by Tom De Haven
“Clark!”
Clark, on the other hand, isn’t the kind of a guy who’s going to snatch you from the drink or catch you when you’re falling but he has been, well … considerate—too damn considerate—in the aftermaths of her close calls. Appearing suddenly at pierside with a blanket, fashioning in the wilds of Jersey a splint for her sprained ankle, showing up in the Garment District with a thermos of Irish coffee when her nerves were still jangly, finding her a sweater at Madison Square Garden after her blouse was slashed immodestly to ribbons. And so on.
He calls her Lois.
And she calls him Nicely-Nicely to hurt his feelings.
She does have a cold heart, she is a cold fish!
No, it’s not that, it’s … she’s fallen hard for Superman, as ridiculous and as impossible and as unwise as that is.
When she was growing up, her father told her dozens of times, “Lois, honey, a woman’s reach should exceed her grasp, but the way that you reach is just plain nuts!”
As it was with Willi Berg, it is now with Superman. Lois can never have him, not really.
And as it was with Ben Jaeger, it is now with Clark Kent. She can have Clark. Any day she likes.
So of course she doesn’t want him.
“Clark! Hey! Clark! I’m talking to you!”
How dare that Kansas cornball ignore her when she’s trying to talk to him!
Without thinking about it she stands on one leg, bends the other one parallel to the floor, and pulls off her shoe. Then the former shortstop for the girls’ high school softball team pegs it toward the box. After it bloops over the ledge she hears it clunk.
Clark’s head pops up from his forearms. Half rising and leaning forward, he looks straight down, dramatically startled, then immediately flustered, to discover Lois standing there. His face is shiny with tears. With evident embarrassment he whips off his glasses, drying his eyes against his shoulders. First the left, then the right.
He tries a smile now.
Lois just stares up, her arms and hands tingling oddly.
Without those thick old-man spectacles he looks so different. Almost like another …
She says, “Clark?”
8
And here, at last, is the point where our version of the story merges with all of the others, the point at which Lois Lane (with one shoe on and one shoe off) peers up at Clark Kent (whose glasses are once again back on his face) with a dawning but already deep suspicion that feels strangely gleeful, almost like affection. (Clark?) The point at which Clark Kent pushes a hand shyly, flusteredly (but actorishly, too) back through his thick hair and smiles at Lois Lane. (Lois?) The point at which he is filled up with and surrounded by a plain and yet intricate awe: he came maybe a trillion miles to be here. This moment, this point in time, this point in space feels both destined and deserved, earned and inevitable. He is in a theater on the island of Manhattan, in the city of New York, in the state of New York, in the United States of America, on the continent of North America, on the planet Earth, in the solar system, in the universe, in the mind of God—whatever that means. Somehow he got here. Somehow he did. And somehow Lois Lane got here, too. She has the loveliest eyes he will ever see, and he wants to see those eyes every single day, forever. And if she won’t love him, love him, he still will love her, love her all the more. And because he will—he will go on out and do the best that he can, like everybody else.
Just like everybody else.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TOM DE HAVEN is the author of eight novels, including the Derby Dugan trilogy, and the nonfiction book Our Hero: Superman on Earth. A frequent contributor to The New York Times, he lives in Virginia, where he teaches creative writing at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
IT’S SUPERMAN! A NOVEL
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PART ONE: THE WPA GUIDE TO SMALLVILLE
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
PART TWO: WAYFARING STRANGERS
XIII
PART THREE: THE SAUCER-MAN FROM TINSELTOWN
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
PART FOUR: ANYTHING FOR HALLOWEEN?
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
PART FIVE: FIRST-NIGHTERS
XXVII
ABOUT THE AUTHOR