Super (Book 4): Supervised

by Princess Jones

  Copyright © 2016 by Princess Jones

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Supervised

  by

  Princess Jones

  Chapter 1

  Fuck, it’s cold.

  The super hero movies make it all look so glamorous. Capes. Secret fortresses. Saving the world. But they never show the part about licensing, paying your dues, or getting audited by the Super Council, do they?

  If there was a movie about me, it would be called Audrey Hart, The Worst Super in the World.

  Last fall, I almost lost my Super license but the Council let me off with just probation. I’d gotten the probation notice in October but three months later, I still hadn’t heard anything else. Sure, I could have gone down to Council headquarters and found out what was happening. But that seemed like a lot of work. Probation was their idea. If the Council wanted to move forward with it, they would have to come to me. My plan was to just wait for instruction, keep my nose clean, and focus on doing my Super duties.

  That’s why I was freezing my ass off in Prospect Park on a Wednesday night in January. Brooklyn Eats had taken over the park for its winter edition. The local food festival happened twice a year, each time attracting big crowds with food trucks and booths. Normally, I’d be all about seventy food options in one place but tonight I wasn’t there for smoked pigs in a blanket or an oversized turkey legs. I was working.

  As a low level Super, I wasn’t important. I hadn’t done anything worth noting and I didn’t have connections with anyone who thought it was a good idea to promote me. My mom, my dad, and my sister were all a few levels above me. They had alter ego job assignments that corresponded with their Super assignments.

  But my district assignment did not come with an alter ego assignment. Essentially, I was just supposed to live and work in my district, keep my eyes open for anything hinky, and do something when I saw something. I went on what I called gigs, which was just me going places where something might happen and do my best to make sure it didn’t. And as long as the numbers in my district didn’t get too bad, I paid my dues on time, and my face didn’t show up on the evening news, the Council left me alone.

  I arrived in the park just after dark and made my rounds. Although it was already the third day of Brooklyn Eats, it seemed like everyone in a thirty-mile radius had decided to stop by the festival. Big crowds are great places for me to do my thing. A lot of times when I’m working, nothing happens. I have a lot of mixed feelings about that. On one hand, it feels like a waste of time and just reinforces how little my time is worth. On the other hand, I’m lazy and not having to do any work is always OK with me.

  Just as I was about to give up and go get a fried Twinkie on a stick, I got that little twinge of the Something Ain’t Right feeling that has always been my best asset on the job. I scanned the crowd to see what had set off my bullshit alarm. There were a lot of different little scenes happening all around me. A young mother doling out hot chocolate to a trio of her young kids. A teenaged couple arguing over something on the boy’s phone. A group of college guys stuffing chili dogs down their throats and cheering each other on. Everyone looked normal, completely consumed with themselves and what they were doing.

  And then I saw him—a short guy with shaggy brown hair who seemed utterly average in the sea of festival goers. But he had a watchfulness about him that set him apart from everyone else. And then I saw him bump into the mother with the hot chocolate, pocketing her wallet behind her back while apologizing to her face.

  And we have a winner, I thought to myself. With something to actually focus on, things were looking up. I casually trailed him as he made his way through the crowd, careful to keep back a safe distance. As I followed him across Prospect Park, he did his thing a few more times, pocketing a couple more wallets, a phone, and a watch. Once I knew what to look for, it was easy to keep up with him. Finally, he must have had his fill. He stopped at the cotton candy stand for a bag and then started to make his way toward the festival exit and out of the park.

  Once outside of the park, the thief crossed the street and then slipped down a dark alley. By the time I caught up with him, he was already emptying his pockets onto the lid of a trash can and taking stock of his haul. He’d obviously been doing this longer than I’d been watching. There was a nice selection stolen goods there.

  I never know what to say in these moments. I don’t have a cool catch phrase. I tend to just say what I’m thinking and hope for the best. “Hey.”

  The thief looked up at me with confusion and irritation at the interruption. I imagined what he saw: Freckled peanut butter colored skin. Wild frizzy, curly, kinky hair pulled into a big puff. A body that indicated a lifetime diet of Mountain Dew, candy, and burritos. Ratty jeans and a black winter jacket that had seen better days. Rainbow striped fingerless gloves and a matching scarf. The entire effect was probably less than intimidating.

  I could practically see the wheels turning in his head. First he realized that I wasn’t just a random person wandering into the alley. I knew what he had done. Then he realized that the alley had only one way out. Finally, he realized that I was blocking that way out.

  “Just give me the stuff, promise you won’t do it again, and I’ll let you—”

  I never finished that sentence. The thief had other ideas. In one fluid movement, he pulled out a knife and charged me. He hit me hard and we tumbled to the ground together. We wrestled on the alley floor for a minute, each of us trying to get the upper hand. Then I felt a sharp pain just to the right of my belly button.

