T-shirt in midpretend stride. I look down and wonder if the view from the front is as bad as the view from the top. Good gravy, if I had met the present version of me in junior high, I would have kicked my butt. My body looks like a balloon full of half set concrete. It sloshes around, but very slowly. It takes its time. Even my fat is lazy. Maybe the walk will whip it into shape.
This gives me an idea. I need to look into having fat liposuctioned and then using the suckings to form a sidekick. All I’d need is the fat, a few sausage casings, and some sort of incredibly advanced artificial intelligence. Maybe aliens or hyperintelligent monkeys would have something I could use for this.
Wow…Okay…the exercise is making me delusional. It must be from all the blood rushing to my gut. I look at the clock, and there are only a few minutes of pseudowalking left to do. I Batman up and stick it out, skipping the stretching at the end of the tape. Stretching can come later. Cereal comes now. I turn off the TV. ( good-bye, thunderthighs!) and make a beeline for the kitchen and some generic sugar-coated smallish wheat packets. That’s when I see it.
There—this is hard—there’s a bag on the kitchen counter. There’s a bag, and it’s empty. My heart starts to pound again. The sweat starts to flow. I pick the bag up, hoping against hope, but my first impression is right: they’re gone. They’re all gone.
I promise myself I won’t cry, and then I lovingly place the bag in the trash can, draping it with a dirty paper towel. I consider saluting, then realize I don’t know the bag’s military status, so I just shut the trash can lid as quietly as I can and walk away in respectful silence.
Batman probably eats Wheaties anyway, I tell myself, and that makes it a little better. I retreat to the bedroom, trying to decide if I want to shower or get more sleep and just blame the smell on the guy in the next cubicle all day.
I see my beautiful wife lying in the bed in the dark room, and suddenly, like the bolt of lightning from the heavens when Billy Batson yells “Shazam!” it hits me: at some point, I’m going to have to tell her about this whole superhero thing, and it isn’t gonna be pretty. The mind boggles, in fact, when considering the many ways it could go wrong. Wife doesn’t handle “different” very well, and this is about as different as it gets.
I sit on the edge of the bed and watch her sleep for a bit, knowing this is about as pleasant as the conversation’s going to be for a while. Eventually, I click on a lamp on the nightstand. Wife registers nothing.
“So,” I say, after clearing my throat as conspicuously as possible.
Wife lays there like lump.
“So,” I say, slightly louder.
“Hmms uh na,” Wife answers.
I gently shake her leg. She stirs, cracking open one eye.
“So,” I say again.
“What?”
“I was just saying ‘So.’”
There’s a brief but extremely awkward silence as Wife attempts to comprehend what she’s woken to.
“Were we having a conversation?” she asks.
“No, I just couldn’t decide how to start.”
Wife’s attention is suddenly focused like a laser beam.
“Start what?” she asks, eyes narrowing.
“Telling you about it.”
Now she’s awake, with a hint of panic in her bloodshot eyes.
“About what?”
“My new book.”
Relief and annoyance briefly duel for control of her facial muscles.
“What?”
“The new book I’m working on.”
“Oh,” Wife says, flopping back onto the mattress. “Why don’t you finish the other five you’ve started before you start on something else?”
“This one’s different. It’s nonfiction.”
“How does that make it different?”
“I don’t have to make everything up, so it should be easier. I just have to do stuff and then write about it. A monkey could do that. A monkey who can type, anyway.”
Wife sits back up.
“What, precisely, are you going to do?” she asks, and from her tone, I know she wants details on a subatomic, nanosecond-by-nanosecond level.
“Just some stuff. Just thought you should know. See ya!”
“Waitwaitwaitwaitwait. The last time you did ‘just some stuff,’ you made a little tube that shot big fireballs from your hand.” *
“They weren’t that big.”
“They were fireballs. From the palm of your hand.”
“Cool, huh?”
Sigh. “What are you going to do?”
“Do you know there are people who put on costumes and fight crime?”
“Yeah. They’re called cops. Are you going to be a cop now?”
“No, not a cop. And those are uniforms, not costumes.”
“Same difference.”
“Actually, if only one person is wearing it, it’s a costume. If a hundred people are wearing it, it’s a uniform,” I say, explaining helpfully.
Wife picks up her phone from the nightstand and checks the time.
“Just tell me what you’re going to do. Other than be late for work.”
“I’m gonna be a superhero.”
The room falls silent. Perhaps Wife is so overcome with pride and happiness she can’t speak, I think. I’ve done what every married person dreams of—rendered my spouse speechless.
As the silence enters its second full minute, I start to wonder if she even heard me in the first place.
“I’m gonna be a…”
“Yeah, I heard.”
“So whatcha think?”
“Are you serious?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Like, with a cape and stuff?”
“Well, capes aren’t really that practical. I’d have a costume and a mask, though.”
“And you’d go out in public dressed like that.”
“I’d have to, yeah.”
“You’re
