Hero

by Perry Moore

  "Uh, you still have to put the flag in the holder, you know," Uberman reminded me, never breaking his smile. Of course I did. I played it up for the audience. I gripped the flagpole with both my hands, held it high above my head, and swung it around. The cheers grew louder. I went to plunge the pole into the holder, Beowulf delivering the final blow to Grendel, and swung down with all my might.

  The flag never reached the holder.

  A lone, impossibly strong hand grabbed my wrist in a vise grip and stopped the flag in midair. I looked up, startled. It was my father.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DAD'S EYES GLARED, and his voice shook with anger.

  "Get home. Now."

  I swallowed and my heart caught in my throat.

  I stared into his eyes; they were bloodshot and wild.

  "I know everything." His hand trembled with fury around the flagpole. The crowd of heroes around me stood in stunned silence. I'm not sure they recognized him yet.

  "I found the pictures."

  Out of all the times I'd seen him fly into a rage, I'd never seen him this angry. It scared me more than when I was a kid and he'd grabbed the thick leather belt, snapped it loud to instill fear.

  My mouth was open, but no words came out. I didn't know what to say to make this better. I looked around and saw my team gathered nearby. Uberman looked on with curiosity and then stepped in.

  "Excuse me, sir, why don't we escort you both to our reception area, where we can talk this out." He put a calming hand on Dad's shoulder.

  Dad's head whipped around and he pushed Uberman away, the way a drunk in a bar would start a fight with someone who didn't see it coming. I heard a few gasps in the crowd. Warrior Woman was on us in a flash, Silver Bullet and the Spectrum close behind.

  "I don't know how you got in here, but this is a private function. You are not welcome!" Warrior Woman turned my father around by the shoulder, ready to kick him out.

  I saw the three heroes' faces drop and their eyes widen as they recognized my father, years older and still wearing the factory uniform from his shift. A tiny word of recognition escaped Silver Bullet's lips.

  "Hal?"

  Dad spoke to Warrior Woman through clenched teeth.

  "Get your hands off me, and give me back my son"

  He swung her arm off his shoulder by her golden bracelet. If she hadn't been a demi-immortal, he would have dislocated her shoulder. His stare was still fixed squarely on me.

  "We'll talk about this at home."

  I looked around, mortified. A wave of whispers spread through the crowd, and I saw Golden Boy explaining to Miss Scarlett exactly who this middle-aged man in front of them was. I saw Scarlett mouth, "No shit!" Ruth stood back from the crowd, her face lowered, and I wondered if she'd seen this coming. And if she had, why hadn't she warned me? I stared at her for a few moments, hoping to make eye contact, but she never looked up.

  "Dad, hold on, let me explain!" I didn't know what I was going to say, but I had to try something. I'd worked too hard to lose everything now. Uberman was piecing together who Dad was. I suddenly understood the lure of my mother's power. All I wanted to do was disappear.

  Dad grabbed me roughly by the bicep and started to drag me toward the door. I knew my arm would be badly bruised tomorrow, but I was numb to the pain. All eyes were on me, and I wanted time to stop so I could run away. I was humiliated, disciplined like a little boy in front of the entire League and all its tryout squads. He yanked at me so hard that I stumbled over my feet and fell toward the ground, but he kept his grip on my arm so I didn't hit the floor. I skidded along the ground as Dad pulled me toward the exit. I wanted to yell for him to stop, that he was hurting me.

  "Hal."

  Everyone looked up to see Justice lower himself from the sky and hover over the ground in between us and the exit.

  "Let's go someplace where we can talk about this privately." Justice glanced at me with a look of sympathy. "Please."

  My father's jaw clenched with rage, he shook ever so slightly, and I thought he might explode.

  "How dare you tell me what to do with my son." Tiny lines of spit flew from Dad's mouth at Justice. "You."

  "Dad, please ..." I begged him to stop.

