Volume 1: Who I was, how I came to be.
Chapter 1: A bit of a recluse, but not yet a Recluse.
It recently occurred to me that I have led a very strange life. A life full of adventure and danger, but rarely knowing the difference between the two at any given moment. A life of crime and crime fighting, although it depended on whom you asked and when they answered to discern which was which. A life that has, from a certain point, never seemed like it was quite my own even though my own choices ultimately brought me to it. It similarly occurs to me that anyone willing to put on a mask and punch gangsters, fifth columnists, and costumed mad men is living on borrowed time. If that is the case, then I have lived on borrowed time since I was a young man (or perhaps an old boy?) and it may soon be too late for me to tell my story, the true story, as I see it. My name is Matthew Matheson, my friends call me Matt and two dear people who loved me like a son called me Matty. You have most likely heard of my other name, however. Few know Matthew Matheson, but many have heard of the Brown Recluse.
Vigilante, criminal, murderer, harbinger of justice, weird stalker of the night, I have been called all these things and more in the guise of the Brown Recluse. Once, though, I was just a boy; a poor child but rich in love and family. Not exactly normal, but neither was I the oddity I would become. I was brilliant and filled with potential, but unlikely to realize any of it due to the poverty to which my life had led. I was introspective, but friendly and interested in the friendship and respect of his peers. Many, even most of my closest friends, would be unable to look at me and see that boy. They simply could not believe such a transformation was possible. Ah, but my metamorphosis will come at the proper place in the story, for now let us focus on the boy I once was. Just a boy…
I have always felt that my story, the story of how I came to cling to walls, wear masks, and fight villainy with fists, rope, and guns, began at a very specific moment in time. In some ways, it was very typical of my childhood. I was reading a book and I was about to be bullied. What would be different from any of the days before it, but would become much more commonplace as my life went on, was the broken nose.
The year was 1932, I was sitting outside my school, I was fifteen years old, and I was in tenth grade. The title or subject of the book I read is lost to the mists of time, but I recall the feeling of being lost in it perfectly, the feeling of utter immersion in the knowledge the book was imparting to me, being both covered in and absorbing information. While my body was trapped in a dingy schoolyard in Queens, hobbled by the educational system of a nation wracked by a Great Depression, my mind was awash in an ocean of facts. This is how it was for me. I’d always been a bright child, well ahead of the curve in science and mathematics, and had just began to discover how much I could learn without the distractions of teachers and classrooms to get in the way. I was still too well behaved, too concerned about hurting my aunt and uncle, to leave school entirely. At least, that is, leave it physically. My mind was almost always far, far away.
“Hey, Matheson! Hey! Hey, Measly!” a voice yelled from beyond the edges of my informational world.
It roused me, blinking, back to reality and, looking into the voice’s general direction, I had just enough time to wonder why that baseball was growing so big so fast. Then the pain exploded in my face. It was like the dripping of water into a pail with waves of pain beginning at my nose but then rippling out across my entire face, around the back of my head, rebounding off one another, and coming back to center on my nose again where a fresh round of pain was just getting started. I fell over backwards grabbing at my nose. I could barely see through the tears but I felt my hands, which were grasping at the large, spongy thing that used to be my nose, get wet instantly as though I’d run them under a faucet.
The other kids in the schoolyard instantly surrounded me, crowding in, asking if I was all right, somebody yelled to get a teacher, but I was barely aware of them through the pain. The voice had belonged to Buzz Briganti, boss of the Jackson Heights Gang and son of reputed gangster lieutenant and ex-prizefighter Bruno “the Bruiser” Briganti. The Jackson Heights Gang boosted liquor and cigarettes, ran complicated shoplifting rackets, and collected protection from just about every student in my school. Except me. This wasn’t because I was tough, quite the opposite with my asthma and reedy frame. I was just too poor to pay them. The Gang was the most effective and successful example of juvenile delinquent organized crime around and nobody doubted for a second that was because Buzz was getting tips, tricks, and hints from his father.
I wanted to be in that gang so badly I might have killed for it. Even with constant bullying, I wanted in. I was known to Buzz and his crew as “Measly” Matheson and received plenty of wedgies, melvins, swirlies, and had even been on the wrong end of some beatings. The beatings were rare due to my teacher’s pet status and the fear that my Uncle Dan put into the Jackson Heights thugs early on in the bullying, but they still happened. Still I wanted in. I saw that they were up-and-coming criminals, I saw that they had money to spend, nice bikes, new watches, and good clothes while I made due with second hand stuff my Aunt April kept just wearable with patches and her phenomenal skill with a needle. It didn’t bother me they were criminals or that they preyed on weaker kids. After all, it never seemed to bother my classmates that got away when a juicier target, like me, wandered by. I’d also seen Buzz picked up by his father who wore flashy suits and drove a new car. I didn’t care about anything but the money, respect, and prestige to be had in that gang. Other weaklings just accepted their place in the pecking order, but I actually thought my brain could assist their brawn. In fact, earlier that week I’d offered to help Buzz make book on the other students if I could join the gang. He laughed at me and told me I’d be doing it for him now without the membership. I refused but managed to run away before any sense could be pounded into me. For that insolence, I apparently had to be punished and spectacularly.
Which brings us to the baseball and my broken nose. After what seemed like an eternity of endless agony, I heard a deep voice that had to be our vice principal, Mr. Bridges, telling everyone to back up and make way. I sensed the crowd parting more than saw it as I still could not see through eyes that just would not stop tearing. The sun was eclipsed by the shadowy shape of Mr. Bridges who knelt down beside me. With a quiet “Let me see, son,” he pulled my hands away and hissed in surprise at the sight. Without another word, he scooped me into his large arms and carried me in to the nurse. I couldn’t remember making any noise even when the ball struck me, I had simply been too surprised. Enveloped by this strong man’s protective grasp but jostled by his gait, I let out a quiet whimper.
So began the career of the Brown Recluse, not with a bang…
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