Jason changed into his black suit, the one that he’d bought second-hand at the thrift store, and tucked the sap into his side coat pocket. After weighing taking his guns with him, he decided he was just going to teach the goons a lesson, and he didn’t want to shoot anybody or get involved in a shootout, especially because he hadn’t had the chance to practice with his pistols yet. He slipped out the back window, and climbed down the drainage pipe to the back alley, where his arrival on the alley caused several large rats to skitter away from the garbage they were digging through.

Wrapping his red scarf around his face, and pulling down his fedora, he walked briskly down the street in the direction of the House of Hope, the next rescue mission, or flophouse, however one wanted to think of it, but which served the same purpose as the Healing Hands Rescue Mission, helping the men in the city—and there were thousands of them—who hadn’t been able to make it in the metropolis, who had lost everything, and had given up, finding comfort in a bottle of booze. Jason figured the RAPE goons had gone to the next rescue mission to harass men at the very bottom of society, guys who had nothing and no way of fighting back. Or maybe it was just that the mayor and his thugs didn’t like the idea of God: once a man became egomaniacal enough to think that he was God, he didn’t want any competition.

It was a good walk of several blocks, which Jason completed as quickly as he could. Actually, the faster he walked, the warmer he felt. There were few people on the street now that it was turning dark, not to mention the quarantine, and he became conscious of a police cruiser slowing down as it passed him on the street. It still took Jason a while to get used to the anachronistic, old-school police cars, which had bubble gum machines on the roof.

In no time Jason was standing in the shadow of the building across from the House of Hope, which was dominated by a neon cross on the roof, a landmark that had to be visible as far away as Staten Island. The two goons’ car sat parked outside the mission, with its motor running so that it would be warm when they returned. The seal of the Mayor of New York City emblazoned the sides of the car, as well as the RAPE logo, which to Jason seemed to send a clear message of “screw you” to anyone they encountered. Jason stood and watched the House of Hope, which had stairs leading down from the double doors in a 180⁰ semi-circle. It was cold, and Jason wanted to make certain he was warm so that he could move quickly, so he decided to loop back around the building and return to the same spot.

Jason suddenly wheeled about and moved away from the House of Hope, rounding the corner and moving through the alley between the two buildings at a brisk walk, then through the alley behind the building, and then rounded the corner onto the parking lot of the House of Hope, which was vacant except for a van and the mayor’s vehicle. Jason spotted the two goons coming down the steps, so he slowed his pace. He wanted to reach the car at the same time that the two RAPE thugs with greasy hair reached it.

“Damn Porto Ricans,” one of the men cursed. “The place is full of ‘em.”

“I don’t know what they hell they were cookin’ in there; you’d think they could just make some chili or something,” the other replied, and his gut bounced as he bounded down the steps.

“Yeah, how hard is it? You make your chili, then you add it to a hot dog, and bam! You got your classic chili dog.”

“You’re making me hungry,” one of them complained as he walked around the front of the mayor’s fleet car and headed for the driver’s side door.

Up until now, the men hadn’t noticed Jason, but the driver looked up and saw Jason approaching from the direction of the alley.

“Hey, dumbass, there’s quarantine in effect. How about getting your sorry drunk ass back into the House of Dopes.” The big man laughed, and the light of the giant cross shined in his oily hair. He was really proud of himself for his clever line.

“Oh wait, the House of Dopes is beyond capacity,” the other goon chimed in. “Maybe there’s a nice dumpster back there for you to sleep in.” He broke out into a laugh.

The cop taught Jason well. He showed the young man that if he raised the sap up to bring it down, the large movement would telegraph his intentions, and his intended target would instinctively raise his hands in defense. Instead, Jason brought the sap straight up from his side, without any windup or preparatory motion. In one continuous arc the sap traveled upward, coming up from beneath the big man’s vision, traveling in a curved path behind the husky man’s left shoulder to a spot just behind his ear. The bulging mass of depleted uranium struck the man’s greasy hair low on the skull, and he was unconscious even as he toppled to the blacktop.

The other man, who had his hand on the passenger side car door handle, thought at first that his partner had belted the drunk, because that’s what they always did. The mayor’s RAPE squad hit drunks, not the other way around, so it took several moments for him to come to the shocked realization that his partner was lying on the asphalt.

Rather than try to run around the front of the car, Jason jumped onto the hood, and took two steps across the thin metal before launching a straight kick with his right foot, which caught the goon right in the teeth. Jason didn’t expect the agonizing pain he felt when the big man’s teeth seemed to bite right through the toe of his wing tip, and he felt like his cold toes might be broken. The broad man stumbled backward, and reflexively brought his hands up to his mouth as he spat blood. Jason jumped down from the hood of the car, ignoring the pain in his toes. He brought the sap over in a backhand swing, hitting with the flat into the man’s hand, knocking it across his body. The man shouted in pain, sending a crimson mist spewing out of his bloody mouth.