  "Thom, you shouldn't have lied to your father, but that was your choice." Justice remained calm. He held his hand up like a teacher cautioning a hyper child to take a time-out. "Hal, think about what you're doing. Think about your son for a minute." Justice actually landed his two feet on the ground in front of my father. He placed his hands on his shoulders. I couldn't tell what he was doing, if he was maybe using his powers to quell Dad's rage.

  "Listen to me, Hal. He's good. He's got a lot of potential." I watched my Dad listen with his best poker face. Totally still. Maybe Justice was getting through. "He could really be something, Hal."

  I watched Dad and tried to figure out what he was thinking. If he could be turning a corner in his brain. Maybe he was beginning to believe there was a place for his son on the very team he so hated.

  And then the unthinkable happened.

  Dad slugged Justice. Square in the jaw, an old-fashioned right hook, something straight out of the boxing ring. The force of the blow knocked Justice over, and he stumbled backward. The entire crowd gasped. I didn't turn around, but I heard the commotion of murmurs behind me.

  Justice looked up at Dad from the ground and rubbed his chin. All of us knew a mere punch couldn't harm him physically, but still, no one had ever seen him take a sucker punch straight to the face like that. It was a shock to everyone, and silence filled the room as people waited to see what he would do next.

  Dad stood over him, fury in his eyes, his feet poised to move, his arms held up like vipers ready to strike. Justice slowly moved to get up.

  And then I grabbed Dad's arm.

  "Stop it, Dad!"

  I knew better than to touch Dad when he was in one of his combat rages. The minute I grabbed his arm, I triggered his natural defense, a reaction as instinctive as his desire to protect me. He whipped around and grabbed me by the collar and pinned me against the wall with his fist raised. I saw his nostrils flare, and a network of blood vessels bulged out from his forehead, seething red.

  I closed my eyes and held up my arms in defense—-not that they would have done much good against a crushing blow from him. I waited for the impact, but it didn't come. When I finally gathered the courage to open my eyes, I looked through my fingers and saw my dad.

  His paternal instinct had won out, just barely. His chest heaved with effort as he tried to breathe himself into submission. I looked in his eyes and instead of rage I saw fear.

  Then I scanned each and every face in the crowd, from Golden Boy to the Galaxy Twins to Warrior Woman to Uberman to Justice to Ruth—a guilty and pained expression on her face—to every last person who thought they could one day live up to the title of hero. I felt their collective look bear down upon my father. That look reminded me of the way he'd stared at me after that basketball game where we all pretended not to hear the kid who called me the gay guy. Although their reactions varied slightly according to personality, there was one common denominator.

  They all looked at my father with contempt.

  He relaxed his fighting pose and tried to hold his head high. He looked at me and slowly reached out his hand.

  "Let's go, Thorn," he said softly.

  I ran out of the room and didn't look back.

  It had started to rain, so I hitchhiked home. It was the first and only time I'd ever done anything that stupid. The old guy in the car seemed nice enough and tried to strike up a conversation, but I just watched the windshield wipers go back and forth as they squeaked against the glass. If I opened my mouth to say anything, I was afraid I would cry or scream out in frustration.

  He let me out by the highway exit near our neighborhood. I walked the rest of the way in the rain, and I couldn't tell if it was warm or cold outside. I pushed open the front door and ran upstairs, two at a time
, and stopped in the hallway. I looked at the trail of pictures that led from my room to his.

  I reached down and carefully picked up each picture, tears streaming from my eyes. He'd ripped a few, crumpled some others, but I vowed to straighten them out and tape them up and fix them later. They were scattered all over his bedroom; he must have thrown them at the wall in his rage. I reached under his bed and found some more. One had even made it all the way under the closet door.

  I opened the closet to get the photo and picked it up. It was the shot of my mother at her graduation from teachers college. Although Dad had torn it in two, you could still see Mom. She looked up at me with a sly grin on her face like we now both knew what she was smiling about. I looked up and saw Dad's old costume hanging up in front of me in its fresh dry-cleaning bag.

  Seconds later I darted downstairs to the refrigerator and grabbed a pan of leftover lasagna and two jars of tomato sauce. I took the stairs four at a time as I raced back up to his bedroom. I ripped the flimsy plastic off his old costume and yanked it out by the hanger and threw it on the floor.

