CHAPTER FOUR

CHOICE

The morning breeze whirls wildly through the cave.  I haven’t gotten used to the ear buds on the Guide, so I listen to the haunting screams.  I turn on the flat screen just to feel a little less lonely, but it’s an infomercial for a blender-baker-puree-smoothie machine that promises to “revolutionize your culinary cuisine.”  I’m not sure what type of cuisine is not culinary, but I’ll pass on the revolution.

I turn the volume off and stare at the parchment from The Oracle.  I packed it along with the plane tickets.  As hard as I try, it still makes no sense to me.

“There’s a price on your head

To ensure you are dead

You simply can’t stay

Past the first of May,”

That’s what the enemy said.

I begin to panic.  It starts out small.  This can’t possible be real.  What have I done?  But then I see it as a trap.  I’m being drawn into danger, without a choice.  I swallow hard and hold back the tears, but I can’t calm myself down.  I sputter around the room lightheaded and drowsy. 

“Come on, Gabe.  This can’t be real.  This can’t be real.  No way,” I say aloud to myself.

My stomach tightens and my chest spasms until finally I run to the restroom and vomit in the toilet.

Is he supposed to be my villain? Does he plan on killing me?

“Are you okay?” Aunt Debbie asks me. 

“I’m fine.  I’m fine.  I just ate a whole can of whip cream last night and it didn’t settle well in my stomach.”

“Oh . . . um, okay.  Well, if you need me to get something for you, let me know.” 

Aunt Debbie has this calm, I-have-it-together personality and so I’m left feeling both terrified and embarrassed.  I want to talk to my aunt and uncle about the message, but on some level, I believe it’s my fault.  Somehow I’ve done something and the Universe is punishing me for it.

*      *     *

Later that day, we enroll at the Academy of Honor.  It will be another two weeks before the school year begins, so the office here passes the hours playing on their Guides while pretending to work.

The principal explains to us, “You’ll need to choose which cadre you want to join.”

“What’s a cadre?” Perla asks.

“It’s like a team, I guess. Except there aren’t any points and no one loses.”

“Or wins,” I say. 

The principal shakes her head and continues, “Take a pamphlet or a brochure. I’m really not sure what the difference is. I guess maybe pamphlets are used more for things when people need help and brochures are more like advertisements.”

“I could use some help,” Perla explains.

“Then call it a pamphlet.”

“Can you explain the difference between the cadres?” Perla asks.

“It comes down to values. What do you want in life?”

“What do you mean?” Jesse asks.

“Well, the Fireworks Cadre is just like its metaphor.  You’ll be noticed and admired, but your career will be shorter. You’ll craft a story where you are known. True, you won’t make much money, but you’ll be famous.”

“What about the Candlelight Cadre?” I ask.  

“Like its symbol, the Candlelight Cadre burns slowly.  The goal is wisdom.  Go with this one and you’ll be privy to the inside information.  You won’t have fame, but you’ll be the respected expert. Most of our Council of Graphic Novelists began in the Candlelight Cadre.”

Uncle Carl adds, “The Candlelight Cadre is the most popular. You’ll make more money than the rest. You’ll live a quiet life and not have to be rushed. If I could do it all over again, I’d choose that cadre.”

“But it’s not his choice,” the principal sternly reminds him.

“Which one allows you to make a difference?” I ask.

“Each cadre provides for that.  The question is how you want to go about doing that.”

“I’m interested in the Wildfire Cadre.”

“That one seems wrong, Jesse. The whole thing seems twisted.  More power, more destruction . . .”

The principal cuts in, “More creativity, too. It’s not wrong.  It’s just different.  A wildfire is needed to bring about change.  No wildfire and the world is all deadwood.”

“I still don’t get why someone would join that cadre?”

“It’s the only one that seems interested in change.  Read the brochure.  I think I’m going to join it,” Jesse explains.

Not me.  I’m going for fame.  The Fireworks Cadre might be my official ticket into the Us Tribe. I daydream of little children holding plastic action figures of me and I can see my face on the big screen.

“I need to warn you about these choices. You create your own story. You make your own decisions, but understand that you can’t back out of the story you formulate.”

“So there’s no switching?” Perla asks.

