by Paris, Sevan
Dr. Casa taps the iPad a couple of times. He scrolls until he squints: “Anna Coleman and Steve Dubecker.” Dr. Casa makes popping noises with his mouth, while scanning the room. “Ah, Anna, it says here you are a communications major, which means you could benefit from this class more than, say, Steve, the graphic designer. But from the way you’re dressed, it’s obvious you don’t care too much about money.”
Anna curls her lip. “Excuse me?”
He walks up the auditorium steps to her desk. “You’re holding a five-hundred dollar backpack that works just as well as a twenty dollar one, your jeans are at least three hundred dollars, but they’re the type that fall apart within a year, and …” he leans over and smells her cup of coffee, “you don’t mind paying 6.50 for a cup of coffee mixed with frothed milk and high fructose corn syrup.”
She gives her coffee a confused look.
“Sorry. Hazelnut cappuccino. Try and keep up.”
“Now, Steve, on the other hand,” Dr. Casa flashes a predatory smile and crosses the classroom to Steve, “Steve, your shirt, jeans, and backpack all come from a low price department store; you’re well, if not cheaply dressed, and you’ve brought your coffee in a travel mug. I ask again, Steve, why did you rat me out?”
Steve flutters his eyes as if he’s trying to catch up with the situation. His mouth forms a thin line of determination, and he raises the desk out of his way and stands.
Uh-oh.
“Because,” Steve begins, “it’s your job, man. Are you or are you not supposed to be teaching us?”
“If you had merely done everything the T.A.s told you to do, you would have been taught. But since I have to be in here, don’t worry—I’ll make the course far more interesting for you.” Casa winks. “Promise.”
Dr. Casa turns his back on a red faced Steve. Steve looks like he wants to say something else, but isn’t entirely sure what. Can’t say I blame him. When M went into a tirade about whatever, I never knew what to say to him either, and that was after I had months of getting used to dealing with the dude. Steve has only had, what is at best, five minutes to understand one of the fastest moving minds that I’ve ever seen.
“Now, who has the homework from last night?”
Roughly two thirds of us raise our hands, including me and Bo.
“Okay, everybody keep your hand up. Everybody else, get out.”
We stare at him, blank faced.
“What, do I have to text it to you before you understand? GET OUT! You’re a waste of time and probably on academic probation anyway. Everyone else, pass your homework to the front.”
It takes about three minutes for one third of the class to awkwardly leave the room. In the meantime, the rest of us pass up our homework. Casa impatiently walks by every student seated in the front row, collecting the seventy plus papers into a single stack—which he promptly dunks into a nearby garbage can.
“Okay, since your majors say you have to be here and Steve says I have to be here, let’s at least talk about something interesting. What makes a Super a Superhero?”
There is a long pause as most of us stare at the garbage can.
Casa quickly snaps his fingers twice. “Up here, up here. Need Steve remind you that you are paying by the hour, people?”
“Powers?” a female student says from the front of the room.
“Please think before you respond. Your boobs may impress your friends, but they don’t … well, actually they impress me too, but they don’t compensate for stupidity. Plenty of Superheroes don’t have powers. Arachnid, Diva, White Knight, Crazy Eighty, countless others. All of these Superheroes rely on their wits, their cunning, and in both your and Diva’s case, their exceptionally large breasts.
The female student looks at the other students to the left and right of her, as if she needs some sort of confirmation that this is actually happening.
“Anybody else, once more with thought this time.”
“Are we talking officially or in some other sense?” Steve asks, with the hint of a challenge in his tone.
“Don’t know. Depends on what you mean by that super vague statement, Steve. You should put tons more thoughts into your replies by the way since you, A) are already on my bad side and, B) don’t have Ms. Tart’s boobs to back you up.
Steve stands and, after a few moments of shoving papers into his backpack, clomps down to the front of the auditorium. The door slams shut behind him.
“Boy,” Dr. Casa says with a fake grin, “thought he’d never leave.”
“The Wertham Act,” I say, prompting a direct look from Dr. Casa.
