As mentioned here (and in many scattered posts before that), I've had a notion of collecting and expanding the narrative of my Copperhead Kid and related short stories. I've written and sold five stories in this series, all published by the good folks at AHOY Comics.
In addition to the five stories that have already seen print, I have tentative beginnings for two more stories, and vague ideas for a bunch more. The goal is to string all of these together, linking the individual tales--of a gunfighter in the old West, a masked vigilante in the 1930s, a secret agent in the '60s, a punk chick in the '80s, and an about-to-retire superhero in the present day, plus the stories of other related characters across the timeline--and seeing if they work as a novel.
Here's that story so far, in their intended sequence: The five previously-published stories, and the openings of "Bullets From The Copperhead Detective" and "The Copperhead Kid's New York Adventure." Let's see how they look as a single work:
THE LAST RIDE OF THE COPPERHEAD KID
A gunslinger can't ride forever. The trail ends some time, even for the fastest gun in the West. Some trails end in old age. For most gunslingers, the trail ends in the grave.
Most gunslingers weren't the Copperhead Kid.
The dime novels said the Kid was the fastest there was. Anyone who challenged him learned just how fast the Kid was, and the Kid put them in the ground, every one of 'em. Those stories also said the Kid was a hero, riding from town to town on his faithful horse Rattler, helping the innocent, bringing justice to the wicked.
But the Kid was just a man. He rode whatever horse he could find or steal, always on the run, always riding, ever since he was indeed a kid. He was older now. He'd been on the run since he was sixteen, just after the war between the States. That was twenty years ago. His copper hair was starting to gray. Everyone still called him Kid.
The Kid was an outlaw. He didn't rob banks, didn't terrorize the weak. He kept to himself when he could. When he was cornered, he was fast enough. He never killed anyone who didn't deserve to die.
The first four men the Kid killed sure had it coming: deserters, on the run themselves. They made their murderin' way to the Kid's town of Lawton, Texas, tried to take over, pretty much succeeded. The Kid was away, delivering orders to customers of his family's general store. The Kid's Pa stood up to the four sidewinders, and paid the price. The Kid's Ma screamed at the killers, and the dirty dogs killed her, too. They took the Kid's sister, with evil intent, and she died trying to get away.
The Kid returned to town. He couldn't mourn. The ache in his sixteen-year-old soul drove him on. The Kid tracked two of the men to the whorehouse, and he cut 'em down. The Kid found the third sleepin' off a drunk, and roused him so he could see the Kid's gun as it ended him. The Kid faced the fourth in a showdown. The Kid was fast. The sidewinder never had a chance. The Kid's justice was swift and final.
But sidewinders or not, the Kid had killed four men, three of 'em unarmed. That made the Kid an outlaw. The deputy woulda let him go. But the sheriff was in cahoots with the sidewinders, and he wanted the Kid strung up. The Kid grabbed his Pa's hat, his Ma's red scarf, and his sister's plain but cherished cheap tin brooch, and he rode. He rode as far as horses could take him.
For twenty years The Kid rode and fought, rested when he could, kept going when he had to. He drank. He loved, in his fashion, never for long. He had to keep riding. Along the way, he helped some people. I ain't no hero, he said. But he couldn't stand bullies. He wouldn't allow any family to suffer like his family suffered. The Kid was fast. Make room for more sidewinders underground. The Kid rode on.
There was a price on the Kid's head. Dead or alive. Bounty hunters tried to catch him. The disgraced sheriff from Lawton dogged him for all that time. The Kid always got away.
The Kid's wide-ranging path brought him to Southwest Missouri. He and his horse stopped by a lake to rest for the night. Half-asleep, vulnerable, the Kid bolted upright, too late. Caught! After all these years, the ex-sheriff and his deputy finally had the drop on The Copperhead Kid.
"Been a long time, boy." The Sheriff spat on the ground and grinned his toothless grin. "Finally gonna see you get strung up."
The Kid was fast. The sheriff didn't even see the Kid draw, didn't have time to feel the hole in his own damned forehead. The sheriff joined his sidewinder pals in Hell.
The deputy didn't shoot. The Kid and the deputy stood facing each other, guns drawn, a Mexican stand-off. The deputy shifted his feet, not noticing that he was disturbing a copperhead--a real copperhead, a poisonous snake about to strike at the deputy's heel.
