Normalized (The Complete Quartet)

by David Bussell

  I gave it a shot anyhow. Since the best clue the C.H.A.M.P database had to offer was something called a ‘devitalizing kinetic absorption ray’ (which made about as much sense to me as an umbrella with diarrhea) I made a stab at diagnosing my symptoms online instead. I couldn’t find anything on Web MD about scarlet space lasers though, so I got sidetracked and lost the morning down a Wiki hole. I didn’t find a cure for my condition but I did discover that Daphne from Frasier used to be on The Benny Hill show, so I guess that’s something.

  I got to thinking that enlisting the help of a professional might not be the worst idea after all. It would have to be someone I could trust though. Someone with medical expertise who knew how to keep their trap shut. That’s when I remembered the therapist Birdy had sent my way, Doctor Love. Maybe she’d have come clue about what had happened to me, and even if she didn’t, it couldn’t hurt to vent some spleen. I’m telling you, I’m under more stress right now than The Inevitable Bulk’s underpants.

  I had my reservations about shrinks, sure, but Doctor Love and her kind were on the side of the angels, I knew that. You wanna know who watches the watchmen? It’s people like her. Trust me, it pays to know when a cape’s about to go off the deep end. The last thing we need is another carry on like a few years back when Exxon spilled oil all over the Maine coast and Fish Face went absolutely bugf*ck.[53]

  I tracked down Love’s number and gave her a call. After I’d finished rounding out my apology for last time she agreed to a session. We couldn’t talk at C.H.A.M.P though I said, too many snoops.

  “I need to see you in a private place,” I told her. I heard it as soon I said it. “I don’t mean your private place,” I explained, “I mean private like out of the office. I just want to be clear I wasn’t talking about your vagina.”

  I was beginning to wonder if Professor D’eath had made off with more than just my superpowers.

  Thankfully I wasn’t the first train wreck Doctor Love had encountered and she agreed to host my session at her apartment. Things started out stiff as a starched cummerbund. Doctor Love shooed me into a study, sat me down and reached for her notepad without so much as a howdy-do. Instead she kicked things off with a series of questions about my childhood. Going back that far felt like a heck of a rewind to me, but since I wasn’t ready to talk about my superdick going soft just yet, I decided to play ball.

  Reminiscing about being a kid dredged up some things, like the time I demolished the south side of Mom’s house blowing out the candles on my fourteenth birthday cake. It was a mishap is all. I wasn’t trying to upset but she damned near tore my head off about it. I only made matters worse when she sent me to my room and I slammed the door so hard I almost gave New York a fault line.

  Doctor Love asked about my Dad too. I told her I didn’t think about him much anymore, not since he died in a car wreck. It’s not that I don’t want to talk about him I said, it’s just been so many years now that my memory of him is starting to get foggy. The aftershock that followed Dad’s accident though, that I remembered like crystal. Friends and family not knowing what to say, avoiding eye contact, crossing the street to avoid me. There’s no forgetting that.

  “I’m getting an echo of that now,” I told her, “folks doing a one-eighty when they see me, like I’m repelling them with some invisible force field.”

  Doctor Love looked up from her notepad then and, I don’t know, maybe I’m imagining it, but it felt like we shared something in that moment. Something real. Something that made me glad to be human, superpowered or otherwise. Or it could just have been that hotdog I ate yesterday; that thing was hella sketchy.

  February 4th

  Since I put the work in yesterday I reckoned I owed myself a pick-me-up, and I knew just the pick to get me up. A quick swipe through my contacts gave me Super-Model’s number, and a couple of single entendre texts later I had myself an invite to her place. What can I tell you, this biz comes with some sweet, sweet honey. Nothing like super friends with benefits, amirite?

  It was great seeing Super-Model again. She looked like dynamite – scratch that, she looked like six foot of semtex dipped in a tub of nitro-glycerine and stacked with a serious set of sweater melons. Sorry I lost the train of my explosives metaphor there, but those puppies are straight up mind-scrubbers.

  “Come on in,” Super-Model said, opening the door and drawing a finger across her cleavage.

  That girl was down to clown. We talked hero stuff and flirted some and after a little mutual mastication (you might call it “dinner”), the two of us headed to the bedroom to get friendly.[54]

  I laid Super-Model down on the mattress, peeled off her costume and drank her in. God, she was beautiful. I was ready to go straight up Caligula on that ass. Best slow my roll though – ease on the brakes. I didn’t want to go off half-cocked; after all, it had been a while since I’d been with a woman (well, women – specifically all the women of the Knicks City Dancers).[55]

  ‘Half-cocked’ is a pretty apt description of the way things went down though, only not in the way I’d expected. I was into Super-Model heart and soul but it just wasn’t happening down south. There I was fretting about being a two-pump chump and instead I was playing pool with rope! Try as I might I could not get my motor running, and God knows I gave the starter some tugs!

