by Mike Sweeney
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\nI\u2019ve just dropkicked Calutron into the Raritan River but it won\u2019t put him down for long.\u00a0 I need to get my bearings.\u00a0 I need to figure out what the hell\u2019s gone wrong.\u00a0 Calutron was always a mechanized, mindless brute, but his power has been amped up.\u00a0 He can hurt me.\u00a0 He can make me bleed.<\/p>\n
Also, purple lightning shoots out of his fists when he hits something.\u00a0 None of that is good.<\/p>\n
My mind pulls up the details of his file.\u00a0 He was some sort of defense contractor testing out a new exoskeleton for NATO.\u00a0 It was supposed to help with disarming IEDs, make the operator invulnerable to explosions.\u00a0 Terrorists planted a dirty bomb in Brussels.\u00a0 He went in to disarm it.\u00a0 It detonated and he threw himself on the explosion.\u00a0 He saved the city, but the radioactive isotope fused the suit to his flesh and wiped away his conscious mind.\u00a0 Last I heard he was in stasis in a facility outside Chicago.<\/p>\n
I weave up and down the aisles of the recycling warehouse looking for any sign of Warrior.\u00a0 I pass stack after stack of rotting pulp until I stumble upon the crumpled body of Professor Majestic \u2013 necromancer, dark shaman, and all around malcontent.\u00a0 On the ground next to him is a large, inverted pentagram drawn in blood with the word \u201cCalutron\u201d written in the center.\u00a0 Next to the professor is an ancient-looking book with the word \u201cMajick\u201d cut into the battered leather cover.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know much about the supernatural, but I do know that any time \u201cmagic\u201d is spelled with a \u201cj\u201d and a superfluous \u201ck\u201d slapped on the end, it\u2019s never a good thing.\u00a0 Whatever book Professor Majestic was using, I can bet it wasn\u2019t about communing with the Mother Goddess.<\/p>\n
Mixing dark mystical forces with cutting edge military industrial technology is always a bad idea.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to tell Professor Majestic that he\u2019s a magnificent jackass for doing so but since his head has been twisted nearly completely around, I don’t think there\u2019s much point.<\/p>\n
Magic is most superheroes\u2019 Achilles\u2019 heel and I\u2019m no exception.<\/p>\n
I don’t think this is going to end well.
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\nHis name is Jackhammer Jack and he was an old friend of my dad\u2019s.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s short and squat and, even though he has to be pushing eighty, he looks like he could still rip the arms off a Deathray Android without breaking a sweat.<\/p>\n
His hands are like catcher\u2019s mitts and they envelop mine as we shake.\u00a0 He takes the glowing butt of a cigarette out of his mouth and stubs it out on the underside of the bar.\u00a0 He coughs, thick and wet.<\/p>\n
He smiles and his face warms my heart.\u00a0 It reminds me of epic battles and purer times.\u00a0 I picture myself in my footy pajamas watching Eyewitness News<\/em>.\u00a0 My dad and Jack are on TV battling the hydra-monster Khidro atop the Driscoll Bridge.\u00a0 Or I think about the time when they and Emerald Mage were the only local heroes to stand against the Red Gang.\u00a0 My dad put my sister and I into hiding while he and the others fought what would come to be known as the Polarity War.<\/p>\n They won, of course, but most said it was only because they finally got some outside help from Him.\u00a0 I think that always galled my dad: that his greatest victory wouldn\u2019t have been possible without assistance from one of the heroes he always derided as \u201cthe Big Shots.\u201d\u00a0 This was Jersey, he should\u2019ve been able to protect it on his own.<\/p>\n I resist the urge to look at Jack\u2019s chest, to see how far the cancer\u2019s progressed at the cellular level.\u00a0 He looks good.\u00a0 His face is ruddy, his grin infectious.\u00a0 He\u2019s telling me about his daughters and grandkids.\u00a0 He puts his massive hands on my shoulders and pulls me down close.\u00a0 He says what he always says.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, Matty, your dad would be awful proud of you, right?\u00a0 You and your sister both.\u00a0 But especially you.\u00a0 You picked up the torch, you take care of business.\u00a0 That would mean a lot to him.\u00a0 It means a lot to a lot people.\u201d<\/p>\n I smile and nod like I believe him.<\/p>\n They\u2019re holding a party at the Union Beach Firehouse in a couple weeks to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the defeat of Doctor Centrifuge.\u00a0 I promise Jack I\u2019ll see him there.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We shake hands one more time and I watch him open the door and disappear into the daylight, his squat, bulky frame blocking out the sun for a moment.