1. Origins: Issue 1

Gravesdale, Wisconsin

2016

Present Day

“3...2...1...done,” Matt stammered, dropping down from the pull-up bar, falling into Josh's personal space. “How’d I do?” Matt asked, wiping the sweat off of his eyebrows with his palm. “Twenty pull ups, about forty-three seconds,” Josh said, with a huge smile on his face, “You’ve come a long way, man.”

“What can I say? I didn't like being fat,” Matt said, happily, wiping his face with a towel he grabbed off a rusty rack on the wall as they left the weight room and continued through the gym to make their way into the locker room. Josh pushed Matt playfully on the shoulder into the doorway to enter the gym, pulled out his phone and responded to a text. “I dunno man, I kinda miss Fat Matt,” Josh said, quickly followed by a laugh, while looking down at his phone.

“Yeah, well I don’t miss my tits; those fuckers always got in the way of everything,” Matt said, opening the door to the locker room. “I miss them, they were fun to juggle around with--play with ,” Josh said foolishly, trying to piss his friend off in a fun manner.

“Ah-ha-ha you’re so funny,” Matt said sarcastically, pushing him forward through the locker room entrance. They both walked in, took a look around and both gave each other the ‘okay’ signal, meaning there were no drug dealers around. “Looks all clear, I don’t think they do their business around the school on Wednesdays,” Matt said, taking off his sweaty shirt, throwing it into his locker and grabbing a clean towel off of the rack. “First off, I don’t think it matters what day it is, they’ll sell any day. Besides, Chuck let me know that Mr. P is high up on the food chain for the Blue Dukes, so it seems like teachers are just as involved in this as we are.” Josh said.

“We live in one fucked up world, don’t we?” Matt said, partially depressed.

“It ain’t the world, man. It’s just us…” Josh said, placing his hand on Matt’s shoulder as Matt finished placing his dirty clothes into his backpack.

   

The two exited the almost empty school and entered an almost empty parking lot comprised of just two cars, both parked right next to each other. Matt and Josh looked at each other, with the same thought in their head. A drug deal was going down not even a football field’s length away, on school grounds and nobody was doing anything about it. “We have to talk to Eli,” Matt said, “This s**t is getting way too out of hand. We have to get a few people to have shifts around the school at this time too, I mean, it’s not even dark yet, and look at this s**t!” Matt said, continuing his walk with Josh along the side of the school with hopes to not cause any trouble. Josh and Matt scaled the building to the point that Josh caused a small rip in his shirt, not that it had mattered to him. The two turned a corner to see Matt’s true love, Holly, making out with his archenemy, Angelo. Josh took a look over to Matt, who saw how desperately he was contemplating taking action against The Angel (Angelo’s codename in the Miller City Diablos). “Come on, man. We’ll go the long way,” Josh said, as he grabbed Matt's arm and led him in the opposite direction.

The two entered the kitchen of Matt’s house, and Josh grabbed a dirty dishrag to wipe the sweat off his face, and Matt pulled out the protein powder and began to make two bottles of protein drinks for them. Josh sat down at the island in the center of the small kitchen and peeled open his banana, taking a small bite.    “It just doesn't make any sense. She’s never touched dope in her life, yet she's dating one of the biggest dealers in the Gravesdale area,” Matt said, putting away the protein tub back to its respective place on top of the refrigerator. “Well she won't date you, I mean, you did kill her dad,” Josh said, in a comedic tone, hoping to make a joke, even though he knew that was doomed to fail since he first thought of it.

“I didn't kill her dad. Her dad saved me, and I’m grateful for that,” Matt said.

“Yeah but you have to admit, you shouldn’t have been there anyways, I mean you were skipping school,” Josh said, backing his claim up with several pieces of evidence, “Also, not to mention how awkward those family dinners would be: ‘So Matt, kill anybody's husband lately,’ her mom would ask and--,”

Matt interrupted, “I'd say no,” he sternly stated.

“Well...I'd hope so,” Josh said, chugging his protein shake, “I’d be a bit worried if you were to say yes,” Josh said after forcing down the final gulp.

“F**k you, this is my life we’re talking about here, not some comedy,” Matt said, pulling a chair up to the island to sit across from his friend.

