The Midlife Crisis of Commander Invincible: A Novel (Yellow Shoe Fiction)

by Neil Connelly

  Over the next half-hour, a few cars make use of the curb service. Like the sedan, the vehicles are consistently high-end, which suggests something about the quality of the product I’m dealing with here. Technically, what I’m doing could be considered a stakeout, and I am now in violation of the union’s agreement with Kingdom Town’s PD. They can write me a goddamn ticket.

  While waiting, I try not to think about why I’m here. Instead, my mind goes somewhere else I’d rather avoid. It rolls back to that fire on South Holland, the part of the story I’ll never tell Debbie. From atop a water tower, I smelled the first wisps of smoke. The house was just below me, and I floated down into the fenced yard right away. The first flames were licking low on the clapboard at the front corner of the house. I could’ve blown the fire out right then with a blast of my ultrabreath. Hell, I could’ve grabbed the damn garden hose and extinguished it like any ordinary citizen. But I found myself hesitating. I backed away into the shadows, through the chains of a rusting swing set. I let the fire burn. Nobody inside was in danger. Not really, not with me around. I haven’t lost a civilian since Peru, and that was three years ago and under extraordinary circumstances. Gripping the swing chains, I waited till the smoke detector shrieked, and I heard the kids crying—a surprise. Then I stormed into action, and, yeah, I saved the day. This won’t make the news or anything, but nobody can deny it. When I stepped back and allowed the flames to rise up the side of that house, I didn’t know there were kids inside. If I did, I would’ve stopped it right away. I’m sure I would have.

  And even though I’m so sure I’m a good guy, when the man in the wool cap leaves his alcove and climbs into one of those nice cars, I follow it without a second thought, my intentions far from pure. The car heads all the way down Eisenhower, past the Lucky Star hotel and casino, and into the warehouses by the rail yard. The car bounces through potholes still filled with this afternoon’s rain, then pulls over by a parked Hummer and a motorcycle. The man in the wool cap steps out along with the driver, and the two of them casually scan the abandoned street—this time of night, everyone with a legitimate job is home with family. Satisfied that they are alone, they step up to a steel door and slip inside the brick warehouse.

  At the door, I listen carefully and hear multiple voices, laughter, and a strange electronic clatter I can’t place. I study the steel door and wonder if my foot would simply go through it if I tried to kick it in. There’s also the wall itself. I could cover my face and run through the bricks. But I remind myself I’m not a young bull and decide to be creative.

  The Harley is heavier than it looks, enough to strain my back. I doubt I could fly with it. But with my feet planted, I can carry the thing just fine. I whirl a few times, like a hammer thrower, then pitch the motorcycle through the brick wall. It makes a hell of a racket and a nice hole, which I charge through into the chaos. I find myself in the middle of what looks a whole lot like somebody’s basement.

  Three guys sit around a card table in the corner, smoking. A bearded lard ass cuddles with a topless girl on a couch, and a boy stands baffled at an ancient Donkey Kong machine. I bolt to the card table, flip it over, and crack two heads together. The third guy, linebacker thick, sits in his chair and holds his hands up. He hasn’t dropped his cards, and I see he’s got three queens. The half-naked girl is screaming now, scrambling into the arms of the fat guy with the beard, who seems unfazed. He’s not even blinking, just playing the role of calm kingpin, and I’m about to speak to him when Donkey Kong kid pulls a pistol and aims it at my face. The chubby wannabe godfather pushes the girl off him and lifts a hand, then speaks with a Central European accent. “Not the gun, Schullo. Only if you want to be pissing him off.”

  I turn to the obese leader and say, “You’re smarter than you look.”

  “I was dumb shithead like this one when I was a boy. But now I know better. Where are police and sirens? I wonder. Do you have warrant for searching?”

  The cardplayers gather now in a little huddle. On the other side of me, the kid hasn’t lowered the gun. Stupidly, I’ve lost the momentum. All the advantage of my shock-and-awe entry has faded. I tell the guy in charge, “Where’s your shit? I’m shutting you down.”