“None.”

“But what if . . .” I ask.

“There are no ‘what if’s’ in this one. Just ‘what will’ and ‘what has.’ Let’s make that real clear. There’s a cost to each decision and a benefit. The tricky part is making the right decision.”

“Which is the right decision?”

“It’s your story.”

We make a deal that each of us will try out one of the cadres just to see what it’s like.  It works out perfectly, because I want the Fireworks Cadre and Jesse wants the Wildfire Cadre and Perla just wants to make a few new friends.  She says she’s tired of being at the top and she’s ready to blend in and go invisible in a new environment.

*     *     *

A week later, we’re in Downtown celebrating Cynic’s Day. The entire district is a drab gray, with competing halogen images and loud ambient voices beckoning our attention. I notice the flying magnetic trains and high-rise buildings that tower beyond anything I’ve seen in Phoenix.

“It’s hard to believe that Downtown is built underground.”

“The sky looks so real.”

“I still can’t wrap my brain around the lighting tricks. On most days, they create a bright blue with clouds or a sunset that turns this entire Downtown orange.  The Council of Graphic Novelists gets to choose the colors as the heroes are called onto the scene.”

“Will we see any heroes?”

“Yeah.  Even on Cynic’s Day. Watch. Check out the train that’s driving toward the building. Some hero will stop it and you’ll see . . . you’ll see.”

It barrels toward the brick façade until it dissolves into the building. Sparks fly as the accordion-shaped monorail halts to a stop. Nothing too impressive. A man in orange tights and a yellow cape pulls out an elderly woman and a child and then manages to shoot a zip line hook toward a beam below. As they slide down, a second explosion erupts – this time with an ear-splitting decibel and billowing black smoke. I watch a flaming ball of gas moving toward the zip line, as though the fire itself is following the man in tights.

As he sets the two train passengers down, a mechanical-winged hawk-man swoops down and grabs him by the chest. I’m mesmerized, but Jesse yawns.  The hero pulls his hands away from the talons and shoots another zip line around the mechanical wings.  Within a minute, Dr. Hawk is immobilized and a halogen reading, “Zip Tight” shimmers behind the hero. 

I look around, expecting a crowd, but everyone moves on. The traffic, the flying cars, the billboards with huge 3-D advertisements – nothing stops. Back in the barrio, a simple fender bender would generate a decent-sized crowd of curious kids and bored homeless men.

“Nobody stops here,” I say.

“I know. Isn’t it great? Everything just keeps moving all the time,” he explains.

“Bizarre.  Even on Cynic’s Day, the city moves.”

After an hour and a half of eating bitter food and watching the halogen images turn increasingly depressing, I wander away toward an alley.  Superheroes always fight in alleys, so I figure I might catch a decent battle. 

I hear the footsteps of heavy shoes echoing each of my steps.  When I turn back, I see nothing but shadows and random wooden crates. 

I listen closer again at the echoing footsteps. So, I change my pace and look around.  At first, I catch him only in the peripheral and assume he is simply another hero walking the alleys on his own.  Yet, as I turn toward other alleys, I see him again. 

After a few turns through the alleys, I shift to a full-scale sprint.  He takes off as well; each of us playing a hide-and-go-seek game.

I run a block and he’s ahead of me.  Another short block and he’s behind me.  I take a turn by one alley and he seems to creep up at the next.  Finally, I reach a dead-end and hope that I can figure out how to shock him. As I lean up against the wall, I hear the shaking of the shrubbery and step away, startled. It’s a two-story hedge with the word “Labyrinth” in gold letters. Maybe I can hide out here.

I begin wandering around, hoping to see where it leads. Again, I hear the heavy shoes clip-clopping on the cement floor. I move faster through the labyrinth, wondering if the unnamed villain is hiding ahead with an ambush or behind me, waiting for me to turn around.

 When I’ve reached the end, I bump into a man, who simply says, “Excuse me” and takes a step back.  I recognize the long monk’s robe and the facemask. It’s the Oracle I had met in the park. I attempt to turn around and run, but I’m immobilized.

“Why were you running?” he asks.

“I was being chased.”

“Don’t assume that everyone who approaches you means to harm you.  I’m nearly out of breath trying to catch you.”

