Less Than Hero (16 page)

“Stop it!” he shouts. “Get lost, you fuckers!”

Being a hero has never been my strong suit. It’s never even been a suit, or a sports coat, for that matter. But something inside of me clicks and I feel compelled to act.

I look at Randy, who looks at me with an expression that seems to mirror my thoughts. Charlie says, “We should do something,” and Vic nods. “Then let’s do it.”

The four of us jog down the sidewalk, side by side, preparing to do battle like Eliot Ness and the Untouchables. Except we’re not carrying shotguns or badges. And we have no idea what we’re doing.

One of the punks shoves the homeless man to the ground, eliciting a “Hey!” from Randy, who gets out in front as we arrive at the scene. The two punks turn and notice us and I expect one of them to develop a sudden and severe case of poison oak. Instead, Randy drops to the ground, rolls over once, and starts convulsing.

“Shit,” Charlie says.

“Goddamn it, Charlie!” Vic says. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” Charlie says. “It was an accident.”

“Everything you do is an accident,” Vic says. “You’re a walking disaster.”

“I said I was sorry!”

“Yeah.” One of the punks walks up to Charlie and flashes a knife, waving it in the air. “You’re gonna be fuckin’ sorry.”

It takes a moment before I realize it’s none other than Cornrows from the J train.

“Hey asshole!” I shout, and start to access my trigger.

He looks at me over Charlie’s shoulder and narrows his eyes before opening them wider and smiling. “Hey Deke, guess who—”

Before he can get any more out, Cornrows drops his knife and projectile vomits all over Charlie’s chest and face. Two seconds later, Charlie returns the favor. Whether out of disgust or because he’s collateral damage from Vic’s efforts I don’t know, but both of them start puking like a couple of fraternity pledges.

“Yo Billy,” the other punk says, who turns out to be Soul Patch. “What the fuck, man?”

Cornrows/Billy throws up all over the sidewalk like someone turned on a faucet in order to empty his stomach while Charlie vomits in short staccato bursts. A few feet away, Randy continues to convulse and spasm like a fish on the deck of a boat.

“Hey, man!” Soul Patch says. “What the fuck you bitches do to Billy?”

Soul Patch doesn’t wait for an answer but takes out his own switchblade and flips it open, the blade glinting in the glow of the streetlight. On the sidewalk nearby I see Billy’s knife, but I’ve never been in a fistfight let alone a knife fight, so I use the only weapon I have at my disposal.

I take a deep breath and summon my trigger, imagining Steve Martin from
Little Shop of Horrors
shoving a needle into my gums,
lidocaine flowing out of the syringe and turning my lips numb, channeling all of my focus and energy into my lips, turning them numb.

“Yo man!” Soul Patch says. “You’re that fucker from the subway!”

He comes at me with the knife as my eyes grow heavy and the pressure builds up in the back of my throat.

“I’m gonna cut you open like a fuckin’ pig!” he says.

My mouth opens and I yawn, my lips stretching wide like I’m Steven Tyler or Mick Jagger mugging for a music video. Before I can get out of the way, Soul Patch stumbles into me and we tumble to the sidewalk in a heap of arms and legs, the deadweight of Soul Patch pinning me to the sidewalk. The next moment, Vic is shoving the punk aside and into the gutter and reaching down with his hand to help me up.

“You okay, Lloyd?” he says.

I nod, relieved not to have a knife sticking out of any part of my body, then I stand up and look around.

Cornrows/Billy is on his hands and knees dry heaving while Charlie sits on the sidewalk in front of the Chinatown Health Castle, groaning. Soul Patch is out cold in the gutter, flat on his back, sleeping like a baby—his knife on the ground next to him like a forgotten pacifier. The homeless guy who was getting attacked when we showed up has gathered his possessions and is shuffling off as fast as he can down the street.

I guess a thank-you would be too much to ask for.

Randy stops convulsing, sits up, and holds his head in his hands like he’s trying to keep it from cracking open.

