Superman's Cape

by Brian Spangler

  The hawk watched some more. He saw what the little boy could not see. He saw neighbors coming in for a closer look. A curiosity was building in their minds. A tasty drip whet the palette of their appetite. The hawk would hunt a field mouse later. And if the field mouse made a snappy escape and the little boy died, then he’d join in with the rest of his neighbors. He’d grab a snack to go … courtesy of the boy below.

  22

  A hint of ocean carried in the air as a breeze threw leaves around Jacob’s shoes. The seasons were changing. To Jacob it looked as though the trees were stuck somewhere between summer and autumn. Another breeze grabbed a handful of browning leaves. They played a game of chase across a mix of weathered stone and grass leading up to the Connely trailer. They followed each other like acrobats tumbling head over heels. Some fell off to the side and died. Others took flight and rocketed to the sky in an effort to rejoin their brothers and sisters watching from the branches above.

  “Gonna have to store and forward,” Steve grumbled as he heaved the WJL-TV camera to his shoulder.

  “Store and forward?” Jill asked.

  Steve turned towards Jill and rolled his eyes.

  “Newbies,” he grumbled shaking his head, “store and forward?” he suggested, scrunching his forehead. Jill’s eyes told Steve she still didn’t understand.

  “Ya see up there, and over there,” he offered motioning to the tall trees. Jill followed his hands from the trees then turned back. “The transmitter in the van is line of sight,” he finished.

  Jill frowned a moment as Steve spoke, and then asked, “line of sight?”

  “Ya know … line of sight,” he circled a finger around his eyes. “My eyes to your eyes. It needs to see the bird in the sky,” he answered then threw a stream of tobacco to the ground.

  “Ahhh, it’s like my cell phone at the mall,” Jill acknowledged, her frown lifting to a smile. Jacob thought she might be egging Steve on, intent on getting a rise out of him. His thought was confirmed when she slipped a wink in his direction.

  “Right --” Steve started but then stopped short, “-- heads up,” he continued, and flipped switches on the camera, pointing it to the trailer.

  Jacob turned in time to see a woman and her little boy standing on the small landing. Although the sun wasn’t new in the sky, it was nearing the top of the morning hours. Sunlight reflected off the dew coated grass like diamonds – sparkles circling their feet as they walked. The light was at an awkward angle. It pinched his eyes, causing him to squint and see just silhouette figures ahead of him.

  “Gonna be in our eyes,” he mumbled.

  “What is?” Jill asked, as she and Steve turned to face the landing.

  “The sun. Give it a minute. It’s going to get stronger.”

  Jacob struggled with the microphone in one hand while laying a shadow over his eyes with the other. As guessed, all he could see were the gray shapes of the mother and her son. The sunlight did get stronger. It beamed warm yellow and gold across the roof of the trailer and settled just above the woman’s shoulders.

  Frustrated, Jacob suggested, “Let’s try and move back over here.”

  “I hear ya, chief. Wasn’t getting anything but blind light here anyway,” Steve agreed and began to shuffle his feet. The three moved around the other reporters. They walked through the grass, bouncing diamond lights until they were closer to the trailer. They walked until the sun cast its light over them instead of on them.

  When Jacob felt the cool air of the shadow wrap his face and hands, he pulled in a breath and tasted the remains of the night. A static charge struck him. Subtle enough that he almost missed it. But then a second charge struck him and it was stronger. The strings that pulled him to the Connely trailer woke up. They fluttered like small metallic wings. Their sharp edges sparking and searing whatever they touched.

  “Hey, Jacob, what’s wrong?” Jill questioned.

  “Not sure. I don’t feel sick, I just feel – well, strange.”

  “Do you want me to take over?”

  “I got this,” he answered and then turned to face Sara Connely and her son.

  “Mrs. Connely … Mrs. Connely?” Jacob asked, and without any hesitation, the other reporters joined in. Surprised, both Jill and Steve stepped back. Steve fumbled with his camera and muttered a curse word or two before he had the red light blinking. The camera was recording. The other reporters threw questions like water balloons. Just innocuous inquiries that fell out of the air without direction or distinction. Jacob gave out another call to Mrs. Connely. The other reporters stepped up their game. Jacob saw a few of their hands rising to get her attention. Their fingers snapping and drinking the sunlight as they bounced in and out of the sunlight and shadow cast by the trailer.

