I’d made the commitment. I was going to be Miracle-Mega-Marvelous-Magical-Mighty-Magnificent-Mortified Woman for the evening.
Unless I dug into the back of my closet and resurrected that old tutu.
When I glanced toward the couch again, Jon was watching me. He seemed to be deep in thought, and the small noises his O2 tank made seemed annoyingly loud. He’d wrapped his arm around Barker and had him clutched close to his chest. Usually, that meant something was wrong; Barker was the guy he told his most intimate secrets to, the stuff he felt he couldn’t tell Mom or Dad, or me. Barker went to all his doctor’s appointments with him, and to the hospital. Barker slept with him at night. Now, Barker was getting kind of squashed.
Frowning, I crossed the room and knelt down in front of the couch. “You okay, little big man?”
“Sure,” Jon said.
“You tired? Head hurt?”
For a moment he didn’t respond. Then he leaned toward me, arm still wrapped around Barker. “You look beautiful,” he whispered. The admiration in his eyes made my heart ache, and I pulled back a little, grimacing at the way those silly boots pinched my toes. Then his gaze shifted, and he seemed to be looking through me rather than at me. “I believe you can fly,” he murmured.
That caught me off-guard.
He could barely walk; he certainly couldn’t run. And flying?
Only in our dreams.
“We better get you ready,” I told him. “You know how Dad is about getting there early so we can get a good parking spot.”
Dad was one of the creative ones. One year, he was “dandruff”; another year, a bowl of pasta e fagioli. Last year he’d dressed in a black turtleneck and black jeans, ran a double strip of yellow tape from his head to his belt, glued Matchbox cars to himself and said he was Interstate 80. For him, Halloween preparations began just after the Fourth of July, and I couldn’t remember a single year in which he’d repeated himself.
Yet it didn’t bother him that Cam and Lily and I repeated ourselves year after year after year.
For a moment I wondered what he’d think of Miracle Woman.
Then I was pretty sure I knew.
Grinning, I got to my feet and shifted my cape so it would flow smoothly from my shoulders to the floor. Jonathan watched me the whole time, still sorting through the mysteries in his head.
“Up, up, and away, little bro,” I said. “Let’s get you ready, then I’ll show you how fast I can run.”
True to form, Dad got us there fifteen minutes before the party’s official start time. He scored a parking spot half a block from town hall, and crowed for a good half a minute as he maneuvered the car into place. This year, with the help of a million small white balloons fastened to a white bicycling outfit, he was a “bubble bath” – a costume he had to change into in my uncle Don’s office across the street from our parking spot, because he hadn’t been able to drive in it – though Mom had informed him that people were more likely to think he was a stripper, and that his balloons would probably all be popped before the food stands opened.
Mom went the safe route: like half the other people at the party, she was a zombie. I think I got my non-creative gene from her; the years she wasn’t a zombie, she was Glinda the Good. Every year, Dad told her that with a little more “juice” she’d at least get honorable mention in the costume contest, but juice wasn’t her thing.
Really? I think just watching Dad have fun was her thing.
This year, Jonathan was a basket of laundry. Dad had cut apart a couple of big white plastic laundry baskets and reassembled them around Jon’s wheelchair, then heaped old clothes and towels around him. Of course, Barker was tucked in there too, on Jon’s lap, ready to listen to anything Jon cared to confide.
We’d lucked out, weather-wise. When we arrived at the party, the temperature was still in the upper 50s, and the air was still. You could smell autumn in the air – old leaves, and bonfires – and there was no chance of rain. That meant the party would go on until well after midnight for a lot of people.
Dad, back from Uncle Don’s office and fully decked out in his white balloons, commandeered Jon’s chair and tipped it onto its back wheels like he intended to burn rubber. “Team Matson has arrived!” he crowed. “And we are gonna take this town!”
“Watch your backside, honey,” Mom warned him.