  “The fuck you are,” the linebacker says as he charges. I step into his attack and smack an open palm into his face. It’s the same kind of energy a normal man might use for a high five, but there’s a satisfying crunch at the nose. The linebacker goes weak in his knees but doesn’t fall. Blood dribbles from a nostril. His eyes roll, and everybody sees he’s defenseless. But you don’t get to assault a cape like me without paying a price. I poke my fist into his gut, doubling him over so I can baby-tap a knee into his falling face. He ricochets back up and collapses into a heap.

  I turn back to Mr. European Union. He says, “Perhaps we can apply reason to situation.”

  After leading me down a slim hallway, the fat man fishes a key from his pocket and opens a door. Inside are a bare mattress, a wooden desk, and a metal cabinet. He opens it, exposing a mini pharmacy of bottled pills, tiny packets loaded with white dust, brown paper bricks. I scan the inventory. “What about the rest?”

  “You are overestimating me. This is all the goods that I have.”

  “The Zone,” I say.

  He rubs at his beard and studies my face. “Xonopexal is high demand, low supply. This is economics.”

  I grab him by the shirt and pull him into me. “In ten seconds I’m going to fly straight up. I’ll keep going until the air is too frozen and thin for you to breathe. Think you’ll be cracking wise then?”

  As he listens to my threat, which I truly wish I could execute, a grin spreads across his flabby face. “Mens like you I know when I was a boy. You like the smashing and hitting. The wars for you is always in your blood.”

  We look hard at each other, and it occurs to me that this guy’s a veteran of one of those conflicts that involved ethnic cleansing. He’s seen evil up close. And now he’s staring me down. I let go of him, and he smooths his shirt, then goes on. “But the mask does not cover your eyes. And your eyes tell me there will be no arresting tonight. My strong new friend, I cannot offer you a thing I do not have. But I can find this thing for you.” Slowly he slides a hand into his pocket and eases out a cellphone. “Then perhaps you can leave me to my capitalism.” He tilts his head forward and raises an eyebrow, waiting for a response to his offer.

  I wish I’d never come here. This asshole sees me for who I am and who I’m capable of becoming. I reach for his cell, yank it away, and crush it into glittery metal dust. His expression barely changes. So I turn and grab the cabinet by both sides. Though it’s bolted to the floor, it comes up easy. I spill the contents out and then pound the cabinet onto the pile a few times.

  Judging by the bearded guy’s face, he’s still unimpressed, unperturbed by the loss of inventory. But then his eyes flash behind me, and there’s a bang. Something bites into my head, a bitch of a sting, and I turn to see Donkey Kong kid standing in the doorway with that gun aimed my way. On the wall next to the door is a hole from where his bullet bounced.

  I reach back and feel my hair sprouting from a tiny tear in the mask. When I bring my hand around, blood spots the tips of two fingers.

  The chubby crime lord begins to speak—“Schullo”—but in the breath before his next word, I flash across the room, snap that gun from the kid’s trembling hand. Only when the boy starts screaming do I realize I got his trigger finger too.

  He cups his good hand over his bleeding one and drops to a knee. His boss shoves past me, ripping off his shirt and balling it up to help stem the bleeding. The other two guys and the girl show up. One guy trains a shotgun on me, and the girl, ridiculously, has a knife. They all gather around the bleeding boy and face me, prepared to fight, ready to defend the weak and the wounded.

  I know I could just fly away from this, but that’s not what’s going to happen. I’m only waiting to see which one will be first and reminding myself that each
of them is a criminal, involved in illegal and immoral activity. Any justice I mete out is entirely warranted. This is what I’m telling myself when the bearded leader says to them, “Stop. We must think now of Schullo.” He holds an open hand up to me, and it takes me a second to realize he’s asking for the boy’s severed finger.

  Before I can decide whether to give it to him or start breaking heads, my Danger Ring starts blinking. They all wait to see if I’ll answer, and I raise it to my face. “Invincible here.”

  Ecklar’s voice crackles through. “The Chili’s in Little Germany. Code 26. All-Star’s on-site.”

  My friend is hard to rattle, but something in his voice sounds peculiar. Not nervous but weird. “Screw Clyde’s secret codes. What’s the deal?”

  “Time is of the essence. Haul ass, Vince.” Then he’s gone.

