Registry of the Evolved Database
File #11 Nov 2010 01:19
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 Channing Tatum |
The earliest memory I have of my father is a pair of rough hands cutting cards. The smell of dollar store cologne. The glimmer of thousand dollar time pieces. Each day watching him apply an ivory-handled straight razor to the side of his face before "work." Another day wondering if he'd walk through the door of our beat-up doublewide with a bag of cheeseburgers or a handful of crackerjacks.
And I remember the old man rolling tobacco between white squares and saying, "You can't cheat an honest mark." He must've never met one because we cheated them all-little old ladies at garage sales, kids with money burn, snub-nosed bible thumpers. My old man could sell a priest a one-way ticket to hell and get a thank you card the next day, if we weren't already out of town by then.
From Carlsbad, New Mexico to Beaumont, Texas we lured the suckers in one angle at a time. Pedigree dogs were my specialty: an innocent kid walks into a pawn shop with a jar of old change labeled, "Ernie's coin collection." The e at the end of Ernie's is always written backwards, real cute stuff. The shop owner sees nothing but junk, until a third party intervenes and whispers into the shop keep's ear how much money that misprinted Lincoln is actually worth. The two of them agree to split the buyout, and end up with a two-dollar jar of change at the discounted price of eight hundred bucks. The old man says he knows a collector that's been looking for just this thing, and says he'll hold on to the coin. The shop owner demands to keep it until they sell it. Of course, they never sell it. We're in another town, pulling the same scam on the same suckers with a common misprint worth no more than a nickel.
If we needed gas money, we'd set up shop in parking lots and tell drivers the buildings were under new management and had started charging for parking. We'd make in an hour what most people made in a week. And then we'd disappear like ghosts, off to the next mark. But sometimes we'd settle down just long enough to play house, long enough to tempt fate. Mom would've wanted that, I guess-a normal life for the three of us. Still, it's probably for the best she died young. She wouldn't have wanted to fight the old man's impulse to prove to everyone else that he knew better, that he was better, smatter, sharper-it was a fight she couldn't win.
I could only imagine how the marriage would've eventually fallen apart, cobwebs and whispers, like every other scam. To my father, his marriage to Lucinda North was a grift so good that he even managed to con himself into believing it would last forever. The irony is that because it didn't, because she died in that hospital room moments after I arrived on this earth, their love would remain as true and untouched as catholic schoolgirls at a priest's after party.
Sometimes we had everything. Sometimes we had nothing but ourselves. And sometimes we couldn't even manage that. The first time I was separated from my father I was twelve years old. We stopped in a neighboring town after a swindle, but the chief of Mulford County had a cousin in Ambrose, the deputy sheriff. The description of a sun-worn man skipping town with a young boy had already outstripped us, raced us to Mulford and won. We crossed the finish line with thirty six counts of fraud for the old man, and a new foster home for me.
It was two years since I saw him again.
Each day with the Cliffords was a running joke without a punch line. They weren't bad people, but they were suckers. And that was enough to dissuade me from anything they could've done or said to improve my life. Imagine it, a confidence man being conned by a couple of suburban West Texan marks. That'll be the day.
Coach Clifford did three tours in Vietnam and was a hardened man who believed in the virtues of backbreaking work and persistence. And despite my insistence to do anything but sit in my room and do my time, just like my old man was doing his, he had me trying out for and playing every sport that man ever made. I tried to my best to stay uninvolved, unattached, and quiet, but Maryanne Clifford made that impossible. She was a loud, honest woman who lost as many sons to the gulf as the coach had war medals. And as far as she was concerned, I might as well have been walking around with an umbilical cord attached to the underside of her dress. She doted on me as if I were the last child in the world-even when I did bad. And I was always doing that some way or another.
The first time I got the shit kicked out of me, I was running pigeon drops-putting tin rings in boxes and leaving them out for marks. We'd both see the box, open it, and agree to keep the goods. But how do we share one item between the two of us? We'll that's easy, you just buy my half of the ring, and I'll let you keep the profits you make when you sell it. Or maybe you just hold on to it and give it to that eighth grade girl you like. Can you owe me for the rest? Nah, just give me what you got now. I know. I'm generous, huh?
I broke an arm and a couple of ribs after starting a half-dozen paper routes I sold to local kids who did all the work for half the pay. All I needed was an ad in the penny-saver and the headline, "Are you young entrepreneur looking to make a fortune selling papers?" They were begging me to take their money. But I never begged them once to stop beating me blue. I knew what I was getting into. Every con's got its price.
