Jerry hesitated, but just for a moment. "Of course, GB, no problem." He almost followed that with I know you're good for it, but decided at the last second that it might not be the best thing to say, given the circumstances.
Jerry had just finished wiping down the bar and washing the beer mugs. The Golden Age Pub belonged to him, and he was ready to close up for the night. But his last customer of the night was more than just a regular, more than a personal friend of Jerry's, even. In fact, this man's picture was the first thing you'd see if you walked into the Golden Age.
There were framed newspaper clippings all over the walls, but one had been blown up to poster size, and stared you straight in the face when you opened the front door. "HERO USHERS IN GOLDEN AGE FOR OUR CITY," read the headline. Underneath it, a photo took up most of the page. It showed a man in spandex, the letters GB on his chest. In the background, men in suits and police officers in dress uniforms were clapping. The costumed man was smiling and posing for the camera, holding an oversized "key to the city".
That same man was now sitting on one of Jerry's barstools, pouring another drink from a fresh bottle of whiskey. He was considerably older now than in the photo, and though the top half of his face was still covered by his mask, he was wearing a worn leather jacket in place of the spandex. And he was not smiling.
Jerry spotted a newspaper sitting on one of the tables near the bar, and quickly scooped it up. He thought he had gotten them all. It was open to the fourth page, where a headline announced, "LOCAL SUPERHERO SUED FOR PROPERTY DAMAGE." The photo attached to this article was much less flattering than those on the walls of Jerry's pub. The caption underneath read, "Local superhero Golden Boy, now a senior citizen, faces lawsuit brought forth by tenants for damaging apartment building."
They forget to mention, Jerry thought, disgusted, that he did that damage while chasing a drug dealer through the lobby. Funny idea of gratitude people have, nowadays.
Jerry himself believed that Golden Boy was the only reason he was still alive. One of those crazy supervillain-types had knocked over a building downtown, years back, and Jerry would have been crushed by the debris, if Golden Boy hadn't scooped him up and flown him out of danger. Just a few days after that, Jerry's Pub was renamed the Golden Age Pub in tribute. It's the least I can do to thank you, he had said to Golden Boy, and had meant it. The two had become friends, and Golden Boy had come by the pub often. Maybe too often for his own good, lately, Jerry thought.
"Sorry, GB, but I gotta get home to the old ball n' chain. You stay as long as you want, though. You gonna be all right here?"
Golden Boy looked up from his drink with a weary smile. "Yes, Jerry, I'll be fine. Thank you. Say hello to Janine for me."
"I surely will. Here's my spare key, just lock the door again after you, if you don't mind." Jerry pulled on his jacket, a concerned look on his face. "And feel free to stay here tonight if you want, we wouldn't want you flying drunk, now would we?"
Golden Boy chuckled softly. "Alright, Jerry. Thanks again, for everything."
"You don't ever have to thank me for nothing, GB. Take it easy, now." Jerry gave his hero a pat on the shoulder, and walked out the door, locking it behind him.
Walking to his car, Jerry shook his head and thought, It's a goddamn shame to see him like this. He'd probably be better off retiring, but that's just not the kind of guy he is, God bless him.
*****
Golden Boy leaned back on his stool, sipping his drink and gazing at the pictures on the wall, above the bar. Pictures, mostly, of him. Jerry had left the music playing, a live album by B.B. King.
Golden Boy had been sitting in the Golden Age, drinking and listening to the blues, since late evening, and had no desire to stop now. He had learned about the lawsuit this morning, while reading the Daily Chronicle, just like everyone else. As his real name wasn't a matter of public record, they couldn't exactly walk up to him and serve him papers. He could simply refuse to acknowledge the lawsuit, of course; what could they do about it? But this was something he could never bring himself to do.
After a while, the pub's front door jingled open. His back to the door, Golden Boy continued to sip his drink and stare at the photos of himself, as footsteps approached the bar. A gloved hand came to rest on the bar, next to the whiskey bottle. GB turned his head toward the hand's owner, a bald man in a white lab coat.
"That door was locked, how did you get in here?"
The visitor smirked. "No mere locked door is a match for Doctor Nemesis."
Golden Boy sighed. "Long time, no see." He took another long drink. "Well, if you're not planning to kill me, you might as well sit down and have a drink."
Doctor Nemesis hesitated, then sat down awkwardly on the stool next to GB, who had grabbed a second glass from behind the bar, and was pouring whiskey into it. "Normally," said the Doctor, "you would have punched me halfway across the city by now ..."
"Well, normally, you would have tried to vaporize me by now," said Golden Boy, handing the drink to his enemy. "I suppose we can both take the night off."
Nemesis laughed a little, reached into one of his labcoat pockets, and produced a long, silver, futuristic-looking pistol. He set it down on the bar, next to his drink. Above a small computer display on the pistol's side, the words "DEATH RAY" were printed in deep red block letters. The super-villain smiled, his eyes bright. "It seems a shame not to use her ... after all this time, I've finally got all the kinks out. She works beautifully."