<\/p>\n The rest of Charlie\u2019s Place is nearly empty.\u00a0 It\u2019s just me, the bartender, and three guys in the corner arguing about hockey.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t drink but I like coming to Charlie\u2019s anyway.\u00a0 No one bothers me here and sometimes I run into Jack.\u00a0 I can sit quietly on my stool and pensively sip my Stewart\u2019s Cream Soda.\u00a0 Charlie stocks it special for me.\u00a0 It comes in a brown glass bottle that looks like a beer from a distance.\u00a0 I like the fact that it gives me the perception of having a vice.<\/p>\n I am, in case you haven\u2019t surmised, the boy scout of the family.\u00a0 I took to it naturally; it\u2019s not forced.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s because deep down I always wanted to be one of the Big Shots.\u00a0 I think maybe my dad wanted me to be one too.\u00a0 I think he wanted me to have that level of notoriety and legitimacy.<\/p>\n My father was a good man who saved a lot of lives.\u00a0 But the world never really let him forget that he was a construction worker who just happened to get struck by lightning atop a titanium I-beam.<\/p>\n No one ever understood his transformation really.\u00a0 Some said it was because of the special metal and intense electricity; others said it because of the Perseids that night.\u00a0 Whatever it was, when he woke in the hospital, he had the strength of twenty men and skin almost impervious to damage.\u00a0 The next morning, he got up and dressed like he was going back to work on the site, except he tied a blue tablecloth around his neck.\u00a0 Then he started helping people.<\/p>\n He couldn\u2019t fly, of course.\u00a0 But, God, was he strong.\u00a0 And he could hit.<\/p>\n The Leveler, they called him.<\/p>\n For years, he was loved and revered by the people of New Jersey, until — as eventually happens to most things that are revered — he became a source of ridicule.\u00a0 In the Nineties, \u201csilly\u201d replaced \u201csimple\u201d in describing the blue tablecloth he still used as a cape.\u00a0 He started to be criticized over civil liberties, maybe rightly so.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Other people questioned why he always turned a blind eye to the Jersey mob.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t have to endure the criticism long.\u00a0 Once my sister and I turned eighteen, it was like Dad doubled down on his smoking.\u00a0 When we were young, he knew we needed him.\u00a0 Once we were old enough to take care of ourselves, I think he did what he always wanted to do.\u00a0 He set about joining our mom.<\/p>\n He died eight months before the Towers fell.\u00a0 Afterwards, people wanted heroes again.\u00a0 Everything bad that was said about the Leveler was forgotten.\u00a0 He got a bronze statue in Newark. QMX released a limited edition reproduction of his blue tablecloth-cape.\u00a0 They go for two grand on eBay now.\u00a0 He was also given the highest honor any New Jerseyan can hope for: they named a rest stop on the Turnpike after him.\u00a0 It\u2019s a nice one, too.<\/p>\n The next year, my sister and I came into our own.\u00a0 We helped some of the Big Shots (yeah, I call them that too) defeat the Invasion of the Cephalatroids.\u00a0 Suddenly we were legitimate heroes in our own right, not just teen curiosities anymore.<\/p>\n In 2004, Kelly joined an international team of heroes that responded to the tsunami in Indonesia.\u00a0 You\u2019ve probably seen the photo of her holding that little girl on the cover of National Geographic<\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s when things really took off for Kelly, when presidential candidates started trying to get her endorsement, when she started getting invites to movie premiers.\u00a0 Vanity Fair<\/em> asked her to guest-edit.\u00a0 If I\u2019m the family\u2019s boy scout, she\u2019s the rock star.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.<\/p>\n We\u2019re complete opposites, but our powers are essentially the same.\u00a0 She can fly a little faster than me; I\u2019m a little stronger than her.\u00a0 No one\u2019s sure how we got the ocular powers and they\u2019re our only real difference.\u00a0 I have Molecular Vision; she has Ice Sight.<\/p>\n Kelly says people like her better, but they rely on me more.\u00a0 She also tells me that she\u2019s the Xena to my Hercules and I have no idea what that means.\u00a0 Pop culture isn\u2019t my strong suit outside comics, and even there my knowledge stops around 1985.\u00a0 That\u2019s probably why I went with the retro costume and the Golden Age moniker.<\/p>\n Kelly, on the other hand, picked her name because she thought it sounded cool.\u00a0 I tried to tell her a \u201cU-boat\u201d was a Nazi submarine.\u00a0 She said it still sounded cool.