Just Call Me Superhero

by Alina Bronsky

  We joined the circle of chairs, which widened to accommodate us.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen moving forward,” Friedrich continued. “The eventual outcome of my clinical profile is multiple organ failure, just like my two uncles on my father’s side.”

  Marlon sighed loudly. Friedrich fell silent, unsettled.

  “But you go to a regular school?” asked the guru, who seemed to remember he was conducting a sort of interview that we had interrupted.

  “I try,” said Friedrich. “Whenever I’m not out sick or being treated at the hospital.”

  “I’m really, really afraid of hospitals,” Kevin said. “Especially when you can’t open the doors from inside.”

  I turned to him so as not to continue staring at Janne’s lap, at the creases in her dress. Oddly enough, I liked Kevin in a way that I myself most likely confused with sympathy. Kevin looked like he wasn’t going to do well for much longer. Like something terrible was going to happen. And then I would feel sorry for him. Because he was the nicest queen I’d ever met. Of course, he was the only one I’d ever met. In the last 436 days I had basically seen nobody.

  “And you, Janne,” said the guru, “what are you afraid of?”

  I was sure that she wouldn’t answer. But she turned to him and said, “Stupid questions.”

  “Do I ask stupid questions?” asked the guru in an understanding tone.

  “They’re fine,” said Janne generously. “The worst ones are the questions people don’t say out loud, the ones written on their foreheads. What happened to you, cutie? Wouldn’t everything be easier if you were at least a little uglier? Can anyone love you the way you are?”

  My heart beat so hard that I could hear the echo in the back of my head. Boom, boom, boom.

  “You’re totally sweet, of course everyone loves you,” said Kevin.

  Instead of jumping for his face with claws extended, she looked at him gratefully. Apparently she liked him, too. But I wasn’t so insanely jealous of him.

  “When I was little I went to the elementary school around the corner from our house,” she said. “I was the special needs kid in an immersion class and there was an extra assistant there to help me. And all the children thought I was just pretending. That I could hop around just fine and was just too lazy to walk on my own.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have told them you were a princess under a magic spell,” said Marlon.

  Janne turned to him. Suddenly I realized that the whole punch and collapse had been completely unnecessary. Nobody was ahead in this race. Janne hated him no less than she did me.

  “And then what happened?”

  “After the fifth grade I stayed home and only went to the school to sit for exams.”

  “That worked?” asked Richard. “I mean, that’s not against the rules? Don’t you have to go to school?”

  “Yes, you do,” said Janne. “But not in my case.”

  “Did you get a certificate that said you were impaired?” asked Kevin eagerly.

  Janne smiled at him. “How did you know that?”

  The guru put down his pen and leaned forward. “What I wouldn’t have given for a certificate like that when I was your age.”

  And suddenly it came pouring out of everyone. It was loud and it was weird; it was laughter. Even Janne giggled, and on Marlon’s face I saw a trace of a smile. I was the only one who didn’t laugh. I was shocked. They were joking around with each other like old friends enjoying their time together. They were happy about trivialities and about the fact that I hadn’t broken my neck. They had forgotten that we were just a bunch of cripples and head cases. I was the only one who still knew it. Again I was filled with a sense of foreboding.

  We had to go into town again because there was nothing left of the groceries bought the day before. Apparently the others had killed the time without us by eating. The guru said that we could have thought to go shopping after we went to the doctor’s office. He probably had already forgotten how he was so worried about me—or perhaps about himself—that he wanted to call Claudia and have her pick me up. I asked how we were supposed to know what was needed. The guru shook his head.

  “Like little children. You have to cut everything up and spoon it into their mouths.”

  Dumbfounded by these sudden expectations, we watched as he walked frantically around the grill, which was in front of the shed. Earlier it had been sunny, but now it was noticeably cooler and the air was crisp. “We need charcoal, bread, meat, vegetables,” the guru enumerated while rubbing down the grill with a napkin. Then he spun around and screamed without warning, “What are you waiting for?”

