I couldn’t get very far. I didn’t have the will. I didn’t want to go no more. I was on the side of the road. I had one arm curled under me, my other hand opening and closing on the dirt.
It took a long while, but then he came. Of course he would. I turned my head as much as I could and saw him, walking slowly in. Doing that death walk, but on four legs. He looked even mangier. Old Pendejo. Bullet hole in his side. Those old sparkling eyes empty now, but still looking right at me.
Well. If it’s going to happen, might as well be your best friend.
I could feel the old boy’s hot breath on my neck—it stank like the dead, stank like that tiny village I walked out of long ago—and just as a drop of foamy spittle hit me and made me shiver, my dog bit.
Back to TOC
LA VOLCANA
Juniper Jiminez should’ve been thinking about the robbery taking place below her, should’ve been planning strategy, ensuring public safety. But instead she thought about new boots, a bubble bath, a manicure, Javier. And of course, she needed to visit her mother because she hadn’t gone in days and Juniper couldn’t understand why she didn’t just go. But she couldn’t do any of those things at the moment.
Because Juniper was a superhero whose nom de guerre was La Volcana (aka the Chica of Charcoal, aka the Mami of Magma)—and she had a job to do.
So she stayed where she was—floating on a cushion of superheated air just atop a column of fire, twenty-five feet above the ground. She was waiting for her arch-nemesis Aqua-Bella and her gang to emerge from the First National Bank. They were taking such a long time that Juniper considered melting the windows to get the whole thing over with.
“Hey, criminals,” she said, resisting the urge to check her phone to see if Javier had texted back. “C’mon, come out with your hands up already.”
With a splash, Aqua-Bella emerged through the doors, in her shimmering, opalescent costume, her matching henchpersons, the Diving Bells, close behind. She looked up and dramatically proclaimed, “I knew you’d be here!”
Juniper raised her hands to create a cage of flame around them. “Your MO is as transparent as your face. I…”
Cutting off her words was something that came on like a migraine, starting in the middle of her forehead, then cleaving the back of her skull. The cage dissipated. The column of fire vanished.
The Femme of Fire fell, denting the roof of a parked car with a WHOOMP.
Aqua-Bella shouted to her cohorts, “Skeddaddle!” and they piled into a getaway van like azure-clad clowns.
Dazed, La Volcana sat up. Her head throbbed, her spine felt out of alignment. She attempted to shoot a ball of fire at the van, but all that came out from her fingers was a puff of sulphurous smoke. She slumped back on the hood.
When the police arrived, she was vomiting in the street.
“Yet another reason to call you La Volcana.” This from Detective Sergeant Hector Hostos. Her husband. His hair was perfectly sculpted, his eyebrows perfectly trimmed.
She cursed him, but through the bile it came out as “Fffrughhdgu.”
He bent down to whisper to her, “What the hell happened?
“C-couldn’t stop her.”
“What do you mean? She’s just an animated puddle. You could have turned her into a facial.”
“Ass! My powers…stopped.”
“What? No. Oh no! You’re not pregnant, are you? Tell me you’re not pregnant.”
“You know that’s not it. My powers shut off. Don’t know why.”
“Well, shit.”
“Thanks for the TLC,” she said, trying to straighten up. Everyone had a camera now. She had to look professional.
“We’ll talk about it tonight,” Hector said, walking into the bank. “We have a lot to discuss.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sure we do.”
Juniper had a cab drop her off a mile from the secret entrance to her base. She balked at the amount of the fare, but what could she do? One complaint and she’d be crucified on social media. “La Volcana got all stingy in my cab. Who she think she is? Screw her!!”
She slid down the long chute that she normally flew into. From her secret base, she walked another half mile to the home she shared with Hector, and once inside, she threw off her clothes, except for bra, underwear, and socks.
On her knees, she dug into the couch cushions for the pack of cigarettes stashed there. She put a menthol in her mouth and then pointed a finger at the tip. Nothing. She snapped her fingers, just as she did when her mother first taught her to generate sparks as a toddler. Still nothing. She stomped around in search for matches but then realized there were none in the house. “Oh fuck me!”
