I texted the station to let them know I’d be taking a day off, even though I knew playing hooky would send Birdy’s eyebrows through the roof. My brother knows I’m not one for an impulse vacay – after all, I’m never really off the clock. Sure, I’d love to drop everything and get the hell out of Dodge sometimes, but when exactly? The people in this city count on me to take care of their sh*t twenty-four/seven. They scream and they wail and they cry out for help all the live-long day. It doesn’t matter if I’m busy making a sandwich, sitting on the can or even getting lucky, victims don’t keep to a schedule. And I’m here to tell you, some chick yelling my name at the point of no return: that’s swell – hearing some injured kid in Queens yelling it at the same time: that’s just distracting.
I tumbled out of bed and went to the kitchen to make some breakfast. Opening the larder, I plucked a jar of jelly off the shelf and tried the lid. It was stuck. I went at it again – had the thing in a full nelson and everything – but try as I might that little c*cksucker just would not give. Something was seriously the matter.
I raced to the bathroom to check my reflection, hastily rolling up the sleeves of my bath robe to examine myself. When I saw what I saw my jaw dropped like a pair of overalls at quitting time. My biceps were flat as boards and my triceps sagged like week old birthday balloons. I parted my robe to see what had become of the rest of me. It wasn’t pretty. My body was soft and squidgy, my six-pack all but vanished beneath a layer of sweaty flab. Ugh. One flex of my perfect abs used to be all it took to demoralize my enemies into submission, now there I was, The Man of Marshmallow. I’d gone from owning a physique chiseled out of a block of raw sex to looking like Popeye on a spinach withdrawal.
I caught my eye in the mirror and stared down the sad old pile of laundry looking back at me. “Gotta get my mojo back,” I said out loud.
First things first, I needed a shave. My face looked like someone had covered it in Krazy Glue and poured on a beaker of iron filings.
I ran a razor under the faucet, lathered up and went to work. That’s when things really took a swerve. I don’t know how it’s even possible but somehow... and I can hardly believe I’m about to write this... somehow I got cut. Was I tripping? Me? Captain Might? Cut! Used to be you could hurl a mountain range at my face and I wouldn’t even flinch, but there I was, leaking claret because I’d gone butterfingers on a Gillette!
DRIP.
DROP.
DRIP.
I am all over the goddamned place here. I feel like I’m operating a crane in an earthquake. Like the world got yanked from under my feet and the ground’s rushing up to greet me and there’s nothing I can do to save myself. That’s the way life looks without superpowers. Oh God, what if they’re not coming back? What if my powers aren’t not coming back and this is all I am now? Just the thought of not being a superhero sends me down a road that leads to all the wrong parts of brain town. Not for nothing, but if I don’t get better soon I’m going to be looking up the skirt of a serious depression.
January 27th
I decided to drag my carcass to work seeing as stewing alone in my apartment was making me sadder than a one-man conga line. It didn’t do much good. I was only an inch deep into my morning coffee before Birdy came crashing into my office with all the manners of a Kanye at an awards show.
“Why are you spinning your wheels on this D’eath situation?” he demanded.
“Don’t sweat it, bro,” I replied, buying time as casual as I could muster. “The Prof can wait.”
“For what? The guy’s sat riding his cannon like a goddamned Cher video! Get on up there and use those eye-beams of yours to sterilize that sh*theel.”
Sheesh, I wouldn’t want to be Birdy’s enemy.
“The cannon’s only part-built,” I said. “There’s stuff to be getting on with down here before I cross that bridge.”
“What could possibly be a bigger priority than D’eath right now?”
“Well, for one thing,” I said, “today’s recruitment day.”
I wasn’t lying. Right there on the office calendar, ‘second round of open-door interviews,’ and regs said I had to sit in on every single one of them. C.H.A.M.P’s contract is up for renewal in a couple of months and after my last performance review he knew as well as I did that we were walking a tightrope.
Ordinarily I’d do just about anything to dodge interviewing new recruits. Give me a choice between interviews and chewing the dingleberries out of a dead dog’s ass and Fido was in for a trim. But boy, was I ever happy to get jammed up by those sorry sons of bitches this time.
I watched from the mezzanine as the latest round of applicants filed under my effigy and into the lobby. Bless them, I could tell just from looking that there wasn’t a winner among them. Those noobs were so green you’d have thought it was St. Paddy’s Day. It’s a wonder none of them had drowned themselves by forgetting to toss their cape over their shoulder before they flushed the toilet. I ask you, what makes these nuggets think they’re fit to join the cause? Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I begrudge a guy wanting to try the good Samaritan thing on for size, but if he wants to come between my legs he better come packing.[47]
Of the people I interviewed, I saw a girl who could turn invisible (“saw” being the operative word, being as she could only turn 25% transparent), a boy with the power to move sewage with his mind (feces–kinesis) and a guy whose eye beams were so pissy they wouldn’t make the grade as laser pointers. What a bunch of pantywaists. If these guys were automobiles they’d be recalled to the factory and crushed into cubes. I mean, what’s next...?
Speaks-in-Braille-Man?
