Superheroes in Prose: The 1-4 Collection

by Paris, Sevan

  ***

  “Gabe Garrison,” Casa starts after we enter his office. The meeting with the Dean took a little over five minutes and seemed to accomplish very little. If anything, the Dean appeared to be more upset when he left than when he arrived. Casa then motioned for me to follow him and, after climbing a few flights of stairs, we arrived at his surprisingly clean office.

  Aside from the space around the windows, Casa’s office didn’t have a bare wall. What space isn’t taken up with bookshelves is swallowed by framed magazine covers. It is impossible for me to take in all of them, but there have to be at least fifty. Pink hovers beside Brittany Spears on a cover of Rolling Stone. The Brittany Spears t-shirt Pink wears—the same one she’s been wearing since she became a free-floating, shallow ass, telepathic pink mist—reads “I heart Brittany.” Brittany Spears wears a shirt that says, “I heart Pink.” Below them on the magazine cover are the words “HOW WE SAVED EACH OTHER.” I shake my head. Lame.

  On the other side of a three-foot row of Joseph Campbell books is a WWII propaganda print of Liberty with a Bald Eagle perched on his left arm. He’s grinning in front of an American flag, pointing at the camera. Below him are the words “Hey, kids, Liberty says, ‘Slap a Jap!’ ”

  Casa reaches around me and grabs Campbell’s Power of Myth. “So, how long have you been an unregistered Superhero?”

  Chapter Two

  Casa walks around a desk decorated with books, papers, and Legos, never making eye contact.

  I let a deafening silence pass.

  “Trying to think of a convincing lie?” he says while flipping through the Campbell book.

  “It’s an immediate reaction.”

  He dog ears a page and places the book on his desk. “How long have you been out there doing the good deed?”

  I sit across from him in a brown leather chair. “Eight months.”

  “How long have you sucked at it?”

  I shift in the seat. “I don’t suck at it.”

  “Please. Your eyes are dilated; you can’t sit still. I can see a vein throbbing on the side of your neck, and you break out in a nervous sweat every time somebody mentions the word …” he grabs a couple of things out of a drawer and stuffs them into his jacket pocket before I can see them, “… Liberty.”

  He looks at me.

  I shift in my seat again and pull my shirt away from my clammy back. “Is there a point to this?”

  “Identifying the point of this conversation is pointless. It would be much more efficient if we just got right to the point instead.” He pulls a ring out of his right pocket and throws it to me. I snatch it out of the air and turn it over. It has a bright green glow, the band seems to be made out of some sort of dark stone, and it’s carved with symbols that look like they’re straight out of Middle Earth.

  “That ring is Magickal—with a k; it identifies Supers. Levels three to five give it a feint glow. You’re making the thing light up like Charlie Sheen at a whorehouse, which means—not only do you still have your powers—you have a butt load. There’s enough Super juice in you to make you at least a level nine, maybe even a ten like Liberty. Judging from that dumbfounded look on your face, this is the first confirmation you’ve had that you still have powers. Which means, that for a while at least, you’ve been thinking you’ve lost them.”

  “…. You’ve either been spying on me, or you’re a Super—a Super with some sort of crazy Sherlock-like power.”

  “Close, but no cigar. I never knew you before today. And I used to be a Super, but now I’m just a regular person.”

  “There’s nothing regular about the stuff you can do.”

  “True, but irregular doesn’t equal Super.”

  “In this town, a cigar is a cigar.”

  “Oh, please spare me the Freud. The sexual tension will kill me.” He walks around the desk, pointing at the ring. “Check out those etchings. Pay close attention to the one that looks like an S.”

  I turn the ring over and over, searching for the symbol. “I don’t see—”

  Casa slaps me across the face.

  I jerk sideways and jump from the chair, forgetting about the ring that falls to the floor. “Dude, what the hell?”

  Casa leans in and squints. “Your cheek is turning red.”

  I rub my cheek and shove him away. “You freaking slapped me! Of course it’s turning red!”

  He grabs the edge of his desk before falling over. “But it shouldn’t be turning red! You’re at least a level nine! You should have steel-like skin, a force field, Superspeed, SOMETHING that would have prevented either the slap or the pain.” He looks at the floor, eyes shifting back and forth. “You still have your powers; you just can’t access them.”

  “This is crazy. You’re crazy. And I’m outta here.” I turn.

  “The world as we know it is about to end and I need your help to prevent it,” he says hurriedly.

  I freeze in the doorway. “What?”

  “I’ll assume that ‘what’ was rhetorical.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I pay attention to things.”

  “My patience meter is pegged. You’ve got five minutes to explain what you’re talking about or I’m—”

  “You expect me to explain to you how the world is going to end in a measly five minutes?”

  “You didn’t say the world was going to end. You said the world as we know it is going to end.”

  “ … You pay attention to things when you have to, which explains why you have been able to live this long, but it doesn’t explain why you’ve been able to avoid detection. HEROES has an arsenal of technology devoted to capturing people like you, some of it’s even from the future.”

  He lets a silence pass, clearly expecting me to tell him how I’ve kept out of The Bend.

  “Yeah, don’t think I’ll bite.”

