Sell you a Bridge chapter 1 (Patreon)

Life sucked. It was pointless and boring and empty. Go to school, come home, and sit on my computer. Read some stories, watch some TV, and hit on random girls. Life was a meaningless mess of empty nothingness. Some people might say that was because I lived in Gotham city in a run down tenement building, but they would be wrong. Life sucked because I was normal. When people like Superman are running around firing lasers from their eyes and the flash can violate physics being a normal person just seems...pointless.

Don’t get me wrong, I personally love superheroes, especially the females. Black Canary can put a high heeled boot up my ass any day, but they make the rest of us feel a bit unnecessary. Why bother doing anything? Supers can do it better. I didn’t bother with sports, didn’t bother with friends, and didn’t bother with girls. I was nothing, nobody. Just sitting on my barely functioning shitbox computer checking my email for god knows what reason.

It’s not like anyone would be sending me anything important. I just stared down at the screen, one of those boxy old beige monitors they used before flatscreen computer displays became a thing. I’d heard some of the big companies had holographic displays now but it’s not like I’d ever get to see one. Probably alien tech. Because of course in places that weren’t earth people were born with fucking superpowers en masse.

I scrolled through my email, some feedback for stories I’d posted or commented on, a few offers for credit cards, reminders for things I was reading. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I clicked a random message that boldly informed me that just by clicking on one of the three brief cases on the screen I could win a million dollars! I sighed and clicked one of them, seeing the pop up informing me of my winnings. It just blinked off, probably caught by my pop up blocker, not even bothering to ask me my address or bank account number. Apparently I wasn’t good enough to have my identity stolen.

I checked my social media looking for some messages from my few aquaintances, no such luck. I briefly considered going to try talking to that pretty blonde Asian girl, who always hung out on the roof, but her dad was super intense and besides, my looks were distinctly average much like the rest of me. Dishwater brown hair, brown eyes, average height at five foot ten, thin but not musclular at all. I didn’t have a big dick. Hell I didn’t even have a small dick. It would be unfortunate but at least it would be something noteworthy about me.

I was just mediocre. I got mediocre grades and dressed in mediocre clothes. Some of the kids at school managed to make their outfits look stylish or impressive despite being poor. Good Will and Salvation Army, or shopping the sales, they had all kinds of ways to make their style stand out. I wore faded shirts and beat up jeans. Not even anything funny on them. I turned off my computer walking over to flop down on my bed. I pulled out my old beat up flip phone. No one called. Of course.

I’d almost hoped to hear from my dad. Not that that was common, but it was my birthday today. I was turning sixteen. Mom was working of course, dad had money but he also had “enemies”. The fact that his go to excuse for not being able to visit or send anything was true didn’t make it hurt any less. Mario Falcone was definitely an important man. He was just also a lousy dad. I’d never met any members of the family except my Grandfather Carmine. My dad brought me to see him once on my thirteenth birthday.

The old man had told me what being a Falcone meant. He told me he would offer me one chance to accept the name, but if I did it I’d have to leave my mom and come live with Mario. I would become a son of the Falcone family in truth and no other family could claim me. He said it was safer that way. I was terrified of him, but I loved my mother. I told him poilitely where to shove his last name. He actually smiled at me then and he told me it was a pity to see me go.

My dad usually only called once a year now, on my birthday, when he remembered. My mom usually made a huge deal about my birthday, but she’d been saving to buy me a new computer and was working double shifts to afford it. My mom was the one thing that made my life worth a damn. She was the coolest sweetest most caring person I’d ever met. The only smart thing Mario Falcone ever did to my knowledge was fall in love with my mother.

Marie O’Malley was a runaway. Her parents were staunch Irish catholic and when she got pregnant they threw her out of the house. She’d been the same age I was turning today and she walked right into the nearest restaurant and asked for a job. The owner of the bar, an old man named Vincent St. James, had taken pity on her and let her work as a server under the table. She still worked at that bar to this day. I went there after school sometimes and Vinnie let me have free root beer and one meal off the menu a day.

I hadn’t felt like going today though. I was just feeling kind of lost. My mom would shower me with affection when she got home; she was picking up my cake on the way back from work though she didn’t think I knew about it. Our place had thin walls so I’d overheard the call she made to the bakery confirming it was ready though I pretended I didn’t. She would come bursting in with a big smile and shout “Happy birthday Morgan!” And then I would feel better. Even if it was only for the rest of the day, that at least was something to look forward to.