The Kid fired. The snake's head was ripped from its body. The deputy was safe. And that was the Kid's last bullet.
The Kid raised his hands. "Reckon ya finally got me, deputy."
The deputy holstered his gun. "Twenty years, Kid. I wasted all that time of my life chasin' you alongside that fool sheriff. You didn't deserve to be hunted. You wasn't no outlaw. I seen the things you done. You're a hero, Kid."
The Kid sneered. "I ain't no hero."
"Yeah you are, you damned idjit. Only reason I kept on your trail was to make sure the sheriff didn't get you in the end. If it came to it, I woulda blown that fool's head clean off before I'd let him hurt you."
"What now? You gonna take me in, or let me go?"
"Kid, even with the sheriff on his way to the devil now, bounty hunters ain't gonna stop chasin' after that price on your red head. We gotta make them think you're dead."
The deputy held out his hand.
The Kid sighed. He took off his Pa's hat and his Ma's red scarf. I'm sorry, Pa. I'm sorry, Ma. The Kid handed them over to the deputy. "I'm keepin' the brooch, deputy."
The deputy nodded. He took the hat and the scarf, and he motioned the Kid to his horse. "Ride, Kid."
And The Copperhead Kid rode away for the last time.
No one knows what became of the Copperhead Kid. Headlines and history claim he was killed in Southwest Missouri. We know that ain't so. Some say he moved East, settled down, had a family, started a life where he didn't have to ride anymore. They say he never drew his guns again. The Kid was fast. It was time to slow down. The last ride was over. The Copperhead Kid was no more.
Unwritten chapter: FREEDOM'S WHIP
Unwritten chapter: THE COPPERHEAD KID TAKES A BRIDE
Unfinished chapter:
THE COPPERHEAD KID'S NEW YORK ADVENTURE
He wasn't really used to big cities. But being in a teeming metropolis didn't bother him. The twenty years he'd spent on the run from the law taught him to adapt, to find his place in whatever place he found himself. Places were temporary. As a fugitive, he usually wouldn't stick around long enough to care all that much about where he was.
He'd settled down since then. Decades ago, he'd been a young gunslinger called the Copperhead Kid. He wasn't young anymore, and he wasn't a gunslinger anymore. He'd faked his death, put down his guns, and left the West behind. Go East, old man. Thirty-five years later, twenty years into this new 20th century, the former Copperhead Kid had a new life with a new name, a wife, a family. His younger sister's cheap tin brooch was the only thing he'd held onto from his past, and he kept that out of sight. There was no need for anyone to remember the Copperhead Kid.
But someone did remember. That's why the Kid was in New York.
The Kid was pushing 70 by now. Old enough to have one foot--hell, both feet--in the grave, but that had been true of the Kid for many years. Old enough to be a grandfather, but he'd started normal life late in life. He had a son, Hart, aged 22, who now lived in Harlem, and a 13-year-old daughter, Hedda, who lived with the Kid and his wife upstate.
How do I know all of this? I'm Hedda. I was there, for the Copperhead Kid's New York adventure. Daddy just didn't know that I was there. Not yet.
I trailed Daddy to an office building in Manhattan. From my hidden vantage point, I saw him stop at a newsstand; he appeared to be angry about something at the newsstand. As he disappeared into the building, I ran up and could immediately understand what had drawn his ire: a row of 10-cent story magazines--I guess they were called "pulps"--with a garish logo proclaiming The Copperhead Kid. We'd seen similar Copperhead Kid magazines--pulps--at a five-and-dime back home.
Daddy was not pleased. That's why he came to New York: To put a stop to it.
Permanently....
Unwritten chapter: THE DEPUTY'S STORY
Unfinished chapter:
BULLETS FROM THE COPPERHEAD DETECTIVE
The Copperhead Detective was far, far from home. Maybe the distance between his tiny office back in Harlem and his current location in Tibet wasn't really the greatest distance between any two points on Earth. It felt like it was. Back home, it was the final evening of 1924. In Tibet, it was already the wee hours of 1925's first day. A different world.
It didn't matter anyway. He had a job to do.
And it wasn't as if the Detective blended in with any type of setting. Wherever he was, in Harlem, in Tibet, or flying over Europe during the Great War, the Detective stood out. He towered a good 6' 4" tall, a thick mass of muscle with dark skin and close-cropped copper-colored hair. He carried an aura of menace, a promise of danger. If you could match his gaze (and few could), you might have a sense of the instincts and intellect--the soul--his sheer physical presence obscured.
