My heart’s aflame, my body’s strained
But, God, I like it
- TV On The Radio, Wolf Like Me
High or drunk?
Sometimes Silvio could tell by the way his father’s pick-up truck drove up the road to their house.
If he’d had too much to drink, dad’s car would weave unsteadily up the road.
If he was high, he’d drive more steadily but much slower.
That was the one Silvio always hoped for. Dealing with a high person was much easier than dealing with a drunk one.
Although the twelve-year-old supposed that depended on what kind of drunk a person became. Dragged along to house parties most of his life, Silvio had seen happy drunks, sad drunks, affectionate drunks, verbose drunks, taciturn drunks; really the whole intoxicated spectrum. Unfortunately for him, his dad was an angry drunk.
Silvio didn’t like seeing his father red-eyed, swaying and giggly, but weed took away Jerry’s ability to be violent and seemed to make him incapable of anger. All he wanted to do was eat, watch television, and go to sleep. Silvio didn’t register as any kind of target for him then. Unless of course, Jerry wanted something he was too hazy to get up and fetch for himself. But the boy would take delivering snacks, remote controls and magazines any day over becoming the subject of his father’s ire.
Squinting at the headlights traveling toward him through the dark, his stomach sank as he saw them swerve from side to side.
Crap.
Drawing back from the window, his eyes darted around the living room and kitchen.
Everything was clean, but that didn’t always matter. He paced quickly around, trying to find anything that could be objectionable; anything at all dad might be able to make into a reason to be angry. Being unable to find anything didn’t exactly allay his fears, though. That could just mean he was missing something. Taking a moment, he racked his brain to think of anything he’d said or done recently that his father might be stewing over and turning into animosity toward him.
I’m missing something. I know I’m missing something he’s going to find.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to put himself in his father’s shoes, imagining walking in with a bellyful of fire and the determination to find an excuse to burn somebody down with it.
His eyes shot open suddenly as he felt a cold sweat break out across his brow.
The phone.
He snapped around, feeling his heart hammer within him as he watched the pick-up’s headlights pull into the driveway.
When Silvio’s mother wasn’t able to support him anymore, he’d moved into his father’s house permanently after having been shuttled between his parents following their divorce a few years ago. His grades had suffered following the move. He just hadn’t been able to focus on his schoolwork while wondering when he was going to get to see his mother again, what condition his dad was going to come home at night, or what he was going to do for dinner. After receiving a sound thrashing over a poor report card, Jerry decided that his son wasn’t to have any distractions that might keep him from succeeding academically. That meant hiding the phone and radio, as well as disconnecting the cable so the only thing Silvio could do was focus on his homework. That hadn’t been what was interfering with his ability to focus, but Silvio redoubled his efforts at school, anyway, and did everything he could to receive good grades.
There was still a fragile little hope in his heart that maybe his mother would call him; want to talk with him. Maybe even let him know that she was going to come get him. He hadn’t seen or heard from her since moving, but the prospect, however remote, was still a dream he wanted to believe. He had tried to argue that if there was an emergency, he would need the phone to call 911, but his father had told Silvio that he wouldn’t have any emergencies if he was just doing what he was supposed to.
Finding where his father had hidden the phone wasn’t hard. All the boy had to do was be quiet and watch him before he left for work. Then, once he got home from school, it was a simple matter of reconnecting the line and hiding the phone again before his father returned. This afternoon, though, he’d gotten absorbed in an International pen pal program his school was running with its sister school in Japan, and he’d wanted to draw something cool in his letter to impress his pen pal. They didn’t have a computer with the Internet in their house, and Silvio was so fascinated with the idea of communicating with someone on the other side of the world, he’d forgotten to put the phone back in its hiding place.
Move, idiot!
Darting to the little stand in the dining room beside the kitchen, Silvio hastily disconnected the landline, grabbed hold of the phone and bolted toward the back of the house to his father’s bedroom where he’d taken it from his closet that morning.
And he might have made it, if the toe of his shoe hadn’t caught on the hallway rug, sending him sprawling flat onto his face.
Seeing stars, he blinked dazedly and started picking himself up, briefly catching sight of the phone, back popped open and batteries scattered across the floor, as he heard the front door open behind him.
YOU’RE EXPANDING YOUR LITTLE COLLECTION WITH MUCH MORE ALACRITY LATELY.
“I’m filling in the gaps.”
Silvio sat on his tattoo chair, one leg crossed over the other, focusing on a blackwork dagger on his calf. It had been a while since he’d tattooed on himself, but needs must when the devil drives.
WE WERE UNDER THE IMPRESSION YOU WERE DONE ADDING TO YOURSELF.
“Yeah, well, things change.”