“I know, I kid, I kid. It’s just, you gotta realize that the two of you wouldn’t work. COULDN’T work! There’s too much...too much--,” Josh stopped, not being able to think of the word.

“Too much what? Chemistry? Because there’s a lot of that, you piece of horse s**t,” Matt said angrily, with a small chuckle afterward, just to show he wasn’t actually mad..

“I was gonna say awkwardness. You remember the first thing you said to her after her dad died?”

“It was the fourth grade,” Matt said, now becoming annoyed.

“Doesn’t matter, the first thing you said was ‘thank you’! THANK YOU! That’s a real fucked up thing to say to somebody who’s parent you had just killed,” Josh said, finishing his protein shake.

“That’s not what I meant by it. I meant thanks that--,” Matt stopped, realizing there was no real way out of that, and he was indeed in the wrong, “We’re done, alright. Forget it,” Matt said angrily, putting both of their bottles into the sink, and opening up the door to the basement. Josh stood up, walked up to the door and grabbed Matt’s shoulder. “Now, if we’re going to talk about real girl problems, we should talk about me and Caity, something that could actually happen,” Josh said happily, looking down into the dark basement.

“The girl from Lincoln? When was the last time you’ve talked to her?” Matt asked.

“We text a lot, I even called her pretty a few days ago,” Josh said, smiling as all of the words reached open space. Matt stared at his friend for a few seconds, trying to remember why he still hangs out with him, and finally was able to think of a logical response. “Wow, you guys are practically dating!” Matt said, sarcastically, pushing his friend further down the stairs.

Josh pushed all the pool table balls into the triangle that held them in place, and frantically looked all around to find the missing eight ball. “Hey man, I think your 8-ball is missing,” Josh said, “How do you lose your 8-ball? That’s like the most important ball!” Josh said, now on his knees, crawling around looking for the missing ball. “The cue ball is more important,” Matt said, sitting on the couch, switching through the TV, channel after channel. Cartoons, cooking, news, more cartoons then changing the channel back to the news real quick.

“S**t dude...did you see this?” Matt asked, shocked by what he is witnessing on the TV, and throwing a pillow at Josh to get his attention.

“F**k… the Diablos just lost one of their biggest dealers. Eli’s gotta be happy about this one, we haven’t had a success like this in a while,” Josh said, watching the live raid of the recently located drug warehouse of one of the leaders of the Mexican gang in Miller City, the Diablos.

“Victor Salvez, one of the Diablos most prominent dealers. Last time I checked, the police don’t listen to our tips anymore. Hell, we should be in prison for doing what we do. All of us,” Matt said, “Chuck and George, and what happened to that little girl in Washington Park, that’s on them. Why aren’t they in prison? They had a duty, and they fucked it! We’re screwed now cause of that, aren’t we? Sherriff Clark has a reason to arrest us now, doesn’t he?” Matt asked, calming back down, and switching the channel to a baseball game. “You can’t blame Chuck and George. They tried their best, and they did exactly what Eli asked, nothing they could’ve done would’ve stopped that man from doing what he did,” Josh said, on the ground still looking for the ball, “That’d be like blaming all current day white people for the deaths of Native American’s,” Josh said. After a few moments of silence, Matt finally announced his final thought. “If we could take down Salvez, do you think we could take down Angelo?” Matt asked, still desperate for Holly’s affection. “We aren’t going through this again, man,” Josh said, then jumping up from underneath a couch that was against the wall, “Ah! Found it!” Josh screamed, grabbing the black ball and holding it up in the air like he just won the Super Bowl, and was parading it around like the trophy.

That night, Matt laid in his bed, unable to sleep, reading a Weapon X comic with Wolverine and Fantomex on the cover. Matt placed the comic on his nightstand, turned around to face his window and opened it to look out into the still living city. The city that seemed like it is only living through a cord plugged into the wall, that was extremely close to slipping out and turning off. After looking out for several minutes, listening to all of the police sirens, honking cars and flying planes, he finally decided to try and go to sleep again. After shutting the window and lying back down for several minutes, he realized there was no hope. He reopened his eyes, leaned up against the wall and just sat there, in the deep dark abyss that was his room. Then, breaking the silence just a few houses down, gunshots could be heard waking the entire neighborhood.