Superhero

by Eli Easton

  Panel #12—

  Exterior of school. Train-Mor is running away awkwardly in big floppy shoes followed by the slobbering zombies.

  Panel #13—

  Principal Derth hands Pin Man and Pencil Boy a trophy while they smile with teeth-glints for the camera, arms around each other’s shoulders. Derth: “You two saved the school! Please take this token of our esteem as well as… a week off your classes!”

  Panel #14—

  Bruce and Peter sit in Bruce’s room playing with video controllers. Bruce: “Somehow, these shooters just aren’t as exciting as they used to be.” Peter: “I know, Bruce. I know.”

  Seventh grade

  Jordan

  My house had the best toys, but during the summers, we spent a lot of time at Owen’s house. It was nicer, with a pool table in the basement and a deck and barbecue grill out back. But its big draw was the in-ground pool in the backyard.

  We were twelve the summer before seventh grade, and we spent most of our days out there. We had badminton, balls, Frisbees, and huge water guns. Half the time we played with them in the water. We played Phase 10 on towels at the edge of the pool. We endlessly brainstormed story ideas for issues of Pin Man and Pencil Boy.

  Both of Owen’s parents worked, and his brother was in Madison for the summer, so during the day it was just us. It was the first summer his parents had let us stay home without a sitter, which was amazingly cool. Yeah, we were getting older, but also, Owen was already on his way to becoming a wrestling star. Owen’s dad was so happy with him, we were granted a lot of freedom.

  At this point, Owen wrestled the way a new drummer tapped on things or the way I doodled. That is to say, all the time. He was forever grabbing me and doing a pretend headlock or body tuck. He thought it was great fun to pick me up and toss me in the pool. At least he would hold me and say “Ready? Ready?” to make sure I didn’t get water up my nose. And really, I kind of liked it. If things got a little frisky down there, the cold water usually took care of it.

  But this one day, it all came to a head, all the stuff I’d been worrying about and trying to hide. We were waist deep in the water and batting a volleyball around.

  “Sandman doesn’t count,” Owen argued. “Sandman is, like, an elemental or a god. Superman is just some dude from another planet.”

  Owen dove for the ball when I went a bit wide, and he batted it back to me. We were trying to see how long we could keep it in play.

  “So? It doesn’t matter where they’re from. The point is, Sandman could beat Superman because all he has to do is make him fall asleep.”

  We’d had a running bet for a few days about whether or not anyone could beat Superman without resorting to kryptonite or threatening to blow up the world or kill Lois Lane or something. I’d bet that I could figure out a way, and I was sure I had it.

  “Superman doesn’t need sleep, doofus,” Owen said, tapping the ball right to me.

  “Maybe he doesn’t have to sleep, but he can. Don’t you remember that whole series where he was in a dream that he was normal?” Tap.

  “Oh, yeah,” Owen admitted. Tap.

  “So. Superman can sleep, and if he can then Sandman could make him sleep.”

  “But they’re not even in the same universe! So it doesn’t count.”

  “They are too! They’re both in the DC Universe. ’Member that Sandman issue where Wanda dreams about Bizarros—Superman fights them in his comic. If a Sandman character can dream about a villain that Superman fights, they’re in the same universe.”

  I knew I had him, and I could see by his face that he knew it, too. In my moment of triumph, I hit the volleyball too hard and sent it sailing to the left, out of bounds of the pool. “Oops,” I said.

  “Penalty!” Owen shouted, just before he plowed into me.

  Owen is not a dumb jock. In fact, he’s pretty smart. But when backed into a corner in an argument he often resorted to the physical. That was nothing new.

  That day, however, when he pinned me up against the tile wall of the pool, all wet and slippery, with just his swim trunks and mine between us—pinned me there knee to shoulder and held me, with his head tucked into my neck—well, something inside me snapped. I raised the flag so fast my head spun, and I grabbed him around his waist before I even realized what I was doing. Seriously, I claim complete disassociation from my actions on that day. My mind was not driving the car. If you doubt me, try being a twelve-year-old boy with your biggest sexual fantasy pinning you against a wall mostly naked in a pool, and then tell me I’m lying.

