Chapter 9:

A Telescope, a Dozen Elephants, a Madman, and a Gun

or

And Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, What You’ve All Been Waiting For! With No Further Ado, I present the Nefarious Villain, the Diabolical Psychoto!

Most of the world reacted to Marvelous’ death with a slight sense of detached sadness. The death of a hero, even one as reclusive and blotted as Herbert Nathaniel Marvelous, aroused in most people the same sort of melancholy as a good fog. A numbing gloom enveloped the mind, dimming the light of the world. But behind this feeling lived the knowledge that the unseen sun above would burn away the mists, and the bright joys of everyday life would return—all quite possibly before the morning was over.

One particularly affected individual learned of this tragedy from the headlines of various newspapers after ordering a double tall cocoa-mocha frappino from the Star and Siren. He had several pads of paper and no small amount of material to get through this fine morning—but all that was halted by the screaming headlines of the newspapers displayed at the counter. Various pictures of Nathan Marvelous smiled up at this man, mocking him, while proclaiming his death. Numbed by the bold black words, Psychoto took a copy of each paper to his table, where his stomach sank, and his drink slowly melted. He sat oblivious of the staff and other patrons and read every last footnote in all four newspapers. He never did turn to his other materials, to work over his observations, hypothesis, and anecdotes about the elephants. Instead, he thought about all his encounters with the late hero; all the shortcomings and inadequacies he possessed, contrasted and evidenced by the perfection of his nemesis.

Yet, Marvelous was dead. To be sure, Psychoto was not sad that Marvelous was dead; he was distraught because he had absolutely nothing to do with the hero’s demise. Admittedly, he had not thought of revenge for some time—but now that such a thing was impossible, that he could never carry out his ultimate fantasy, he could think of nothing else. He scratched at the beard he’d grown over the last three and a half years, thick and matted, refusing to believe what was right in front of him. Yet, here it was, in black and white: Marvelous was dead, due to some spectacular NASA accident, that may or may not have saved the world.

To be sure, it was all a bit confusing.

As frustration, inadequacy, and anger flowed through him, Psychoto wondered if some revenge could be extracted from beyond the grave. Could he do something in this world to so hurt Marvelous that the hero would feel it in the afterlife? Could he strike through the veil of death to get at Nathan? Emotions rampaged from heart to head and back. At one distressing moment, Psychoto thought to massacre Marvelous’s entire herd of elephants. It didn’t matter that he had spent the last three years jealously protecting the herd from infection, intrusion, and every other disturbance. It was a herd he knew individually, better than Nathan himself—and yet he thought to put them under a single, very big gun, one after another. The thought didn’t last long. He loved the elephants too much. He thought of them as his children and his redemption for an otherwise failed life. They were absolution for his inability to be better than Nathan at—well, anything—for his lack of humility, for losing the love of his life. These elephants were penance for getting Angelica killed.

Initially, Psychoto took up with the herd, promising his unsuspecting enemy that he would guard and feed them, all so he could secretly be near Marvelous, that he might find some chink in the hero’s invincibility. He had to disguise himself whenever he should meet with Nathan—and also he hated the man—so he avoided him as often as possible. Time passed and despite a number of devious plans that should injure, incapacitate, or outright kill his enemy, no plan Psychoto ever enacted had any impact on the hero whatsoever. Six months of spiking Marvelous’ morning orange juice with lethal levels of lead and arsenic proved fruitless. Marvelous never showed any symptoms, not even dizziness or fever from the toxins. Did Nathan ever suspect he was being poisoned? He showed no signs. Psychoto also managed to electrocute the man, and with enough voltage that Nathan should of caught fire. Although it delivered a rather nasty jolt to our hero, he walked it off and never even told his mother about it. Collapsing a garage on the hero only destroyed a vintage Ferrari, for which Marvelous collected a handsome sum from his insurance. Adding to Psychoto’s chagrin was the fact that at the time Marvelous was attempting to sell the Ferrari—and having a helluva time trying to find someone to pay the exorbitant price. The Ferrari’s destruction served Marvelous quite well as he had virtually no sentimental attachment to the vehicle, though it crushed the fine sensibilities of his nemesis. Who lacked the humanity to value such a priceless bit of engineering history? Of all the days not to drive his garish Skyline...

