When Jane was seven years old she came to an important realization about the nature of people. There are particular things in this world about people that you cannot change no matter how much you say or do to the contrary. If they smoke - you can nag them and harass them and even bribe them, but they can and will only quit smoking when they are ready to do so and not a moment before. If they are rude - they will not stop simply because you ask them to.
In Jane's case, her sister Ruth hated her. She did not know why, but even at the tender of seven Jane knew that no matter how nice she was to her older sister, no matter how many times Jane offered to do her sister's chores, offered her the candy she bought every week with her hard earned allowance or even how many times Jane lied to her parents and took the blame for some misdeed that Ruth did - no matter what she did - her sister Ruth would always hate her and not a day went by that Ruth did not find a way to show or similarly inform her of this fact.
Later in life when Jane and her brother Franklin were talking about Ruth (who Franklin and her Father always referred to as Ruthie no matter how much she protested) over dinner at a crusty diner on the east side of the city - Franklin would tell Jane that Ruthie hated her because she came along at the wrong time and for no other reason at all. If she had been a boy Ruthie would have loved her, if she was born a few years later she also would have loved her - it was all about timing.
When Jane pressed Franklin for details on what he meant - Franklin told Jane about the Christmas concert of 1969 that her parents had missed because of Jane's untimely and premature birth. Jane arrived in this world four and one-half months earlier than expected and both her Mother and Father wound up attending the birth rather then attending Ruthie's performance as Mary at the school Christmas pageant.
Even though her parents lavished their eldest daughter with more gifts than she had ever before received (including the receiving the cherished and coveted Mrs. Beasley doll that would become Ruthie's constant companion during the next few pivotal years of her life) her parents were unable to ever make amends to Ruthie for missing this concert. Since Ruthie could not hold a grudge against her parents who had in fact made sure they got her everything she possibly could ever want that particular Christmas morning - Ruthie decided there and then that she would forever hate her little concert ruining sibling...
Now Jane and Ruth had three brothers. Their names were Jason, Maurice and Franklin and they adored both their sisters equally. ..
On Halloween night in 1974 all five children were making last minute preparations on their costumes and Maurice was having a particularly difficult time with the wings from his Hawkman costume. The children had gotten together in the waning days of summer. Before school began once more and forced them into their separate yet intertwined lives. They decided that they would and should go out together as a unified force this year for Halloween.
It was Jason, the supplier of all comic book related material in the house that suggested they go out as the Justice League. They all agreed and even Ruth agreed as long as she got to be Wonder Woman. Jane pouted for a few minutes until Franklin whispered to her that she was so lucky to be able to go out as Black Canary - who Jane knew was both Franklin and Maurice's favorite girl-type hero.
That decided, they all had two months to come up with costumes. They all agreed to make the costumes themselves and under no circumstances would they ask Mother or Father for help.
Setting up a stack of weather-worn and well-thumbed comics between them, the children started to choose their characters. Franklin chose Green Arrow, Jason chose the Flash, Maurice the high flying Hawkman, Ruth chose Wonder Woman. Franklin's best friend Kevin chose Batman. Maurice's buddy Keith took the Elongated Man and for some reason no one chose Superman or Batman.
Jason had no real friends at that point in his life and Ruth and Jane did not know that many girls who liked superheroes as much as we did. In fact this would be the last year that Ruth would even entertain the idea that she and her siblings were friends. The following year she would discover a new group of friends at school and they would introduce her to the wonders of pre-teen life. Movie magazines filled with hunky boy stars and plenty of gossip, make-up parties and afternoons spent styling and colouring their hair into fantastic and unbelievable shapes and positions and of course countless hours talking about what was to become their favorite subject - boys.
This year though, the five children had dressed in their collective Justice League costumes and left their house to go Trick or Treating at 6:10 pm. Their Father had to work late at the High School that night and their Mother who had been complaining of a migraine most of the afternoon had decided that the children were old enough to dress themselves and go out together as a group.
This had been their plan since the summer, but the five of them were more than happy to let their often frazzled Mother think this was her own idea and that for once her children were actually following her suggestions and respecting her word. Their Mother threw together some leftover chicken and salad and put in on the table in the kitchen and asked the children to make sure they had at least something to eat before they went out and to make sure that Franklin, who was the oldest, checked any and all candy before they ate anything out of their bags. She warned them about venturing too far out of their own neighbourhood, told them to stick together and not to talk to strangers.
This struck all of them as amusing as on Halloween night everyone was strange.
