Less Than Hero

by S. G. Browne

  While there are those who remain skeptical of the motives of New York’s newest superheroes and believe this latest episode indicates that Dr. Lullaby, Captain Vomit, and their crime-fighting cohorts have gone rogue, Patricia Goggin echoes the opinion of many of Manhattan’s homeless and less privileged.

  “I don’t believe they were there to cause any trouble. I believe they were there to stop Mr. Blank,” Goggin said. “They’re good boys. All they want to do is help people. I believe in them. A lot of people do. They’re real-life heroes. And it breaks my heart to think that one of them may have died.”

  Whether the Rash, Dr. Lullaby, and the rest of New York City’s other vigilante crime fighters were at Union Square yesterday to wage battle against Mr. Blank is yet to be determined. But what appears obvious is that something supernatural took place.

  The NYPD, however, has its own interpretation.

  “This is just another example of what happens when ordinary citizens take matters into their own hands,” Captain James Goudrealt of the Thirteenth Precinct said. “Innocent people get hurt.”

  The man who suffered from rapid and excessive weight gain courtesy of Big Fatty was taken away in an ambulance, while the woman allegedly assaulted by Dr. Lullaby regained consciousness at the scene and was evaluated by medical personnel for concussion-related symptoms.

  It’s a week before Christmas and I’m standing on the sidewalk in front of Citibank in the fading twilight with several dozen men and women in holiday winter garb, while across the street several hundred people have gathered at Union Square in front of the George Washington statue. Some hold hands or candles in reverent silence while others play guitars or drums and sing ballads and hymns, paying respect in their own way, as tourists and news crews and amateur videographers document the event. The Hare Krishnas are out in full force, chanting their Maha Mantra, adding their own unique flavor to the evening.

  A middle-aged woman in a black overcoat and matching beret stops and stands next to me to watch the tribute. “What’s everyone doing over there?”

  “It’s a memorial,” I say.

  “Who for?” she asks.

  I almost say Randy’s name, then I catch myself. “A local hero.”

  The woman continues to look toward Union Square. “It looks like he had a lot of friends.”

  When I heard someone was organizing a memorial for the Rash, I didn’t know what to expect. I figured a few dozen people would turn out to pay their respects—maybe a hundred or so, tops. But I never imagined anything like this. It’s humbling. And inspiring.

  While I always felt like the six of us were trying to make a difference and doing something worthwhile, I had no idea what it meant to the people we were helping. Until now, I had no idea how much what we were doing mattered.

  I wish Randy were here to see this. Of course, if Randy were here, none of this would be happening, which only emphasizes the fact that I feel responsible for his death.

  Guilt is a merciless instrument of self-torture.

  As the daylight continues to fade, more candles appear among the gatherers. Those without candles raise lighters in the air. Here and there homemade signs appear above the crowd, thanking the Rash in one way or another. Most of the people who’ve come to honor the memory of Randy just stand and look around, not exactly sure what to do. I’m guessing this is their first superhero memorial. I know it’s mine.

  A few of the signs in the crowd decry Mr. Blank and thank Randy for getting rid of him. While I know better than anyone what Blaine was capable of doing, and I realize that his death probably saved countless others from his diabolical plans, the signs strike a chord on the strings of my conscience. I know I’m not to blame for what happened to Blaine or what he’d become, but I still wish there had been something I could have done to change how things turned out.

  For all of his annoying know-it-all facts and his desire for world domination, Blaine was still my friend. Or at least he used to be once upon a time.

  A dozen feet away from me, a guy starts playing “Christmastime Is Here” on his guitar, adding some holiday spirit to the somber mood. Several people walk past and throw singles into his guitar case, which after less than two hours appears to have at least forty bucks in it.

  I should really learn how to play a musical instrument.

  After watching the faithful memorialize Randy for a few more minutes, I decide to beat the crowds and head back to Charlie’s apartment.