GB wrinkled his forehead. "You always say that, and half the time you nearly blow yourself up." He found himself smiling as he took another drink. "Remember your Enlarging Ray?"
Dr. N grimaced. "Must you bring that up?"
Pouring a fresh drink, Golden Boy began to chuckle. "It still makes me smile ... that it worked on you, but not on your clothes ..."
The Doctor blushed. "I have never been so embarrased ..."
GB's chuckle became a full-fledged laugh. "Well, you wanted to terrify the city ... and they sure looked terrified to me!"
The hero continued to laugh, while his Nemesis gulped down whiskey. After a while, Golden Boy's laughter faded, and he too took a long drink.
"I saw the article," Dr. N said quietly, "in the paper, about the ..."
It was Golden Boy's turn to grimace. "So, is that why you're here? You came to gloat?"
Dr. Nemesis was staring at the wall of liquor bottles behind the bar. "No," he said, even more quietly this time. "I'm not here to gloat. I think it's a travesty."
GB tried not to look too surprised. "You do?"
"Of course." The Doctor actually sounded angry. "Those fools should be thanking you on their hands and knees. Naming schools after you, or whatever it is they do for their heroes."
"Well, they used to do things like that," the hero said, turning to look at Nemesis, "they built that statue of me, the one you melted ..."
"Shoddy craftsmanship, anyhow ..." The villain avoided GB's eyes.
"But, over the last few years," Golden Boy continued, "Well ... I suppose the novelty has worn off." He was trying not to sound bitter, and was failing.
"Well, they must be insane to treat you like this. I could never understand why you humour them the way you do."
Golden Boy made a disgusted noise. "I've been wondering the same thing all day. Makes me wonder why I ever bothered in the first place. What was the point of any of it, if it was just going to turn out like this?"
Doctor Nemesis looked over at GB, and was shocked by the despair he saw on his rival's face. He adopted what he thought was a reassuring tone. "Oh, come now, it's just money after all ..."
GB raised his eyebrows. "Just money? You're the one who robbed all those banks!"
"I ... that ... well, it was never about the money, not really."
Again, Golden Boy laughed. "You could have fooled me. The Grand National Bank, off 22nd Street, you hit that one twice! And tried for a third!" He shook his head, his laughter evolving into a genuine smile. "When I stopped you, that last time, the bank manager sent me this really nice fruit basket. It even had papayas in it! When's the last time you had a papaya?"
Nemesis snorted. "Papayas? They grew wild all around that secret island hideout I used to have. If you hadn't blown the damn place up, we could be eating papaya right now."
"If I hadn't blown the place up, your Atomic Heat Ray contraption would have wiped America off the map, and we wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation." GB finished his drink and began to pour another, frowning. "I never meant to hurt the papayas, though."
"Yes, well ... like I was saying, it was never about the money. It was about sending a message. Showing the world that ... well ... I haven't really given one of these speeches in a while, I'm a bit rusty." Nemesis drained his glass and coughed. "And, gosh, this stuff is strong ... yes, another glass would be wonderful ... but, what's important is, to ... to stand for something. All the money in the world isn't going to give your life meaning."
"I know, but ... that's the problem." Golden Boy held up his glass, examining the whiskey inside. "It's not the money that I'm worried about, not really. At this point, the lawsuit will more than bankrupt me, of course," he said, taking a long sip from his glass, "but it's like you said, you have to stand for something! I used to ... they used to appreciate me. They loved me! Or I thought they did, anyway. But now, this ... I try to help them, and they sue me?!? If they chased me out of town, tried to arrest me, even ... I could live with that ... but a lawsuit ... I'm a blasted joke to them! A footnote in the tabloids, like some spoiled starlet with, with cleptomania problems or some darn thing!" He gulped down the rest of his drink, slamming the empty glass onto the table. "I've saved lives! Stopped you from destroying the United States! At one point, I'm fairly certain I stopped the Earth from exploding!"
"Right, that," Nemesis said, now gazing into his own drink. "I still think the Deadly Druid was bluffing, though. That imbecile couldn't explode his way out of a paper bag."
"But, but if he wasn't bluffing? What then? BOOM, no more Earth, that's what! And I stopped him!" Pouring another drink, Golden Boy spilled some whiskey onto his hand. "I guess I just hoped ..." He lifted his hand up to his mouth, sucking the whiskey from his fingers. "I'd hoped they'd have a longer memory, is all."
Doctor N sighed, casting a sidelong glance at his archenemy. "That was always your problem. You gave them too much credit. Underestimated how self-involved they all are. How small their worlds are. If you live for them ... live to get into their good graces ... then you can never be happy. You and I are better than that. Better than them."
Golden Boy smiled, in spite of himself. "You haven't forgotten all of your old speeches, I see."
