9/20/12 - (The Owl) Bigger Than God - Interlude

... Martha remembers:

She's twelve, and sparring with her father in the Owl's Nest. It's been a rough and bruising session, because they're trying something new, but she's riding high on adrenalin and pride, and not minding it at all. Not much, anyway.

Pain means she's alive, unlike her brother, Mathew.

"Okay, and stop," her father says, putting his hands down and smiling at her: "How are you doing? Do you feel like you can go on?"

"I can," she says, rubbing her arms.

"Are you sure?" he asks, raising an eyebrow: "I don't want to break you."

"I'm sure."

"Okay then. But first, a question."

She sighs, hopefully not too audibly. He always does this to her, between workouts. If she answers wrong then he makes her change, read something appropriate from the Bible, and then go do her homework for an hour or two.

"Yes sir," she says, standing up as straight as she can.

"You're in pursuit of a criminal, and civilians have mistaken you for the criminal you're after. They're all over you, and not listening, and he's getting away. What do you do?"

She blinks. That's not something they've ever talked about.

"Um... I'd ask them to let me go one more time, and then..." she stammers, unsure.

"He's getting away, Martha," her father says, looming over her and speaking in that scary, booming voice he uses when he's in uniform: "You don't have time to think-"

"I'd beat them off me, and then continue pursuit," she says, quickly: "I can't let him get away."

Her father looks at her, and sighs, and she realizes she's made a mistake.

"You can't do that, Martha," he says, putting a hand on her shoulder, and getting her to look him in the eyes: "We protect the public. If we hurt the public, then we're no better than the people we're defending them against. You want to get away from them with as little damage as possible."

"I don't know how to do that, yet," she protests, weakly.

"No, but that needs to be your first impulse, honey. I'll show you how the next time we train."

Her eyes fills with tears, and he pretends not to see them: "In the meantime, I think you should read... hmm... "

"I think she's right, actually," someone announces from across the room, walking closer. Someone she does not recognize, at least not right away.

Martha immediately assumes a self-defense stance, ready to attack the person who's somehow invaded the Owl's Nest, and wondering why her father isn't doing the same.

"Don't tell me you did it again?" her father says, crossing his arms as the stranger walks closer.

"I told you, Joe. I have the greatest respect for your mission, but your security system needs some serious !@#$ing work."

"Ahem," her father says, indicating Martha.

"Oh, sorry kid. I keep forgetting I gotta keep it clean in here."

The stranger walks closer. He's large, well-built, and wearing a black leather uniform. As soon as he gets into the light, she sees he's wearing an eyepatch over one eye, and has a glass eye in the other.

And then she remembers him. He was at her brother's funeral, for a time. They weren't introduced. 

"Are you SPYGOD?" she asks, relaxing her stance a little.

"That would be me," he says, smiling: "And I think I won my bet with your father, again."

"Is that the only reason you're in town?" her dad asks, walking up to him to shake his hand.

"Well, I wanted some real pizza, too, " SPYGOD answers, laughing and clapping her dad on the shoulder.

"Pie, (REDACTED)," Joe laughs: "It's pie here in Chicago. Someday I'll teach you that."

"Maybe someday," the glass eye winks: "And I did have a few other reasons for dropping by. I didn't get a chance to talk at the funeral, and it wasn't the right time anyway..."

Her father looks at SPYGOD, SPYGOD looks at Martha, nods, and looks back: "Still isn't," he says.

"Not here, anyway," her dad says, trying to smile: "But while I've got you here, SPYGOD, maybe you can help us reason out something."

"What might that be?"

"I presume you heard the entire conversation that Martha and I were just having about public safety and fleeing criminals," he says, walking towards his daughter: "If you were training my daughter the way you train your Agents, then how would you want her to answer the question?"

"You sure you want me to do that, Joe?" SPYGOD asks, putting his hands behind his back: "It's bad enough I showed up your security system. I don't want to make a hash of your ethics lessons, too."