She forced herself up and realized, duh, she now had time for that bubble bath she had been dreaming of. She made the water hot by turning on the hot water, which was new to her, and she watched the bubbles multiply before sinking herself into it. But she couldn’t even light the goddamn scented candles.
A damp towel over her eyes, she said, aloud, “So what the hell was that about?”
She remembered how her mama, the famous Lady Lava, showed her how to make her own lunch by placing two slices of buttered bread in her palms with some cheese. Her mother held her hands over her daughter’s, heating them until they felt on fire. She screeched but her mother said, “The pain in just in your mind, sweetheart, just in your mind,” and then seconds later opened her hands, saying “Voila!” And there was a sandwich with perfectly melted cheese and grill marks shaped like her eight-year-old palms.
They would come back, her powers. She just needed time off, time to relax, time to listen only to her own breathing.
So she breathed. And breathed some more.
She was surprised when the water started to cool. “Oh, yeah,” she said, and as she went to turn the tap again, the phone rang. She jumped out of the tub, slipping and bumping her knee on the edge. “Damn! Fuck!”
“Hey, Junie!”
It was Nikki Norwood, alias Sonic Sistah. She’d just gone through a difficult divorce from her husband Harold (alias Sonic Soljah). The big issue had been not only custody of SS-T and Sonic Kimberlee, but also of the Sonic formula and brand. Harold had dreamed up the serum, but Nikki had made it work, and had turned them into a viable team. The judge took her side, but Harold was appealing the decision.
“Oh, it’s you, Nikki.”
“Don’t sound so happy about it.”
“Sorry. Rough day.”
“I heard. Tough luck with Bella today. What was that about?”
“Oh, just a bad day on the job.”
“Please. I hear you.”
Nikki was tough herself—and she could sing notes high enough to shatter concrete. But Juniper knew her friend overreacted to everything, so she didn’t mention the loss of her powers. Instead, she said, “I think I need a new costume. I look so fat in this one.”
“You fat?! My right thigh, after a month on the keto diet, is still fatter than you. Please. I’m the one who needs a new costume. But can I afford it? No. Crimefighting does not pay. Unless you get a talk show like Dr. Mentallo or turn gigolo like the LatinX Fly.”
Juniper laughed nervously. “I just got a new costume, and it doesn’t fit quite right. Do you know how much fireproof boots cost? Oh my god!”
“Please. I’m the one who needs to do something new. I feel like yesterday’s news in this town.”
“You’re doing fine, Nikki,” Juniper said, pulling out a cigarette and walking quickly to the stove before she realized they hadn’t had gas in the stove for years.
“Hey, the girls are all going patrolling together tonight. Why don’t you come with? It’s always fun when we get together.”
“Uh, no, sorry, Nikki. I have to go visit Mom.”
“Oh, all right. Right. Give her my best then.”
For the rest of the afternoon, Juniper did the laundry and checked her phone only three more times.
An ho
ur before Hector was due home, she took a train back to the city.
In her crimson costume, with its cowl and fiery mask and the bright purple V that stretched from her cleavage to her bellybutton, she was constantly ogled, constantly catcalled. But now, walking around in civvies, she was anonymous. No a single whistle. For which she was grateful.
She was able to get a slice of brick-oven pizza without hearing any wisecracks. She witnessed a pickpocketing, but the victim, too drunk to notice, was waddling into a strip club, so she said nothing. A few blocks on, she heard a domestic disturbance: two women yelling at each other in a first-story apartment. After a minute, Juniper realized they were arguing about a TV show.
Then she turned a corner and saw the fire.
It was raging in a tenement in the middle of a block lined with identical brownstones. Three fire trucks, firemen running back and forth, a ladder being hoisted, the smell of burning plastic. A father and a little girl were crying in a heap by the curb. Juniper stood across the stream and watched the flames lick at the window tops and stream out of a hole in the roof. They were bright, gorgeous, hungry flames. If she had her powers, she could have breathed them in and saved the day. But they had things under control. They didn’t need her, and that made her smile.