The question of how to get revenge against an invincible opponent wasn’t driving Psychoto mad—he was already quite mad—it was driving him madder. Plotting to live among pachyderms so one could observe his archenemy unimpeded speaks little of sanity—but as each new plot failed in astoundingly anticlimactic fashion; sadness, torment, and frustration poured over the psyche of this poor soul. At times, his mental cohesion failed altogether. Several times, he woke with blood in his mouth from where he’d chewed his own lip or cheek, curled among a clump of bushes, unsure where or who he was. He spent days, weeks, months wandering in the valley of elephants, questioning the rocks, trees, and sky about anything—though mostly about his numbing frustrations, which multiplied drastically, and grew to include everything. In his more coherent moments, he managed to form his questions into cohesive thoughts. Why was Marvelous granted godlike invulnerability? Why did Angelica have to die? These questions invariably slipped into less relevant matters. Why did rocks taste like dirt? Does everybody see blue the same way, or do some people see blue like its red? In God's sacred language of number, how had he created sound? There were too many questions. Through all of this, he barely turned from his drive for revenge, which, although perhaps not a stable line of function, remained his only sustained motivation. Despite his dip into madness, self-preservation remained relatively intact—which he thought was an excellent argument for primacy of instinct. However the universe works, it proved that Psychoto was mad, but not suicidal.

As the days went by, Psychoto huddled in the treetops, often empty of thought, watching the elephants. The elephants derailed his incessant consternation by ceasing the useless musings of his tired mind. Oh, he fed them and made sure to keep the gates locked, but mostly the animals were ignored to start—but as Psychoto wandered among the captive animals, his ruse became his only distraction. There was still no joy in the world—but Psychoto slowly noticed not everything was pain. Now there were also elephants.

One day, everything changed. Psychoto realized he could distinguish each individual elephant, and not solely by physical characteristics, but also by differing personalities. He could hear the difference in their voices, and sometimes could even tell their emotions. In celebration, he named the elephants, taking several weeks and a few bottles of hard liquor to do so. In an effort to fit each elephant’s distinctive traits and to come up with something really clever, Psychoto took his sweet time. The second incident which shifted him away from his incessant drive to kill Nathan was far more dramatic as Psychoto realized Jukebox Jannie was not well. He observed her for a few days, and quickly determined it was not a passing malady. Once he was certain her condition was chronic, he immediately enacted upon a crash course in elephant physiology and basic veterinary practice, teaching himself everything the Cityopolis library system had to offer—which was surprisingly much.

As he studied, Jukebox Jannie got worse. Finally, Psychoto realized he could take no more time learning. He contacted several universities, throwing Nathan's money and name around, thereby getting the necessary provisions for the injured elephant: the proper medicines, gloves, soaps, and scalpels required. The next morning, Psychoto shot the elephant and waited for the tranquilizers to take effect. He had to march halfway across the reserve to find where Jannie collapsed. Three hours later, Psychoto finished dressing Jukebox Jannie’s infected foot. He removed a six-inch rusty nail and treated the infection to the best of his limited ability. Despite the operation, he had little hope that she would get better. He gave her some antibiotics, and prayed to a God he greatly questioned.

Time passed. Each morning, as he got up, Psychoto held up his crossed fingers and whispered a few beneficial words to the sun before searching out Jukebox Jannie. For days, she was groggy and heavily favored her bad foot. She hobbled when she managed to move at all, and Psychoto feared he would lose her. Nearly two weeks after the impromptu surgery, Psychoto noticed Jannie putting more and more weight on her bad foot. Although she still walks with a limp, Jukebox Jannie is alive and well.