They were extremely proud of their costumes and they looked very impressive in their group. The only problem encountered was that Maurice had made his wings for his Hawkman costume much too big for his little body and as a result he kept smacking anyone who walked too near. No one really seemed to mind but Ruth who kept having her tiara knocked of by errand aerial attacks. By the time they hit the boundaries of their own stomping ground which was the park at 28th Street and Maple they had filled up their pillowcases to the three quarter full mark and Wonder Woman had retrieved her tiara a total of seven times over the night. Needless to say, she was not feeling too wonderful and she repeatedly warned Hawkman that the next time it happened she would tear his wings off and shove the where the sun refused to shine.
This sent Jane into a terrible case of the giggles and Ruth became even angrier although Jane insisted she was laughing at Maurice and not at Ruth. At this point the Justice League became involved in its first Catwoman unrelated feline-inspired super-fight when Wonder Woman decided Black Canary was getting to big for her britches, or rather her trademark fishnet stockings. When they reached the park, Wonder Woman threw her pillowcase to the ground, candy spilling out all over the wet grass and tackled Black Canary from behind. Jane's bag of treats went flying and so did both girls... right into a pile of leaves that had also contained an entire season's worth of discarded dog droppings. Since it had been raining the last few days the pile was very wet and both girls were instantly covered in wet leaves and attached to the wet leaves was the smelliest substance to ever befoul a superhero. In other words they became covered head to toe in wet and smelly dog shit. It was Franklin who, after letting them roll around in the pile for a few seconds, noticed the extremely ripe smell coming from the pile and declared that they both smelled.. well that they both smelled like shit.
Ruth stood up and screamed at Jane. Calling her every single name she could possible think of while kicking her rolled up sister repeatedly in the stomach, the side and a few times in the head. Maurice and Jason pulled her away and Ruth threw her hands up in disgust accusing them of protecting her like they always did. She reached down grabbed her bag and without stopping to gather what had fallen out, stormed off towards home where she spent the remainder of the night hiding in the bathroom on the top floor. They did not see her again until the next day.
Jane stayed in the leaves for a few seconds longer sobbing and feeling miserable over having destroyed everyone's nice night. As she stood up and the sobbing began to subside, Jane noticed for the first time the ripoe odour coming off her clothing and her sadness began to evolve into a rage, a rage over her ruined costume, a rage over her rotten sister and a rage over every single mean thing Ruth had ever done to her. This was the moment that she came to the conclusion that she would never be able to change the way Ruth felt about her. If Ruth wanted to hate her - then so be it - let the rotten, ill-mannered, evil b-i-t-c-h be that way - her brothers loved her and that would never change. From this moment on she would not shed a tear if a house landed on Ruth - in fact she would buy the owner of the house a box of chocolates to say thank you for ridding the world of one more wicked witch - the wicked witch of the Ruth - Jane thought with an evil smile.
Her brothers Jason and Franklin did their best to scrape the rotten and smelly leaves off of their soggy and sad sister. They did their best to console her without actually touching her when they were startled by a loud popping soind directly above them. The noise started softly at first andf Jason was the first to notice it. By the time he had the words "hey do you guys hear that ?" out of his mouth the noise was so loud that it is very doubtful they heard more than "hey do you g" before being drowned out by the sound. A low rumbly popping sound that could only be described as a bag of microwave popcorn being made in a kettle drum. The sound built in volume and intensity until finally climaxing with a nloud ear-ringing pop which ended with a flash of bluish light and a nude middle-aged man dropping out of the light and landing on top of the three shocked superheroes. Keep in mind that this was also Halloween and the mindset of the children in the dark was not that of an average young person on a normal night. If anything thses children were absolutely terrified by what they were seeing and at least one of the three was suddenly and irrevocably rendered incapable of holding on to their share of the three cans of Pespsi Cola the children had shared while getting into costume. Although it was highly unlikely that anyone would notice one slightly damp costume smelling faintly of urine in the middle of a situation that included a miniature Black Canary covered in wet dog shit and a naked man dropping out of the sky on a dark and incredibly spooky Halloween night.
To make matters worse, a group of drunk and rowdy adult men were entering the park on the other side. They took immediate notice of the naked man who appeared to be harrassing a group of three children still dressed in their halloween costumes.
In an alternate reality that existed before the arrival of the naked man - this group of men came across three children in costume and began to harrass them until the situation escalated into something that was both very violent and very tragic.
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