Jason now struck down, chopping with the edge of the sap into the man’s thick arm, which immediately went numb, and then swung the flat into the center of the man’s forehead. The hulking man tottered briefly, then fell forward and struck the passenger door with his forehead as he slumped to the ground.

Jason briefly weighed dumping the men in the trunk, but he calculated that the two goons, given the opportunity to wake up in the parking lot, might decide not to bring up the subject of how they were both beaten by a drunk at a rescue mission. Instead, Jason riffled their pockets and removed the cash from their wallets. Looking at one thug’s brass Revenue Accountability and Policy Enforcement badge, Jason decided that it might come in handy, so he tucked it into his jacket pocket. He hopped into the idling car, appreciating its warmth, and made a ‘U’ before pulling out into the street. His first tendency was to try to drive in an inconspicuous manner, following all the traffic rules to keep from drawing attention to himself, but then he realized that the key to looking like one of the mayor’s goons driving the car was to drive like an arrogant ass.

Jason passed the High Time Liquor store, which was decorated with a neon clock set to five o’clock, then pulled over to the curb. He got out and strode to the glass door, but saw the sign, “CLOSED BY ORDER OF THE MAYOR.” The lights were on, clearly illuminating the interior of the store, which was filled with bottles from floor to head height.

Jason returned to the car, entered, and turned around in a broad arc, so that his front wheel rose up onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Looking over his shoulder with his right arm stretched over the seat, Jason switched the car into reverse. After making certain his seatbelt was fastened, he floored it. The car surged backward, and quickly picked up speed the last several feet before the rear end rammed into the front door of the liquor store, blowing it inside the establishment. The cars of this era all had rounded rear ends, not the long, box-like protrusions common in today’s cars, but there was a spare tire standing vertically against the trunk to serve as a cushion. The car also had the benefit of a big six-cylinder engine, without any of the smog requirements and all the other add-ons such as windshield defrosters and air conditioning. The engine’s raw power enabled him to accelerate quickly and plow through the door.

The problem now was that the car was jammed into the front door of the liquor store, forcing Jason to climb over the trunk to get inside the store. The other problem was that an alarm was clanging, a metal gong striking a bell, like the signal that a boxing round was about to start, only rattling as fast as a machine gun, non-stop. Not only was the alarm designed to signal the police, but Jason thought that it was intended to stop a robbery in progress, because the loud, non-stop clanging of the bell was both deafening and skull-splitting. Jason stepped over bits of broken glass and long triangular shards—apparently, this was before safety glass was invented. The clanging of the alarm seemed to make the glass bottles on the shelf vibrate.

Looking around him, Jason saw that there was no Night Train Express, no Thunderbird, nor Cold Cock, which featured an icy fighting rooster on the label. All of the fortified “wines” that the men favored were nowhere to be found in a nice store like this, which catered to people who actually had money, and not vagrants looking to buy hooch with change they’d scraped together. Jason grabbed several bottles of Old Crow, Seagram’s 7, and Old Forrester, a wheated bourbon, then slipped them into a burlap sack. He tried to open the trunk, but it was jammed shut by the impact. If he wasn’t mistaken, Jason heard a police siren or sirens over the deafening, nerve-rattling clanking of the damn alarm bell, so he hurried, and threw his sack of bottles into the back seat, followed by a couple more bottles of Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, and Plymouth gin. As a last gesture, Jason drew some money from his pocket, money that the thugs from the mayor’s office had so generously donated while unconscious, and threw it onto the counter near the cash register. It was enough to cover the booze he was taking, but not enough to cover the damages to the storefront.

Jason hopped back over the trunk and into the car, then gunned it. He could see flashing red and blue lights sweeping the street ahead of him, several blocks down. The tires spun, and squealed as they threw bits of glass and brick into the bottles on the shelves, but the car went nowhere. Jason gunned it again, while nervously watching the red and blue lights come closer, but the car was effectively wedged into the doorway, and an odor of burnt carpet hung in the air. Next time he would make a point of ramming a liquor store with front doors wider than his car, but for now, he was stuck. He picked up the burlap bag holding his liquor and climbed back out through the car, then over the trunk. He made his way through the din of the clanging alarm, to a passageway leading to the back door, but it was locked from the inside, and required a key to open it, which Jason didn’t have, of course.

He went back through the store, back over the crumpled trunk and rear of the car, and onto the sidewalk. The constant movement back and forth, in and out, trying to get away in the car, but finding it stuck, had eaten up time, lots of time, so that now a squad car pulled up, aiming its high beams and a spotlight beside the driver’s window on Jason. The young man was blinded by the glare.

“Freeze! Put the sack down and get your hands in the air!” a voice shouted over the squad car’s megaphone, which could barely be heard over the racket of the clanging alarm bell.

It was going to be a quick and embarrassing end to Jason’s superhero career if he got busted robbing a liquor store. Look at Superman, Batman, Mister Miracle, Green Lantern, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, and so on. None of them robbed liquor stores, not even when they were just getting started. He couldn’t see the officer’s gun, but he heard a round being racked into the chamber of a pump shotgun, and the sound was chilling.