\u00a0 I stressed that the Nazis were led by Hitler.\u00a0 She told me she\u2019d redefine it.\u00a0 I said that didn\u2019t make any sense.\u00a0 She said she was going to take back \u201cU-boat\u201d and make it a good thing again.\u00a0 I said it never really was a good thing.\u00a0 She said she had the perfect leather jacket.\u00a0 She showed it to me.\u00a0 It was<\/em> really cool.<\/p>\n And thus was born her costume.\u00a0 The \u201cun-costume\u201d as it would come to be known.\u00a0 Lady U-boat wore the cool hip-length black leather jacket with a white t-shirt, black Levi\u2019s, and Doc Marten\u2019s.\u00a0 The finishing touch was a pair of oversized, bright yellow roper gloves.\u00a0 They made no sense whatsoever, but somehow my sister made them work perfectly.<\/p>\n The world at large loved the costume.\u00a0 It\u2019s always a best seller for little girls at Halloween.\u00a0 Parents like that it\u2019s dynamic without being overtly sexual.\u00a0 The Huffington Post <\/em>congratulated Kelly for being a female super hero who looks like she doesn\u2019t get paid in singles.<\/p>\n Neither of us wears a mask.\u00a0 Everyone knew we were the Leveler\u2019s kids.\u00a0 There was never any question about who we really were.\u00a0 So we didn\u2019t construct secret identities.\u00a0 We just had secrets. <\/br> A tattered bumper sticker hangs off my cheek.\u00a0 It says, \u201cSnooki\u2019s from NY.\u201d<\/p>\n I have no idea what that means.<\/p>\n My head is still ringing from being flung through eight stacks of newspaper and a brick wall, before landing on the Honda.\u00a0 I wipe the blood from my chin and try to remember the last time I bled this much, if at all.<\/p>\n Across the street, a man and woman are huddled behind a VW bus.\u00a0 The woman snaps my picture with her cell phone as I take off.\u00a0 I have a feeling that\u2019ll wind up on The Star Ledger\u2019s <\/em>website tomorrow.<\/p>\n My first instinct is to charge full bore back into the warehouse.\u00a0 Calutron is so much stronger than me, but he can\u2019t fly.\u00a0 If I can keep dropping him in the river, maybe I can buy time for back up to arrive.<\/p>\n But first I need to find Garden State Warrior, to see if he\u2019s still alive.<\/p>\n In the warehouse, I hear Calutron baying.\u00a0 Purple lightning flashes through shattered windows.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t leave him alone for long.<\/p>\n I ascend a half mile and scan the area below.<\/p>\n My mind conjures an image from childhood: I once dropped an action figure from the top of the stairs onto the ceramic tile of our foyer.\u00a0 Warrior\u2019s legs look the way the toy\u2019s did when it landed.\u00a0 He lays motionless in an alley two blocks from the river.<\/p>\n I zoom in on him with my Molecular Vision: he\u2019s barely breathing, with multiple broken bones and internal hemorrhaging.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t have long.<\/p>\n I brace myself and descend with a sonic boom. I swoop into the warehouse and ram my shoulder into Calutron\u2019s chest.\u00a0 The two of us crash through an already shattered window.\u00a0 He gets in two good shots before I break contact.\u00a0 He draws blood from my arm and crunches a rib hard enough that I\u2019m sure it\u2019s broken.<\/p>\n By the time he\u2019s splashing into the river, I\u2019ve already pivoted and made it to Warrior\u2019s position.\u00a0 There\u2019s no way in hell I should move him, but there\u2019s no choice.\u00a0 If he stays here, he\u2019s going to die.\u00a0 I scoop him up as gently as I can and whisk him back to the destroyed Honda.<\/p>\n The man and woman have the VW bus started and are just pulling away when they see me.\u00a0 They stop and open the side door.<\/p>\n \u201cTake him to the nearest hospital,\u201d I say.\u00a0 \u201cPlease.\u201d<\/p>\n The woman raises her phone to take another picture of me as I place Warrior in the backseat, his legs dangling from my arms like a rag doll\u2019s.\u00a0 She stops and lowers her phone.\u00a0 There\u2019s a question on her face, one I\u2019m thankful she doesn\u2019t ask.\u00a0 I swallow hard and it tastes like pennies.<\/p>\n On the riverbank, I can hear Calutron roaring as he climbs ashore. <\/br> The guys in the corner have made peace on hockey and joined forces to savage Eli Manning.\u00a0 I pass them on my way to the men\u2019s room.\u00a0 We live in a world without phone booths, so I change into my costume in the dingy stall in back of Charlie\u2019s Place before slipping into the alleyway.\u00a0 I don\u2019t like people to see me take off if I can help it.\u00a0 It freaks them out more than you\u2019d think.<\/p>\n Flying itself is more disturbing than you\u2019d guess.\u00a0 In dreams, there\u2019s not the bone-chilling cold, there\u2019s not the overwhelming sense of emptiness a solitary human figure feels in the midst of the sky three miles above the planet.