build you a new replacement."
"How would that change anything? Wouldn't it just be the same as this one?"
"Well, I could at least make it look more like a natural eye on the outside, and I could make it blue so they match."
"Then why didn't you do that in the first place?!" Claus pouted.
"I wanted to, but Porky has childish tastes, he thought a cyborg with heterochromia would look 'cool'..."
"Heterowhatnow?"
"Ah..." He had that surprised, even amused look he'd had many times before when realizing the depths of the hillbilly Commander's ignorance. But not looking down on him in a mocking way like Porky would. Just amused. "'Heterochromia' means having two different colored eyes. It's Greek, you see. As opposed to 'homochromia', since 'homo' means 'same' and 'chroma' refers to color. It's like how 'heterosexual' means being attacted to the opposite sex while 'homosexual' is being attracted to the same sex, but in laymen's terms those are usually called 'straight' or 'gay'."
"Ohhh, that! So 'hetero' means 'opposite'? God, I feel dumb now..."
Now that he thought about it, the Mecha-Drago had heterochromia too. Her natural red eye and a robotic blue one replacing the other which must have been torn out. Had he been forged in her image? The superior obedient and almost thinking weapon compared to the uncontrollable pained monster. Or maybe they weren't so different after all.
"You're not dumb, there's a lot of things I don't know either about all the science the Pigmasks have. Heck, you probably know more than I do since you've been around their scientists so much." Lucas said.
"Thanks, Luke..."
"It's not your fault you didn't get much of an education in Tazmily." Dr. Andonuts said.
"Hey, it wasn't all bad! We did learn a lot of practical skills like how to help out around the farm, and Fuel's good at building stuff like his dad." Claus said. "I guess it's true the grownups didn't teach us everything they knew about science or history, though..." Until now.
"Yes, of course, I don't mean to demean your village's ways, and there's plenty of time to catch you up on what you missed. Never mind that, what do you think of the offer? Do you want a new eye or not?"
"Well...it's better than what I have right now, so I guess so." Claus said.
Then they sorted out all the boring details of scheduling an appointment. He had to sign some form about agreeing to the risks of the surgery, no matter how small, then get Dad to sign it too once he got home. How novel. Nobody ever asked what he thought about surgeries before.
"I changed my mind, I'm gonna take those 'anti-depressants' now or whatever they're called. You said I have to let you know if I wanna start or stop taking 'em, right?"
He didn't say why he'd changed his mind, and Lucas, bless his heart, didn't spill the details either.
"Oh, that's good news! Yes, it's to make sure you don't have any problems from changing the dosage too quickly. Remember, don't ever take more or less than you're supposed to, no matter what!"
"I know, you already told me..." He'd stressed again and again the potential life and death stakes of overdosing. Any medicine in enough excess could be a poison.
Soon it was time to head out the door but then he remembered something.
"You're from the same era as Porky, right? What was he like back then?"
"I can't say I knew him all that well personally at the time, but I did hear about him from Ness. In some ways he was nothing like he is now, but in others he hasn't changed a bit. I'm afraid he's only changed for the worse over the years."
Porky really had been a kid once. Not a nice kid, but a kid nonetheless. He'd learned abuse at a young age, from his parents and from other kids who bullied him for his weight, hence the nickname 'Porky'. His real name was actually Parker, he'd just stuck with a reclaimed playground insult all this time.
"Isn't that kinda pathetic? All this time and he still hasn't grown out of that? I used to be terrified of him like he was all powerful, but now he sounds lame..." Claus lied, he still was terrified even though he knew Porky could be and had been defeated. It was hard to unlearn everything trained into him for years overnight.
"'Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!' Ah, that's right, you wouldn't know-"
"I know that line, that's from The Wizard of Oz!" Claus said. When the titular wizard was exposed as just some lame old man tricking everyone into thinking he was so great and powerful. Lucas had always been more of a bookworm, Claus lost patience with reading more often, but he did listen when Mom read to them when they were little...
"So you do know? But how? There weren't any movies to speak of in Tazmily before it was modernized!"
"What do you mean, movie? It's just a book."
"That explains it, it must have been one of the books they brought over from the old world on the White Ship. I suppose they must have had at least some that were for entertainment. But believe me, there was a movie, just a movie based on that book. Hold on a second...does that mean you think Kansas is just a fictional location too? Fascinating."
"Kansas is real?!" Lucas said.
"No way..."
"Indeed it is! It's a state right in the middle of Eagleland. Alas, it must be in a miserable state now compared how it was in the book..."
