Other People's Heroes (The Heroes of Siegel City) (20 page)

“Deal.” I then did the following things in the following order: I hung up the phone, choreographed and performed a little happy dance all by myself, showered (while still dancing), shaved (I stopped dancing for that), got dressed, realized my
new
pants were now entirely too big for me, bought newer pants and a six-pack of sodas and finally got to the park.

“Josh!” I turned in the direction of the voice to see Annie, picnic basket and a blanket tucked under her arm, in a pair of cut-off blue jean shorts and a white top that had a very similar effect upon me as copying the Gunk’s powers.

My limbs rapidly solidified, however, when I saw the
other
little package she’d brought with her. It was a surprise, to be sure, but at least it was a welcome one.

“Hey, Tom!” I said.

“Josh!” He rushed me from Annie’s side, red backpack banging against his side, and darted in for a high-five.

“I couldn’t keep him from coming,” Annie said, laughing. “He’s always asking about you these days -- you and Shift are all he talks about.”

“How are you, buddy?” I asked. “Discovered any latent superpowers lately?”

“Not yet,” he said, “but I’m working on it.” He pulled out a brown portfolio he had in his backpack. “Hey, I brought something to show you.”

“Did you know Tom was an artist?” Annie asked. “He’s going to be the next George Perrin when he grows up.”

“That’s
Perez
,” Tom said in that tone of voice that 10-year-olds use to indicate that everybody in the world except the person they just corrected already knew that. As Annie unrolled the blanket she brought, Tom opened up his portfolio and started pointing out some of his favorite sketches. He was pretty good, too -- a lot better than
I’d
ever be. There were drawings of the skyline and of Simon Tower. Some sketches of birds and a particularly impressive drawing of a lion he’d done at the zoo.

“I always bring my sketchbook when I’m going outside for a while,” he said. “You never know what you’re going to see.”

“I’ll bet.”

Then, of course, came the super-heroes. Lots of them. Drawings of Hotshot and the Spectacle Six and an airborne Aquila, backlit by the sun. I smiled at a drawing of Justice Giant capturing Solemna, and I felt a knot at a sketch of Lionheart fighting back-to-back with the Gunk.

The most recent sketch ground me to a halt. It was Shift, in midair, racing alongside a speeding truck with a small boy in front of it.

“You like that one?” Tom asked. “I wish I knew how to get in touch with Shift, I’d like him to sign
this,
too.”

“What are you looking at there, boys?” Annie asked. I looked up from the sketchbook and, despite the size of the lump in my throat, managed to explain to her the concept of “Ghangaghangahgangahgang.”

“What?” said Tom.

“Nothing. It’s just... it’s really good, man.”

I never learned who wore the Shift costume before me, but I can promise no one ever drew a picture of
him
like this. Tom’s rendition of Shift was strong, proud and majestic and, even though the costume still had the menacing presence it intended to convey, someone who didn’t know better would have sworn it was a picture of a Cape rather than a Mask.

“Wow... Tom, that’s great,” Annie said.

“Thanks. So what do we have to eat?”

Annie broke out the basket of cold chicken, potato salad and cole slaw, and Tom had triple helpings of everything before spying a bluebird in a tree and darting off to sketch it. Annie and I stayed back, finally able to talk. Tom was a great kid, don’t get me wrong, but he had a tendency to stifle the conversation.

“Did you
see
that drawing of Shift?” I asked her, still flabbergasted.

“He’s a really good artist, isn’t he?”

“Well yeah, but... I mean the
way
he drew it. It was like... Whoa, here comes Shift, saving the day!” I thrust my arms in front of me like I was flying and “banked” in the “air” a few times. Annie practically doubled over with her wonderful laughter. Within a few seconds I had joined her and it was a good, long while before either of us was able to catch our breath.

“So...” I finally asked, “How does Todd feel about you having a picnic with this ‘lowly maggot’?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t tell him. Frankly, I don’t care.”

“Woo-hoo! Two points for Annie!” She laughed a little at that, but then her face fell. Slowly, and probably with more fear than anything I’d done in my entire life, I placed my hand over hers.

She let out an agonized breath. “It’s not like it’s
all
bad.”

“Why
him
? I mean... what did you see in that guy in the first place?”

“Oh come on, Josh, think about it. I’ve just been drafted into this world of super-heroes and tights and fame and -- all of a sudden
the
hero, the one everybody in the world looks up to... all of a sudden he’s paying attention to
me.
”

“Couldn’t you tell what kind of guy he was?”

“He wasn’t like this then. He didn’t start... acting the way he does--”

“You’re better than him, Annie,” I said. “You
deserve
better. I...”

“Aw Josh... Thank you.” She threw her arms around my neck and gave me a solid kiss on the cheek, and that was the best I’d felt since I saw Sheila sitting on my bed reading my notebook.

When I got home that afternoon I locked the book in a big trunk at the foot of my bed. Although it
was
taken out once more, I never wrote in it again. I spent that night, as the night before, wondering. This time I was wondering what would have happened if I
had
managed to say “I’m falling in love with you” to Annie. I was outraged at Tom for interrupting, and at the same time I was wholly and incredibly relieved that he
did
, because if she’d heard that statement and didn’t agree with me, I don’t think I would have been able to take it.

ISSUE TEN

COPYCAT

Cats with a mouse being dangled before them. Kids on Christmas morning, waiting for their parents to wake up. Me waiting for my costume. The three most anxious creatures I can imagine. When I made it to Morrie’s office that Tuesday, he greeted me with a smokey expression that was half frustration and half amusement. There was a white plastic garment bag hanging from the coat rack with a picture of a black domino mask printed on it. My eyes landed on that bag like it was Annie in a bikini.