Truthfully, he wasn’t doing it for aesthetic reasons. Most people just thought tattoos were painful but something special could take place between an artist and their canvas with a little trick of brain chemistry Silvio had read up on. Being hurt released endorphins. Endorphins were a type of neurotransmitter that interacted with the opiate receptors in the brain, enhancing pleasure and reducing pain. You spend a long session being tattooed, all that happy brain juice being released in close proximity to someone who is causing the sensations in the first place?
Well, he’d gotten a few smitten clients during his tattooing career.
So, when Silvio was edgy, irritable, and itching for the sensation being in the ring gave him via Spooky, he found himself needing to fill in the gaps between matches. No drug or trick like this could quite equal the ecstatic, otherworldly highs he had when he was performing, but it was better than nothing.
Sighing, he pulled back and looked his work over, the ragged edge of his need blunted.
CHASING DIMINISHING RETURNS, WE SEE.
Setting aside his tattoo machine, Silvio frowned.
ALTHOUGH WE CERTAINLY WILL NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT YOU TEAMING WITH THAT TOWERING PILLAR OF DELECTABLE MENTAL INSTABILITY.
UNLESS, OF COURSE, THAT’S WHY YOU’RE LETTING HIM IN ON THIS.
“Pandaemonium hurt Ax and Jon; made them look helpless. Made them look vulnerable. It’s about sending a message to the people who attacked Jon to let whoever it is know that he doesn’t stand alone. It’s about perception.
Talking about it with Kane, the only thing the big man had to say once Silvio was done was: “Okay. Who do I have to kill?”
When he’d first thought of issuing his challenge, incandescent with rage, he’d considered just taking on Pandaemonium himself. The prospect of fighting two opponents at once thrilled that little itch inside of him, but Silvio forced himself to sleep on it before moving forward. Once the fire within had died down, he saw things more clearly; more pragmatically. If the goal was to demonstrate to whoever attacked Jon that they’d made a grave mistake, greater numbers were better. Showing Jon wasn’t an easy target would both discourage a second attack as well as provide the tag champ with the back-up he needed.
CLEVER LITTLE DEVIL.
“There’s nothing wrong with knowing the strengths of the people around you and how to organize them to get something done,” he said, getting to his feet and reveling in the sweet sting of his new artwork as he cleaned up his station.
Speaking of, he thought, checking his watch, he had a date to keep.
“How long has this been going on?”
Silvio swore it smarted more when his father made him go out into the backyard and choose the switch he’d use to punish him. Then again, maybe that was the point.
There was a sharp whistling sound and he felt a slice of fire ignite across the backs of his legs. He bit down hard on a yelp; the strangled sound of whatever scrap of pride he still held.
“…A month…”
Another bright flash of pain. He wasn’t sure if he yelled then, mind swimming in the reek of Thunderbird that hung about his father like a cloud.
“Don’t lie to me.”
It didn’t matter if he told the truth. The whole, ‘just say the right thing and this will stop,’ concept didn’t really hold water. This sort of scene played out between the two of them often enough that Silvio knew the script. He just had to endure until Jerry was satisfied with the beating he was doling out. Even so, his thoughts gave a sluggish lurch as he tried to piece together some kind of plea or story that might make this end. But before he could think better of it, words he didn’t intend came out.
“Why do you do it?”
“What?” his father slurred, seeming caught off guard by the question.
Silvio turned to look at him then, legs stinging, survivor’s instinct a panicked animal thrashing inside of him as he rejected the usual script between himself and his father.
You’re going to make it worse! it shrieked.
But the words spilled out.
“The drinking,” he croaked. “Why?”
He knew about addiction; heard all the dire warnings from his teachers and the D.A.R.E. officers visiting his classroom. He knew that’s what had his father in its grip, but he seemed just fine being there. Didn’t he see what it was doing to him? His family? Silvio was his flesh and blood. Why wasn’t he enough to make him stop? At least try to?
There was a fierce spark of resentment he couldn’t help.
Wasn’t he more important than a chemical?
“It just…makes you angry,” he said, hating the hitch in his voice as he did, and regretting it the moment it came out.
What was it that he was trying to escape? What feeling was worse than one that made him do this?
Silvio wasn’t sure what name he could label it with, but he didn’t forget the vivid, cruel fraction of it his father showed him that night.
Limping to bed, words played through the boy’s head like a mantra stinking of cheap whiskey and cigarettes.
Never me. Never that. I will never let anything own me like that.
Never.
“Knew that big dad energy came from somewhere.”
Silvio beamed, leaning against a wall in the locker room as he flicked through Kane’s phone, looking through photos of Luna. It had been a while since they’d last teamed, so they’d been spending their free time at the arena practicing together. Seeing the Lab Rat King tenderly cradling his daughter in family photos was the kind of renewed faith in humanity the Oracle needed lately. Not to mention being around Kane provided him with a steady stream of Spooky’s feel-good vibes, letting him feel more like himself again.
