The Orchestrals (Illustrated)

7/28/2019 The Orchestrals (Illustrated)

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Grant/“Orchestrals”/1

The Orchestrals :or: One Among Many Failures

Where does a six hundred pound crocodile sleep?Anywhere he wants to. That will be my last thought, he

thought as the metal chord tightened around his neck and themetaltoed boot pushed his face harder into the snow and harder into the concrete under the snow, the soft of his face and the

soft of the snow the only things yielding between hardness of boot and ground.

But that wasn’t his last thought.

He thought, What is that kind of harness they use onwild animals with the pole and the loop? Could it tighten

enough to choke a man to death? Shouldn’t they havesafeguards?

It was that bargaining stage, the last scrap of hope – butall pointless, a waste of depleting brain time.But his brain wasn’t built for the glorious.

His mother always told him he’d be a star, literally, she said,like one of those twinkling up there, in her weird joking way.

Now he was only flesh expiring, an exterminated animal.

He only always wanted to be a standup comedian.The first full sentence listed in his baby book: Where

does a six hundred pound crocodile sleep? His childhood hero:Howie Mandel, of course, Walk Like a Man, the rubber glove,

the whole nine yards. He was working on decent catalogue of

jokes for the one day when he’d get the balls to go on stage andlet people judge him in silence.

But then one day at the kitchen table after supper his parents, Hank and Helen Heart, after getting him to clean off

the table in their imposition of discipline and decency, sat him

down and told him, “Herbert,” his mother started, “We have




something to tell you. We’ve shielded you from somethingabout ourselves. It’s for your own safety, but you’re sixteen

now. We think you’re mature enough.” “Cut to the chase, Helen,” his father cut in. “ No need

delaying this. Look, Herbert, we’re superheroes. Your mother and I. That’s what we’ve done our whole lives. So … there itis.”

Herbert didn’t reply. His parents’ faces went fromsternseriousfurrowedbrowfaces to happyhopefulhalfsmiles

back to serious again in the mystery of his silence.

“What, are you serious?” Herbert finally said.“Yes. It’s a family business,” his mother said.

“Family legacy really,” his father corrected. “We wantyou to … to be part of that legacy.”

“Wait, what?” Herbert said, laughing a little. “You’resuperheroes, like, did you have radioactive accidents or something?” he laughed again. It wasn’t very funny.

“No.” His mother breathed in deep to prepare for thenext bit: “We are bonded to creatures called Orchestrals, a

cross between an orca and a kestrel. Invisible to all but our

family, they must bond themselves to humans or they’ll floatup into the sky and die in outer space, drowning really. The

physics are hard to explain.” “Are they aliens?”

“No, just a species,” his mother said, smiling. “A very

special species of … of creatures. A cross between an orca anda kestrel, as I said.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that. This isridiculous.” Herbert was still laughing. None of this laughing

or smiling had much happiness behind it.

“Like I said, only our family can see them, so really noone else in the world knows about them.”




“I can’t get past the idea that you guys are playing somekind of joke.”

“Have you ever known us to be anything other thanserious?” his father said. “Look, Herbert, don’t take this the

wrong way. We’ve been worried about how sharp … how observant you are … especially considering your destiny tofulfill the family legacy. I fully expected you to catch on that

we were superheroes in sixteen years of living in this house.What exactly did you think I did for a living?” Hank Heart

stood there staring at his son now, one eyebrow raised, one fist

on him like half a superhero.“You’re a … a scholar,” Herbert said.

“Yes.” “And an inventor .”

“Yes.” “And an artist and an engineer and a ‘Captain’ of somesort.”

“Yes, I am all those things, but surely as a young boythe fact that I’m a superhero would have stood out somewhat.

For example, your uncle …”

“Uncle the Broken?” “You never noticed he was … well … a supervillain?

He and his partner, Old God, would go out robbing banks, andI’d stop them. They’re my archenemies in fact. It didn’t seem

strange I was always going out to fight your uncle and his

partner?” “I just thought you hated them because they were gay.”

“They’re not gay … They’re … they’re supervillains.That’s beside the point. We need to get you started training as

soon as we can. Don’t want to fall behind. Tenen-Bomb’s kid

across the street has already started his independent study.” “But, sir, I can’t be a superhero for a living. You know

what I’ve always wanted to be when I grew up.” He waited for




them to fill in the silence simultaneously, in his imagining of it,“Standup comedian! Of course, son, we love you and know

you.” But he had to do it himself , “I want to be a … a standupcomedian.”

“Oh,” his father said in surprise.“Oh,” his mother said, “Like the jokes you used to tell.” His father said, “I didn’t realize you took it all so seriously.

Fine. We’ll indulge. Helen, sit down. Let’s indulge the boy. So,Herbert, go ahead. Give us some of your jokes.”

