Erotic Lives of the Superheroes

by Marco Mancassola

  He was braced to not answer letters, not reply to emails, and even to ignore calls. He was braced to tell everyone that he just wanted to be left alone. But what happened that day was that no calls came in, and there were none in the days that followed either. Silence enveloped his life. His friends respected his grief, or more likely they were embarrassed by it. People are embarrassed by other people’s pain. They are relieved by thinking that there is nothing more they can do for you.

  He wondered whether Sue’s friends were different. He wondered what she was doing during these days of aftermath, whether she had managed to cry, or if she was just sitting, invisible, in the corner of a room. Thinking about Sue filled him with anguish. She was his mother. Sue was his mother, and I was his father.

  *

  In the following days, the dreams with Franklin came back often, as did the dreams with Elaine. Each time, he woke up smoothly, as though it were a minor transition, and as though dream state and waking state had the same substance. There was no break in continuity. There was no difference. Both when dreaming and when awake, he felt his body burn, both dreaming and awake he felt the same impulse. The impulse to stretch without knowing towards what.

  Sometimes the telephone startled him awake in the early morning. It was almost always the police calling, about logistical issues with the security detail assigned to guard his apartment. On a couple of occasions, the investigators had come to talk to him about progress on the case. When Reed told them about the anonymous notes he’d received over the previous months, saying SO LONG, MY MISTER FANTASTIC, Detective De Villa had nodded with a look of surprise. He stood there, thinking, cautiously stroking his chin. “I really would like to know who’s sending these notes. Apparently Batman received a similar farewell note. You should have told us about them, Mr. Richards.”

  “My God.” Reed could barely speak. Words continued to have an unsustainable weight on his lips. “Do you think that these notes were a warning of some kind?”

  “Let’s just say…” De Villa had seemed about to utter something. Then he decided against it and limited himself to observing: “We don’t know whether they were sent by the same people who organised the attack. In any case, you should have told us about them.”

  Then one afternoon it was Ben’s turn. Reed had just woken up from one of his restless naps to hear the phone ringing, and he got up to answer it. His old friend’s gruff voice filled the receiver. “Listen, Reed. Don’t let your sense of helplessness weigh you down; don’t let your sense of guilt crush you. We still don’t know for sure if the bomb was meant for you, and even if it was, there was nothing you could do to prevent what happened.”

  Reed listened to the breathing of his faraway friend. He let a long pause go by, hypnotised by the sound of that respiration that echoed in his ear, like the hum of a waiting ocean. “I could have taken those notes seriously. I could have taken Detective De Villa’s visits and calls seriously while we were still in time. Maybe there was something we could have done. Now it’s too late. It’s too late even to understand.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ben asked. “It’s not your fault that Franklin’s dead. But it’s your duty to figure out who was responsible.”

  “We know who it was. A group of anti-superhero fanatics. The same group that plotted Batman’s murder.”

  “Okay. But who’s the mastermind behind that group? Reed, we need to learn every detail. Unless we manage to find out everything, how are we supposed to survive?”

  “I don’t know.” He gulped uneasily and tried to explain the way he felt: “Look at the Batman case. The trial has been going on for weeks and by now it’s obvious that there will never be a complete resolution. Something horrible is happening, Ben. If you want, you can call it terrorism. You can call it a plot, you can call it what you want. We’re bound to lose our minds no matter what we do, whether we try to find out more or we give up. And if we really do find out that the bomb was meant for me…” He closed his eyes and shivered. “I don’t even want to think about it.”

  Ben let out a groan. “I can’t believe you’re talking this way. For the first few days you were furious, vowing revenge and pledging to do all you could to help the police.” His voice was quivering with indignation. “If it’s the way you say now, what’s left for us to do? If we can’t find out everything about the perpetrators, then what’s left for us to do? What’s left for you? Reed, what’ll you do?” Ben took a deep breath and then, with unexpected cruelty, suggested: “Will you just run away with your little darling?”

  Reed coughed. A thorn of sadness had just sunk into his throat. He sat there gaping until he answered in a woeful tone: “No, Ben. I won’t run away. There is no little darling.”

  Finally, two days later Detective De Villa came back. He was alone this time, without his fellow investigators. He said that there were some new developments and he seemed to hesitate, awkwardly, unsure whether Reed was ready to hear about them. According to the detective, several details seemed to point to the conclusion that Franklin might have been mistaken for his father. For example, the fact that the sauna reservation had been entered in the computer of the George Hotel under the simple heading: Richards. The fact that the hotel computer system had been hacked into, evidence that someone might have been able to access the reservation list. These circumstances, along with further details, suggested that Reed was the real target. The detective seemed pretty confident on this point.

  “Do you consider this evidence to be definitive?” Reed tried toughing it out.

  De Villa took his time before answering, his eyes inflamed like small embers, letting his gaze wander—indecipherable, serious—over Reed’s face. “These people didn’t want to kill the son of a superhero. This was just a horrendous mistake.”

  Reed lowered his head. “Do you have a family, Detective?” was the only thing he could think of asking.

