DigitalPriest.Com: Comics: Green Lantern: Sleepers

Love's Light Lost

Chapter 2 was actually Chapter 1. Having been
saddled with this business of Hal As Spectre, I
realized I had an opportunity now to tell the story
of a condemned man who gets another chance.
I wanted to start with a wholly unfamiliar Hal Jordan. A cold, sardonic bastard who’d more or less given up on life and humanity. My vision of Hal Spectre was more about myself, my life at the time, and my disaffection with the comics biz. Now more an observer of life than a participant, Hal Spectre could only press his nose against the window and long for the good ol’ days (or, rather, pretend to no longer care)— which fairly mirrored my own estrangement from the business I’d wanted to be in since I was a child.

Ironically, even though I was certainly not looking forward to writing Hal Spectre and had made every effort to avoid it, he ended up being a much more interesting character than I’d thought, as his existence in the story actually helped better define Classic Hal, who appears later in the story.

The novel initially began with this short story about the ghostly Hal wandering through his sad non-existence, looking for what little glimpse of light and love he could find. But, once Hal Spectre emerged as a larger character in the book than what I had first anticipated, I decided we needed to see The Spectre, in all of his thunderous vengeance, at work, doing his Spectre Thing, as the book begins. So I went back and wrote a new chapter one, bumping this more subtle character introduction into the second chapter.

ADVENTURES IN THE FUNNYBOOK GAME
green lantern: sleepers chapter 2

I was cold. It was one of those days you hate. One of those days that refused to make up its mind. Are you fall or winter. Are you going to rain or snow. Gray Day. The kind of weather that saps the life out of you and turns your thoughts to things like suicide or questions like why Weebles actually don’t fall down or why Tony Danza has a talk show. Gray Day, and all of Star City was now Hell’s Waiting Room.

And I was cold.

The convenience store was hardly that. The cold in there came not from the lack of heat—the cheapskate tubby chain-smoking heart attack candidate behind the counter kept the thermostat down around 40— but the lack of human kindness. A friendly smile or kind word would go a long way to buttress the sticker shock of Heart Attack’s price gouging. Here, on these streets, it’s either pay Heart Attack’s prices or shiver while you wait on a bus that’s never on schedule to take you cross town to Big Mart. Most people on these streets can’t afford the time and energy it takes to get to Big Mart unless they are pushing a broom there. Most people on these streets have crying babies only Heart Attack’s inconvenience store can deal with. And, rather than be a help to these streets, to these hopeless people, Heart Attack levies his Bitterness Tax. His Self Loathing Tax. His I’ll Never Score With Avril Lavigne Tax.

Heart Attack never saw me, even though I practically lived there, in that raggedy inconvenience store. Aisle three, section two, by the corn chips. Pretending to warm up from Gray Day. But he never saw me. If Heart Attack could see me, he’d never let me in his store, for, surely, a guy who dressed the way I did was hiding a 12-gauge under his coat, waiting to punk Heart Attack for his Old English and Twinkie money. But I wasn’t there to rob him, and I was, in the end, completely unconcerned about Heart Attack or his place in Creation.

I was simply cold.

The warmth I was seeking had nothing to do with Heart Attack or with the ratty, smelly little universe of which he was indeed master. The warmth I sought—and sought often—was in Janelle. Janelle was not quite eighteen. She was a black girl with bad hair. She never really fixed herself up before going to work there every day. She was not Halle Berry. She was not Alicia Keys. She was poor. She had a baby. Her baby had no father. She was never leaving those streets.

Janelle spent most of her day bent over doing this and that. Doing Heart Attack’s job. Beads of sweat ran across her forehead and her hair became sticky and unmanageable. Heart Attack stole glances at her butt, and she accepted his occasional pawing as the price of working close to home, but Janelle was not for sale. There were lines and Heart Attack knew crossing those lines meant a broom stick in his colon. Janelle had that kind of strength.

More than that, she had that kind of warmth. Janelle smiled. Janelle smiled for me. In the midst of her suffering. In the midst of the hand life had dealt her. She looked at me, and I let her see me. I allowed her to see the hollow shell of a man I had become. Black coat. Baseball cap. Sunglasses. Inconceivably white skin. Not pale skin, sheet white skin. Skin so white it should have sent Janelle stumbling back toward the beer coolers. Instead, she smiled. She shared herself with me.

She named me. Called me Gabby because I talked so much. Which was to say I didn’t talk at all. And I already had a name. My name was Hal. But I was ashamed to tell people that. You see, Hal was the name Marty Jordan gave me. And I’ve dishonored his memory with every choice I’ve made. Choices that have left me homeless, friendless, and utterly hopeless. A man with no flesh tone and no body heat. Burning with lust for this precious girl who named me.
Not lust as Heart Attack lusted after her. I lusted after her humanity. Her light. Heart Attack’s rat factory became the one place on these streets where I could touch just the smallest part of who I used to be. Catch just a glimpse of the humanity I’d left behind long ago. I was cold, and she warmed me. I was lost, but she found me. I no longer knew who I was, but she knew. She took my hand— something most people never did anymore— and she named me Gabby. I had become Gabby, the Spirit Of Vengeance. Cursed to walk the earth doing the bidding of some unseen voice. Forced to fulfill some indentured-servitude contract of uncertain origin and duration. And, there, in the most hateful place of those streets, of Ollie’s Streets, I found the one pinhole of light fate would allow me. I was cold. Janelle warmed me.