  Kevin went inside to freshen up before the shopping trip. I tried to explain that for me personally, one trip a day to the village was more than enough. Marlon was nowhere to be seen. And then Janne suddenly said she definitely wanted to go.

  Because of Janne we couldn’t take the shortcut through the woods. We had to take the longer, paved path. I pushed her wheelchair with her silent acquiescence and I didn’t let on that because of the fall my back was wrenched and the pain was spreading down my leg. Now and then I stopped and tried swinging my hips to get rid of the pain. I could have stripped naked while doing it, nobody was paying the slightest attention to me. Janne was chatting away with Kevin about the right technique for creating smoky eyes. At first I thought they were making fun of somebody but then I realized they were actually deadly serious about the topic. I didn’t have much to contribute.

  When we set off, the guru had stood on the stairs with the camera and filmed our departure, as if he wanted to remind us that we were assembled here for a higher purpose.

  Kevin said his boyfriend was an actor. I saw how Janne’s back immediately straightened.

  “What has he been in?” Something about her voice sounded different.

  “TV shows.”

  “And how does he put up with you?”

  I could hardly believe my ears, that she would ask that. It seemed like a mix of tactlessness and stupidity. After all, I never asked her: “So Janne, what’s it like being in a wheelchair, what do the boys in the neighborhood make of it?”

  Kevin wasn’t insulted.

  “No idea,” he answered. “I can’t possibly explain how he puts up with me.”

  “He probably loves you,” said Janne sadly.

  “No idea,” Kevin repeated, smiling broadly. “He’s a bit older.”

  I killed the time by looking down at Janne’s neck. Her hair was clipped up in a bun. She looked like she was from another century. Her skin was delicate pink and unbelievably vulnerable. I never would have thought that you could kill an hour staring at a girl’s neck without getting bored. But I actually had no desire to ever do anything else again. One black lock of hair had fallen out of the clip, I stared at it and could have cried.

  In the village I treated Janne to the experience of being in the company of someone who enjoyed a certain notoriety. Apparently my visit to the doctor’s office had made the rounds. There were more people out and about than earlier in the day and their eyes popped out of their heads. It was tough to tell whether it was because of me or Janne. Or because of Kevin and his high heels, his pink cap, and handbag that he swung back and forth by its long strap. Probably a combination of all of us.

  In the little grocery store we realized that Janne’s wheelchair wouldn’t fit through an aisle because it was full of cartons. I was going to steer to another aisle but Kevin stopped me. He put his handbag in Janne’s lap and began to move the boxes out of the way. He lifted them up and stacked them in another aisle, next to a pallet of mustard jars.

  “It’s fine,” whispered Janne, turning bright red. Even her neck, which I could see from behind, was covered with red splotches. Now I felt really sorry for her, I could feel her embarrassment in physical form, I could grip it in my hands. Then I rou
sed myself out of my stupor and started to help Kevin. Some of the boxes I just threw behind Janne, figuring we didn’t have to go back by the same aisle.

  A short-legged man in the blue uniform of the store hurried over to us.

  “Put everything back immediately,” he cried in a high voice that, combined with his mustache, created cognitive dissonance. Even Kevin’s voice was lower, at least when he wasn’t trying to speak in an artificially chirpy voice.

  “We can’t get through here.” Kevin handed one of the boxes to the man and smiled innocently with his lipstick-covered mouth. “We’re here, as you can see, with a wheelchair.”

  The man took the carton and held it to his chest for a second before putting it down, befuddled.

  “You can run riot at home,” he said, and his unbearably high voice made my teeth hurt.

  “We’re not running riot.” Kevin maintained his sweet temper. “We’re trying to get through.”

