Ninja Joe

Joe noticed that the colors all seemed brighter and more vivid as he rose into the night sky and peered down at the busy street. This was his kingdom, the hip urban neighborhood where the young and affluent lived and partied. He swooped down over crowded sidewalks and along brightly lit shops, and swirled like a joyful swallow, arching and twirling over the slow parade of cars. As he flew, he heard the people below shouting “Thank you Ninja Joe! You’re our hero Ninja Joe!” He performed high-flying acrobatic amazements for his adoring fans and sang his most glorious tune.

Little by little he began to realize that there was a presence nearby, that he could almost feel something tickling his cheek.  The cheering crowds faded away and he opened an eye.  There, not a foot away from his face, a large brown rat was scavenging the last scraps of meat from the bones of a discarded fried chicken leg. Joe’s face clenched and tightened in anger, and a rage built up inside him. He focused his energy like a laser on the rat, and in a sudden burst his muscles uncoiled and his fist exploded like a supersonic hammer onto the rat’s head. With that commotion, Joe, the stunned rat, and the piece of chicken tumbled down the small embankment from under the bushes and rolled out onto the sidewalk.

Passersby gasped and looked disgusted as they walked around them.

Joe sprang to his feet and began kicking and shouting “My chicken! My chicken!” In a fit of rage, he repeatedly smashed the rat’s head with the heel of his boot until the rat was just a bloody mass of fur on the sidewalk. A young couple dressed for a nice dinner out, who had been walking by, looked horrified and hurried away.  “MY FUCKING CHICKEN!”  Joe screamed at them.

But now Joe was starving, the rat had eaten his dinner.  The sun had already set, and the neighborhood was packed. Across the street from Joe was a quick-shop. He walked straight for it, out into the street and into oncoming traffic.  Cars hit their brakes and honked at him, but he just flipped them off and kept going. Inside the quick-shop there was case with deep-fried burritos under a heat lamp next to the register.  Joe reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a handgun, leaned over the counter, and pointed the gun at the clerk’s face with a long straight arm.  “Give me a burrito.” he said.

The cashier was a fifty year old Iranian immigrant, and he was terrified. “Yes sir, don’t shoot. Yes sir, don’t shoot.” he said while he got Joe a burrito, put it in a paper bag, and handed it to him.  Joe grabbed the bag, put the gun back in his pocket, and stormed out of the shop. The cashier didn’t know it, but the gun actually had no bullets in it.  Joe had found it in a dumpster, and it was very handy for situations like this.

A couple doors down from the quick-shop was a small set of steps and Joe sat here to eat his burrito. While he ate, pedestrians passed back and forth along the busy sidewalk. They either avoided looking at him, or looked at him with disgust and revulsion. Joe hadn’t bathed or washed his clothes in months, and his scraggly hair and beard were filthy. From his point of  view, it was like watching a parade of rejection as one face after another, of those who noticed him at all, winced and looked down at him with utter condescension. But Joe didn’t really care, he was used to it, and he just growled and scowled at them while he ate.  When he finished, he wadded up the paper bag into a tight a ball, then stood up and threw the ball as high as he could out over the road where it landed and bounced on the trunk of a passing car.  “Score!” he shouted.

He walked down to the corner where a small crowd of people had gathered waiting for the light to change. He waded into them, walking in between and among them. They began gasping and scurrying out of his way.  A young woman dressed to the nines shrieked “Ew!” And “Oh my god, how disgusting!” Joe clinched his face and stared intensely at her. He growled, and then raised his arms in the air like a wild beast. “Boo!” He shouted at her. The woman screamed and everyone scattered. Joe liked to fuck with people, and he chuckled to himself.

He decided these people didn’t realize who  they were dealing with, and needed a demonstration of “Ninja Joe.” He went over to a metal trash can and pulled the lid off. Then, making sure everyone was watching, he flung it as hard as he could. It soared through the air like a big metal frisbee. “Wahoo!” he shouted.  It arched out over the traffic and eventually twisted sideways and slammed into the street, just missing a passing car.

Then he grabbed a white plastic bag of trash from inside the can, and like a great Olympic athlete, he swung it around with both hands and flung it high in the air over the cars.  This time it didn’t miss. The bag landed on the hood of a passing car, split open and its contents scattered all over road. “Score!” he crowed.  The car hit it’s breaks and honked.  A passenger window rolled down, “Fuck you asshole!” a woman shouted from the car.  Joe shot her an evil grin and started walking straight toward her. The driver hit the gas and pealed out, narrowly escaping the wrath of Ninja Joe.

He went back to the curb and with a loud “Hi-ya!” he kicked the trash can into the street.  Traffic came to a screeching halt and Joe ran into the street kicking the bits of trash in every direction as if he was a martial arts master performing in the bright white flood of headlights. He found a bag of cookies in the debris, and started hurling cookies at the cars from point blank.  “Score! Score! Score! Score!” he shouted. Traffic snarled and a chorus of honking erupted, and a couple of guys got out of their cars.