  The detective gave a start. “No.” He took a step backwards, then corrected himself: “Actually, a brother. We don’t see much of each other.” Although he must have been at least thirty, in the light of day his face now seemed very young. That man with a cold, vulnerable face cleared his throat, and in a hoarse voice that sounded somehow emotional, he said: “Mr. Richards, I understand what you’re trying to say. You want to know whether I’m capable of imagining your loss. Believe me, I am. I can also imagine that what I came here today to tell you must have come as a further shock.”

  Reed dismissed the detective without another word. His throat was dry, all the moisture had been sucked out of it. There really was nothing more to be said. They killed the wrong Richards. My son died instead of me. The real target of the attack was Mister Fantastic. The real target was the old hero.

  *

  There was a time when that was the promised city, the place where everyone would be able to become themselves, a maze of crystal palaces capable of reflecting the sky in all its light. There was a time when that was the holy city, the chosen city, the city whose own salvation represented the salvation of all other cities, the city whose splendour was the very splendour of the world. Once that had been his city. Once he would have uttered the names—his name and the name of the city—as if they were the names of a pair of age-old lovers, who had existed for millennia one for the other.

  Reed went out in mid-morning. He took his guards by surprise, but they hastily followed him downstairs into the lobby and out into the street. There, instead of climbing into a car as he usually did, he turned and hurried away, merging into the stream of pedestrians.

  “Mr. Richards… Sir!” he heard one of the bodyguards call.

  Reed quickened his pace. New York pulsed like a quasar around him. Reed could feel the city’s vibration, made up of a thousand overlapping echoes, car engines, underground trains, multitudes of hearts beating as one on the surrounding sidewalks. He started to run, pursued by the increasingly concerned bodyguards, fishtailing among the crowds, zigzagging through the streets. He felt the pulsatio
n of the city in his rubber legs. More and more powerful, similar to a countdown.

  He wondered whether New York City, in spite of the distance, was vibrating expectantly for what would happen that day more than a thousand miles south of there. At the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida. The space probe would launch from there. A mission was about to leave the earth’s surface. This was Elaine’s big day, the day she’d leave for outer space.

  Reed raised his eyes to the sky, suffocating, as it dawned on him that Elaine was about to punch through that very same sky, escape into distant space, while he’d be left here, a prisoner, trapped under that white blanket, in that stifling greenhouse. The sun stung his skin. A layer of dampness had formed beneath Reed’s clothes, and his elastic body was growing wearier. He ducked into a subway entrance, giving his bodyguards the slip once and for all, and found himself on the station platform, looking down onto the tracks.

  He had to calm down. Catch his breath. Instead, he kept walking anxiously back and forth, along the platform, exchanging glances with other passengers who might, perhaps, have started to recognise him. An ageing superhero wearing a sweat-stained shirt. An old man, his face puffy, his hair a drab silvery colour.

  At last the tracks began to hiss. In the far distance, the lights of an oncoming train appeared, fast, bright, preceded by a gust of hot wind. Reed boarded and remained standing, balancing, without any idea of the train’s direction. He let himself be transported through the dark tunnel, piercing the bowels of the city. The train gathered speed. Away from the torment, away from everything. Away from the office, away from home, away from the bedroom where he dreamed of Franklin, where he dreamed of Elaine. Away from the streets where he’d been a hero, where everything had been within reach of his arms, and where now everything only stirred regret.

  Up there, the city continued to vibrate. Up there, people cut along the sidewalks, drank coffee, ate sandwiches, or reserved tables for lunch. Up there, people read the Village Voice, carried on conversations on their cell phones, piled up debt on their credit cards, looked for opportunities for the perfect vacation, dreamt of getting clean from their addictions, or simply of being able to fall in love once again. Up there, people lived their illusions, their disenchantments, repeating their time-worn actions, playing the same eternal roles.

  The train had stopped and pulled out of a series of stations. When Reed recognised the name of a stop in Brooklyn, something began to light up in his head. He got out at the next stop. He’d decided on his destination. He took a different train, this time heading east.

  Time passed. Reed let himself be carried along, increasingly certain about his destination, until he reached the last stop. Rockaway Beach. As he left the station he noticed that the temperature had risen. He walked towards the beach. The strip of sand lay before him, hot, brilliant, bordered further out by the line of the crashing waves. The murmur of the ocean came towards him, and the breeze pushed, through his shirt, against his rubbery chest.

  Reed took a breath. He took off his shoes. The sand was scorching hot, fragments of seashells pricked the soles of his feet. The sun forced him to lower his gaze. The footprints of a thousand strollers jumbled across the sand: maybe Ben’s and my footprints are still here. Or the footprints of that little boy who came up to us, asking Ben if his body was real. Just two weeks. Two weeks ago I was here, on this same beach, knowing nothing and foreseeing nothing.

