Chapter 8:

Thought Process

Kelly packed her bags, preparing to leave for good. She was going to leave him, no ‘ifs’ ‘ands’ or ‘buts’ about it, that is unless she got a thorough apology; a thorough exacting apology sometime before, during, or immediately following what had the earmarks of blistering hot make-up sex. There was no way she was going to stand for this sort of neglect! She refused to be second string to a memory! A ghost! She was going to leave unless she got her apology! She was going to leave, and that’s all there was to it!

Interlude:

Who are the PLES?

The Giants beat the Eagles in a squeaker, but the fact that they won—and more so, the way they won—was revenge for the pummeling the Giants took at the hands of the Eagles earlier in the season. There was only a minute and ten left on the clock when Matt Kenseth dropped a sixty-three yard bomb into the hands of Edward Misker for a touchdown and a one-point lead. After the kick, the Giants were up by two with 54 seconds left on the clock. The Eagles gave it a noble effort and even managed two first downs, but the 58-yard field goal attempt in the final seconds flew wide to the right. Game over. Giants win 37-35.

Nathan’s companions were ad execs looking to sign him to endorsement deals: one from a nut company, one for shoes, another for deodorant. At the moment they were drunk with excitement—and a fair bit of alcohol. They talked about the final minutes of the game, jubilant as the Giants were standing at 8 and 6 with an outside chance at the playoffs.

Having his thoughts all to himself, Nathan wasn’t actually thinking of anything. He was enjoying the balmy weather, the sun in a cloudless sky, the lack of wind, and the fact that for a moment, in a terribly crowded and noisy place, nobody was bothering him. The crowds were far too interested in the game and its implications to worry about the strange man in the Broncos jersey, even if he looked familiar. It was a nice November afternoon, as Nathan paid attention to the sun on his face, the smell of oil and asphalt as they made their way to the car. These old familiar sensations were such a comfort.

Nathan glanced about. A strange man working against the crowd caught his eye. The man was watching the crowd, a stack of fliers in hand—but he wasn’t really passing them out. He held them without pressing them on anyone, barely paid attention to the people directly in front of him, only giving fliers to those that approached and actually took them. No. He was searching—for whom or what, Nathan wasn’t sure.

The man had a very blue-collar appeal, stocky and muscular, with a slightly stooped manner. He wore a PLES button on his thick coat, a coat for colder days. It was too much clothing for the balmy weather. He was black with an accent, a European accent, which made his English crisp. Also, his eyes were wrong. They had an intense glint, not the glaze that comes from hours of menial work, like handing out fliers. He seemed anxious, determined, and unsettled. Something was wrong. Nathan didn’t think. Instead he approached the man. Something in the long hours of his training suggested this man was looking for a fight, and Marvelous obeyed his instinct to confront, to intercede. There was little crowd between the two. He was only a few steps away.

Nathan grabbed the man from the side, only looking to get his attention, to ask what was bothering him. He wanted to help.

The man didn’t see him coming. His eyes were elsewhere. Just as Nathan grabbed him, the man reached into his coat and pulled a gun. He stepped toward a peculiarly dressed man, the gun in hand, and aimed for the head.

The intended victim had on a military hat, a maroon sort of sailor’s cap, which clashed with his black suit. He had on a pair of glasses with a tortoise shell frame—and a sudden look of shock, pure and unadulterated, as he found himself staring at the spitting end of a gun. Around him were several thick-muscled men, much larger than the intended victim, or the man with the gun. They could be football players, they were so big. They also saw the gun—but they were caught flat-footed, unable to do anything to protect their charge.

The man with the gun yelled something in another language, something Dutch—or German perhaps—and pulled the trigger. Marvelous yanked the man by his shoulder, pulling him off balance. The gun tilted in his hand, and quickly careened back down, swinging wildly.

POP! BOOM!

The first round entered the tire of a car, and Nathan flinched from the noise.

The man with the gun did not. He wheeled, forgetting his intended victim, and pointed the gun at Nathan, He yelled again in his foreign tongue and pulled the trigger, twice.

POP! POP!