  I opened a jar of tomato sauce and slung it at the jacket. Red sauce sprayed across the lapels as if a sword had sliced through the front, and blood and gook had gushed out of the wound. I threw the other jar on the costume lengthways, all the way down one of the pant legs. Then I dumped the old lasagna on the outfit and jumped on top of it to mash it in. When I felt like I'd ground in as much as I could, I hawked all the phlegm I could gather in my throat and spit on it.

  I stepped off the old costume, pulled back, and felt my heart pounding in my chest. My mind flashed to the image of my father standing over me, his fist raised to strike, his breast heaving as he struggled to control his anger. I didn't want to be like him that way. I looked at the mess, took a few deep breaths, and carefully put the ruined suit back inside the cheap plastic wrapper and hung it in the closet.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I SHOULD HAVE CARRIED an umbrella with me. lt was still spitting rain outside, but I'd left in a hurry because I didn't want to be there when Dad got home. The patter of the rain was growing into louder thumps against the rusting green enamel of the generator. I watched a few cars come and go, then finally worked up the courage to hop off the generator and go inside the Purple Cactus.

  I probably looked like death, and I really could have used a breath mint, but I hadn't thought about any of that when I left the house. I tried to block the whole day out of my mind; if I didn't go in now while I had the courage to do it, then I never would. I put one foot in front of the other, and before I knew it I was walking toward the entrance.

  The direction of my feet articulated my thoughts. This was not my crowd. I did not belong here.

  Maybe I should just consider lifelong celibacy, join a monastery, and I'd be much happier, all my problems solved. The rain began to come down in sheets. I started to run, but I was soaked before I even got past the first row of cars. I shoved my hands in my pockets and slowed down to a bitter, soaked trot.

  I rounded the corner and almost smacked into a car as it pulled out from its space. It screeched to a halt, and the passenger-side window rolled down.

  "You okay?" the driver said from inside.

  "I'm fine." Jerk. He should pay better attention when he drives.

  I turned to walk away, but I was surprised by what he said next.

  "Need a lift?"

  I looked down at the driver. He was cute. Broad shoulders. About ten years older than I was. Maybe a little stocky. Maybe a little short; I couldn't really tell since he was sitting in the car. The car looked warm and dry inside, and I was soaking wet and shivering, and it was a long way home. It seemed stupid to get into a car with a stranger, but I could handle myself.

  I bit my lower lip and thought about it for a second. He reached over and pushed the door open.

  "What's your name?"

  Since I'd never done this before, I didn't know if it was bad protocol to lie.

  "John," I said. I counted the streetlights and tried to relax.

  "I'm Simon," he said. He unwrapped a peppermint and

  popped it in his mouth as he drove. I think he noticed me looking at the candy longingly. "You want one?"

  I nodded, and he handed me a mint.

  "That place is kinda cheesy, huh?"

  "Yeah, I guess." Like I'd ever been inside.

  I looked over at Simon and noticed how pale his skin was. I bet he wouldn't get tan if he spent a whole summer on the beach. The streetlights made his skin glow even whiter, and the reflection of the raindrops trickling down the windshield gave the impression that his skin was weeping. His face looked kind but maybe a little tired, like he worked nights or something. He put his hand on my knee and gave it a light pat.

  "Relax," he said. "I don't bite." He crunched on his peppermint. "So where do you live?"

  In an instant I knew I had a choice to make about what I wanted to say. Now or never.

  "Let's go somewhere else," I suggested.

  He raised an eyebrow and grinned. "How old are you?"

  "I just turned twenty-one last week." I was getting good at lying.

  "Happy birthday," Simon said. "You look familiar. Have I seen you in there befo—"

  "No." I was too brusque, and he could tell. An awkward silence followed.

  "You sure you don't want me to drive you home?"

  I stared straight ahead.

  "We can just talk if you want," he offered, and I could tell he really meant it. That was a nice thing for him to say.

  "Let's go somewhere else," I suggested again.

