Gloria.
G-L-O-R-I-A.
Gloria.
G-L-O...
Clark Bland stopped in the street and looked into the morning sky blurred with
assholes. Swoosh. Swoosh.
Losers.
He started walking again, tiptoeing the thoroughfare's centerline like
a tightrope. He stopped at a weed jutting out of a large crack in the asphalt.
Sunflower, maybe. Or it could be a maple tree for all he knew.
I'm not a damned farmer,
Clark
thought.
G-L-O-R-I-A.
Glor...
He jumped over another crack. The holes in the streets were growing wider. Too
bad about the cars. If the cars were still running, then maybe people would
give a damn about the streets. But as Clark straddled the centerline, he didn't
need to worry about cars. He didn't need to worry about busses. He didn't need
to worry about somebody asking him for two bucks after they washed his
windshield while he waited for a traffic light to change. Everyone was up
there. In the sky.
G-L-O-R...
Clark's toe caught one of the growing splits in the once smooth street
and he started to fall.
Damnit.
His lunch box flew out of his hand, the turkey and cheese on wheat
squashed between the side of the box and Clark's can of Fresca as it spun in
the air.
Stupid Fresca, Clark thought as his face shot toward the gritty,
jagged pavement as fast as a speeding...
Swoosh.
Clark was in the air. Huge arms, solid as iron, grabbed him and put a
growing distance between him and the nose-bloodying pavement. The man was
dressed in a red and gold Spandex body suit. And he wore a mask. Damnit,
damnit, damnit. The man's golden cape fluttered around the two as they landed
three blocks from where Clark tripped. The dandy had also caught Clark's lunch
box.
"You've been saved from certain bruising and possible nosebleed
by Captain Courteous," the costumed man said.
It was another super hero rescue of poor Clark Bland.
"Sorry about the shirt," the man said as he handed Clark his
lunch box. "It's blood from a mighty battle with Dr. Danger of Apartment
6A on Locust Street. It probably won't wash out. Oh, and I think a can of
Fresca smashed your sandwich."
Clark looked down at the front of his white Oxford. Blood was smeared
across it. At least the blood isn't mine, he thought, then paused. No, I would
rather it be my own blood. Clark's tie wasn't much better. Gloria could have
gotten the stain out, he thought as he clenched the lunch box handle in his fist and watched
Captain Courteous shoot into the air to join thousands of other super heroes
out to save the world from whatever they hadn't saved it from yet.
Clark started walking again, faster this time. Can't go to work in a
bloody shirt, he thought. Too many questions.
***
Clark remembered a time before super heroes. A time when wars still
cropped up in the Middle East. A time when people still died from walking in
front of cars. A time when Gloria still cared.
"What do you think about the new SPA treatments?" Gloria had
asked Clark from across her bowl of oatmeal. Hot. With a few raisins and a
pinch of brown sugar. Always with just a pinch. Why bother eating something
healthy if you're just going to ruin it with sugar? Clark had heard her say
this enough times he now left sugar off everything.
SPA. Super Power Advantage. Take a little here. Take a little there.
Then one day suddenly, BAM, you're Superman. What's the advantage, Clark
wondered, if everybody's got it?
"That's like putting breast implants on a super model."
"I didn't say I wanted breast implants."
"I know, honey," Clark said, reaching across the table and touching his wife's
hand, wishing like hell he'd picked another analogy. "I just mean that you
don't need either one—super powers, or breast implants."
Gloria squeezed Clark's hand. "You didn't answer my
question."
Clark smiled.
"I'm happy with who I am," he said. "If people aren't
satisfied with what God gave them, I pity them."
"Even those who can leap tall buildings in a single bound?"
Why is she going on like this? Clark wondered. He frowned.
"Yes, even them."
***
The clothing store at 95th and Duncan Avenue was already open. Good.
There were no cars out front, but that was normal nowadays. Most retail outlets
now relied on fly-in business, or at least flash-in business. The lights were
on, too. That was a good sign the store served customers without ultravision.
A bell over the door jingled as Clark stepped inside.
"May I help you?" asked a hugely built man in skin-tight
leather. The man stood about two feet from Clark. He hadn't been there a second
ago, but Clark had felt the air pressure change as the man shot toward him in
super speed and he realized he had gotten used to people appearing out of nowhere.
Fraud.
"I need a shirt," Clark said.
The man in leather stared at Clark for a moment, then reached out to touch
him.
