Another Man's Shoes

by Kielle

Mutants.

They can destroy your home. Kill your loved ones. Destroy your life.

You're sitting there right now, after reading that sentence, bristling with righteous anger, labelling me a bigot or worse. But I dare you to deny a word I've said. Repeat all of the pretty PC catchphrases you like...the fact remains that mutants are not simply another "downtrodden minority." The fact remains that if you're merely human, you're in the line of fire...or your children are.

I'm not some goose-stepping neo-Nazi, simply latching onto the next available target. "Friends of Humanity" means exactly that: blacks, whites, Jews, Christians, all humans. Forget the "genetically challenged" media darlings for a moment and really THINK about it. There are millions of teenagers and young adults in our country alone. Whether you like it are not, let's admit it: thousands of them aren't exactly fine upstanding citizens. Gangsters. Criminals. Bullies. Druggies and drunks and thugs.

Mutation is equal-opportunity. By the law of averages, hundreds of those self-same fine young upstanding citizens also have "super-powers" on top of that.

Picture the nicest person you've ever known and try to envision him or her struck out of the blue by a terrible, crippling mutation. Now, picture the nastiest creep you've ever known and then imagine that he or she could also fry your brain with a snap of their fingers.

If you aren't a little frightened now, you're living in a dreamworld.

"Tyler! Hey, Tyler! Yeah, you! Wait up!"

I hadn't seen Tyler Dawes since high school, and for a moment I thought he didn't recognize me. Then his face lit up and he pushed back through the lunchtime crowd to clap me warmly on the back.

"Jeff Owen! Damn, man, you look good! What've you been doing all this time?"

I shrugged. "This and that. Marketing for a game company. You?"

"No kidding? I'm in sort of marketing too, over at Cyndyne. Ad design."

"No great baseball career, huh?"

He grinned ruefully. "'Fraid not. Though I can still throw a mean fastball."

"And just when I was starting to able to sleep at night," I said, rubbing my right upper arm in mock pain where he'd nailed me 'way back in our junior year at Edison High. "You going for lunch or heading back to work?"

"Lunch. I don't have much time, though. You wanna hit Carl's?"

"Sounds good to me."

Over a burger and onion rings we swapped life stories, catching up to date. He seemed a little less talkative than he'd been when he was 17, but he had the same sick sense of humor as ever once I managed to set him off. I was surprised to find that he'd gotten married only a few months ago, but he wasn't one bit surprised to hear that I'd married Angela the year after I'd graduated. That, of course, led to an rapid-fire exchange of wedding anecdotes.

"Any kids yet?" he asked. "Or are you still thinking about it?"

I could feel the smile drain from my face. With an effort, I propped it back up. "One. Our daughter, Krista."

Tyler looked closely at me. "Did I say something wrong?"

I shook my head. "No...uh...she's just been sick lately. Sorry."

"No, geez, I'M sorry. Is she going to be okay?"

"I...hope so."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Tyler looked mortified. I couldn't imagine what *I* would have said if I'd been in his place, so I decided that it would be polite to change the subject for his sake. "Hey, maybe we can catch a game this weekend? I hear the Tigers are going to be in town."

"I've got plans on Saturday. How about Sunday?"

I thought for a second. "I guess so, if it doesn't run into extra innings. I have a meeting that evening. Come to think of it...you want to come with? We could carpool if you did."

"What kind of meeting?"

I rolled my eyes. "F.O.H., what else? What planet have you been living on?"

Tyler blinked and gave me an odd look. "You're still in the Friends Of Humanity?"

"Of course...waitaminute, now I remember. You backed out in our senior year, didn't you?"

"I...needed more study time. You know, finals and college. And I guess it just wasn't my thing after all." He had the strangest look on his face -- half shame, half defiance. The look of a teenaged kid who's just refused a cigarette from a pack of his peers.

"'Wasn't your thing'? For chrissake, Ty, you're the one who dragged me to my first meeting."

"I know. I remember."