There was a nagging part of his brain that was raising the reddest of flags over this, but that was something, he reasoned, that could wait. Maybe it wasn’t ideal, but the important thing was that he had what he required to be at his best when his friends needed him. He couldn’t very well deal with this if he was on edge all the time. Once this was out of the way, then he could figure out what to do about this whole…thing. This…
dependence
His mind snapped away from the word as soon as he thought it.
Later.
“She really takes after her mom,” Silvio said.
“Yeah, she does.”
Kane’s smile, rendered crooked by his scarred lip, wouldn’t leave his face while his daughter was the topic of discussion. While he was constantly haggard between his health and his recent security scare, bringing up his little girl was a sure-fire way to put him in a better mood. Locker room chatter was always a little odd around him–Silvio certainly got the occasional befuddled look from the mid- and low-carders who couldn’t figure out why Kane didn’t threaten to snap his head off like a lego man every few minutes.
As usual, the Big Guy had very little to say around Silvio, tranquilized as he was by the Oracle’s presence.
“She’s growing so fast,” the mutant commented in his low, rasping voice, fitting his ring boots into the duffel bag he had sitting on the bench in front of him. “She’s already gone up a shoe size since I met her.”
Silvio looked wistful for a moment, handing the phone back to Kane.
“I wonder what it’d be like to have one someday,” he said. Parenthood was a possibility that was fraught for Silvio. The idea of having a family was one of those pleasant, domestic daydreams he’d let himself get lost in but the prospect of repeating his own parents’ mistakes made him sick to his stomach. “Then you can pay me back for when I take Luna to the zoo and send her home dosed up on sugar with a new kitten.”
Kane pocketed his phone with a slow shake of his head. “I wouldn’t even be surprised. You’re keeping the kitten, though.”
A pause, and the big man swallowed, a contemplative expression crossing his face.
“Honestly, though… with everything going on. After the incident with the PA, and Heart’s bullshit… If anything happens to Grace and I, I’d trust you to keep Luna safe. If that’s something you’d be willing to do.”
“Excuse me for a moment,” Silvio said, holding up a finger. He picked up a water bottle from the bench, took a swig, and then promptly did a spit take. Sputtering, he blinked rapidly. “You know, that was a lot less necessary than it seemed in my head. But…seriously? Are you asking me to be Luna’s godfather? You, Grace, and Big Guy are okay with that?”
Kane’s crooked smile returned as he resumed stuffing his gear into his bag.
“Grace knows how much you helped me when I needed it. She knows you’re a good guy. You were the first person to approach me like a human being when I came here, and you’ve never given me a reason to doubt you… the Big Guy? He sleeps a lot when you’re around, but since you called off the match in favour of getting us out of danger before the pay-per-view, he’s been rearing his head every time we hear you might be in trouble. I think he likes you. He must, if he thinks he needs to protect you, too.”
“I’m…honored,” Silvio said, still staring at Kane, trying to get past his shock. “I promise I won’t let you down.” Drawing in a deep breath, he held up a hand. “I know you’re freaked out about what happened with that weird sound and…we both know that SSRI has a human experimentation thing going for it. I don’t want you in this fight if you’re not comfortable with it.”
Kane shook his head, zipping up the bag on the bench, He cursed softly as his grip pulled the zipper head loose with a soft snap–it wouldn’t be the first time he’d broken something like that.
“I’m all in on this, Leon. I don’t want them getting any ideas… I wanna make sure they know not to cross me, if they like having their heads attached to their necks.” There it was. Like a lego man. “I’m not anyone’s genetic plaything anymore. That aside, I know they gave you and yours trouble. If they think they can try that shit with anybody here…? I intend to send a warning.”
“Thank you.” He made an impatient little gesture with one hand. “You know how I feel about cults and why.”
Getting treated like a pin cushion by one tended to sour a person’s opinion on any similar operations.
“And…I know I’m asking a lot, having you give me a hand with this already, but…I…need help.”
There it was again, the words like teeth being pulled out of his head. Why was it so easy to be there for others and so hard to ask others to be there for you?
Kane lifted his head, the scarred line of his mouth pulling in concern. There was no hesitation in him.
“What do you need, kid?”
“Remember me getting a little unhinged when we were in the ring together?”
He took a deep breath. Silvio didn’t want to talk about this. He hadn’t expected to. But if Kane was going to trust him to be a parental figure to his daughter?
Letting some chemical reaction control him wasn’t an option.
In spite of everything – of knowing what this was and what it might do to him if he let it go unchecked – he felt a bitter ember burning in the pit of his chest.