That, too, was covered in balloons. It meant he wouldn’t be able to sit down, but he claimed that didn’t bother him. On Halloween, generally speaking, nothing bothered him. As soon as they opened the food stands, he’d be scarfing down hot dogs and corn on the cob, high-fiving everyone he thought had scored big with their costume choice, and sizing up the prize options at the various game booths. Attitude, he told us: the success of the party was all about attitude.
As he propelled Jon toward Hanson Park, I pulled Aunt Nora’s cape around me, using it to conceal those tiny shorts.
“Attitude,” Cam reminded me, sounding impressively like my father.
Like every other October 31st I could remember, the center of town had been transformed into a creepy, autumn-flavored wonderland. The storefronts were decorated with cutouts of pumpkins and autumn leaves, real pumpkins, fake spiderwebs, posters of zombies and witches and skeletons. Real leaves, dropped by the trees in the park, had been allowed to gather along the sidewalks and in the gutters. Spooky music was playing through the speakers above the door of what had been a music store when I was in grade school; now it was a thrift shop, but the owners still made good use of the sound system.
The air was rich with the scents of fresh-baked pumpkin and apple pie, cider donuts, and frying burgers. That guaranteed that the food stands were everyone’s first stop – you’d have to have willpower of steel to resist those good smells. Even Lily, who normally ate less than her mom’s canaries, didn’t protest as Cam and I led her in that direction. I knew she was good for at least a burger and a cup of cider.
We were passing the hardware store when I heard a whistle.
Two notes. A wolf whistle.
Cam reached out and stopped me from pulling the cape around myself again. “Would you stop?” he groaned. “You look fine.” I started to protest, but he gestured around us with his head. “Take a look,” he told me in a whisper. “You think most of these people look good? I mean… what’s that guy supposed to be?”
“Mustard,” Lily said.
The guy in question was no one we knew. Somebody had brought him as a guest, I supposed, and he’d grabbed whatever was handy: in this case, a matching set of ugly yellowy-orange sweats.
“Mustard?” Cam and I echoed.
“I don’t know,” Lily said. “That’s my best guess.”
We saw Disney princesses of all ages (including, to Cam’s delight, some very naughty princesses), a lot of Batmen and Supermen, Sherlock Holmes, pirates, ghosts and skeletons, a whole troupe of zombies, a family dressed as crayons, a Smurf, a guy dressed as a sandwich, three guys from the senior class with lampshades on their heads, a girl covered in Christmas ornaments, vampires, clowns, Edward Scissorhands, Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe, a trio of angels with big fluffy wings, the Joker… and of course, a bunch of guys in their everyday clothes, roaming through the crowd drinking beer out of soda cans.
As usual, some of the little kids were crying. A lot of people had dogs with them, some of them in costume. The crying made the dogs bark, which made some of the kids cry harder. Over it all, the speakers at the thrift store were playing “Monster Mash.”
New year, same old stuff.
A few times, I spotted my parents in the crowd, Dad at the helm of Jonathan’s wheelchair. After they got something to eat, they moved around, checking out the carnival booths (Dad was a master at the ring toss and always managed to win something that would fall apart long before Thanksgiving), looking for friends, dancing to the music, picking out the people who were likely to score big in the costume contest. Cam, Lily and I also saw some of our teachers, the football coach, and the
vice principal.
Lily spent a lot of time avoiding (yet spying on) her crush, Avery Johns.
I was munching on a donut when I heard a small voice say, “Are you gonna try this time? I think you could win.”
I looked down to see Jon parked a couple of feet away.
“Try what, peanut?” I asked him.
“The contest. You look really good. You should enter this time. I really think you could win.”
He had a Christmas-morning look on his face. Like, if I won, it would be the coolest thing that had ever happened to him. But I’d been thinking all day about the women in Cam’s comics, and the gorgeous actresses who had played superheroes in the movies and on TV. There was a Wonder Woman here in the crowd, somebody I didn’t recognize, wearing a bustier and high-heeled boots. Her curves were eye-popping, and her hair was a glorious, flowing curtain of gold. I was supposed to compete with her?
Or, heck, even with my dad and his balloons?