  “Alright. I’ll make a deal with you.” He stands and wedges the Campbell book under his left arm and picks up a pair of faded white tennis shoes from the corner of his office. “I’ll explain how I know what I know, why I need your help, and how I can help you access your powers again. Then you tell me how you’ve avoided detection.”

  “How do you know you can get me using my powers again? I haven’t even told you what they are.”

  “You’d be surprised what three Ph.D.s can teach you.”

  “Well, what if I don’t want them back?”

  “Gosh, that ‘world as we know it ending’ stuff seemed important when I said it …”

  “Fine.” I lean against the doorframe. “Explain.”

  “It’ll take a while, and there is somewhere I have to be.”

  “So … what? You’re asking me to walk with you?”

  He sits and changes his loafers with the worn tennis shoes. “Unless you prefer to fly.”

  I roll my eyes.

  ***

  We pass by the trophy case in the lobby of Grota Hall. Casa waits until the mob of students rushes by before saying, “Okay, the problems start with Liberty. His primary purpose isn’t to fight villains. It’s to model how other Superheroes are supposed to behave. His popularity, his image, his battles—they’re all carefully constructed or altered to help make the American public believe what the Wertham Act wants them to believe.”

  “You make the act sound like a living thing.”

  “In a way it is. Frederick Wertham wanted to leave behind a legacy. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be called the WERTHAM act. He would’ve pushed for calling it the ‘Gosh, let’s all be good little Supers Act.’ ”

  “Maybe I’m just fuzzy with the details … but I still don’t see how something can control so many people.”

  “Which brings us back to Liberty.”

  It looks like Casa is heading for the door, so I open it. He steps through, partially bumping me out of the way. God, this dude would give M a run for his money in the douche department.

  “He’s the forerunner,” he says. “America has gone through great pains
to ensure every person from every nation and religion knows what he is. Seeing an image of Liberty imparts a sense of everything he represents to the person seeing it. You’ve immediately communicated hundreds of ideas in a matter of seconds without saying a single word. So, you have somebody on the fence about registering, the general idea is …” he gestures for me to finish his thought.

  “If Liberty—The World’s Greatest Hero—is cool with it, I should be too.”

  “Precisely.”

  We walk at a brisk pace through the quad that joins the paths to the Library, University Center, and the north and south sides of campus. Metal patio tables and benches surround us; there aren’t many people at them, but a sea of students walk from the direction of Shunter Hall.

  I shake my head. “It’s too perfect. Nothing can have that much control over everyone.”

  Casa stops and looks at me. “No? Why did your peer walk out of class after I called her a cunt earlier?”

  I flinch. “Because it’s a horrible word.”

  He shrugs. “A word has no meaning other than what we give it.”

  “Well, Anna sure gave it a lot of meaning.”

  “Why? What does it even mean?”

  “I don’t—it’s like bitch?”

  “It’s nothing like bitch. You can say bitch on just about any American sitcom. Why not cunt? Again, what does it mean?”

  “…. It’s hard to say.”

  “Yet we’re completely offended by it. Why? Where does this come from?”

  I shrug.

  Casa points at my chest. “Culture—American culture. In England, it’s also a type of hat.”

  “I’m … having a hard time imagining that.”

  He sighs. “If millions of people unintentionally give something as abstract as a word such an absolutely insulting, yet imprecisely phrased, meaning—why isn’t it conceivable that the same thing can be done, intentionally, with something concrete: An image—a person: Liberty?”

  “But all of that … all of this control is accomplished just because of some influence? There’s too many chances for things to fall apart—for Supers to not do what they’re supposed to do.”

  Casa laughs and yanks me away from the onrush of students. We stand between a couple of trees, just off the sidewalk. “Things fall apart all the time,” he says through an excited whisper. “Look at you. You never registered. There are scores of other people that never register either. Most of them are caught though. People like you are more the exception than the rule.”

  “Still don’t buy it.”

  “Why? You obviously know there’s more to Liberty than his public image. Is the rest of this stuff really that much of a leap? Think about it: The number of Supers increases with the Earth’s general population each day. Which means the number of unregistered Supers also increases. There’s a greater chance people will, like you, see past the lies. They’ll feel pushed around. What do you think will happen when they push back?”

  “If they’re like me, the unregisters don’t turn in paperwork because they don’t want people to know they have powers. You’re telling me the world will go to hell because of some … lost sense of privacy?”

  “It’s more complicated than that.” He points to a patio table ten feet away where a female student enjoys a white frozen yogurt. She’s wearing a long blue dress dotted with white flowers and brown dreads spill to her elbows. Casa heads that direction, and I reluctantly follow.

  “Most human behavior is predictable, and nothing is more predictable than the right of entitlement.” Casa taps the back of the student’s left shoulder then steps to the right. Her green eyes fall on me while Casa swipes her yogurt from the other side. He casually slides onto a bench five feet away.

  I wave at her. “Nice … weather today, huh?”

  “…. What?” she says.

  “Um, never mind.” I quickly join Casa.

  He spoons a large mouthful of the woman’s yogurt into his mouth and points at her, still seated at the table. “Americans—Supers included—believe they are entitled to the same rights as every other citizen.”

