STORY: Superhero and Samson's Hair

Philly didn’t think of herself as a superhero. She just saw herself as a primarily spiritual being. And since she was five years old one belief was foundational to all her others. It said, “Your integrity will be your body's strength.” At the expense of many friendships, she always told the truth and resisted doing what others saw as tempting but inconsequential infractions. And by the supernatural strength this bestowed upon her, she believed she would be able to save many.

***

"Philly," her teacher's voice rained down on her. "What did you see?"

The whole class groaned. They all knew she always told the full, painful truth. Philly dropped her head down and back up with a sigh. She closed her eyes and winced as she said, "Dan called Sheri the C-word when she wouldn’t show him her answers. And..." She trailed off and covered her mouth to prevent more from spilling out. The school knew that Dan who was domineering was dating Sheri who was timid.

The teacher hesitantly asked, "What else, Philly?"

The class was silent. Philly closed her eyes and waddled her head, discouraged at what she felt she had to do. "Sam was looking at Jolene's quiz." Philly said. "Those girls were looking at Sam's quiz. And I... I saw Nick posting or sending unkind photos he took of... someone." She avoided drawing attention to the frumpy overweight girl next to Nick. Philly held her head in her hands. The teacher nodded and walked backwards on her way to take away Nick's phone, but Philly saw her and added, "And I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure you were swiping Tinder matches or something on your phone after we started the quiz." The teacher withdrew her hand and walked backwards past Nick.

As the class walked out that day people shook their heads as they pushed past Philly. "Asshole," someone thrust at her like a shiv.

The overweight girl bumped her as she shuffled past, with her head low. "Hold on, Lupe." Philly whispered to her. The girl was surprised someone spoke to her. Philly said, "Can I help you fix your pants in the back real quick?" The girl struggled to see her own back, saw the sincerity in Philly's face, and let Philly untuck her shirt from her panties which showed above her pant line.

***

In the van to their lacrosse tournament, she sat in the middle just behind the two front seats, watching the speedometer like a hawk. "Coach" she said.

"Philly!" The coach was exasperated with her. "Chill ooouuut! We're gonna be late!"

"Coach, I'm so sorry, but we need to go the speed limit. Maybe just go a little slower than the speed limit to be safe."

"You know what's not safe?!" The coach exclaimed, "Everyone is passing us!"

"I know, Coach. I'm sorry. Please just— we have to."

***

When they got there everyone filed out silently, knowing they were late because of Philly.

The head coach was watching Philly handle her huge Lacrosse bag effortlessly as the team walked into the arena. He whispered to his assistant, "That girl is a freak of nature though. It's like she thinks she's Samson and following the speed limit and shit like that is her version of Samson's hair, you know?"

His assistant looked up from his clipboard thoughtfully and saw Philly walking alone at the back of the pack. He tilted his head. "Yeah, especially lately." A concerned look squeezed his cheeks. "I get the feeling she's carrying a lot, you know? Carrying... all of us somehow."

***

As they filed onto the field, Philly's gaze stayed mostly on the ground right in front of her except her usual glances scanning for danger. People in the opposing stands thought nothing of this sheepish 120-pound girl that was ignored by her teammates. But soon after the first whistle blew, whisperings peppered through the opposing team's stands

"Woah, do you see how fast that girl's running?" A little girl in the stands looked at her mom. "Mom! Look at that girl."

Her mother paused her conversation with another lady to look towards the field. "Oh, my. She is... really getting after it, huh?"

Just then they saw Philly plow through two larger defenders who tumbled like bowling pins, just in time for Philly to catch a ball in the air. She thrust her arms and torso to fling the ball toward the net before landing.

It ricocheted off the goalie who dove to block it. When the goalie saw the ball rattling around inside the net she rolled over in pain, holding her arm where the ball had glanced off it.

The woman in the stands whispered to her friend, a little unsettled, "I wonder if she has a really tough home life or something."

"Oh, you haven't heard of Philly?" The other woman replied. She's like the number three scorer in the league. She has no fear, taking out girls twice her size. Must be built like an anvil. But yeah, she's a kamikaze out there; working out some sort of pain on that field."

As the field started to reset, Philly was still down by the net, yelling something back at the referees. "Foul! Hey ref! Foul!! I hit her shin with my stick. No point! We can't count it!"

The referee looked at Philly's coach who just dropped his head, shook it, and shrugged.

The other team's coach saw his opportunity and protested the goal too. He suddenly started pointing at Philly and saying, "Foul! She hit her. She hit her, ref!"