The coach said that I could sure take a beating, that I was asking for it, and that as long as I kept up like I was, I'd be sure to get more. I told him this probably wouldn't be the last then. The next day he enrolled me in boxing.
I guess he wanted be ready for the inevitable.
The next time I saw my old man I was a third-string junior varsity player on the football squad. He showed up to one of the games and during halftime I snuck off the bench to have a smoke and family time. He rolled up one of those neat, white squares and passed it to me. The whole time I thought he'd laugh at the sight of me in cleats and shoulder pads, but he didn't say a word about it. He just looked me over once and cracked a wry smile. "You look just like me at that age," he said. "Your momma would be proud."
I didn't say anything back, but I instinctively looked out onto the field, past the cheerleaders stacked like plastic beer cups and into the stands. I could just barely make out Mrs. Clifford and one of her neon signs with my name and jersey number on it, twinkling with glittered sequence.
There was a roofing scam in Lubbock, quite a few actually, and I spent the next six weeks walking from one construction site to the next, carting off supplies and offering cheap fixes to overpriced homes. I suspect Mrs. Clifford must have had a panic attack when I step out onto that after halftime, after the game was lost seventeen to six, after night fell and I was long gone. She must have looked pretty hard for me those six weeks-because she found me.
I had two nails in my teeth, hammering in the under layer of a roof cascade for a project we were going to stop midway and then hike the prices up on, when the deputy parked alongside the house. I nearly choked. The old man must have noticed something was up, 'cause he went out for a smoke break about an hour back and still hadn't turned up. I knew he'd have been in New Mexico again by now. And there I was stuck, alone, with three thousand dollars in cash weighing down my pockets, and trapped on a roof. Guilty doesn't have a more perfect description.
Coach Clifford had some pull on the locals and my sentence was reduced to four months community service. That's an entire summer waking up at 4 a.m., jogging along the freeways with the coach driving behind me, and cleaning up garbage with my bare hands. That an entire summer of soup kitchens, blood drives, and bake sales. If anything in the town needed doing, I did it. The Clifford's asked their friends for free work as a personal favor to them.
Back then I thanked God they didn't have an ROTC program in town, for fear that I'd end up in a box full of shiny, gold, dead medals. But what was in store for me was just as worse. Two years of summer boot camp, after schools nights full of boxing and pain, mornings full of football, road work, wrestling, pushups, chin-ups, throw up.
I was angrier than I'd ever been, but I didn't have the time to care about how pissed off I was. I slept when I could, ate when I could, and before I knew it I had grown into a second-string varsity player. I could have been more - maybe - but breaking my bones so cheerleader's could give me hand jobs and grown men could slap my ass was a fool's game. And by this time in my life I was done with scams. I was done fighting the course of my inevitable life. And at my lowest point, everything changed.
Being second-string meant getting varsity scraps, but varsity scraps were better than most. Better than third-stringers, better than JV, and a hell of a lot better than anyone else in high school with absolutely no affiliation with football. The further away you were from the gridiron, the less important you became. So all in all, even with the C-effort I gave on a daily basis, I still had it pretty good. And that night I gave in to that feeling, I stopped fighting the distance between the conmen and the marked men, like I was acting out some pre-adolescent fantasy. Everyone's in the same shithole as me. Why make it worse? I decided to just let life happen-and it did, with surprising results.
We got drunk at a house a party, which beat going home after a game and giving Coach Clifford the play-by-play. Then we drove home. And then we damn near hit another car and swerved off the road into a ditch. The pickup flipped over, which might not have been so bad if ten drunken idiots weren't sitting in the tuck bed. Legs were pinned under eight thousand pounds of metal, lives were ruined, and somehow I walked away with little more than a few scratches and a headache.
All I remember is being thrown from the open cab and tumbling until I hit a tree. I was on my feet in time to see the rust-stained Ford tumble after me, the others clamoring at my feet. End over end it spun. My hands reached out instinctively to brace the impact like I would against a charging defensive line. And then-nothing. The tumbling stopped, and instead of crushing us all to death, the truck simply lay on its side, pinning ankles instead of breaking every one of our bones. After that, I was tired. Drunk. Exhausted. Someone had a cell phone, and I walked a few feet up and out of the ditch, along the road, and called the Cliffords before I passed out.
Whatever it was that happened that night, it stayed with me. After the yells for breaking curfew and drinking, and after the hugs and kisses for being alive and healthy, all I could think about was that truck, inches away from crushing me. I'd be dead. Was it God? How am I still living?
