Bastard Noire

Good and evil are all a matter of choice and perspective, one’s hero is another’s villain. Robin Hood, a classic example of this. Robin becomes a bandit to provide for the poor villagers. Morality would normally dictate that stealing would nominate you for villainhood, but in the case of Robin, he became the hero. On the other hand, the Sheriff of Nottingham should be considered a hero for enforcing the law upon all. Prince John should be seen as protecting the peasants from would-be invaders. Under normal circumstances, both should be viewed as heroes of the people, but they become villains because of the high taxes needed to fund King Richard’s Crusades.

From the choices made, Richard could be viewed as a villain because he went off to fight a war over foreign land rather than provide for his people. Robin could be seen as a villain by placing extra stress on the poor with higher taxes. Robin’s actions force John to choose to raise taxes ever higher to fund his brother’s war or the potential wrath from the loss of a Holy War from God. The Sheriff could have chosen not to enforce the tax or the law, but then he would have looked weak and lawlessness could have run rampant. Any of these characters could easily be viewed as a hero or a villain based on the perspective of their motives and choices. You're asking yourself right now, isn’t this supposed to be an origin story? You're right, but I wanted to lay some groundwork. Enough of the philosophy lesson, on to our story about the origins of a hero for the people and a villain to the people. It is up to you to decide.

My father immigrated from Peru when he was 16 years old. He worked odd jobs in the United States for two years before he met my mother, who was 20 then. She was finishing her teaching degree. Within six months of meeting, they were married with my sister on the way seven months later. Having a child in the home and my father being undocumented, it was hard to maintain a stable job. They struggled for the first three years with my father still a day worker and my mother starting her teaching career. This is when I entered the picture with my mother finding herself pregnant. Curtis Stimach, the family patriarch, offered my father a permanent job as the estate stable master. After my birth, my mother became the family governess to five-year-old Eloise.

A year later, the Stimacs welcomed their bundle of joy, Chad. With little contact for the first ten years, I was Chad’s only friend. We mostly played superhero and sidekick; I was always the sidekick. We would model after our favorite team, the Grim Tempest, and his worthy sidekick, the Dirt Devil. Even though Chad dreamt of becoming a superhero, I focused on going to college to find a safe, boring career. I liked my life and had no intent of fighting off villains with the purpose of taking it. I always thought I would be friends with Chad. We discussed my working as his accountant to avoid the deadly IRS audit. As we developed through our youth, we started to change. I questioned these changes during one of our discussions.

One night we were lounging by the pool. Staring up at the stars, a 12-year-old Chad asked, “You know that female praying mantis eat their mate during sex, what do you call the male version of female praying mantis?”

I looked over at him dumbfounded, “Uh, praying mantis.”

No one ever said that he was the smartest person. Chad lost in thought, “Yeah, I want to be just like them but I want to eat my mate after sex. Yeah, I want to be able to mate with all kinds of women and be like the praying mantis by eating them after sex.”

I sat up, “Dude, that is sick. You want to sleep around with lots of women and eat them afterward. Gross, that is totally cannibalism.”

“I know, praying mantis are totally cannibals and I want to be just like them,” coming back to himself, he looked over at me, “Dude, I was just kidding. I wanted to see your reaction after I said that.”

I tried to brush it off but it felt that he desired to follow through with this desire. We never talked about that night again. Things changed drastically over the next few months culminating on Black Friday. Even though I felt my friendship with Chad was strong, the relationship between the two families became strained. My mother’s duties called for more of her time. She began spending more time in the Stimac home rather than spending time with her own family. At first, my father did not suspect anything. As time passed, my mother started becoming distant from my father. She would brush off his touch after she came home. She smiled less and yelled at us more. The tension in the house became unbearable. My father started drinking all the time. My sister and I became stuck in the middle of their drama. This came to a head when my father confirmed his suspicions, he caught our mother and Curtis in throws of passion.

Devasted, my father escaped his pain through alcohol abuse. He still maintained his day job, even though his wife no longer loved him, the horses showed him the affection he needed. He no longer shared a bed with our mother. He threw everything he had into the two things he felt loved him back, alcohol and the Stimac horses. We hardly saw him after the affair. I believe that our father felt guilty for not doing more for our mother. He felt that it was his fault for her affair. Brittney, the matriarch, was used to Curtis’s infidelity. It was easier to just accept it rather than be poor.