I stared at him -- not angry, just a little baffled and curious. "You never did explain your sudden change of heart."

"I just grew up a bit, okay?" His change of tone was unexpected, and a little insulting. "I stopped watching the 'big picture' and took a look at the details. There was this girl..." He paused as if lost, and then shook himself. "I saw something which started me thinking, and the more I thought, the more uncomfortable I got. So I moved on with my life. Okay?"

"Ty, take it easy."

"I AM taking it easy. Christ, I just can't believe you're still listening to that bullshit Creed's dishing out. How many years has it been now -- six, seven?"

"Seven." This was taking an ugly turn. "Ty, what the hell is wrong with you? Since when have YOU been a mutant activist?"

He sighed. "I'm not, I just...damn. I'm sorry again. I had a bad morning. I just can't seem to keep my foot out of my mouth today."

"Just so long as you stop yourself before you get to the part about 'Hitler.' I've heard it all before."

Tyler smiled weakly. "I hope I'm never THAT cliched. I'm not going to start quoting Genoshan statistics at you either, I promise--"

"Good."

"--It's just...well, I don't think the world's black-and-white any more, Jeff."

"Ty, look. I'm not too hot on Graydon Creed either, but the movement itself has SOME merit, you have to admit. No, no, wait, dammit, let me finish before you jump all over me! I don't advocate genocide, I just think that they -- mutants, I mean -- they shouldn't be with humans. I mean, they're dangerous!"

Ty looked like he was going to argue. I stared at him until he sighed and dropped his eyes. "Some of them," he conceded grudgingly. "But not all of them. And it's not their fault."

"I know. Believe me, I know." He looked up sharply at the tired note in my voice, but I continued before he could press further. "That's exactly it, though. Good God, if *I* woke up one morning with, oh, I dunno, let's say lightning bolts coming out of my hands...hell, I wouldn't know what to do either. I'd probably wreck the house or even hurt my own family before I knew what was going on. It happens every day in the news. Every day!

"And then...even if I COULD control this, this lightning or energy or whatever the heck the mutation was, I don't know how long I could resist using it to get revenge on people who cut me off in traffic or pissed me off at work. I don't exactly have a college degree in 'controlling energy,' and I certainly don't know how much of a shock a human body can withstand. What if I miscalculated and someone died? Of course, I don't think I'd let myself be locked up -- hell, everyone knows how the law treats mutant criminals. I'd get scared or defiant and before you could say 'x-factor' there'd be some dead cops and one more rogue killer mutant on the loose...

"Stop snickering, dammit Ty, I'm SERIOUS! I'm not a bad person, you know that. But mutant powers are just too much of a temptation, for anyone."

"That's a worse-case scenario," he replied neutrally.

"Ty, I'm a middle-class guy with a wife and a kid and a mortgage. If *I* could be messed up by having super-powers..."

"Talk about a stereotype! It's not all 'super-powers,' you know," Tyler retorted. "They're the lucky ones, the aces. A lot of the time, being a mutant just means embarrassment, or deformation. Are you seriously saying that THOSE poor things are evil and dangerous?"

"No...no, I don't. You're perfectly right on that count." I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to marshall a useable answer. "But that's exactly why we need to set up separate places for them, where they can get medical help and not be stared at by normal people."

Tyler raised an eyebrow. "I dunno. That sounds like apartheid to me. The kind of thing that leads to concentration camps."

"Maybe. If you like." I left it at that. For once, I refused to rise to the bait and attempt to rationalize for his benefit. I didn't feel any need to defend the idea. It seemed the most humane solution for all involved, and if he couldn't see that, then he was an idiot who only knew what the television told him.

He could tell that I wouldn't be budged. To his credit, he shrugged easily and changed the topic. A bit. "If genocide's not your platform, then what about this 'mass sterilization' thing Creed's been hinting at?"

