Ivan likes working at the hospital and he is grateful that he can work while he studies for his certification in nursing. It makes sense for him to become a nurse and he is eager to learn as much as he can so that he can handle the needs of the patients he encounters everyday. He does a lot of transporting materials between local area hospitals, and he is faster than anyone imagines the job should be done. He keeps a bike with him and he makes sure that his coworkers see him riding it with samples in hand, and when he is in the clear, he flies to his destination, levitating the bike along with him. It is a relatively mundane use of his powers and he is happy that they are helpful for more than facing off with enemies in dangerous conflicts.
His life is good since his return home and he smiles when he walks home from work today. He is eager to tell Alia about the patient he had spent the day with, an old woman with no family who suffers from sickle cell anemia that is closely monitored by doctors. She reminds him so much of Alia and he is sure that she will be a similar woman in her old age.
They had talked about everything and she listened to Ivan talk about his partner and the ups and downs of their time together.
“I just worry that I make him more aggressive,” Ivan explained as he drew blood samples. He was so good at it that the woman barely even felt it and he was able to draw multiple samples as they conversed.
“Well, that’s how men show they care,” she explained to Ivan. “You know that by now. I bet he ain’t bought you flowers or jewelry a day in your relationship. It’s cause he ready to fight the world if you say so, and to him, ain’t nothing more meaningful than that.”
“Yeah, but he knows I don’t like it. He knows I hate it when he’s mad. He scares me when he’s mad.”
“For real,” the woman said skeptically. “It ain’t no part of you that like that about him? You sound like me, you get mixed up with a hothead and then wonder why the temperature twenty degrees higher when he around. If you love him like you say you do, and I don’t doubt that you do, but if you do, then you love every part of him and it excite you when he mad. Y’all young people so bold nowadays, men marrying men and all, y’all brave for sure, but you scared to be honest with yourself. That’s a human trait, time can’t change that.”
Ivan was silent and thoughtful. Clay is handsome when he is angry. He is picturesque with his shirt off and basketball shorts that hang past his knee, yelling at someone or about something. It rarely ever happens, but if Clay was just hanging around the house and the cable went out for the fifth time for no reason, he might call the company to complain and Ivan loved watching him bark and yell, he loved the brow that seemed to sag like it was suddenly weighted and his eyes seemed to sharpen. His muscles tensed and he was the perfect vision of a man.
“But I get that you worry about him,” the woman continued. “I been around for a long time and there’s at least one thing I know for sure; the world is always looking for a reason to be cruel to a black man. People still don’t believe that after all this time, but it’s true, so I understand why you worry about his anger, but don’t pretend like you can’t stand it. He probably know, so when you scold him like that, he think you putting on a show.”
Of course Ivan hadn’t told her every detail of their relationship, he was sure to leave out all the glowing and the encounters with supernatural beings, but she seemed to understand him and her advice was pointed.
When he arrives home, Ivan searches the house for Alia. It’s strange that he can’t find her; she had been venturing outside more in the past few weeks, but she had assured Ivan and Clay that she would not leave the yard without them. Ivan calls Gertrude and Vita, neither of whom have seen her and Ivan worries until Clay comes home.
Clay is upset, he wants to do something. But Ivan has a realization.
“It’s Alia, Clay, she goes where she wants when she wants to. That’s sorta her thing. She knows where home is if she needs us. You know she wouldn’t want us to worry.”
Ivan says it because he senses that the words are necessary, but he hardly believes it. He thinks about the guy, Yuri, and his connection to the alien doctor. But Alia always seemed in control of her interactions with him.
The two don’t have long to contemplate the sudden disappearance of Alia before there are loud knocks on the door. Clay answers it roughly, swinging the door fast.
A shirtless young man stands on the porch and he smiles slyly at Clay. He exposes himself and Clay is taken aback.
“Peace offering,” the young man says, “whatever y’all wanna do.”
Clay growls and grabs the young man by the throat. The man smiles though he is obviously in pain.
“Why you here?” Clay asks.
“Jamar sent me,” the man manages and then Clay throws him to the ground. “He trying to be nice, sent y’all a present, sent me. Y’all don’t have to fight each other.” The man slowly regains his footing. He sways as he stands, obviously intoxicated and he never loses his lazy smile.
“You tell Jamar I want to talk to him. Tell him not to send no more boys to my house, the next one gone lose a dick. He can meet me on the sidewalk tomorrow. Go!” Clay grabs the young man again and he tosses him to the sidewalk, then slams the door behind him.
When he turns, Ivan is there, trying not to laugh. Clay is angry but a smile creeps over his face.
“What you think that was about?” Ivan asks.
“Peace offering,” Clay says and they both laugh.
“He wasn’t ugly,” Ivan says sheepishly.
“Shut up,” Clay says sharply.
The next day after work, Clay stands on the sidewalk in front of his house with Ivan next to him and they stare at the house across the street, waiting for Jamar to emerge. But he doesn’t come from the house, he approaches Clay’s house surrounded by an entourage of about ten guys on the sidewalk. Ivan notices them first and he points as they approach. A green flame rages from his eyes and he takes flight to watch the scene from overheard; Clay had asked him to provide aerial support in the event Jamar showed up with backup, mostly as a show of the couple’s abilities.
