How To Succeed in Evil (2 page)

This impossibility is a man flying many times faster than the speed of sound. This man never had a chance to study physics. He doesn’t know what he’s doing is impossible. He just does it. He is called Excelsior. In Latin the name means “ever higher” This impossible man does not know this. To be fair, there are a lot of words he doesn’t know.

But what good are words in moments of disaster? The endless stretching instant as the car begins to skid. That high speed memory that the survivors play over and over again, looking for the meaning of it all. What words are equal to these moments? What words are of use? No? Please? Stop? Don’t?

When the wheels lose traction and you look over at the innocent eyes in the car seat next to you, there are no words.

And this is where he is asked to go, this Excelsior. This is where he lives. Do we expect eloquence from the avalanche? From a mighty rocket? From the forces that shift the continents? No. We expect action. Power, undeniable. And this is what his powers have made him. A force of nature with the will of a man.

To be sure, there are other heroes. Other people with exceptional powers who have been called to help their fellow and (it must be admitted) lesser men and women. Some are more colorful. Some are more eloquent. But Excelsior has always been the most powerful.

In a perfect world, Excelsior would race towards flight 209 with a full heart. With humility. With fear. With angry tears in his eyes at the injustice of it all. He would be fully aware that each life on that plane was woven into the fabric of mankind. They might be sons, brothers, mothers, daughters, friends or enemies, but in his heart he would recognize that each was part of the mass. Each one another’s hope of redemption, of love, of care. And that when even one soul is cut from the cloth of humanity, the entire garment is weaker. Unravelled in pain and loss.

In the perfect world, Excelsior would recognize that there are no explanations for tragedy, just excuses that masquerade as facts. But then, if it was a perfect world, planes would not crash.

Excelsior is ignorant of all of this. Perhaps he is desensitized. But he flies towards this disaster (as he flies towards all disasters) not because people are at risk. He goes because he has been told to go. For him, Heroism has ceased to be right thing to do. Doing what he is told is the right thing to do.

And today he’s also going because he needs a win. He’s been taking it on the chin lately. Not feeling like a hero. But what else could he be? He’s the most heroic hero there has ever been. He’s the first. The best. The strongest. Like as not, there will never be another like him.

But for all his power, he is, like anyone else, held captive to his own feelings. And right now, he’s excited about a plane crash. Mostly because the last one was so good.

It seems like a dream now, but it had been 1944. A different age altogether. A bomber’s controls had failed and it dropped over New York City. He caught the B-29 and layed it down right in the middle of Broadway. Everyone had cheered. He drank with the bomber crew. He had found a pretty girl, flew her around the island of Manhattan, made love to her in a cloud and went home to sleep it off. It was a pure win.

And a pure win was what he needed. To feel like himself again. To feel that it all made sense. Now, if he had sex with a girl in a cloud she would get pregnant and sue him for paternity. How had it all gone so wrong?

But not today. He knows he will save this day. He imagines the cheering crowds. Some of them will have video cameras. The footage of his rescue will play over and over again on television and computer screens. He will not just be a hero again, he will feel like a hero again. He will watch himself on TV.

When he intercepts the plane it is at 6,000 feet, spinning and yawing and pitching out of control. Excelsior’s stomach churns just to think about being trapped inside the metal frame. He thinks to himself that he has been through worse. But has he? He has never faced certain death. The beach, he thinks. Set the plane down on the beach. That will look good.

As the plane continues to fall, he imagines girls in Bikinis. The sun glinting off aircraft aluminum. Survivors wandering through a volleyball game, trying to figure out why the afterlife looks like Southern California.

Before he dives towards the plane, he fills his lungs and cries, “EXCELSIOR!” He doesn’t want there to be any doubt about who’s actually saving this plane. But everything goes wrong. He can’t throw a jaunty salute to the pilot or the passengers. The windows are rolling so fast, they are just a blur. And he can’t get a hold of the damn thing. As he darts in towards the fuselage, the spinning plane slaps him away with its one good wing. He’s glad no one sees it.

Excelsior gets mad and knocks the wing off. The plane falls like a stone. Behind Excelsior the remaining fuel in the wing explodes in a bright fireball. It’s now or never. No more time for battle cries or salutes.

Excelsior dives hard and gets under the plane. His fingers dig into the aluminum. The plane slows, but not fast enough. He strains. The ocean rushes closer. At this rate, he’ll never make it.