  “Sara!” Jacob decided to say. His voice sounding strange. Not sick strange or morning strange. Instead, a voice that wasn’t his. He saw from the corner of his eye both Jill and Steve looking at each other. When he turned back to the landing, he saw the little boy. John, he recalled from the Data Sheet Andy had given him. He looks more like a Jon-Jon or Jonnie, he thought and cleared his throat as Mrs. Connely turned to move the boy closer to her.

  “Can you tell us what happened to your older son? When did you last see him?” Jacob asked, his voice bouncing between his own and someone else’s. My God, I sound like I’m thirteen, he thought and once more tried to clear his throat. He saw Jill and Steve talking. Steve gave her a nod and she freshened up her blouse and then pushed her hair as she stepped forward with a plan to take over.

  “I’m sorry. What did you say your name was?” Sara Connely asked from the landing. The interruption of Sara’s voice fell over the pack of hungry reporters. A blanket of quiet followed, and Jill’s move to stand in for Jacob was slowed and then stopped. Steve adjusted the camera to include Sara in the frame while Jacob approached the landing. Jacob saw Mrs. Connely move closer to them. Her hands met the railing as she leaned over with her attention directed to him. He didn’t know if it was pity or just curiosity about the reporter who couldn’t speak. He didn’t care. He had the microphone and for the moment he had her ear.

  “I’m Jacob Hanson of WJL-TV news,” he said, rushing his words in a voice that was no longer his own. His voice was gone. In its place was a man’s voice, but not his. Jill stepped back with Steve. The red light atop the camera blinked on and off. It remained focused and continued recording everything – including the stranger’s voice.

  The little boy, staying close to his mother, moved around to the front of her. He pushed his body between his momma and the railing so that his small face peeked between the slats of wood. He pushed his head through, wedging his cheeks between them. Jonnie watched the people with the cameras and the microphones. He studied the man in front of him. He wasn’t shy. He was curious.

  “Hi there,” Jacob said, and wiggled one of the fingers, imitating the wave of his hand.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jonnie,” the boy shot back to Jacob without hesitation. Jacob couldn’t turn his head. His eyes were locked on Jonnie’s blue eyes. He knew the boy’s eyes. A static charge released from inside as he stepped closer to the boy and his mother. The metallic wings fluttered and scorched more of what they touched. A faint scent of gun powder drifted from Jacob’s nose – he wrinkled his face as it thinned then dissipated.

  Sara Connely knelt down next to Jonnie as Jacob stepped closer. He could see her eyes were wet and tired. Her expression wore a surprise as she turned to Jacob and then back to her son. Jacob saw disbelief or curiosity in her eyes while she dressed Jonnie’s face with her fingers.

  Jacob moved another step until the wood slats of the landing were all that separated them. He couldn’t help but stare at Sara and Jonnie. He tried not to but something familiar was there. He could see the months of pain wearing on her. He fought the sudden temptation to rest his hand on the little boy’s hand and to brush away the strands of hair lying across Sara’s eyes. An instinct to be
nearer to them, to touch them, was strong.

  He met Sara’s eyes with his and like the boy he wasn’t seeing her for the first time. He didn’t know her, but knew her eyes. He knew them both, their faces, their smell, their hands.

  “Superman’s Cape,” Jacob whispered and looked back to Jonnie. A static charge thumped another pulse of electricity inside him. It turned warm and lifted him as the energy coursed through his chest and arms and legs and then faded.

  How could he know about that, Sara wondered, as memories stepped in place of her curiosity of the man in front of her. His voice and expressions and gestures reminded her of Chris. She didn’t trust her mind. The reporter that Jonnie spoke to even looked like her husband. He did, and then he didn’t. It’s the light or the shadows playing with the sun, she thought with confusion.