"I agree with him for once," I said mildly. "I mean, what do you get when mutants breed? Either more horribly deformed children or little ultra-powered menaces to the entire planet. Can you imagine controlling a toddler who can teleport or lift tanks or whip up world-devouring cosmic forces? It's not an urban legend, Ty -- it HAPPENS.

"Anyway, it's not like sterilization is a terrible thing; it's quick and painless and doesn't really change your life one bit. Hell, in some parts of the world they should make it widespread practice for humans, too."

Tyler stared at me, and I realized a few words too late that I may have gone a step too far. I berated myself silently. I closed my eyes for a second and then offered, "Look, can we call a truce on this? You're not going to change my mind and I'm not going to change yours, and we've both got to get back to work. Tell you what -- I can miss ONE lousy meeting. What say we forget this whole conversation and do the Tigers/Angels game on Sunday, no strings attached?"

Tyler grinned, reluctantly at first but then with genuine warmth. Considering that most of what I'd just said was far milder than his own rabid anti-mutant views in his youth -- he'd scared ME back then! -- he was ready to forget and forgive. "I can go with that."

"Great." I scribbled my home number on a napkin and handed it over. "Call me." I hesitated. "I can't help but be curious. The girl you married -- is she the one..."

"Who changed my mind in high school?" Tyler smiled a small, wistful smile and shook his head. "Paige. Heh. No, I never really saw her again, though I did know where she went to school. My wife, Jo...she's the one who changed my mind the rest of the way."

He stood up, slinging his jacket over his arm. "I'll call you."

I didn't go straight home, so I don't know yet if Tyler followed up on that promise. I have a feeling he did; he's a good guy, and if he's the same ol' Tyler Dawes he wouldn't miss an invitation to a Tigers game if he were on his deathbed.

No, right now I'm sitting in a hospital next to my daughter's bed. Her favorite book is still lying open in my lap, but she's fast asleep. She loves being read to, and she's already picking up her alphabet. I hope she learns to read and write quickly, because I can't think of any other way I can communicate with her -- I guess I'm just too old to pick up another language. To her credit, she's absorbing sign language like a sponge. The hospital volunteers say that my Krista's a bright little girl, and that's it's a shame that this had to happen to her.

"Sometimes it strikes early," the doctor said...the only thing he could say. There's nothing that can be done. It's not simply a matter of restructuring Krista's face -- her mouth is gone, both inside and out. No tongue, no palate, no teeth. Just a wall of bone and a sheet of skin -- as soft and pink as her cheek -- where her lips used to be.

Thanks to a loophole in our insurance policy, it'll take us a few years to pay for the surgery which removed my daughter's vocal cords; rather, the grotesquely swollen things which used to be her vocal cords. Her scream for help -- the last sound she ever made -- transformed half of our home into a shattered ruin. My wife and I couldn't hear for hours. We later found the dog and both cats dead in the front room, their ears matted with blood.

And my wife, who had been carrying our second child, miscarried three hours later.

Most crusading pro-mutant activists have never known a single mutant aside from the faces they see on television, or the handful of "cute cuddly muties" that they trundle out for every telethon and banquet. Just like AIDS activists who shudder at the thought of actually shaking an AIDS victim's hand, or comfy Caucasian politicos who take pride in showing off their one African-American "buddy." This is what mutant activists never see: the injuries and the deaths and the broken lives. The next step in evolution is only going to happen at the expense of the children of the step before. And we're supposed to lie back and quietly take our medicine for displacing Homo sapiens neanderthalus? I don't think so.

No, I don't want to send my daughter away to a "rehabilitation center." But if it turns out to be the best thing for her... How can she go to school, find love, lead a normal life? It's possible, perhaps. "Anything's possible," you say. But the chance is so slim as to be nonexistant. Do you remember being a child, being a teenager? Think back. Think hard. Remember what children are truly like. If you think ADULTS are cruel to those who are different...! You know as well as I that my daughter's life will be a living hell.

If there's no cure for mutancy, then there must be other ways to prevent this from happening to other children, ever again.

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