That was why the shattering glass really ticked me off.

The irregular burp of a Tech-9 machine pistol sent the patrons sprawling to the floor as the glass doors in the soda and beer cooler created a fanfare actually louder than the gunfire itself. K-Dogg, hyped up on Crystal Meth and Alpha-Bits breakfast cereal, was grabbing cash out of Heart Attack’s register. Cypress Hill blared out of an iPod clipped to his belt, which made me briefly wonder how K-Dogg—whose name was actually Alfred Terrywood—could hear the police sirens. Then I remembered there would be no police sirens. Police only came through these streets when absolutely needed and only came at platoon strength. On these streets, getting robbed was part of your licensing process. It was as organic as the pervasive hopelessness that enveloped everything and everyone there. The fact was, if you charged five bucks for a quart of milk, this kind of thing was inevitable.

These were lessons from Ollie. These were Ollie’s streets. Things he told me while I tried to drown him out with Knicks highlights. While I flipped through flight manuals or pretended to doze off. Things Ollie tried to teach me back when I used to be Hal.

I let K-Dogg see me. “Jump the eff back, nigga!” he barked in his best Jay-Z baritone. Alfred pressed his Tech-9 against Heart Attack’s temple, “Don’t go bein’ no hero!”

I waited. Waiting was my job. Long ago, when I was Hal, my job was to serve and protect. But, there, in Hell’s convenience store, I was Gabby The Waiter. The guy who waits. My mission no longer to protect but to avenge. I had absolutely no plans to be a hero. Being a hero was no longer my job. But K-Alfred didn’t know that. He stepped back into the rack of Mars Bars, on special at three for five dollars, and the noise startled him, causing him to spin around and assassinate the ATM machine in the corner, Alfred Dogg’s Tech-9 spitting some twenty rounds per second as the ATM machine squealed and died.

The noise startled Heart Attack, who actually began having a heart attack, spasming and jerking as he lost control of both his dignity and his bladder. K-Goofball took this as a threat and fired at Heart Attack, only Heart Attack was no longer standing where Alfred thought he was. Heart Attack was already smashing into the Dentyne and heading for the floor. So, instead of blowing Heart Attack’s head off, Heart Attack only caught one in the shoulder. Of course, Heart Attack was still having a heart attack, but I digress.

K-Dogg was still in full Dumb Hype Mode, fancying himself, as most of these gangster wannabes do, as Al Pacino in Scarface. Say hello to my little friend. Wary of a stand-off with the cops who were absolutely not coming, K-Dogg made a field command decision: he grabbed Janelle.

Before I could even ask myself why, I extended my fist toward K-Dogg. The fist that absolutely did not have a ring on it. The fist that had not had a ring on it in a very long time. It was a reflex that died hard, aiming the ring at the bad guy. Creating a giant boxing glove or a man-sized mouse trap out of emerald energy. Back when I was Hal.

But, now I was Gabby. K-Dogg had my light, my beloved Janelle. And all I had was a pale, bony fist. Twitchy, K-Dogg jerked his pistol against Janelle’s head as Janelle screamed, and I lowered my useless fist that absolutely did not have a ring on it. I gave K-Dogg nothing, no reason to hurt her. I stayed on mission: I waited.

K-Dogg allowed himself a Tony Montana pregnant pause before vanishing into Gray Day with Janelle. While I waited. As quiet settled once again in Hell’s convenience store.

“Ya fraggin’ idiot! Why didn’t you stop him?” The words echoing inside my head sounded an awful lot like Heart Attack’s voice. Until I realized it was, in fact, Heart Attack’s voice, echoing my own self-loathing. We have a lot in common, Heart Attack and I. I’ll never score with Avril Lavigne, either.

I squatted down next to Heart Attack. I was terribly angry at him for getting robbed. Getting robbed while I was there. Because, now, Heart Attack was my problem. Now, Heart Attack was dying—more of the heart attack than the gunshot, but it didn’t matter. The waiting was over. Now my mission, my new mission, had to begin.

I had to avenge this fat jerk. This price-gouging sack of misery who exploited people at their weakest, who victimized people who were already victims. This lowlife turd who took my light from me, who had now taken away the tiniest ray of hope from my life. She warmed me. She named me. She was my friend. And now, that was all over. Because of him.
“Call Nine One!” Heart Attack sputtered out his last breaths, his eyes going glassy as vessels all over his chest burst and spilled blood into his lungs. He was drowning in his own blood as he demanded I call for help. I couldn’t if I wanted to. It was against the rules. Helping? No good. Preventing? No. I was a near-omnipotent creature. An indefinable being of indescribable power who could not operate a telephone. I could hit somebody with it, but I was not allowed to use the phone to summon help or prevent harm.

