8FOLD/ACRA: The Green Knight # 1
Tom Russell
milos_parker at yahoo.com
Mon Nov 7 05:13:46 PST 2005
EIGHTFOLD COMICS PRESENTS
THE GREEN KNIGHT # 1
BY TOM RUSSELL
The mask is everything, so make it a good one: it's
the only thing that keeps you safe. You won't believe
how many times a well-defined chin or a pair of baby
blue eyes gave the whole thing away. So cover your
face, hide any unusual or distinguishing features.
Ambiguity is your friend. Mystery, your ally. The
mask is everything.
You're creating a mask not just for your face, but
for your whole body, head to toe, so choose something
stark dark iconic. Something simple. Just one or two
colours. Something that reduces you to just a mask.
Something that reduces you.
The mask is everything.
--
The Green Knight (stocky, too old, masked by a dark
and lovely forest green) sits on the table in the
doctor's office. And the doctor says to him, you have
cancer. You're dying. It's spread everywhere.
Head to toe.
"I want to start chemotherapy and radiation," the
doctor says. "It might give you some more time. It
might save your life."
"Unlikely," says the Green Knight.
"Usually, yeah. But some people, I mean, wow. I
remember when I was doing my residence, this guy came
in for a routine operation, and when they opened him
up, he was full of cancer. They didn't even bother
with the operation he came there for. Just sent him
home to die. Ten years later, he shows up at the same
hospital (or so I was told, I wasn't there anymore)
and he's clean as a whistle. It was unlikely. No, it
was more than that, it was impossible. But it
happened. And it could be the same."
"Unlikely."
"Well, look at it from this angle, then," the
doctor says. "You're a hero. You know the
statistics. Heroes have a higher survival rate than
the rest of us. Even things like cancer. I dunno.
Maybe they have a lot of people praying for them."
"When do we start?"
"Well, that's the thing," says the doctor. "You're
lucky to find me, you know? Not many doctors will
take a superhero that doesn't take off his mask.
Hell, I have to take your blood pressure through your
costume." He chuckles. The Green Knight remains
rigid; unchuckling. The doctor clears his throat.
"But you won't find any hospitals that will do
chemo for someone who's in a costume all the time.
First of all, there's no way they can..."
The doctor stops talking. This is because the
Green Knight has him pinned against the wall and
nearly three feet off the ground. He wriggles his fat
little body, but the Green Knight's hold is strong.
"You will never know my secret."
"I don't want to know it," chokes the doctor.
"I bet I don't even have cancer. I bet this is all
a plot to try and find my identity. You don't even
exist, do you? You're an illusion."
"No, no, I exist. I have a mortgage and child
support and student loans to pay off, believe me I
exist!"
"Bread! Circuses! The spectacle of a man about to
lose his life! This must be the work of the
Director's Guild of Anarchy!"
"You're choking me," says the doctor feebly. The
Green Knight lets him drop, but not because of
anything the doctor's said. He's not paying attention
to the doctor. He's looking around the room, feeing
the walls, probing.
"A complex illusion, like the kind for which they
are renown. Oh, this is cunning. I've been coming to
this doctor's office for six, seven..."
"Seven," says the doctor feebly.
"Seven years. To have planned for so long... no.
They wouldn't have planned for such a long time.
Maybe... maybe I have memory implants?"
"It's been seven years," the doctor says wearily.
"Seven long years. Seven long, long, actual years."
"An imposter!" says the Green Knight, whirling
around suddenly, grabbing the doctor again.
"Please put me down," he whines.
"Tell me where the real Doctor Ball is," demands
the Green Knight, his emotionless, featureless green
head (couldn't really call it a face) filling up the
doctor's eyeballs. "Tell me where you're keeping him,
scumbag!"
"You have cancer," says the doctor as he exhales a
haggard breath. The Green Knight sets him down. "You
have cancer. Not a plot. Not a hoax. Not an
imaginary story. You have cancer, and you're dying,
and I suggest you seek treatment. I don't want to
know about it. I'm not going to arrange it. Here."
The doctor grabs his manila folder, marked Green
Knight, and hands it to him. "This is your medical
file," says the doctor. "Take it. Find a hospital,
find an oncologist. I would give you some names but
you wouldn't trust me. Don't worry. They're the same
names anyone would give you. Good-bye."
"What do you mean?" says the Green Knight. "Come
on. It's not the first time I've slammed you against
a wall."
"I know. Oh, boy, do I know," says the doctor
sorely. "Good-bye, and good luck."
The old man inside the green suit holds the file in
both hands, like he's holding his intestines so they
don't spill out of his gut. Like he's holding onto
his best friend.