Genuinely-and-Sincerely-Believes-it’s-Not-Butter-Lad?
Actually-Knows-what-it-Sounds-Like-When-Doves-Cry-Girl?
Still, no matter how defective their superpowers were, at least those nuggets had something going on. Not like me, or at least not for long. My powers were bleeding out of me like I’d sprung a leak.
DRIP.
My super hearing quit on me.
DROP.
My X-ray vision flat-lined.
DRIP.
I move about as fast as a Philip Glass concert.
I’m coasting on fumes and it’s only a matter of time before the tank hits empty. I’d better watch myself. I keep ragging on folks with superpowers and I’m going to start sounding like a bald guy laughing it up at a haircut.
I got to thinking about the last time I was sat in that interview room quizzing new recruits, back when Miss Transit paid us a visit. How the tables had turned since that day. I had her written off as a punchline back then, now here I was actually feeling jealous of the girl. I’d do anything to have her power – to be able to teleport – preferably some place far away from Birdy so he’d quit needling me about this D’eath debacle. Instead I had him cocking his coconut around my door the second the last interview was done.
“Is now maybe a good time for you to strike that ‘prevent destruction of planet Earth’ task off your to-do list?”
I played it cool. “I’ve been thinking, Birdy, you’re always complaining about my zero caution approach to danger, so how about I take your advice for a change and figure some things out before I go at D’eath again?”
I had Birdy right by the hairs. I felt bad for playing the guy, but what was I meant to do? Tell him the truth? That I’ve been tricked into losing my superpowers and now the city’s a sandcastle waiting to get stomped flat? Believe me, I’m in no hurry to weather that sh*tstorm.[48]
January 28th
All I wanted was to spend the weekend cocooned at Might Heights with the blinds drawn and my cell set to hermit mode. Fat chance. At 8pm the buzzer rang and I checked the intercom monitor to find a full-on home invasion lying in wait. Three intruders itching to get at me, and they’d come heavy. Their leader looked into the camera lens and levelled his weapons. He was packing a couple of sixers. A couple of sixers of beer. Sh*t it. In all the drama I’d clean forgotten about poker night.<
br />
Birdy stabbed the buzzer again, straining under the weight the brewskies. How could I have let this slip my mind? Last Saturday of the month me and the boys have a standing order to play cards and tie one on till the sun leaks in. I usually look forward to it all month, but a bro-down with the fellers was the last thing I needed this evening. I racked my brain for a way to blow the game off but what could I say? That I was feeling under the weather? Are you kidding me? Captain Might gives chest bumps to tac nukes, he doesn’t get laid up with a case of the sniffles.
Flanking Birdy were Gerry the janitor and Fish Face. You’ll know Fish as one of C.H.A.M.P’s big guns of course, not to mention one of the few members of the superhero fraternity who sleeps in a flotation tank and comes to work wearing a goldfish bowl on his head. Our paths first crossed when I went on a fishing trip and accidentally discovered his home city of Atlantis (long story). Fish Face is bona fide royalty down there – king prawn – so it was a real honor when he agreed to join the team. That said, integration with the sea-people has given rise to the occasional cross-cultural kink. The biggest occurred the time he caught me eating a Filet-O-Fish and ordered all-out war on the surface world. Apparently Fish Face can talk to marine life, and the way they tell it they’re not crazy about being eaten. Needless to say, when I go to McDonalds these days I stick to beef burgers (and stay the hell away from The Uncanny Ox-Men).
I let the boys inside and Birdy plonked down the beers, flipped open a humidor and sparked up a stogie.
“Where’s the action, Cap? No cards? No chips? Too busy not dealing with D’eath to set up a table?”
“Quit busting my balls, okay? Just give me one night off the clock for Chrissakes.”
“Alright alright,” said Birdy. “No more shop talk, I promise.”
I laid the table, unfolded some seats and dealt out the cards. Texas Hold’em is our game, and the four of us have picked up a pretty good rhythm for it over the years, me especially. I’m not kidding, I could play the pro circuit I’m that good. Or I could have anyway, before D’eath ass-blasted me. Before he took my powers I could hear a bluffing man sweat. Still, if I had to tell you my real ace in the hole, I’d say it was my X-ray vision. Fact is it’s hard not to clean up when you can see every card your opponent’s holding.[49]
The first thing I discovered about playing poker minus superpowers is that not being able to see the other side of your opponent’s cards really puts a crimp in your game. Matter of fact I lost just about every hand I played. Fish Face and Gerry couldn’t believe the heater they were on, but it was Birdy who really took me to the cleaners. The guy had the best part of my pot in front of him before midnight rolled around.
At that point I could have walked away with my dignity intact, but I’d be damned if I was going to let my little brother dick me up and down like that. I went all in on my next hand expecting to bully Birdy into folding, but he stood his ground. Things got tenser than a S.W.A.T. team standoff. He called. Time to show cards. Do or die. I had him beat, I could feel it; I always knew when to call Birdy’s bluff. I laid down my hand.
“Pair of Aces, Queen high.”
Not great, but good enough.
Birdy threw down.