The answers didn't come right away, but slowly and surely I began to piece it together. My boxing was better, and I could out move a jab and stand through a hook. In varsity scrimmage games my defense was exceptional, and I could take a hit on offense without dropping a knee. Clifford was right. I really could take a beating.
At first I believed that I had become faster, stronger than everyone else. But as I witnessed fists and football spirals slow down to a near standstill as they approached me, I realized that I was the same-everyone else was different. It wasn't that I was fast. It was that they were slow.
I could make spinning coins stop on their edges with a wave of my hand and grow cold. That grew easier the more I practiced parlor tricks, and the more I practiced parlor tricks, the faster and stronger I seemed to grow on the field. That third year of high school I must have shattered every record. No one could slow me down, knock me down, or push their way past me. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. I soon discovered that I could not only slow things down, but speed them up. Ever got so heated you threw something across the room? Well, did you ever throw a can of soda through a door?
Rather than losing it, Coach Clifford funneled my door-busting arm in a positive direction, after hours and hours of wind sprints, and suggested that at this upcoming summer camp I try my hand at quarterback. Turns out I had a gift. First-string, quarterback, captain, the accolades and promotions fell down like rain. And if not for a small hiccup at regionals, we'd be champions now. The first title in more than three decades, it would've been nice.
But that hiccup came attached to a flask of whiskey and a square of hand-rolled tobacco. My old man again. I thought I out grew him, but here he was, standing in front of me with his hand out, asking me to partner up, asking me for another con. All he needed was one good run to get back on his feet again and out of hopefully back out of my life. I would have agreed to anything, even if it meant throwing the regionals. We were the favorite this year, and odds against us losing to the Tigers were unlikely at best. But as I agreed, I looked him straight in the eye and told him that this is that last time. "I'm not your shill anymore."
I did my part. We lost. But it was a close game we could be proud of-even if I wasn't. Who knew I could feel pride or a lack of it? But win or lose, the Cliffords were always there. And I made a good enough impression to thank them for their support with dozens of recruitment letters from national scouts. In the end I decided to stay close to home and accepted a spot at Texas Christian University. Go horned frogs!
The pre-season went well enough. Mrs. Clifford made it a habit to visit as often as she could, baking brownies for everyone on the team whenever she did. But my college ball career was short-lived. On the morning of November 8th, 2006 the world was changed forever. A terrorist attack on New York City destroyed more than a hundred thousand lives and opened up the floodgates of unlimited anger. In the wave of patriotism I withdrew for school and volunteered for the military service I had once feared and resented. Maybe Coach Clifford had completely rubbed off on me after seven years of guidance, I don't know. But the attack demanded a response.
A year later I was in Iraq. Senator Petrelli shocked the world again with his revelations and insights into what the media called the "Evolved." And it was like he was pointing his finger directly at me. My life was easier when everyone thought the Arabs were responsible. I just had to point and shoot at whatever was different from me. I just had to clear mines. I just had to not die. Now I had to live with a secret that not only made me different, it also made me a target.
The months following the senator's announcement were volatile to say the best. Even in the middle of sand-covered nowhere feelings burned white hot and tensions ran high. And talk of the Linderman Act didn't make it any easier. I once saw a guy walk out of the base with his hands cuffed behind his back. His squad mates put a hood on him and lead him into the desert. Then they shot him. Apparently he bend spoons or some shit with his mind. Fuck that. Fuck the Linderman Act. I knew right then and there exactly who and where I was in the world.
No one and nowhere.
I just knew I had to get the hell out of dodge before the shit really hit the fans. I made sure to find myself a dishonorable discharge for use and distribution of controlled substances. The moment Registration became an inevitable necessity, I was gone like my old man, a ghost, smoke and mirrors. I went to the only place messed up enough to lose sight of my in the drama, right to the heart of it all, New York City.
I needed a fresh start, but all I got was an old man. Somehow my father contacted me, seems he'd been watching me ever since the beginning-Was he in New York because it was coincidence? Or I was in New York because I thought just like him? Either way, he got me in with some pretty interesting guys on the underside of things in the Rotten Apple. And I just couldn't escape the name Linderman.
So, here it is. Me in the big city, making waves and stepping on egg shells. I do a little bit of this and that if the pay's good. And it usually is. Only I've graduated from scams. There's nothing left to swindle in the ruins of America. I more like a procurer, or even a pharmaceutical delivery man. If Linderman can get his old wrinkly hands on it, I can supply it to you at a cost. And sometimes I just do plane old shakedown work, maybe a little body guarding when asked. Like I said, this and that. But I'm not going to lie to you, it's a lot more exciting than football.