“Hey there, Morrie,” I said as though I just happened to be passing through his office directly in front of his desk. “”How’s it going there, man? Heh?”

I closed the door and sat, completely oblivious to Mental Maid for once, and waited as Morrie got the bag and laid it on his desk.

“Whoa! I’m tied in to
Lionheart
?”

“You want this suit or not?”

“I want! I want!” I raised my arms in surrender. “Go ahead.”

“Lionheart’s last fight happened in January. In the middle of it, you got thrown through the ice on the pond in Lee Park. You were countin’ on Lionheart to save ya, but he never got around to doin’ it, what with him vanishin’ and all. So ya died.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“But ya couldn’t rest, see, because that Carnival guy, the last one anyone saw Lionheart fightin’?
He’s
the one that killed ya, the way
you
figger, y’know, with him knocking ya through the ice and all. So you were brought back from the dead to hunt him down an’ kill him, and you don’t care who you gotta get past or what you gotta destroy to find that guy. Understood?”

“Yeah, I got it, Morrie, great origin. But why ‘Copycat’? And how does the revenant thing explain my duplicating other people’s powers?”

“When you was alive, you didn’t
have
no powers. Now that yer a ghost, all you can do is
copy
other people’s shtick. That’s the ‘copy’ half of yer name. Oh, except that you can turn into smoke.”

“As fer the ‘cat’ half... heh... I think you’ll understand when you see yer costume. It’s lined with kevlar, standard precaution for folks that aren’t invulnerable, and there are compartments in the belt for yer smoke bombs. Go ahead. Try it on. “

I snatched the garment bag from him and raced to the locker rooms fast enough to justify anyone asking me if I was copying LifeSpeed’s powers again. When I got there I unzipped the bag and pulled out a mass of black and gray fabric with a pair of black boots at the bottom. I knew immediately where he got the ‘cat’ from, and I was simultaneously honored and saddened.

It was Lionheart’s costume.

Not an exact duplication, of course, the colors were all off. The pants and boots were the same jet black as his, but the brilliant red tunic he always wore, with its crisp, military cut, was the same black as the pants. His sky-blue cape, which buttoned to the tunic with gold buttons and connected to the brilliant Lion’s Head emblem on the chest -- was thundercloud grey. The Lion’s Head itself, a wonderful yellow on Lionheart’s costume, was a deep, blood-red on mine.

“What, are you worried about disrespectin’ Lionheart? Don’t be. Y’see, yer one of those Masks who’s got a sense of honor. Oh, you’ll steamroller anyone who gets in yer way, but you don’t wanna see nobody
else
get hurt if you can help it.” He laughed and expelled a cloud of cigar smoke. “I told ‘em to add that part. This way if you do somethin’ stupid like save a life or somethin’, nobody’ll think there’s anything strange about that.”

“Beautiful.”

“You go in the Arena tomorrow. Hotshot is gonna be the one to take you in. We figgered it would add.... what did they call it? Pathos! That’s it. Y’know, since he knew Lionheart an’ all.”

I stepped into the lounge and was greeted by a round of applause, led by Hotshot. It was the first time I’d ever noticed how much
his
costume resembled Lionheart’s (and, by extension, mine). It was almost a reverse, with red pants. His cape was connected to the front of his black tunic by a patch of color (yellow instead of blue) and the masks were identical -- they covered most of the head, but opened for the eyes, nose and mouth. The tops were open, too, letting the hair breathe free.

“Looking sharp, junior,” he said.

“Not so bad yourself, old-timer.” We shook hands and clapped each other on the back, then I wandered over to a stunned-looking Animan, Conductor and Miss Sinistah.

“Since when are you and Hotshot so buddy-buddy?” Ted asked. I opened my mouth to answer, but something stopped me. I knew somehow that possessing the Heart of the Lion was the sort of information you kept to yourself, something you only discussed with those who were a part of it. I never talked about it with anyone, and I know that Hotshot never did, either.

“Things change, Ted,” I said, simply enough. “People grow up.”

The Goop sidled up to me, still completely failing to give me a Rush. Instead of bounding all over me for once, though, he just looked me up and down and gave me a sloppy grin. “Nice threads, little guy,” he said, before sliming away. I just shrugged and turned to my friends.

“So how do I look?”

“Sharp,” Animan said.

“
I
wouldn’t mess with you,” Ted added.

“Like a big ol’ scary ghost.”

“
With
a cape.”

They broke into chuckles and Annie scowled at them. “Well,
I
think you’re
very
handsome.”

“Yeah? Not too much of a bulge around the middle?”

“
Bulge
? Josh, when’s the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror?”

“When I put this costume on, why?”

“Okay, when’s the last time you really paid
attention
to yourself? Come here.”

She pulled me over to the juice bar, which had full-length mirrors along the wall behind it. “
Look
at yourself, Josh. You may not be skinny, but you’re certainly not
fat.
Not by any means.”

She was right. My sagging gut was gone, my jowls were lean -- even my lovehandles were a thing of a past. When I checked the label in the pants later, I realized they were only a 34-inch waist.

“What the
hell
is this?”

“Metabolism,” said Animan, slurping a kiwi juice.

“What?” I said.

“A lot of the folks in here have superefficient metabolisms as part of their powers. I figure God didn’t want ‘em looking too silly in Spandex. You copy other people’s powers. Hanging around here is slimmin’ you down, boy!” He patted my no-longer-protruding stomach.

“Of course, not
everyone
has a super-metabolism,” said Ted, jamming this thumb towards the door. There was Doctor Noble, pot-belly and all.

“Sinistah!” he shrieked in a voice so high that it bordered on the effeminate. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”