"Try me," her dad says, clapping his daughter on the shoulders and walking off to the side: "I wouldn't be training her to be the Talon if I didn't think she could handle it."

"Well, okay," SPYGOD says, walking closer and looking down at Martha: "Dang, kid. You're four foot nothing and weigh about as much as that pizza... that pie I was going to have, tonight. You ready to kick criminal !@#$ for your hometown?"

"Ready, sir," Martha says, remembering the funeral they don't want to talk about, and her brother's face in the casket, and the oath she took not long thereafter. Somehow SPYGOD doesn't seem as sure of himself, anymore.

"Well, then let me give you some advice," he says, reaching to pull out a cigarette, only to be *coughed* at her father, and then abandon the idea: "You're pretty lucky. Unlike most people I oversee, you've got your whole family in on the team. There's someone there to pick up the baton if you fall, and, well... yeah., I guess I don't need to remind you of that, do I?"

(Martha tries not to tear up at that.)

"But there will be times when you may be all alone. There may be no assistant to come get you, no group to call for help, no wandering hero to team up with. There may be a time when someone's life depends on you catching that criminal, or maybe the whole city. !@... er, heck, the whole world might need you to save it, someday.

"And if you fail? If you fall? All your knowledge goes down with you. The answers are all down for the count, and even the best of your allies and friends might not be able to solve the case in time.

"And that means that innocent people pay the price. The bomb goes off. Hostages die. The water supply gets filled with cyanide. Whatever crazy garbage the idiots you're chasing have planned happen.

"And you're lying in a ditch, or a hospital ward, somewhere, and can't do a darn thing to stop it.

"So you need to remember that the mission comes first. Always. And if that means you have to beat down a few civilians who don't read the darn newspapers, and can't tell the Talon from the Troublemaker, then so be it."

"And what if they're policemen?" her father asks from across the room: "Two beat cops, late at night? They've got you in your sights, and if you try to beat them down, bullets are going to be fired, and someone is going to get killed."

"Then you overpower them as quickly as possible, and send them flowers in the hospital," SPYGOD says, without missing a beat: "I remember this one time-"

"Not possible," her dad says: "Bystanders are in the shooting zone. If you move, they fire. If they fire, they're going to hit innocents."

"Well, then you kill them before they can shoot," SPYGOD says: "Quickly, efficiently. You can apologize later."

Martha blinks. The two men look at each other, and her father nods.

"Martha, I need to talk to SPYGOD about something that's strictly between us, as men," her dad says: "Homework, and then... Colossians, I think. 3:12 to 17. It might help."

"Yes, sir," Martha says, nodding to him, and then looking at SPYGOD.

"Are you Christian, sir?" she asks.

"Martha!" her dad exclaims, shocked that she'd be so rude.

"The answer's classified, young Talon," SPYGOD replies, winking at her: "But if I might suggest some readings? Romans 13. Whole !@#$ thing."

"Sir?" Martha asks, looking at her dad. He sighs and nods: "Homework, young lady. We'll talk about manners later."

With that, Martha wisely heads off to shower and change, not stopping to look back for fear of seeing two grown men argue over the word of God.

Later, when her father comes up to her room to see how she's doing, she doesn't get the expected lecture. He asks her what she thought of the two things she read, and seems satisfied with both her answers, and her confusion.

"Well, let me put it to you this way," he says, sitting down on her bed and look at her: "Do you remember what I told you about how the government looks into what superheroes do?"

"Yes. They have them all under orders, and can come in and tell them what to do at any time. They can even tell them to stop."

"That's right. And you know that the man who was just downstairs is the person who makes those decisions?"

She gulps: "I... I didn't get us into trouble, did I?"

"Oh no," her dad says, smiling: "Everything's fine. We have a special understanding with him. We always have. It goes back to the days of my Grandfather, who you never met. You see, when SPYGOD was growing up, as a child, he was a big fan of The Owl. He cut clippings out of the newspaper when he made the news out East, and just loved him.