People were afraid of him. And yet they still underestimated him. No one sensed the peril of challenging the Copperhead Detective, until it was too late....
THE COPPERHEAD STRIKES!
Throughout the 1930s, the headlines screamed: THE COPPERHEAD STRIKES! ORGANIZED CRIME REELING FROM ATTACKS BY MASKED VIGILANTE! FIFTH COLUMN TAKEN DOWN BY COPPERHEAD! COPPERHEAD DELIVERS GANGSTERS TO COPS' DOORSTEP! COPPERHEAD DISMANTLES TERROR PLOT! THE COPPERHEAD STILL AT LARGE!
And one persistent question across years of headlines: WHO IS THE COPPERHEAD? I was the only person who ever learned the answer to that.
I remember one blustery winter evening in 1939. A new war raged in Europe, its menace poised to threaten our own sovereign shores before too long. Snow fell heavily on an American city, a white blanket that covered all without concealing the grit and grime beneath it. As even the snow itself was engulfed by the dark shadows of metropolitan twilight, the city's denizens of night came out to play...and to prey.
At the docks--never the safest part of town--the evening shroud of darkness further emboldened its scavengers, its predators: the lawless, amoral element who broke the law and victimized the weak, the good, and the innocent impartially. Criminals. They thought themselves fierce and mighty, fearless, beyond the reach of the law.
But there was one that even they feared.
On this evening, a family from out of town--from some faraway place that was safer, saner--found itself separated from its tour group. The man, the woman, and their young son, all of them so far removed from any familiar surrounding, blundered into the wrong place at the wrong time, the worst time. Already nervous, scared, they were surrounded without warning. The chill air of the docks was nothing compared to the cold dread that gripped them as a gang of five thugs circled them, demanding money, demanding tribute, demanding blind terror, laughing and scowling at this poor family's plight. The mother clutched her son. The father did his best to shield his loved ones from harm, and to surrender his wallet to these assailants, but knowing with sick certainty that would not be enough to satisfy these four evil men.
Wait. Four evil men? Hadn't there just been five of them?
With a gurgled scream, that fifth attacker crumpled to the pavement, bruised and beaten, entering a long, painful slumber that could not be described as the sleep of the just. His four companions exchanged a miserable glance through the glittering, grimy snow. They knew. They'd lived in this city long enough to know, and to abandon hope. They would resist. They would fight. But their battle was already lost.
A phantom of black and copper, topped by an incongruous flash of long red hair, moved among them, striking too quickly to be real. It was a woman, her face concealed by a dark mask. Even these dull-witted devils understood their misplaced machismo would be no match for her. Her copper whip coiled and bit like a venomous snake. Two more fell to the ground, their weapons scattered, their bodies wracked with pain. Another tried to run, but stopped short as a black-gloved hand reached out from nowhere, gripped his throat like a vise, and then the toxic sting of her whip sent him into unconsciousness as well.
Only one of the thugs remained. Still armed with a knife, buoyed by the false bravado of his own desperation, the criminal lurched toward the boy and his mother, seeking hostages. It was the stupidest thing he had ever done in his misspent life. For now, he had drawn the ire, the anger, of this relentless wraith of vengeance.
His weapon was gone before he knew it. His intended victims were beyond his reach, before he knew it. He stood alone, face to terrible masked face, with the cold fury of...
THE COPPERHEAD!
The last thug fainted. It was a mercy he did not deserve.
With the brief battle over, The Copperhead's grim stance shifted, softened. She turned her attention to the family she'd rescued. No longer a figure of swift and merciless justice, The Copperhead transformed into an angel of mercy, tending to this family, making sure they were unharmed, unafraid. As help arrived, The Copperhead faded into the shadows once again.
The Copperhead knew the awful cost criminals could inflict upon a family, the ache of innocence lost. Innocence, and the innocent, must be protected. Her father had been a gunslinger in the Old West. His family suffered loss, but always fought for what was right. He passed his own sense of justice on to his daughter, The Copperhead.
And The Copperhead passed that on to the next generation.
