Superheroes

by Margaret Ronald

  “Son, I believe you voted for Governor Cox for President.” Roosevelt spoke with elaborate care, as if to a first grader or an alderman. He bent forward to tug at the knees of his trousers, which had ridden up his legs to show the metal braces. “I was just filling the ticket.” Then he straightened and twinkled at Big. “Max, make room for Mr. Van Loon here.” He waved the cop off. “He must remind us of his exploits.”

  The cop glowered from a chair on the other side of the carriage while Big slid next to the secretary. She gave him a limp nod and introduced herself as Missy LeHand. The pol was Senator Somebody—first name Oscar or maybe Arthur.

  “So what brings you to the big city, Phil?” said Roosevelt. “May I call you Phil?”

  Roosevelt struck him as a man who didn’t like to hear the word no, so Big shook his head. “Sure, Governor. Phil is just fine.” Actually he hated his name; sometimes he thought it was the cause of all his troubles.

  “Are you’re coming to see me dedicate the bridge? Fabulous achievement, isn’t it?”

  “Bridge?” said Big. The secretary was blocking his view of the Governor, so he tilted forward to look around her.

  “The George Washington Bridge,” Missy said. “It was in all the papers.”

  “The longest span in the entire world.” Roosevelt glanced up at the fake candles on the chrome wall sconce and began to speechify. “A mile long.”

  “3,500 feet,” said Missy.

  “Over half a mile long.” He held up a finger to note the correction. “Six lanes of traffic. Completed five months ahead of schedule for less than the original budget.” He seemed to be rehearsing his remarks. “Mr. Ammann is the engineer and Mr. Gilbert is the architect. Yes?”

  “Yes, Governor.” Now Missy leaned forward, once again blocking Big’s view. She studied him as if she might need to identify him someday in a police lineup. “I bet this one is going to see the monkey,” she said.

  “Terrible mess.” Senator Somebody was eager to wriggle back into the conversation. “And how are they going to pay for the cleanup?

  “That’s a matter for Mayor Walker,” said Roosevelt. “He called in the planes without consulting us. The state bears no responsibility for what happened and will assume none of the financial burden of sorting things out now.”

  “Still, Governor,” said the Senator, “when New York sneezes, Albany catches cold.”

  “I will not open the state’s coffers to those thieves in Tammany Hall.” Roosevelt flashed his smile. “However, should the mayor request a Kleenex, I’ll be happy to accommodate him.”

  Big took the cue to laugh, although he realized his time with the Governor must be running out. “Actually,” he said, “I was hoping to see the Mayor about a job.”

  “There are so few jobs.” Roosevelt fitted a Chesterfield into his cigarette holder. “So many jobless.”

  “It’s just that now that the Skyguard and the Science Pirate are gone,” Big continued, “ I was thinking that maybe … ”

  “You want to take the Skyguard’s place?” The cop’s harsh laugh drowned out the train’s clatter. The codger glared at them over his paper and then picked up and left the carriage.

  “Just because they’re gone, Mr. Van Loon,” said the Senator, lighting Roosevelt’s cigarette, “doesn’t mean they’ll stay gone.”

  “Aha! You’re that Van Loon.” Roosevelt pointed the holder at Big. “From Utica. You saved those people in that fire. You have some kind of power—what was it again?” He turned to his secretary for the answer, but she just shrugged. “Ah, Missy, I don’t believe you made that trip. I left in the morning, as I recall, and came back before dinner. Terrible crime problem in Utica. Bootlegging. Rackets. Worst corruption in the state.”

  “The Genesee Street fire,” said Big. “There were eighteen people trapped on the fifth floor.”

  “And you rescued them,” said Roosevelt, pleased with himself for remembering.

  The Senator frowned. “You have some kind of power?”

  Big nudged his suitcase out of the way with his foot and set himself in the middle of the carriage. He checked the curved ceiling. Maybe eight feet, but he could only do what he could do. At least he was wearing his baggy suit. He always started by thinking about his feet, hungry muscles, greedy bone. His toes curled inside his shoes to grip imaginary stuff. He felt it flow into him: first his legs went rigid with new substance and then they grew. Big got taller, slowly at first and then faster, his skin stiffening into a hardened shell to support him. But he was nervous and too eager to impress, so he let the spurt go on too long. He cracked his head against the ceiling, breaking his concentration.