Clark put up a hand.
"I'm sorry, but I already know my size."
The man in leather shook his head and reached forward again.
"No, no. I know your size, too. I just need to touch you to find
your inner color."
Clark's raised hand stopped him again. "White. Just white."
The man in leather pursed his lips. "And you are?" He asked.
"Clark. Clark Bland."
The man in leather laughed.
"No, no, no. I mean who are you,
really? You're so mysterious,
so unassuming, so ... vulnerable. You must be..."
"Normal," Clark said. "I need a shirt. One with
buttons. One with a collar. One
with sleeves I can roll up when I get too hot. One without a lightning bolt on
the chest, or an explosion, or a monogram. One without a cape."
The man in leather shook his head slightly. "I'm so sorry. But
that's all we have."
***
Something was wrong with Gloria, Clark thought the evening she came
home talking about peaches. She was talking too much. That wasn't like her.
When Gloria spoke about anything, the state of society today or whether someone
took a co-worker's breast milk out of the office fridge and used it in their
coffee again, her words were precise, her sentences short.
Tonight Clark and Gloria were sitting on the couch watching people
they'd never know buy a vowel from Pat Sajak on "Wheel of Fortune"
and Gloria was rambling about the price of canned peaches.
"What's the matter, honey?" Clark asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You've gone over the heavy syrup versus light syrup equation three times in
the last half hour," he said. "What's bothering you?"
Gloria wouldn't make eye contact with Clark. Her eyes were on her
hands. Her hands were in her lap. Her fingers were racing over each other
almost as quickly as Clark could keep up with them. Clark reached over and held
her hands together.
She looked up at him slowly.
"I want SPA," she said.
SPA the wonder drug. SPA the enhancer. SPA the self-esteem sensation.
SPA had been on the market for six months and already there were more super
heroes than cops. City councils across the country were talking about
disbanding their now unused police forces. If normal citizens were doing the
work ...
Normal. To Clark, a SPAed-up hulk pulling a little girl's cat out of a
tree could never replace a cop. A cop's duty was to protect and serve. The only
duty these SPAed-up freaks had to the world was to show off. Sure, all these
new super heroes spouted "truth, justice and the American way," but
who's to say all their truths were the same? Or their justice? Or their idea of
the American way? Clark didn't trust them—any of them.
And my wife wanted to be one.
"Honey, no. You don't need SPA. You can't want it. Y-y-y-
ou..." Clark began to stutter. "You're perfect already."
"No, I'm not," she said. "How can I be perfect if I
don't like who I am?"
Clark had never heard this from his wife before.
"But..."
"I'm weak, Clark," she continued. "I bought the peaches
in heavy syrup because a
stocker at the grocery store saw me stand in the aisle undecided—for 5 minutes.
She said she liked the kind in heavy syrup, so I bought those. This high school
girl I didn't know told me what to buy and I bought it. Like a sheep, if sheep
bought groceries. Wonder Girl wouldn't have done that. Wonder Girl would have
bought the light syrup because, damnit, that's what she likes."
"Who?"
"Wonder Girl," Gloria said. "That's who I want to
be."
"But you don't know what SPA will do to you," Clark said. "Your
health, your personality, hell, who you are will change. You won't be the woman
I fell in love with."
Gloria stared at Clark for a moment, then looked down. Clark saw a
tear run down her cheek.
"I'm going to bed," Gloria said as she stood and walked
away.
***
The cape of Clark's new shirt got caught in the revolving door at
work. The janitor, the Karlinator—Man of Destiny, rescued him from a nasty bump
on the shin.
"Thanks, Karl," Clark said, doing his best to tuck the
bright orange cape into the back of his pants, but most of the oversized shirt
Clark didn't come close to filling was already back there. The door had ripped the bottom third
of the shiny cape so part of it still drooped around the back of his knees.
"Sorry 'bout that, Clark," the Karlinator said. "That
was a nice shirt."
Clark nodded and walked toward the steps. His office was on the third floor.
Nobody used the steps but him anymore. At least the steps were sanctuary, a
place Clark could hide from ultra 10-key, mega accounting, and super word
processing. But he could never hide for long. Mitch Dingle the Amazing had
X-ray vision, and Mitch Dingle was a snitch.
G-L-O-R-I-A.
Gloria.
Clark couldn't get that stupid song out of his head. Clark couldn't get Gloria out
of his head either. She...
