Third Class Superhero

by Charles Yu

  ***

  It gets much worse. The new woman seems determined to turn every Interaction into something it shouldn't be.

  Episode 4,572,866

  — NO ONE IS GOING TO CALL MY MOTHER ON HER FIFTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY

  FADE IN:

  The sun is going down. Me and My Mother are alone in the house. Me is looking in the fridge. My Mother is pretending to read a magazine. The two are starting to realize no one is going to call My Mother on her fifty-second birthday.

  — INT. FAMILY KITCHEN—DUSK

  ME

  (comforting tone tinged with melancholy)

  Hey, Ma. Happy birthday. How about we go to dinner?

  MA

  (not even trying to hide disappointment)

  Thank you. You don't have to do that.

  ME

  (comforting tone tinged with melancholy)

  So, where should we go to dinner?

  MA

  (barely concealed fear of growing old alone)

  I don't care. You choose. Italian?

  ME

  (realizing comforting tone is not working, wondering what to say next)

  Okay. Italian sounds good.

  MA

  (unbounded terror at realizing she is being comforted by her own child)

  Great. Let me get my coat.

  ME

  (wondering what to say next)

  I'll start the car.

  The director yells cut.

  ***

  I go out back to smoke. Jake is there.

  "Was she awful or what?"

  "I don't know, man. You know? She's not so bad."

  "She's not so bad? She's not so bad? She forces her lines. She forgets her lines. She makes up her lines."

  "You used to do that."

  "Not like that. I didn't look like a deer in headlights.

  She's turning what should be normal Melancholy into something else. Something formless and terrible. No name for it."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I don't know. Get her fired, maybe."

  "Man. You gotta chill. It's just a job."

  Jake is very good at what he does. He's much better at Being Him than I am at Being Me, and he knows it. I suspect he thinks he's too good for Family, that he won't be here long, that it's only a matter of time. I also suspect he's just a natural, that he doesn't have to try very hard at Being Him, and sometimes, I have to admit, that makes me mad.

  They don't write many Interactions for Me and My Brother. A couple of seasons ago, we had a tense Angry Brother-Brother Interaction, but not much since.

  ***

  On my day off, I go to the park. The air is cold and imperfect, not canned like in the studio. Ambient noise drowns out my inner monologue. I don't have to hear the soundtrack to Family piped into the building, a continuous loop of faint music. I take out my pocket-size writing tablet and a pen and place them on the bench beside me. At the top of the page is written: How to Be Me.

  Five-year-olds are playing soccer nearby. More specifically, they are viciously kicking one another in the shins while a soccer ball sits unharmed in the vicinity. Once in a while one of them inadvertently kicks the ball, causing a considerable amount of confusion. But mostly they leave the ball alone.

  In the mass of yellow green jerseys and purple silver jerseys, one boy is moving with more decisiveness than the others. He breaks away from the pack and kicks a low, squirting goal through the orange cones. The ball rolls to a stop a few yards from my bench. The boys look at me expectantly. I kick the ball back to them, too hard. We all watch as the black and orange orb sails over their heads and lands next to a dog, who sniffs it.

  I light a cigarette and take a sip of iced coffee from my thermos. The cold liquid spreads through my chest cavity. I can feel individual rivulets moving through me. I consider asking the boys if I can join them, maybe as goalie. The parents are still eyeing me warily after my overexuberant kick. I want to tell them it was an accident, that I would like to play soccer with their kids.

  I stare at the blank page.

  How to Be Me

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  I don't remember why I picked the number ten, if it was optimism or just a nice, round number. Or maybe pessimism. Are there ten ways to Be Me? Why not nine? Why not a thousand? I think about calling my predecessor, but then I remember I don't even know where he lives.

  The soccer game ends. Hugs and oranges all around. There is talk of pizza and arcade tokens. A round of yays and cheers goes up as boys pile into cars and utility vehicles and vans in twos and threes.