  “Get out!” yelled the store manager suddenly. Janne cringed. I moved a box aside with my foot so I could get past the wheelchair and make sure she wasn’t about to cry. For the first time, I entered the foreground in the store manager’s field of vision. Apparently up to that moment I hadn’t stood. He gasped nearly silently, stumbled backwards, and tripped on one of the moved boxes and fell onto his back. With his feet he kicked a pallet of cans. That’s when things got loud and messy.

  I SIMPLY CAN’T BELIEVE IT!!!” I never would have thought the guru could shout like that. He screamed like he was at a soccer stadium. His spit flew in every direction, I cowered so it wouldn’t hit me in the face.

  “Psst,” said Kevin calmly. “The police are listening.”

  “THE POLICE?”

  We hadn’t yet left the station, but the guru had already blown a gasket. I thought he was overdoing it. Or to put it another way, I could certainly understand that his nerves were shot after this first day, but I was aware of nothing I’d done wrong in this case, and the same was true of Kevin and Janne. We tried to explain but he didn’t want to hear it.

  “Get out the camera,” said Janne when the guru stopped shouting.

  “WHAT?!” He lost it again for a moment.

  “The camera. You have to film this. The way we’re being arrested. Wrongly, just because we’re handicapped. This is amazing stuff, really.”

  “Not arrested, detained,” I corrected.

  The guru squinted his eyes.

  “I feel sorry for your mothers.” But he pulled the camera out of the blue bag that was hanging from his shoulder.

  “Film us coming out of here,” said Janne.

  Kevin picked his handbag off the floor and held it up. I got behind the wheelchair. The guru held the camera. At that moment a police officer popped out of a side door and asked about our filming permit, shouted that we’d already caused enough trouble, and threw us out.

  “Are we going to have to appear in court?” asked Kevin, scratching his nose. Once we left the police station the guru wanted to go by himself into the supermarket where the manager had called the police to get us arrested for disturbing the peace. We would have to wait outside, which we didn’t mind at all.

  “I don’t think we’ll have to go to court,” I said. “Any trial, if they even initiate one, would get shut down fast. No supermarket chain can afford to look so hostile to disabled people these days.”

  “We’ll have to hope that’s true,” said the guru darkly.

  “Our pride should keep us from shopping here,” said Kevin.

  “If there was another store in this dump,” snapped the guru before storming into the grocery store. I suspected he wasn’t pissed off only because of the police but also because his plan to grill was threatening to fall apart. But that wasn’t our fault. There was only one butcher in the village and it closed up at noon. The refrigerator section at the supermarket had just two packages of pork sausages left on offer. The view of those sausages seemed to put the guru over the edge. We could see him through the glass front of the store, standing there in the aisle, and I was afraid he might break down in tears, too. Finally Kevin ignored our ban from the store and went in, and a little while later they emerged carrying heavy bags of groceries.

  Aside from the ten pathetic sausages, we grilled corn on the cob and sweet peppers, wrapped in foil and buttered and salted. It was all Kevin’s idea, including the lentil salad and tabouli. It all tasted great, and Kevin was pleased by the compliments until I asked whether he really liked to cook or was just a picture-perfect queer. No idea why he got so pissed off.

  If anything more happens, we’re cancelling this whole thing,” slurred the guru. There’d been five bottles of red wine in the shopping bags. Kevin had poured a little for each of us, but now all five bottles were empty. “If anyone else falls down the stairs or starts beating each other up, or if I get even the slightest hint that you’re not all in your own rooms at night, or if you cause trouble and I have to bail you out of the police station, then you’re all packing your bags right away!” He tried to pound his fist on the picnic table but he lost his balance. Marlon, who was sitting next to him, caught him.

  “I’ll be in the shit if anything happens to you guys,” blubbered the guru after he’d freed himself from Marlon’s grasp and laid down under the bench to, as he put it, feel the earth. “So many children and I wasn’t able to be there for them, and you guys aren’t kids anymore and you still don’t have a clue. You’re already crippled, it wouldn’t take much. A slight breeze and you’re done for. It’s probably all my fault.”