\u00a0 It takes some getting used to.<\/p>\n I do like the solitude of it now.\u00a0 I like to spend a half hour each night just floating off the Jersey coast before going on watch with the Lighthouse.<\/p>\n Kelly and I get our flight abilities from mom.\u00a0 Nuclear Woman didn\u2019t have much in the way of invulnerability, though.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t even survive giving birth to twins.<\/p>\n Yeah, I get maudlin sometimes.<\/p>\n In our townhouse in Hoboken, on my bedroom door, my sister has taped a poster printed out from the Internet.\u00a0 It shows a red-eyed, cherubic teen of indeterminate sex, with multiple piercings.\u00a0 Underneath it says, \u201cEmo: it\u2019s like Goth for pussies.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s her way of reminding me to cheer up.<\/p>\n I wish I could say I could help it, but I can\u2019t.\u00a0 I\u2019ll give you a moment to go Google \u201cdysthymia\u201d if you\u2019ve never heard of it.\u00a0 Literally, it means \u201cill humor\u201d in Greek.\u00a0 Clinically, it\u2019s described as a long-lasting \u2013 in some cases lifelong \u2013 low-level depression, with occasional forays into major depression.\u00a0 Being dysthymic is a bit like have the psychological equivalent of AIDS: your emotional immune system just isn\u2019t up to the task.\u00a0 Little things can bring you down; big things can trigger something far worse.<\/p>\n When I was seventeen, I drove my \u201875 Duster into a concrete embankment at 90 miles per hour.\u00a0 I had a titanium blade duct-taped to the steering wheel and pointed at my heart to seal the deal.\u00a0 The car was incinerated; the blade bent in half.\u00a0 I woke up with a really bad headache, my eyebrows singed off, and not much else wrong with me.<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t tell you exactly why I did it now.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure it had something to do with a girl, most likely a blond one.\u00a0 Beyond that\u2026 it\u2019s hard to explain why you want to destroy yourself.\u00a0 It\u2019s just seemed my whole life that something wasn\u2019t right, that something was off, that I didn\u2019t get what most people get.\u00a0 It just seemed, far too often, that things would be simpler if all this was over.<\/p>\n It\u2019s gotten better as I\u2019ve gotten older, I think.\u00a0 The SSRI helps a lot.\u00a0 It changed everything in my twenties.\u00a0 And being a superhero isn\u2019t a bad thing.\u00a0 I know that sounds conceited, but there actually is an upside to having a profession where evil geniuses and space monsters are constantly plotting your demise: it makes you want to live.<\/p>\n There are times though when I still think of a form of self-destruction, more societal than physical.\u00a0 I think about just leaving.<\/p>\n Back in \u201904 while Kelly and the others were in Indonesia, the Lost Continent of Lemuria surfaced off the coast of New Jersey and made a land claim to Monmouth and Ocean Counties.\u00a0 They said the territory was promised to them before recorded history by Elfar the Impertinent under the Treaty of Pangaea.<\/p>\n Needless to say, it surprised the hell out of everyone.\u00a0 First, Lemuria was supposed to be in the Indian Ocean.\u00a0 Second, well, it was a lost fucking continent surfacing off the coast of New Jersey.<\/p>\n I was on my own pretty much.\u00a0 I tried to be diplomatic.\u00a0 I pointed out that no one (including the Lemurians) had an actual copy of the Treaty of Pangaea since pre-recorded history had no records.\u00a0 I might\u2019ve also offered them Staten Island instead.\u00a0 I forget.\u00a0 Either way, they declined my parlay and launched Killer Aquabots.\u00a0 I destroyed the attack wave and defeated the Lemurian Queen\u2019s champion in personal combat on the sands of Seaside.\u00a0 The land claim was withdrawn.\u00a0 Queen Nera and I negotiated a peace and Lemuria receded beneath the waves.<\/p>\n That was the moment Jersey really took me into its heart.\u00a0 I\u2019d saved the state single-handedly.\u00a0 The governor gave me an award.\u00a0 The cast of The Sopranos <\/em>sent me an autographed poster of the Bing Girls.\u00a0 Bruce Springsteen invited me over his house for a barbecue.\u00a0 Kelly made sure I listened to some of his CDs before I went.\u00a0 I actually liked the acoustic stuff.\u00a0 I remember leaving his farm that night after dinner, thinking I really should\u2019ve been happier than I was.<\/p>\n Before Lemuria re-submerged, Queen Nera offered to take me as her consort.\u00a0 When I asked what that would involve, she replied, \u201cNot wearing clothes a lot.\u201d\u00a0 She also told me she knew I\u2019d never accept, that I could never leave Jersey or my sister.