"So when they met during World War II, when my grandfather helped train him and the first superheroes America made, it was like a dream come true. And when they made The COMPANY, and put SPYGOD in charge, he promised him that we'd be a special case. Can you guess why?"

"Is it because we're Christian?"

"No. And you always want to remember that just because someone disagrees with you, it's not because they're not Christian. Being Christian is between you and the Lord, but what really matters is what you do with other people, and what's in your heart. So maybe we shouldn't ask people who they pray to when we disagree with them?"

"Yes, sir," Martha says, properly chastised.

"I think the reason he trusts us is because we're a family. Reading between the lines, I think he came from a big family, himself. And when you're in a family, you look out for each other, and keep each other on the straight and narrow. Because you love your family like yourself."

"So why is he willing to kill people like that?" Martha asks: "The whole world is one family."

"That's right. And I'm glad to hear you think of it that way. But he..."

Her father looks like he's about to say something, and then looks askance, and doesn't.

"Dad?" Martha asks, getting up from her chair and walking to him: "What is it?"

"He walks a darker path than most of us, honey," her dad says, taking her hands in his: "He sees things we pray we never have to see, and does things that we never want to hear about. I think it's changed him. I fear for his soul, sometimes. But he is a good man, under all of that. I just wish I could help him the way he's helped us."

"Maybe I can pray for him?"

"I think that would be a wonderful thing," her father says, taking her in his arms and hugging her tightly: "Just don't tell him, okay? He gets a little weird about that."

"Yes, sir," she says: "He goes right on the list, right after..."

She doesn't say it. She doesn't have to. He smiles and nods, and just knows.

The next time she sees SPYGOD is a few months later, when she officially puts on the uniform and becomes the Talon. He's there at the handover ceremony, at the Owl's Nest.

(This time he doesn't succeed in sneaking in.)

"So, did you think about Romans?" he asks her, shaking her hand.

"I did, sir," she says: "And I think I have to go with life rather than death."

"Really?" he says, kneeling down so he can look up at her: "Every time?"

"Well, the Owl Line can get me out of most pile-ups, and screechers can paralyze most policemen before they fire."

"I hope so," he says, tapping her on the forehead: "But just remember. If you ever run out of tricks and toys, and the world's leaning on you? You have to go with the needs of the many over the few, or the one."

She raises an eyebrow, just like her dad does: "You got that from a movie."

"That's classified, kid," he chuckles, slapping her on the shoulder: "Go make me proud."

As he walks away to talk with her younger cousin, Rachel -- who's clearly upset about something -- she wonders why she'd want to make him proud, rather than her father and family. But as the years go on, and they encounter each other again and again, she realizes that it's actually a good thing that he's proud of her. Good, but sad.

For she realizes that he's on the outside, in the dark, looking in at a brighter world that he cannot be a part of, anymore.

And now, at this moment -- with death staring her and Kaitlyn in the face, and not nearly as many tricks and toys as she'd like -- she realizes that the darkness has come upon her, and she must put the many over the one, or the few.

God forgive me, she thinks, wondering how she'll send flowers, and to what hospital.

And...

(SPYGOD is listening to Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky, by way of William Orbit) and having that shake, !@#$ it)

3/10/12 - Whatever You Do You Can't Stop Falling

It's the Summer of 1929, and New York City's streets are hot enough to fry eggs on. The air reeks of sweat, and tempers are as short as the temperatures are high. Dumb things are said, bad things are done, and the only way to escape the consequences is to run like !@#$.

That's exactly what (REDACTED) and two of his younger brothers, are doing right now -- running like !@#$.

Some ill-tempered things were exchanged between them and the Irish family from down the block, and it didn't quite stop with words. So now (REDACTED), Edofardo, and Cesare are booking it through the city streets, trying to avoid getting anything worse than the black eye Edofaro's sporting, or the bloody nose (REDACTED) is holding into.