  Kevin, who had also hoisted more than a glass, also started to cry. He slumped to the ground and laid his head in Janne’s lap. I tried not to step on the guru in the dark, and looked quizzically over at Marlon. I hadn’t given up hope that he might actually still meet my gaze at some point.

  Richard gathered up paper plates that had fallen on the ground and stacked them on the table. Four skinny cats emerged from the darkness. They sat next to each other on the edge of the lawn, aiming their shiny eyes at us and meowing. Janne fished a cube of cheese out of the salad and tossed it to them. They all pounced on it at the same time, creating a writhing, snarling ball.

  “I think I need to go to bed,” mumbled Friedrich, his head resting on his crossed arms.

  It had gotten cold. Janne ran her hands along her bare upper arms. Marlon stood up and went across the lawn until he disappeared into the darkness. Richard watched him go.

  “To him it doesn’t matter,” I said, “whether it’s day or night.”

  I stood up and got behind Janne. This time I didn’t grab the handles, I put my hands on her shoulders. It seemed like an eternity ago that I had touched her, and even kissed her.

  Janne put her head back. I leaned down and touched her forehead with my lips. In the dark her eyes were unfathomably deep, and she looked like a completely different girl, a stranger. She didn’t protest as I kissed her first on the tip of her nose and then arrived at her lips. She tasted of the vinegar from the salad dressing and I ran the tip of my tongue along her lips.

  Then I stood up straight again and saw that Richard was making a face like he had a toothache. I didn’t know why I had to explain myself to Richard, so I leaned over Janne’s backward-leaning head again. Her lips opened.

  “It’s a shame,” she said.

  “What’s a shame?”

  “That the camera’s not running.”

  “Don’t be such a camera whore.” I kissed her again. But suddenly I felt bad for her, so tried to rephrase it more empathetically. “You probably couldn’t pick anything up in this light anyway.”

  Marlon reappeared out of the darkness. I almost shouted because he appeared so quickly and silently. And from a completely different direction than he had gone off in.

  Don’t you touch her, I thought, and my fingers clenched her shoulders so tightly that I probably c
aused her pain, but she didn’t make a sound. I was here now.

  Janne held her breath. Marlon turned away and went over to the cooling grill.

  “Richard?” he called softly.

  “Right here.”

  “Can I help with something? Cleaning up or something?”

  Richard thought for a second. My hands moved from Janne’s shoulders.

  “Not much. There’s a bit of trash on the lawn, can you grab that?”

  “Sure,” said Marlon.

  “We could just as easily do it tomorrow.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Exactly.”

  Marlon walked around the table slowly—I pulled Janne’s wheelchair out of the way—stepped on a piece of tinfoil, picked it up, and tossed it onto the table. I could still see a plastic bag and a paper plate, but I didn’t say anything. I suddenly felt guilty and refused to consider why.

  Marlon turned abruptly and went slowly toward the villa, testing the ground with his toes before every step.

  “What about them?” I pointed at the guru and Kevin.

  “They can’t stay out here. It’s too cold at night,” said Richard.

  “But I’ll bet they’re heavy,” I said.

  Richard had found two wheeled cots in the shed. We hoisted first the guru and then Kevin onto the cots and pushed them into the shed. Then we grabbed two blankets from the house and Richard spread them over the two of them. The guru’s face looked as if he was fighting with someone in his sleep. Sometimes his mouth formed mute words, his hands twitched and formed fists. Kevin lay there calm and smiling. Tears still glimmered in the corners of his eyes. He looked like a girl.

  “Little angel,” said Janne as she sat there next to me, looking down at Kevin.

  “Who? This queer?”

  “Yeah.”

  Richard shook Friedrich’s shoulder. Friedrich sat bolt upright, surprised, and then got up and wandered off toward the house. His amorphous body moved along behind Richard, slowly slogging along like a gigantic snail.