  I think I moaned, or made some kind of scary sexual sound, and then I grabbed his neck with one hand, pulled his head up and kissed him. This was my first kiss ever, but the primitive brain is a powerful thing. It didn’t matter that I had no clue what I was doing. I had my mouth on his and my tongue thrust deep with no conscious thought whatsoever.

  For one brief, shining moment, I kissed Owen and Owen kissed me back. He kept pressing me against that wall and he even got hard. But then, he was twelve years old, too. His mouth under mine was so hot and sweet and sexy I could barely stand it. I thrust my tongue against his. My legs wrapped around him like I was a freaking monkey. I pressed into him as if he was an invisible barrier and I was trying to go through it. They ground together, his stiffy and mine, and I rocked my hips against him. It was incredible. It felt like soaring, like that scene in Superman Returns where Brandon Routh shoots straight up into the stratosphere like a bullet. I probably would have come like that in about another twenty seconds, right there in the pool.

  But after our dicks made contact, something in Owen woke up. He thrust me off him, really hard, and held me at arm’s length, his elbows locked.

  For a long minute we just looked at each other. I had my head in the clouds until the look of shock on his face finally got through the freaking cupids and singing birds and stuff. My stomach dropped like a stone. I clapped a hand over my mouth as if I could take back what it had just done.

  “Oh God,” I said, through my fingers. “I am. I’m gay.”

  I had been playing with the idea for a while. But at that moment there was no fucking doubt about it. I wanted Owen. Heck, I would have done anything he asked me to, and said “please” before and “thank you very much” after. Repeatedly. His hard, boy’s body was everything I could ever dream of. Done.

  Owen looked at me for long enough without speaking that the emotion battling on his face began to scare me. Owen and I had always been able to share everything, and I’d just blurted it out. Was it too much? Was he disgusted?

  “Please don’t hate me,” I said, feeling horribly cold. “Please. Because if you hate me, I don’t think I can stand it.”

  “I… don’t hate you,” he said in a rough voice. “I’m just surprised. But Jordy, you can never, ever do that to me again.” I’d never heard him sound like that, so grim, so final.

  “I won’t, I swear! I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened,” I babbled. At that point I would have promised anything as long as he didn’t cast me off like a favorite shoe that had something foul sticking to its bottom.

  Owen didn’t want me the way I wanted him. He didn’t like boys. That was bearable. But I would die if I lost my best friend.

  We recovered from that moment, but it was awkward for a while. It took time before Owen would touch me again, but he did. He didn’t pin me like before, and he was always careful not to bring certain “no fly zone” areas of his into contact with the corresponding areas of mine. But he’d punch my arm, swing me around, give my shoulders a hug. It was like he wanted to show me that nothing had changed. He told me in a hundred ways without ever saying a word, It’s okay, Jordy.I get who you are, and I don’t have a problem with it. We’re still Sam and Frodo, Pin Man and Pencil Boy.

  Which is unbelievably freaking mature for a twelve-year-old straight boy whose lifelong BFF turned out gay and tried to rub off on him in a pool, if you really think about it.

  Sophomore Year />
  Owen

  I met Emily in the first week of classes our sophomore year. Everyone had two options in English that year—an English Lit class or Creative Writing. You’d think Creative Writing would be a free pass, but it was just the opposite. The teacher, Mr. Federman, was really gung ho. During the fall semester you had to do a partial screenplay, a couple of short stories, and a novel outline and first chapter. And he was a hard-ass grader. As a rule, jocks avoided the class like the plague.

  I was always busy in the fall with practice, and then the wrestling season started after Thanksgiving, so I didn’t need the extra work. But I’d been writing a lot with Jordy, working on Pin Man and Pencil Boy and some movies and stuff, and I really liked it. Jordy and I figured one of us should take the class just to improve our mad skills, and since I was the writer, that person ended up being me.

  The first day of class Mr. Federman told us we’d be assigned a partner who would be our beta reader, and that person would also be our “cowriter” for the big final project. He read off the assignments—my partner was Emily Abrams.