Clark Bland. Clark's name pounded into his temple like a blow to the head.
Christ,
Jerry, not so loud.
Bland. Get into my office.
More pain.
God that hurts. Jerry Bettendorf, Clark's boss, the Cobra,
was calling. And the Cobra had telepathy. I'm coming, Jerry, Clark thought.
Make it quick.
The last few steps to the third floor of Waxman & Associates were
hell.
"You're late for work again, Clark," the Cobra said as Clark
hurried into his office. The Cobra, hard and chiseled in silver Spandex, seemed
out of place sitting in a plush velvet chair. "That's twice this
month."
The Cobra didn't ask Clark to sit.
"I was eight seconds late, Jerry," Clark said,
pointing to his watch for effect. It didn't work.
"Do you know how much Hanson could have gotten done in eight
seconds?"
"Hanson's got super speed."
The Cobra stared at Clark and Clark started to sweat. The Cobra had
heat vision too, but Clark knew he wasn't using it.
"I'm sorry you're not up to your job," he said. "But
I'm afraid you've rendered yourself obsolete. I'm going to have to let you
go."
Clark knew this was going to happen eventually. Everybody around him
worked faster than electricity could pass through Clark's brain synapses. It
made him old. It made him useless. But more than that, it made him angry.
"Fired? You're firing me?" he screamed. "But I've
worked here 10 years."
The Cobra stood and leaned on his desk, the wood creaking beneath the
massive pressure from a man on SPA.
"Things have changed, Bland, and you haven't kept up." The
Cobra stood and walked over to Clark, resting a massive arm around Clark's now
insignificant shoulders. "Clark, you've fallen behind. Your productivity's
way down from last year."
"Because SPA's way up from last year."
The Cobra walked Clark toward his office door.
"You like
baseball, don't you Clark?" the Cobra asked. "Of course, everybody likes
baseball. What happens to an old workhorse of a pitcher who can't throw over
800 mph anymore, huh? He's cut from the team. Sorry, Clark, but you're an old
horse."
The Cobra escorted Clark to the door.
"Go get some SPA, Clark," he said. "Keep up with the
times."
He pushed Clark outside his office and shut the door behind him.
***
Gloria was late the night her real life ended.
Clark had been home from work for two hours and Gloria was late—again.
Like her period lasting exactly five days, like the pinch of brown sugar on her
oatmeal, Gloria came home precisely at 5:05 p.m., fixed dinner if it was her
turn or worked in the garden if it wasn't, then she and Clark watched
"Wheel of Fortune," maybe had sex if it was Thursday, read a book
then fell asleep.
Every night, except the past three.
It was 7:15 p.m. and Gloria wasn't home. Clark was worried, again. Pat
and Vanna couldn't have cared less.
At 8 p.m., Gloria came home, but she wasn't Gloria anymore.
Jesus.
"Sorry I'm late," said this mock-Gloria. Walking into the
living room wasn't the 5'4" petite brunette he'd met at a party, sitting
in the corner sipping a Diet Pepsi because she was too much of a wallflower to
talk to anybody. Walking into the living room was an Amazon. Tall, lean, hard,
with flowing black hair and a bosom that, if Clark were a physicist, he would
refuse to believe existed.
That's why she's been late this week. She'd been taking SPA
treatments.
"My God, Gloria, you've..."
In less than a second she rushed to Clark, her bosoms knocking him to
the floor.
"Sorry. I haven't gotten used to them yet," she said, then
looked down at him. To Clark she looked crazed. "Take me," she said.
"No, Gloria..."
"Call me Wonder Girl," she interrupted as she lifted him
from the floor, cradled him in her rock-hard bosom and flew into the bedroom.
***
The super guy in front of Clark at the grocery store check out line
had antennas. Nubby, shiny ones. He also had gray skin, and if you looked
closely enough, his skin was a little shiny, too. The guy looked like a slug,
so that's what Clark called him. Slug-man.
"Hey, Slug-man," Clark said toward the guy's massive back.
Clark didn't care anymore. He'd been fired from his job because of people like
Slug-man, he'd lost his wife because of someone like Slug-man, he felt helpless
and alone because of everyone like Slug-man, and he didn't need to be pushed around
by any one of them, whether they meant it or not. "The sign says 15 items
or less. You've got 16. What kind of justice is that?"