  A month after his stroke, Charlie is still in a coma. Apparently he’s experiencing continuous seizures, something called status epilepticus—which sounds like something out of a Road Runner cartoon. In any case, the seizures are preventing Charlie’s brain from recovering, leading to his prolonged unconsciousness.

  This doesn’t help to improve my spirits, holiday or otherwise.

  The fact that Charlie doesn’t have health insurance and won’t be able to pay his bills isn’t precipitating his hasty exit from the hospital. Even in an age when health care seems to be more about profit margins than about compassion, the hospital won’t discharge Charlie or move him to another facility until his health is stabilized. Then they’ll hit him up with a seven-figure invoice for services rendered.

  On my way to Charlie’s apartment, I pay a visit to Frank.

  “Lloyd,” he says, greeting me at the door and waving me in with one hand while holding a slice of pepperoni-and-sausage in the other. “Pizza?”

  “No thanks,” I say. “I don’t have much of an appetite.”

  “We seem to be on opposite ends of that spectrum.” Frank closes the door, then waddles over to his couch and sits down with a grunt and a creak and a cloud of dust in front of his coffee table, where an open cardboard Domino’s box holds the remaining slices of what used to be an extra-large pie.

  Frank looks like he could play right tackle for the Jets. If he’s not pushing three hundred pounds, then I’m a Patriots fan.

  I sit down in the mafia chair at the end of the coffee table, my back to the wall, and watch Frank finish off the slice he was holding.

  “So how was the memorial?” he asks.

  “Overwhelming,” I say, and tell him how many people showed up. “You should have been there.”

  “I’m not a big fan of crowds,” he says. “Especially since I tend to stand out in one.”

  Frank hasn’t left his apartment since the events at Union Square. I don’t think it’s because he’s afraid he’ll be recognized, but more because, like me, he’s suffering from a severe case of the guilts.

  While I know rationally that Charlie and Randy made their own choices, I hold on to my personal responsibility for them like a security blanket. In a strange way, it’s the only thing that gives me comfort.

  Frank and I chitchat for a few minutes, talking about nothing of substance while Frank powers down another slice, both of us ignoring the elephant in the room. And that’s not a fat joke.

  “So I was thinking . . .” I say.

  “That’s never a good thing,” Frank says. “What about?”

  “I was thinking we should keep going.”

  “Going where?” he says. “I didn’t realize we were in motion.”

  The image of hundreds of people in Union Square holding candles and lighters plays back in my head.

  “I think we should keep going with what we started,” I say.

  Frank stares at me, his chin covered with grease. “You can’t be serious?”

  “I think it’s what Randy and Charlie would have wanted.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what Randy and Charlie would have wanted.” He grabs another slice. “I’ve had enough.”

  Obviously he’s not talking about pizza.

  “But think about all that we’ve done,” I say. “Think about all of the good we could do. Think about Randy and Charlie and Vic.”

  “I do think about them,” Frank says. “That’s all I do. Every day. Every hour. And do you know how I feel?”

  I shak
e my head but I’m pretty sure I know the answer.

  “I feel responsible,” he says, his mouth full of meat and cheese and dough. “I should have talked all of you out of this superhero insanity in the first place. I should have been the voice of reason. Instead I enabled the fantasy. I participated in it. And now because of that Randy’s dead, Charlie’s in a coma, and Vic is missing.”

  After Randy and Blaine went up in flames, Frank and I searched everywhere for Vic. Neither one of us saw him leave, and in the chaos of the moment we couldn’t find him. So we did the only thing we could do—we got the hell out of there.

  We’ve called Vic’s home phone multiple times but he hasn’t answered. Since he doesn’t have an answering machine or voice mail, we can’t leave him any messages. And neither of us knows where he lives.

  I can still see the blank, slack expression on Vic’s face after Blaine leveled his finger at him, and I wonder how much damage might have been done to his memory.

  “What about all of those people who are at Union Square right now?” I say.