“The Wertham Act? Why do you say that, Mister …?”
And then “it” happens again.
It’s the first time since the coffee shop yesterday. I clear my throat, trying to keep it from closing up. “Garrison,” I say through some horrid mouth breathing. “G-Gabe Garrison.” It feels like the desks move in random directions around me.
“Well, Mr. Garrison G-Gabe Garrison, why do you say that?”
“In order to be a hero, a real Superhero I mean, you have to register,” I say quickly in a quivering voice that doesn’t sound like me. I rub my throat. “Registering your powers isn’t a guarantee you’ll get a Superhero permit, but it is the only way. And if you’re doing something hero-y without a permit, you’re not recognized as a Superhero.” I clear my throat again. “But a criminal.”
“Uh-huh.” He taps his iPad a few more times. “If you have powers, you register. If you have what it takes, you get a Superhero permit. If not, you’re told you can’t be a hero. And there lies the problem. What do you need before the government will give you a permit? Anybody?”
“Powers?” some dude from the front row says.
Dr. Casa taps his iPad a few times, activating the auditorium’s ceiling mounted projector. By the time the class sees the iPad’s image projected to the front of the room, my breathing has returned to something approaching normal and the room has stopped spinning. He digs a stylus out of his pocket, opens a notepad app and writes ‘Powers.’ “Powers, there it is.” He crosses out the word. “And there it went. Actually, it went about two minutes ago, but thanks for playing.”
“Are we talking female Superheroes only?” Bo says. “Cause I gotta say a killer body seems to be a major requirement. I mean, when is the last time you saw a fat chick wearing tights, am I right?” He turns to hi five me. I ignore him.
Dr. Casa writes “Killer Body.”
“You can’t be serious,” Anna says.
“You of all people are going to question this line of reasoning?” Dr. Casa says.
“Well, my aunt, who has powers and is a registered Super is a little on the heavy side.”
“But she doesn’t have a hero permit, so she isn’t a Superhero. She’s just a fat Super.”
“Hey!”
“Sorry, she’s a little on the heavy side.”
“She saved my butt more times that I can count. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be in College.”
“How did she save your butt, exactly?”
“She bailed me out, financially bailed me out, a couple of times with credit card debt.”
“So in the world where your chubby aunt is a hero, you are her arch nemesis? The evil credit card cunt?”
Anna covers her mouth and tears well up in her eyes.
After a long silence filled only with Casa staring at Anna, she shoves her books and papers into her backpack, grabs her 6.50 coffee, and quickly follows Steve out the same door. Five more students do the same.
Casa faces the class, palms up. “Was it something I said?”
“OMFG,” Bo says beside me. “This guy is insane.”
“Why is it that Fat Aunty Anna is a hero, but nobody else gives a crap?”
Silence.
“Okay, if more of you want to leave, leave. If you want to actually learn something, answer my question.”
“Being a hero is subjective?” Kate says from two rows over in her usu
al monotone way. I haven’t really noticed her since Deathbot tried to kill her and Jack in the library a little over a month ago. Her blond hair barely touches the back of her chair. She wears a blue sweater with the large neck pulled to one side, exposing a pale shoulder and a pink bra strap.
“Nice, but no. The perception of heroes is subjective. Where you see a hero, somebody else may just see a janitor, a high school student, or a barista.” Casa looks right at me.
I pull the front of my shirt away from my sticky chest and put all of my weight on my left but cheek.
“Let me rephrase … again. What must a hero do?”
“Uphold the law,” Kate says. Why is she still trying to provide this jerk with answers?
“Thank you, whomever you are.”
“My name’s Ka—”
“Don’t care.” Casa finishes scribbling “Uphold the Law” on the iPad and the words appear on the projector. “Okay, one more.”
“The permit keeps you from posing a threat to anyone.” Somebody says from just in front of me.
Casa rolls his eyes. “How does giving you a permit make sure you don’t pose a threat? Is a person with a gun permit still dangerous?” He looks at the student until he nods. “Good, now stop making stupid comments. Unless you’re actually stupid, in which case I just suggest you stop making comments all together.”