  “Oww. Shit.” He gazed down at them. He had Missy’s attention and could tell the Senator was impressed.

  “Are you all right?” Roosevelt seemed more concerned than awestruck.

  When he stopped thinking about getting tall, the stuff flowed back into his imagination. He’d never understood how he did what he did; all he knew was that it was difficult to maintain. His muscles always quivered as they returned to normal and now, when the train lurched over some bad track, he staggered. The cop was up immediately to catch him. “Easy there, stretch.”

  “I’m fine.”

  For a moment everyone considered what had just happened. Big slumped beside Missy, embarrassed by his swearing.

  “Nice trick,” she said. “Maybe you should be in vaudeville.”

  The Senator found his voice. “What’s the biggest you’ve ever been?”

  “I touched the roof of the Adirondack Bank Building once.” Big raised a hand over his head. “That’s fourteen stories.”

  “Incredible.” The Senator whistled. “How do you do it?”

  “I don’t really know. I just think real hard and it happens.”

  “So when you’re that tall, you must be able to cover ground in a hurry,” said Roosevelt. “Big strides and all.”

  “Our very own Paul Bunyan,” Missy said. Big flushed, but her grin was more flirting than teasing.

  “Actually, moving is hard.” He shook his head. “My muscles lock and my legs get all stiff and … ” His voice trailed off in embarrassment when he remembered that he was talking to a man who needed a cane, leg braces and a helper to go to the john.

  “That’s all right son, I understand perfectly.” The Governor reset his pince nez glasses on his nose. “So about this job you’re looking for … ?”

  “I thought maybe I could help the police. You know, fighting crime like the Skyguard.”

  “That stuffed shirt didn’t fight crime!” The cop bolted from his chair again. “Oh sure, maybe him and the Science Pirate busted a few bootleggers. And they chased those jewel thieves. But did they catch them? No. Then robots came and busted into the Metropolitan Museum. Were there robots before these superheroes showed up? No. Next they’re fighting each other.” He realized that everyone was staring. “We don’t need that kind of help.” His voice fell and his arm dropped. “Worse than the crooks.”

  “I heard their last fight put some bystanders in the hospital,” said the Senator. “Tore up Park Avenue so bad that they had to close it between 32nd and 36th.”

  “But think of the people it put to work,” said Missy.

  Roosevelt smiled. “I’m not sure we can support that kind of jobs program.”

  “Take your crime fighting upstate, Stretch,” said the cop, “where there’s nothing but squirrels and trees.”

  “Oh, pay no attention to him.” Missy’s stagey whisper was sweet in his ear. “That one’s just mad because this is supposed to be his day off.”

  “Nuts,” the cop muttered.

  Was he mistaken or was she making eyes at him?

  “Max has a point, Phil.” Roosevelt tapped ash into a tray set on a chrome pedestal. “There’s not much call for that line of work. Do you have any police experience?”

  That was not a question he’d been eager to hear. “No, sir.”

  “What did you do back in U
tica?”

  “I was unemployed.”

  A moment passed. Then another. They waited for him to go on, but Big had nowhere to go.

  “Unemployed?” prompted the Senator. “Your entire life?”

  “I worked for the A&P.” Actually he’d lost that job when he was fourteen. “Stocking shelves mostly. I ran the register some.” He’d gotten fired when his cash drawer had been light three times in two weeks. After that he’d fallen in with Happy Regan and his gang and had worked his way up from lookout to driver and finally to the bootlegger’s main muscle man. When he got really, really tall, deadbeats crapped silver dollars. “It wasn’t much of a job, then they laid me off and then my mother got the consumption and I had to stay with her most days. She died just last month.”

  “I am sorry for your loss.” Roosevelt’s expression was polite but distracted. Missy, however, was clearly touched.