  The woman looks at the table, sees the missing yogurt, and then frantically looks under the table.

  “But Supers haven’t had those rights in fifty years. And it’s not just about privacy. The freedom to save people. To make a difference. To be who you feel like you were meant to be … many of these things are lost with the Supers that decide to register and are told they can’t be heroes. The ones that don’t register are beginning to realize it. The ones that are registered and denied licenses for baseless reasons eventually will too.”

  She stands and does two quick circles, looking at the ground.

  “And things are going to get bad when the government realizes they’re beginning to realize it.”

  She sees us, sees her frozen yogurt and stomps over, red faced. “Who do you guys think you are?”

  “Unfortunately for you, someone in desperate need of a metaphor. Answer a quick question for my young friend. Does it upset you that I took your yogurt?”

  “Does it—what the hell do you think?”

  “I think you should speak with the Dean of Students about a tenured professor and Nobel Laureate taking your yogurt. He’ll know which one you’re referring to. And he’ll also know that it’s a lot easier to reimburse you with free tuition than try to fire me. And you still won’t get this yogurt back.” Casa spoons another mouthful. “Now, how do you feel?”

  She seems to take a moment, catching up to what Casa said, and her hands ball into fists.

  “Thought so.”

  She slaps the yogurt out of Casa’s hands, sending chunks of white across six feet of grass. She walks to the patio table, grabs her backpack and throws us the middle finger before walking away.

  Casa thumbs yogurt away from the corner of his mouth. “Nothing pisses an American off more than the loss of something we feel entitled too. If you’re not going to take my word for it, take the word of the yogurt princess.”

  “Do you even have a conscience?”

  “It gets in the way of my social conscious.”

  I rub the bridge of my nose. “Okay, so why now? The Wertham Act has been around for years.”

  “The barbarians had to start pounding on the gates of Rome at some point. Why NOT now?” He stands. “This is the age of information. Which in itself brings a greater sense of entitlement than this country has ever experienced. Couple that with an increasingly spoiled youth, and you’ve got a powder keg waiting for a match.” He walks towards Shunter Hall.

  I catch up. “Blowing right by that baseless insult, what’s the big deal? If this is going to happen, it needs to happen for the greater good, right?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, when armies full of Norms go at it, millions of people die. What do you think will happen when armies full of Supers go at it? Pro-Werthams on one side, Anti-Werthams on the other? And it won’t just be people from this country.” He opens the door to Shunter and we step through. “Supers from other nations will come to the aid of the non-registers, afraid that America will continue its precedent of enforcing our values on other cultures. The United States could literally become the battleground that decides the future of Supers all over the world. There won’t be much left at the end of that battle, and that disturbs me. I like this country. It’s where I keep all my stuff.”

  “Guess we’re getting to me now?”

  Casa nods and we start up a flight of stairs. “Things are coming to a head. You and a handful of others both in and out of Prose aren’t interested in playing by Liberty’s rules as much as you are in helping people. The helping people part doesn’t interest me as much as the breaking Liberty’s rules part. All signs point to a paradigm shift. It’s only a matter of time until a resistance is organized.”

  We keep going up flights until we reach the top floor of Shunter; The thick dust covering random pieces of furniture in the hallway tells me the floor isn’t used much.
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  Casa starts down the darkened hallway. “People like you—maybe even you—will attempt to prevent or actually cause the shift to occur. I think we can avoid death on a massive scale if I’m there to help you.”

  “Wait, where are we going?”

  “Somewhere that isn’t here and where I need to be. Read this.” He takes the Campbell book from under his arm and holds it out. “Page forty-nine—second paragraph.”

  I take the book. “What’s this?”

  “It’s what’s wrong with you, why you can’t access your powers anymore.”

  I pause. This guy is crazy smart, but there is no way he can know about M or the M-related details of my life.

  Casa reaches into his jacket pocket. “Just read. Out loud. Take your time with the big words if you need to—I won’t judge … unless I deem it necessary.”

  I grip the book far more firmly than needed, turn to page forty-nine, and read out loud, “Original experience has not been interpreted for you, and so you’ve got to work out your life for yourself. Either you can take it or can’t. You don’t have to go far off the interpreted path to find yourself in very difficult situations. The courage to face the trials and to bring a whole new body of possibilities into the field of interpreted experience for other people to experience—that is the hero’s deed.”

  “Of course,” Casa says, “sometimes the hero needs a nudge.”

  Casa jerks a stun gun out of his pocket, shoves it into my neck and—with an angry rush of loud clicks—violently sends me to the ground.

  Chapter Three

  I open my eyes.

  Casa is upside down, looking at me. “Okay, let’s see what we can do to get those powers hummin’ again, huh?”

  Scratch that. He isn’t upside down—I’m upside down.

  I look down (and by that, I mean up). Casa has my feet tied together with some sort of impossibly thin twine. He holds tension on the line with the thumb and forefinger of his extended right hand, dangling me past the edge of a rooftop. He’s wrapped the other end of the line around his left hand. Above me (and by that, I mean below) the small section of grass that separates Shunter from the campus chapel sways four stories away.