  He wasn’t alone on the beach. People walked along the water’s edge, in silence, or lay on the sand basking in the sunlight, flattened by the touch of that powerful shaft of heat. People just as unsettled as he was. As estranged as he was. Shadow-people who slipped along, elusive, practically weightless, on the sun-whitened sand. Reed walked for a long time, pushed forward by the wind. The roar of the ocean seemed to be inciting him and whispering something into his ear. Reed thought he understood. He mustn’t stop here, he needed to continue his journey. He pushed on with his last remaining funds of energy, solemn, desperate, feeling his limbs straining, becoming tense. He stumbled and crashed to the ground. “Are you all right, sir? Do you need some help?”

  Whoever it was that spoke to him, they got no answer. Reed stood up, cut across the beach, heading towards the line of apartment buildings, and made his way back into the train station. This is what he needed: a ride north until he reached the Long Island Railroad, where he could catch a train heading east. Now he knew his final destination. Heading east, in the direction of Montauk.

  On the train, he felt other passengers watching him. His clothes were covered with sand, and only now did he realise that he was missing something. My shoes. I must have lost them somewhere on the beach. He sat there staring at his feet, unembarrassed, somehow deeply moved by the sight of those extremities, so naked, so helpless. He thought of Elaine’s feet, the feet of women he’d loved. He thought of Ben’s rock feet, of Franklin’s soft baby feet. He thought of people’s feet, their hands, the places where people came to an end, meeting the external world. The train was speeding along Long Island, lengthwise, towards the Hamptons and then leaving them behind. Village after village. Outside the window, the island sailed past like a dense, prolonged dream, and the ocean glittered in snatches, in the distance, parallel to the tracks.

  It was a fairly long ride. It took a couple of hours. At last, Reed got off the train at the end of the line, in the small town with an Indian name. Montauk, the last outpost. The tip of the island, the farthest extremity. The point where this rich island came to an end, yawning out into the void, into the vastness of the ocean, out towards the dark belly of the Atlantic. Waiting outside the station was a single taxi. Reed got in without a word, meeting the driver’s startled glance.

  “Where do you want to go?” the driver asked his passenger, staring at him in the rear-view mirror.

  “To the lighthouse,” Reed replied.

  “Beautiful place,” the taxi driver said. “It’s a romantic place, in fact. Young lovers go crazy for that lighthouse.” He let a moment pass: “Are you coming from New York, sir? Are you sure you feel all right?” he asked immediately after that, as though the two questions were linked.

  “Don’t worry,” Reed said. “I have money for the fare. Just take me to the lighthouse, please. I’ve been travelling all day to get here.”

  The car pulled out almost without a sound. The streets of the town were steeped in calm. Silent tourists wandered around like phantoms. The taxi left the residential section and pushed out into the greenery of the promontory, gliding along with the utmost apparent tranquillity in the silvery light. The sky seemed made of crystal. The lighthouse loomed up before them, coming closer and closer, like the stalk of a giant, solitary flower. The ocean foamed past the rocky shoreline. The car came to a halt in the parking area, where an American flag fluttered in the breeze and Reed got out of the cab, greeted by the roar of the ocean.

  He bought a ticket to the top of the lighthouse. He started climbing the iron steps. He must be the only visitor. His breathing echoed throughout the stairwell, until he emerged into the open at the top of the tower. He gripped the handrail, trembling. At last I’m here. It took me so long. When was I last here? Maybe when Franklin was still a little boy.

  He really was the only visitor, and suddenly he relaxed, grateful for the solitude, grateful for the sound of the sea and the waves. For the first time in days, maybe in months, he felt something resembling peace. There was a sense to his being here. There was a sense to the lighthouse itself. Oh, that beacon had guided generations of sailors. From the top of that tower, generations of lighthouse-keepers had sent out beams of light, over the centuries, and had scanned the horizon with eyes full of hope, terror, or yearning. Off to the left, you could just make out the coast of New England; straight ahead, the deep blue vastness. Ocean, and nothing but ocean. Scudding foam, flowing current, a liquid mirror covering seismic faults, seabeds, underwater mountain chains, shipwrecks, a mass of salty water that smacked of tears: the tears of America, the tea
rs of Europe.

  Reed went on scrutinising the horizon. “Europe,” he whispered. “Europe,” he said again, savouring the sound of that word, like the sound of a forgotten promise. Then he uttered other names, one by one, letting the wind carry them off: “Franklin.” “Elaine.” “Sue.” He cleared his throat. “Reed,” he said the name last, as an evocation, as if on the far side of the ocean, on the distant coast of the other continent, a new Reed might stand listening.

  He began taking off his clothes. His body shivered in spite of the heat. Once stripped bare, he felt a shock, something ambiguous and almost erotic, a quiver not entirely disagreeable. He wished he could touch someone. He felt the lack of everyone, he missed everything. The world is here in front of me. He needed something to grab onto. After extending his legs until they had stretched out into two thin ropes, he knotted them tightly to the railing. There, that’s it. He felt no pain. It was as if he were anaesthetised, possessed, as if his body had ceased to be his own. As if his body were making decisions for itself, finally free. Reed felt confused and yet clear-minded. It’s absurd. I have to do this. My God, he thought, tempted to laugh at himself, high atop that lighthouse, naked, knotted to the railing. He extended his torso out into the void. He took a breath and launched himself.