  I screamed out in pain before finally managing to detangle myself from the thief. He back pedaled to one of the alley walls and I stood up, leaning against the opposite one. I looked down at the knife sticking out of my stomach. Already, the familiar warmth of the blood was as radiating from the wound. The thief just stared at me in shock, as if he wasn’t the one who had put it there. He looked a little scared in fact. “Wha-Wha-What?” he stuttered.

  I reached down and yanked the knife out in one swift motion. “I can’t believe you just stabbed me!” I pointed the knife at him with one hand and yanked down my coat zipper with the other. My coat had a big rip in it. A big blood stain had already formed on the Smurfs tee shirt I was wearing. “This is the only coat I own, man. And I LOVE this shirt. It’s ruined. There’s no way I can get blood out of this. I should know,” I added, almost to myself.

  This wasn’t my first experience being stabbed. In fact, I’d been burned, shot, drowned, and any number of other injuries many, many times over the years. But the way I healed, I always survived. Cut off my hand and it would grow back. Hit me with a car and I just needed a little time to recover from the broken bones. Being able to take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’ was how I did my Super work. It was actually pretty lame when compared to other Super powers. But it came in handy in times like this. It would only be a minute or two before I stopped bleeding and started regenerating. It still hurt like a bitch, though.

  The thief stood up with his hands raised in a nonthreatening way. “Listen, lady—”

  “Save it. I’ve done this enough times to kno
w that whatever you’re going to say is bullshit. And anyone who would go from petty theft to a stabbing isn’t vey smart anyway.” That’s when I pulled back and socked him right in the face with every bit of strength I had. For someone who was bleeding from the stomach, didn’t work out, and had a diet that consisted of mostly junk food, I had a decent right hook when I was pissed off enough. He went down like a bag of potatoes and hit his head on the concrete alley ground, knocking himself out cold.

  “That’s for stabbing me,” I said to the unconscious thief. I bent down gingerly to avoid aggravating my healing knife wound and reached inside his jacket pocket to pull out his bag of cotton candy. “And this is for my shirt.”

  As I straightened up again, a shockwave of pain spread up my torso. “Goddamn it,” I muttered. Still, I made my way out of the alley, making sure my coat was buttoned up and hiding my bloody shirt. I was already starting to feel a tiny bit better and I’d probably be good as new by the time I got back to my apartment.

  A couple blocks into my walk home, I flagged down a cop on foot and told him I’d just run into a guy selling stolen IDs. Then I gave him a description of the thief and directions back to alley. He thanked me for letting him know and went off in that direction.

  I continued my walk home, pulling out the package of pastel-colored spun sugar goodness and shoving a chunk into my mouth. My work for the night was done.

  Chapter 2

  Not only was I a Super, I was also a super of a Brooklyn apartment building. The two things were actually pretty compatible. For most of my working life, I’d had office or retail jobs. Those jobs want you show up on time and not be a bloody mess because you just got into some fight with someone trying to steal a car. And no one wants to hear that you didn’t finish those reports because you were out all night saving the world.

  But ever since I’d lucked into my job managing a three-story apartment building in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, I was finding it easier to balance the two halves of my life. I had plenty of time to go out and do Super work as long I kept up with the super work.

  This particular Thursday was full of little things that had to be taken care of before the weekend started. The couple in 2C was moving out so I needed to inspect the place and get it ready for a new tenant. One of the dryers in the basement was broken. I needed to look at a floorboard in Mr. Kortis’ apartment for the hundredth time that month. I needed to change some light bulbs in the hallways and on the roof.

  But first I needed to start in my own apartment. It was finally time to get the air conditioner out of my window. Leaving it up into January was long enough. If I left it up any longer, I might as well let it be until summer rolled back around.

  I grunted as I tugged the unit out of place. If I had just waited a few more hours, I’d have had some help with this. Mike, the cop who lived two floors up, would be home by six or seven. We’d been dating for a few months by then and I’d spent enough nights at his apartment to get a little help with some household chores.

  But for some reason, I didn’t want to ask. It had nothing to do with Mike. He was great. Cute. Gainfully employed. Had a comfy bed. Knew how to make a mean grilled cheese. Understood how to give me space when I slept over. But I didn’t know where this thing was going. I didn’t have the best track record with men. It was already a bad idea for me to be dating a tenant. When this thing finally imploded, we’d still have to live right on top of each other. They say that you shouldn’t shit where you eat. Here I was shitting where I worked and where I lived.

  I might be able to throw a decent punch under the right circumstances, but my upper body strength was shit. I struggled to pull the unit into the room but I was failing. Suddenly, I lost my grip and the air conditioner flew backwards out of the window. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” I yelled. I dove to the floor and fumbled for the cord to unit. I almost had it but it slipped from between my fingers. A moment later, I heard a crash.

  I leaned out of the window, so sure that I was going to see someone dead from being crushed by my air conditioner. The apartment that came with building superintendent job was on the first floor, but my windows were still higher than head level. And not everyone can regenerate the way I can.