I was the Spirit of Vengeance. All I could do is avenge. That’s how things worked. That was the deal. Hanging around Heart Attack’s smelly flea factory just to get a smile from Janelle was not part of the deal. And this was probably the Boss’ way of reminding me.

You see, Janelle was becoming more important to me than my mission. Touching her light was becoming my one hand-hold on humanity as I once knew it. But, now, this robbery took all of that away. You see, as the Spirit of Vengeance, I had to avenge Heart Attack. I had to punish those guilty of his murder.

And Janelle was in on it.

Gray Day was that much grayer as I stepped out onto Ollie’s streets. The cluttered and noisy rent-subsidized world thundered on with icy indifference to me or my plight: I’d lost my light. Lost my hand-hold.

I walked the streets more out of reflex than need. As a near-omnipotent being, I didn’t ever need to walk. I actually moved about by simple force of will. I simply appeared wherever I was motivated to. I could approximate something that looked a lot like flying, and if it made it easier for people to process, sure, call it flying. But flying implied limitations I simply didn’t have. Who I was and what I did and how I did it were all quite a bit beyond simple explanations.

I walked. And there was an echo of a human moment—much like the pain of a phantom limb amputees often feel. This emotional speed bump hammered me with a reminder of everything I’d lost. Janelle and K-Dogg were in it together. How did I know? It’s one of the things I can’t adequately explain unless you’re dead. Let’s just say it’s a “universe thing”: I more or less reached into Creation and Creation revealed things to me. Things like Janelle setting up the robbery.
I was walking because I was in no hurry to exact revenge against a single teenage mother who had shown me kindness. Who didn’t smoke crack or drink, who didn’t have any more nefarious a use for Heart Attack’s money than diapers and formula for the baby. But, the rules say, now it’s my job to hang her from a meat hook or toss her under a bus. That’s the deal.

Losing Janelle felt like being dumped by a girlfriend. It’s that knot in the pit of your stomach. The pain no aspirin can help you with. It’s just going to hang around until it has done its work—hardening you as a little more of your humanness slips away. It’s that flinch, that painful reminder of mistakes, hers and yours. On my way to hang Janelle from a meat hook, to orphan her baby, I went over my own mistakes, losing count somewhere around 35,000. Letting her touch me was a mistake. Needing her was a mistake.

I motivated myself into Janelle’s tiny, crowded apartment, where her baby was crying. I stood over the thrift store bassinette and, removing my sunglasses, spent a moment with the screaming child.

“My name is Hal.” I did not smile. I was less impressed by babies than I’d once been. Omnipotence tends to rob life of much of its romance. Ninety percent of the people on the planet are morons. Only about a tenth of humanity has any real sense of purpose or love or art. So, ninety percent of all babies are just morons-in-waiting. These wonderful bundles of joy parents are so happy with who grow up to become hateful, selfish and utterly clueless morons painting mustaches on the Mona Lisa.

“I know you can understand me. I’d appreciate it if you’d stop all that noise now.” The baby quieted, now curious about the ghost standing over her.

I looked around Janelle’s crowded, mismatched studio apartment: clothes in boxes because she could not afford furniture. Photos of kids—kids everywhere. Then, I remembered, Janelle is just a kid herself. These kids were her friends. From another life. A life she’d left behind when she became pregnant. Track and field photos. Martial arts. Band. Janelle was a bright girl on track for any number of possibilities.

Until she got Heart Attack killed.

“I reached into Creation and Creation revealed to me about 37,000 different paths your life can take, Claudia,” I said to the baby. “Of those paths, easily 20,000 of them will lead you to a place like this, to a life like this. About 10,000 other paths will lead you to suburbia with a fat husband and a mini van. The rest will do better.”

Claudia gurgled and played with her toes. I turned around and looked down at her.

“Are you paying attention? I’m trying to help you, here.” Wrong. Help was not the mission. Neither was guilt. But, helping Claudia, I supposed, would help me with what I was about to do to her mother.

“Make good choices, Claudia. Be patient. Don’t let your mother’s loss embitter you. Find your own way.” Claudia smiled and rolled over, but I knew she heard me. Creation told me so, babies not being nearly as inert as adults think they are.

Claudia had light, too. Just like her mother. I wanted to touch her. No, I wanted her to touch me. Like Lazarus. The rich man in hell wanting the beggar Lazarus to dip his finger in water and touch him with it. I was both rich man and beggar. I wanted her light.

But, I’d learned my lesson. Not that I’d brought this fate onto Janelle, but that I’d brought this fate onto myself by allowing her to touch me. By letting myself need her. And, as she and K-Dogg came through the apartment door, giggling over their convenience store robbery, the phantom pain moved me from my foolish fantasy.

It was time to go to work.

Chapter Six: Qui Laetificat Juventutem Meamy