Rivets pop out of the plane as he presses harder. It is a physical impossibility to lift something without a place to stand. But he does. The plane slows. But then, with the shriek of rending metal the fuselage rips in the middle. The tail and the nose slam sharply together, trapping Excelsior in an aluminum sandwich of disaster. He is exempt from the laws of physics, but the plane is not.

The fuselage disintegrates. Pieces of bodies and pieces of the aircraft are everywhere. Excelsior can think of nothing. Dread and failure overcome him. Somehow, he spies a man in a uniform falling beneath him. He seems whole. Perhaps he is alive. But the water is so close.

He dives again. Perhaps he can still save one. One would be something. It wouldn’t be victory, but it wouldn’t be failure. He snatches for the pilot mere feet above the ocean. The grab is good. His fingers close around the man’s wrist, and Excelsior launches himself skyward.

It is a feeling he wishes he could forget. Through the skin he can feel the muscles stretch. He feels the vibrating strings of the tendons give way. He feels, more than hears, the pop as the shoulder comes free from the socket. The body hits the water at over a hundred miles an hour.

For a moment, Excelsior is silhouetted against the setting sun clutching the arm he has managed to saved.

No one will say it is his fault. And the few who will know the truth of it will say that he did all he could. But Excelsior knows differently. He is the child of an age that knew right and wrong. And even though he is surrounded by relativists, he remembers that a loss is a loss.

He stares down at the slick of blood and oil. Watches the aluminum sink beneath the waves. He won’t go to the beach. Maybe he’ll head west for a while. Find an unmapped atoll and hide himself away in shame. It’s the only thing he can think to do.

But he knows, the next time there is a call, the next time there is another chance to be a hero again, he will go.

Like a junkie, he cannot refuse.

Chapter Two 

Vorld Domination

Edwin Windsor leans back in his chair. His long form is all angles and ease. Well over seven feet of him stretches from immaculately polished wingtip to slightly loosened tie. At the end of this day, he displays the rumpled elegance of a man who is perfectly at ease in a suit. Examining his face, one might mistake him for a serene mystic of the East. Except for a wrinkle that surfaces between his eyebrows.

This is frustration. Client-induced frustration. Deep inside him, Edwin believes that his life would be perfect if not for his clients. But, unfortunately for Mr. Windsor, his life is his clients. He is a most unusual kind of consultant. In all their myriad shapes and forms, consultants are a kind of parasite. At best symbiotic, but in all cases, useless without a host.

Even though he knows it is hopeless, he must try again. He interrupts the flow of babble that has engulfed him.

“So, Dr. Loeb,” he says, “tell me about your business plan?”

Blood rushes to Dr. Loeb’s shaven head. He is wearing a Neru jacket that is a little too small. The collar seems to prevent the blood from returning to his torso. It festers and turns purple. Edwin thinks that Dr. Loeb’s head resembles an obscene Christmas tree bulb. Perhaps he will have an aneurysm. This thought does not alarm Edwin. But, if it has to happen, Edwin would prefer for it to happen outside of his office. Just when the pressure seems to reach intolerable levels, Dr. Loeb releases it by screaming, “WORLD DOMINATION!”

Dr. Loeb’s face returns to a more reasonable shade. Now Edwin has a ringing in his ears. In an effort to clear some of the insanity from the room, he says, “That’s really more of a goal than a plan.”

“DOMINATION! DOMINATION! DOMINATION!”

Clearly, Dr. Loeb is insane. All of Edwin’s clients are insane. But not all of them are so obnoxious about it. Edwin tries to appease the man, in the hopes that this interview might end sooner. “I’ll just put down Mergers and Acquisitions,” he says as he pretends to scribble something on a pad.

“Ja, JA. Acquisitions! I will overtake ze vorld. And if you help me mit my endeavoring, I vill grant to you a small island as your revard. Say Aftsralia. Muhahahahahaha HAHA AHHAHAHAHAHAH!”

As the laughter continues, the wrinkle of frustration digs deeper into Edwin’s forehead. Australia? How insulting. Edwin’s standard arrangement is 35% of the post-laundered gross. Edwin is not in the real estate business. And even if he was, Edwin knows that Australia is a mere 5% of the Earth’s surface. Australia is not enough. To say nothing of the fact that Edwin does not keep score in yards. He keeps score in dollars. 35% of the world’s wealth, that is a goal.

Most importantly, taking over the world is an impossibility. The foolish conceit of a deluded mind. But his clients never seem to understand this. The less equipped they were to control themselves, the more they wanted to control the world. Why not start with an small island? A city block? An apartment building? One’s own temper?