Slug-man looked into his basket, then turned to Clark. Clark had
exactly eight items. A 24-pack of beer, four frozen pizzas and three oranges.
Count 'em. Eight.
"You're right, good citizen," Slug-man said. "I will
take my produce to the slower line and wait my true and rightful turn. Whenever
you are wronged in a supermarket checkout line, tell them Slug-man is
watching."
Clark hated the way everyone talked now. And he hated that the guy's
name really was Slug-man.
In less than a second, Slug-man had scooped up his 16 items and zipped
into another line.
"Kinda rough on him, weren't you?" It was Rudy. Rudy was the
manager of Ultramart. He worked the cash register because since people could
fly, it's hard to get them to work a check out line. "Those super guys are
good customers, too."
Rudy was normal. About Clark's size, and he walked funny. That's why
Clark shopped at Ultramart. He was supporting Rudy the Normal Guy, not
SPAheads.
"You ever thought of taking SPA?" Clark asked as Rudy rang
up his groceries.
"Yeah, I tried. But after one treatment they found out I was
allergic. Threw up for a week. I can still do this, though," Rudy said as
he froze one of Clark's oranges with his breath. "Oh, sorry about that.
I'll go get you another one."
Clark shook his head. God, not even Rudy was normal anymore.
"No thanks, Rudy. What do I owe you?"
"Thirty-one, seventy-five."
Clark peeled $32 from his wallet, handed it to Rudy, then took his
quarter in change and left the Ultramart, maybe forever.
Clark drank three beers on the way home. Hell, there were no cops
around to tell him not to. If Clark just made sure he didn't litter, he didn't
even have to worry about hassle from the SPAheads. He had three more beers at
home before his pizza was ready, and three during dinner. As Clark ate the
pizza he watched SuperNews with SuperChuck. The Great Doug Smith put out a fire
in an empty high rise. The Centaur stopped a flood by damming a levee no one
bothered to maintain anymore. And there was footage from Waxman &
Associates's security cameras. It was of the Karlinator—Man of Destiny rescuing
Clark from a nasty bump on the shin.
Clark hated SuperNews with SuperChuck. Later, Clark Bland passed out
on his couch.
***
"I'm sorry Clark," Gloria had said. No, Gloria wouldn't have
said what this woman was going to say the way she was going to say it. She was
Wonder Girl now. Completely. "But I need more in my life."
More? You just stopped a train wreck this morning with your tits and
didn't even muss your hair, Clark thought.
"What do you mean, more?"
Wonder Girl stood in the doorway. Her hands on her hips in a very
comic book stance. Clark hated that stance. She stood that way all the time
now. Maybe she thought it made her boobs look bigger.
"I need a strong man, Clark," she said. "A robust man,
a..."
"A super man?"
Gloria glared at him. She could feel the sarcasm. It was one of her
powers.
"Not exactly," she said. "A Moth Man."
She's been cheating on me. Cheating. "Moth Man?"
Wonder Girl nodded.
"You've been seeing Moth Man?"
She nodded again.
"
We met fighting a nuclear disaster in Chile."
"You're leaving me," Clark said, "for a copyright infringement?"
Wonder Girl picked up the one suitcase she'd packed. She didn't need much.
None of Gloria's clothes fit her anymore. "Good-bye, Clark," she
said.
Gloria was already gone, but she'd been gone for a while.
A nanosecond later, Wonder Girl was gone, too.
***
Swoosh. Swoosh. Kaboom. Swoosh. Swoosh. Kaboom. Crash. Zap.
Clark's eyes slowly opened. His head hurt. Not the searing hangover
pain he'd hoped for, just a dull ache. At least pain would have taken his
attention away from his life. The ache just made him grumpy.
A glow...
Swoosh.
Blam.
...filled Clark's living room.
Not morning yet, is it? The thought
slowly wandered into his
head through all the buffers he'd placed there with beer. No, can't be. Wrong
light. Too green for morning. Can't sleep through all these damned...
Kaboom.
Swoosh.
...explosions.
He stood, a piece of pizza crust fell from his chest
and onto the floor. Clark looked
at his living room clock.
"Three a.m.," he said, then looked at the
clock again. Yep, sure
enough, it was 3 a.m.
Swoosh.
Clark walked into his bedroom and grabbed his bathrobe to hide the
fact that the flap on his boxer shorts never staid shut, walked through his
dirty, beer can strewn living room, out his front door, and into a morning full
of too damned many explosions for his taste.