\u00a0 Some nights, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Some nights, I\u2019d like to prove her wrong, to forget everything about myself, and disappear with Nera forever beneath the waves, a kind of living suicide.<\/p>\n Like I said: maudlin.<\/p>\n The communicator on my left wrist beeps, my sister\u2019s personal line.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah?\u00a0 Kell?\u201d<\/p>\n The voice on the other end is tentative, unsure.<\/p>\n \u201cUm, hello?\u00a0 Hello?\u00a0 Is this the Captain?\u201d<\/p>\n Unconsciously, I drop my voice two octaves before answering.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is Captain Neptunium, how can I help, friend?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUm\u2026 uh\u2026 wow.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt would help, friend, if I knew to whom I was speaking.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRight.\u00a0 My name\u2019s Kenny.\u00a0 I manage a K-Mart.\u00a0 Down in Hazlet.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m pleased to make your acquaintance, Kenny.\u00a0 Why do you have my sister\u2019s communication device?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s\u2026uh\u2026she\u2019s here in my store.\u00a0 In one of the dressing rooms.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t seem like herself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRight, friend.\u00a0 You did the correct thing contacting me.\u00a0 If you give me your address I\u2019ll be there shortly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, wow.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 It\u2019s on Route 35.\u00a0 By the Pathmark.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll find it.\u00a0 Captain Neptunium out!\u201d<\/p>\n I click off the communication device.<\/p>\n My sister is in the worst kind of trouble. <\/br> Me neither, but that\u2019s the best comparison I can make to what it feels like when Calutron rams his fist into my face.\u00a0 The metal-reinforced tissue of his knuckles cuts and rends my flesh while the purple lightning invades and sears.<\/p>\n He has me by the neck with one hand while the other pummels me steadily, rhythmically.<\/p>\n At least the blinding pain is keeping me from passing out.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t take much more of this.\u00a0 I need to break his grip.<\/p>\n There\u2019s only one option.<\/p>\n Did you ever wonder why superheroes run and jump when they take flight?\u00a0 It makes no sense: if you can defy gravity, should you really need to jump to get airborne?<\/p>\n We do it to ease into flight.\u00a0 It\u2019s less harsh on the body.\u00a0 I could go from standing still to 300 miles per hour in under a second, but it\u2019s not a healthy thing, even for someone with super powers.\u00a0 The torque on the body created by a \u201ccold start\u201d is tremendous.<\/p>\n A \u201ccold start\u201d is exactly what I\u2019m about to do.\u00a0 Sideways.<\/p>\n I suspect one of two things will happen: either I\u2019ll break Calutron\u2019s grip and be free or I won\u2019t, in which case my neck will probably snap or possibly come clean off my body.<\/p>\n When this is all over maybe I can I have a nice philosophical discussion about what it means that someone who once deliberately tried to kill himself employed a near-suicidal tactic in an attempt to live.<\/p>\n Calutron cocks his arm back, ready to deliver another blow.\u00a0 Purple static crackles along his knuckles.\u00a0 I tuck my legs up into my abdomen and kick down for extra force.\u00a0 I surge ahead into flight and ramp up my speed to maximum in milliseconds.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t break free.<\/p>\n Calutron drags along behind me.\u00a0 My neck goes numb.\u00a0 I can\u2019t breathe.\u00a0 I feel like my Adam\u2019s apple will pop through the front of my throat.<\/p>\n We crash through the warehouse wall.<\/p>\n I have one more chance: I stop dead in mid-air, tucking my shoulders forward.\u00a0 Every muscle in my body screams.\u00a0 Calutron finally lets go and hurtles over me towards the river, his howl a long bleat of rage as he speeds away from me.<\/p>\n I spiral down onto the tattered asphalt of an abandoned parking lot and make a small crater on impact.<\/p>\n I hear Calutron splash into the water.<\/p>\n The good thing about people trying to kill you is it makes you want to live. <\/em><\/p>\n That might make a nice epitaph. <\/br> \u201cIt\u2019s Toxic Jane, isn\u2019t it?\u201d he whispers.\u00a0 \u201cShe\u2019s back and up to her old tricks, right?\u201d<\/p>\n I stop in my tracks and put a hand on his shoulder for emphasis.\u00a0 I make a display of looking around, even though I know we\u2019re the only two people in the stockroom.<\/p>\n \u201cCan you keep a secret, friend?\u201d \u201cIt was Taranis,\u201d I say gravely. \u201cHe escaped from the Imperium Dimension. We sent him back but not before he dosed Lady U-boat with Avalon Gas.