  ***

  The next day we have a short scene. It has been raining since before dawn. Me and My Mother have been moving from room to room aimlessly all morning. The house is completely silent. After lunch in front of the television, My Mother asks Me to teach her how to use e-mail.

  Episode 4,572,513

  — I AM A VERY NICE PERSON

  — INT. THE COMPUTER ROOM—EARLY AFTERNOON

  My Mother is sitting in front of the computer, hands resting on the keyboard.

  ME

  Okay, Ma. Let's try to send an e-mail. Who do you want to send it to?

  Silence as Me realizes My Mother has no friends.

  MA

  (pretending not to realize the same thing)

  Myself.

  ME

  Okay.

  MA

  What should I write?

  ME

  Something, anything. It's just a test.

  She sits motionless with her hands on the keyboard.

  ME

  Ma, it's just a test message. Write the first thing that comes to mind.

  She types: I am a very nice person.

  She's supposed to just type gibberish, whatever, anything at all. Not something pitiful and honest and childlike. Not something that makes no sense except for loneliness and hunger for love. And who is she trying to convince?

  ME

  (trying to avoid a Tender Interaction)

  That's good, Ma. Now click Send. See that little tiny envelope? That's your message that you just sent. Click on that.

  She opens the message and reads it aloud.

  MA

  I am a very nice person.

  The director yells cut.

  ***

  I've finally figured it out.

  "She's a faker," I say to Jake. But Jake's half drunk and not really listening. It's ten in the morning.

  "She can't do Tedium. She sucks at Anxiety. She sucks at Quiet Desperation." I pick up a dirt clod and hurl it against the alley wall. It explodes softly into smaller clods.

  "Not everyone's, you know, a Serious Actor like you," Jake says. "You know?" He hiccups.

  "What does that mean? What is that supposed to mean?"

  He takes a long drag off his cigarette and looks away.

  "Hey," I say, "what is that supposed to mean? Answer me."

  "Look, man. I like you and I like you as Me. But, all I'm saying is, you know? I mean, just relax? With your, what do you call it?"

  "Creative research."

  "Yeah. Always trying to, I don't know, be whatever."

  "Me. Be a better Me. What's wrong with that?"

  I realize he does not feel the same way I do about our smoke breaks. Suddenly I feel very silly for thinking I knew this guy who plays My Brother, for thinking he took anything seriously.

  We smoke and don't say anything for a while.

  "She's not Poignant," I say, finally breaking the silence.

  "What's Poignant? There is no Poignant."

  "She's not genuine. She's not real."

  "Real? What's real? Just read the lines and stand on your mark and try not to miss any cues."

  ***

  That night I proceed to get drunk on the set. I wake up slumped over the kitchen
table. I have a hangover that feels like someone let a cat loose inside my face. Half-empty beer cans are all over. Next to me is an ashtray full of Parliaments smoked down to the filters. I hear birds outside chirping like winged demons. I want to be one of them. Or, alternatively, I want to clip their wings and then shoot them all.

  Down the hall, I see the new woman walking toward her dressing room. She stops in front of the door and looks at me.

  "Hello," I say.

  It might be the alcohol or the difficulty I am having in staying vertical that focuses my mind. But I realize I am looking at her for the first time. Really looking at her. Her face is scrubbed clean and she is wearing a T-shirt I wore two seasons ago. It goes down to her knees and hangs off her narrow shoulders like a cape. She wears sweatpants from Wardrobe. Probably My Brother's. She is so small and so mammalian—the texture of her skin, the damaged coarseness of what must have once been beautiful hair.

  I ask her what she is doing here in the middle of the night.

  "I can't sleep," she says. "So I came here to work. I want to do a good job for this Family."

  I want to say, How can you do this? What do you think you are doing? You can't state the premise. You can't just say that you are Sad, that you want to be Comforted. There are rules, and there are times and places and manners for Showing Tenderness. I want to say, don't say it. It's better if you don't say it. But she is so small and she is a stranger and all I can manage to mumble is "great job," not knowing what to do but lie.