I dozed off for a bit, laying there staring at my ceiling waiting for the phone to ring. It hadn’t of course, but I was roused from my boredom induced slumber by the doorbell. Which was an odd thing to wake me, because no one had ever come over to my apartment? I was pretty sure I’d heard that bell a total of once in my entire life, and it had been a package delivered here by mistake. I wondered who it could be closing my eyes a second and imagining the amazing things that could be on the other side of that door. Gold, jewels, that sexy blonde Artemis from upstairs naked.

Sadly I had to open my eyes again and come back to the real world where it was probably a girlscout who came to this neighborhood on a dare or something. Regardless I was curious so I got up and headed to the door, flinging it open to find...no one. The hall was empty except a single, relatively nice briefcase sitting on the floor in front of my door. I debated taking it, this WAS Gotham, it might be joker gas or something. But in the end the oddness of the situation won out.

I picked up the briefcase, which was oddly light for some reason and pulled it back into my place, shutting the door quickly because I wasn’t the only curious person in the world and some of my neighbors would literally shiv me for a briefcase even if it was empty. I carried it into our tiny kitchen and set it down on the beat up little wood table mom had picked up at a swap meet. It was polished and well cared for, because mom took care of everything well even if it was old and beat up. She treated our things like members of the family, treated everyone and everything with kindness and respect.

Every day I was terrified of what might happen to her in this town. I saw the Joker and Batman and the Scarecrow on TV and I just...wished I was stronger. Wished I had powers and was important. Then I could protect her like she protected me. I stared at the briefcase, sitting there on the old well worn wood against a backdrop of green formica counters and hideous yellow tile that was probably installed in the seventies and I almost didn’t want to open it.

I wanted to leave it closed, leave it as a possibility. My very own Schrodinger’s Cat, the box could have the answer to all my problems or not. In the end though I finally decided enough was enough. I was deluding myself, it was probably a suit or something from my old man, some kind of mob rite of passage he tossed me as scraps to make himself feel better about abandoning us. I popped the shiny gold clips open and flipped up the lid. Then I immediately slammed it shut. My heart was pounding. What. The. Actual. Fuck?

I opened it again. Slower this time. I’d been right. It was real. The case was full of money. Real money. Not singles either, stacks of hundreds. I realized where I’d seen this case before. On my computer screen. It was the same color and design as the case I’d clicked earlier on the pop up. I pulled the money out and counted it. One million. One million dollars. American dollars. Real currency. Non sequential and with different serial numbers too. This was an actual thing that had happened to me.

I ran back to my computer booted it up and searched for the email. I didn’t see it. I tried searching for some key words. Nothing. I scrolled back through my spam folder carefully. There was no email. It was gone. Then I saw a number on my screen. There was a small one next to my trash icon. I clicked it and there was the email. Same name and everything, but it was greyed out. I tried to click on it but nothing happened. After a minute of sitting there it vanished. Not deleted by slowly fading off the screen like ink vanishing in the rain.

I sat there in silence, stunned. I ran back to the kitchen grabbing the briefcase and brought it back to my room. Mom would want to know where I got it and I didn’t want to explain myself, hell I didn’t know how to explain myself. Did I have superpowers now? What were they? Super fast delivery? What the hell. Regardless I would have to put this in a bank account or something so and pretend I got a job. Give it to mom bits at a time so she wouldn’t suspect I was getting into the family business.

I stuffed the thing under my bed. We couldn’t afford a frame but my mattress was on a box spring which was hollow on the inside and I lifted it up and slid the case into the empty space between the obvious impressions the thing left on the dingy blue carpet. I set the bed back down and spent about five minutes assuring myself it wasn’t somehow visible in the way the bed was sitting despite that being absurd and pretty much impossible.

Finally I made my way back over to my computer and slumped down into the chair. I stared at the screen in front of my in numb shock and wonder. Was I crazy? Was this some weird coincidence that just beggared the imagination? Did I really have some kind of super power? There was only one way to find out. I focused on my email, scrolling through. But when I looked every single email with an offer or a promise of something good was greyed out.

At least until the clock ticked over to midnight. All of a sudden all the emails went back to normal. I could click them again. I stared at the clock, I hadn’t even realized how late it was. Mom was getting home from her double in another two hours. I had slept for an entire night’s worth of time. Come to think of it that was after I clicked the email. Had it made me tired? Only one way to find out.

I looked for my next email and spotted one that looked promising. Muscle X enhancement powder. See results after one day or your money back. Get completely ripped in a month with no exercise. The thing went on to list a bunch of BS ingredients and offer testimony from probably imaginry people, but I ignored that. I was focused on the big green button that said “Order Now!” with three arrows pointing down. Well here went nothing. I clicked the button, and the email disappeared.