"I hope at least some people are okay...maybe it wasn't as bad for people living out in the farmland instead of the big cities." Lucas said.
Claus didn't like thinking about it either.
"I hope so too...now where were we again? Ah, that's right, Porky."
Porky coped with the abuse he went through by taking it out on others, whether that was other kids at school, both those who'd picked on him first and those who hadn't, or sometimes even his little brother Picky. But he wasn't entirely without affection. He did care at least a little for Picky, whose real name was Peter, and for his first and best friend, Ness. Ness was bullied for being fat, too, and that was part of how they became close.
But Porky didn't know how to treat his friends right, and he never cared enough to learn. In time, their bond became more toxic as Porky took their friendship for granted. Maybe it was because he was spoiled rotten, if only when it came to material wealth, and that made him used to entitlement. Maybe he just didn't know any better. There was definitely some envy there that Ness had the loving family he lacked, which only got worse when Ness's journey began and he started making new friends. Porky said he was glad he wasn't one of the Chosen Four, and while it was true he was too cowardly to be a hero, Ness couldn't help thinking Porky felt spited by destiny or the universe itself picking Ness over him, and that that was why he took Giygas's offer to work for him. He felt like Ness's new friends would steal him from him, so he helped Porky's other minions kidnap Paula first, and that was the last straw. Ness wouldn't forgive him for it since he wasn't really sorry, just pretending to be.
So he just kept spiraling downwards. Giygas helped teach Porky his own misanthropic views, but he wasn't controlling him the way Porky controlled Claus. What proved it was that Porky stayed that way even after Giygas's death and ran away through space and time instead of trying to make amends with Ness, taking Dr. Andonuts with him.
But something didn't seem quite right.
"I don't get it...I get why he kidnapped you, he wanted you to do science for him so he could be some evil dictator like Giygas. It's wrong, but I get the idea...but why'd he travel through time? I get why he would wanna get away from his mom and dad, and I know he didn't want to apologize to Ness, but what about Picky? I mean, Peter? Why would he just...leave him behind?" Only now did it haunt him how Porky had abandoned his little brother too...he may have heard of Picky as the Commander by watching the movie about Ness's adventure, but only now could he connect the dots. Picky hadn't been brought to the future like all these Pigmasks, and there weren't even robotic doppelgangers of him like with Porky's mother. Porky didn't talk about him much either, unlike Ness. Maybe he didn't like reminders of his brother's absence.
Claus didn't like being reminded Mom was gone either.
"He didn't bring him with him when he first started traveling through time, he only kidnapped me back then...instead of abducting him, he gave him a letter to give to Ness to taunt him and say 'come and get me, loser!'." He said using his fingers as airquotes. It was just like the ending of that movie said...
"So he cared about Peter and Ness too much to just kidnap 'em?" Lucas said.
"He told me that he did ask Peter to come with him and help him build his empire, but he said no, and for once he took no for an answer. He didn't want to sound like he backed down, though, so he said since Peter wouldn't join of his own free will, then he was 'too much of a loser to help him anyways'."
Like when-
"You better not snitch! I'm gonna kill the Drago, not them! I don't need anyone's help...I'll get so strong not even Dragos can stop me!"
If Lucas tried to fight the Drago, he'd hesitate, magic or not. Horrible images flashed through Claus's mind of Lucas being bitten like Mom. If Lucas died because he let him come along, he'd never forgive himself. Claus put the knife in his pocket and shut his eyes while clenching his shaking left fist.
"At least let me go with you! I can help, I'll-"
His left fist hit Lucas's face in a blur. The scream and the dull pain told him he'd hit, even if his eyes didn't open until Lucas already tasted the dirt. He couldn't bear another second seeing that betrayed, horrified look. Just like the one Lucas had back when Dad lashed out...
"See?! If you can't even fight me, you'll never beat a Drago! You'd just get in the way!" Claus turned his back on his sobbing, whimpering twin and ran into the tree cover as fast as he could. His guilty tears watered the grass on the trail to the forest.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" He slapped his own face the moment he was out of Lucas's sight. "No, I had to do that, I'm protecting him! Right? Y-yeah, now that he's so sad, he won't come after me...and I'll say sorry once I get back, I'll say it a hundred times!" He knew that still wouldn't be enough, but Lucas would feel better once Mom wiped his te-
Oh.
Claus seethed with more rage than ever.