“Oh okay, I mean I’ve been doing that for years but, you know,

whatever …” Hank Heart smiled, patted his son’s knee, and said,

“Well, now we know it’s a future occupation. Come on, give itto us.”

Herbert cleared his throat. “Okay, well, here’s one I’ve been working on. Why is it we always gather and talk at thesame time as we eat because we are putting food in our mouths

… which makes it harder to talk.” “Because eating is a traditionally communal act,” his

mom answered like it was a real question.

“No, mom, I didn’t mean … I mean that was the …” “Oh,” his mom said, her eyes brightening with

recognition. “That was funny. That was very funny.” He tried again: “Okay, so, what’s the deal with God?

With all that power, and he picks a name like God? Pick

another name, guy … with all that creativity, Creator, quoteunquote … um … Like, Bob. Bob is better than God.”

Silence. “That was the end?” his mother said.He tried one more: “Okay, so, my neighbor has a

circular driveway. He doesn’t get out much.”

“ Now that was clever.” “That was a Steven Wright.”




“I see,” his father said and looked down at the floor then back up at Herbert. “Clearly, you have wants. Let’s let

you think about it for a while and let you come back to us onthat one.”

Pretty soon they introduced him to his own Orchestral.In a big backyard ceremony more ostentatious than a bar mitzvah, Hank Heart’s Orchestral – who was called

Orchestralking the King Orchestral – was looming aboveeverything. It was the first Orchestral Herbert ever saw. It

really did look like an orca and a kestrel, the bulk of an orca

and a lot of that black galvanizedrubberlooking skin and on topof that the markings of a kestrel, but with a big gorilla-shaped

body full of blocky muscles like cinder blocks shoved into askinny body, but with all these white markings on top of that

like cum-colored mud smeared in parallel streaks like somesuburban imitation of nativeness. Its face was featureless,lacking eyes and nose and mouth, but this mouthlessness was

most perplexing since in that growingupandbeingamanceremony the King Orchestral launched into what seemed to be

a practiced monologue – it could talk somehow, this seemed so

much like some big practical joke he couldn’t really processthe talking – but the Orchestral’s voice was booming and

magisterial: “We Orchestrals are a majestic and powerful racewith only one weakness,” boom boom across the backyard,

“that we have no natural tie to earth’s gravity. We show our

gratitude to humans for keeping us tied to this world by protecting the smaller and weaker from harm …” on and on the

speech went, that sort of endless pomp. Nothing new from hisfather.

Herbert stopped listening. This was all so ridiculous,

comical in a way he hated.His father at least wore a stylish black suit and not the

gaudy colors of superhero clichés, but still he wore this awful




looking wired up helmet that con joined with the giant’s crotchlike Orchestralking was only one of those creepy giant parade

puppets that looked like giant ghosts crapping out humans. Butalso the giant seemed to blink in and out of reality like a faulty

television but only in pieces, so Herbert wondered if it was lessa puppet and more a hologram or some light trick his father invented, but then the Orchestral would come into full flesh

and seem to stare right through him so that Herbert was certain,despite all his defensive rationalizations, that this Orchestral

was really in front of him. That didn’t stop this too realliving

and breathing creature from seeming puppetlike – or maybe,more accurately, slavelike. Each of the gesticulations was

matched by one of his father’s down below, hamming it between the weird giant orca legs, head in the crotch like it was

the most normal thing in the world.

Herbert assumed the words were his father’s as well, allthat self importance.

Herbert thought back, instead of listening to the speech,to those lessons from his father, or at least what Herbert

thought of as lessons. He’d attack his father, punching or

kicking, playing at first like any boy, playing at being a bigman, but his father would twist a limb this way and that,

pretzling him on the floor. An arm, Hank’s or Herbert’s own,always around his throat, and Hank Heart would say as calmly

as a nightmare, “You feel that? It’s your last breath. Your life

is now ending. Don’t cry. You brought this on yourself.” One day, for example, Hank Heart took up painting and

perfected it, of course, and was in the middle of some stupid perfect painting of perfect bird’s anatomy from memory or

something when Herbert attacked and without messing up a

single bit of his painting Hank Heart twisted Herbert into akind of one armed cross face chicken wing that then twisted

into an inverted front face lock – that’s what it was called,




right? he’d probably get quizzed on it later – with Herbert’s arm wrenched behind him as Hank continued to paint,

squeezing his peck and his biceps against Herbert’s carotidartery. He said, “Feel the last breath you will ever breathe. Say

good bye to the world. Do not cry.” Then Herbert passed out.Then there was the time when Hank Heart’s book cameout – nothing but stuntlit pieces where he’d condense great

works into six hundred words prosepoems andimpressionistically capture the essence of the works in perfect

little compact poetic prosaic whatever whatevers – and he was

getting around to his three minute Ulysses, about as muchdoucheyness as could possibly be packed into three minutes,

when Herbert dropped down from some scaffolding behind thecurtain. Hank, without stuttering on a single “Yes, Yes, No,

No,” twisted Herbert’s leg into a half Boston crab, resting a

knee impossibly and painfully on Herbert’s balls while hefinished up his reading.