She made her way to the waterfront. The area was once a hub of criminal activity, but in recent years had become gentrified. Warehouses converted to lofts, cheap diners transformed into pricey bistros. But right by the shore one little bar resisted change—Tim Riley’s Bar & Grille, a well-worn, smoked-filled pub lined with an atmosphere that only time, nicotine, and loyalty could create. It was and remained a supervillain hangout.
Inside, cigarette and cigar smoke stung her eyes, but she could see the place was crowded and she recognized quite a few of the crowd. Right by the door was Stretch Sanchez, an asshole who used his powers to assault women blocks away. Bastard. If she had her powers, she’d roast him like a frank right there, screw the law. He was listening to the Blue Streak, who sat next to the She-Bulk. Over in a dark corner was the Sword, a superhero. This would have been a surprise, but he was swapping spit with the Velvet Glove, his archenemy. Everyone knew they had been knocking boots for years.
Juniper walked all the way to the bathrooms and back to the front.
Nope, Javier wasn’t there.
She took a seat at the bar and ordered a vodka and tonic from the bartender, a woman she recognized as the Demoness. The horns in her head needed a trimming, buffing, and polish.
She was halfway into her second drink, listening to the R&B jukebox and letting a light buzz from the cocktail curl her toes, when she heard a familiar voice. She turned around and saw, through the dim light, alone in a booth: Aqua-Bella. Cackling to herself.
Juniper didn’t know what motivated her to do what she did next. Maybe morbid curiosity. Maybe plain stupidity.
She took her drink and went over.
Aqua-Bella was holding an empty red cigarette holder in her mouth. The red reflected in her shimmering watery face.
“Run out of cigarettes?” Juniper said.
“This?” Bella said, holding the holder in her fingers. “I smoked like a chimney when I was young. But ever since I got my water abilities, I don’t dare. Dehydrates me too much. So does the liquor, but if I have to choose between the two I’m going to have my little drinks. A liquid lunch for a liquid lady!”
This struck Juniper as hilarious, and both women laughed.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Samantha,” Juniper said.
“That’s pretty. Here, scoot over and let Roger sit.”
Juniper looked up and there was a man there with a large tumbler of whiskey and a bottle of beer.
“I’m Bella. This is Roger. Roger, this is Sam, my new friend.”
Roger was a short, fat man with bucked teeth and red cheeks. He smelled of onion rings and antibacterial soap.
“Are you a super-human?” he asked her.
“No, no. But I make a super omelet!” she said. It was one of Hector’s old jokes, and she felt a little guilty using it.
“Me, too. A normal human, I mean,” said Roger. “Aqua here is the star.”
“Oh, Roger.” Aqua-Bella took large sips from the tumbler. It gave her a brown tint. “Old me, a star. I’m fifty-seven—today. Well, last night.”
“Happy birthday!” said Juniper, struck by the coincidence that her mother had turned fifty-seven a month before.
“Thank you both.” She hiccupped. “You know, Sam, Roger and I go way back. From when I wanted to be a superhero.”
“A superhero?”
“Yes, I tried to be good at first.” Bella and Roger laughed at that and clinked their glasses. “Well, I was an actress then. I thought it might get me a movie or a series.”
“A clothing line. Action figures,” said Roger.
“The whole kit and kaboodle,” said Bella. “Understand—my husband was long gone, living in Europe with his sister. Long story. Won’t bore you.”
Juniper smiled at this. She realized this was already the longest conversation they had ever had.
“I had two children on my hands. Spoiled rotten. They needed everything.”
“Christopher’s braces,” said Roger. “Tanya’s ballet.”
“And I’d just had this confounded accident that turned me into a walking bathtub without the tub. The doctor’s bills were epic. So, I decided to go fight the never-ending battle, do justice! For monetary reward, mind you. Bounty hunting and all that.”