"I'm sorry I said all those awful things when you asked to come with me after the Drago! I'm sorry I hit you! I was just scared you'd get hurt, but I was so stupid, I'm-"
"It's okay, I'm sorry too! I should've found some way to convince you not to do it, or at least I shoulda told the grownups sooner. You only hurt my feelings, and I knew you didn't mean it, but I put you in danger by not saying anything!"
"I put myself in danger, don't make it your fault!" Hadn't they been over this already?
"Both of you, please just calm down! What's this all about anyways?"
"It's 'cause I...uh..." Somehow the question calmed him down a little. "Because I said something mean like Porky too when I told him not to come with me."
"That was different, you're not a bully like him! He was doing bad things, he kidnapped people!" Lucas said.
"It's not like I was doing the right thing either."
"Well...yeah, but you wanted to come back, he abandoned Peter for good!"
"Who says he didn't wanna come back too? Maybe he just couldn't. He got locked out of every other time except here, I mean, now...right, doc?" Claus said.
"Yes, but it wasn't all at once, or else he wouldn't have been able to keep traveling through time all those years. At first it was only the point in time he came from. You see, he may have let Peter tell him 'no', but he thought he had the option of going back and asking again, or changing his mind about giving him and Ness a choice. So, when it turned out there was no going back, he was furious about it. I did warn him about the risks of time travel, but that boy was never any good at listening..."
Neither was he.
"See, he used to be just some stupid kid like me..."
"That's not true, you're nothing like him, not even how he was back then. You were only trying to do the right thing, you wouldn't pick on your friends or try to get them to do bad stuff!"
"But I did pick on you!"
"Well, that wasn't on purpose! I said I forgive you, okay? Just please stop being mad at yourself!"
"I don't know if I can do that, but fine..." Claus sighed and tried to calm down. "Even if we were different back then, it sounds like he wasn't all bad when he was a kid, so how'd he change from that to how he is now? It just doesn't make any sense..."
"I don't have the full picture, either." Dr. Andonuts said. "There's still so much we may never know about Porky, since I wasn't there for most of Porky's journeys across space and time: if I was, I'd already be long gone since I'm not immortal like he is. From my perspective, he left in the Space-Time Distorter one day and came back hardly recognizable."
"Couldn't you ask him what he did while he was gone?" Lucas said.
"I did, and I heard about some of it, but not all of it. He did all sorts of terrible things while he was time traveling, like kidnapping people to join his army, so that's one reason. He must have gotten more and more used to crossing those lines the longer he was at it."
"That still doesn't explain why he wanted to..." Claus said.
"I'm not quite sure why, either. He kept digging himself deeper ever since he worked with Giygas, so he could be too afraid to admit he was wrong and face all that guilt. Perhaps he wanted revenge against the world that wronged him? He was certainly greedy for power, I can say that much for sure. There's no doubt he's afraid of death since he had me build the Absolutely Safe Capsule, and he may think only having all the power to himself will make sure no one else hurts or controls him. He's the pitifully pessimistic sort who can't imagine a world where you aren't either the oppressed or the oppressor. It could be all those reasons and more, but only he knows for sure...he loves to talk, but never about his insecurities." Dr. Andonuts said.
"We could still talk to him now." Lucas said.
"I wouldn't recommend that, my boy. First of all, we couldn't get there if we tried, all the elevator paths have caved in. I don't think digging another tunnel would be worth the effort, it would only give him the attention he craves."
"You're probably right, but...I dunno...should we really just leave him alone forever? We could try to convince him he was wrong and get him to be sorry...I can't forgive him no matter what, even if he feels bad about it, but it would be better than nothing." Lucas said.
"I doubt he'd be willing to listen to anything you have to say, except to use it as a chance to hurt you more. He's had quite a long time to consider changing his ways already. He'd most likely repay any kindness by trying to get under your skin and tear you down, making people feel small is how he feeds his ego."
"Yeah, I know, so don't try it, Luke..."
"Only if you don't go there to yell at him."
"Okay, fine..."
They both said it in a way that they could tell the other wasn't sure they could keep that promise. He couldn't blame Lucas if he went there and tried against all odds to get Porky to see reason and regain what little conscience he'd had as a kid, or even if he tried to just break the capsule and kill him, or yell at him if that failed. He'd probably try all those things himself once he had the chance. What was the alternative? Just resigning himself to Porky staying this awful person forever? Letting him win after all the torment he'd put him through?
Or was making themselves miserable by wasting their time trying to change him or kill him the real way they let him win?