  I could take out everyone in this room in ten seconds, but that urge has somehow vanished. This wouldn’t be worth even the minimal effort. “Back off,” I say, and they slink to the other side of the doorway, clearing me a path to the hall. The guy with the shotgun keeps it trained at my face. I turn my back on him and take two steps, some part of me hoping he’ll shoot and ignite the fight. Then the bearded boss says, “Mr. Vince,” and I look back. He’s holding out that open hand again. “For the boy. I am asking you please.”

  I toss the kid’s finger onto the floor, snap his pistol in two ragged pieces and let them fall from my hands. Then I walk past the linebacker I knocked cold and step through the opening made by the motorcycle. The night air is cool and feels good in my lungs. I stretch a hand toward the sky and fly away from what’s behind me, trying to put it all out of my mind. I want to be pure of heart for whatever’s ahead, and I think about the situation that awaits me. It’s something urgent and dangerous. And it might not be like in my heyday, when I battled at the bottom of the ocean or on the dark side of the moon. Evil has reared its ugly head now in a strip mall joint that serves jalapeño poppers and has fake astronaut helmets on the wall. But surely, lives are in peril. I streak up into the clouds hoping that some horrible crisis is unfolding, something that can only be stopped by a hero like me.

  TWO

  Positive Outcomes and Minimal Exposure. The Practice of Active Listening.

  Fight the Good Fight. Doing the Lord’s Work.

  An Object of Pity.

  As I head toward Little Germany, I try to clear my mind in anticipation of the emergency. But I can’t shake what happened in the warehouse, the things I did and the things I was about to do. And strangely, something still bothers me about King Lear and his lost star. Like me, that guy is clearly past his prime. Assuming his story is true, though, at least he had his season in the sun. This is one of the things keeping me awake lately, one of the reasons I only feel at home on rooftops, one of the things I can’t explain to Debbie or Ecklar or even Sheila. It’s not like I’m upset about being a has-been. I’m not a has-been. I’m a never-was. At twenty, twentyfive, everybody knew I was destined to be one of the greats, a Titan or a Paragon or a Sergeant Superior. Even Gypsy would emerge from her room in those doped-up prophetic trances and give me one of her deep, knowing looks. Lately, though, with my fortieth birthday bearing down on me, I’ve been wondering more and more just what she saw in that goddamn crystal ball.

  I descend through the clouds near the Chili’s, and nothing seems out of order. Clyde steps out from behind a minivan in the parking lot. I’m thankful he’s dressed as a normal citizen, not in that gaudy All-Star costume, a bright yellow bodysuit that makes him look like a freaking figure skater. Subtle as always, he waves an arm over his head to get my attention. I land back behind the kitchen, and he joins me.

  “What’s the situation?” I ask.

  He tosses me a backpack. “Get changed, quick as you can. The Mad Mongol’s in the bar, doing shots and making threats. We want to take him out quietly.”

  Mongol’s a bona fide bad guy, one strong enough that I can unload on him without holding back, so this news makes me a bit giddy. A good fight is just the medicine I need. But when I scan around for a little privacy, there’s just a thin line of trees between us and an adjoining mall parking lot. So I back in close to the building by the grease dumpster and start stripping. Clyde says, “We go in as civilians, get close as we can, then I’ll start an argument, and you take him out. I’ll maintain the perimeter. You think you can handle him?”

  I’m bent over, just stepping out of my leggings. “It’s Mad Mongol, not King Chaos.”

  “Don’t get all defensive. I’m just asking.”

  The door next to me opens and spills out light and the clatter of dishes. A thin waiter steps out, sees Clyde, checks out my boxers, and says, “Sorry, guys. Just getting my smoke break.” He closes the door.

  Clyde shakes his head like it’s my fault. From the backpack, I pull out a flannel shirt, something with black and red squares. “Is my cover a lumberjack? Where the hell did you find this?”

  “Just come on,” he says. “The situation could be deteriorating.”

  I follow Clyde, who I’ve never gotten used to taking orders from. He’s not a terrible guy, just part of the new guard. He joined the Guardians with Bigfoot and Ice Queen at the same time Debbie came on board, during a big shake-up about five years ago. Titan had retired, Menagerie had checked out, and Gypsy just couldn’t hold it together anymore. On top of all that, Sparkplug’s seat at the Guardian power table had remained empty for almost a decade. So the team needed some new blood. And I’m OK with that. Change is inevitable. It’s just that this younger generation has their own way of doing things. Like this. Way back when, Titan and I would’ve dropped through the ceiling, scooped up the Mongol, and dumped his drunk ass in the river. Case closed. Now, between lawsuits, federal regulations, insurance liability, and bad PR, everything’s got to be low-key. On the rare occasions when we find a lingering, washed-up supervillain, it’s all about Positive Outcomes and Minimal Exposure. We’re licensed, and our union has oversight, even a mission statement we need to follow. Real heroes don’t need mission statements.