Juniper had never known this. “So what happened?”
“Well, I was miserable at it. One bail jumper literally jumped right through me.” Bella laughed, and Juniper noticed that when she did her whole body rippled like a pond after a stone is thrown in.
“After a few months of that,” Bella said, “I didn’t have much choice. I’d lost my house. Christopher was in jail. Another story. Tell it later. And then some friends of Roger came to talk to me. They said I could easily sneak in through the security system of this jewelry store. They said I had nothing to worry about.”
An odd mix of feelings fluttered in Juniper’s chest then—she knew where this story was going.
“And then La Volcana showed up,” Roger said.
“La Volcana!” Bella said. “Caught me red-handed. What was I going to do, get turned into tea? Next morning I was in the papers. The front page! Finally! Ta da! So—my destiny was set.”
“Criminal mastermind,” said Roger. “Archvillainess.”
Juniper remembered. It had been one of her first solo victories, important for her stepping out of her mother’s shadow. “You had a choice, though,” she said. “I mean, to reform.”
“Reform! You are young. I know how hard it is to change your stripes once they’ve been set for you. It’s impossible. Wait. Stripes. I made a prison pun.”
Roger laughed, staring at Bella with admiration.
Juniper couldn’t help feeling the same way. “You, your life is…is—”
“The word you’re looking for, my dear, is pathetic,” said Bella. “I’ve never made more than a couple grand at one time. I might have done better in dinner theater. My son, Chris—my boy—he died in prison while I was in a plastic container halfway across the country. I didn’t find out till a year after it happened. My daughter, my beautiful daughter, married one of my Bells. I had trusted him, on many jobs, with my life. But he’s a brute and I knew it. But Tanya is in love. What can you say to your flesh and blood?”
“To flesh and blood,” said Roger, raising his drink.
“Flesh and blood,” said Juniper.
When she got home at two in the morning, Juniper expected Hector to be waiting at the door, screaming at her before it opened. But instead he was on the couch, having cocoa.
“I’ve been trying your cell phone for hours,” he said. He stood up in his silk pajamas and robe.
“Isshut ti
t off,” she said, quite drunk.
“So where have you been?”
“Patrol.”
“Without your costume? And where?” He sniffed. “In a vat of booze?”
“S-s-sometimes I…withoutit.”
“You can’t do that. You have an image and an obligation to uphold. You can’t go out and make a fool of yourself. What if you lost control? You’ll endanger everything we have.”
If he was talking about her going crazy with her powers while drunk, he must have forgotten that she’d lost them. Selfish bastard, she thought. Should she mention how much she had just paid for a cab to get home? No. She chose instead to aim low. “Endanger your hair you mean.”
Indeed, Hector spent thousands of dollars of their income on hair implants, teeth caps, cosmetic surgery, barbers, personal trainers, and cologne.
“What?! What did you say to me?! You don’t talk to me like that. You. Do. Not. Talk. To me. Like that.”
“Lemme ’lone.”
“Junie. We have to talk. Have you seen these?” he said. On the coffee table, their bills were laid out in neat columns. “I don’t mean to sound heartless, but do you have any idea how much your mother’s hospice care is costing us?”
“Yes…. No…. Doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter if you look at these bills. But if you look at these bills, you’ll see we’re already eighty thousand dollars in debt.”
She crumpled into the love seat facing him. “Fuck.”
“How about your endorsement deals? How are those going?”
“I-I rarely get those anymore. Stupid Mz. Elite and stupid Diamond Girl scoop up the bes’ tons.”
“What happened to that Goya commercial you were talking about?”
“They went with L-La Nalgona. She’s got a much bigger…bigger profile.” She giggled.
“Shit then, what are we going to do? Because these bills aren’t going to pay themselves, my dear. Listen, again, not to be heartless, maybe there’ll be a little something in your mother’s will. Do you know?”
“You fuck!”
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