Nathan felt the bullets enter his chest and arm, searing through muscle and tissue. The force of the shots knocked Nathan against, a car, before he slowly crumbled to his ass. The shot to his arm ripped all the way through. This burning pain subsided, slowly, creeping away as the tissues of his arm weaved back together under the cover of blood. But the pain in his chest burned, on the difficult side of his shoulder blade where the bullet was stopped. Nathan slumped back against the car, his attention shifting inward to the pain. He only vaguely remembered what happened afterward, his mind occupied by the bullet’s torment.

There was a scuffle between the assailant and the bodyguards. He remembered that, or at least, bits of it: the sounds of men grunting and punching, vague images of bodyguards pulling the assailant to the ground, pulling the gun out of his hands and giving him a beating to remember. This fight didn’t last long and was very bad for the man with the gun. He would spend a long time in the hospital, and would remember very little of it—unlike Nathan.

Nathan Marvelous pulled himself up, leaning heavily against the side of a car. A crowd of gawkers gathered as he pushed himself to his feet.

Are you okay? What happened?

Someone call the cops!

You’re shot, man! Sit back down!

That’s Nathan! Someone yelled. That’s Lightning Marvelous!

The bodyguards cleared him some space as the man in the military hat pressed in on Nathan, offering his repeated thanks in heavily accented English—the same accent as the assailant. Nathan couldn’t follow everything that was said due to the man’s crisp speak, and also the unrelenting pain in his shoulder. He did catch snippets. From these he realized this man in the funny hat was some kind of king, some back road royalty.

Nathan sat again, his back against the car, gritting his teeth. The second bullet burned just behind his shoulder blade. His mind fogged over with the pain. He heard sirens—never a good thing.

Ages passed. Eons and epochs marched by as Marvelous gritted his teeth and closed his eyes against the terrible throb in his back. Worlds were born and died, stars burst forth, burning through their lives, flickered and faded—or exploded in the throes of death. Slowly, eternity ended—and still the pain continued.

The ambulance arrived and the paramedics ushered Nathan into the back, holding his arms, guiding him as he slowly hobbled forward.

In the ambulance, they pumped him full of drugs in an effort to take away the pain—but nothing they gave him had any lasting effect. They spent the bulk of the trip just trying to get Marvelous to lie flat on the gurney.

Still gritting his teeth and shifting in agony, Nathan was immediately admitted into surgery. Imagine the shock when the doctors at the hospital removed the bandages to find nothing. There were no entry wounds, no exit wounds—just a bit of dried blood. Indeed, the doctors were baffled and the surgery was something approaching pandemonium. Nobody could find anything wrong with Marvelous as he writhed and squirmed against his restraints. They were quite confused that he should suck at the air, on the verge of tears, in bloodied clothing, requiring multiple hands just to keep him in the bed—yet without a mark on his body.

Nathan cringed in unimaginable pain, trying to explain just where they might find the bullet, which was still in his back. Yet, without an entry wound to signify his injury, the doctors brushed aside his assertions. How was he going to explain to the doctors that they should cut him open? It seemed to take ages. His proclamations were terse and agonizing as he begged for an x-ray.

With evidence of the bullet in his back, the doctors pushed Marvelous back into surgery. The attending surgeon planned to go in through his back, cutting inches from his spine, up around the shoulder blade. It would not be easy.

It is said the body cannot accurately remember pain, and it is theorized that we would go mad if we could remember all the physical hurt we’ve ever suffered. Our mind carries but a shade of what we’ve felt, a bit of recollection that keeps us from repeating the same mistakes, from sticking our fingers on hot burners, or playing with the pointy end of knives. Yet pain is the most vivid aspect of this memory; the pain of the bullet and the pain of the scalpel. When they cut into him, Nathan screamed so loud that several the attendants jumped.

“The anesthetic didn’t take,” a nurse realized.

“Did you give him enough?” asked the surgeon.

The anesthesiologist didn’t answer. She hesitated before giving him another dose. She’d given him the first dose, had she not?

“Stick him again!” Yelled the surgeon over Nathan’s groans.