He paces in front of the class. “My patience is wearing thin and I think most of you are morons, so I’m just going to give the last one to you.” He furiously scribbles “Look the part” on the iPad.
Three more students leave.
“When is the last time you saw a Superhero wearing jeans and a t-shirt, hm? How about a nice sundress? Tuxedo shirt? Anybody? Of course not.”
“I disagree about this,” Kate says. “I’m from Cleveland, Ohio, and we don’t have as many Supers as you guys, but we have enough to know the Wertham Act was about making things safer for us—not this stuff.”
“Think we’ll trust my three Ph.D.s and Nobel over your inner city high school diploma, thanks.”
Kate’s face reddens and she crosses her arms. “Okay, prove it. You are here to teach, right? So teach. How is the Wertham Act—something that we’ve all been told since kindergarten is there to protect us—created to be—”
“The Wertham Act wasn’t about making things safer for us! It was about making a name for an egotist: Psychologist Frederick Wertham. As any narcissistic cheerleader can tell you, the only thing worse than being unpopular is realizing you’ll always be unpopular. Freddy discovered both and decided it was time to do something about it: He turned his attention to a particular type of criminal case dealing with the insane.”
Casa stares at the floor and continues pacing. “Max Malone, a North Carolina resident who forces his wife of ten years to drown in a pot of boiling water; Christopher Koolie, a New Yorker that murders nine children on a playground in Brooklyn; Garth Grays kills his plant supervisor by shoving him out of the window of an office building. Wertham finds a common dominator in all of these people.” He looks at Kate. “What do you think that is?”
Kate shrugs.
“Don’t flake out on me now, Cleveland. You’re almost important enough to have a name.”
“They’re Superheroes,” a male student to the left of me says.
Casa points at him. “Almost. They used to be Superheroes. Max Malone, a.k.a. Captain Strong. Christopher Koolie—The Radioactive Man. Garth Grays—The Hawk. All of these men were part of the Superhero boom in the 1940’s. Which was good then: We needed something to fight Hitler. But what makes a person a really good soldier can often make him a psychopath when the fighting stops. And it’s there that Wertham’s argument begins.”
“For example, Wertham argues Captain Strong and many like him suffer from PTSD, due to the War. Symptoms can include dizziness, insomnia, social isolation, and violent outbursts. The worst you usually have to deal with from average Joe is his barricading himself in his living room. Casa looks at Kate. “What did Captain Strong do after killing his wife?”
Kate uncrosses her arms. “Barricaded Nashville.”
Casa nods. “With debris from buildings, cars, and—later—the tanks that were sent in to stop him. It took the work of Liberty and several other heroes to free the city. Captain Strong still sits in The Bend Super Penitentiary, where—thanks to his unnaturally long life span—he’ll continue to sit long after we’re gone.”
“People want—need—an answer, and Wertham’s PTSD argument is a convincing one. Drunk from the attention, Wertham writes his infamous book, Slaughter of the Innocent. In it, he presents—and claims to prove—the following hypothesis: Supers are subject to the same mental and emotional instabilities as norms; therefore, laws should be established to ensure the safety of the American people forced to live side-by-side with them. To do otherwise would allow the Slaughter of the Innocent,” he air quotes the book title. “Wertham supports his hypothesis by examining several cases of unexplained … bizarreness.”
Casa paces to the right. “Mitchell McCaine fries a mother of three with his eye beams in a grocery store simply because she took the last loaf of bread. After an interview with McCain and a less than thorough testing procedure, Wertham diagnosis him with bipolar.”
Casa paces to the left. “The small, sleepy town of Rickville, Indiana becomes a little too sleepy when its four hundred citizens sleep for a little on the shady side of two hours straight. After a litany of interviews, Wertham discovers Rockville local Super Nicholas Eckhart, a telepathic narcoleptic who unintentionally put the entire town under while passing out.”