Edwin knows that a reasonable goals are not buildings levelled, damsels abducted or heroes taunted — these are not the ends. They are means. The end is wealth. For lack of a better term, money. If a person has power or abilities, and that person is willing to live by their own moral code, then Edwin can help them. But this creature? This Dr. Loeb? All he seems to have is a shaved head and a formidable command of the cliches of villainy. This is a colossal waste of Edwin’s time.

Sensing that Edwin’s attention has wandered. Dr. Loeb shouts “AUSFSTRALIA!” again. He gargles on the word. Edwin flicks his eyes to Dr. Loeb. What is this obsession with land? True, it is the only thing they’re not making any more of. But time — time is the only thing you can’t buy. Edwin wonders why he is wasting his time with this idiot. One more try, he thinks, and then I will be done.

“Why are you yelling?,” Edwin asks.

“I’m excited.”

“Please try to control yourself.”

“Vell, I, ja, okay.”

“Now, I am also excited. Because if you are this excited, you must have a wonderful plan — a brilliant idea with which to take over the world. Please, tell me what it is, so I can help you.”

“I have plans for a giant Laser.”

Please, don’t say, in space, Edwin thinks. Anything but another giant laser in space scheme.

“A giant laser!” cries Dr. Loeb. His eyes dart from one side of the room to another, looking for those who would steal his secret and sinister plan. Seeing that the coast is clear, he bellows “IN SPACE!” Once again, maniacal laughter.

Edwin rubs the bridge of his nose and waits.

“You’re not laughing,” says Dr. Loeb.

“That is correct. I am not laughing.”

“But why? Do you not see the beauty of my sinister plan? Is it not unstoppable?”

“Unstoppable?” Edwin asks. “It’s unstartable.” Edwin gets up, buttons his suit jacket and walks from the room. He has decided that Dr. Loeb is the ultimate waste of time. A sunk cost. A waste so wasteful, so irredeemable, the only rational thing to do is to make future decisions as if Dr. Loeb had never existed.

“You’re coming back, right? I mean, ja?”

Chapter Three 

Ghosts of Clients Past

No doubt, you are familiar with the cramped wightwarrens of the modern business world. Perhaps you are one of the unfortunates who spends your every working hour longing to escape these narrow, frustrated places where the smell of cheap carpet hangs low amid poorly ventilated cubes. These places where the lesser demons of distraction run riot through phone systems and email. These places where The plants are plastic. The worker apes, hairless, hunched and pale. And hopeless. Oh so hopeless.

When these worker apes dream of their reward after death, their Heaven looks a lot like Edwin’s office. It occupies the top of a high tower that has the benefit of the cleanest air and clearest light in the city. And, if you didn’t know what Edwin did, you could easily mistake it for a temple dedicated to a clearer and more civilized religion than the world has ever known.

Edwin’s office is the size of a football field. On two sides, three-story windows reveal the city spread out below. Edwin’s desk is a simple slab, carved from the heart of a redwood tree. The surface is clean. Most notably, there is no computer.

This office is a place designed for the contemplation of lofty matters. If it were any kind of temple, it would be a temple of clarity. This is a room constructed to capture God-like intellect. Here one can nod to Apollo as he drives his blazing chariot across the sky. And here, Apollo will nod back.

This is the room Edwin abandons. Edwin is frustrated that he must relinquish such a space to Dr. Loeb. None of this shows on Edwin’s face. None of it shows in Edwin’s thoughts. But all the same, the carefully controlled emotions are there. They are pouring into a giant cistern of feeling hidden deep within him.

As Edwin walks the long hallway to his lobby, visages of past clients stare out at him from the walls.

Here, a picture of Aluminar, who’s semi-metallic skin flashes as Edwin passes. Aluminar had once attempted to mine the center of the Earth and convert part of its molten core into counterfeit nickels. Edwin had advised against this scheme, suggesting that if one was going to use the power to tunnel effortlessly through the Earth for mining, perhaps gold or oil would a more profitable objective. Aluminar had not seen it that way. He had never returned from his storybook attempt to reach the center of the Earth. Perhaps he was still down there? Or perhaps he had encountered one of the several elements that rendered him powerless and inert. Whatever the case, the hole he had created in the poor soil of Eastern Oregon had collapsed in on itself. And now, only a nameless sinkhole marked Aluminar’s grave.