It all depends.
The friend gulps a good one from the bottle he has been handed and says again, “What’s in the bag?”
The brother of the moon child says, “Too bad he won’t fight him, though. ’Cause Jesus the only one be able to kick Superman’s ass—” taking a hit off that joint after each syllable, his eyes glinting with malice, the demon smile curling his lips.
It’s the bag. It’s a plain brown paper bag, the kind they put groceries in. It has to be about the bag, thinks the friend.
“I want to know what’s in the bag, homeboy.”
“I bet you do, homes.”
“Don’t make me have to kick your ass off this roof, homeboy.”
“I am Batman, homes.”
“It’s a long way to the ground, and Batman can’t fly.”
Something crazy in his head, something evil in his eyes, the brother says, “Wanna see something better than what’s in the bag?”
The friend shrugs. “Yeah.”
“Gonna see some real magic now.”
“Yeah.”
They are both nodding their heads, laughing and slurring “yeah” drunkenly, but only the brother knows what about.
They smoke the last of the joint. They drain the MD 20/20. They climb down and catch the wind at their heels and they run.
They are big boys. They are fourteen and still growing. They are fast. They are running fast. They are Batman and Superman. Batman and Plastic Man. Batman and the Flash. Batman and Little fucking Lulu. The friend is so fucked up, the fucked-up friend can’t remember who he is — but the brother is always Batman. The Dark Knight.
The Bag
When they get to the brother’s house, the brother is coaching the friend shhhh, don’t say nothing, climb more quiet, shhhh, look inside the window, look inside, what you see?
The friend on the ladder looks inside the window, but not for long. He climbs down the ladder more quietly than he went up.
The brother says, “What you see?”
The friend kneels at the foot of the ladder and vomits. The friend is no superhero.
When the friend lifts his head again, there is a chunk of vomit on his chin and a little in his throat that he chokes on when he says, “I saw your dad on top of your little sister.”
Then bowing, the friend vomits on the backyard lawn again. When he looks up this time, the brother is pulling the handgun from the brown paper bag. It is a nine millimeter, the kind street thugs use.
“Oh no,” the friend says. He feels light-headed. He feels like he wants to puke again, but there is nothing left inside.
“He ain’t my dad. He ain’t her dad neither,” the brother with the gun in his fist says.
The friend pleads, “Just tell your mom—”
“Slapped my mouth. Called me a liar. Told me stop making trouble where there ain’t no trouble. She don’t wanna believe.”
“Maybe your sister likes it.”
Thumb under, four fingers above — gangster style — the brother touches the friend’s face with the cold steel barrel of the gun.
“Want me shoot you too, homes? She’s only twelve.”
The big gun is weightless in the brother’s hand. He knows how to handle the gun. The brother reaches for the knob on the back door of the house. The friend raises a hand to stop him from going through that back door with that gun.
“Wait!”
The friend still feels like puking. There is something in him that would like to see the brother shoot the stepdad. There is something in him that longs to see the bad guy dead. It is the dream of every boy who wants to be a superhero.
Blam. Good riddance, bad guy. You got what you deserved. But there is the superhero’s code. No killing. Even bad guys. And this bad guy is a stepdad. And a cop. He’s the one gets them out of all the trouble they get into. He’s the one taught them to fish and throw a football and drive a car and smoke cigarettes. The best porn in the whole wide world, he gave them. So this thing here the friend saw through the window with the naked stepdad on the naked twelve-year-old girl, well this is bad, this is real bad, but no matter how fucked up they are, you just can’t go around shooting your role models.
“Wait.” The friend is on his feet now, hand on the brother’s arm, stopping him from going through the back door with that gun.
“Wait,” he says to the brother, prying the gun from his hand, dropping it carefully back in the bag. “Listen to me, homeboy. Here is what we do.”
The friend has a plan.
The Children
The plan worked like this.
They did it like superheroes. They did it with masks. What they needed was handcuffs and a Magic Marker.
And iron and wood to beat him with.
They also needed two more guys because the friend said the brother couldn’t be in on it. The stepdad might recognize him even with the mask. So they got two more guys, two more big guys. A boy from another school who smoked weed with them from time to time and who was down for anything. And the big scary white guy with the hunch on his back who smoked weed with them from time to time and who was strong as a motherfuck.
What they did was, they put on their masks, they snuck in there real quiet, and they bum-rushed him while he was watching All My Children. The scary hunchback guy grabbed him while the friend and the big boy from the other school slapped the handcuffs on. The friend pushed the gun against his teeth and told him to shut up, keep still, quit moving around so much, while the big guy and the hunchback guy ripped the shirt off his back and dragged off his pants.
It was a shock to them and kind of embarrassing because he wasn’t wearing any drawers, and the condom was still on. They didn’t know what to do after that. They kind of backed off after that, when it hit them what he really was. They were just kids after all.
The big kid from the other school was the oldest at fifteen, and he freaked and ran out of the house and never came back.
If the stepdad were not cuffed he might have gotten away, they were all so freaked out. He sat naked on the couch with the condom on his dick and his hands cuffed behind him and a police officer’s shield tattooed over his heart in black.
“You boys better just go home.”
The boy with the hunch on his back didn’t know what to do, so he looked to the friend.
The friend was shaking. He still had the gun in his hand, but he was hiding it behind his leg now. He didn’t know what to do either.
“Uncuff me and go home. I’ll forget about this,” the stepdad told them. “Where’s the damned key?”
The boy with the hunch on his back had a two-by-two maple wood scantling in his hand that he had brought to beat the stepdad with. The hard piece of wood was just trembling in his hand. There was the steel pipe lying on the ground that the big coward from the other school had left when he ran out. The friend had the key to the cuffs in his pocket, but he was so scared he was about ready to run out of the house too.
Then the brother came into the room.
He brought the sister in with him.
He wanted her to see it go down.
Holding his hand, she didn’t seem scared at all.
She had the moon in her hair. She was so fair.
The hunchback guy fell in love with her and was ashamed he lacked the courage for vengeance. The friend saw her innocence and swore always to defend a beauty so fair.
The brother picked up the steel pipe the big coward from the other school had left behind. He swung it above his head.