He taps his iPad a few times bringing up multiple images of Wertham interviewing patients. “The list of occurrences goes on and on, each with glib evidence, each with terrifyingly convincing rhetoric. You eventually have a panic-stricken country full of conservatives that already fear good changes. They especially don’t want any bad ones, which is how Wertham’s book framed everything.”
“Slaughter of the Innocent wins predictable attention from a society that largely understands Supers even less than Wertham. The government feels compelled to do something so—after bringing Wertham in as the primary consultant—the Senate and Congress draft and later pass The Wertham Act. Which, in a nutshell, says this: If you develop powers or special abilities through natural or unnatural means, you will register said powers or abilities immediately. After a thoroughly extensive evaluation of your mental, emotional, and physical states, you will either be given or denied a Superhero permit. Failure to register or practicing heroing without a license will result in up to, but not limited to, multiple lifetime incarcerations. If a permit is granted, you will have biannual checkups to verify you’re still as good as they want you to be.”
With a twitch of her head, Kate tosses her hair over her bare shoulder. “I read some of Wertham’s book, and I didn’t find his research questionable. And it certainly sounds like needed protection to me.”
“In response to your first statement, every sentence ever spoken or written is questionable, unless they come from me. In response to your second statement: IT’S SUPPOSED TO SOUND LIKE PROTECTION! But, with rare exceptions, it’s nothing more than a way for Wertham and a bunch of other politicians to decide what an American hero should be! These aren’t just people—they’re not just symbols. They’re icons! Ideas! They embody American culture. Of course they have to look good.” He writes a checkmark next to “Killer Body.” “Of course they have to respect the authorities.” He checkmarks “Uphold the Law.” “Of course they have to wear funky looking costumes.” He checkmarks “Look the Part.” “If you can’t meet this criteria, you don’t get to play hero. Doesn’t matter if none of this stuff is actually in the Act. What matters are the people that enforce the people enforcing the Act. Too fat? You’re bumped on physical reasons. Don’t agree with every law ever made? You’re bumped for emotional reasons. The government literally gets to decide who can be a hero and who can’t. Doesn’t ma
tter how good you are. What matters is how good you appear to be.”
After Casa’s breathing returns to normal, he places his iPad on top of his backpack. “So here is the million dollar question: Do these rules allow real heroes—not Wertham’s heroes—to exist?”
Silence. Looks like everybody in the classroom has finally learned their lesson. There is no way anybody is going to—
“What do you think, Mr. Garrison?”
My throat closes again, and blood rushes to my face. “I …” I straighten in my chair, “… I think a hero has to follow them if,” I clear my throat, “he’s worried about people thinking he is a hero … and (ahem) and if he’s worried about Liberty coming after him.”
“Interesting that you should say so. We haven’t discussed Liberty’s involvement in the Wertham Act yet.”
“Involvement?” I say before turning on the brain filter. “What does … what did Liberty have to gain from the Wertham Act?”
Casa’s eyes narrow: “Why do you think he has or had anything to gain, Mr. Garrison?”
“Dr. Casa?” A man in his late fifties says while standing in the doorway to Grota 130. His face reveals nothing, but a fuming Anna, barely visible through the crack in the doorway, reveals enough.
Casa turns to face the man. “Ah, Dean Gerard. That was fast. Am I correct in assuming that I can dismiss class?”
How the hell does this guy keep his job?
Dean Gerard walks into the room and clasps his hands behind the small of his back, slightly raising a tweed jacket above his hips. His jaw moves side to side and his face turns crimson. “How long you conduct your class is up to you, but I need a moment to speak—”
“Great. DISMISSED!”
It takes the class a few seconds to figure out they’ve been dismissed, but once the first student stands, the rest of us quickly follow.
The students in front of me clear—Casa points at me: “Except for you. We need to talk.”
Bo slaps my shoulder. “Amy, Reagan, now this. Why does all the good stuff always happen to you?” Bo sidesteps between the aisles until he disappears into the crowd of exiting students. As always, it’s hard to tell if my friend is joking, stupid, or a little bit of both.