“So you’re the . . .?”

“Ah, Gabriel.  You found the labyrinth.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool.”

“You know, it’s not like a maze.  In a maze, there are dead-ends. In a labyrinth, there’s always an option, always a new turn, always a chance.  No matter where you go, you’ll make it.”

“Interesting.”

“The beauty of the labyrinth is that you have the freedom to choose, but you have the security of knowing that your path will lead to success.”

“So, where does this one lead?”

“To danger,” he says and points to a sign reading “WARNING” in big block letters and then “library” in smaller letters.

“Just remember this in your journey, Gabriel.  It’s a labyrinth.  Even when it doesn’t seem like it.  Even when it seems like a maze, there is that invisible force that takes you where you need to be.”

“Fate?”

“Some call it fate.  Some destiny.”

“What about choosing your story?”

“You choose your route.  You choose your reactions.  However, life is a labyrinth.”

“So, why is the library off-limits?”

“Might I advise you to go and enjoy Cynic’s Day? They have a pudding made of bittersweet chocolate. It’s delectable. It’s like the dessert that snuck in when no one was watching.  Much sweeter than you could have imagined on Cynic’s Day.”

So, I roam back to the Downtown Square in time for the official start of Cynic’s Day. According to the oral traditions, citizens created Cynic’s Day in order to counter-balance the optimism of Thanksgiving. Everyone drinks bitter wine and complains about how broken the world has become and if they have had enough to drink, they reminisce on the good old days and mope around in a drunken stupor complaining about the futility of life.

When this is all over, everyone plays carnival games – the rigged kind, where no one wins and everyone wastes wads of cash with the hope that they will win an oversized stuffed elephant in order to appease a whiny child or prove their love to a skeptical girlfriend.

Everyone re-gifts their least favorite presents from years past and hands them out to strangers while sullen clowns pass out balloon animals, because, let’s be honest, most balloon animals seem a little creepy and this is the day when it finally fits the occasion.

“Go ahead, pop it! See how fragile life really is.  You’re a hero.  One explosion and you’re gone,” a clown implores.

People decorate the walls with the dark art that they typically save for the indie coffee shops and everyone plays really sad country western songs from back in the day before the lyrics turned sappy and patriotic. My favorite is a tune about hiring an alcoholic to decorate the home and another one asking the absurd question, “If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?” Who asks that question? It doesn’t matter. It’s Cynics Day.

Sometimes they play the blues. Not the fake blues, either. Not the kind of blues that you hear at the doctor’s office or in those cheesy movies where everything turns out good in the end. No, they play real blues with real saxophones and my God if you could hear the way the brass cries, it’s amazing. Even to an eighth grader in love with robotic hip hop, it’s beautiful.

The whole Superpower, Outsiders included, gathers together their rotten produce and everyone throws it at pictures of genocide and racism and murder and everything else that makes this world dark and depressing. Little kids, old ladies, villains and heroes and street sweepers (we never had street sweepers in Phoenix) alike grab wrinkly tomatoes and black cucumbers and fuzzy oranges and all of us chuck it with as much pent-up anger as we can muster at the photo collages, but the collages are covered in plastic and so volunteers simply squeegee the rotten remains. It becomes a bold reminder that cynical anger alone cannot create change.

“It’s a cautionary tale about freedom,” Uncle Carl tells me.  “Sometimes you think autonomy will mean you are always free from darker side of life.  Today is the holiday where we all have a collective reality check.  We see that choice and freedom are not synonymous.  We recognize that there are things we cannot control.”

The thing about Cynic’s Day is it sounds like a dysfunctional carnival. And maybe it is. But I find myself happy despite its inherent darkness. It’s like finally we are all admitting, “We don’t have it together. There isn’t much to celebrate,” and somehow, as strange as it sounds, hope breaks through.

At the end, everyone walks home in a generally happy mood with the sense that, even as broken as this world may be, there is still such a thing as love and hope and beauty.  We end up in the Caves eating pie and talking about the parts of this world that we enjoy. 

It turns upbeat, perhaps even schmaltzy, but it doesn’t feel that way since we’ve all been honest about how broken this world is.

And that’s the magic of Cynic’s Day.