  When he read it off, Emily and I looked at each other with mutual horror, and I inwardly groaned. I’d seen her around, and my impression had always been that she had a huge chip on her shoulder. She was one of those brainy girls who hated jocks on principle. She was petite with straight brown hair and these huge black glasses. They made her look like Simon, the chipmunk. She had a pixie-ish face with a pointed chin, dark eyes and a little cupid’s bow mouth. From the times I’d heard her speak, what came out of that mouth was usually very loud and very sarcastic.

  We were made to pair up with our partners and talk about our “writing experience and dreams.” About now, I was really wishing I’d opted for English Lit. I sat down next to her with about as much enthusiasm as I have for my mom’s monthly liver and onions dinner. But the first thing that came out of Emily’s mouth was the last thing I expected.

  “You’re friends with Jordan Carson, right?” Emily looked at me with interest.

  “Um… yeah. He’s my best friend.”

  Emily got a silly smile on her face. It totally erased her cynical ’tude and made her look almost sweet. “Oh my God, he is so cute. And he’s crazy talented. I’ve seen his stuff in the hallways outside the art room.” She suddenly looked horrified and put her hand over her mouth. “God, I just outted myself as a stalker.”

  I laughed and gave her a big smile.

  It was Twilight Zone weird, but really nice, to have a girl asking me about Jordan. I was the number one wrestler in the state for my grade during all three years of middle school. Last year was my first year in the high school ranking, and I’d come in second in the 170-pound weight class for our division. The guy who was number one was a senior. I was doing better than anyone in my family had ever done. But with that success came a lot of pressure. The entire cheerleading squad seemed determined to pin me to the mat and claim victory. There had even been cat fights about me in the cafeteria, and I wasn’t even dating any of them yet. It was getting dicey. I really needed to find a girlfriend.

  To be honest, while I thought the cheerleaders were hot, they scared the shit out of me. They were so bitchy and cliquish and way too pushy. Emily didn’t know who I was, or if she did, she was unimpressed. I liked that. Maybe I was just the kind of guy who wanted to be the chaser rather than the chasee. Besides, if there was a secret way to my heart, it was Jordy.

  “Yeah, Jordan… he’s amazing,” I said enthusiastically. “You should see the comic work he does. You know, he has over five thousand followers on tumblr.”

  “He does? What’s the URL?” Emily was all over it. I gave her the info.

  Then it hit me—where I’d noticed Emily before. “Hey, you’re one of those spelling bee kids, right?”

  She got all cold and tight again, like I was going to make fun of her. “Yeah, so?”

  I shrugged. “You got to travel a lot with that, huh? That must have been fun.”

  She looked wary. “We went to Montreal and New York City.”

  “Nice! That’s one of the things I really like about wrestling.”

  She looked at me dubiously.

  “So… that must mean you’re a really good speller.”

  She snorted. “Wow. Brilliant deduction. You’ve got it going on for a jock.”

  I just laughed. “What I mean is, Jordy and I do this comic called Pin Man and Pencil Boy. That’s what we post on tumblr. He draws it and I write it, but I kind of suck at spelling and grammar. We could use an editor.”

  “Seriously?” Emily’s eyes lit up.

  “Yeah, if you want. It’s sort of a satire. Superhero stuff. You might not be into it,” I warned her.

  “That’s fine,” she said. “I like pop satire.” I could see she was thinking about how maybe she’d get to be around Jordan. She could care less about being around me. Which was way cool.

  My best friend was coming into his own lately, and I was happy for him. In the past year, Jordan’s body had changed so fast his mother complained she couldn’t keep him in clothes. The dude ate 24/7 just trying to keep up with it. At the start of eighth grade he was a few inches shorter than me. But now he towered over me by a good half a head. His face had gotten larger, and his chin squarer. He still had dark, shaggy hair and big brown eyes, of course. But his sort of boy-band cuteness was becoming more mature. He was still more pretty than butch—at least compared to the guys in wrestling. And his slim physique was even slimmer now that his body had shot up. His shoulders had broadened and were almost as wide as mine, but he was super slender. I’d seen him without a shirt plenty of times, and you couldn’t count his ribs or anything, but the guy had no fat on him whatsoever.