  “What about them?”

  “They believe in Randy and what he stood for. They believe in all of us.”

  Frank takes another bite of pizza. “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that Randy’s death shouldn’t be the end of it,” I say. “We should honor the sacrifice he made, both him and Charlie, and take vengeance on all of the would-be muggers and rapists.”

  “Honor isn’t something I’m interested in pursuing,” Frank says, letting out a belch. “And vengeance isn’t good for the soul, Lloyd. It just eats it up.”

  Frank finishes off another slice while I sit there contemplating his words and what it must be like to be his lower intestine.

  “What about all of the people who still need our help?” I say. “Don’t you want to make a difference?”

  “I’ve helped enough people,” Frank picks up the last slice of pizza. “I’m done being a superhero, Lloyd. Big Fatty is hanging up his cape.”

  The New Year comes and the New Year goes and Frank is still retired, Sophie still isn’t talking to me, and Charlie is still in a coma. While the doctors don’t know how much longer he’ll stay that way, the occurrence of seizures is decreasing and they’re monitoring him with the hope that he’ll eventually regain consciousness.

  I wish I could get excited about their prognosis, but at the moment I’m not exactly glowing with optimism.

  There’s still no word from Vic. I’ve placed multiple calls to police stations, telling them Vic might be suffering from amnesia, but no one has been able to help me. So for the past month I’ve been checking the homeless shelters, starting with those closest to Union Square and working my way south, but so far no one has seen anyone who matches Vic’s description. I’d post flyers except I don’t have any photos of Vic and I’m not much of a sketch artist. I’m more Paleolithic cave painter than Renaissance artist.

  It’s not easy trying to find an amnesiac superhero in New York City.

  When I’m not looking for Vic or volunteering for clinical trials and panhandling to pay Charlie’s rent, I keep working on Frank to get him to change his mind about hanging up his cape, but he isn’t interested in changing anything, including his T-shirt and sweatpants. So I go out on my own to fight crime a few nights a week, but it’s not the same without the others. When it comes to being a superhero, I work better in a team setting.

  It would be easier if I had someone to talk to. Someone who knows me and cares about me and who could offer me emotional support and physical comfort, but Sophie hasn’t returned my calls let alone offered me a hug.

  Eventually I start scouring the tabloids and local news websites, looking for any odd or unusual stories about people experiencing vertigo or insomnia or uncontrollable flatulence. I wander through Tompkins Square and Washington Square and other parks after nightfall, looking for kindred crime-fighting souls. I go back to Curry in a Hurry hoping to run into the guy who said he was Karma. But the only superhero to be found is the one staring back at me in the mirror. And he could use a vacation.

  I look exhausted. Emotionally and spiritually. And a good ten years older than my age. More if I catch my reflection in the wrong lighting. The fact that my hair has nearly turned completely gray doesn’t help.

  I think part of my haggard appearance has to do with the guilt and depression that are hanging around like sycophantic sidekicks. But I’m beginning to think that the cumulative experience of being a guinea-pig superhero is a significant contributing factor. Whatever it is that allows me to project sleep onto others seems to have taken a physical toll, which means I should probably stop.

  The problem is, being a superhero is the only thing that makes me feel better about myself. If I stop, I’m afraid I’ll end up like Frank. Not morbidly obese, but depressed and lonely and feeding my guilt with something that isn’t good for me.

  It doesn’t take me long before I realize that’s exactly what I’m doing.

  So January comes and January goes and I hang up my cape and go back to living the same life I did before I became a superhero: just guinea-pigging and panhandling, living on the fringes of society in order to survive. Only this time I’m doing it without Sophie, which makes my existence that much less glamorous.

  Winter is always bad for panhandling. While you can usually count on some benevolent souls taking pity on you, most of the time people are just too damn cold to care. And two of the clinical trials I’ve signed up for are lockdowns, one of which requires me to wear a catheter, but this is what I know how to do. It’s where I’m comfortable. And human beings are nothing if not creatures of comfort.