The ref blew the whistle and moved the game back to that spot by the goal. The first to arrive was the small red headed girl who had sent Philly the pass. She wasn't muttering like the other girls. She was looking pensively at Philly who was helping up one of the girls she had just leveled.

***

They lost by one point, and again none of the girls talked to Philly on the way home. Everyone was nursing the usual injuries, turf burns, and bruises. But Philly sat in her seat behind the driver, alone, her head against the cold window, watching the rainy night. She was untouched, had barely broken a sweat.

"God, I tried hard today." She prayed and glanced at the other girls starting to have fun in the back seat. She looked back out the cold window. "But I hate being hated by everybody."

She saw the speed limit in the reflection of the driver's side window increase to one number above the speed limit. She said a very discouraged, "Coach." He sighed tiredly and slowed the van. She felt she always had to keep watching for stuff like that. She sighed and prayed, "God, when can I just put this whole thing down? I'm so tired."

But a few minutes later she felt a hand tenderly rest on her shoulder. It was the assistant coach's hand quietly reaching across from the front passenger seat. His eyes were closed, and his lips were moving. A minute later she felt another hand quietly set on her back. The red head had moved to the seat behind her and was pretending to look out the window. But her eyes were closed and Philly heard her praying for her.

His hand was still on her when she heard the assistant coach say, "Hey Coach," and when the head coach looked at him, he nodded toward the speedometer. The head coach grunted and slowed again. Then the assistant coach looked at Philly and mouthed the words, "Let me help carry it." Philly breathed deeply as she let her eyes close. Her head dropped and her mouth began to move quickly. Sweat now beaded on her face.

That night a peace came upon her, but her conviction just grew layers stronger. If there were even hairline cracks in her integrity when evil came, she could be shattered.

***

Evil came the next day.

Philly suddenly stood up in their boarding school cafeteria. The people were all acting normal, but strange shadows seemed to slip away as soon as she looked toward them. She walked to the middle of the cafeteria and squatted slightly in a ready stance, frantically glancing for signs.

A shape darkened the doorway. It was a boy she knew of. He walked in, his black combat boots thumping the floor. He wore a black bullet proof vest, swinging a large gun at his side. He had large black headphones covering his ears and a black ball cap low over his eyes. He lifted the gun and started to fire.

"No! " Philly's voice was lost in the echoing gunfire. "Watch out!" People were silent for just three seconds and then complete pandemonium. People scrambled away from him toward corners or the other door. He shot in the direction of those fleeing and aimed back toward the center of the crowd and shot a few more rounds.

“Jake!” She called out. “Stop, Jake.” When others were scrambling away from him, she sprinted toward him. When others had seen Jake as a harmless guy who liked to hunt and had some disturbingly angry views about authority, Philly saw a time bomb. She had wanted to say something to Jake but whenever he had seen her coming, he had turned the other way, as if he knew she could really see him.

Today he had detonated.

“Jake! Stop this!" She leapt over the corner of a table. "Stop this!” She heard a silent voice tell her, "Rescue my son" and her breakneck sprint faltered into a careful approach.

He stopped moving forward but acted like he couldn’t hear her through the headphones. She was about ten feet from him when he turned around and addressed her.

“Leave me alone!” He shouted. And he fired.

Did it miss?!

He fired three, and then a fourth time and although holes blew open in her clothes, it did not phase her. And no blood.

He shot another set of rounds at her. As the bullets entered her skin, they pushed strong membranes of cells and arteries aside, though breaking none of them. She stepped closer, her eyes locked on him. Bullets stretched through skin and her reticular fibers but the fibers held and closed back into place after the bullets passed through them. She stepped closer. A bullet made a loud 'tink' as it hit one of her ribs. It twisted the right side of her torso back slightly, but the bullet dropped from her body and rattled on the ground. She kept walking, her eyes locked on him. She felt a warmth whelming up in her, somehow a compassion from somewhere. The last two bullets were sloppily aimed and seemed to be bent even further off path by some magnetic field around her, ricocheting them into the floor, pillars, and the wall behind her.

He finally shot at her head and saw the bullet only bunch up the skin on her temple for a moment.

Clack. Clack. Clack. His clip was empty.

He pulled off his headphones and glanced around to make sure nobody else was approaching him. “What do you want with me?!” he yelled. He fumbled about, trying to reload. There were already four or five students writhing in blood on the ground as the rest of the cafeteria fled or tried to help them.

“Your soul is so dirty, Jake,” she said tenderly.

He screamed in anger, finished reloading and shot three more times at her, her tattered clothes nearly falling off her, and random bricks chipping like popcorn around them.