Like he's holding onto his mask.
And then he leaves.
--
Ray Cradle is sixty years old; the mask is eternal.
Ray Cradle is a stereotype come alive, the
billionaire boy genius with too much time on his
hands. The Green Knight is an archetype, and thus
infallible. He keeps them separate as much as
possible. Ray has a son, and he had a wife (she died
last year, breast cancer); they don't know his secret.
Even though she was dying, even though he should
have, he never told them his secret. Who was she
going to tell? God?
Only one person knew. Martin. The Acro-Bat. His
sidekick.
--
People die, but masks do not. The entire purpose
of the sidekick is to perpetuate the archetype, and
thus to perpetuate the fear and awe inspired by the
ridiculous figure in capes and tights. When the hero
is too old, or too weary, or too dead to be effective,
then the sidekick takes up his mantle. In a few years
time, he, too, takes on a sidekick. Master and
apprentice. Hero and sidekick. Teacher and pupil.
Father and son.
--
When Ray started, he was thin, wiry, energetic,
twenty-five years young and loving the double life he
led. After six years of flying solo, he met a kid who
was down on his luck. Martin. Down on his luck, and
talented as hell. Could have gotten Olympic god
medals as a toddler. Did somersaults in his sleep.
Martin. The Acro-Bat.
Poor kid living in a slum, Ray gave him a job and
the Green Knight gave him a mask. In a moment of
weakness and stupidity, Martin was given a job, and a
mask, and a secret. And a promise: when I'm too old
for the Knight, he's yours. Take my mask and make it
my own.
The promise of the sidekick. And the twelve year
old kid who called him Pops in nineteen seventy-six
said okay. I'll buy into that.
When Ray started, he was thin and wiry, energetic.
He got older. Stocky. Slow. Brutal. Powerful.
I've still got it, he would say to himself. I'm
still good, I'm still effective, I'm golden. I am the
Green Knight, and men fear me. In fact, they fear me
more. I'm not some flipping gad-a-bout, I'm an
unstoppable, unbeatable monster. I'm their
dream-demon. I'm more effective. Forty years old and
still effective.
Fifty years old and still effective.
Martin got older too. He acquired muscle mass and
tone, but he was still as nimble and limber as ever,
he was still the Acro-Bat, kid sidekick to the Green
Knight. Twenty years old and still the kid sidekick.
Thirty years old and still the kid sidekick. Thirty
two years old and still the kid sidekick.
I'm still golden, says the Green Knight now. But
he's alone. The kid sidekick, the laughingstock, the
grown man, left ten years ago. Ten long years.
--
He still hears from him, or rather of him. He's
working the slums now, getting back to his roots,
protecting the sons of those he grew up with. He's
not the Acro-Bat anymore. He has no name.
The mask with no name. A shadow. A sliver. A
whisper.
The Times have dubbed him Shadow-Boxer. The
Herald: Alley-Oop. Some crooks: Lucifer Lightbringer.
And their bosses: the mask. All names taken by other
heroes. It doesn't matter. Martin Rock answers to no
name, and none of them stick. It doesn't matter; they
all know they're talking about the same person, the
same mask, the same dark lurking thing.
--
It doesn't work, the Green Knight says. It can't
work. Ambiguity is your friend, mystery your ally,
but if you're never seen, then people can dismiss you,
say you never existed at all. You have to be an
intangible fear, but you have to be tangible enough to
be real. This is what the Green Knight says every
time he hears whispers and recognizes Martin in their
timber.
--
Ray Cradle spends his evening constructing an alias
under which to seek an oncologist and receive
treatment. His son, Anders, pokes his head in at
about nine o' clock to inform his father that he's
doing something, somewhere. Ray forgets where and
what he said. It doesn't matter. He waves his son
off without looking at him.
He considers telling Anders that he has cancer,
that he's dying, but he worries that Doctor Ball, in a
fit of revenge, might tell other doctors that the
Green Knight has cancer. The news might be leaked to
a newspaper, or on the internet. Anders then might
learn of it, and might put this information together
with his father's own admission of cancer and "curious
absences". Anders, in a fit of angst and teenage
rebellion against his father might, in turn, leak his
findings, thus ruining the Green Knight once and for
all.
No.
He could not tell the boy his only remaining parent
is dying.
--
He knows that he's a bad father. He knows Anders
is distant from him, and has contempt for him at best.
