“Oh, wow!” the old man says.
“—and” Geist nods at me—” he’s an author, he’s writing about me—”
“Oh! Okay!”
I’m finding myself starting to respect the old man’s apparent lack of fazeability.
“—and we’re going around and trying to do something good.”
“Oh, okay! There’s nothing wrong with that!”
“That’s what we think! And today I’ve got some comics and some Pokémon cards for the kids.”
“That’s good! Let me fill out a slip here for you. Just put your name down there, and—”
“Well, I have a secret identity.”
“Oh! Well, then you don’t have to.”
“Well, I can do what I can,” Geist says, and he proceeds to try to fill out the donation card without giving actual information. While he’s doing that, a pair of Hispanic boys walks by staring. They spend the next few minutes standing in the background, pointing at us and talking in Spanish. The only words I understand are “superhero” and “cowboy.”
“What do you do, just follow him around?” the volunteer asks me while Geist erases God knows what on his card and starts over.
“Yep.”
“Oh, that’s good.”
“We were able to give some food to the homeless earlier,” I say.
“Oh, that’s great! You’re having a good day, then.”
“We got more planned,” Geist adds, as he turns in the card and indicates that we’re done here.
“Thank you!” the old man says.
“Thank you,” Geist says.
On the way back to his car, I get a text from my wife. She’s asking if the strange man I met over the Internet and then drove fifteen hours to spend the day with has hacked me to pieces yet.
As I’m responding, I hear “Hi! I’m a real-life superhero!” and look up. Geist is waving to some kids riding by on bikes. I soon learn that he introduces himself to anyone who makes eye contact, to anyone who drives, walks, or skates by and to anyone he thinks may or may not be within the sound of his voice.
Back on the road, Geist tells me our next stop is a lemonade stand some local children have set up to raise money to support the troops. I decide to take advantage of the drive time to actually ask some questions.
“So, did you become well known overnight, or was it a gradual thing?”
“Gradual, but a lot quicker than I figured. I mean, for a while we were just a bunch of nuts on the Internet sharing experiences, and then it starts to get legitimized. In my blog, I’m real up front about how I haven’t found any criminals. I haven’t come across any crime. I’m lookin’, I’m prepared. I set out on missions to do charitable stuff, and if that’s all I end up doing in the end, I still feel good. ’Cause I do worry about people who are just out looking for trouble, because it’s gotta be demoralizing, because you go out and most of your patrols are going to be washouts. I’m sure that’s one reason why so many heroes come and go. That’s why if you throw in a charitable mission, you’ve got something. It doesn’t demoralize you. It’s not like, ‘That was a waste of time.’”
“So, you’ve never actually stopped a crime in process? Or even accidentally happened upon one?”
“No, not yet. But I’m looking. For instance, there was a person of interest that I was looking for in this area. He was a Level Three sex offender who was released from nearby here and was seen following women around in this area. Then there was a daylight rape on a bike path of a 15-year-old girl and the description in the newspaper was really vague. It was ‘heavy set and wearing blue.’ White, black, beard, clean shaven, I don’t know. Um, but when I saw this guy’s mug shot like a month later, like in a grassroots-circulated e-mail, I went, ‘Well, he’s heavyset, he’s a Level Three sex offender…’ What if, you know? And so I was thinking maybe he was the guy. And actually, the cops picked him up—he was the guy. So I kinda felt gratified that I’d been looking for the right guy.”
“So it’s not like you can just go out at night and see crime after crime being committed—”
“Not at all, and that’s the frustrating part. You have to be in the right place at the right time, and how do you do that? How do you know who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy just by looking at them?”
“Good point,” I say. “I mean, how many people, in their entire lives, see more than maybe one or two crimes as they happen? In their entire lives?”
“Exactly! That’s why you can’t just fight crime. I mean, some of these guys do, and they say they’ve stopped a bunch of stuff, but I just don’t know.”
“So, are the cops cool with what you’re doing?”
“I think so. I’ve got this weird relationship with cops—or nonrelationship—in that, somewhere in their logs, somewhere on their books, they know who I am. They know Geist. Um—I don’t know if they get a good laugh out of me or what, and I don’t know how widespread that knowledge is. If there’s a message to get out to the cops, it’s that I’m not a kook. I’m a reasonable person. They’re my first call if I have time, but I’m not going to sit around waiting for them. That’s why I’ve got a stun baton, pepper spray, smoke bombs, etc.”
“What do they say when you encounter them as Geist?”
“They’ve told me to stick to charity. I get that a lot.”
12:30 P.M.—SOMEWHERE EN ROUTE TO LEMONADE STAND
We’ve been driving around trying to find the lemonade stand for almost an hour. Geist asks me to check the MapQuest printout he’d made of its location, and I start to wish he had an Alfred back at the cave he could get directions from, or at least a decent GPS.
“Are we lost?” I ask.
“Hey, you’re with a superhero…. What could go wrong?” I laugh, but deep down I think how much those sound like famous last words.
1:15 P.M.—AT LONG LAST, THE LEMONADE STAND
Upon our arrival, Geist hops out of the car and delivers The Spiel flawlessly to the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, assorted hangers-on, and lemonade stand groupies milling about the otherwise quiet residential corner.
“Oh my goodness!” an avuncular type says to the kids.
“Look at that! Look at him!”
“Hi! My name’s Geist, I’m a real-life superhero. I’m on the Internet and stuff like that.”
“Go get some lemonade!” the uncle says.
Geist buys us each a one-dollar glass of lemonade, paying with a twenty and donating the change.
“Why