  “Anyway, there was nothing holding me home and after saving those folks from the fire and getting the medal and all, I thought maybe I might try my luck in the big city.” He took a deep breath and made his play. “I was wondering if maybe you could help, sir? I’d really appreciate it.”

  Roosevelt pulled the stub of his cigarette out of its holder. “Well, you must understand that I’m not exactly on the best of terms with the Mayor. And all the jobs worth having come out of Tammany Hall, not City Hall.” He snuffed it in the ashtray. “Walker dances when Boss Curry twitches his strings.” He tucked the holder into the vest pocket of his jacket. “I’ve been at odds with Tammany in the past but there’s a kind of truce at the moment. We’ve been doing each other little favors.”

  “You spoke at the dedication of the new Hall,” said Missy.

  “And I’ve invited Curry and Flynn and McCooey to Hyde Park.” He considered. “You mustn’t bother John Curry though, not that he’d be likely to see you anyway. Missy, do you have one of my cards?” She retrieved a briefcase. “Take yourself down to the new building,” said Roosevelt, “it’s just off Union Square. See Jimmy Dooling. I don’t know what kind of work you can do, Phil, but show him my card. He may be able to help.”

  Missy took a gilt fountain pen from her purse and scrawled something on the back of the card. Roosevelt, Missy and the Senator all had the same bland expression, as if they were doing times tables in their heads. Big took the hint; this was how quality got rid of the likes of him.

  Big picked up his suitcase. “Thank you, sir.” He took the card from Missy.

  “Best of luck, Phil. Come to the dedication tomorrow.”

  Big pushed though the door to the observation car, so excited that he kept walking until he ran out of train. It was only when he sat down again that he saw what Missy LeHand had written on the back of the card.

  Waldorf 9:30.

  Tammany Hall was half an hour’s walk down Park Avenue from Grand Central Station. As he passed 34th Street, Big caught a glimpse of the crowd pressing around the Empire State Building but didn’t stop.

  Although the bricks of the new Tammany Hall looked like they had just come out of the kiln and the white limestone trim gleamed, the architecture was supposed to be old-fashioned, as if George Washington had slept there, or at least stopped for a sandwich. The lobby boiled with men of every shape and flavor: sweet and sour, rough and smooth, wearing plus-fours or boilersuits, caps or fedoras. Big was directed to the third floor.

  At the desk in front of James Dooling’s office, a woman sat reading a copy of Photoplay with a picture of Joan Crawford on the cover. His mother used to read Photoplay—when he could afford the quarter to buy one for her. This woman looked nothing like poor, shriveled Thelma Van Loon. She was wearing a slinky silver dress, her dark hair was cut in a bob and her eyebrows were plucked to the verge of extinction. If she was a secretary, then Big was the Queen of Norway.

  “Excuse me,” said Big.

  She turned a page as if he hadn’t spoken.

  “I’m looking for James Dooling.”

  A couple of men in suits were waiting on the bench opposite the desk. One of them leaned forward. The other one chuckled.

  “That’s funny.” The woman kept reading. “So am I.”

  “Will he be back anytime soon?”

  “If he figures out I’m here waiting to kill him?” She shook her head. “No chance.”

  Big couldn’t think what to say to that. “Can I make an appointment?”

  “Not with me.”

  Now both of the men were laughing. Big could feel the back of his neck burn.

  “The Governor sent me,” he said. “I have his card.”

  “Do you?” She looked up from her magazine then and winked at the men on the bench. “Let me guess. Is it the deuce of clubs?”

  Big thought about telling her off, but for all he knew she might be Dooling’s mistress—or his wife. “Okay then. Thanks for nothing.”

  He was halfway down the stairs when he heard someone call. “Hey, buddy.”

  The man from the bench was tall and built like a stevedore. He was wearing a silky double-breasted jacket with just the bottom buttons done and straight-legged trousers that were way too wide at the cuff. His tie was bubble gum pink.

  “The name isn’t Buddy. It’s Big.”

  “Micky McCabe.” They shook hands. “Look, I’ve been waiting on Jimmy for an hour myself and I’m ready to give it up. You have the look of a drinking man, if you don’t mind my saying so. How about we drown our sorrows? Any friend of Franklin Roosevelt is a friend I’d like to make.”

