“Can I say something, Eva?” Power Grrrl reverse-rocketed to a stop and raised her hand as if she were a schoolgirl.
“Only if you turn that music down, Syndi.”
She wagged her hips, and the music ceased. “Why is it okay for Mister Piltdown to be sitting there judging us and insulting me? If he wants to be respected, doesn’t he have to, like, treat the rest of us with some respect?”
“Bzzzt for me too, girly!”
I openly fondled my whistle, but, lost in their escalating id-confrontation, my F*O*O*Jsters raged on obliviously. “Treat you with respect?” spat the Squirrel. “I’ll treat you with respect when you goddamn start acting like you deserve some respect! What would Hawk King say if he could see—”
“Festus—Mr. Piltdown, please. Please. Look deeply. You spoke a moment ago about propriety. Don’t we need to model the behavior we wish to have others emulate? Focus on how you feel instead of what other people are doing. That way you can take ownership for your own feelings. Remember, you’re a stockholder in the exchange of your own emotions, but only your own. You can’t control other people.”
The Squirrel crossed his arms, leaned back. “That’s the goddamn problem. These children need controlling!”
Syndi wagged her hips and the music resumed. “I don’t have to take that!”
I blew the whistle.
But nothing happened. As soon as my team realized that they were not paralyzed by behavior-modification migraines, they waded back into their swamp of invective. I raised my voice. “All right, now—which of you did this? Who used their powers on my whistle?”
They met my interrogative with stares of faux innocence.
“I see. Presumably, had only one of you sabotaged my whistle, someone else would have revealed his or her name out of vindictiveness. Since no name is forthcoming, I have to assume all of you attempted to or succeeded in using your powers against my whistle. That’s disappointing. And I’ll have to report that to your F*L*A*C.”
They raised a chorus of objections against me, but none was willing to lay the blame at another’s feet. Either they were all guilty—a bad sign indeed—or they were protecting one of their confederates, which meant there might, indeed, be hope for reducing the toxicity of their interrelationships.
Yet on they raged, led by Kareem. “This is just what we were already facing, times ten!” said the X-Man. “A power struggle! Cept without Hawk King, there’s no ref, the gloves are off, and the brass knuckles are on—”
From behind the furry mask and snub ears: “How dare you incite a riot at a time like this, Edgerton!”
From the buzzing ceiling: “Kreem, dawg, you always stirrin shit, like some Nat Turner–Mandingo plumber!”
“André,” spat Kareem, “I notice you aren’t eating any of the cream-puffs you brought. Afraid of cannibalism?”
“Fuck y’all!”
“André,” I began, “regardless of my whistle’s status, you know the rules about swearing—”
“You see this, Doc?” said Kareem. “Hawk King was the only thing left holding this screwfreak museum together. Now that he’s gone, the kot-tam F*O*O*J is gonna collapse at the precise moment there’s someone out there powerful enough to whack him. Someone lit fire to the house while we were all asleep, an they’re probably staked out across the street for us to start runnin out so they can shoot us down one at a time!”
“Emotions,” I said, standing to face the maelstrom, “are at critical energy, everyone. And I understand that. All of you held Hawk King in the kind of regard in which the public holds you. Right now you’re vulnerable. You’re afraid. You’re passing through the nine stages of the Brain-Silverman Grief Scale™, Revised. And you’re not here by choice but under orders from the F*L*A*C to participate in these sessions. So I understand you’re feeling especially pressured.
“Therefore it’s time now to disengage and reflect, and resume later. You have some choices on how to spend our remaining hours today: in the Id-Smasher®”—a suggestion greeted by groaning—“with Direct Writing time in the Neuro-Demonstrative Cerebiographer®”—more groaning, and louder—“or individual talk sessions with me.”
The groaning ceased instantly, as did Syndi’s music.
While they mumbled their assent to choice 1 or 2, Iron Lass reminded everyone of their duties, including preparation for Monday’s funeral for their fallen founder.
What will it mean for your life, and for your view of yourself, if the glory days never return?
Omnipotent Man: “I feel like a blinded horse with three busted legs.”
Flying Squirrel: “We’ll defend this planet. It’s what the King would’ve wanted.”
Iron Lass: “With the greatest of us gone…glory has no meaning.”
How will you face knowing that you will never exceed, or even equal, the accomplishments of your predecessors?
Brotherfly: “We have no choice. It’s live or be killed, right?”
Power Grrrl: “Same old story. Elders abandon you. I’ll shine without them.”
X-Man: “A world without Hawk King…frightens me. Especially now.”
Facing the Ultimate Archenemy
Nothing is more terrifying than facing the ultimate archenemy, Death, and its horrifying henchman, Grief. Maturity means recognizing the inevitability not only of combating these foes, but of our inevitable defeat at their hands. Even if we live long enough to evade their grasp for a century (or in the case of Iron Lass, two millennia), our reward will merely be to see all of our loved ones cut down one after the other.
Because you are a hero, your identity is based on exceeding limitations; therefore, the awareness of such inescapable defeat is a mental kidney stone that not even you can pass during the urination of your psychemotional processing. Death is a barrier even you can’t smash down, fly over, phase through, or disintegrate with your maservision. Consequently, dealing with death means invoking the most vile curse word ever to contaminate the tongue of any champion: surrender.
But paradoxically,
