The Ultimate X-Men (8 page)

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’Cept maybe his singing. Lord, he has such a lovely singing voice, like no one I’d heard before or since. Oh, ’cept for Lila. Or Alison Blaire. ’Course, they’re professionals. What the heck did my dangfool brother know about “making it” as a singer? How could he leave the farm to go on some merry chase to be the next Garth Brooks? I love my brother. But if he was standing in front of me when I got the news, I swear I would’ve boxed his ears. How dare he leave Momma alone to run the farm for something as frivolous as this? College I could understand. But a singing career? With poor Joelle probably still recovering from her run-in with that cult and the rest of the young’uns still not big enough to handle the farm by themselves, and Momma . . . well, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. I had to figure out what to do.

Now mind you, I ain’t ashamed to say that I had one or two other things worrying me on a fair to regular basis— not the least of which was my recent promotion from leader of the X-Force team to a full-fledged member of the X-Men. But dangit, family’s important. I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about Josh leaving the farm. And I couldn’t stop thinking about my momma workin’ herself to the bone, with me gone for years, Paige havin’ left only recently, and now Josh. And I couldn’t help but feeling a symphony of guilt that started as soon as I discovered my mutant powers and took Professor Xavier’s offer. But most of all, I couldn’t stop tryin’ to figure out what I could tell Josh to make him give up this damnfool idea and get him to go back to the farm where he belongs. And that’s what I was thinkin’ about when the Beast threw Gambit at me.

For most of the week, Professor X had seen fit to pit

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pairs of us X-Men against each other for practice. For this particular Danger Room session, the Professor put the Beast and Gambit on one side, and Archangel and myself on the other. Two flyers against two walkers. Heck, I had Archangel on my side, and he’s one of the original X-Men. I figured we had it all over Hank and Remy. Of course, I didn’t account for how distracted I’d be over that letter.

The X-Men call it a “fastball special”: one member throws the other one to take out one or several opponents. Well, that’s all well and good if you’re fighting against the Marauders or the Genoshan High Guard, but I guess I didn’t expect it in a simple Danger Room sequence.

I’m invulnerable to dang near anything when I’m using my blasting power. Gambit knew that, and it gave him free reign to cut loose. Remy charged up his quarterstaff, filling it to bursting with energy, and, with the force of the fastball special behind him, brought it full-tilt into my solar plexus. Now, it didn’t exactly hurt. But it bounced me off a couple of the Danger Room’s walls and shocked me out of blasting. I hit the floor, dislocating my shoulder.

Now, these Danger Room sessions are rough on purpose. Professor X says it’s the only way to keep ourselves sharp for real missions, and he’s right. But, damn, did my shoulder hurt! Remy apologized, even though we both knew we’re supposed to give it our all in the Danger Room. And the Beast was even kind enough to reset my shoulder, which didn’t make it hurt any less, but at least I could move it around some. Then I went back to my room to nurse my arm and my pride. I wouldn’t have minded a bit of time to myself.

No such luck.

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“Guthrie!”

I could hear my girlfriend hollering all the way from the other end of the East Wing. For a pretty little thing of five feet four or so, there was a danged good reason even aside from her mutant powers that she took the code name Meltdown. Even when she wasn’t trying, she was goin’ critical. And this time, she was trying.

She burst into my room without knocking. “Where the hell have you been? I do hope you realize that you just stood me up for lunch!”

I slapped my head with my hand. “Tabitha, honey, I’m sorry. I forgot. But we weren’t goin’ out for lunch or anything ...”

“That’s not the point, Sam! We hardly get to see each other as it is without you forgetting little things like ‘meet me in the commissary at two.’ How hard is that to remember?
^?!

I caught on quickly that there wasn’t no way I could blast myself out of this particular doghouse. “Tab, I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind and—

“Yeah, Sambo, I’ll just bet you do. I see you looking at the other women on your team. You think I don’t notice you and Psylocke making eyes at each other in the Danger Room?”

And I thought I could only get blindsided in the Danger Room. “What?”

“I’ve got eyes behind these shades, Guthrie. Don’t you dare try putting anything over on me. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you were watching every move that she made, that tramp ...”