“It is so dark around you." She spoke. "Fear is like your fortress.” She stepped toward him. He had heard that this girl, Philly, she could not lie. And this made it even harder to hear this truth from her.

“No wonder you don’t have any fuckin' friends, Philly. You tell people why they aren’t good enough! That is a dark life!”

This was how she was not invincible. Her spirit fell because of these words as if she had been shot. She doubled over and closed her eyes. And in a split moment, as if life had surged from her in a wave over the cafeteria floor, something reached the injured and soothed them like salve. Their whines of pain suddenly subsided. She breathed as she whispered "Heal me. Help me." She listened intensely for any words that would come to her.

She looked up and said to him, “Truth speaks light into darkness, Jake. Truth is reaching out to pull you out of this pit.”

“Oh, you wanna fight with truth, bitch!? I got truth." His voice raised so others could hear it. "You know you're a lesbian, right? ­­You know when your aunt would rape you and you kinda liked it? And how your druggy mom wanted to sell you when you were born," His face was on fire with rage. "That's right! She never even wanted you, bitch!" Her spirit fell again, and in the wake of her soul’s shudder, she fell to her knees. Jake seemed to be tapping into something too.

She whispered as she breathed in, "Care for my secrets, Father, for they have left me." She scowled in shame but as she met the eyes of the closest victim something surprised her. Instead of disgust or judgment, this blonde girl lifting her face from a bloody puddle looked at Philly in surprise. It was as if uncovering Philly's last remaining secrets endowed Philly with new technologies of power. Jake had strangely, suddenly fallen backward, and was scrambling to get up. The injured girl pulled herself up to her elbows as if she saw a shining sentry of strength that held a serious hope for them.

But Jake's voice slapped her face again, "And when have you ever helped people more than you hurt them??! They all hate you for who you are.” He glanced at the doorways and shot a couple times at both entrances to ensure no one could surprise him. People were still scrambling to exit.

But in the moment it took to do that, Philly put her head down, her hands on the ground and whispered as she breathed in, “Pour into me." She exhaled, "Pour out of me.” And suddenly the other three people writhing on the ground stopped and looked at her as if feeling a pulse of spiritual life surge over them again.

Philly clasped the ground, just as Jake knelt to a knee in front of her. He put a finger two inches from her nose and shouted, “Now they know your secrets. And nobody likes you. You know it’s true.”

“Somebody likes us.” She lifted her head and looked at him as if she had drawn her next spiritual breath. “Somebody likes us." She said with a quivering chin.

Veins of fear shuddered across his face.

"He likes you, Jake. Loves you and likes you.” She squinted. She was listening for more from above. She heard, and she winced as she delivered the message, “Your baby brother was your fault.”

With this his anger exploded and he punched her quickly in the nose. It did no damage to her besides lifting her to her feet. But he cradled his fist in pain. Peeled skin striped across his knuckles as if he had punched the side of as steel plate. She whispered, but with a surprising compassion, “Your baby brother died because you dropped him, and you never told your parents.” She didn't understand why she was being told to say this, but she tried to trust.

Jake screamed as he bared his teeth at her. He held the gun aimed at her face.

“But that doesn’t mean you are bad." She pressed into the cold barrel and spoke. "He knows you didn’t want to or mean to. He created you good. But you didn’t believe it." She looked at his chest. "Your spirit longs to breathe Him in again." She looked back at his face. "Your daddy wants you back.”

“You don’t know my dad!" He hissed at her, just loud enough for her to hear. "My dad deserted us in 2nd grade and only came back when he wanted to make us do things with his sex slaves. Nothing about him was good.”

Now she understood why the compassion whelmed inside her; she understood this type of pain. Philly grabbed his throbbing fist. "Jake! Listen."

His anger and pain were dwarfed by a surge of something coming from her grip on his knuckles. He looked down at his fist and he could suddenly see his body the way it was in the spiritual realm. It was gray, desiccated, veiny and shriveled. But his fist, where she grabbed it was becoming new, soft skin again. He thought he felt his skin crawling back together on his wounded knuckles. His whole fist glowed.

He saw the light moving up his veins and filling out his arms with life. He was torn between panic and need. It felt like a darkness in him was trying to tear him away from her grip, but she held on. The light was erasing the tattoo he got on his rebellious solo trip to Tijuana. The light disintegrated the sleeve of the shirt he got at his favorite death-symphony concert. The strap of the backpack he had painstakingly modified for months to be a killing tool, peeled open and unraveled as if being melted by the light crawling close to it. These had been some of the few precious things that he could call his. And something dark in him wanted to fight to the death to keep them, and keep him.