The Copperhead didn't know I was there on that long-ago winter evening, watching her deliver both justice and mercy where they were needed most. Maybe she did know, and just never let on. I was thirteen years old, but I could see through her mask and her Halloween garb. I scurried back home, stopping just long enough to chase away some bullies pestering some little kids. Always protect the innocent. I still made it home just before The Copperhead arrived. She was no longer masked, no longer an avenger. No longer The Copperhead.
"Cody," she said to me. "Did you get your homework done, or did you just listen to the radio and read your story magazines all evening?"
"Don't worry. I did what needed to be done. Just like you taught me."
She kissed me goodnight. And she returned to her room to plan the next step in her war on injustice. There were criminals to catch, Nazis to punch, wrongs to right. People to inspire. Innocents to protect. A family legacy to uphold.
I grew up to be a crimefighter myself, a secret agent, Codename: Copperhead. I have a license to kill. I have never used it; I find another way, like I was taught. I remember the lessons I learned: Fight. Be fair. Punish the guilty. But above all else: protect the innocent. That's what The Copperhead taught me. And every day I thank her for the example she set. Thank you, Copperhead. I love you, Mom.
Unwritten chapter: THE MIGHTY MUSHROOM ROAR
Unwritten chapter: I AM NOT NOW, NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN
THE COPPERHEAD AFFAIR
Secret agents are not prone to introspection. But this New Year's Eve, as 1965 prepared to slip into the abyss of history, the covert operative codenamed Copperhead reflected on the year about to pass. He had worked. He had fought. He had loved. He had saved the entire world once in '65, and saved the country three times more than that. All in secret. All for the common good. And all without breaking his own code. He had a license to kill. He had never used it. He always found another way.
Loud music, playing in a more public part of the restaurant, reached his ears. Everywhere a secret agent went nowadays, the bounce and sway of nightclub jazz seemed the inevitable accompaniment. Copperhead had grown accustomed to the sound. Hell, he'd even stopped joking about needing earmuffs to listen to The Beatles. He gave a silent chuckle as he finished his drink. 1965 had changed him.
Copperhead's hand, wrapped in snakeskin glove, set down his empty martini glass. At 5' 6", he knew he was shorter than most would expect of a secret agent. We can't all be Bond, or Napoleon Solo, he quipped. He was 39 years old, his red hair as yet untouched by gray. Not an old man. Not a young one either, not in this business. When the ball dropped at midnight, he would accept the fact of his 40th birthday descending upon him as well.
If he lived that long.
Director Morgan--Copperhead's superior at the clandestine agency--settled his large frame into a too-small chair to sit across the table from Copperhead. Morgan was flanked by a half dozen humorless security men, three of whom took their place behind Copperhead. Copperhead smiled politely and without warmth. "Director," Copperhead said in greeting. "I took the liberty of ordering you a martini."
Morgan picked up his martini glass and threw its contents in Copperhead's face. "A drugged drink?," the director sneered. "Surely you don't underestimate me to that degree, Copperhead."
Copperhead's smile did not change as he wiped the spilled liquid from his face. "I don't estimate you at all, Director. You're a traitor, and I'll be simply delighted to end your treasonous criminal career right now."
Morgan wasn't sure whether to laugh or sneer. "Your overconfidence is your undoing, you idiot." Copperhead interrupted: "Perhaps. Though the evidence I've gathered against you should more than compensate."
"Evidence...?" Morgan somehow refrained from sputtering. "Oh yes," Copperhead continued in earnest. "Photographs, documents, banking ledgers, many from secret overseas accounts. Incriminating correspondence. That sort of thing. Evidence of you working with the Chinese and the Russians, both ends against the middle, all of them in betrayal of your own country's interests. Some ex-Nazis, too. I can't imagine your soon-to-be-former comrades in the Kremlin will be happy with the dossiers they've received from...well, let's say from a concerned citizen." Copperhead's smile flashed more widely. "American authorities should be on their way here," Copperhead checked his watch,"ah yes, any minute now.
Morgan's face reddened with fury. "'Concerned citizen,' my ass. That slut Betty...!"
Copperhead's facade of congeniality disappeared. "Your wife, Director. The wife you ignored except when you insulted her, or beat her. I hate bullies. She's safe from you now."
"Safe in your arms, no doubt." Morgan turned to his thugs. "We have time to escape. Kill him quickly."