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTaranis,\u201d Kenny repeats.\u00a0 He mouths the word silently a second time, as if afraid to say it out loud again.<\/p>\n \u201cYou see, friend, the panic it would create if word got out.\u201d<\/p>\n Kenny gathers himself and nods, slowly, signaling that he grasps the full weight of the situation.\u00a0 He sets his hands on his hips and looks me square in the eye.\u00a0 \u201cNo one will hear it from me, Captain.\u00a0 I swear it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGood.\u00a0 And my sister\u2019s current condition?\u00a0 It would be best if no one knew about that either.\u201d<\/p>\n Kenny places his hand on my forearm.\u00a0 He\u2019s my ally now.\u00a0 My comrade.<\/p>\n \u201cI won\u2019t breathe a word of it.\u00a0 I know how the kids look up to her.\u00a0 My little one goes running around the house with those big yellow gloves on.\u201d\u00a0 His eyes brighten as he remembers something.\u00a0 He pulls out his cell phone.<\/p>\n \u201cHer name\u2019s Annie.\u00a0 She\u2019s four.\u201d<\/p>\n I stare down into a little square of light.\u00a0 It shows a tiny blonde girl wearing a miniature version of my sister\u2019s leather jacket and big yellow gloves.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s a darling,\u201d I say and I think Kenny can tell my voice is cracking.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was Halloween,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n It\u2019s my turn to nod gravely.\u00a0 I hand him back his cell phone.<\/p>\n \u201cI should get to my sister,\u201d I say in a low husk.<\/p>\n Kenny points me towards the employees\u2019 entrance to the dressing rooms.\u00a0 He\u2019s a good and decent man to whom I\u2019ve consistently lied.\u00a0 He straightens his back and salutes me.<\/p>\n I stop myself from wincing.\u00a0 My right hand juts up to my brow, stiff and firm.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you, friend,\u201d I say and turn with my trademark flourish, the silver and black of my cape snapping in the air.<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t made his day; I\u2019ve validated his life.<\/p>\n The store is closed and the dressing rooms abandoned.\u00a0 I find Kelly sitting on the floor in the corner.\u00a0 She has her hands wrapped around her legs and she\u2019s rocking gently.<\/p>\n She makes a fist of her right hand and holds it up to me.\u00a0 I do the same and we touch the knuckles of our ring fingers.<\/p>\n \u201cWonder Twin powers,\u201d she starts.<\/p>\n \u201cActivate,\u201d I finish.<\/p>\n I\u2019m guessing we\u2019re about seven years old right now.<\/p>\n I stopped on the way for bagels \u2013 from Eli\u2019s, her favorite.\u00a0 I hand her one and she reaches for it cautiously before snatching it greedily.\u00a0 I set a box of apple juice on the ground in front of her, making sure to remove the little straw from the plastic and plug it into the drink for her.<\/p>\n I sit cross-legged on the ground, my cape tucked underneath me.\u00a0 I chew my own bagel.<\/p>\n I take out the bottle of her medication that I always keep with me.\u00a0 I carry it because, well, after a while that\u2019s what you fucking do.\u00a0 I don\u2019t say anything about it.\u00a0 I set it down beside me.<\/p>\n We talk a little.<\/p>\n She smiles sometimes.<\/p>\n We talk some more.<\/p>\n I wait for her to take her pill.<\/p>\n It takes about twenty minutes until she finally extends her hand.\u00a0 I pass her one of the little blue tablets and she weighs it in her palm before popping it into her mouth.\u00a0 She downs it with a gulp of apple juice.<\/p>\n Kelly nods, resigned.\u00a0 I scoop her up and fly her home. <\/br> I roll out of my mini-crater in the abandoned parking lot and start stumbling back.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I should try flying just yet.\u00a0 My neck feels like it\u2019s three feet long but at least it\u2019s attached to my body.<\/p>\n I still have a few more minutes.\u00a0 The only good thing about Calutron being half metal is it takes him a while to get out of the water.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe if I could get him out to the ocean somehow\u2026<\/p>\n The communicator on my right wrists buzzes.<\/p>\n \u201cMatty?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStill with you, Panther.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMatty, maybe I should come down there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u00a0 I need at you at the Lighthouse.\u201d<\/p>\n Purple Panther would just get herself killed here.\u00a0 She has no meta-powers and is also starting to get on in years.\u00a0 She still keeps in great shape though.\u00a0 Warrior says she should change her name from \u201cPanther\u201d to \u201cCougar.\u201d\u00a0 Warrior still subscribes to Maxim<\/em>.