(Cesare, being the youngest, was short enough to duck and cover. Lucky him.)

(REDACTED) is leading the pack. He takes them over boxes and crates, leads them past street vendors, hustles them down back alleys, and tries every trick he knows to lose the !@#$ing bastards. Unfortunately, they know these streets, too. And they have more friends. Every time the three brothers turn a corner, the mob behind them has swelled by about one or two more young, angry heads.

His mind is racing along with his feet. Should they split up? No. If the Irish catch one of them, alone, there'll be another funeral in the family.

Should they turn and fight? No. There'll be three funerals, at this point.

Should they turn and say they're sorry? No. See above.

Running, then. Just keep !@#$ing running. Run run run run run.

And he's so busy running he doesn't realize he's just run into his older brother, Ignacio, who was on the way back from the Cuban grocer with some produce for grandmother. They tumble to the ground, the paper sack breaks, and Cesare and Edofardo trip over the two of them like something out of a movie.

The Irish kids screech to a halt, maybe ten feet from the pile up, and start laughing. (REDACTED) looks at Ignacio, who looks at his younger brothers, and their injuries. Then he looks back at the large group of kids, gets to his feet, and cracks his knuckles.

(REDACTED) grins, rises, and does the same. 

Ten minutes later, both Ignacio and (REDACTED) look like they went a few rounds with Jack Dempsey. But you really should see the other guys, all limping home and holding their faces together with their hands. Cesare and Edofardo are in sheer awe of their older brothers, and are carrying what groceries they could salvage from the busted bag as they quietly make their way home.

"Next time you want to pick a fight with the Irish, leave me the !@#$ out of it," Ignacio scolds (REDACTED). His younger brother looks up to him and sniffles, feeling about three inches tall, right now. But then he sees Ignacio wink through a swollen eye, and knows the simple truth about family.

Right, wrong, or !@#$ed up, they will always have your back.

* * *

It's years later, and now the city is running cold and hot. Cold because it's early December. Hot because it's the day after the day that's going to live in infamy, according to what the President said.

"You ain't fighting in that war unless you got to," Mama is scolding both her oldest boys, waving the late city edition of the Times around their cluttered, aromatic kitchen: "You get drafted, you go. But you ain't volunteering. I won't be having my boys dying for this country. Not when good family at home needs our help."

Ignacio and (REDACTED) look sheepish. She has no idea they already volunteered this morning. Them, the guys across the hall, the man down the landing, and men and boys up and down the street. Even the Irish kids down the way, God take their eyes. They were all lined up at the recruiters, this morning -- hoping they can do something.  

Anything. 

Before getting in line, which was already quite long by that point, (REDACTED) looked at Ignacio and wondered aloud: "You think we should be doing this? Mama's gonna have a fit. You how she is about the home country."

"Yeah, when she ain't giving up the Church and everything that comes with it. I gotta sit through one more of those crazy tent things I'm gonna go crazy."

"But I hear Italy's in cahoots with Germany and Japan-"

"You know what? !@#$ Italy," Ignacio said, smiling: "You heard the stories Grandma, God rest her soul, used to tell. Where was Italy when Grandpa made the wrong people angry and couldn't get work? Where was Italy when he had to come over here, huh? And then he got off that !@#$ing boat with a couple coins in his pocket, and Italy finally shows up, but just to take those coins."

"Well, yeah. But-"

"But nothing, (REDACTED). Everything we have, we made over here in America. You and me? We were made in America. This is our country. This is our family. And when the family's in danger, you put up your fists."

Suddenly (REDACTED) can't quite think of what to say. It's like that time when he was staring at Mr. Rossiter's "business partner," Bradley, the night the revival went bad, and feeling that strange thing that's haunted him all these years. He doesn't know what this moment means, but he knows he has to follow it, because it's right.

Mama doesn't find out they're in the Army until they've left for training. She doesn't forgive them until halfway through the war. But in each and every letter, she tells her boys to watch out for each other, because they're family.