Cam and Lily were focused on something else, so I crouched down alongside Jon’s chair, smiling at Barker, who was clamped to Jon’s chest, providing my brother with a nice soft chin rest. “There are a lot of people here with great costumes,” I said softly.
“You have a great costume too.”
“Jonny…”
“Won’t you try?”
The disappointment in his voice broke my heart. I wanted to argue with him; I wanted to point to the people who’d spent all year (and a lot of money) putting their costumes together, and assure him that those were the people who’d get the most votes. I was wearing a blue t-shirt and $15 lamé boots. Paired with my scrawny chicken legs and non-existent bust, it didn’t make for a prize-winning look, no matter what Cam and Lily kept telling me – and no matter what I could see in Jonathan’s eyes.
Sure, I could sign up for the contest. But I’d lose.
“Hey, there she is!”
That was my dad, working his way through what was probably his third or fourth hot dog. To my surprise, none of his balloons were popped. Grinning, he leaned in carefully and kissed me on the temple. Then he looked down at Jon and frowned at what he saw.
“What’s the trouble, buddy?” he asked. “Too noisy for you?”
It might well have been. The crowd had been growing steadily, to the point where you had to duck-and-weave to get anywhere. Something like that felt suffocating to Jon, as it did for a lot of the little kids, who couldn’t see anything but a forest of knees and backsides. Jon couldn’t summon enough of a deep breath to yell, so he was never able to command people to get out of his way; at the same time, few people – particularly the ones who didn’t know my family, and didn’t know how sick Jon was – were observant enough to understand that they needed to let him get past.
I knew part of him would have preferred to stay home, where he’d feel safe and reasonably in control. But the part of him that wanted to be included, and wanted very much to make Dad happy, would always say “no” to being left behind.
“Maybe we should go down by the gazebo for a while,” I said.
It was quieter down there. Some years, they set up a band there (the raised floor of the gazebo giving the musicians some extra height), but this year the performers were scattered around, and that part of the park was comparatively deserted. A few older people were milling around, obviously glad for a little peace and quiet, and a handful of families with already-tired little kids had spread out picnic blankets so the little ones could take a short nap. I found a good spot near what in the springtime would be a tulip bed, parked Jon’s chair, and sat on the ground alongside him. Immediately, my feet felt better, and I started to wish superheroes were allowed to wear flip-flops. Or slippers.
I could see Mom and Dad nearby, both of them keeping an eye on Jon – and Mom was keeping an eye on Dad, who was holding a hula hoop, of all things. Where he’d gotten it from, I had no idea, but I was sure it would play a role in next year’s costume.
Jon made a small, wheezy noise that pulled my attention back to him. He was squirming around in his bed of laundry; when he stopped, Barker was lying on top of some towels, gazing out at the crowd.
“We can go home if you want,” I said. “We can find somebody to give us a ride.”
He looked around for a minute, then shook his head. “I’m okay. Dad gets really sad if we bail.”
“He’d understand.”
Over in the open part of the park, a couple of kids and a big brown dog were tossing and chasing a Frisbee. It was apparently the dog’s favorite game; in between catches he ran around frantically, yipping and flailing his tail. Jon watched them for a while with a hand resting on Barker’s head, and when the Frisbee landed a few yards from his chair, he sat up a little straighter. I could tell what he was thinking: he wanted the dog to come close, so he could get a better look. If he had the chance to pet him, that would make his whole night. Forget costumes and games and cider donuts; he might have a chance to pet a real dog.
“Is he friendly?” I asked the kid who came running over to fetch the Frisbee. The dog was bouncing around close by, and the kid turned to look at him with a frown, as if he wasn’t sure how to answer the question. So I changed it to, “He doesn’t bite, does he?”
“Nah,” the kid said. “He just drools a lot.”
“Can my brother pet him?”
“I guess.”
Jon all but stood up in the chair. His eyes were as wide as saucers as the kid called the dog over – and the dog seemed no less thrilled. He grinned an enormous doggy grin at Jon and moved readily in toward the chair. True to the kid’s word, he showed no sign of wanting to nip or bite, and he stood nearly still as Jon stroked his head and ruffled his fur.