<\/p>\n My mind shuts down the image of his legs, mangled and bent in the alleyway.<\/p>\n \u201cAny word?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n Panther takes a long time answering.<\/p>\n \u201cWarrior\u2019s in surgery,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cFifty-fifty.\u00a0 At best.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAny luck with the outside?\u00a0 I could really use Him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI know,\u201d Panther says.\u00a0 \u201cBut He doesn\u2019t always answer.\u00a0 I can\u2019t get a hold of any of the heavy weights.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKeep trying,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n \u201cYour sister?\u201d Panther asks.<\/p>\n \u201cStays out of this.\u201d\u00a0 I click off the communication device.<\/p>\n Calutron\u2019s pulling himself ashore again.\u00a0 I hear his howls, manic and furious.\u00a0 Even for someone filled with mindless rage, he sounds particularly pissed off.<\/p>\n I look around.\u00a0 I could use something really big to drop on him. <\/br> I\u2019ll sit with her as long as I can, in case she wakes up.\u00a0 The pills make her sleepy — one of her many complaints about them.\u00a0 Especially when she first starts taking them again, the drowsiness is at its worst.\u00a0 She should be on them full-time \u2013 or on something anyway \u2013 but she won\u2019t go see a doctor.\u00a0 I got the medication through a combination of explaining her symptoms to my own shrink and research on the Internet.\u00a0 Then I stole a batch from the factory in France.<\/p>\n Not very boy scout-ish of me.<\/p>\n She won\u2019t go see a psychiatrist.\u00a0 Asking her to do so is a guaranteed way to get her to stop talking to me for a week.<\/p>\n Once she dropkicked me to Uganda at the end of our \u201cdiscussion\u201d of the subject.<\/p>\n The pills help, when she takes them.\u00a0 Beyond that I\u2019m not even sure what the hell is wrong with her.\u00a0 A few times a year she just sort of\u2026shuts down.\u00a0 Sometimes, she\u2019s almost feral, like a super-heightened sense of panic.\u00a0 When she gets like that, it\u2019s easy to understand how people used to think the mentally ill were possessed.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just her behavior that changes, it\u2019s her appearance as well: her eyes seem to recede into her face, her shoulders hunch, her movements become rapid and jerky.\u00a0 It scares the shit out of me.<\/p>\n Other times it\u2019s milder, more childlike, like tonight.\u00a0 But her mannerisms still change: the way she chewed on her bagel, nibbling around the edges exactly the way she did when we were six.\u00a0 Watching her at those times is like being in a time machine \u2013 a really disturbing, unsettling time machine.<\/p>\n And then she\u2019s fine.\u00a0 She takes the pills \u2013 the ones you\u2019re supposed to stay on for six months or a year \u2013 for about ten days, feels better, and is the same old Kelly: my best friend and the one person in the world I\u2019d most want to have at my side staring down a mutant giant squid with deadly hot plasma breath.<\/p>\n I think sometimes I have it easier with the dysthymia.\u00a0 It\u2019s always there and that makes it clearer that you have to treat it fulltime.\u00a0 There\u2019s no let up.\u00a0 Kelly can go long stretches without an episode, long enough for her to convince herself that they\u2019re never going to happen again.<\/p>\n But they always do.<\/p>\n And I worry every day that this will be the day she has another one.<\/p>\n And I lie to people like Kenny the K-mart manager to keep it secret.<\/p>\n And I steal drugs from France so that she sort-of-kind-of treats it, but not really.<\/p>\n I’ve said she was stupid about her condition before.\u00a0 When I\u2019m feeling less charitable \u2013 like now \u2013 I think \u201cselfish\u201d is the correct word.<\/p>\n The first time it happened, I got a call from the Electrician.\u00a0 He was a minor supervillain who my dad busted so many times he was practically family.\u00a0 They\u2019d stop off at Charlie\u2019s for a couple of beers on their way to the jail.<\/p>\n Kelly had wandered into his lair down in Egg Harbor and settled under a card table.\u00a0 She wouldn\u2019t come out.\u00a0 She wouldn\u2019t speak.<\/p>\n It was a few years after our dad\u2019s death.<\/p>\n I sat with her and talked for three hours until she\u2019d move.<\/p>\n In the other room, the Electrician\u2019s minions were counting his latest haul. They\u2019d knocked over the main vault at the Borgata.\u00a0 It was a big score, the Electrician\u2019s retirement money.<\/p>\n I should\u2019ve arrested the lot of them.<\/p>\n The Electrician put his arm around my shoulder and said, \u201cKeep it quiet, kid.\u00a0 Keep it in the family.\u00a0 I had an aunt like that.