And, even though the War takes them in very different directions -- Ignacio to the Pacific, (REDACTED) to Camp Rogers, and then Europe -- they do they best they can to obey her.

* * *

It's well after the war, and (REDACTED) goes by SPYGOD more than his own name. He doesn't visit home all that often, partially for security reasons and partially because he's so !@#$ing busy, being a national hero and all. 

(That and, let's face it, his mother drives him up the !@#$ing wall with her nagging and worry. Hasn't be been in the Army enough? When is he going to get a nice girl and settle down?)

But he always has a phone line open for her. And when she calls him up, one night, with that horrible tone of voice that means she's breaking, inside, he's back in New York City before anyone knows he's gone. 

"You have to stop him," she tells him, her fingers pale and her face wrinkled, looking like a ghost under the black clothes she's worn since Papa died: "You have to talk sense into him."

By 'him' she means 'Ignacio,' who came home from the War a changed man. Still loves his mother, still a good man, but no longer willing to obey her as readily as he once did. 

(Yes, she's overlooking the volunteering thing.)

"What's Ignacio done?" SPYGOD asks

"He's fallen in love with a Cuban girl," she says: "The one that works at the grocers you kids shopped at."

"What's so bad about that?" he asks, trying to remember the girl: "Is she not Catholic?"

(Yes, she's given up on evangelism, too.)

Mama can't say for crying. It's just too much, whatever it is. So he goes over to Ignacio's apartment to get an explanation.

His brother opens the door, happy to see him but knowing why he's there. Behind him, seated at a table, is a young lady that SPYGOD doesn't quite recognize, except that she bears a striking resemblance to the son of the lady that ran that grocers, all those years ago. 

Then she lifts her head up to smile at him, and it's more than enough for him to see her adam's apple. Suddenly he understands.

He looks at his brother, smiles, and hugs him -- long, strong, and unflinchingly. 

"You too, huh?" he laughs.

"Yeah," Ignacio says, laughing and clapping his brother on the back: "Me too."

They talk for quite a while, after that -- the three of them. They laugh and cry and argue and get a little drunk, and laugh and cry some more. Then they hug and depart, brothers always, and SPYGOD can't believe how happy he is that his brother's found someone.

But when he gets home to his mother, he swallows the truth inside him, and just tells her that he couldn't get through to Ignacio, either. And when she goes insane in her own kitchen, throwing her prize plates against the floor and screaming that that man is no longer her son, every word burns him like fire from shame. 

* * *

The Korean War is raging, and SPYGOD's in the thick of it, but he takes the time to read his brother's letter from start to finish.

(Sitting on what's left of some glowing supercommie as his corpse cools, and the light slowly goes out of him.)

The key paragraphs that stand out for him are these: I wish we could stay here. I wish we could be part of the family, still. But our mother and Cheri's father won't see us. My own brothers spit at me, now. 

And mother... oh mother, I know I've broken her heart, but what can I say? She told me not to lie, but I guess she didn't want me to volunteer the truth, either.

SPYGOD feels numb, right now, re-reading that. Numb and ashamed.

The rest of the letter goes by in a whisper, but the salient point is this: they're moving to Cuba, which, in recent years, has turned into something of a non-stop party. Between Cheri's family and the local non-existent social mores, they should be fine.

"!@#$ing Cuba," SPYGOD curses, knowing full well that the place is a corrupt snakepit, and no place for a dignified lady like Cheri. However, given his brother's tendency to put up his fists when family need defending, he figures they'll be okay.

As long as they're careful.

* * *

It's early 1961. Another wave of escapees from Castro's Cuba have come to America's shores. And SPYGOD has received word that Cheri is amongst them, and asking for her help.

There's no word about Ignacio. He's terrified about what that could mean. 

Halfway to Miami he learns she's not in holding with the other refugees, which he finds understandable, given that she's a US Citizen. However, halfway again, he learns that she's under arrest. Something about public indecency and resisting arrest. 