  “Superman’s Cape,” Jonnie screeched excitedly to the reporter and smiled. Sara’s eyes widened. How the hell could he know about Jonnie’s blanket, she wondered. She waited for her hands to reach down and pull Jonnie from where he stood – take her boy and run back inside. But her hands stayed and she didn’t run. She didn’t pick up Jonnie. She didn’t jump in between and shield him as any other mother would. Her son was speaking to someone. He was looking at someone and talking. Like the photo and the broken glass Jonnie performed his magic on, Sara wanted to watch. She was drawn to watch. She needed to be there to see what they would say next.

  “My momma made it for me, but then my dad died and it didn’t help him stop from dying,” Jonnie continued, all the while looking at Jacob as though he’d known him his entire life.

  “I know Jonnie, I was …” Jacob started and then caught himself. The filter in his head kept the next words from coming out. Keep it on or you’ll get stung, he thought from a place he didn’t recognize.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said and brushed Jonnie’s little hand with his own before another static discharge from inside pulled his body down to the ground. Confusion scrambled his thoughts while he gasped for air and struggled against the gravity holding him.

  Startled into action, Jill ran to Jacob’s side. “He’s been sick,” she interrupted, helping him back to his feet.

  Sara’s hand left Jonnie as she looked on with concern for the reporter in front of her. Jonnie grabbed her hand. She turned to see her son who was looking at her. He wasn’t looking to her, or past her. Jonnie was looking at his momma. Tears eclipsed her eyes.

  “He’s sick momma,” Jonnie told her. Sara leaned over the rail to where the man struggled. For the moment, she forgot about going to the tent to see the captain. She forgot about the coffee and the weather and she even forgot the small fact that the man in front of her was a stranger to her family.

  “Bring him inside – he can sit in there until he is well,” she told Jill and Steve.

  “Superman’s Cape,” Jonnie repeated, closing his eyes and spreading his arms out to twirl around a few times while the WJL-TV crew worked their way up the landing and into the home of Sara, Jonnie and Kyle.

  23

  “Heads up Second, heads up!” Kyle looked up just as he heard the slap of a hard ball hitting the back of his baseball glove. The force of the catch pushed his mitt close to his face, leaving the smell of leather to trail beneath his nose. Without a thought, he wrapped his fingers on the laces of the ball and rolled his shoulder around. His hand ended the long arc, pointing towards first base where the runner was called out. He smiled as the first base umpire screamed an out signal from his hand. This was his game. He was a star.

  Kyle loved baseball. His favorite games were at Rambler’s field, his home, where the infield was thin and loose and stirred up dirt clouds with an easy flick of your cleat. Sometimes the dust clouds turned into dirt devils that chased him and his friends around the infield. He liked that.

  From inning to inning Kyle’s name changed. Sometimes his name was Third and sometimes it was Left or Center and sometimes it was Catch or maybe Pitch. But he didn’t enjoy those as much. His favorite names were Second and Short, where he could stand at the back of the infield and rob base hits from the batter.

  When Kyle looked down at his hands, the baseball glove was gone. In its place he wore a batting glove that wrapped his hand and fingers. Now he held a baseball bat that was exactly one size too big. He liked that, too. Kyle stood at home plate just outside the batter’s box and whipped the tip of his bat around to the front of him. Instinct took over as he threw more practice swings and stared down the pitcher whose face wore impatience like sweat. The infield dust stirred up in a short breeze and washed out the pitcher. Kyle held his step back until the cloud thinned. He bumped a foot forward and then the other until he was in the batter’s box. He plugged the far edge of the plate with the end of his bat twice before swinging the heavy end up and then above and behind his shoulder. Kyle watched the pitcher wind up and deliver the baseball. And as if in slow motion, he could see the baseball’s threads spiral around as it flew in his direction. Years of practice had his eyes following the ball all the way. And as the distance closed, he could see the ball turning away from him. Gravity was graciously pulling the ball down and outside. Kyle liked that, too. He could have let the pitch go and the umpire would have called it a Ball on his swing count. But it was a favorite – low and outside, a meal fit for a King, he thought, as the end of his bat circled around. He connected the bat with the laces, sending the ball skipping across the pond of infield dirt just to the left of second base.