  "Thanks," she says, looking at me quickly before slipping into her room.

  ***

  A week later, I show up on the set and the new Me is already standing there, talking to the writers. I guess I should have seen it coming. What with the new woman and her way of doing things and also the discovery of Jake and who he is and how little he cares about playing My Brother. I should have seen the direction things were going.

  People in the crew look at me like they have never seen me before—makeup, grips, guys I've known for years. Just like that, I am nothing to them, now that I am no longer Me. I wander around, fingering the cheese cubes on the snack table and smoking cigarettes, trying not to watch Me, but watching Me anyway. He's about the same height, maybe a hair taller, and has a sunken look to him. They're shooting "Dinner Is Great, Ma." I see Jake standing in the corner. He waves and comes over.

  "Sorry you had to find out like this, man."

  "When did you know?"

  "I didn't."

  "I don't believe you." Film is rolling. Someone shushes us. We watch for a while. Then I see that Jake has been replaced, too. Some college guy, full in the shoulders, with the cuffs of his Oxford button-down rolled over his meaty forearms. He looks like he's straight from a catalog.

  "This guy sucks at Tinged With Melancholy," I say, out of jealousy. And it's true.

  "Yeah."

  "I mean, he really sucks at it."

  "Yeah. He sucks."

  "What?"

  "What?"

  "You're thinking something."

  "No, I'm not," he protests. I give him a look.

  "It's just that, well, I mean, don't get me wrong, you're good at it, you were very good at it and when it was on it was on."

  "But."

  "But, well, why did it always have to be Tinged With Melancholy?"

  Then I see his point. A huge pit opens up in my stomach and my cheeks get hot and the tops of my ears, too.

  The way the new Me says his lines, he hits Comfort right on the head. His pronunciation of "buttery," his rich, liquid sounding of the word "beans." He is so good everyone forgets they are watching a show. It gets very quiet. Crew guys stop talking.

  Already my fumbling attempts embarrass me because I can see My Mother is Happy. Already I wonder if she, if anyone watching, will ever miss my flawed puny experiments, my willingness to be Melancholy, my amateur efforts to properly Love My Mother. My search for happiness through Sadness.

  The new Me can't do Melancholy, but he can do pretty much everything else. He can do Tedium. He can do Ironic. He can even do Secret Joy. The advanced stuff. But the thing is, I get the sense he doesn't even know the names. He doesn't think: Now Me should tilt his head this way and furrow his brow just so to Self-Deprecate, to Commiserate. He's past that. Where I played wobbly individual notes, he plays chords. Huge, booming, double chords, eight, nine, ten notes struck simultaneously, with differing amounts of force, all of it coming out together.

  I wonder, why did I always have to tinge everything with Melancholy? Why did I think it was all about Interactions? Why did I have to capitalize every Emotion? Why didn't anyone explain that all I had to do was lean down, crouch down, and forget the script and ignore the weird smell coming from her and say, to My Mother and to the strange woman in the fat suit: I'm Sorry uppercase and I'm sorry lowercase and I Love You and I love you and I'm here, Your Son, a stranger, a guy trying to play him. We're all right here.

  Two-Player Infinitely Iterated Simultaneous Semi-Cooperative Game with Spite and Reputation

  1

  The highest score of all time was recorded on July 24, 2016.

  2

  On that date, Wally Kushner, age seven, of Eureka, CA, achieved a point total of 1,356,888, including all bonuses.

  3

  Using a modified Stupps-Kinsky approach (1973), Wally conducted a single-session game lasting more than nine thousand rounds. In total, he played for eleven days, six hours, twenty-four minutes, and three seconds.

  4

  Wally's mother kept time. She also fed Wally and wiped down his face and neck with a damp washcloth. She did this twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening.