He finds her in a waiting room at a police station. Apparently her mode of dress -- worn without thinking while escaping -- caused a few eyebrows to raise, and bluenoses to overreact. A serious bruise is developing under her left eye, and it's clear it was delivered post-arrival.

After sticking his gun in a few faces to find out who assaulted his sister-in-law, beating the !@#$ out of the persons responsible, and securing her release from the now-terrified constabulary, SPYGOD gets Cheri into his car and drives them away.

"What happened?" He asks, holding her hand: "Please tell me what's happened, Cheri."

"Oh, my Ignacio," she cries: "The soldiers came for him. He tried to stop them from arresting someone harmless. A schoolteacher who talked to much, told too many jokes. He stopped them and they told him he was dead, and he just laughed. You know your brother. He said the Irish in New York didn't scare me, the Japs in the Pacific didn't kill me, Batista in Cuba was afraid of me, what are you going to do?"

"What happened?" He asks, knowing he isn't going to like the answer.

"They came for him. Twenty men with guns. He roared at them and told me to get out the back. He had a suitcase packed for us both. I ran and ran, and he screamed like a lion. Roaring at them to take him if they could. And there was gunfire, and I looked back, and..."

She breaks down into hysterics then. It's all SPYGOD can do to hold her hand and drive while crying.

A few days later they have a token funeral service, given that they'll probably never have a body to bury. Mother is long dead, and neither of his brothers will attend if Cheri is there, which she is. So only his sister Maria, her husband, their children, his elderly aunt, and some of Cheri's younger siblings will join them. They cry and pray and drink and argue and cry and laugh and cry some more.

Less than four months later, he's in Havana, trying to kill Castro. That doesn't work out so well. 

* * *

"Now, see, if that Kennedy idiot had had a real plan, that bearded !@#$ would be dead by now," Nixon's saying, pounding his desk and laughing with Ford, Kissinger, and all his advisers: "We wouldn't have to be worrying about supercommies in our own !@#$ing hemisphere."

Everyone laughs at that, and SPYGOD just bites his tongue. After all, he's the one who's been doing his best to make sure that the President's "real plan" -- aka the CIA's Operation Mongoose -- has been going nowhere for the last few years. In fact, he was just informed, not that long before this little meeting of the minds, that yet another shipment of poisoned cigars had been intercepted by his people in Havana, and 'creatively rerouted,' as they say in the business.

(One of his Strategic Talents actually EATS cyanide as part of a well-balanced diet. Go figure.)

"Yeah, I think he was going to have someone go down there and talk him to death," Kissinger says, his deep European voice a never-ending source of amusement.

"That would be his way, wouldn't it?" Someone else -- a balding, weasel-faced fellow with an atrocious mustache -- adds: "Simpering East coast liberal faggot. Probably thought he could get in bed with him by getting in bed with him."

For some reason that comment gets the most laughs so far. And for some other reason -- maybe somewhere, deep on the cellular level -- SPYGOD decides he's had enough of this !@#$

"That simpering East coast liberal faggot got his PT boat blown out from under him, back during the War," he says, tasking a none-too-cautious step towards the President's desk: "He dragged one of his crew to safety with his !@#$ing teeth and held onto him until they were rescued. What the !@#$ did you !@#$-streaks do during the War?"

There's silence, for a second. He can see the shock building behind the President's little eyes, and, knowing its going to turn into outrage at any moment, decides to press the attack.

"Further, I can personally verify that the simpering East coast liberal faggot you're talking about got more !@#$ than a toilet seat. He used to say he got a headache if he didn't drain his balls at least three times a day, and he had no shortage of women willing to help. I saw him do three at once in this very office, gentlemen. One right after the other, like oysters."

"Now see here, sir--" Nixon stammers, but he's silenced by the rage in SPYGOD's eyes.

"The man !@#$ed Marilyn !@#$ing Monroe, gentlemen. In the !@#$. In his wife's bed. And while I know he'd hardly be the only gay man in the world who would do her, too, I can verify that his motives were entirely heterosexual."