When Psychoto realized Jannie had overcome the nail and the ensuing infection, he got blazing, roaring, gloriously drunk. He woke up in the guesthouse kitchen, soaking in his own vomit, wondering why he celebrated in such an obviously depreciating manner. He decided self-sabotage is a hard-dying habit, and vowed to kill it nonetheless. Psychoto realized he needed help—but where to turn for it? He already knew the answer. Psychoto gave up on his revenge against Marvelous in favor of caring for the elephants in earnest. He decided to stay in the valley and promised himself that he was only putting his revenge on the back burner. He would come back to it eventually, when a proper revenge presented itself. He kept himself from visiting the guesthouse as much as possible and pulled his telescope from off the guesthouse roof, and took it into the valley, so he might use it to watch after the elephants. He also used it for it what he figured was the real reason for it original manufacture: to spy on any nearby city girl who happened to leave her drapes open. Psychoto was surprised by the sheer multitude of people that left their drapes open. He realized that the world is full of exhibitionists.

One night, searching the open windows of the city, the idea for a book came to mind—or was it a movie?—in which the main character used a telescope to garner ideas for a movie—or was it a book?—that he intended to write. The specifics of what happened in the story didn’t matter to Psychoto, only the idea that someone peering through a telescope, observing others, could harbor thoughts of being a writer. In this, Psychoto realized he could be a writer. He did not write this book—or movie—deciding that fiction is frivolous. Instead, he turned his hand to an account of the elephants he loved. Thus the book, Marvelous Mammoths: A Study of The Captive Elephants on the Michelita Thalia Hernandez Animal Preserve, was born—although under the far simpler working title of Among Titans.

Psychoto cleared out his library of gun magazines and bomb cookbooks to make room for reference materials in the small shanty he secretly built in the valley of elephants. Over the next two years, he spent every waking moment consumed by the idea of this book; observing the elephants, actively writing, studying the work of others, hypothesizing, testing, refining, and generally meshing out the details. Only once did he turn from his writing and go back to revenge, but it was a half-hearted attempt, inspired by the anniversary of the death of Angelica Scruples and the last vespers of his alcoholism. He launched an RPG into the west wing of Nathan’s Mansion and only succeeded in killing an innocent bystander, a feat that tortured Psychoto so long as he was lucid.

Psychoto poured himself into his book and let the endeavor consume him—yet, he could not figure exactly what kind of a book to write. At analytical times, he supposed a research, or a reference would be best, but during creative moments, he dreamed up grand narratives or jotted down anecdotal tales of the day’s strange occurrences. Finally, he settled on a mish-mash, splicing narrative into the research, and appendixing a reference section that went over everything in the greater half of the book. The only breaks Psychoto took were moments of burnout, which he spent observing the ladies of Cityopolis through his telescope, or devouring the memoirs of teenage drunks while sipping cocoa-mocha frappinos at the local Star and Siren. Psychoto’s desire for revenge subsided more and more as his enthusiasm for the book increased. Plots for revenge simmered on the back burner, ever so slightly—if at all. He gave up on several possible plots so he could study the elephants instead. He was nearing the end now, almost finished with the book itself, and under contract with a national publishing house—when news of the unthinkable exploded into Psychoto’s peculiar existence, threatening to spiral him once more into madness. Somehow, Marvelous had died, and the unshakable fact was NASA—one of the most inept of all governmental agencies (following only the Department of Education)—had everything to do with it, while Psychoto had absolutely no hand in it whatsoever! All the hateful angry words of the world could not describe his rage!

Would a 50-caliber desert eagle down a full-grown elephant? He asked himself this because it was the only gun he had readily available. It sat unused, exposed to the elements for so long, he wasn’t even sure the gun still worked. He hadn’t used it since he fired seven ineffective shots at Marvelous; missing each time he pulled the trigger. Spending the clip, Pyschoto ran as Marvelous gave chase. The only reason Marvelous didn’t catch him was that Angelica sideswiped Marvelous with an armored truck, thus allowing her boyfriend to escape. Then, she shot him with an AK—only to turn her gun on a police cruiser—and get run over by the dead officer…

Psychoto knew he would never attempt to kill his beloved pets. He no longer thought of the elephants as belonging to Marvelous at all. No. He would not kill the animals—but he had to have his revenge.

