Chương 20: Chesty

The wrestler, John Gabriel, had led me to a corner of the gym where a bunch of spare mats were piled up, and had sat on one of them. The papers he was reading when I first walked in were rolled up under his arm.

"Alright, bud, I just wanna get to know you a little bit," he said.

"I got papers on you guys but they just tell me your name and your powers. We didn't even get the hero names until Mr. Shades decided to tell us." Nodding, I just let my arms hang at my sides, trying to stay matter-of-fact.

"There's not much for me to really talk about. I have super strength and for about half a year I was trying to take down a drug ring." John put on an almost baffled smile, resting his hands on his knees.

"What, and that's it? No 'I like long walks on the beach and hiking' or anything? You gotta have more than that," he noted, slapping the back of his hand on my arm.

"Also kid, how tall are you?" I quoted Perry.

"6'2"." The noise he made was odd, an exhale while keeping his lips pursed together. Resulted in this flapping sort of sound.

"Man, I billed my height at 6'2" and you're taller than me. But I'll admit I'm 5'11" so long as you don't tell anyone. Oh yeah, that's something you'll definitely wanna keep in your back pocket for like, alter egos." He waved a hand over the top of his head, palm facing his scalp.

"Lie about your height." That made sense, but wouldn't people just notice the discrepancy?

"Most people can't really tell if you keep a strong posture or anything like that. If you went around saying you're 6'4" or something they'll just believe you." He added on, answering my question without me even having to ask. Convenient.

"I'll have to try that," I mentioned. John continued further.

"The big trick with anything like this is about lying to people. Your job is to lie to people, at the core of it. Save their lives, yeah, but you gotta do it while lying. Start with the simple lies like your height and you can really build a character. We call it kayfabe in wrestling." My head tilted.

"What's kayfabe?" He reached up to rub his face, looking at the ceiling.

"Alright so like, the word is just Pig Latin for 'Be Fake' but it's the whole spirit of wrestling as a performance. Imagine the world having two layers, the real world and the kayfabe world. The kayfabe world is where whatever nonsense you blurt out is God's honest truth." He spanned his hands out.

"If you say you're 6'4" and you eat pythons for breakfast in kayfabe, onlookers will believe it." Then, he clapped his spanned hands together.

"But the catch is, the kayfabe world is a layer like I said, it's layered onto the real world. So when you're out in the real world in your kayfabe personality, you better be ready for a plate full of snake. So it's a balancing act of a good narrative and what doesn't take a lot of effort to prove. Did you have anything like that when you were uh..." The wrestler grappled with the right words. Winning by pinfall, he claimed the right question as his championship belt.

"... When you were doing all of that?" Wasn't that great a question, admittedly. I gave a shrug before sitting down on the mat pile myself, not wanting my back open to the others.

"Not on purpose. All I cared about was making sure I wasn't identifiable. They called me Crunch, though." His eyebrow raised.

"Crunch?" The nod I gave didn't seem convincing, and prompted me to speak further.

"Because it was the noise I got out of them a lot." The look on his face was a fierce battle between nauseated and morbidly curious.

"Huh. Reminds me of a guy from a promo whose entire thing was throwing them down into the ring, then using the ropes to jump off and like double-foot stomp their arm to 'break' it. Very nice guy, by the way, always made sure to miss for real."

"I'll take your word for it. Not sure how much this involves getting to know me, though." John shrugged.

"You said there's not much to know, but this whole Crunch thing sounds like plenty to know. How was your approach with them? Were you showy, did you say anything, what did you do?" Reflecting his motions with my own shrug, I tried my best to answer.

"I wasn't really showy. I don't like talking while doing it, 'fighting crime.'" Air quotes. Doing my best to feign having a personality.

"Just made sure that whoever I had to deal with got the message I'd do worse if I came back. But I guess when someone in all black knocks your door down and breaks a bunch of bones, it, uh... it technically is showy." He nodded.

"But you weren't trying to make a performance out of it?" Shook my head.

"No, I honestly was ambushing people. I waited until their guards were down, and I rushed in to either hurt them or throw them away so I could focus on the bigger issues." Snapping his fingers, he then pointed at me.

"Kid, that's performance. Your gimmick was showing up out of nowhere, knocking heads around, and being the scariest sonnuvabitch in the room. That is a show. If you weren't performing, then you wouldn't make it obvious you did anything." Shaking my head again, I rested my hands on my knees.

"I'm not sure how much I agree, but I guess that could be how it was interpreted. I was just trying to leave a message." The wrestler scoffed.

"A performance is leaving a message. It's a way to communicate, sometimes indirectly. Tells me you've got an eye for this. Buuut I don't think that kind of performance works when you're dressed like a little league team and are meant to also do things like get cats out of trees." That was something I could agree with, and nodded to signal it.

"Yeah. I'm not sure how exactly I could work with that anyway." That prompted a shrug from him.

"Sometimes a character can be planned, but sometimes you just need to live it. Come into it naturally. I think if you get put into a situation, you can do something about it." The thought of the tree men attacking the park occurred to me again. I had simply rushed in and took out the leg of one of them. That was just another ambush.

"There's no way to make an ambush look heroic, is there?" I asked, ready to concede on being a one-trick pony. He laughed and shook his head.

"Kid, you know who comes out of freakin' nowhere while the bad guys' guards are down to save the day?" Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Had to admit I had no idea, so my own head shook as well. He continued, "Most every superhero who can do a dynamic entry! Not only do people love it, you don't want the villains knowing you're coming. They could take hostages and stuff. I bet you could easily make entrances out of that.

There's not a lot of tall buildings out here, but your powers say you're super durable, right?" I nodded.

"That include high drops?" Another nod from me.