“Jesus,” Randy says. “I’m totally Led Zeppelined right now.”

I’m presuming Randy means he’s dazed and confused and not
going in through the out door, but we don’t have time to play classic-rock roulette. A few bystanders have noticed the commotion and are walking toward us while somewhere in the distance, a siren wails. Whether it’s headed this way or to another scene I don’t know, but it’s probably not a good idea for us to stick around and have to explain what happened.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say.

Y
ou got any Tylenol?” Randy asks as we walk into Charlie’s apartment.

“In the kitchen,” Charlie says. “Above the sink.”

Randy opens the cupboard. “You really need to work on your aim.”

“Yeah, you’re not the only one.” Charlie burps and makes a face, then puts a hand over his mouth and runs to the bathroom.

“It’s not my fault you were standing right next to my target,” Vic says, sitting down on the couch. “I was trying to keep you from getting stabbed!”

While Randy chases three Tylenol with a glass of water and Charlie dry heaves in the bathroom, I can’t stop thinking about what just happened and how good it felt to take down those two punks. It’s not exactly the Yankees or
Playboy
or
National Geographic
, and you’d think if I’d been born to make people fall asleep, then I would have just become a politician or an art-film director. But there’s something undeniable about the importance of what we just did.

“Hey, have you guys thought about why this happened?” I say.

“Yeah,” Vic says. “It happened because Charlie needs to work on his aim.”

“I’m not talking about tonight,” I say. “I’m talking about what we were meant to do with these new abilities of ours.”

“You mean like our destiny?” Randy says.

“Yeah,” I say. “Something like that.”

“I didn’t think you believed in all that crap,” Vic says.

“I believe in destiny,” Randy says, sitting down next to Vic. “I think we’re all born with some specific purpose and that things happen for a reason.”

“Well,” Vic says, “then I believe this happened so that I can teach all the douche bags in Manhattan a lesson.”

“Don’t you think there should be more to this than just dishing out our own form of karmic justice to the douche bags of the world?” I say. “Something more fulfilling? Something that gives our lives a little more meaning?”

“What are you guys talking about?” Charlie asks, returning from the bathroom.

“Lloyd is waxing on about predestination,” Vic says.

“What does that mean?” Charlie asks.

“It means that I’ve been thinking about why this happened to us,” I say. “Or at least why this happened to me. I don’t know if it’s destiny or God or some random act of weirdness, but I’m starting to think that we’re supposed to do something more with these abilities than just teach lessons to litterbugs and smokers and people who read their e-mail in the movie theater.”

“Like what?” Charlie asks.

“Yeah,” Vic says. “What could be more important than that?”

When you don’t have health insurance or paid sick days, putting yourself at risk for a complete stranger is more often a matter of economics than doing the right thing. Heroism doesn’t stand much of a chance when common sense is in charge. But once you’ve accepted the fact that the drugs you’ve been testing for five years have affected you on a genetic level and you’ve decided to avoid seeking medical help because you like yourself better this way, common sense isn’t really part of the equation.

“Like tonight,” I say. “Like that homeless man we just helped. Like the asshole Randy took care of on the subway. I think we’re meant to use our supernatural powers to help people.”

Randy stands up and pumps his fist in the air. “Right on!”

“Hold on a minute,” Vic says. “Did you just say
supernatural powers
?”

“Wouldn’t you call what we can do supernatural?” I say. “Or even superhuman? Causing people to fall asleep and throw up and break out in rashes?”

“And go into seizures,” Charlie says.

“I just think calling them
supernatural
powers
is taking it a little far,” Vic says. “They’re more like freakish genetic mutations.”

“A lot of supernatural powers are genetic mutations,” Charlie says. “Spider-Man. The Hulk. Mister Fantastic. The Invisible Woman. The Human Torch. The Thing.”

“The X-Men are all mutants, too,” Randy says.

“Yeah,” Charlie says. “But they were all born that way.”

