Menace #41: The Long Goodbye
Nate had never liked the statue. He remembered looking upon the smiling face of the deceased hero at the funeral, and linking the image to that of Ozymandias, the king of kings. Nate turned to look across the flowerbed of a cemetery, holding steady, stone orchids that had sprouted up over the past year. His eyes glazed over the gravestone that had been given for Eloise. Look on my works ye mighty and despair, he thought. But is this his garden or mine? He thought of great literature that he had read sparingly, at times when themes and motifs were meaningless, questions of morality could go unanswered, and life was steady and wanting. What had he wanted? He could not remember. He stared at the statue.
“I remember looking at your back,” Nate said to the face of the statue. “I remember standing behind you, knowing that you — no matter what — that you would protect us all. You were immovable, in front of me, in front of us. No matter what. So why did you go? We still need you, I still need you, now more than ever. You would set this straight. You always set everything straight. Didn’t you?” Nate paused. “Why didn’t you kill Vanish?” He looked around the graveyard, seeing that no one else was around, sat down across from the statue. “Why didn’t you? I know that you’d killed before. You didn’t when you didn’t have to, but there were people who you acknowledged were too dangerous, too untrustworthy, too powerful to be left unkept. It defined our entire system, it was on your immovable shoulders. You knew that. You knew everything, right?” Nate sighed. He played with the goggles that hung around his neck. He was wearing his former costume. The Menace, he thought to himself.
“I’m not sure I ever liked my alias,” Nate confessed to the statue. “The Gentleman gave it to me, kept refusing to call me Goggles, kept calling me his little Menace, and so that’s what I became. I don’t think I was ever particularly menacing though. I always thought I was more of a Goggles kinda guy. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore now, does it? It’s what I’ll always be remembered as, as long as I just disappear now. I like to think that, if you were here, you’d know what to do,” he commented as he stared at the rigid, rugged features that made up the most powerful man the world had ever known. “You would stand in front of me and tell the rest of the world to shove off and they would listen. Because they understood you, they knew that Ultraman was the shining beacon of light for the world, the impenetrable fortress of fucking goodness and truth, and they cared about you. They never cared about me…” Nate continued to tug at his goggles. “I guess I never really cared about them either,” he realized. “People kept telling me how much I reminded them of you and, each time they did, I think I moved further and further away from that image. I didn’t want to be you. Still don’t. I’m not immovable like you, I waver, I wax and wane. I can’t care about everyone. I don’t know how you did it.”
Nate sighed, moving closer to the statue, putting his hand on the stone-cut knee of his former hero. He swiftly kicked the base of the statue. It did not move. His foot began to sharply throb against his show. “I just wanted to be good enough,” Nate admitted, finally to the statue. “I wanted to stand for something, to be something. Fighting for what I love is not heroic enough, it would seem. So maybe it’s time to fight for what’s right. Or, maybe, it’s time to give up. No one likes me anymore anyway — not the public — and I’m sure the heroes are quick to follow suit. Soon I won’t be anything anymore. Maybe that is what I’ve always wanted to be, eh?” He stared up at the statue. “You’re right, I’m full of shit.”
“I’m not going to apologize,” he told the statue, “but I guess it’s too late to give up, too.” His fingers danced around his goggles. “There’s only one option left then.”
Sitting on the floor of the Cube, Nate was shocked to see Jennifer Ray pop her head through the small entrance, then climb into the center of the tree house. Her hair was haphazardly placed in a ponytail, colored golden-brown and dropped lazily about her shoulder. She wore a soft, pink top and jean shorts as she tried to rise to a standing position, but noted the roof was just a bit too short for her to do so comfortably. She quickly sat and stared intently at Nate, who had dared to take a short rest in his treehouse before continuing on his journey.
“Nate, I’m so glad I found you!” She cried as she reached out to try and hug him, which he allowed her to do. “There’s talk in the streets that you’d been murdered, people are angry, Nate, very angry. You’re being painted as the greatest super villain that New Monmouth City has ever seen!”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Nate replied.
“They think you were working in tandem with Vanish and then you killed him to assume command of his syndicate, Nate, what the Hell is going on with you?”
“He tried to-” Nate cut himself short. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he concluded.
“I know, Nate, I know,” she bit her lip worriedly. Nate had seen her do it a thousand times over his life, and each time he felt the same way. In the midst of the anger and angst and fear, his heart leapt for joy. “Here, maybe, if you came with me, I could defend you, make a statement about what happened. I am the number one hero these days, my words have to hold some weight, right?”
“I don’t know, Jenny. I just don’t know anymore.”
“We have to try, Nate.”
“And what if we fail? What if they take me in, throw me into the Chambers, and never look at me again?”