  “You buying?”

  “You bet, Big.” He grinned. “I buy and sell.”

  The Old Town Bar was near the corner of 18th and Park. “Boss Curry watches over this place,” McCabe said as held the glass door. “So you can get served, if you know how to ask.”

  Behind the storefront windows was a long room with a tin-tiled ceiling, black from smoke. To the right were booths; to the left were plate glass mirrors behind a mahogany bar that stretched the entire length of the room. “Fifty-five feet.” McCabe knocked on the bar’s marble top as they walked toward the back; he and the barkeep exchanged nods. The further into the room they went the darker it was, despite the green tulip-shaped lamps. They slid into a booth and a waiter appeared out of the gloom.

  “Afternoon, Mr. McCabe.”

  “Afternoon, Pete. We’ll have a couple of ham sandwiches.” He nodded at Big. “You’re hungry, yes?”

  Big nodded. There was something familiar about McCabe, even though he was certain that he’d never met the man.

  “And a round,” said his new friend and the waiter evaporated. “So Big, what brings you to the city?”

  “Looking for a job.”

  He nodded. “What’s your line of work?’

  Big surveyed the bar—there were maybe twenty customers. “How high would you say the ceiling here is?”

  “Dunno. McCabe cocked his head and squinted. “Fifteen feet? Twenty?”

  Big slid out of the booth, raised an arm over his head and extended his index finger. He grinned at McCabe.

  Then he got tall.

  He concentrated on keeping most of the stuff below his knees so as not to split his pants. When his finger touched the ceiling, he wrote T … H … E … S … T … I … L … T in the soot and shrank back to normal.

  As he’d strolled through the bar minutes before, Big had caught snatches of a dozen conversations, some hushed, some raucous, more than a few profane. Now there was only reverent silence, as if Pope Pius himself had bought a round for the house. Then the bartender started clapping and then everyone was cheering and McCabe pulled him back into the booth.

  “How the hell do you do that?”

  Big explained, or tried to, and then the drinks came. He and McCabe touched glasses and knocked back a couple shots of something that was clear as water and deadly as sin. He felt it knife down his throat and then take a slice off the back of his skull.

  “What’s this supposed to be?” He tried not to sputt
er. “Gin?”

  “My dear old Da called it poteen.” McCabe thumped his empty glass on the table. “Me, I like to think of it as flavored fire. So let me get this straight. You can grow a hundred feet tall … ”

  “No, no. More.”

  “ … but you can’t move much.” He settled back on his bench. “What happens to your clothes when you get that big?”

  Big unsnapped his suitcase. “I had this costume made, kind of like the Skyguard’s.” He pulled the suit out and held it up by the shoulders. “Knit elastic, so it stretches.” He admired The Stilt’s royal blue fabric with yellow piping, the stylized yellow ladder on the chest. He’d thought about adding a cape, but just this much had cost him his last dollar.

  McCabe was dubious. “That stretches a hundred feet?”

  “No.” Big flushed. “I only get really tall in emergencies.”

  He considered, then his face lit up. “You bust out of your suit?” He had a good laugh. “God damn! Big as the Statue of Liberty and butt naked.”

  Big stared at a gouge in the tabletop. The problem with the clothes was what had kept him in Utica all these years.

  “Don’t look so glum, pal.” McCabe reached across to punch his shoulder. “That’ll get your picture in the paper for certain.” He chuckled. “But I don’t get the ladder.”

  “It’s my symbol.” Big folded the costume and slipped it back in the suitcase.

  “Okay.”

  “Goes with my crime-fighting name.” He nodded at what he’d written on the ceiling. “The Stilt. Like it?”

  “What’s a ladder got to do with stilts?”

  The food arrived: a thick slice of ham, Swiss cheese and brown mustard on seeded rye with a half pickle on the side. The waiter asked if they wanted anything else and McCabe slid both empty glasses toward him for refills.

  “So why work for the law? Percentage is on the other side, if you ask me.”

  Big understood then what he’d recognized in McCabe. His familiarity with the speakeasy wasn’t just because he was a regular customer. “This is your place.”