“Another pair of Aces... with a King as the kicker.”
Little pissant took me! Still, I would have left it there if it weren’t for the dumb grin on his face as he raked in the last of my chips. The way he was lording it up you would have thought he’d slapped me with a straight flush.
“One point you beat me by,” I said. “One lousy point.”
Birdy couldn’t help himself. “One point and a pair of balls.”
Fish Face snorted, making the bowl on his head flush with bubbles.
“He got you there, Cap!” he said, and gave Birdy a fist bump.
That’s when the chips really hit the fan. I don’t know if it’s the stress I’ve been under or the beers or what, but something inside of me just snapped. By the time I realized what I was doing it had already happened – I was across the baize and swinging a fist at my brother. I’m not talking about a bit of harmless roughhousing either; I was aiming to put divots in the guy.
I landed a crack clean across Birdy’s jaw. Bad idea. The moment my fist connected I felt the impact shoot up my arm and atom bomb in my shoulder. I would have yelped like a stepped-on puppy if Gerry hadn’t wrestled me to the table before it could clear my throat.
The room went hush. It’s not every day you see a man who can leave fingerprints in sprung steel getting pinned down like a cheap trick, least of all by an elderly janitor. There goes my big secret I figured. I readied myself for the first call of shenanigans but the others were occupied watching Birdy, who was tugging on his mask and heading for the exit.
“I’m out of here,” he said, slamming the door behind him.
The rest were quick to follow.
I sit alone now among half-empty beer bottles and cigar butts, humiliated, angry and scared. This hand – this hand that used to crush diamonds out of coal – chilling under a bag of frozen shrimp after I busted it on the jaw of my own brother. What a sh*tshow. Jesus, I feel lower than whale puke right now.
January 30th
I was stood watching a convoy of capes streak by my office window this morning when I heard a knock. A woman I never met before opened the door and let herself in. She was dressed in a pencil skirt and wore a pair of oblong glasses that gave her that Tina Fey/specs-machine look. This girl was a looker. If I had a poet’s soul I’d say something about her eyes being limpid pools, but me being me I’ll stick to describing her ass, which shimmied about like it was trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube.
“Hello there,” she said. “I’m Doctor Love.”
Well, well, I thought – things were looking up. It seemed Birdy and the boys had chipped in and bought me a little no hard feelings present for the other night. Well, that’s too bad, fellers, because I was getting all kinds of hard feelings. No lie, that woman’s body made my dick go ‘snikt!’
“Shall we sit down?” she asked.
I knew how to read between the lines. “Sure we can,” I replied, closing the venetians. “Let me just grab a seat.”
I cupped her rear and gave it a squeeze.
Right away I realized I’d misjudged the situation. My ability to read tells might not be what it was, but I wasn’t totally ignorant – particularly when that tell came with a punch that landed so hard it felt like the person throwing it had been born in a fighting Octagon.
“What the hell?” screamed Doctor Love.
“I’m sorry, I thought you were a call girl!”
“I’m C.H.A.M.P’s in-house therapist, you moron!”
“But your name? Doctor Love?”
“I’m a physician who happens to have the surname ‘Love.’ Is that so hard to understand?”
It was a bit, but mainly because my ear was still ringing from her right hook. I told her again that I was sorry for the mistake but she took off before I was done. What can I tell you, sometimes I get the prostitute/regular lady thing confused, okay? So sue me![50]
I found out later that it was Birdy who put Doctor Love up to paying me a visit. Given my recent behavior he’d concluded that I must be suffering a dose of PTSD from my last bout with D’eath. You believe that? My twin brother has me figured for a basket case. Jeez, did he really think I was going to lay on a couch and bare my soul to some corporate headshrinker? That I need like a hole in the head.[51]
February 2nd
Whenever I’m outside now I feel eyes on me. Eyes following me everywhere I go. It’s like I’m walking through a gallery of haunted Scooby Doo paintings.
I decided to commute to the office incognito today. I put on a hat, a scarf and some gloves – all wrapped up like a beef burrito. And it wasn’t just a disguise; I needed those extra layers to keep warm. It’s crazy, I never even used to feel the weather, but now I have the cold tolerance of a newborn Chihuahua.
I was buying a hotdo
g from a street vendor when a breeze whipped up and sent my scarf snaking down a drain. I bent over to rescue it when I heard “You suck!” and some sh*tbird with a ponytail that looked like it had been dragged out of a shower drain nailed me with a cup of coffee. I went after the guy but he managed to outrun me, so instead of getting to kneecap his balls I was left wringing cold bean juice out of my duds in front of a crowd of rubberneckers. I swear to the Almighty, if I ever find the chuckle-head who tossed that thing I’m gonna use his corpse for a goddamned draft excluder.[52]
February 3rd
Captain Might without his superpowers was bad news for me and bad news for everyone. I had to get my head together and figure out some way to unf*ck the mess D’eath’s made. If only I knew what that red stuff he shot me with was, maybe then I could figure out a way to reverse its effect. But what do I know? Violence I’ve got plenty of but smarts I get in real small doses.
Normalized (The Complete Quartet) Page 7