Eloise, now seventeen, was known for throwing extravagant parties. The Stimacs would spend Thanksgiving as a faux family for appearances only but when the bell struck midnight of Black Friday, Eloise would start the festivities. Since she was fifteen, she would spend the rest of the night with her closest friends drinking, getting high, and the next day shopping. After three hours of partying, drinking, and cocaine, Eloise’s boyfriend accessed Curtis’s unlocked gun safe. Shots began ringing out as the partiers destroyed estate property. My father woke up in a drunken stupor because he could hear the spooked horses. He confronted Eloise about the gunfire. Her boyfriend got physical with my dad. During the altercation, her boyfriend shot my father in the chest. I already lost my mother to Curtis Stimac, I lost my father to Eloise Stimac.

In a short period, our world was shattered. By Monday, the police showed up at what we thought was our home to evict us. Our grieving family moved in with the grandparents during the murder trial. Curtis worked his magic for the boyfriend. At the end of the trial, the murderer of our father ended with a verdict that found the boyfriend defended himself. My heartbroken mother for Curtis, not our father, began drinking excessively. I lost contact with Chad. Going from being homeschooled to public school was a cultural shock.  

Our lives flipped feet up, my sister and I tried to establish some semblance of life as we watched our mother slowly drink herself to death. My sister prospered at making new friends but struggled in her academic career. I spent the majority of my time alone in my studies. I did not have the established social skills my sister did to make friends. We both did our best to stay out of the home by avoiding our mother’s drunk wrath. I could be found huddled in the library; my sister huddled in the star quarterback’s bed. My sister dropped out of school in her junior year after becoming pregnant.

My mother struggled with her sanity, while my sister struggled to raise a child. I stayed focused on my schooling, and my goal to escape this circus by getting accepted to an Ivy League School. My mother was in an uncontrolled tailspin toward deep depression and hopelessness. I found myself a week before graduation with an acceptance letter to Yale in my sweet little hand. I was bound and determined to run as far, as fast as I could, and never look back. My family found a way to screw up my success. My mother could not take the loss of Curtis anymore. Alone, she slit her wrists a week before my graduation. My nephew was the one who found her bleeding body in the bathtub. The paramedics were able to save her in time.

When you figure you reached rock bottom, you find yourself still falling. I had to make a tough decision, either run off to school or stay and become the man of the house. I don’t know if I stayed out of love or loyalty to my family, it doesn’t matter either way, but I stayed to try and actually pick up the pieces. I settled for a local college over a Yale degree; I found a nighttime job to help pay the bills and give me time for school during the day. I got my mother into a treatment facility for alcoholism, I was a male role model to my nephew, and I was working hard toward my dream until I found I was still falling.

My nephew as a six-year-old was struggling to get out of bed. He was feeling fatigued all the time, he had frequent stomachs, and was losing weight. My nephew was missing more and more school because he was sick all the time. My sister had a CPS investigation opened because of the frequent bruises shown his skin. A late-night emergency room visit led to a diagnosis of leukemia.  Now facing a cancer battle at such a young age and surmounting medical bills to pay for my mother's treatment and my nephew, I was falling and could not stop.

I was sitting in the hospital one day watching the television. A news story flashed with the superhero Vindicition stopping a bank robbery. The screen jumped to an interview with him, I quickly recognized that it was Chad living his dream. I had been so focused on school and finding a way to fix my family, that I had missed that he jumped on the crime-fighting scene over a year ago. Reminiscing over my time growing up with Chad, I started researching his antics during the little free time I had between everything. I went through all of his major battles with the villains the Scarlet Baron, Flex Luge, and Tsunami Bill. I was just simply amazed as I watched the videos of his heroics as sat in the hospital waiting room on my phone.

As I was perusing the hospital bulletin board, I saw that Vindicition was going to at the hospital filling a Fill-A-Dream request for one of the patients in the children’s ward. This was my chance to see if my oldest friend would recognize me. When the day came, I spent most of the time wandering around the children's ward. Eventually, his entourage showed up with journalists in tow. Who would think a superhero would have bodyguards, but I found them pushing me roughly into a wall. During the commotion, Vindicition looked over and saw me pinned between a forearm and the wall. As he walked into the ward, I swear he gave me a wink out of his eye. Even with this, I figured I missed my chance to catch up.

Monday as I sat waiting in the waiting room, I felt a strong hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Chad looking down on me. “I thought that was you,” he stated.