“Nate, do you really think that, if that happened, I wouldn’t immediately come to break you out?” Their eyes met. “I-I’ve lost a lot of people,” she told him. “Each and every time there was something I could have done to stop it from happening, more I could have done. Nate, I’m not going to let you die, I’m not going to lose you, I-” Nate cut her off by kissing her. It was not a quick or forced kiss — the kind that exists solely in the moment in which it occurs — it was long and drawn out, his hands reaching to her shoulders and slowly sliding down to her waist, pulling her in as she returned the affection, wrapping her arms around him. Her hands moved to hold his head as the kiss broke. She was crying. “You belong here, Nate, with us. All of us. Think about how devastated your family would be if you left.” He immediately thought of Courtney. His chest felt uncomfortable.
“I have to go, Jenny,” he told her. “They won’t listen.” The tears from her eyes had stopped, and she swallowed hard looking at him.
“Just text me, Nate. If you ever need me, I am a phone call away, no matter what.”
“Don’t worry Jenny, there’s nothing to be sad about. I’ll be back again someday, I promise… but… I need to go, I need to figure all this out.” He awkwardly began to scoot towards the exit of the Cube, before Jenny grabbed his sleeve.
“If you don’t say goodbye to her, it will break her heart.”
“I know,” Nate said. “I know.”
When will she get here? He wondered as his foot anxiously slammed against the roof of the Spring Praestan. What many did not know about the building was that behind the steeple-like tip of the building’s exterior laid a long, flat stretch of roofing tile, which made for a perfectly hidden ground for conversation or otherwise. The moon hovered over him teasingly, as though he could reach out and grab its shining perfection. But he couldn’t. He felt the wind rise around him before he saw the girl, dressed in her all-white hero garb, drop onto the roof.
“Hi,” she said solemnly as she stood across form him.
“Hi,” he offered in return.
“So what is this?” She asked.
“What do you mean?” He answered.
“This meeting, here,” she replied. “Why did you call me out here?”
“To say goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
“I love you, Courtney.”
“Goodbye.”
“I want you to know that.”
“Goodbye, Nate.” “More than anything else in this world.” “Nate.”
“I love you.”
“Nate, I’ve said goodbye.”
“Courtney.”
“What do you want from me, Nate?”
“I want to hear you say you love me, too.”
“Nate…” She moves a hand to wipe something from her eye, but in the darkness Nate can’t tell whether or not it’s a tear. “Nate how else would you like me to say it? I have a notebook of everything you’ve taught, I have four pictures of you on my mantle, I talk to you every single day, I do everything I can every day to love you and make you happy. You’ve always been perfect, to me.”
“Then say it, just one more time.”
“I can’t.”
“Oh.”
An unbearable silence spread across the roof, across the world. “Why not?”
“Why are you leaving?”
“Because, if I stay, they’ll find me, they’ll keep me locked away forever — away from everything I love, away from you.”
“Why are you leaving me?”
“If you come with me you go on the hit list too, I’d never do that to you.”
“What if I want to, Nate?”
“The answer is no.”
“And so I can’t say it.”
“Courtney…”
“No, Nate. I always knew I wouldn’t be enough. It’s okay. You love me and that has taken us to this roof and no further.” Her face was still hidden in the dark of the night; he could not make out her expression.
“Courtney I love you so much-”
“Then take me with you!” She screamed. “Take me with you, I don’t care about the danger, I don’t care, just take me.”
“You know I can’t do that, Court.” “Then please just go.”
“Courtney.”
“Nate.”
“I want you to have these.” he tossed the goggles that he had worn around his neck at her feet. She did not move to catch them. “That’s okay, you can pick them up when you’re ready.” The sun was just barely beginning to brush the surface of the ocean behind Courtney, showing her looking straight down, tears streaming down her face. “It looks like it’s about time for me to go,” Nate told her. “I love you, Courtney.” He turned to leave.
“Nate?”
“Yeah?”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “Run. Fight. Win. The same plan as always.”
“So you’re going to be a villain?”
“If that’s what they call me…” Nate said, looking at the girl who now moved her eyes to meet his. The wind seemed to shake the foundation of the building on which they stood. The ocean’s tide seemed to be getting more and more ferocious the longer they stared. He felt tears in his eyes but he wouldn’t let himself cry. “I don’t know what to say,” Nate broke the silence.
There was a brief pause before Courtney said, “Thank you for loving me.”
“You’re welcome, kid.”
He slid from the roof of the building to the ground and began to sneak away into the early morning. Courtney stood, holding herself on the roof of the Spring Praestan. She sat and slowly rocked herself back and forth. She picked up the goggles and held them close to her chest as she continued to cry. She could feel a storm coming, but she didn’t care. A thunderbolt hit the ocean behind her as it started to pour along the coastline. The winds began to rip the tiles off of the surrounding buildings, sending them cascading into the air and carrying them to the ocean waters.
“I love you too, Nate,” she whispered into the goggles under the roar of the wind and thunder.