Why shouldn’t he be allowed to have this? What was so wrong with it? He wasn’t hurting anyone in any way they hadn’t agreed to. If there was some benefit to enduring this parasite for six years, why shouldn’t he indulge?
“I…have a…we’ll call it a substance problem. If you see me doing what I did when we were fighting…just…don’t let it get bad, okay? Stop me.”
A substance?
Not wanting to press the issue more than necessary–he wouldn’t want any prying, himself–Kane simply nods, placing a hand on Silvio’s shoulder.
“If need be, I’ll pick you up by the back of the neck and drop you outside of the ring like a bad dog.”
Silvio gave a sage nod in return, placing his hand on Kane’s.
“Knew I could count on you, partner.”
Silvio is seated where he first made his challenge to Pandaemonium; a throne-like, high-backed black leather chair with armrests, formline wing mural spreading out on the wall behind him in bold swathes of black, red, blue, and yellow. His eyes flicker like match flames; little sparks threatening to ignite into something far wilder.
“SSRI. Pandaemonium. I’ll be honest – I don’t even know why your group is here in the first place. If you’re supposedly this ultra-powerful organization that has an entire country under its sway, you’d think you’d want a bigger stage to preach your gospel from. Are you slumming it here or something? It kind of feels like you’re focus-testing on us the way fast food corporations do on people in the Midwest to ensure the newest Mountain Dew flavor doesn’t make some Hollywood celebrity wake up the next morning bristling with nipples.”
He closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment in exasperation.
“You’ve got this, ‘amorality,’ thing going on…”
Silvio snorts, shaking his head.
“…And by the way, Insidious already peddled their, ‘embrace your dark side, watch the Snyder cut, we live in a society, man,’ bullshit to Carnage, and we sent their Jonestown asses packing.
“What I don’t get about your gospel is…why are you so bothered? If you’re saying that everyone should do what they want, indulging in their vices or virtues as they please…then why does anything bug you?”
He pauses a moment to take a deep breath, trying to ease some of the tension building in his frame, and only partially succeeding.
“I guess you could claim you have a problem with people preaching morals, but how fucking subjective is that? And hey!”
Spreading his hands, he raises a brow with a sardonic smirk.
“Maybe it’s really just them pursuing their own amoral path to exploit the gullible and teach them lessons about being too trusting! You could easily argue anything falls within the parameters of your work.”
His smirk fades, eyes still alight.
“At your core, you’re no different than other cults that came before you. Whatever rules or code you claim to live by can be interpreted or twisted in any way that suits those in power when they need it to.”
Fingers tensing on the armrests, he can’t keep the animosity out of his voice.
“You prey on people whose only crimes are being tired and scared. You tell them you have the answers to their questions about life, a place for them to belong in the grand scheme of things, and they believe you because otherwise, it’s just chaos out there. And how can bad things just happen with no rhyme or reason? There has to be a purpose behind it all, right? Because if there isn’t, the only thing getting out of bed in the morning amounts to is the willingness to take a baseball bat to the face for some random chance at a moment of happiness.”
He shrugs.
“The literalness of that analogy will vary from viewer to viewer. The point is, your cult tries to simplify the answers to their questions by making the people who ask them less than what they are, stripping away their identities until the only thing that’s left is whatever best serves your needs.
“I’ve heard stories about what your organization does to people. So has my partner, for that matter, and he’s not super jazzed about the human experimentation wing of your operation. I wonder what you two were put through. I’d say chances are good that at one point, you were just more grist for the SSRI mill; another set of children thrown into the labyrinth for the minotaur. At any other time, you might garner my sympathy, but…”
His fingers curl into fists and Silvio grins in a way that reminds the viewer that for most species, smiling is a sign of aggression.
“…You had the rotten luck of catching me on an upswing that’s so far been punctuated with every single reason to drink gasoline and keep the acceleration going. Sympathy will have to wait. You hurt my loved ones. You hurt my roster. You hurt my world. So I’m not feeling especially forgiving right now. You’re going to answer for what you did to Jon and Axton.
“And, oh, my sweet little lambs…”
He spreads his arms making the wings behind him seem like an extension of his body.
“I am going to fall upon you with all the righteous velocity of an ink-soaked angel who just had his wings severed by the Almighty.”
His eyes narrow, smile fading as his arms lower.
“And whoever attacked Jon…”
He leans forward, tone intimate.
“…Because I know you’re watching…”
Sitting back, Silvio’s smile returns.
“…Don’t touch that dial! Your Mystifying Oracle is about to give you a vision of your days to come.”
He lifts one hand.
“See you at Chaos, Legion.”
With a snap, the scene goes black.
oracularmysteries 