  Personally, I envied his body. Coach was always on me to add more muscle mass. We’d discussed me going up to the 182 weight class, and I’d probably do that next year, which meant even more bulk. Jordan had no reason to bulk up, and he didn’t like working out. When I did at home, he’d spot me and just yack, sometimes swing around a light barbell or something just goofing off. He really didn’t need to work out. He was so lean he looked good in anything. And the way he wore his hip-rider jeans low on his hipbones, so you could see his underwear—it was way cooler than most guys. I could never pull off a look like that.

  “I can introduce you to Jordan if you want,” I offered.

  “Yeah?” Emily looked at me critically. “Do you think he’d go for me? What’s his type?”

  My face heated. By now, Jordy’s type was a given, at least when it came to the most important bit. He got issues of GQ magazine from the library—the dude was a total clothes horse—and sometimes he’d point out male models he thought were really hot. And sometimes I’d point out girls and ask what he thought. He’d say things like “Nah, she looks like a bitch,” or “You can do better,” or “Yeah, you should go for it.” But it was always clear he himself had no interest at all. But it wasn’t my place to tell Emily or anyone else what wound Jordy’s clock.

  “Hmmm. Honestly, uh, I don’t think you’re his type,” I stammered lamely.

  “Oh.” Emily’s face fell. She pursed her lips and got kind of a strange resignation on her face. “Oh. Damn.”

  “But you’re really pretty and smart. I’m sure there are lots of guys who would go for you.” I was almost surprised to find that I meant it.

  She looked at me quizzically for a moment and then she checked me out. No kidding, she looked me up and down with no subtlety whatsoever. When she got back up to my eyes she smiled.

  Jordan

  First match of the wrestling season, sophomore year. Boo-yah. Owen had asked me to sit with Emily, show her the ropes. I was really thrilled about that, not, but I couldn’t say no. Now that we were in high school, and Owen was such a freaking star, the home matches were a zoo—all the bleachers packed and people crowding the gym doors. It could be a little intimidating. I’d told Emily in e-mail that it was customary to dress as ridiculously as possibl
e. I, myself, always wore three gold streaks across each cheek, a gold school shirt, and special gold Converse tennies. I also had gold glitter bouncy balls on a headband which I let Emily wear since she was not yet equipped with the appropriate amount of team spirit.

  We stopped to say hello to Owen’s mom and dad and about ten of his cousins. His mom hugged me and then hugged Emily, which made me a little annoyed since I’d been around forever and she’d only been around a few months but, whatever.

  We squeezed into a space on the third bleacher.

  “Is it safe sitting this close?” she asked worriedly.

  “It’s not like there’s a ball that can hit you,” I said. “Though you might get flung with some sweat if you’re really having a bad day.”

  “Oh.” She looked vaguely disgusted.

  “I’m kidding, Emily.”

  The team came out. As usual, Owen was announced last of the sophomores. When he came out the crowd went nuts. We stood up and screamed with everyone else.

  She grabbed my arm and leaned in. “Damn! He’s really popular,” she said, her eyes wide.

  I looked at her in disbelief. “Emily, do you have any idea who you’re dating?”

  She looked a little dazed and didn’t answer.

  The first round of bouts was never that exciting since they were between the lower-ranked athletes. But Emily watched the boys trying to out dominate each other with a kind of mute fascination. I couldn’t see Owen very well—he was sitting down—so I idly looked over the other athletes on the floor.

  Emily whispered in my ear. “So which of the Altoona wrestlers do you think is the hottest?”

  I choked on my Coke, causing several people in our vicinity to give me the hairy eyeball. She pounded my back.

  “What did you say?” I finally gasped.

  She rolled her eyes. “Please! Like I don’t know. Did you know that I actually liked you first? And I asked Owen about you, and he was all, like, ‘well, er, um, er, I don’t think you’re his type.’” Her imitation of a bashful Owen was priceless. I had to laugh.