Probably think he's an old nut, "curious absences"
and "unexplained blah, blah, blah". He wouldn't
understand if Ray did tell him. Ray Cradle was a mere
sliver of a human being, Ray Cradle had devoted his
life to the Green Knight, submitted to its will, like
one might submit to the will of God. (He should have
remained celibate, but in a moment of weakness, fell
in love, got married, had a child. He's supposed to
care about these human lives so inextricably tied to
his own. Supposed to, but.)
--
The disguise is a subtle affair; contact lenses to
change the colour of his eyes, a Boston accent to play
up the part of Gregory Lobs, retiree. He walks
pigeon-toed (an old trick that he's used in many
disguises) and with a stoop. Some of the hospital
staff comments that he looks like Ray Cradle, the
reclusive millionaire, and he smiles weakly, like he's
heard this all his life. He thanks them and says, I
wish I was. Wish I had his kind of dough, you know?
Gregory Lobs is treated for the cancer growing and
pulsing in Ray Cradle's body. It leaves him weak and
dizzy.
He still insists on driving himself home.
--
Each night after the chemo, Ray puts on his mask,
his armor, his shell. He imagines himself a weak and
puny mollusk, fragile and squishy. But the Green
Knight protects him.
--
He arranges to meet Klaus Burger, one of his
informants, on a roof-top. The Green Knight tries to
scale the building, but a few feet off the ground he
loses his footing and falls backwards, his sixty year
old back taking the brunt of the cement's wrath. He
groans and, kicking his feet and flailing his arms,
manages to flip himself over to his belly. He lies
there a moment, winded, and then, through a sheer act
of will, lifts himself off the ground, his arms
becoming mighty, sturdy steel pipes. The pipes suck
energy from the ground, from mother earth herself, and
soon the Green Knight is up on his feet again.
He looks at the side of the building, and decides
to take the stairs.
--
By the time he clears the first flight, he's
wheezing, grasping at his chest, his arm reaching for
the railing for support. His grip loosens and he
starts to fall forward. His arms jut out, his steel
energy-sucking pipes ready to absorb the blow. But
they buckle and he falls on his face.
I am the Green Knight, he says to his aching
muscles and sick body. Ray Cradle has cancer. Ray
Cradle is dancing. Dancing? No, not dancing. Dying.
Cradle is dying. I am the Green Knight. No. Wait.
Cradle is not dying. He's fighting and he's going to
win. I'm not going to die. I am the Green Knight.
Ray Cradle is the Green Knight, and both are eternal,
both will live. No. Wait. I...
I'm going to take the elevator.
--
He gets to the top floor without any further
incident, though even he has to admit that his body
feels weaker with every second. The doctors told Lobs
to rest. To sleep. But I'm not Lobs, why should I
care what they say? I am the Green Knight, I am the
smartest god-damn man on the planet, and one of the
toughest. I am one of the greatest crime-fighters on
the planet. And, hey, look at me. I'm sixty years
old. Sixty. Sixty, and I'm still golden.
He takes a deep breath as he stands before the
staircase that leads to the rooftop. I am the Green
Knight. I'm sixty, and I'm still golden. Golden.
Green.
He grabs onto the railing and takes three steps.
His massive square body buckles and quivers. He
tightens his grip on the railing as, with his other
hand, he pushes up on the stairs. He crawls up
another two steps, the hand on the railing well above
his head, which has suddenly become very heavy.
Heavy.
Heavy. Green.
"You okay?"
The Green Knight looks up to see Klaus Burger
descending the staircase. He walks with a slight but
noticeable stoop, acquired from a lifetime of bad
posture; his toes point inwards. The scum, the
stoolie. He's touching the Green Knight now, actually
touching him, helping him up.
"I thought you weren't going to show. We had said
ten o' clock."
"What time is it?"
"Quarter to eleven," says Burger. "It was getting
cold up there anyway. You want me to help you up?"
"No, no," says the Green Knight (says Ray). His
arm shaking, and with Burger's support, the Green
Knight turns around and sits down upon one of the
steps. "S. So. What news?"
"Let's see. Methuselah's back in town."
"I know that!" says the Green Knight before
breaking into a gagging fit. He feels the pasty
mucous in his mouth as he says, "That was in the
paper. What is he up to?"
"Just what he says," says Burger. "Retirement."
"That can't be it."
"I know that, and you know that. And I'll keep my
ears peeled, man. But at the moment? There's no
news. Only person hiring the locals is a new guy,
calls himself Oni."
"Japanese demon," says the Green Knight.
"He's not Japanese, though. At least, I don't
think."
"What are you basing this on?"
"Gut instinct," says Burger. "He just sounds like
another one of these anime-obsessed white boys."
"Do you think you could get hired on?"
Burger laughs.