Then his nose started to twitch. He smelled whatever Jon had been eating, I realized. A burger, or a hot dog. Any second now, he’d start licking Jon’s fingers, something that always made Jon burst into giggles.
Instead, the dog thrust his head into the rumpled towels and t-shirts surrounding my little brother, rooted around for a moment… then seized Barker in his jaws and took off running toward the far end of the park.
For a moment, I felt like time had stopped.
No one moved. I couldn’t hear anything. My brain refused to make sense of what had just happened.
I saw Jon’s face drain of color.
Another second or two went by. Then Jon gathered up more air than I thought he could possibly inhale and let out a piercing, blood-curdling screech. It wasn’t a word; it was pure sound, pain and anger and frustration. Terror. He couldn’t have emitted a more horrible noise if someone had stabbed him, and it grabbed the attention of everyone around us – though none of them seemed to know what to do.
Alongside me, the kid with the Frisbee snorted a laugh.
He thought it was funny.
Dimly, I was aware of my mother and father and Cam and Lily all coming toward us. They didn’t understand what had happened, I realized, though they knew Jon was upset. No one knew exactly what had happened except for me and Jon and that kid, and the kid thought it was funny. Meanwhile, that dog was getting farther and farther away. Running home, maybe, to bury my brother’s best friend in his yard, or hide it under the porch. I’d never seen that particular dog before, had no idea who owned him or where he might live. It could be a few blocks away, or a mile.
Jon started to cry, in big, gulping sobs. He struggled to get out of the chair, but the laundry and the pieces of laundry basket had him pinned in, and all he could do was push against it with his small hands – hands that were good at lining up tiny action figures, but no good at all in a fight.
“Honey?” I heard my mother yelp. “Jonathan?”
Nobody was going to fix this, I realized. What would D.J. do? didn’t matter – there was no Uncle Jesse, no Joey here to take over and make things right before Dad found out what had happened. I was on my own.
I took off running.
For the first few steps, those stupid cheap boots bit into my t
oes and my heels, and I wanted to wish them gone.
Then, somehow, they stopped hurting. They might as well have been gone, or been turned into something soft and supple and glovelike, because I couldn’t feel them at all. My strides got longer and longer, and I could feel Aunt Nora’s cape lifting behind me – not pulling, not fighting me, but somehow a part of me. Of what I was doing. I was aware of people gaping at me – some of them pointing – as I tore across the park, but I paid no real attention to them; they were simply there, an obstacle to be avoided. I focused on the dog, who was ducking and weaving through the cluster of small trees at the far end of the park, disappearing from sight for an instant, then back again.
I had never done any competitive running. I played volleyball. During the charity 5K’s Lily and my mom and Aunt Nora and I took part in, we walked, and gossiped, and giggled. No one ran.
I cleared the trees maybe a hundred feet behind the dog.
Gaining on him.
I knew he’d seen me; every few seconds he’d glance back toward me. He didn’t slow down, or stop, or make any sudden turns – he had a destination in mind, but rather than eluding me, I was sure he thought this was another game, something that combined guarding his prize and challenging me to seize it from him. Like it was the Frisbee, or a ball. That was the saving grace of all this, I decided. I had a chance of catching him because he wanted me to.
When we reached the road on the other side of the park, I couldn’t feel the ground any more. Really, I should have been gasping for breath. Those boots should have crippled me completely.
But I was still running.
The dog took off into the neighborhood everybody in town called Elmwood (though the elms were long gone), a collection of maybe fifty houses, a mess of fences and shrubbery and detached garages, one obstacle after another. Clearly, the dog knew his way around, and I didn’t – but somehow I had no trouble keeping up with him and locating him almost immediately when he ducked around a bush or behind a garage. It was almost full dark, but I had no trouble seeing him. Zeroing in on him.
The Powers That Be: A Superhero Collection Page 2