Now, I know a lot about Tabitha. I know how she needs

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a lot of attention, ’cause she’s real insecure and all that— problems with her dad and all. I also know that our relationship’s taken a few hits by my getting promoted to the X-Men and her staying behind in X-Force. We go on different missions most of the time and just can’t see each other as much as we’d like to. But this just wasn’t a good day to address it. And she obviously wasn’t in the mood to listen—or even to stop talking!

My shoulder ached something fierce, my head throbbed from the morning’s events, and it got harder and harder to listen to Tabitha’s ruckus. Now, I don’t like to speak ill of anybody, least of all my girlfriend, but, well. . . she got irritating. Too irritating. So irritating that I found myself getting up, grabbing her by the shoulders, and forcibly placing her on the other side of my door. Then I slammed it right in her face.

Of course, I used my bad arm, which made me even madder. Bad enough I’d failed my family and embarrassed myself in front of the other X-Men. But I wasn’t about to stand there and listen to Tabitha’s paranoid rants. I can only coddle her so much, you know? Sometimes I needed understanding. This was one of those times and I just couldn’t deal with Tabitha’s crazy accusations today.

I’ll never understand us. Meltdown ’n’ I’ve fought side-by-side against aliens, forces of nature, cold-blooded killers—you name it. We’ve been through more together than most couples dream of. But one little domestic squabble and both of us just go to pieces.

Well, I could hardly figure out what to do with myself after that. I wanted to just take off through the ceiling, blasting through floor after floor of the mansion and out into

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the sky. ’Course, I stifled that urge pretty quickly. I like to think of myself as a strong man—heck, I’m a mutant, after all. But that don’t seem to mean much in the face of family troubles, girlfriend troubles, and dislocating your shoulder, all in the space of a few hours. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I w
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anted to be alone with my thoughts. And getting out of the mansion seemed like a pretty good idea. The Institute’s getting more crowded all the time, and as for the woods outside the campus, well . . . Wolverine’s taken to living out there these days. And he’s been scaring me lately.

I was on a train bound for New York City within the hour. Now, you might wonder,
What the heck was Sam thinking, going to the biggest city in the world when he wants to be alone?
And if you are, then you must not have been to New York much. ’Cause there’s just so many people there, rushing around, each in their own world. That makes for millions of little worlds in one city, and I figured it wouldn’t mind one more. Besides, I wanted to be around normal people and maybe, just maybe, not worry about being a mutant for a while.

I started by just walking around downtown. I didn’t much feel like going to any of the museums, and I like the Greenwich Village area quite a bit. It’s kinda, well, alive. Everyone’s in their own little world in New York, but the Village is the best place to sit and watch ’em go by.

Another thing I like about the Village is it always looks the same. I’ve seen pictures of the Village from the 1950s and 1960s, and, well, there’s not much important about it that’s changed. The buildings are all there, and even some of the clubs and theaters are the same. But most of the storefronts are flashier now, and today there’s a lot more kids from the Empire State University campus running around.

Now, while the Village isn’t exactly the best place for solitude, it’s an ideal spot to lose yourself in a crowd. After walking around aimlessly for a while, poking my head in stores and checking out vintage record shops for old George Jones albums, I decided to head up to Washington Square Park. Washington Square Park isn’t exactly a park like we had in Kentucky. After all, it’s mostly concrete, and the places that have grass also have keep off signs. But there’s no place better in the Village to entertain your eyes for free. On a crisp, just-after-a-light-drizzle day like that one, people from all walks of life hang out to meet, relax, perform, or watch passersby, as I was doing that day. As I entered the park, I heard dogs barking as they chased their masters, their tennis balls, or each other in the fenced-off dog run just to my left. Right in front of that was a group of musicians playing and singing old Beatles songs. Way over to the right was a man in a three-piece suit buying a hot dog from a street vendor. Just past them was a single guitar player singing love songs, surrounded by a few pretty young college girls. Listening to that boy sing made me think of Josh’s own glorious voice. I remember him even as a young’un, using that voice of his to charm us all: singing “Amazing Grace” in church, leading the family in sing-alongs by the fireplace on cold winter nights, and entertaining his friends at the soda shop like this young fellow in front of me was doing. In fact, I got so caught up in the flow of memories that I didn’t even notice until too late that my pocket had been picked.