She plunged a needle into Nathan’s arm, knowing that a second dose should easily kill the pain—and probably kill the patient too.

The liquid spread through Nathan like fire, into his back, enveloping the pain and spiriting it away. Nathan relaxed for a moment. But in the few seconds before the doctor resumed his cutting, the effect wore off, and Nathan gasped again as the scalpel pushed into his skin.

“For Christ’s sake!” issued the surgeon. “Double it!”

“I did!” answered the anesthesiologist. “Any more and he’ll die for sure!” she exclaimed—although she wasn’t sure at all. Nothing about this surgery was the way it should be.

For a second, nobody moved. All Nathan could hear was the beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor, and the sound of air raking against his clenched teeth. “Just cut it out!” he cried.

They tried two more anesthetics, neither of which worked. The drugs simply didn’t take. Nathan remained awake and sensitive despite all efforts.

Nathan screamed again. “You can’t numb me, god damn it, so just cut it out already!”

“Try gas,” said the doctor. The nurse placed a mask over Nathan’s mouth, and he took huge breaths of nitrous oxide as he lay on his stomach. He felt his head getting light, a tingling in his feet and fingers, and he wondered that this might actually work. Nathan hadn’t thought to try gas. This was a good idea, he thought.

And then they resumed cutting. The euphoric effects of the gas gave way to the sharp pain of the scalpel. Nathan convulsed and nearly pulling the blade from the doctor’s hand.

“Jesus Christ!” the doctor stopped again.

Nathan pulled the mask from his mouth. “JUST… CUT… IT… OUT!” he yelled.

The surgeon paused, then turned to the attending nurses. “Pull his restraints as tight as you can, then pull them tighter. He can’t be moving around on me! Does the gas help?”

Nathan nodded. It did. A little.

“Turn the oxygen down. Get the mix as rich as you dare,” the doctor ordered.

Two orderlies cinched the belts on the bed as hard as they could. One was sure he heard the bone in Nathan’s wrist crack, but didn’t dare say a thing. The doctor closed his eyes and steeled himself for the task at hand.

Nathan screamed a lot. He screamed and screamed, and the doctor yelled at him to shut his goddamn mouth—but Nathan just screamed some more. They gave him something to bite on, which fell out of his mouth each time he passed out.

Nathan passed out several times from the pain, but each time, he woke a few seconds later, screaming. The whole affair only took twelve minutes before the doctor pulled the bullet from Nathan’s back and the whole room sighed in relief.

Everybody stared at the bullet, everybody except Nathan. He blacked out again and didn’t wake up. Nobody bothered to rouse him.

“In over twenty years, I’ve never done anything half so harrowing,” the doctor confided. “Stitch him up,” he ordered.

“Doctor,” said the nurse, examining Nathan’s back.

“I don’t want any excuses,” the doctor began. “Just stitch him!”

“There’s nothing to stitch,” the nurse replied.

“Let me see...”

Four hours later, Nathan came to, his back unnecessarily bandaged. He felt great, but the doctor would not allow him to leave. For an hour he grudgingly complied. Finally, he said he couldn’t lie around forever and they could keep him if they could stop him.

A couple of orderlies approached as he got out of bed, but he threatened to punch them, and as Nathan was famous for his punching at this time, none of the orderlies dared to test the threat. Nathan walked out, followed by two doctors, a nurse, three orderlies, and about a dozen onlookers.

Outside, Nathan walked up the street, his clothing still bloodied with two bullet holes in the sleeve and one in the chest. He hailed a taxi and watched the rubberneckers disappear in the rear view.

Two days later, Nathan received a call from some congressman’s aide saying thank you for saving the life of Ackmabar Mufastofeiles the Third, and can you attend a State dinner in your honor? Nathan said he’d have to think about it. Later that day, he went to the Star and Siren where the girl behind the counter refused to take his money for coffee. He asked why, and she told him, “Coffee is free for anybody on the front page of the paper.” He flinched away, and she assured him, “Oh no! It’s good news!”