It would just have to be something else.

What, though?

Setting the papers aside, standing, and throwing away his ignored and sweaty frappino, he swore he’d come up with something.

*****

Three days after Marvelous died in all the newspapers, Psychoto found himself in Marvelous Mansion sifting through the closets of the late hero with his desert eagle tucked in the small of his back, safety off. He knew the layout of the suite of rooms in which Marvelous spent most his time, thanks to hours and hours of telescoping—not to mention all the times he’d slipped into the house to wreak whatever sabotage he might. It was a small thing to disable the alarm and scale up the side of the mansion into these rooms, an action he’d planned and practiced over and over, in hopes that he would one day do just this in order to kill Marvelous.

What he was looking for, Psychoto was not sure. He was hoping to trip upon something that might trigger an epiphany, but all he found was old clothes, old pictures, and a trove of boxing paraphernalia. He spent a lot of time looking over the pictures and was surprised to find so many people he knew personally in the shots. Although there were many different people in the pictures, there was a large concentration of two women: Anna Marvelous and Michelle Hernandez, both of whom he knew quite well. It might be mentioned, he was quite saddened by both their deaths. He’d quite liked Michelita, as they went through many years of school together, and he had nothing but fond memories of Anna Marvelous, who was always kind to him in his previous life with his previous name.

As he pawed through the pictures, Psychoto separated a pile for each, and then spread the pictures on the floor for lack of anything better to do. He ordered them chronologically, hoping to see a progression. Michelle grew visibly from a young girl to the beautiful Olympian he’d seen on SporTV3, while Anna Marvelous was harder to track. Psychoto often had to rely on fashion cues to date her pictures, she aged incredibly well!

Psychoto found more than a few pictures of himself in the stacks, pictures before he ever thought to become Psychoto. One in particular struck him. He was next to Marvelous near a swimming pool, his arm around his enemy as they leaned into each other. There as a huge innocent smile on Nathan’s face, while Psychoto was visibly tired and a touch blue from a brush with suffocation.

After so much reminiscing, Psychoto grew restless and left the photos. He wandered from room to room and realized most of the rooms contained nothing more than generic furniture and dust. The house was so little used. It was but a grand shell of a small life. It was sad, really. Indeed, all the potential pissed him off.

Psychoto returned to the lived-in segments of the house. He followed the worn carpet, avoiding where the carpet looked untouched. Eventually, Psychoto came to a grand staircase. As he stepped down, he thought he heard voices and the sounds of cabinets and drawers clacking shut. He stepped quietly, his military training instinctively remembered. He pulled the gun as he made his way into the kitchen.

Someone was cooking, or preparing to cook. The voice was humming something now with the occasional lyric thrown in, as if only part of the song was known. Psychoto stalked into the kitchen as the voice died with the end of the song. Nothing. There was nothing in the kitchen, but pots and pans and a carton of eggs on the counter.

“Julie!” a voice called, then backed out of the pantry, “how many potatoes do you think we’ll…oh!?” the question cut off as the lady noticed Psychoto. The smile evaporated off of her face. Her hazel eyes locked on his, a tinge of fear as she noted the gun, balanced by a look that suggested she’d seen death before and would not run. She cocked her head a bit, and visibly tensed. “You’re not Julia,” she noted.

Psychoto recognized her immediately. He would have done so without the assistance of the photos, but after sorting through several boxes and albums there could be no doubt that Anna Marvelous now stood before him, an armful of russet potatoes clutched to her chest like so many dirt eggs. He could hear her breathing, as she took long, deep, heavy breaths to remain calm. She didn’t move and didn’t look at the gun. Instead, she kept her eyes locked on his...