  I was determined to turn things around though; at least until she turned me around by slamming me onto my back like she was flipping a wood louse. Nothing I could do to stop her, I was totally at her mercy. The woman was using me for a whore! She climbed on top and started grinding on me and I heard my bones making a sound like gravel in a cotton candy machine. It was agony. The rough stuff might have been a blast last time but without my superpowers to protect me I was in real trouble. Fearing for my life, I yelled out our safe word.

  “Excelsior!”

  But she pretended not to hear and carried on jackhammering me into the bed frame. CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH.

  “It’s clobberin’ time!” she hollered, head thrown back, breasts bouncing up and down like a pair of excited pacmen.

  If I didn’t do something fast she was going to turn my pelvis into a jigsaw puzzle.

  I begged her, “For Chrissakes get off!”

  Super-Model withdrew, snatching the bed sheets around her perfect body and making a face like she’d drank an onion smoothie.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she hissed. “Get out of here! Go on, go!”

  Dumped mid-pump. I ducked a barrage of clothes as she sent my outfit to every corner of the room. She didn’t even give me time to gather up my undies before she booted me out and bolted the door behind me, leaving me stood on her stoop half naked and with a pair of migraines in my balls.

  What the hell? I’m telling you, that lady has problems. Nothing like the problems I’m having walking right now, but damn.

  February 5th

  Today I had my second session with Doctor Love. I still wasn’t ready to open up about losing my powers so I talked about my relationship with my brother instead, which hadn’t exactly made for plain sailing lately. Heck, our waters had gotten so choppy it’s like a kraken ate bad taco and dropped a sub-sea ass burp.

  As an exercise, Doctor Love had me handwrite a letter saying all the things I wanted to tell Birdy but never could. One of those ‘get it out of your system/not to be mailed’ type deals. It was tough putting all that stuff on paper but I did feel better once it was done. Not soar into the sky and roll a cloud around my mouth better, but a bit lighter about the shoulders anyway.[56]

  February 6th

  Apparently Birdy’s Hero-Wing was in for a service after its jump jet backfired during take off and charbroiled some dog-walker’s pug. Being as my place was on his way back from the shop, he decided to swing by and hit me up for a lift. Literally.

  “Saddle up, hoss,” he said, slinging the man hammock at me.

  I stood there holding the papoose, not knowing what to do.

  “What are you waiting for,
bro?” he asked. “Let’s get out there and bust some bad guys.”

  He slipped the leather straps over my shoulders and made the necessary adjustments, then climbed aboard and buckled himself in. I strained to act as if Birdy’s weight didn’t register, desperately trying to figure a way to bail on the situation, but all I could do was shuffle along as he spurred me to the balcony.

  My toes curled over the edge of the platform. I felt my breakfast make a return trip at the sight of the tiny people twenty floors below – Braille dots spelling out my suicide note. Vertigo grabbed hold of my head and squeezed. My eyeballs felt as though they were stood out on their stalks. My knees turned to mush and I teetered like a drunk at his ex’s wedding.

  “Come on,” said Birdy. “What’s the hold up?”

  This was a situation that was only going to resolve itself one of two ways. Remembering my oath to never die screaming, I snapped into action.

  “No.”

  “No what?” Birdy asked.

  “No, you don’t get a lift,” I explained as I unbuckled him, crossed my arms and did my best impression of miffed. “What am I, your chauffer? Either you ride in the man hammock or you fly your crisis-mobile, you can’t have both.”

  “Are you serious.”

  “As cancer.”

  Birdy’s wings twitched like they do when he gets in a snit. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll make my own way.”

  And he left.

  February 7th

  I was feeling lousy over the way things had gone with Birdy yesterday so I booked a session with Doctor Love to talk it through. Trouble is I couldn’t really explain the tension between me and my brother without explaining how going along with his request would have ended in a 200 mph sidewalk smooch. No way around it, if I wanted the Doc’s help I had some fessing up to do.

  I told Love everything; about Professor D’eath and his crimson space laser and the whole getting neutered thing. I told her exactly how I felt. Like I lost my whole identity. Like my soul had dropped out of my ass. Like my whole adult life I defined myself by a bunch of superpowers, and now they’d dried up I didn’t know who I was anymore. Being super was my whole draw, I told her. Without my powers I was Captain Might in name only. If I couldn’t leap a tall building in a single bound then who was I? Just a shell where a man used to be? A husk? Was I even that?

  It was such a relief getting it all off my chest, and Doctor Love couldn’t have been more understanding about it. She listened without judgment as I told her how I’d been living a lie these past few weeks, and when I told her that no one – but no one – could know the tread was off my tire, she swore that my secret was safe.

  “This is a safe place,” she said. “A circle of trust.”

  We talked at length about how we were going to work together to try and remedy my situation. See, Love had a theory. Way she saw it, losing my superpowers might not be a physical thing, it could all be in my head. Psychosomatic she called it. According to her there was a chance I hadn’t lost my edge at all, just misplaced it.

  “There’s a good chance that the reason your powers have stopped working is because you’ve lost confidence in yourself.”