"Walk off of buildings, Leo. Stroll or jump right off, and then you just land like-" John got up from his seat, before dropping down to one knee, a hand planted in front of him, facing down.

"Boom. Looks cool."

"And then you slowly..." He raised his head, facing ahead.

"Turn your head up. Get a real serious face on and that'll send a message." Took a moment to ponder that. There was a snag in it.

"I'm gonna be wearing a mask." The wrestler waved it off dismissively, getting back to where he was sitting.

"That's even scarier, in a good way. They can't read your face. The people you save won't either. Masked wrestlers figured this out a hundred years ago, when there's something covering your face, everyone imagines the face under it." He pointed at me.

"And everyone's their favorite director. They always imagine the best possible face for the feelings they have. Bad guys who get scared are gonna see a spooky glare. Innocent people will see something valiant and maybe stoic. Maybe even a smile. Work with that and you'll go really far." Was worth considering, but that would require a lot more thought. Another voice spoke up. Martin's.

"Hey, you've gone for a bit over, wanna send him over to me? You can take Jairo." I could see Dr. Way walking away from the actor. John patted me on the back.

"Go chat with Shakespeare there. We can talk gimmicks later." Getting up and approaching Martin, it was much more apparent how nebbish and small he kind of was at this distance. Frankly, that might just be him getting nervous around superhumans. Wouldn't be the first. Then he reached a hand out to me. There was a twitch to it. It didn't really signal as a confident extension of his arm. But I obliged, reaching out and shaking his hand, and I could feel the twitch stop.

"So, you got my name, I got yours, but we can move on from that. I did overhear you and John's chat, sorry about being an eavesdropper, my hearing is just too good for MY own good." His voice had a natural quiver to it. Didn't seem to be a nervous one.

"What'd you hear?" I asked. Letting go of my hand, he clasped his together.

"Well I heard you don't have much to talk about yourself with besides your vigilante stint. Not that I see anything wrong with that, some people just live very plain lives."

"I was homeless and spent six months fighting gangbangers." He shrugged.

"Yeah and I've been audited by the IRS three times. We all fight our own battles." All I had in me was to roll my eyes and cross my arms.

"Look, I'm just yanking your chain. I know you've gone through a pretty rough time. But I'm not here for a pity party and I bet you aren't either. Since John covered some performance stuff, I thought I might as well do the same. You said you didn't talk much, right?" I shook my head.

"Nothing I ever said really worked out, and it just wasted time anyway." Martin nodded.

"Well I think part of it is delivery. I can tell you talk with your head voice. Nothing sounds imposing there." My ultimate weakness, my head tilting when I get confused, manifested itself.

"Head voice?" I parroted. The actor tapped his middle finger and ring finger against his sternum.

"You can talk with two voices. It's either talking out of your head-""That's where my mouth is." He shook his head.

"No, no. It's basically how you're directing the air coming out. A head voice comes from letting the air move all the way up to like your sinuses and then letting it out." The tone of his voice raised, sounding almost cartoonish." Kind of like this." He then brought his hand down slowly.

"And then your chest voice is when you let it all come from your lungs and right out your mouth, getting a much deeper register," he explained, his voice gaining heft with every word. He genuinely sounded like a different person.

"A guy like you would probably work real well with a chest voice. A strong guy with a very chesty voice could probably stop a speeding locomotive. Even if he says something a bit embarrassing. He talks from his head, it just confuses people and instills doubt of how much of a threat you are." Staring at him seemed to prompt further statements.

"Look, let's try something simple. Tell me 'Stop.'""Stop." I stated it matter-of-factly.

"Yeah if I didn't know you, I wouldn't be stopped by that. It's because you're letting the air get to your nose before you talk. Try to just not breathe through your nose while you talk out. Quick, inhale through your nose..." Following along, I brought my breath in.

"Now don't let your nose budge an inch and say it again, let the air go right out of your lungs, up your throat, and out your mouth."" Stop," I belted out with a heavier measure. Didn't feel right, this kind of mouthbreathing. He just stared at me, his bugged-out bird-like eyes widening even further. Almost thought they were about to fall out of their sockets.

"Fuck me running, you're a quick-learner. Made me want to hit the brakes and I'm not even in a car!" The fearful statement was followed by laughter. The laughter felt a little fake.

"Practice that in your downtime. Early on I bet it's gonna be best with just one word, but if you keep at it, you could belt out speeches like that. And that's real superheroic. And you can keep your head voice for when you've got the costume off and people won't really notice." That didn't seem right.

"It didn't feel any different." He shook his head.

"It's not going to feel that different until you've really got into it. Then you can turn it on and off. I think that's gonna be really important for your character." Head tilt again.

"Character?" Martin's lips pursed in confusion.

"Your heroic persona? It's a character. You are playing a character when you go out in your spandex and punch guys carrying giant burlap sacks with dollar signs on them."

"I think that'd kill them," I noted. Pretty sure I only managed to not kill that sledgehammer guy with a punch because I just stuck my fist out, I wasn't really swinging like I do with my pushes. And he still flew across the room.

"Well if you talk with your chest voice they'll agree! And then they put down the burlap sacks and happily go to jail because the alternative is exchanging blows with you. It's worth a shot." Wasn't too sure about that myself, but it seemed what he was most adamant on. He began to mention something else, but couldn't even get a syllable out as the gym door opened and Tancred could be heard.

"Sorry to break up the class here but we've got an emergency meeting. For once since we've started this dog and pony show, I've got both the mayor and the police chief in the same goddamn room and they wanna talk about the treehumpers; and they've got maybe forty minutes total available for this occasion. You all with me." A couple groans could be heard before he walked out of the room.

Glancing at the others, it seemed we all shared a similar reaction, which all of us said some variation of at the same time:"That was fast." That was the first, and probably worst, sign of how much we all really aligned.