The crowd didn’t bother to call child protectiveservices. They cheered the magnificent performance. Why

shouldn’t they?

And now here Herbert’s dad, the great Hank Heart or Captain Heart or whatever they called him, was a giant with a

giant voice, always now a power too great.The Orchestral they hooked Herbert up with was a

baby, or so they told him, and wouldn’t be able to speak for

years. Herbert had only a short time to train with hisOrchestral before they sent him out for real world training. He

had to get used to the way the Orchestral’s arms moved in timewith his arms and the way legs moved to compensate for his

position. But the way it would phase in and out of the physical

world was more difficult to predict. The Orchestral wouldnever obstruct him from entering rooms, but he could punch a

bunch of concrete blocks into smithereens, presumably making




the superheroing easier. Birds would land on top of theOrchestral, but snow would fall right through. It confounded

Herbert to no end. He’d look up at snow falling straightthrough a giant body for a long time until he realized he was

looking up into a monster’s crotch. Before the first mission Herbert went on, his father said, “It’s a nobody, shouldn’t even break a sweat, The Six

Hundred.” “Six Hundred?” His concern was only accidentally

audible.

“It’s only one guy. Child’s play.” His very first villain. A guy named The Six Hundred.

Go out there. Beat him. That’s it. This is why he had to beat The Six Hundred. What the

King Orchestral said about duty to protect humanity had little

to do with it. His father didn’t even bother to explain why TheSix Hundred was a danger to others. Herbert had to beat The

Six Hundred because he had to beat him, because his father said he could, because his father didn’t think he could – maybe

if he failed, this whole thing would be over. Maybe if he

succeeded, this whole thing would be over.He told himself he’d be fulfilled in superheroing by

practicing his witty banter – there was enough overlap betweenstandup comedy and superheroing, right? – but still he had that

image in his mind of being older, sitting on a talk show couch,

fake stars in the background, the laughing host, who knows,somebody generic but older and kind and smiling and the

whole audience absolutely loving him, loving the standupcomedian – he’d rename himself Bob and some Jewish last

name, it would be the most amazing way to die, old and in the

Catskills and loved by everyone for the happiness he brought.But now he had to do this one terrible thing.

This one terrible thing and it would all be over.




The Six Hundred was in this alley off Dirac Street inthe Abandon Factory District. How they knew he was in this

alley was unclear, but then his mother was the one who did allthe scheduling and she seemed to know everything anyway.

Then he saw the Six Hundred in the alley and he didn’t seemthat intimidating at first, a skinny guy, ribs poking out, skin pale like cadavers, face a perfect oval of concave bleeding

flesh – very scary to look at, sure, but Herbert's Orchestral hada concrete busting punch, no problem. Then he saw the wings

attached to The Six Hundred’s back by wires, wings like wings

of a wild bird, feathers fluttering out and ruffled every whichway up and down the wing, but standing three stories tall made

out of metal junk held up by scaffolding and on casters. Wireswent down to Six Hundred’s back, and the casters must’ve

been there so he could move those wings around wherever he

could fit them. Where could he even go with those things? Bigopera lobbies maybe? It was pointless ostentation to have such

enormous and useless wings. It reminded him of something hisfather would do, spend hours building these wings, perfecting

them for no good reason but to show he could.

But enough of this. The Six Hundred spotted him – heassumed since The Six Hundred had no eyeballs or face .

Now, time for action. Herbert cocked back his fist and theOrchestral cocked back his much bigger fist, but he hesitated,

the banter coming to mind easily, “I thought this was supposed

to be a face off,” since the ugly bastard had no face, get it?Maybe this was what he was meant to do, use his position to be

the world’s most respected banterer . But there was somethinggreater making him hesitate: it was this assumption that The

Six Hundred was no different from his father.

And in the extra halfsecond it took Herbert to work these things out, faster than Herbert’s eyes could follow –

must’ve covered half a football field in half a second – a white




cadaverous elbow to the face, his back to the concrete, thehelmet busted, the Orchestral floating away from him, up and

up into the blackness of the night and up into outer space, asslowly as snow, the snow falling the opposite direction through

him. The baby. Pinpointing into blacknothing.And then that animal restraint and the final choke. Hethought of his mother in the softness of that snow, the way he’d

lay his head on his mother’s lap and she’d simply sing to himas comfort, hand on his back like warm was coming right

through her.

How disappointed she would be finding his dead bodynow.

Everything was so cold and brittle. All his future wouldnow crumble and all of everyone’s dream of his future would

now crumble under the mistaken belief that he, little Herbert,

could do it.He hoped his tears would freeze and freeze him there in

time so always before him would be a golden time of dreamedabout stars and laughter filling the frozen silence.

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The Orchestrals (Illustrated)