I felt light fingers cross my back pocket and immediately

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reached to discover my wallet was missing. Looking up quickly, I saw a kid in a yellow T-shirt and baggy jeans running away. “Stop!” I yelled. I screamed for the police, but there weren’t any around. Typical, ain’t it? So I took off after the kid. That is to say, I ran after him. No sense in using my mutant power in broad daylight, I figured.

Does anyone really think that yelling, “Hey! Stop, thief! ” at a thief is really going to make them stop running from you? Well, I did it anyway, and of course it didn’t work. ’Course, after chasing him for a few blocks, I realized that I wasn’t going to catch up to him, and no one was willing to help me. Maybe I looked too much like a tourist. I sure don’t look like no New Yorker! I felt my heart beating faster and I started to get a stitch in my side. But there was no way I was gonna let that kid get away with my wallet.

Just my luck, the kid turned down a side alley. An empty side alley, mind you. So I figured, what the heck, and took off. I mean, really took off.

Lord, do I ever love flying. I so rarely get the chance to really take off, to really soar. I feel such a rush from using my powers. I guess regular folks find it scary that there’s someone like me around, who can fly like I do. But if I could give them the power for a day, I would, just so they could experience the pure joy that goes with it. Sometimes I feel sorry for them, ’cause they don’t get to shoot through the air like me. Speeding through the air, seeing clouds and rooftops whipping past—I tell you, it’s true freedom, if only for a moment. But not that day. At that time, I just wanted to teach this guy a lesson—Cannonball-style—for picking my dang pocket.

Using my Cannonball powers, I caught up with him in

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a second, yelling, “Surprise, sucker!” as I grabbed him by the waist of his baggy pants and took off into the air. He began yelling in Spanish and twisting around so much, I thought he might fall right out of those pants. I’d figured it might be fun to put a little scare into him, but he wasn’t scared at all. Also, my arm hurt like crazy. So I made a snap decision and deposited him on the rooftop of the nearest apartment building. I grabbed the wallet out of his hand and took off just as he tried to throw a punch at me.
So that’s how he wants to play it?
I thought. I blasted back down to the alley and went looking for a phone to call the police. It had occurred to me that they might be interested in a trespasser on the roof of that apartment building. Hell, there were a lot worse things I could’ve done to him.

I could hear him swearing and yelling to beat the band as I flew down from the roof back into the alleyway. I’m pretty sure I looked around to make sure nobody saw, but I don’t completely recall. I didn’t really care at the time, ’cause, dang, after all that’d happened already, I didn’t rightly care.

I came out the other side of the alley onto a street I didn’t recognize. I thought I’d walked down most every street in this area, but didn’t recall this one. I walked into the first storefront I found. The words coffee a-go-go were stenciled on the storefront window in a cut-paper style that reminded me of movie posters from the 1950s. I could sense coffee and conversation before I even opened the door. But there wasn’t much that could have prepared me for what I saw when I walked in.

Across from the front door lay a small stage that barely held five empty stools and a microphone stand. Next to it

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hung a sign that said free verse poetry readings Fridays at 9. Why would they need so many people onstage for a poetry reading, I wondered?

Then I took a look around the place. Colorful Guatemalan weavings, which I recognized from my art history courses, hung from the walls next to wild canvasses that looked like something Jackson Pollock painted in a bad mood. People of all ages sat at the tables, mostly wearing berets, porkpie hats, or black turtlenecks. Above them hung strangely colorful mobiles composed of geometric shapes. Many of the men had goatees and the women had long, straight hair. Boy, did I feel uncomfortable in my slacks and plaid shirt. I’ll tell you, it felt like I’d walked straight into Greenwich Village in the 1950s. From the little I’d remembered from movies and old magazines, I seemed to have walked into a picture-perfect slice of beatnik culture. A woman kept yelling for someone named “Chester” until I turned around and realized that she meant me.