Before those words had finished leaving Morgan's scowling lips, Copperhead had already dropped to the floor, kicked, and permanently crippled two of his would-be assailants. Copperhead smashed a third foe's head into the wall. The three thugs at Morgan's side drew their weapons as Copperhead leaped across the table, tackling them all at once. One shot himself in the gut, and now writhed on the floor in agony. The other two saw their guns fly from their grasp as blows from Copperhead sent both of them far away from the conscious world.
Morgan was still seated. He aimed his Luger at Copperhead, but found himself frozen stiff in place, even as he tried to pull the trigger. The director's voice could only manage a croaked "What did you do...?!"
Copperhead's smile was now genuine, if no less cold-blooded. "Neurotoxin. Old family recipe, actually. It was on the stem of your martini glass. Nasty stuff to touch." The now-silent director looked with dismay at Copperhead's gloved hands, and understood. "It won't kill you. You'll never move a finger, nor a leg, nor anything. You'll never be able to speak. And you'll never hurt anyone again."
Copperhead kicked the chair out from under Morgan's bloated carcass.
"And I don't give a damn what the Russians do to you."
As Morgan fell helplessly to the floor, Copperhead stepped over the prone figures of his enemies. They never see it coming, never expect Copperhead to strike, he mused. Must be because I'm short.
Morgan's wife Betty was waiting for Copperhead downstairs. They embraced and exited the restaurant as police arrived. The Russians were coming, too. Whatever happened next was no longer Copperhead's affair.
Affair. It had started off as just another affair, and he'd had many of those before. But Copperhead hated bullies. And he had fallen in love with Betty.
Betty glowed in Copperhead's presence. She wasn't showing yet, but they both knew. The secret agent game was no job for a father. As the ball dropped to welcome 1966, Copperhead would spy no more. 40 years old. He wasn't a young man. He wasn't an old one either. His license to kill would not be renewed. He'd never used it anyway.
Unwritten chapter: ROCKET TO RUSSIA
CHAOS AT THE COPPERHEAD CLUB
She was just 17, if you know what I mean.
Her name was Copper; I didn't know if that was her real name, or just a nickname inspired by her close-cropped red hair. As she pogo-strutted on the stage, playing a bass guitar as if it deserved a sound thrashing, singing Beatles and Kinks songs with a teenage punk rock group that seemed to think it was still 1965, I stood in the small and sweaty crowd, transfixed. It was the summer of 1983. I was a week shy of my own 18th birthday, and a cosmic truth struck me with unshakable certainty:
I was in love.
My name’s Maisie, and everyone calls me Maze. This was my first slammin' visit to The Copperhead Club. I didn't need my fake ID; The Copperhead did all-ages shows, and I didn't care about booze anyway. Gimme a cup of coffee, and gimme some rock 'n' roll, loud and fast. Copper was on stage, I was in my heaven, and if all wasn't right in the world, I woulda said, "Close enough!"
I had heard about this place, and I had heard about Copper. She ran The Copperhead Club, owned it and operated it, even though she was just a minor. People knew not to mess with her. The stories about Copper were crazy, rumors that she came from a long line of...I dunno, crusaders or something. Her great grandfather was, like, the fastest gun in the old West. Her grandmother was, get this, supposed to have been a masked vigilante during the Depression, kicking Nazi ass and cracking a poisoned whip. Her dad was some kind of James Bond type of guy in the '60s. Nuts, right? I don't know if anyone really believed that nonsense, but it didn't matter. Everyone deferred to Copper as if they believed.
Watching her perform was the first time I realized that I liked girls, not boys. I was gay? I was gay. I'd had no idea until that moment.
Which was precisely the moment when some jock decided to start hitting on me.
I tried to shrug him off, even tried to do it politely at first. He was drunk. Duh. I slapped him, hard, lighting a dim spark of anger in his gray and stupid eyes. He raised his hand....
And Copper was there.
The rest of the band never stopped playing. I guess they'd seen this all before. Copper had jumped from the stage, unplugged bass in hand, and gotten right in Drunk Jock's face. "Shove off, asshole," she said in an even tone. "I don't like bullies." It was as close to a warning as the dummy was going to get.
He didn't take it.
He raised his hand again. He was rewarded with a bass guitar smashing into his face, freeing a few of his teeth in the process. He staggered back in pain, his mouth bleeding. Furious, he lunged at Copper with all the force of his chuckleheaded rage.