But Clark was going to stop the explosions. He didn't have anything
better to do.
***
"And when did you notice this problem?" the Doctor had
asked.
"Well," Clark began. He was lying on a couch. He'd always
thought lying on a couch, telling a psychiatrist all your troubles was
something you only saw on television, or in bad movies. He sat up.
"I came here to talk about Gloria."
"Gloria Bland? You mean Wonder Girl?"
"No," Clark said. "Gloria. My wife."
"What about her? Certainly she's improved now that's she's undergone SPA
treatments."
What the hell is wrong with everyone? Clark thought. SPA is not normal. I'm
normal.
"She changed..."
"Of course she changed," the Doctor said. "For the
better. She can fly, can't she?
Your Gloria couldn't do that."
That's not the point. "She didn't need SPA. She left me when she
got it."
"Why didn't you undergo the treatments yourself?" the Doctor asked. "You
could have been improved with her instead of as you are without her."
What the hell's wrong with this guy?
"I like who I am," Clark said. "SPA doesn't improve
anyone, it turns them into someone else. Someone I don't like."
"But certainly you want to be better, better than," the
Doctor spread his massive arms as if to show Clark to himself,
"this."
"Look," Clark said. He was getting angry with this guy,
doctor or not. "Do you even have a degree in psychology?"
The Doctor was silent for a moment. "No," he said.
"Before the treatment I was an arc welder."
An arc welder?
"Empathy is one of my powers," the Doctor said. "The
psychiatric board said that was enough."
The Doctor was a SPAhead. Of course he thought not wanting to be a
SPAhead was a problem.
"I think this session is over," Clark said, standing and
walking toward the door. "I hope you were better at arc welding."
***
Kaboom.
Swoosh.
Swoosh.
Swoosh.
SPAheads everywhere, Clark thought. He couldn't keep up with them. The best he
could do was follow the explosions. 85th Street. 88th Street. 90th. 95th.
102th.
When Clark reached 105th Street, he saw what all the excitement was about.
It was the office building where, until yesterday, he'd gone to five
days a week, except holidays, for the past 10 years to crunch numbers and make
a decent living. But it wasn't the building causing the excitement as much as
the mammoth flying saucer that had crushed the building's upper floors. A
flying saucer that was under a heavy barrage of heat vision, cold vision, laser
vision, sonic
slams, mega
blasts and whatever silly little name the hundreds of super heroes attacking
the thing called their particular SPA gift.
Something in Clark's head tried to tell him he should be happy. Waxman
& Associates was gone, at least temporarily. The Cobra's red velvet chair
probably smashed, or on fire. But something else in Clark's head wasn't happy.
G-L-O-R...
Kaboom.
Atomicman's sonic blast missed the flying saucer by half a block and destroyed the
indoor play area of the McDonald's where Clark had eaten lunch three or four
days a week since he'd started at Waxman & Associates. Clark instinctively threw
an arm over his face to protect him from the flying debris that wouldn't give a
darn about his arm. A couple of objects hit him. He lowered his arm and saw one
of the objects was a salt shaker.
Damned SPAheads, he thought, picking up the shaker and looking at it
for a moment. Zip here, zap there, smash this, crush that, don't bother
thinking, just destroy my life, my marriage, my McDonald's. He absentmindedly
slipped the shaker into the pocket of his bathrobe. Clark tried to see if
Gloria was up there, fighting the saucer, but then changed his mind. Wonder
Girl was probably up there, he figured. Gloria was nowhere near him, the flying
saucer, or the flattened McDonald's.
Swoosh. Bam. Swoosh.
Whoever was inside that glowing green ship that was so shiny and
unblemished it looked like it just came off the factory floor, Clark thought,
probably didn't care about his problems, or the McDonald's. The pilot probably
had other things on his mind.
So did Clark. He was tired, his head hurt and he wanted the SPAheads
to quit making so much noise so he could go back to bed.
"Excuse me," Clark said to the nearest Spandex-clad figure.
"What's happening, and why does it have to be so loud?"
Kaboom.
The super hero turned and faced Clark. The man's antennae bobbed as he
moved.
"Slug-man," Clark said.
Slug-man smiled smugly.
"You've heard of me, have you?"
Clark brushed off the man's ego.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a
mighty battle. Blah, blah,
blah," he said. "What's happening here, and why is it so
damned loud?"