...and thus he realized victory. Everyone knew Anna Marvelous was dead. They knew because Marvelous had announced it, tears streaming—but here she was—and everything fell together for Psychoto. This was his victory. He had believed he killed her when he launched an RPG into the mansion several years ago, and even felt guilty about it. After all, he had nothing against this small woman. Now, however, he had the chance to send Anna after her son, to undo Marvelous’ ruse to keep her safe and thereby rectifying all the hurt and torment Marvelous had brought against his enemy. His mouth burned red with the iron taste of revenge.

Anna Marvelous leaned forward, tilted her head and squinted ever so slightly. “Jimmy?” she asked. “James?”

Psychoto pulled the trigger as she uttered his name—a name he’d almost forgotten. He flinched as the potatoes exploded.

BOOM!

He shot her again, to make sure it was done properly.

BOOM!

The bullets ripped through the air and flung Anna Marvelous to the ground. Blood spattered through the pantry and a can of peaches sprayed syrup and fruit as a bullet carried through the victim, through the can, and into the wall beyond.

Anna stumbled, then crumpled to the floor. Blood pooled around bits of potato.

The blood was too much. Psychoto could not look at his victim—but he couldn’t look away either. Anna stared up, but not at him. Her eyes were unfocused, looking straight ahead as she lay on the floor. Her eyes teared, her breathing shallow and quick, as she pawed at bits of potato.

Intense regret and shame filled our villain. Once again, he’d killed Anna Marvelous, and this time on purpose! He had a chance to spare this bright, beautiful creature—but in a blind rage, he’d made the same mistake! This time it was not an accident! Faced with the chance to forgive, to carry on in a different direction, to be better than himself, Psychoto had failed! He’d taken the cheap path, robbing Anna of her life, Nathan of his mother, and himself of any redemption! He hated Nathan Marvelous more than ever.

He hated himself more than ever.

Psychoto set the gun on the counter, dropped to his knees, and sobbed.

Anna Marvelous coughed.

Psychoto exhaled and stared at his victim. Maybe he could apologize before she slipped away! Maybe she could forgive him, for he could not! “I’m so sorry, Miss Marvelous! I’m so sorry!” He dived toward her, wrapping his arms around her head, whispered into her ear, “Please forgive me! I’m weak! I’m so stupid! I’m so sorry!” he managed to say between the sobs and tears.

Anna groaned.

Psychoto was so grateful to have an opportunity to confess, and as he did so, the epiphany he’d long waited for finally struck—but it was not what he expected. It was not a way to crush his nemesis, to prove he was better, stronger, faster. He realized that it was not revenge he should seek, but redemption, and in an effort to gain this, he would tell Anna everything! He did not expect her to forgive him, but perhaps she would understand!

He babbled incoherently, trying to put his dark thoughts into words. He halfway managed to list his sins, his hatred for Nathan, and for himself. A tumult of his worst actions and thoughts spilled over each other, between his own guilty sobs, as he lamented that he could never make things right. His eyes rimmed in tears, his face red, his nose leaking snot. It did not register that Anna Marvelous was sitting up with her arms around him as he babbled, or that she answered, with a soft shushing and the occasional kind words.

“It’s okay now. It’s all okay,” She said, stroking his hair.

He did not notice Julia standing behind them, her hands around the grip of his own Desert Eagle, aimed at the back of his head. Anna motioned at Julia to leave. Julia protested, silently, but Anna insisted. Finally, Julia shrugged and walked out of the kitchen, gun in hand.

Psychoto saw none of this.

James had finally stopped his rambling apology but continued to sob as Anna stroked his hair and comforted him. “We’re going to make it all right, Jimmy. We’re going to make everything all right,” She told him, and a dim hope started to grow. James Wellington, all grown up and out of control, was Psychoto. Once that registered, she did not find it strange that he was here, lying in her lap, crying. She smiled, her heart broken over his pitiable state. “Your going to be all right,” she repeated. “We’re all going to be all right.”

Anna looked down at her chest, down at the holes in her shirt, where the bullets had plunged through blood and flesh. Beneath the hole was pristine skin, whole and untouched, as if nothing had happened. There was nothing, not even scars to remember the passing of the bullets, and Anna wondered what it meant that she’d cheated death for a second time.

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