"What's so funny?" says the Green Knight. He moves
to grab Burger by his shirt, but his grip is so feeble
that he releases it almost instantly. A futile
gesture. He holds his head in his hands, trying to
hold it up.
"I'm your informant. I've been your informant for
years. Every gang I hook up with gets arrested, but I
go free. Crooks aren't dumb, man. We ain't smart,
but we ain't dumb. This information I give you? I
get it from my informants."
"Fine. G. Get on with it."
"The word is that he's meeting soon... could be
tonight, could be tomorrow night... with Sheldon
Schultz. No word on what the meeting's for, or who
else will be there. No meeting place, but you know
these wise guys, they'll probably determine it at the
last possible minute."
But he stops now, for his last few words have been
drowned out by another coughing fit, this one more
violent. The Green Knight's entire body shakes, and
Burger can tell that he's throwing up. Burger lifts
up the bottom of the mask so the vomit can spill out.
The Green Knight bats him away, screaming something at
him that is indecipherable when flanked by the
vomiting.
"Chill out," says Burger. "You want to choke to
death on your own vomit? I'm just helping."
"The mask," the Green Knight is saying. "Don't you
ever touch... mask... again..."
He falls forward, tumbling down the stairs.
"You okay?" says Burger.
There is no answer. Dropping the pretense of the
stoop and pigeon-toes, the man with Burger's face
rushes down the stairs and, struggling, manages to
pick the hulking, sleeping mass of the Green Knight
up. He slings the two hundred pounds of stocky,
pugnacious muscle over his shoulder and, struggling,
manages to get him into the elevator. He sets him
down in a corner and tries to wipe the sweat from his
forehead (an old gesture, an automatic one, but futile
underneath a layer of latex).
He pushes a button that does not appear on the
control panel, and listens for the quiet squeak of the
shaft's false bottom opening up. As the elevator then
descends to a floor that does not exist, underneath
his mask, Martin Rock breathes a sigh of relief.
--
It used to serve as Professor Rockhopper's hideout,
back when he was active in these parts. Once he moved
upstate and shifted his focus from the Green Knight
and Acro-Bat to Critical Mach, this base of operations
was neglected. And so, Martin made it his own.
It was his standard modus operandi; other heroes
have enough money at their disposal to buy or rent a
building, to tuck their own secrets in its corners, to
have fancy gadgets made for them or to have costumes
sewn. That was nice, and it lent them an air of
legitimacy.
Martin didn't have that at his disposal, not after
things soured between him and Ray. So he took what he
could get. It wasn't always pretty, it was never
really fancy, but it was good enough. A little rough
around the edges, but utilitarian. Got the job done.
Martin Rock didn't give two shits about legitimacy.
Just about the job.
--
Rockhopper's base was pretty much emptied out when
he left town, only leaving the fridge, microwave, and
a small, uncomfortable cot. Martin kept meaning to
have a stove installed his first couple years here,
but kept getting hung up on the logistical angles
until, finally, he faced the truth: he didn't really
need a stove. Microwave would do just fine.
Martin sets the Green Knight on the cot and checks
his pulse, listens for his breathing. Weak... both
very weak...
Jesus, old man, what are you still doing this for?
You've more than earned your retirement. (He must
have said this about a hundred dozen times. Ray
thought he was just eager for the mantle. Maybe he
was. But his main reason was, ostensibly at least,
concern.)
He pops a burrito in the microwave and wonders what
the hell he's going to do. He's been circling around
the question since Ray fell down the stairs, out cold.
Can't circle anymore. He'll be up at any minute.
So. First off, should you leave your mask on?
What will happen if he wakes up and finds that Klaus
Burger, small-time crook, has appropriated
Rockhopper's hideout. That is, of course, assuming he
recognizes it. Either way, that brings up another
question: how do you get him out of here? And, why
did you bring him here in the first place?
That's a stupid question, one that doesn't even
require an answer. Martin brought him here because it
was the right thing to do.
--
And sometimes (the Green Knight said so many times
that it lost its meaning) doing the right thing means
compromising yourself, means taking off the mask,
effectively ending your life's work, your life, so
that another may live in safety. Sometimes doing the
right thing is hard to do, but you still have to do it
then. Especially then.
It comes down to, are you a hero, or a crime
fighter? Because they are not one and same thing.
--
Martin peels off his mask and retrieves his
burrito. He pulls up a stool-- he kept meaning to get
a chair, but a stool is just as good, isn't it?-- and
sits down next to the cot, waiting for the Green
Knight to wake up.
(C) COPYRIGHT 2005 Tom Russell.
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