Nemesis turned back to his whiskey. "I was serious, you know, that time in Tokyo ... before you threw that huge 'Hello Cat' statue at me. When I said that you could join me. It wasn't a trick. I ... I would have welcomed you as a partner."
"Hello Kitty."
"Excuse me?"
"The statue, in Tokyo," Golden Boy replied, chuckling. "They call it Hello Kitty."
Dr. Nemesis shook his head. "I've never understood the Japanese."
GB smiled. "Well, thank you for the offer, anyway. Honestly, I always thought you were a monster, with all your talk about 'solving the problem that is humanity,' and whatnot ..."
"Monster," Nemesis muttered into his whiskey.
"But lately," Golden Boy continued, "I don't know ... I suppose ... maybe I can see where you're coming from, now. Not that I agree with it, mind you ... I mean, turning the Statue of Liberty into a killer robot? That was just ... wrong. Though it was pretty creative, I have to admit. Scared the heck out of me."
Dr. N grinned. "Yes, I was always proud of that."
"But anyway, I ... I've thought about ... teaching them a lesson, I guess ... showing them who should really be in charge, like you're always saying. I could never do it, not really. I've made my choices, and ... and I stand by them, darn it. But ... my point is, that you're not a monster, I know that now. You're just ... well, if things had worked out differently, maybe I ..." GB trailed off, sipped at his drink, and sighed. He was starting to have trouble keeping his eyes open. "You and I are just two sides of the same coin."
Nemesis didn't look up from his drink. "I suppose we are, at that. For what it's worth, I never really wanted to kill you. You kept things interesting."
Golden Boy chuckled groggily. "I kind of suspected ... figured there had to be a reason you didn't just sneak up and shoot me with that death ray of yours."
"Yes, well ... I think it's time you got some rest." The Doctor got up from his stool. "Here, I'll help you over to a booth, you can lie down. I should be leaving, anyhow."
The hero struggled to his feet, giving Nemesis a weak smile. Nemesis supported him as they stumbled towards a booth. Golden Boy lay down in the booth with a sigh. "Thanks," he said weakly.
"Don't mention it," the villain replied, moving towards the front door of the pub. He hesitated, and added, "Take care of yourself."
*****
Dr. N stumbled on his way out the door, putting out a gloved hand to steady himself against a newspaper dispenser. The world was spinning slowly around him. I never could handle whiskey, he thought. This hadn't stopped him from taking the bottle with him, though; he held it tightly in his other hand. He began walking down the street, slowly but deliberately, forcing himself to concentrate on his surroundings.
This is a good neighborhood, he thought, a neighborhood with history, a neighborhood with character. It hadn't yet been sanitized and homogenized, like so much of the city had been. It would happen inevitably, of course; Nemesis could see a shiny new coffee shop a couple blocks away, the kind the yuppies liked. It would multiply, spontaneously and rapidly, like an amoeba. And the places with history would be absorbed, transformed, destroyed.
The Doctor stopped and turned to look back at the Golden Age. "Poor fool," he muttered, thinking of Golden Boy. The hero had really been a force to be reckoned with, in his day. To see him now, unappreciated, useless, a joke ... it's a tragedy, Nemesis thought, a blasted tragedy.
*****
Inside the pub, Golden Boy lay on the padded leather bench of his booth. With fuzzy, drunken eyes, he gazed across the room at the wall behind the bar, at the pictures hanging from it. His favorite was a front page story from the Daily Chronicle; this was from the early days, when everything was new, even to Golden Boy himself. The photograph was a truly spectacular action shot, in which he flew out the window of a burning building, carrying a young girl. The headline read, "THE HERO OUR CITY NEEDS!" That girl had sent him letters for a couple of years after that. He couldn't remember her name, but he was pretty sure he still had the letters, somewhere.
It wasn't just pride he felt, when he looked at that newpaper page up there on the wall. Though there was plenty of pride. But more importantly, it just made him feel happy. Looking at that picture, he felt like he knew exactly who he was.
As he began to pass out, his eyes caught a flash of red from the table next to him.
On the table sat Doctor N's death ray. The display panel on its side read "SELF-DESTRUCT", in flashing red letters. Next to this, a timer counted down the seconds.
*****
From a few blocks away, Nemesis watched as a blinding red light enveloped the Golden Age pub. There was a sound, not an explosion; it was more like the sound of a million lightbulbs burning out at once.
"It's better this way," the Doctor said aloud. He was a little surprised to hear his own voice cracking. "This is the way you should go."
There was no rubble where the Golden Age had been, no smoking debris. There was just an empty space in the ground, as if the place had simply ceased to exist.
Dr. Nemesis stood, staring at this empty space and drinking straight from the bottle. Finally he turned, wobbling slightly from the whiskey, and continued down the street, as sirens approached from a distance.
Copyright Peter Byrne 2009
With thanks to Ethan van Winkle
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