  At the conclusion of the game, Wally, then seated cross-legged on the floor of his bedroom, looked up at his mother. He asked her, "Are you proud of me?" Wally's mother was very proud.

  5

  The game begins when a player walks into a room and announces a statement. The statement can be a truth or a falsehood. If another player is in the vicinity and hears the announcement and if such other player has his setting switched on to Accept Truths, then the program will engage. The subroutines will be loaded. This is the beginning of a game and this is how a game always begins.

  6

  During his marathon effort, Wally consumed forty-three bologna-and-cheese sandwiches, seven and a half gallons of orange juice, and one hundred ninety-one Oreos. His average pulse during the game was a placid sixty-four beats per minute. Doctors monitoring Wally noted his almost total lack of perspiration.

  7

  The program run-time summary from Wally's record session reported that Player 1, controlled by Wally, made exactly nine thousand and forty statements. Of these, five thousand were statements about the world, four thousand were statements about other players, thirty were statements about himself, ten were statements about all of the above.

  Seven thousand five hundred statements Wally made were true, one thousand five hundred were false, sixty statements were both true and false, ten statements were neither true nor false, one statement was false and beautiful, one statement was neither true nor false nor beautiful, but it was funny and sad and sweet and, on top of it all, grammatically correct.

  8

  The basic tool in the game is the eye-looking vector. Each player has one. The eye-looking vector starts from the center of the player's head and extends forward, parallel to the sagittal plane and orthogonally to the coronal plane of the player's body. Players can point their eye-looking vectors in a ninety-degree peripheral field of vision from their line of forward orientation.

  9

  Another important tool in the game is the vector-accepting eye. A vector-accepting eye is the same as an eye-looking vector. They are two names for the same thing, but they are described with different terms, depending on the current polarization of the players.

  10

  A general rule of thumb is this: When a player is announcing the truth, he looks with an eye-l
ooking vector. When a player is accepting the truth, he accepts with a vector-accepting eye.

  11

  The average eye-looking vector is three yards long. Within the range of the eye-looking vector, a player can absorb data and make true statements about the world. The length and spatial orientation of the eye-looking vector determine the statements about the world that can be made. The longer the eye-looking vector, the more statements a player can make about the world. These might be true or false, beautiful or not beautiful, but these are the only statements that can be made.

  Note, however, that even a very long eye-looking vector cannot help a player make statements about other players. More about this later.

  12

  Wally began his game by choosing Player 1.

  13

  Each player must assume certain things about himself.

  14

  Wally chose the Husband-Wife module.

  He assumed the following:

  "I am thirty-seven years old."

  "I make more than I deserve."

  "I have a beautiful wife. I know this because everyone tells me so."

  "As far as I can tell, I have no attachments to anyone or anything in the entire world."

  15

  Other modules include Brother-Brother, Father-Son, and Total Strangers.

  16

  Mirrors are an interesting feature of the game. A mirror will turn a vector in a different direction. Mirrors can confuse the difference between eye-looking vectors and vector-accepting eyes. Another feature is the black box. Not much is known about the black box.

  The Sorry Feature has been updated for more realistic game play, especially between lovers or strangers.

  18

  Another updated feature of the game is Common Knowledge. Common Knowledge is activated in the following situation. If Player 1 walks into a room and makes a true statement and Player 2 is within range and hears the truth of the statement, Common Knowledge may be attained. What has to happen is that Player 1 must utter the true statement while pointing his eye-looking vector in the direction of Player 2's vector-accepting eye. Player 2 hears the truth and knows it. Because Player 1 is eye-looking, Player 1 knows that Player 2 knows the truth. Because Player 2 is eye-looking, Player 2 knows that Player 1 knows that Player 2 knows the truth. Likewise, Player 1 knows that Player 2 knows that Player 1 knows that Player 2 knows the truth. An infinite hierarchy of knowledge is created. This can be depicted as a spiral between the players, each one knowing an infinite number of truths about the other.