Slug-man looked at Clark skeptically.
"We are under attack from
foul beings from beyond the..."
"Yeah," Clark interrupted. "I can see that. Have they actually attacked
anyone?"
Slug-man stood silent for a moment. His fists rested on his hips in a posture that
seemed to be very popular with super heroes everywhere this year.
"Uh, not as such, no," he said. "But the dastardly
villains have destroyed the headquarters of..."
"An accounting firm," Clark finished. "And it's not
even tax season."
"But..."
Clark walked past Slug-man as the super hero was still talking. I'm
tired, Clark thought. I'm tired and it's Halloween every damned day. Clark put
his hands into his robe pockets and walked toward Waxman & Associates.
Slug-man zipped in front of him.
"I'm afraid, good citizen," Slug-man said, holding his hand
up to Clark. "No matter how mighty our past battle, I cannot allow you to
go into harm's way by walking into that building."
Clark looked at the man's chest, which was big enough to play football
on, then up to his face.
Boom.
Swoosh.
Kaboom.
This has got to stop, now. No more rescues, Clark thought as he pushed his hands
deeper into the pockets of his robe. His right hand hit the shaker he'd picked
up from the ruined McDonald's, and for the first time in weeks, Clark Bland
smiled. Yes, it's time to put a stop to all this.
"You're right, Slug-man," Clark said, pulling the shaker out
of his pocket. "It's dangerous around here."
Slug-man took a step back from Clark.
"Not completely invulnerable, are you Slug-man?" Clark said
as he pointed the shaker at the super hero. But Clark didn't see a super
anything in front of him. He saw something that had choked the life out of his
world. "SPA's not perfect, is it?"
"Good God, man." Slug-man shouted in the same way Adam
West's Batman did right before he said something obvious. "That's salt."
Clark shook some salt at him. Slug-man screamed as the salt crystals
made contact with his exposed slug-skin.
"Are you going to let me walk into that building?" Clark
asked.
"Never."
Clark flicked more salt. Slug-man winced in pain. "How about
now?"
Slug-man held up his hands.
"Sure," he said. "Fine,
just stop it with the salt. I'm rescuing puppies tomorrow and I don't want to look bad on SuperNews
with SuperChuck."
Swoosh.
Wussy, Clark thought as he stalked toward the revolving front door of
Waxman & Associates.
The flying saucer loomed above Clark, suspended in the air by a
science his world would never achieve. Wouldn't need to, he thought, when
everyone can fly. The ship was massive, its green glow enveloping him now, too.
He could see hundreds of SPAheads bouncing off an invisible force shield above
him. Idiots, he thought, although Clark really didn't know what he was doing
either. Clark just wanted to go back to sleep. He just wanted to stop the
SPAheads from invading his life for a few more hours today.
Clark stepped through the broken glass door his cape had caught on
that morning. The Karlinator—Man of Destiny was off the clock. There would be
no more rescues today. The electricity was off in the building, but the flying
saucer's glow gave Clark enough light to find his way.
Where? Clark wondered. Where in the hell am I going? Why am I here?
But Clark knew why he was inside a building that was smashed by a
gigantic, green flying saucer. He didn't have any more to lose.
Clark noticed the sound of the explosions deadened when he walked
under the greenish glow of the space ship. KABOOM was now ka-boom. They were
even fainter as he entered the stairwell and started up the steps. He wondered
how he had gotten so close to the ship when all the SPAheads were kept at bay
by the force shield. Maybe, Clark thought, no one has tried walking up to it.
The belly of the ship had crashed through the ceiling of the third
floor. His floor. The floor he'd lived in from 8 to 5 for a decade. The floor
on which SPA had made him useless. Clark looked around. Remnants of the ceiling
were scattered over the floor and over the desks, his desk.
Clark walked to his desk and brushed the debris onto the floor. His
stapler was still there. He'd forgotten to take it with him. Clark looked at
the spot where a picture of Gloria once rested. A picture from a day they'd
spent in the park. She'd plucked some bright yellow dandelions and stuck them
in her hair. Clark loved that picture. She looked so beautiful, so natural.
So...
ka-boom.
Clark looked up at the space ship. It was a few feet from the top of
his desk. He climbed up on his desk and touched it. The metal was cool.
bam.
ka-boom.
There were no vibrations from the explosions. The SPAheads were doing
nothing, he realized.
"Open up," Clark said to the belly of the
flying saucer.