He looked up at her and could see her face the way it was. This girl who rarely sinned was a walking lighthouse. The entire spiritual world saw her and was either drawn to her or repelled. And now he knew why he had always been repelled.

But now, in her eyes he saw something that drew him to her. All her pain had been forged into a tuning fork that now resonated with his soul. This ache in her sought out hurt to transform to life. And that compassion in her eyes was now telling him something.

“He wants me back?” Jake was surprised to hear the small voice leak out of him.

“YES!”

He looked down at the encroaching glow, now seeping into his shoulder. He started to pull his fist away to preserve the last parts of his old self. But her grip was strong. “It's taking everything away!" He said, "Will there be anything left of me?”

“Do you want any of it?" She asked.

He thought for a moment and saw what the light was doing to his body. He shook his head violently, “No. Take it all away before I can leave!” Even though at the same time something made his body shudder, trying to rip his fist from her hand.

“You will stay you, but completely redeemed. It will all turn to light.”

His body shook violently again, trying to free himself. "Don't let go! Don't let go!" He yelled, even as he found himself swinging the pith of his heavy gun at their hands to try and break their bond. But it couldn't get close. It was repelled and clattered to the floor. The swelling magnetic field now protected parts of Jake as well. This moment releasing the gun seemed to be the tilting of the balance inside him.

He grabbed her wrist with his other hand. The light began to grow up that arm too. He glanced behind him, as if he were afraid someone would come in and stop this transfer. “What will I do when they. . . when they. . . take me?”

“They can take your body, but your spirit can now be free.”

“My spirit has been… in prison all my life.” He said it as if just realizing that.

“And now it will become free. Your Father is coming for you.”

“He's coming?”

“And he loves you.”

“How can he want me? How could someone want me?” He looked momentarily afraid. "I don't know if I could ever believe that." He felt like a child that could not hide anything from her.

She grasped his other wrist too and her eyes drew close to his, “He likes you so much and he loves that he wants you back so much.”

Suddenly a deep throated shout rang out from the doorway. “Drop your weapons.”

Jake grasped onto her arm tighter, not even remembering the gun at his side.

“It’s not enough time. Where is He?”

“He will pursue you for the rest of your life.”

“But how can I do this after you’re gone? How will He find me?”

“Just believe it. Then your body will seek out breath like it's food. And He will find you over and over, wherever you are."

Just then strong arms from hard, black, canvas jackets pulled Jake onto his back. He looked at his arms. They were still glowing. But the men that surrounded him couldn’t seem to see what he saw. He suddenly got scared that they would take it from him or that it would disappear. He tried to lean up to see Philly but they slammed him to the ground.

He could hear Philly whispering, “Believe, Jake. Believe.”

He relaxed, let his back lay flat on the floor and breathed in. He really, deeply needed to believe. It was the only thing he had left. He breathed again. And the next moment he felt warmth and saw light shining from his chest. “I want to believe it.” He breathed deeply as they threw him onto his stomach and cuffed him. His head now felt the light and heat too. “I believe.” He breathed deeply again as they lifted him to his feet and pushed him toward the door. The light reached some new part of him and he was suddenly slammed with love for his victims. “I’m sorry!” He glanced back to those on the floor and shouted back. “I’m so, so sorry!” They were inspecting their wounds, surprised they were not more hurt. "I'm sorry!" He trailed off.

They moved him toward the police cars. He whispered a desperate, “I believe.” And when they threw him into the back seat, crushing his hands cuffed behind his back, “I believe.” And as the door slammed closed, he breathed another time, “I believe.”

The door shut with a thud and in the silence, he heard a voice, like original thoughts appearing in his mind, “I will never leave you again.”

And as if he had heard the voice of his real father for the first time, something cracked at the bottom of his soul, which had hardened by the long life of exhausting angst. Pain began the slow trickling out. It hurt to see how broken he was. How far he had to heal. He slumped over, longing for someone to hold him.

He knew that there would be a lot he'd need to reckon with for what he'd done in this world. And he would do his best to repair.

It felt so big. And he felt so sad.

As he took a deep, slow breath, with his head pushing against the black leather of the car seat, he heard the words, "My son." It felt like a heavy warm burn pad was draped over his raw soul. Was this love? It coated and began softening.

"Oh, God. You're really here." He let out his breath and his whole body started to shake with sobs.

He hadn't cried in so long. Perhaps since before all the pain started numbing him, when he was a child. He cried through the drive, and through the night in the cell. He cried off and on for many days after that. Much like a baby when first coming home from the hospital, learning to trust his father will be near. In fact, it was very much like a heartbroken child knowing how to call for the faithful arms of his father.

Raw Spoon, 10-11-16