\u00a0 She\u2019ll be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n I told him to take the money and leave the country.<\/p>\n He\u2019s got a place now in the Bahamas.\u00a0 I hear it\u2019s nice.<\/p>\n The communication device on my left wrist beeps once before I answer.<\/p>\n \u201cYes?\u201d I whisper.<\/p>\n \u201cMatty?\u00a0 Where are you?\u201d\u00a0 Purple Panther is trying to keep the panic out of her voice.\u00a0 She\u2019s not doing a very good job.<\/p>\n \u201cHoboken,\u201d I say.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s Warrior.\u00a0 He\u2019s in trouble.\u00a0 Down in the Amboys.\u00a0 Calutron.\u201d <\/br> I\u2019ve done enough damage that another hero should be able to finish him off.<\/p>\n Whatever dark force Professor Majestic infused him with is fading.\u00a0 When Calutron hits me now there\u2019s no more purple electricity.\u00a0 Just pain.<\/p>\n If I could just get some help…<\/p>\n It\u2019s a big \u201cif.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a big world with lots of problems and even more monsters.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think anyone is coming.<\/p>\n Calutron knows he doesn\u2019t have to hurry.\u00a0 I sit wheezing and leaden, seven broken ribs, lungs filled with blood, and arms too spent to even defend myself.<\/p>\n He winds up.\u00a0 I grimace.<\/p>\n We both freeze.<\/p>\n Something moves through the warehouse \u2013 a blur of light and wind that sends yellowed newspapers flying everywhere.<\/p>\n Lady U-boat hovers just outside a broken warehouse window, her yellow gloves clenched into fists.<\/p>\n She shouldn\u2019t be here but then there\u2019s a lot about my family that\u2019s impossible.<\/p>\n Her eyes find mine and I read the concern there: I don\u2019t look very good.<\/p>\n She blinks back tears.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think she\u2019s ever seen me bleed.<\/p>\n A moment: she sets herself.<\/p>\n She gives me a wink to let me know everything is going to be okay.<\/p>\n \u201cCalutron,\u201d she says, \u201cwould you care to step outside?\u201d<\/p>\n The behemoth forgets me and hurtles towards her.\u00a0 With what\u2019s left of my strength, I follow.<\/p>\n She hits.<\/p>\n She flies.<\/p>\n She throws.<\/p>\n I feel my power coming back at her side.<\/p>\n We are mighty.<\/p>\n Together.<\/p>\n The bad guy doesn\u2019t stand a chance. by Mike Sweeney NOW I\u2019ve just dropkicked Calutron into the Raritan River but it won\u2019t put him down for long.\u00a0 I need to get my bearings.\u00a0 I need to figure out what the hell\u2019s gone wrong.\u00a0 Calutron was always a … Continue reading
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\nI extract my face from the twisted metal and plastic of what used to be the back end of a Honda Accord.<\/p>\n
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\nIt\u2019s nearly eight and I settle my bill with the bartender.\u00a0 Charlie told me long ago that my money was no good in his place, but I insist on paying anyway.\u00a0 Dad always did.<\/p>\n
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\nHave you ever had fireworks go off inside your brain while undergoing an unanesthetized root canal?<\/p>\n
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\nI alight atop a pallet of Die Hard batteries.\u00a0 Kenny the K-Mart manager looks up at me in awe.\u00a0 Theatrics are more a part of this job than I like.\u00a0 I bound up onto the loading dock and Kenny follows me into the stockroom.<\/p>\n
\nKenny nods his head dutifully.<\/p>\n
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\nThe side of the recycling warehouse looks like Swiss cheese.\u00a0 Calutron and I have made at least a half dozen man-sized holes in the brick wall that faces the Raritan River.\u00a0 Most of the windows are blown out too.<\/p>\n
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\nThe upper floor of our Hoboken townhouse is all Kelly\u2019s.\u00a0 An award from GLAAD is framed over the fireplace.\u00a0 She was their Woman of the Year in \u201909.\u00a0\u00a0 She does a lot of outreach with the LGBT community, especially with teenagers.\u00a0 She\u2019s become something of an icon. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 She\u2019s sleeping now on a leather settee, wrapped in a Powerpuff Girls blanket I got her for Christmas when we were nineteen.\u00a0 For someone so powerful, she seems incredibly small right now.<\/p>\n
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\nWe\u2019ve been at this for over two hours.\u00a0 Calutron is worn down, winded, but still has plenty of fight left in him.\u00a0 The same can\u2019t be said for me.<\/p>\n
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\nMIKE SWEENEY<\/strong> lives in Central New Jersey where he writes constantly but never quite enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"