Copper twitched her hip. I swear to God, that's all I could see her do. Her swift kick to his head was so fast it was invisible, but it hit like a friggin' neutron bomb. Dumb Jock was sprawled on the floor, unable to pick himself up.
He had friends with him. Of course. Jackals travel in packs. One had a switchblade, one was built like an entire offensive line, and one broke a bottle--just like in the movies!--as they converged on Copper. Copper smiled. And Copper jumped.
It was aerial ballet. Copper somersaulted, landing feet-first on Dumb Jock's stomach. Actually, she might have landed a little south of his stomach, given how he screamed when she touched down. She bounced off him and seemed to float in mid air as she kicked two of his moron buds senseless, sending their blade and bottle flying, and sending them both into bruised slumber. Her bass still in her hand, Copper brought its body into the biggest thug's belly, and as he doubled over her head butted his and her free hand chopped into his neck. He folded like a cheese omelet.
With four bad guys now prone and defeated on the floor, the band still had not missed a note. With a short leap, Copper returned to the stage, plugged her bass back in, and resumed singing into the mic as if there had been no interruption. It was a song by the Kinks.
Girl, you really got me goin'....
From the stage, Copper looked at me, and our eyes met. And all I could think was, My hero!
As the set finished, the cops came in. I expected more trouble, but the police all knew Copper, and they deferred to her, too. Maybe the weird rumors about her were true. The thugs were carted off without incident.
Copper walked over to me. "Ya okay there, sis?" I nodded, unable to summon speech.
She smiled at me. "Wanna get another cup of coffee? On the house, sis." I stammered my name in introduction. That earned a wink, and Copper draped an arm over my shoulder. "Please to meet ya, Maze. Welcome to The Copperhead Club." Music played on the jukebox. Music played in my heart. Girl, you really got me. My hero, indeed.
Some unwritten chapters TBD
FLIGHT OF THE COPPERHEAD
She changed her name to something invisible.
She had been a Copperhead, heir to a distinguished family legacy of heroism. She had fought with honor and dedication. She'd saved lives, stood up to powerful bullies, inspired hope for the hopeless.
She was 30 years old. She didn't want to be a Copperhead anymore.
She made her move in the wee hours, when she hoped no one would see. She cut her long hair short, dying the abbreviated tresses from their original vibrant copper color to a nondescript black-brown-gray. She took nothing with her. She drove her car to the beach, abandoned it there, backtracked home and hurried off in an opposite, irregular direction. By rush hour, she'd walked downtown, and was able to blend in with commuters who paid her no mind. A bus here. A stroll there. A subway ride. Another bus. Another bus. Another bus. A new state. Blue highways. Freedom. Invisible freedom.
Within two days, he'd found her again. He would have been quicker, but he'd been on a mission in another galaxy. He'd gotten to her as soon as he could. A superhero's girlfriend knew the deal.
A superhero's ex-girlfriend knew the deal in detail.
He sat across from her at the diner, dressed in civilian guise, his eyes sad behind the glasses that fooled so many. "Copper Girl," he greeted her. She'd grown to hate that name. But his demeanor was humble. "I don't want to bother you," he said. "I really don't. I want whatever's best for you, whatever you think is best for you." He was kind. But he was hurt. "I just need to ask you...."
She completed his question: "Why. You want to know why."
He cast his gaze downward. He sipped from a mug of coffee, a familiar human habit, even though the caffeine granted him no buzz. He needed it anyway, every morning. He shrugged, and refrained from sobbing. "Yeah," he said. "You don't have to answer. You don't have to do anything you don't want to. But...why?"
She sighed. She gulped. She confessed. "I'm sorry," she said. "You're...too much."
He looked up, as stunned as if a mad scientist had smooshed a green-radiation custard pie to his superheroic kisser. "Ex...excuse me," he stammered. "I'm....'too much?'"
"No, no," she said quickly, impatiently, at least as disappointed with herself as she was with him. "That's not fair. It's not your fault. It's...this." Her hands made a circle in the air. "All of this, this superhero world. You. Me. My goddamned Copperhead family legacy."
Copperheads. She thought of them all, from her great great grandfather riding the range more than a century ago, through her mother kicking bullies' asses while playing bass in a punk rock band. "I'm tired of it." She almost spat the words out. "It's been my life, and my family's life for generations. My brother. My Mom. My grandfather. His mother. Her father. From the freaking Old West into the 21st century. I'm bored with adventure, sick of intrigue. I don't want to be Copper Girl. I want...normal."