Nathan picked up a paper, then walked out with coffee in hand. Sure enough, there he was on the front page of the Cityopolis Cryer. It was an old photo, some stock piece, but the article had all the current information. It spoke of an assassination attempt and also of a rather peculiar hospital visit. The hospital refused to comment other than to say that he had been admitted and released within the day—but there were hints of strangeness, some anonymous words about the anomalies of the surgery. It suggested bandied threats, and also the over-prescribing of drugs. He rolled his eyes.

There was more. Reading the paper, Nathan found out about this Ackmabar Mufastofeiles the Third. The Third, as people were prone to call him, was the ruler of Samerikandia, a small sub-Saharan African country which at one time was a Dutch colony. Ackmabar was accused of tyranny, especially of jailing and torturing political dissidents. The United States Ambassador to Samerikandia denied that any of the leader’s imprisonings were politically motivated—but several organizations, including the PLES, had accused the United States of turning a blind eye to the actions of Ackmabar and his regime in exchange for cheap coffee, cocoa beans, and new found oil.

Samerikandia was a poor nation with enormous debts to the World Bank, ravaged by the AIDS epidemic, and flooded with refugees from nations in even worse straits than itself. The government used what little revenue it had from the coffee, cocoa, and oil to pay interest on its debt. There was little money to keep the power plants and sanitation in working order, yet Samerikandia was a place of mild discord, especially considering the conflict and unrest of some of Africa’s more unsettled countries—though most of the detractors said this was because The Third was an absolute tyrant that quickly dispatched any opposition.

Martin TenBrink, the would-be assassin, was a Samerikan refugee. He was being held on conspiracy, attempted murder, and assault with a deadly weapon; not to mention several charges that Nathan didn’t recognize that surely stemmed from the fact that The Third was a foreign dignitary. Martin had ties to the PLES, although the organization denied any involvement.

Reading the article, Nathan wondered at what he’d done; but suspected it would all blow over, given a few weeks—or maybe a couple months. Nathan called the congressman back and promised to attend the state dinner. It wasn’t terribly bad, as lots of powerful men deferred to Nathan. They shook his hand, asked about his boxing prospects, then tried to get him to commit money to their various causes. He found the experience to be rather sycophantic, and never again regarded the powerful with any sort of reverence. At least they were nice—but he wondered how they would have received him if he wasn’t super famous already, if he wasn’t so dang rich.

Nathan didn’t really have to talk about anything other than boxing and about how bad it hurts to get shot. Everyone said they were happy to see him doing well, then often wondered aloud if he’d be ready for his next fight just a few months away. They toasted Nathan, then Senator Bickersford from Jersey presented him with an autographed football signed by the entire Giants and Eagles teams, which was a nice touch. After that, The Third presented Nathan with a key to the country of Samerikandia and offered to put Nathan up if he should ever come visit. Although he smiled and shook the dignitary’s hand, Nathan vowed never to take The Third up on his offer as he found the man to be rather greasy.

The next day, Nathan returned to Cityopolis to find not one, but two protests, both arranged by the PLES, properly known as People for Liberty and Equality in Samerikandia. First, were the protesters at the airport with signs reading:

FREE SAMERIKANDIA

DOWN WITH TYRANNY

MARVELOUS LOVES THE DICK-TATOR

and unassociated claims like:

BOXING IS A BLOODSPORT

FREE TIBET

SKATEBOARDING IS NOT A CRIME

The second and larger protest was at the gates of his house and has been there, off and on, ever since.

Not wanting to be associated with the possible crimes of The Third and his regime, Nathan took pains to downplay his involvement in what had occurred, but The Third trumpeted Nathan’s heroism and even commissioned a statue commemorating the boxer.

Although he negotiated with the PLES, Nathan could not convince them to end the protests entirely. Instead, he took local action, and put in a standing order with Villacasia’s for a couple dozen pizzas to be delivered every night at 6—which may have actually encouraged the picketers. Over the following months and years, the crowd thinned and the standing order at Villacasia’s was reduced accordingly, though neither evaporated entirely. Out of gratitude for the pizza, the crowd refrained from harassing Nathan or his guests, only maintaining a presence at the gate of Marvelous Mansion out of sheer political will.

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