“They’re still genetic mutants,” Randy says. “And the X-Men could totally take the Fantastic Four.”

Vic looks back and forth from Randy to Charlie. “You two
both got the shit kicked out of you in high school on a regular basis, didn’t you?”

While I’m not a huge comic book geek, I’m familiar enough to know that we have something in common with a lot of comic book superheroes who gained their powers due to mutations after exposure to some scientific experiment or anomaly. While we can’t make ourselves invisible or engulf our entire bodies in flames or turn into green, humanoid monsters with anger-management issues, we’re not that dissimilar from the Fantastic Four or the Incredible Hulk.

“If we have superpowers,” Randy says, raising his eyebrows, “doesn’t that kind of make
us
superheroes?”

“Here we go.” Vic points to his watch. “Delusions of grandeur, right on schedule.”

“Hey, there’s a superhero supply company in Brooklyn,” Charlie says. “They have capes and secret-identity kits and all sorts of gear and supplies for fighting crime. They even have mechanical web shooters and invisibility-detection goggles. We could totally pimp out!”

Vic throws up his hands. “Great. We’ve now left the country of the Silly and have entered the country of the Absurd.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “It doesn’t seem absurd to me.”

“Yeah,” Charlie says. “New York is superhero central. The Fantastic Four live in New York.”

“So does Iron Man,” Randy says.

“Spider-Man grew up in Queens,” Charlie says. “Daredevil was raised in Hell’s Kitchen. And Captain America was born on the Lower East Side.”

“It’s unanimous,” I say. “We’re genetic mutants living in New York City. We don’t have a choice but to become superheroes.”

“It is our destiny,” Randy says in his best James Earl Jones impersonation.

Randy and I high five each other while Charlie grabs some beers from the refrigerator.

“Not to play Eeyore to you three Tiggers,” Vic says, “but I don’t think we can just start fighting crime without thinking about the consequences.”

“Like what?” Randy asks.

“Oh, I don’t know. Like getting shot or stabbed,” Vic says. “We’re not exactly impervious to bullets or knives, you know.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t use our powers to help people,” I say.

“Yeah,” Charlie says. “Just because we’re not from the planet Krypton and we weren’t bitten by a radioactive spider doesn’t mean we can’t be superheroes.”

“Whatever’s happened to us,” I say. “
However
it’s happened, I don’t think we developed these abilities for our own personal amusement.”

“ ‘With great power comes great responsibility,’ ” Charlie says, looking pleased with himself. “That’s from
Spider-Man
.”

Vic looks at Charlie and shakes his head. “No wonder you never get laid.”

“So what do you guys think?” I say. “Are you in or out?”

“I’m in.” Charlie says with a smile and thrusts his hand high into the air like an exclamation point.

Randy raises his bottle of Budweiser. “Me, too.”

Vic looks at the two of them, then over at me for a moment before he lets out a sigh and puts his hand up like he’s giving a lazy Heil Hitler.

“Okay. So now that we’ve decided we’re all idiots, what’s next?” Vic says. “How do we go about cleaning up the city?”

Before I can come up with an answer, the intercom by the front door buzzes. Charlie walks over to the intercom and presses the
TALK
button.

“Hello?” he says, like he’s used to getting visitors after midnight.

“It’s Frank,” says the voice out of the intercom.

Charlie buzzes him in.

“What’s Frank doing here?” I ask.

“I texted him while I was in the bathroom and asked him to come over,” Charlie says.

“Why?” Vic asks.

“Because I was worried about him,” Charlie says. “And I don’t believe he’s mugging people or making them have hallucinations.”

Thirty seconds later there’s a knock at the door. Charlie goes over and opens it to reveal Frank standing there with a Big Mac in one hand and a large fountain drink in the other, dressed in sweatpants and a generous V-neck sweater.

“Charlie,” Frank says and walks in.

Charlie closes the door behind him and we all just stand there, not saying anything, looking around at one another like guilty teenagers.

“So Frank,” Vic says. “What have you been up to?”