Now he would show off his amazing parkour skills. He ran to the nearby bus stop, and frantically and awkwardly climbed on top of the roof, and prepared for battle.  “Come and get me you stupid fish!” he shouted. “I’ll cut your heads off and gut you right here tonight you stupid toads!” Then he pulled the gun out of his pocket and pointed it at the approaching guys, who immediately put their hands up and hurried back to their cars.  “Stupid minnows! Stupid tadpoles! Ha, ha ha!” he shouted.

He put the gun back in his pocket and sat down on the roof. Traffic moved again, driving around and over the trash in the street, and pedestrians moved on too. Perched on the roof of the bus stop, Joe became invisible. He was just another invisible, crazy, homeless dude, and he melded into the bustling nightlife – just a small piece of the overall cacophony of the scene.

It wasn’t a minute later a shiny black town car pulled up to the curb  just beyond the bus stop.  The driver got out and walked around to the passenger side and opened the back door. A man in a dark brown tweed blazer and gray slacks stepped out of a doorway and walked toward the waiting car. He had thin wiry grey hair, small round glasses like a professor, and had some kind of box wrapped in fabric tucked under his arm.

Joe saw the box and decided he had to have it. Whatever was in it had to be worth a lot of money. He jumped off the roof and ran at the man, who, seeing someone running at him, turned toward Joe.  With one of Joe’s favorite moves, he turned sideways and kicked the man as hard as he could right in the chest.  The man fell backwards hitting his head on the concrete, and Joe reached in and grabbed the box. The driver of the car started to approach, but Joe pulled out his gun and pointed it at him.  Just before Joe ran off with the box, the man lying on the sidewalk, who now had blood running from his head, pleaded with Joe, “No, no, you don’t understand!”

Joe ran to the next block and sat down on another set of stairs, and once again, melted into the scene and became invisible. Hastily he pulled off the fabric, a fine silk tapestry, and threw it down on the sidewalk.  The box was made of ancient wood with mysterious symbols etched and painted on all sides, and the whole thing was held together with intricately carved bronze fittings. It appeared to be locked, so Joe stood up and started smashing it on the concrete steps.  Eventually the ancient wood splintered and the box fell apart into a bunch of pieces. Inside the box was something wrapped in more fine silk. He yanked the silk off and threw it down on the sidewalk.

Now he held in his hands some kind of ancient mechanism. It was made of bronze and had mysterious symbols etched into it like those on the box. It was about four inches square and an inch thick, and was surprisingly heavy. On one side were three rotating rings, one inside the next, with a button in the middle, and an arrow shape indicating the top.  Joe studied it. He couldn’t imagine what it was, but surely it was worth something. He liked the symbols – they fit with his ninja theme.

He fiddled with the rotating rings a little bit, then he pushed the button. As soon as he did, about thirty feet in front of him and in the air over the traffic, a bright blue glowing sphere appeared, then immediately collapsed with a loud bang and a puff of smoke.  The light was so bright, and the bang so loud, that cars hit their brakes and pedestrians gasped. Joe was so startled he dropped the object and it tumbled down the steps onto the sidewalk.

“Wahoo!” he shouted.  That was about the coolest thing he’d ever seen. He retrieved the mechanism and sat back on the stairs, his eyes wide with excitement. He held it in his hands, and this time, he carefully took aim at a passing car.  He pushed the button again, and this time the bright blue sphere, which was about two feet in diameter, appeared inside the car, then instantly collapsed with an explosion so violent that it blew out the car windows like a bomb. The car burst into flames and rolled to a stop in the middle of the street.

Total chaos erupted. People panicked and ran in every direction. Cars frantically tried to escape the scene, creating a sudden honking gridlock. Sirens rose in the distance. Joe was completely flabbergasted and amazed, and watched the burning car with his jaw hanging open.  He looked down at the gadget with reverence and respect. He ran his fingers over the symbols and carefully rotated the rings. Then he held it out and aimed it at a small group of people who were running away, and pushed the button again.

This time the blue sphere appeared inside the building across the street. It was much larger and white-hot light briefly beamed out of all the windows of the three story brick building. The sphere collapsed in a huge explosion hollowing out the interior of the building, which then collapsed in on itself, and showered  the entire area in flaming debris. Adjacent shops and buildings lost power and went dark, leaving the nighttime street scene looking like a crazy war zone with flames and smoke and debris everywhere. People screamed and ran in the ghostly yellow light of the flames. Debris rained down on Joe, but he was enthralled in rapturous delight. Ninja Joe’s moment had arrived.

The first few, of what would soon become dozens, police cars arrived on the scene, lights flashing. One after another they stopped at the end of the block. Doors flung open, and officers jumped out and ran toward the chaos with their guns drawn, not knowing exactly what they were looking for. This was more fun than Joe had had in a long time and a huge smile was on his face.

He fiddled randomly with the rings again, then carefully took aim at some of the police running in his direction. But this time, instead of just pushing the button and letting go, he pushed it and held it down. And this time, instead of a blue sphere merely appearing and then exploding, the sphere stayed, and grew rapidly with geometric patterns splaying out in all directions like fractal lightening. A dome of heat so intense it melted metal and stone, grew around the sphere, and a sound emanated from the core so loud it began to break down the molecular structure of everything around it. The sphere grew into a massive core of pure energy as bright as the sun.

But just before Joe was vaporized, along with everything else, he realized he was the happiest he’d ever been in his whole life.