  * * *

  God, why'd it have to be a church. Simon explained that he'd recently kicked his two roommates out after a big fight, and they were still packing, so we couldn't go there. I couldn't tell if they were linked romantically or by business, but it was clear he didn't want to dwell on it, so I didn't. He suggested we find a quiet place to park, and I looked at his chest and muscular thighs and thought that was a great idea, but c'mon, a church?

  "No one'll bug us here," he said, and pulled into the parking lot. Then a thought entered my mind: maybe he came to this church for a reason, maybe he was the preacher, or maybe he taught Sunday school or something and got off on coming here to—

  He caressed my cheek. His hand felt warm and good. "You all right?"

  I looked up into his eyes and nodded. My mouth suddenly went bone dry, and I really wanted another peppermint.

  He leaned in and tilted his head slightly, and I closed my eyes and thought that I should really take note of what happened next, because this was my first kiss. Well, my first kiss with someone I really wanted to kiss. There'd been a lot of girls and make-out sessions once I'd hit puberty, but nothing I'd really wanted to do. Mostly it was just at the end of some stupid party and we would have paired off arbitrarily, and I'd just end up kissing them because I didn't want to be responsible in any way for their low self-esteem or future eating disorders or whatever.

  I ran my hand through his hair and imagined Uberman. Simon's hair wasn't as thick or as long, but it was blond, so that gave me something to go on. That was probably a shitty thing to do. Not that I was an expert on kissing, but to think about someone else while you're kissing didn't seem right. I let the moisture of his lips soak my own. He was gentle. I was used to adolescent girls who wanted to get in as much action as they could before curfew, but he took his time. He had his thumb and forefinger under my chin and gently smoothed his lips over mine. His saliva tasted slightly metallic.

  His other hand crept around my waist, and he pulled me in close. My back arched slightly at his touch. I'd never felt a sensation like that, someone else in the driver's seat, but I liked it. His hand untucked my shirttail and he began to run his fingers across the small of my back, and I could feel tiny hairs stand on their ends as he touched me. Not wanting to be one-upped, I reached my hand under the back of his sweater and ran my hand up the smooth curve of his back. I stopped short at the
back of his neck and opened my eyes when I felt a strange, coarse patch on his skin so dry it was almost scaly.

  He could feel me stop for a second.

  "Sorry," he said, embarrassed. "Just a little eczema."

  I pulled my hand out of his sweater, and he started kissing my upper lip, tiny wet nibbles, then deeper lunges with his tongue. The force of his tongue kept my own firmly in my mouth. My eyes were slightly open, enough so I could see through my eyelashes. That way, I could take everything in, and if he opened his eyes to look, he wouldn't catch me staring at him.

  He opened his eyes to see if I was getting back into it, if I hadn't been too grossed out by his back. I saw the insecurity inhis eyes, and suddenly I wanted him to feel good. He'd been kind, and he was cute, and I liked the warm feeling I felt rising up in me while I was kissing him. I'd always felt like I didn't measure up, like I wasn't good enough or that I'd never be loved the way I wanted to, and the last thing I wanted to do was make someone else feel self-conscious or bad. So I leaned into him and pushed my tongue down his throat, swirled it around, deep and vigorous, so that he'd think he was the be-all and end-all of kissers, when really he was up to this point the only one I'd ever experienced. I think I must have really caught him off guard, because while my tongue wandered around the inside of his mouth I felt the edge of a sharp tooth and he recoiled, and I fell back in my seat.

  "What was that for?" I landed on the seat belt, which was poking me in the back.

  He wiped the spit off his lower lip like a kid would wipe away chocolate icing when he was caught sneaking a lick from the cake. He shrugged.

  "It's nothing."

  We sat perfectly still for what seemed like a really long time. When he finally started talking again, he pretended that he wasn't weirded out and we were just getting to know each other and maybe we should just talk. He asked me again how old I was, and I think he was embarrassed when I told him the truth. I can't even remember what we talked about, maybe he asked me about what music I liked. I didn't really notice. I did notice that his mouth had gone really dry, and when it did he had the ever-so-slight hint of a lisp.