“It’s a crazy time to be alive,” Jamar says with his eyes up watching Ivan floating above them. He doesn’t smile. He speaks to Clay with familiarity even though this will be the longest conversation that the two of them have ever had, and he seems very earnest, like he is hoping to convey sincerity.
“That man is flying,” Jamar says as he turns his attention to Clay. “Just up there, no wings or nothing, not like that would make anymore sense. How y’all do what you do?”
Clay shrugs. “That ain’t what we here for…”
“It’s been eating at me this whole time,” Jamar continues, cutting Clay off, “and I been wanting to know what all this is. Y’all can’t be the Lord punishing me, not unless he really don’t mind faggots. Excuse me, for real, I don’t want to offend y’all, I don’t, y’all done proved y’all self more man than everybody standing with me. I don’t mean no disrespect. But, like I was saying, it probably ain’t a religious thing, y’all don’t seem like the religious type. Y’all ain’t slanging nothing so it ain’t no rival gang shit. You just a random, superpowered nigga that don’t like me and my business. I know we got a showdown to get to, and this is probably the last one right? This the dramatic finale, but before we get down to it, I just really need to know why, I wanna know how, y’all do what you do. You and your man up there could be chilling right now, I even sent a present to help with that, but no. You called me out here to throw down. Well, I’m here, you gone get what you want. Give me what I want. I just want to know.”
Clay respects the speech. “Ivan is the grandson of a shaman. My grandfather, my father had this curse that made them stronger than the average man. That’s what we know. We both love each other, we make each other happy. We think everybody deserves to live their life without worrying about unnecessary violence, or they kids getting hooked on drugs so they can be a slave to a man like you. This is all me, Jamar. Ivan loves me and he’s here for me, but this is me fighting hard for the community that raised me. I’m grateful to it and I won’t let you have it because I can stop you and people like you, and I will.”
Jamar doesn’t notice, but after Clay finishes his speech, a few of the young men thoughtfully walk away from Jamar’s entourage, no longer interested in backing him, but they stand close to watch Clay with admiration.
Jamar nods thoughtfully. He hadn’t expected the answer he receives and he has to think on it.
“You think you gone get rid of drugs? Get everybody clean?”
“I don’t know, I just know that people like you shouldn’t be able to exploit that weakness.”
Jamar chuckles, “You ain’t even got no plan. You just heard what a bad guy was when you was a kid and now you got the big guns and you just wanna pop off. You wanna know what I do for this community? I pay for a whole baseball league for this community, free of charge. I feed the homeless at the church. I built that fucking homeless shelter! I care about this community too. I brought myself up from nothing, I scraped dust together and I minted me a gold mine, and I ain’t the only one reaping the benefits. Look around, you been here nigga, tell me this place ain’t better off now than it used to be?”
“You trying to convince me that you good for this community?”
“I want you to see that I ain’t the worst thing. All the shit out here terrorizing people and you out here dealing with small stuff. You want to help some people, go stop some wars.”
Clay knows that Jamar is right, but he has responsibilities, he has a home and it needs something to break through the stagnation that has seen generations subjected in poverty and horrible instances of exploitation.
“You ain’t wrong,” Clay says. “You a smart man, why you do what you do? You know why you so bad for this community? It’s cause you flashy and you got everything poor people want, and you teach them that your way is the only way to get it. You poisoning minds Jamar. And I should say, you really are right, there are bigger things that I will and have fought to stop, and it’s more in your backyard than you know, smart man. That man up there,” he points at Ivan who idles patiently above them, “has been to hell, a real fucking hell, and he fought his way back. There are bigger monsters out there Jamar, and we been fighting them, and we will when it fall on us. You keep falling on us.”
It’s clear to Jamar that Clay will not be talked down from their conflict. He whistles and the entourage ambushes Clay. Jamar takes off running away from the scuffle and Ivan is on him quickly, before there is a chaos of police sirens that makes Ivan stop his pursuit. When he sees Jamar approach the crowd of police cars in the street that come to a stop and block the road, he is confused to see the drug dealer/purveyor of prostitution converse with the officers who get out of their cars and draw their weapons.
The officer who speaks with Jamar raises a bull horn to his mouth and then approaches Ivan just as Clay knocks out the last of the entourage.
“You are both under arrest!” the officer yells through the bull horn. “Surrender now or we will open fire.”
It was Ivan’s worst nightmare, a police force with guns trained on a hostile Clay. He could see Jamar smiling in the distance.
Earlier in the day, before his showdown with Clay, Jamar was at the stash house with the girl. She was detailing plans to ambush Clay and Ivan with the army of drug dealers on their payroll. They sat in her office, and he wanted to listen to her, she had a ruthless plan that would cause a lot of chaos and make a moral man like Clay feel guilty for having to hurt so many people. It was a cruel plan and he wanted to enact it, but then his mind grew fuzzy and it was hard to concentrate.
A spider had found its way into the house and it descended from the ceiling to land on Jamar’s shoulder. It was jet black and it climbed into Jamar’s ear where it burrowed deep and started its influence.
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