"Normal."
"Normal. Yes, damn it. I don't need to define it. I need to live it."
She got up to leave. He didn't try to stop her. As she neared the door, she didn't want to look back at him. She had loved him. She knew he still loved her. The lingering memory of what they'd had together forced her to steal a final glance.
He wasn't moving. His shoulders began to slump. In despair? No. She looked at his nearly-empty cup of coffee, now tipped on its side. She could sense the green glow within. Green radiation. Damn it. Damn it! He'd been poisoned.
His enemy's minions appeared, as indifferent to her presence as she'd been oblivious to theirs. How had he, the mighty guy with the super senses, not seen them coming? But she knew the answer to that. He'd come to this diner looking for her. He'd only had eyes for her. His mad scientist arch enemy knew to strike at him through her. The gang had followed Copper Girl, on her quest for normal, and they'd sprung the trap. The bad guys had taken advantage of her yearning for a new and normal life.
Normal? She gritted her teeth. Screw normal.
She read the room quickly. Seven lawless goons, intent on carting her ex's prone form off to their boss's secret lab. A dozen puzzled and/or terrified bystanders.
Just the sort of odds she preferred. Once a Copperhead....
The first two minions didn't even see her coming, as she dispatched them both with quick blows to their thick, unrepentant skulls. She slid and took out a third stooge at his knees, threw a chair at a fourth who ducked, laughed at her, and stopped laughing as her high-flying kick sent him into a pained slumber. She flung her own breakfast plate into one foe's face, ensuring his Christmas wish would be for Santa to bring him a new set of two front teeth. He staggered forward, buoyed by fury and bravado, and his misplaced bravery was rewarded with an elbow to the throat, a knee to the groin, and a shove against the wall and into unconsciousness.
Four down.
The remaining three had now had time to notice her. Weapons drawn. Potential hostages eyed. Copper Girl leaped into the air, landed on one thug, her impact forcing him into another thug's unprepared body. They dropped their guns, and didn't even have time to curse before her fists dropped them both. The lone remaining criminal looked at her, evaluating what she'd already done to his partners. His options duly weighed, he surrendered.
She knocked him out anyway. But she knocked him out as gently as one could knock someone out.
She rushed to her former lover's side. He'd fallen to the floor, his breathing shallow. She gave him mouth to mouth, trying to get him to breathe. He coughed up some of the toxin. A good sign. His healing powers were trying to rally. She needed to get him into the sunlight.
He had super powers. She did not. She struggled to lift him to his feet. As diner patrons realized what was happening, they rose to assist. With their help, she got the hero outside.
The warmth of the sun was an electric current coursing through him. His strength returned. His eyes opened. He floated off the ground, allowing his super brain to inform him of all that had transpired during his near-death experience. He smiled. It was a smile born not of joy, but of acceptance.
"Nice job," he said. "Thought you said you were all done with adventure and intrigue?"
She looked up at him. A goodbye look. "I can still fight, babe." There was affection in her voice. She was saying goodbye nonetheless. "I just don't want to if I don't have to."
He waived at her, his unseen thought balloons wondering how he would get through a lifetime of days and nights without her. But he knew it had to be, and she knew he wished her well. Up and away he flew, off to find his mad scientist. That guy was about to get a particularly super thrashing. No one could deny he had it coming.
She felt the lone tear escape her eye as she watched him fly out of sight. Normal. It was time to reclaim her invisibility.
A little girl who had been in the diner came up to her. "Excuse me," the child said, voice trembling with excitement. "Are you...Copper Girl?"
The former Copperhead touched her own hair, playing with the dull dyed strands that masked the original color. "No, honey," she replied. "I'm not Copper Girl."
And she wasn't. Not anymore.
More unwritten chapters to follow.
***
And that's our story so far. Whaddaya think? Our Copperheads are standing by.
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| Ed Catto's illustration for "Chaos At The Copperhead Club" |
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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!! https://rarebirdlit.com/gabba-gabba-hey-a-conversation-with-the-ramones-by-carl-cafarelli/
If it's true that one book leads to another, my next book will be The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Stay tuned. Your turn is coming.
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