"How would you know what a fag thought, (REDACTED)?" Ford asks: "I mean, I know some of those capes are a little swishy, but-"

"Because I !@#$ing am one, sir," SPYGOD says, putting both hands on the desk: "I've known I was a homosexual since I was old enough to know what one was."

The weasel-faced man harumphs: "Looks like someone's wanting an early retirement, Mr. President."

"Oh, is that what you think?" SPYGOD says, straightening back up: "I killed Hitler, you mustachioed little douche. I run our Strategic Talents program. I saved that simpering East coast liberal faggot of yours from an assassins' bullet, and... gosh, how many times have I !@#$ing saved the world? I don't think I have enough fingers and toes to count, buddy."

"Look, I think this conversation's gotten a little out of hand," the President says, putting his hands up in surrender: "No one here's saying you should quit, SPYGOD. Your country owes you several times over. But... could you be a little less gay around us?"

SPYGOD snorts: "Half your burglars are queer, Mr. President."

That ends the conversation, then and there. In the future, the President records all Oval Office conversations, hoping to catch such nuggets of truth so he can hold them over people's heads. That doesn't work out so well, either.

But no President, from that point on, ever uses the F-word in SPYGOD's presence. They don't even dare do it while he's in the same building that they are. It's understood that the man is what he is, and it's best just dealt with, or left alone.

No one wants to make him angry, knowing that he'll put up his fists for family.

* * *

Now it's more than 45 years later, and President Nixon is dead. He has gone full circle from loved to disgraced, then begrudgingly rehabilitated, then ultimately forgiven and beloved in death.

Kennedy's gone, too, just recently. His wife, Marilyn, still grieves. Ford and Kissinger slipped away, too, but no one really made much of a big deal over their passing, given their unfortunate proximity to Nixon. 

The mustachioed douche did jail time for the same thing that brought Nixon down, and is something of a cult hero amongst certain conservative circles. He has a radio show and books and people love him for things that they should rightly despise him, for. 

(And every time SPYGOD sees him, he uses SPYGOD vision to make him !@#$ his pants.)

SPYGOD's younger brothers and sister are dead. Their children's children, and their children, have no idea that he is related to them in any way, shape, or form. Part of this is for their safety, and part of this is because they cut all ties to him after certain facts came to light. 

To her eternal credit, his sister, Maria, did not care, and loved him anyway. But still the secrecy is kept, so that her descendants will not be bothered by science terrorists in search of blackmail material.

And Cheri? She found love again, years later, and spent the rest of her life with that man. Before she died, SPYGOD made her a promise, and took custody of her ashes after the funeral. 

Now Fidel Castro is dead. And, as SPYGOD and Dr. Krwi have been making their way through the violent, burning city of Havana -- sometimes by car, sometimes on foot, depending -- they hear that his brother, Raul, may also be dead. Or possibly in hiding, or surrendering to the yankees in The Flier. Who knows the truth?

But as they've been making their way across the city, SPYGOD's been carefully steering them in one direction. Once they get there, just outside the city limits, the Doctor has to ask why they're stopping in this large, lonely field where no one has sown any crops, or placed any buildings or signs.

And SPYGOD, by way of an answer, pulls out a jeweled box, maybe the size of a small piggy bank. The old man had seen it, sitting on the desk in the apartment, and wondered what it was. But when SPYGOD opens it, somewhat reverently, and starts to scatter the ashes inside it out onto the hot wind, and then onto the ground, he begins to understand.

"I love you, big brother," SPYGOD says, smiling through the tears: "I love you, too, Cheri. You rest easy, now. Your fighting days are over. We won."

They watch the clouds settle for a time, and then get moving before the mobs descend on the burial grounds, too. 

(SPYGOD is listening to Love Comes Quickly (Pet Shop Boys, Disco remix) and drinking tears of sorrow, and joy)