And now… I could do a lot more things with my powers than just toss a ball.
Jason is none too pleasant. His core motivation in life is the acquisition of wealth and power, perhaps because he is a generally anxious person and the idea of having wealth is comforting. But his father's influence definitely plays a role in his skewed perception of affluence and control. And now, being the lowest among the lowest, an unregistered Evolved, he'll need all the influence he can get just to survive. And he'll do anything it takes to live a life of comfort, no matter what the risks.
In all, he is an even-tempered fellow with a bleak and cynical view of the world. But it's none too wise to trust him. He'll exploit people and situations if profit is available (although he doesn't necessarily gain pleasure from such exploitation; it is usually just a means to an end-he's not a complete narcissist). When opportunity for gain arises, Jason will jump right into it without much thought. Although when overwhelming danger is present, he tends to air on the side of caution, if not convenient and outright cowardice if the situation demands it.
He is generally adaptable to changing situations and doesn't hold allegiances or promises too tightly. He is self-absorbed, greedy, and suspicious of others and has a cold bearing-but rather than growing defensive when challenged, he may make a soulless attempt ego-serving manipulation, the lure and line and of any decent conman. However, he always remains critical of others.
Socially, he tends to keep to himself and is evasive or deceitful about personal information. When he does talk, it's usually about money or complaining about something; when he thinks there is potential gain, he will engage in ham-fisted flattery. Although he often resents people who are socially or financially successful. When a power much greater than himself presents itself, he isn't too likely to act openly outside the boundaries of acceptable behavior; his transgressions will be covert where immediate force fails.
Entropic Durability: Entropy is a curious and multifaceted principle of thermodynamics. And while Jason can't control the entire expanse of his gifts, let alone understand them all, he can utilize some aspects of entropic principle freely. Among the understood powers in his repertoire, Jason has the ability to concentrate Kinetic Dispersal in his immediate vicinity, siphoning kinetic energy from movement, and thusly the sting from blows.
He can still be crushed, cut, mangled and bruised, but the wounds are superficial because Entropic Durability robs the antagonizing force of its energy. Simply put, bullets become hard blows, hard blows become negligible, and insignificant injuries don't accrue injuries at all. But Jason must be aware of perceived threats and conscious of the use of his powers to make them available, otherwise he's simply caught off guard.
Kinetic Ectropy: If Entropic Durability is one side of the thermodynamic coin, then Kinetic Ectropy is its polar opposite. At these simpler stages of Jason's Entropy Projection, a moderate amount of focus and concentration is necessary in order to properly apply his gifts. But with this segment of his power, Jason can absorb kinetic energy into his body and convert it into what appears to be physical strength. A coin can be flung across the room at the speed of a pin shot from a nail-gun, a football can clear an entire stadium, a soda can explode through a wooden door. But it isn't strength that moves these objects, it is energized kinetic momentum.
Appendices
Skills:
- Boxing
- Firearms Training
- Survival Training
- Confidence Tricks
- Construction and Repair
- Underground Connection
- Lack of Self Control
Jason has been in and out of the ring since he was twelve. He's no kung fu master, or karate black belt, but he knows his way around a jab and a straight. Keep it simple, don't get cocky, and win.
The military does on thing well, and that's teach young men how to point, shoot and maintain weapons of precision destruction. Jason just happens to be one of those men. By no means is he considered an ace sniper or some gun-toting lunatic from a Chow Yun Fat flick, but he is military-grade competent.
You don't join the military and spend years in the desert for nothing. You learn how to survive, not just for your sake, but for the sake of every other man in your unit depending on you.
Jason's been running the con since he could walk. One of the perks of having a manipulative, arrogant bastard for a father. Pigeon drops, pig-in-pokes, pedigree dogs, and Nigerian scams, if there's a trick out there, he's probably run it on a mark twice already.
You learn a thing or two running roofing scams on greedy McMansion owners. Knock down one wall and put two up for three time the quoted price. And if you really hate the mark, give him shoddy craftsmanship to boot.
Mr. North: Although something of a deadbeat dad in Jason's eyes, his father certainly does know some big names in the shadow markets of NYC. His days of conning come in use again, offering insight into underground rumblings and information on where to get interesting supplies and other tools of the black market trade.
Jason can't be trusted around large sum of money he has no financial or physical stake in keeping guarded. If he hasn't been promised a piece of the cut, he'll more than likely shave a bit off the top. It's his nature.
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