  Fortunately, I hadn’t killed anyone. Well, anyone besides the air conditioner, which was smashed all over the sidewalk. Right next to the mess was Outside Bob, who was obviously pissed off. “Are you crazy? You could have killed me!”

  I gave him a sheepish shrug. “Sorry, man. What are you doing down there anyway?”

  Bob hung around the building a lot but he didn’t live there. As far as I knew, he didn’t have anywhere to live. But whenever anyone referred to him as homeless, he always deflected. According to him, he lived everywhere.

  Today, he was wearing his normal camouflage jacket-pants-boots combo. He’d added a black beanie and snowman patterned scarf to it, though. “Aren’t you cold?”

  Bob sniffed. “Ever hear of a little thing called global warming?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I don’t have time to explain it to you. I have someplace to be. Try not to kill anyone today.” Bob waved me off and started to make his way down the street. I watched him go before ducking back into my apartment and shutting the window.

  Knowing it would take me a while to pick up the kajillion pieces of air conditioner outside, I hunted around the apartment for my gloves. My apartment wasn’t that big but it was messy, as usual. I picked through the pile of laundry on one side of my couch and then went through the couch cushions. I looked through my balled up blankets on my bed. Then I sifted through the dust bunnies under the bed. I even checked the bathtub. It needed to be cleaned but there was no glove. There was no reason to check the kitchen. I never did anything in there.

  I found one but the other was proving to be a little more difficult. “Have you seen my other glove?” I called out to my roommate/life partner/pet fish Crash. He eyed me from his bowl in a way that indicated he gave no fucks about me or my glove. “Gee, thanks for the help.” Obviously, I was on my own here.

  Bling-bling-bling

  The phone caller ID showed my friend Mellie’s name. Technically, she was my only friend. I’m a firm believer in quality over quantity in friends. She accepted me unconditionally—well, she accepted everything she knew about me. We didn’t necessarily talk every day. And when we did, it was mostly by text. If Mellie was calling, something was up. “What’s wrong?” I answered the phone.

  She ignored my question and asked one of her own. “Are you coming on Wednesday?”

  “Ummmm,” I stalled. Mellie was getting married and she had asked the most inappropriate person in the world to be one of her bridesmaids—me. I remembered her saying something about getting the bridesmaids together but I thought she was joking at the time.

  “Are you coming or not?” She sounded annoyed. That was unlike Mellie but I didn’t hold it against her. If I were getting married, I’d be losing my shit, too.

  “Yes. I’m definitely coming.”

  She sighed in relief. “Thank you, Audrey. We’re starting at seven. Don’t be late, OK?””

  “Of course not.” That was lie. Everybody knew I was always late. It was something I couldn’t help—like my eye color or my weight.

  I hung up with Mellie and tried to remember what I was doing. Oh yeah, looking for my glove, I thought. Before I could start my search again, my phone rang again. It was my mother. I was tempted to let it go to voicemail but knowing my mother, she’d keep calling until I answered. Or she’d show up at my front door. Nobody needed that.

  “Yeah?”

  Mom’s voice reminded me of her personality—soothing like honey with a hint of steel. “Hello to you, too, Audrey. Are you coming to dinner on Friday?”

  “Why do you guys always call me and ask me that? Of course, I’m coming. I love you guys.” And I’m a freeloading glutton who doesn’t want you guys to show up at my place, I thought. But I didn’t
want to say that, even if she knew it already.

  “Are you bringing your boyfriend?”

  I paused. “What boyfriend?” I didn’t know what she thought she knew but for once I was telling the truth. I didn’t have a boyfriend. I had a situation.

  “Are you bringing him or not?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Ella saw you out with him last week. Over at some restaurant in Williamsburg.”

  Dammit! I’d been keeping Mike in Brooklyn for the most part. As far as I knew, my sister didn’t leave Manhattan unless it was an emergency. But I wasn’t surprised that she told my mother. News in this family traveled faster than the speed of light.

  “That guy isn’t my boyfriend. He’s just a. . . friend.”

  “A friend?” Mom repeated. “Well, bring your friend to dinner.”

  Over my dead body. “He doesn’t live here, Mom. He went back to. . . Alaska. He’s an Eskimo. Sorry. You’ll just have to make due with little ole me.”

  “I suppose so. Why do you sound so nervous?”

  “I can’t find my glove and I need to go out.”

  “That’s sounds like you. Just think of the last thing you were doing when you had your glove and look there. See you on Friday night. Be there at six.”

  For some reason, I knew the situation wasn’t settled. At least she had given me a good piece of advice. The last time I remembered seeing my glove was when I came in the night before after the festival. I’d eaten ice cream on the couch while watching a Honey Boo Boo marathon. Then when Mike got home, I went up to his apartment and spent the rest of the night with him. The empty ice cream carton and the plastic spoon were still on the living room table. I threw them away. I opened the freezer and there was my other glove.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said to myself, knowing I’d probably never say it to her. Then I bundled up and went outside to clean up my mess.

  Chapter 3