  All this bullshit is even thicker lately because of the Tucker Commission, a Senate committee that’s studying the financial benefits of merging some of what they call Paranormal Action Units. In Texas, they cut the Rogue Rangers’ funding in half, and the West Coast Super Squadron was totally disbanded. The rumor is the Feds want to make a lesson of the Guardians, cut us off too and show everyone how the public can get along fine without masks.

  Clyde leads us through the front door of Chili’s and past the crowd waiting to be seated, past the hostess at her stand. We cut through the dining area and round the bar, where drinkers sit atop stools watching baseball. I don’t see the Mongol or any sign of trouble. “Clyde?” I whisper, but he keeps moving, determined.

  “This way,” he insists, dodging a waitress with a full tray of hot wings.

  The thin waiter from out back emerges from the double swinging doors of the kitchen and avoids eye contact. Clyde is now ten feet in front of me. “Here,” he says, and disappears around a corner into what looks like a private room. This is hardly a serious situation, but we shouldn’t be separated. He knows that. So I power ahead quick, duck my head, and turn with my shoulders low, ready for anything, eager for a brawl.

  The first thing my eyes register is Debbie, whose face is as stunning now as it was at our wedding. She’s beautiful and young, and to this day I don’t know what she saw in me. Lately, I think she’s begun asking the same question. For now, though, she’s beaming that model’s smile and standing on those long legs at the front of a crowd of two dozen. Clyde turns to join the group, and in perfect unison they yell, “Surprise!” Balloons bounce along the ceiling, and streamers line the wall, and above them a banner reads, “Lordy, Lordy, Look Who’s Forty!!” Clyde points a glowing fingertip at my flannel shirt, and a black dot smolders. “Gotcha,” he mouths. Debbie shrugs apologetically and crosses the space between us with her arms out. She hugs me and
whispers, “I’m so sorry.”

  I can’t tell if this apology is for her part in the fight we had earlier or for being complicit in this cheery ambush, but I don’t care. I embrace my wife, and her body feels good and warm in my arms. I don’t attribute the heat to her ability to burst into flame.

  Everyone’s still clapping, and I begin to recognize familiar maskless faces. Some are ex-heroes from the old school, and a few are representatives from other lingering teams like the Renegades and the Southern Gents. Off to the side are Clyde’s handpicked junior varsity team, his socalled Guardian Deputies. Young punks like Kid Cyclone and Jersey Devil and the Scarlet Speedstress, they hang around the HALO and take part in simulated battles under Clyde’s tutelage. But completely unexpected is a singular gentleman rising from a corner booth. On fragile legs, Magus rises and tips his magician’s top hat.

  I pull back from my embrace with Debbie and scan the floor. “Where’s Nate?”

  After pausing for a moment, my wife says, “With Ecklar.” My alien best friend has a way with both my sons, who seem to prefer his company to mine. Back on Andromeda, all his horde of kids must miss him terribly. As a cake is wheeled out (the thin waiter, of course), the assembled wellwishers break into a sloppy rendition of the birthday song. Debbie looks embarrassed for me, and Clyde sweeps his hands like a conductor. Just as the burning candles are presented to me, I see Billy along the back wall, behind everyone. Twelve years, and the prick hasn’t aged a single day—same boyish face, same flaming hair. When the Guardians formed, because we were close in age, we quickly became inseparable. As always when he comes to me now, he’s wearing his Sparkplug costume. A red lightning bolt crackles across the blue of his chest. This is the bright background for the lethal wound inflicted by King Chaos, leader of the Insidious Six. The charred black stain is right over Billy’s heart, which I know is heavy and troubled still. He raises a red-gloved hand and nods. When I don’t acknowledge his salute, my former teammate and best friend lowers his face, then turns and walks through the wall.