  “But what about that red lighting D’eath blasted me with?”

  “Forget about that. What if the thing that’s really laid you low isn’t some space age weapon? What if it’s your own self-doubt?”

  Could it be? Is it possible that I got so shook up losing two fights in a row that I just went gun shy? Was all this just a phase? Was there actually an end to the nesting doll of bullsh*t I’ve been going through?

  “So how do I get better?”

  “First of all you need to process what’s happened to you. My advice would be to stop internalizing. Share your experience with someone close to you.”

  It had to be Birdy. Of all the capes out there no one knows more about not being super than my twin brother. Sure, he might hang with heroes – might wear the cape and buddy with demi-gods – but you can pick up Birdy’s superhero trading card for a dime. Poor guy. I never stopped to think about it before but this nightmare of mine is pretty much his day-to-day.

  What an eye-opener. I never would have imagined a normal rescuing me, but Doctor Love’s shown me that the people of this city aren’t just there to be saved; they can save too. That woman really was the whole package – hot as hell and so smart she probably pooped encyclopedias. I wonder if a gal like her would ever go for a guy like me, because I’m telling you, for Doctor Love, I’d break my golden rule.[57]

  February 8th

  When an email landed in my inbox insisting I attend an office meeting my heart sank. Another of Birdy’s PowerPoint snooze-fests I figured. Ugh Then I took another look at the subject line. ‘Extraordinary Meeting,’ it said. That got me stoked. I’m not much for meetings, but an extraordinary meeting? Hell, sign me up!

  I arrived at the pow wow to discover I was the last guest to the party. C.H.A.M.P’s Chairman was there, the Company Secretary was there, even the Heads of Department had been called in. Something major was about to go down, no doubt about it. I saw Birdy across the room and tried reading him for clues but he wouldn’t meet my eye. Instead he pretended to be distracted by something outside the window; all fascinated, like he’d spotted The Loch Ness Monster sticking it to the Statue of Liberty.

  The Chairman showed me a seat and leaned forward, elbows on the board room table. He wore the vinegary face of a disappointed parent.

  “Captain Might, we have it on good authority that you have been operating these past few weeks minus superpowers. Do you deny this?”

  What the hell? I don’t know how, but somehow Birdy had figured out my secret – figured it out and gone straight to the suits with it. Just what kind of a snake pit had I waltzed into? My twin brother blowing the whistle on me? This was some Cain and Abel sh*t right here.

  “Goddamnit, Birdy, how could you narc me out like this?”

  “Narc you out? We are the narcs!” he said, jabbing the big shield on my chest.

  He didn't even do me the courtesy of apologizing – just gave me some tap dance about how I was going to get found out eventually and how this was for the good of the people. He even quoted the Heroes Code at me, the sanctimonious assh*le. I swear he was riding a horse so high you’d think he was sat on a Pegasus.

  After that it was back to getting reamed by the top brass, and boy, did they ever beast me.

  The Chairman was on his feet now. “You’re not fit to run a bath in your present state,” he said, “let alone a professional crime-fighting outfit.”

  The guy didn’t even give me a chance to say my piece before telling me I was relieved of duty –sh*tcanned, active immediately. Funny, I don’t remember hearing that kind of sass back when I could juggle a fleet of monster trucks.

  “What about Professor D’eath?” I said. “He gets to rob me blind and laugh about it from his death star while I take marching orders from a pack of pencil-pushers? Not in my America! This story doesn’t end until I have that crank in a chokehold begging me not to pop his head off.”

  “And how do you plan on doing that?” Birdy asked. “You’re the only man we had that could fly to the Moon and now you’re a brick. What are you going to do, walk to Cape Canaveral and strap yourself to a rocket?”

  And with that, the powers that be stamped my hero card inactive, tore the insignia off my chest and showed me the door. The door that stood between the legs of my own forty-foot tall effigy. How could they do this to me? I feel like I’ve been taken in the ass and sent home on a bicycle with no saddle.

  February 10th

  I’ll show them. I’ll show them real nice. But first I had to man up and get myself correct. Forget all this pansy-assed, psychosomatic, attitude-readjustment bull crap, what I needed was to get in shape, and preferably one that wasn’t a sphere. No point denying it, I was getting real soggy around the midriff. I’d blame my glands, but unless that big-ass bucket I ate last night was full of deep fried g
lands, I was going to have to take some personal responsibility.

  First stop was the gym. If I was going to wake up my hero muscles I figured I ought to be around my own kind, so I opted for Powerhouse, a twenty-four hour fitness joint tailor made for capes. Normal gyms aren’t built to take the kind of punishment superhumans dish out, which is why capes go to speciality places. Places with treadmills that can break the sound barrier and vibration plates that’ll turn a regular gym-goer into a pink mist. Powerhouse is the real deal too – an old fashioned sweatbox – not some goddamned leisure center. Who do they think they’re kidding? Until they invent an exercise machine that doles out pizzas and blowjobs, ‘leisure’ my ass.