“I knew it was you in that costume,” I replied.

He sat down next to me, “I saw that your nephew was a patient. How are things?”

Not wanting to reveal the truth, “Fine, he is doing better.”

“How about the medical bills?”

Not wanting to detect weakness, “I have a handle on them.”

“No, you don’t. I have people who can access any information I request. Even with the help from donations, you’re still $267,000 behind between your nephew and your mom.”

“I have it handled; I am still young.”

“You may think you have it handled, but you will take the next 80 years to pay off the bills. What if I were to tell you I have a way to help you out and you would not have to worry about money for a long time?”

Curious, “What do you mean, would I become a drug runner? A jizz-mopper?”

Laughing, “No, nothing like that. You could become like one of us. The pay is excellent.”

“What do you mean a superhero or sidekick?”

“Something like that,” he handed me a card. “Just go here and ask for Yak Loin. The shopkeeper will respond with, Good to keep the yang up, your response is, my yang is always up.” Chad got up and walked out.

I waited a week too scared to follow through. During this time, a final notice came from the bank. The desperation hit, and I found myself staring at the card. It took less than two hours to see me walking into the Bīngqílín, a Chinese herbal shop. I followed Chad’s directions. The sign was flipped to closed, the lights went off, and I was being escorted to a backroom behind a bookshelf. The room was pitch black. My eyes started adjusting to the darkness when I could see a shape approach a hanging light switch in the middle of the room. The figure pulled on the chain, a woman in shades was standing in front of me. She walked over to a rocking chair. She felt her way around and took a seat. Staring off into space with a Chinese accent, “Do you seek a way out of your binding weight?”

“You mean my mounting debt, my mother in treatment, my nephew fighting for his life, or the fact I sacrificed everything I dreamed of?” I replied.

“We can start there. Are you willing to sacrifice more to put the vase back together?”

“It depends on the price.”

“The price, it costs a sacrifice of five years for dedicated service to our employ. In exchange, we will provide everything you need for your family, we will save the house, cover the medical bills, and even set aside for your nephew to go to college. If you still desire to make it to Yale, we can arrange for that to happen after the five years of minimum service.”

“What does this sacrifice intel? Is it like Vindicition? Would I be serving superheroes?”

“It would be something like that.”

Another light flashed on and a clipboard was laid out. I walked over to read the contract. It talked about completing jobs for the Hei Consortium. If I choose not to complete or I fail to complete, I will be in breach of this contract. There was a bunch of legal lingo listed over 40 pages. The part that stood out was paying off the house, and providing for my nephew’s medical treatment, and I would have to quit my current job because the Hei Consortium would provide for my wages. It took me three hours of reading and contemplating, but eventually, I signed the contract.

I was escorted into another room and led to a cot. I was laid back with an IV being connected to my arm. The liquid coursing through the hose was glowing with a red tint. I started to question the caretaker, but as I uttered my words, they came out strange and incomprehensible. I was out for three days before I woke up. I could feel a strange power flowing through my body. To myself out loud, “Am I a superhero? Will I be able to take down Tsunami Bill?”

The nurse burst out laughing, “No, dude, you're not a superhero, you just signed up to be a supervillain for the next four years and 362 days.”

I passed out again shortly after this. After I woke back up, everything transpired quickly. After six weeks of training, I was out on my first job. I was tasked with looting a medical facility for some high-tech equipment. Everything went smoothly and we made it out without a hitch. I was identified as Noire in the papers because I blended into the shadows as I quickly transitioned through the facility. My next job came two weeks later. It was a little tougher when I had to fight through the superhero Talisman. I escaped with some scrapes and bruises after completing the job.

It was my third job that found me face to face with Vindicition. The Hei Consortium assigned me to hit a military convoy carrying new weaponry. Everything was going fine until I found a hub cap fly through the air straight into my chest. I lost my breath for a brief moment. Vindicition was punching me as hard as he could in the face. After a brief exchange, “I convinced you because we need supervillains as much as we need superheroes. No one runs out to be a superhero. I don’t do this for the people, I could kill 10,000 people and not bat an eye. I do this for the beautiful women and the money.”

Everything went black, I found myself at the bottom of a river. My air quickly escaped from my lungs; I swam to the surface. Once on shore, I decided that if he was a superhero against the people, I would become a superhero for the people. 10 years later and a name change, I am the notorious villain Bastard Noire.