  Every now and then I find myself haunting Seward Park, eating a doughnut from the Doughnut Plant and looking across the street, waiting to catch a glimpse of Sophie coming home or leaving for work. I’ve seen her a couple of times, but I’m afraid to let her see me, so I make sure to keep my distance, sometimes not catching more than a glimpse of her figure bundled up in her coat and scarf and knit beanie.

  Sometimes I ride the Staten Island Ferry back and forth, listening to the symphony of foreign languages and thinking about violins and clarinets and saxophones, remembering the joy on Sophie’s face as she listened to the orchestra of voices and hearing her buoyant laughter as we would run to try to catch the return ferry.

  It seems lately that everywhere I look all I see and hear are the memories and ghosts of Sophie. And none of them is anything but a weak, unsatisfying substitute for the real thing.

  Sometimes I walk along the Mall from the Bethesda Terrace to the Olmsted Flower Bed, hoping to find Sophie in her seafoam-green sleeveless dress with matching green wings and yellow chiffon skirt, holding a single rose in one hand, standing perfectly still like the day I met her. But the only statues I ever find are those of Christopher Columbus and William Shakespeare, neither of whom is either alive or my type.

  Sometimes I approach Sophie’s pitch from the Wollman Rink or from Fifth Avenue, thinking that maybe by mixing things up she’ll be there and I’ll be able to re-create the magic of that moment when we first met. It’s silly, I know, but you tend to do such things when you’re lonely and depressed and desperate.

  I know I could just wait for Sophie outside her apartment or show up at Westerly when she gets off work, but I don’t have the courage. I’d rather find her as a living statue. That way I could do all of the talking and say everything I need to say and she couldn’t walk away or ignore me or tell me how much I disappointed her. She wouldn’t have any choice but to stand there and listen and not say a word.

  I never claimed to be adept at relationships.

  In early February, the canopy of elms lining the Mall is gone, the limbs a tangle of skeletal arms that reach toward one another beneath the dismal gray sky. The wind blows in off the Hudson, scattering a few dead leaves across the ground and hibernating lawns. Other than a few hardy green shrubs, the Olmsted Flower Bed is devoid of any color.

&n
bsp; While the weather has been unseasonably warm and pleasant, today seems to be a more fitting reflection of my current state of existence.

  I’ve brought a flower, a single red rose, as a peace offering. I probably should have brought a lily, since that’s Sophie’s favorite, but it was sort of a last-minute purchase, an impulse buy, and the only flowers the guy on the street corner was selling were roses. But as has been the case every other time I’ve come here, my gesture is made to a nonexistent audience and an empty theater.

  I think about the day I met Sophie, how she stood there wearing her faint smile like she had a secret. Like she knew something I didn’t. I remember how I walked up to her and told her I believed she’d appeared to me for some divine reason and that I could use a little pixie dust to change my luck.

  As I stare at the Olmsted Flower Bed, it occurs to me with no small amount of chagrin that I’m back right where I started more than five years ago, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do and how I’m supposed to do it. Except this time there’s no fairy to sprinkle pixie dust over me.

  I never believed in the power of Sophie’s magic, that she or anyone could change someone else’s life simply by sprinkling metallic glitter over them. But standing here in my own personal time warp with the benefit of hindsight to slap me in the face, I’m hit with an epiphany that makes me realize how wrong I’ve been.

  When Sophie sprinkled her pixie dust over me and offered me a place to live, she changed my life. Everything good that has happened to me over the past five years came from that one single moment. If it hadn’t been for Sophie, I don’t know what I would have done or where I would have ended up or who I would have become.

  Without any sense of hyperbole, Sophie saved me. She’s my own personal superhero. The Fairy. Defender of lost causes and champion of cats. Able to tolerate slacker boyfriends for longer than expected.