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Larry refuses to come into my room. He never has cared for my collection. He stands in the doorway and speaks softly, soothingly, as though to a child. If only I could tell him.
“Earl,” he says. “This is Larry,” he says.
I know who he is, and I won’t be patronized. I go back to my comic books, which I’ve arranged on the carpet around me. I have a whole room full of comic books, most of which are older than I am. Flash Comics, Boy Commandos, The Human Torch, Doll Man. I open one of the brittle magazines at random and see Captain America in all his four-color glory, wading through a pack of rotund yellow men with buck teeth and thick glasses. A few pages over, the Sub-Mariner is ripping apart a German U-boat with his bare hands. Nazi sailors tumble out, scattering Lugers and monocles in every direction.
“Earl.” Larry’s being patient. It occurs to me that he may indeed care too much, and if that’s the case, he will be a very bitter person by the time he’s old. You have to be super if you expect to get by and not have your compassion for your fellow man turned inside out by all of the misery in the world.
“Earl,” Larry says again. “What happened? What happened, for God’s sake?”
He sounds … agonized. It may only be (I tell myself) that he’s in love with my wife. In either case, it’s my duty to set his mind at ease. I have, after all, dedicated my powers to the betterment of humanity.
“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “Nothing happened, Larry. She ran out of the house crying, that’s all.”
I put Captain America and the Sub-Mariner away, then look around at the garish covers on the floor. Ah, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Ah, Hawkman and Blue Beetle, Airboy and Fighting Yank. Where are you when I need you most? Must I do it all without help from you? Don’t you remember how much misery there is in the world?
#
The telephone is ringing. I brush past Larry and go to answer it. A woman at the other end of the connection begins delivering her spiel with all the sincerity of a high-school girl laboring through Ophelia’s lines in the senior class spring play.
I am, it seems, being offered an expense-paid trip for two to wonderful Las Vegas, plus a two-hundred-dollar certificate book redeemable at certain local stores AND a glossy color portrait of my family. Mine, all mine, if I’m able to answer a question correctly within thirty seconds. I let the woman chatter along without interruption. I know her game, but I’m curious to find out what her question is. Mine is the Wisdom of Solomon.
“As everybody knows,” she is saying, “Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were assassinated. Now, the question is, which one of the following men was also assassinated while serving as President of the United States –- James Garfield, Andrew Jackson, or William McKinley?”
Which one? Aha, a fatal slip on her part. They all make fatal slips eventually. “James Garfield,” I answer. “And William McKinley.”
“That is correct!” she tells me in a tinkly voice. “Now, if you’ll just give me your name and address, our agent will come over with your certificate book and --”
“Oh, you needn’t bother.” I’m not interested in going to Las Vegas. I never accept rewards. “I only wanted to hear your question.”
“Oh.” I’ve stripped her gears. Nothing in her script to get her through this unforeseen development. Little did she realize how easily I saw through her diabolical plan to discover my secret identity. She makes some more noises over the phone. “Oh. Uh. Well. Are you, uh, sure?”
“Yes. Thank you.” I ring off. Shazam. The World’s Mightiest Mortal triumphs again.
#
What really happened, Larry? My wife left me. I shed the light over the evil things, for they cannot stand the light, and she ran out of the house crying.
#
And now Larry’s gone, too. I turned aside his questions. I frustrated his efforts to learn too much. We crime fighters must have our secrets. Our calling cuts us off from the rest of humanity, makes intercourse with mere mortals difficult and sometimes impossible.
So now Larry’s gone, too, and I am able to get on with my great task of ridding this world of crime.
#
And now I cloak myself in darkness. And now I make myself a creature of the night, a symbol that will strike terror in superstitious, cowardly hearts. And now, and now ….
There is so much misery in the world. It’s going to be rough out there tonight. |