  Kyle was halfway to first when a call above him captured his attention. It was George, the small hawk that befriended him earlier. The one that sat with him. The one with the eyes made up of monarch-orange and black. George called to him, bobbing his head up and down and spreading the feathered end of his wings open and closed. As Kyle’s last steps reached first base, he lost his footing and stumbled over the bag. His knees landed hard on the pine needle floor of the woods. His body tumbled from his legs up to his chest and stopped to rest on his shoulder.

  Kyle rolled over onto his back and stared at the familiar site of the tall pine trees. He watched the break of sky beyond the trees and wondered how long he’d been walking. How long was he asleep on his feet? How long had George been following him while he was dreaming of playing little league baseball on a field he hadn’t seen since before his father died? He blinked away a tear. Then blinked away another. Some of the tears were from the pain of falling to the ground. And some of them were from thinking about when his Mom and Jonnie cheered-on his little league team from the stands atop the baseball dugout. And when his Dad worked the score board from behind the fence at home plate. George yelled at him again as though urging Kyle to get up. To get to his feet and keep on moving.

  “Shut yer effen nouth!” Kyle spat back, thinking that under the circumstances his Mom wouldn’t mind his use of some language. No matter how it sounded coming from his broken mouth.

  What time was it? Kyle lost time. All of it. He didn’t remember the morning or the evening. And he’d skipped every meal since his last. So what time could it be? Bright wedge shapes made of sunlight pushed through the trees. The glow of the wedges played with his eye. But he still struggled to understand if the shapes were climbing or falling.

  And it wasn’t just time he lost. The more he walked, the more he trudged along exhausted looking for his home, the thicker the clouds in his mind grew. Some of the clouds were pure and white and through them he was with his Mom and Jonnie. The three of them were laughing in the belly of Beasty. Making fun of Beasty. Teasing Beasty. Daring Beasty to stall again so they could make fun of her some more and laugh even harder. Some of the clouds were gray and dark and cold like fall mornings. Those were the mornings when the warm summer was replaced with dampness that threatened rains and chilled your soul and invited regret for your having left home. He was back in the Dairy Queen watching and admiring the girl he had a crush on. She was crying uncontrollably. Her face was absent of all her beauty. Her hands were spread palms up as sh
e pleaded to the man holding the gun.

  And some of the clouds that blanketed his mind held whispers of gunpowder in the air and were the shades of blue and red. The clouds were Jonnie’s blanket as he knelt on the Dairy Queen floor. He and Jonnie were next to their Dad. Blood bubbled from their dad’s mouth and erupted from his belly. Jonnie’s Superman Cape lay across the hole left by the bullet and tried to capture some of the spill but it couldn’t stop what was happening. It couldn’t stop what happened. The blue in the cape went to red and then his Dad was dead.

  George screamed down to him, and again and he sensed the raptor’s urgency for Kyle to get up and keep moving.

  “I said shut your effen nouth!” Kyle yelled back, more annoyed, and shaking his head to clear the clouds. So much confusion riddled his mind and so much pain masqueraded it like Halloween when everyone was someone or something, leaving you to guess who was who and what was what. Sometimes it was fun, but after a while it grew tired and old. He ran his fingers over his face, one of a dozen times that day to inspect the damage. The Halloween mask he wore included swollen lips that teased his words when he spoke. A split gum and broken teeth his tongue kept finding and needling. A broken nose whose swelled remains he could see. And an eye that lay under layers and layers of blood filled skin and that tempted shades of a bruised black and blue.

  Shaking his head again, Kyle stopped and sat up and coughed out a deep breath. A strange rattle tickled him from inside. He knew what the feeling in his chest was and he knew it would get worse. Pressing the dry pine needles through his fingers, he pulled his feet past the groan of his legs. His feet were wet and cold. They felt spongy and ached. When was the last time he went barefoot? Was his dad alive? He thought about it a moment but couldn’t recall. His socks wore the same colors as the forest floor. With a cautious hand, he rolled them from the sponginess of his feet. His remaining shoe was left behind. Regret and maybe shame stirred in him like the tickle in his lungs. But once the shoe came off his foot, it had to stay off.