Tuesday Night at Powerman's
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Tuesday Night at Powerman's
A Harry Blaine Short Story by
Ian Thomas Healy
Copyright 2011 Ian Thomas Healy
Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed.
Others, though, it seems like everything is going your way. I was having the latter. My name's Harry Blaine. I'm a cop in the East Bay Police Department. I also happen to be a paranormal, but that's my little secret. I'm strong enough to toss cars like shotputs and tough enough to laugh off bullets. Most days those abilities don't make a difference in my job. A day like today and I didn't even think about them.
My partner—Ed Grimes—and I had been on the run all day from one call to the next, but they were all what we called Code Bakers. Baker meaning bullshit, which meant nothing we'd have to be cops for. The kind of day where protect and serve was heavy on the serve part. We changed a tire for an old lady on Santa Ana Boulevard. We broke up a potential bar fight. We directed traffic around a family of ducks that decided to cross Haxtun Street. We even pulled over a teenage speeder who was so nervous and polite that we gave him a warning and sent him on his way. People thanked us. People smiled at us. These things are uncommon in my line of work and they make a day memorable and enjoyable. Needless to say, I was an insufferable, cheerful smart-ass when I got home.
I rushed into the kitchen where my wife Alisa was cooking spaghetti and Italian sausage and swept her up in my arms. She squealed and beat me with her spoon, splattering sauce everywhere. Leering, I lowered her to kiss her as sauce dribbled off my nose. "Don't you dare!" she shrieked, pushing at me with all the futility of a mouse trying to move a mountain.
"Honnneyyy…" I growled like a movie monster. "Gonna get youuuu…" I rubbed noses with her, smearing the sauce onto her face. I felt like I was twenty years younger instead of forty-one. I set her down, grabbed a paper towel, and began wiping up the splashes of sauce so it wouldn't look like a bad crime scene.
"You jerk." She play-slapped at me, careful not to swing so hard at my super-dense muscular tissue that she would hurt herself. "What happened to you? Did you get promoted or something?" Alisa took a towel from me and wiped her own face.
"No, I just had a good day. The kind of day that I really don't mind being a cop." I opened the fridge and removed a pair of beers. I stuck my thumbs under the edges of the caps and popped the tops.
Alisa accepted one from me and took a long pull from it. "Good. Then you can make the salad, handsome." She pointed to a pile of vegetables sitting in the sink.
I regarded the large butcher knife. "I ever tell you about the time a guy tried to stab me with one of these?"
"No! What happened?"
"What do you think happened? He cut a hole in my uniform and then cut himself when the blade bounced off me. I wound up having to take him to get stitched up before I could arrest him. Knife didn't break, though. That's quality craftsmanship right there. That's why I bought you these. Same brand." I held it up for her.
"You missed your calling, tough guy. You should have been a product spokesman."
"I don't yell enough for that." I carefully started chopping vegetables, filling a large bowl with lettuce, carrots, and peppers. I wasn't careful because of the possibility of hurting myself, but if I didn't keep my strength reined in, it wasn't difficult for me to crack a countertop by accident. I knew, because I'd replaced a few of them over the time Alisa and I had been married.
In a few minutes my daughter Dannan wandered into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and removed a soda. Dannan inherited her strength and toughness from me, her strong will from her mother, but missed out on getting good sense from either of us. Instead of sensibly keeping her parahuman abilities hidden so she could have a semblance of a normal life, she had opted to join a superhero group called the Young Guns. It was more of a club for super-teens and they seemed to spend more time causing trouble than stopping it. I didn't like her to be a part of that lifestyle, but we had an agreement that as long as she lived up to her scholarly obligations that she could continue running around in her denim costume.
"Hey kiddo, what's the good word?" I brushed the last bit of salad debris into the trash.
"Nothing," she mumbled. Typical teenager, I thought, never answers with a sentence when a single word will do.
"You have a lot of homework tonight?" I rinsed off the knife and slid it back into its slot on the block.
"No." Sullen to the core.
"Any plans?"
"No."
I could see she wasn't much interested in talking to someone as uncool as her father, but I was determined that my good day was going to continue and I was going to have a conversation with my daughter. It seemed like a good time for me to bring up an notion I'd had floating around for awhile. "Listen, I've been thinking. How would you like to come to the gym with me tonight?"
Alisa stopped stirring her sauce and glanced sidelong at me. I could tell she wasn't sure this was such a good idea, but she kept quiet. If she felt I was out of line, she wouldn't hesitate to say something, but she also understood that parahuman stuff was something out of her experience except through her relationships with me and Dannan.
"And do what, watch? That sounds about as fun as watching Toxic make radioactive Silly Putty." Toxic was one of her teammates on the 'Guns, an elfin little Goth girl who could pull industrial pollutants out of the air, ground, and water, and then control them. Dannan sat on one of our stools and twisted her feet around the legs. She knew full well that there wasn't a gym in town that could even make her break a sweat. Or so she thought.
She was about to have an experience she wouldn't soon forget.
"There's a place near the docks. It's called Powerman's. Ever hear of it?" She shook her head. "It's a special gym. They cater to people like you and me." For the first time since coming into the kitchen, she actually looked at me. There was a spark of interest in her eyes. I figured I could fan that into a real flame. "They don't have machines there like they do at the 19-Hour Fitness your mom goes to. Nothing with the word -Flex in its name. Only cast-iron free weights, but I promise you'll get a workout. What do you say?"
She finished her soda and compressed the can into an aluminum chunk the size of a golf ball. "Sure, I guess. Whatever." That was as close to an affirmative answer I ever got from her these days, so I took it as a sign of good will.
An hour after dinner, we headed out. Dannan resisted most of my attempts to engage her in any meaningful communication during the drive, but I was used to that. I accepted her monosyllabic answers and grunts and chattered away about my own day. It was about a thirty-minute drive to Powerman's from our house. When I pulled into the lot and parked, Dannan stared at the run-down warehouse with a single oversized door. There were maybe a half dozen other cars parked in the lot. I couldn't blame her for being suspicious. Looking at it from a cop's perspective, it had shady business written all over it. Even in the few months she'd spent as a superhero, Dannan was already developing a cop's sense of potential trouble spots. It made me feel very proud of her. Maybe she'd give up the silly idea of being a superhero and follow me into law enforcement, where she'd have a badge and the law backing her up instead of the vague, disjointed rules governing superheroes.
"This is it? You've got to be kidding," Dannan grumbled, getting out of the car and looking down the street with distaste at the rows of warehouses and factories. I reached into the glove compartment and removed the full-face hood I always wore when I came to Powerman's. I had decided long ago that I'd prefer to remain anonymous, even with the exclusive group that frequented Powerman's. I knew for a fact that some of the men and women that I worked out with were on the wrong side of the law, but they respected my privacy and I i
n turn respected theirs. If I ever came across one while I was working, well, that was different.
"Touch the ground." I pulled the mask over my head. She placed a hand on the pavement and her eyes widened as she felt the uneven vibrations of ten-ton weights being dropped. She looked back at me and her mouth fell open as she saw the hood over my face.
"What's that for?"
"I don't want anyone to know who I am. I'm a cop, remember, and there are some people in there who don't take kindly to law enforcement. People who I'd have to arrest if I found them on the streets. Call me Hood when we're inside. The rules are simple. No fighting, even if you recognize someone inside. Put the weights up when you're done. Always use a spotter, and write an emergency contact number on the clipboard. Keep the location a secret, unless it's for