"Open
up, damn you. I'm tired." Nothing.
Clark picked up his stapler and tapped it on the bottom of the ship.
"Open up," Clark said. "Please."
A vibration. A whir of something pneumatic. Clark turned and saw a
circular opening appear in the center of the ship.
It was like that in the old movies, Clark thought. Why not?
A figure dropped out of the ship onto Mitch Dingle the Amazing's desk,
knocking a picture of Mitch's girlfriend, Goldenrod, onto the floor.
The stapler fell out of Clark's hand.
The figure looked like him.
It
looked human, mostly, but normal, not SPAed-up. It held an unfolded piece
of black paper covered with constellations.
"Am I anywhere near Barnard's Star?" the figure asked.
Clark shook his head.
"Uh, no," Clark said. "Wrong
solar system."
The figure bowed to Clark. "Thanks," it said as it climbed
back into the flying saucer. Clark heard the whir again, and felt a vibration
in the air as the opening closed in the belly of the ship. A moment later the
ship noiselessly lifted itself off the remains of Waxman & Associates and
disappeared in the early morning sky, leaving hundreds of SPAheads wondering
what in the hell just happened.
***
Clark was angry the day he walked home from the psychiatrist/arc
welder's office.
Swoosh.
"Damn you," he screamed into the sky. He picked up a piece
of crumbling asphalt and threw it as hard as he could into the air. It hit
nothing and fell back to earth a few yards away from where he stood.
Useless.
Obsolete.
Old horse.
I need a strong man.
But certainly
you want to be better than this.
Clark screamed into the afternoon and ran as
hard as his 35-year-old body would
let him. Sweat poured down his face and his back and into his underwear. His
side hurt, his breath was short. He couldn't run anymore. Clark felt his legs
go out from under him, but he didn't brace himself for the fall. What's the
point, ran through his mind. I'll just be rescued.
Clark's knees hit the pavement first, rocks digging through his pants
legs into his flesh. His elbows hit second, rocks scraping off skin.
Swoosh.
Strong hands grabbed him before his face hit the road. The SPAhead
lifted him into the air, then lay him softly on his stomach in the overgrown
grass on the roadside.
It took a minute before Clark could catch his breath enough to speak.
"You're late," he wheezed.
"
I know," said a soft, feminine voice. "I'm sorry."
Clark rolled over to look at her. It was Wonder Girl. He hadn't seen her since
the day she flew from their home to be with Moth Man.
"Are you OK?" she asked.
Clark nodded.
"Do you need help getting home?
"
Clark shook his head.
"No," he said. His voice was
shaky, weak. "Gloria, don't go. I love you. Can't we..."
"I'm sorry, Clark," she interrupted. "I can't be with
you." As Wonder Girl flew into the sky, Clark lay in the grass and cried.
***
"There he is," Clark heard Slug-man say as he walked out of
Waxman & Associates and into a morning that was starting to lighten with
dawn. "The one with the salt."
In less than a second, Clark was surrounded by SPAheads. He put his
hand back into his robe pocket and grabbed the salt shaker, but Slug-man was
keeping a good distance from him behind the Wolf, Martin the Nearly Invisible,
and the Stealth Bomber. But someone was pushing their way through the mass of
muscles that encircled him. It was Wonder Girl.
"Clark," she said, rushing to him. "Clark. Did you do
it? Did you send it away?"
Clark nodded and the throng of super heroes gasped like they were in a
bad sitcom.
Wonder Girl grabbed his hand gently. Clark tried not to look at her,
the woman who had left him crying. But he couldn't stop himself. She was
beautiful, of course. All SPAheads were. That was one of the fringe benefits.
But Wonder Girl's beauty didn't match Gloria's. He knew it never would.
"I always knew you were a hero, Clark," she said. "I'm
sorry I gave up on you. Can you forgive me?"
Before Clark could answer, a SPAhead in a double- breasted Spandex
business suit and perfect hair muscled his way between them.
"You've saved the planet," the man said into the microphone
he carried.
It was SuperChuck from SuperNews.
"Tell us how you did it," he said. "What are your
powers? How did you chase off the terror from beyond the stars?"
Clark was silent for a moment. He could see the look of anticipation
in the faces of every unmasked SPAhead around him. The masked ones were harder
to read. But Clark knew what
they all wanted. They wanted to know his secret. How he had saved the planet
without them.
"Because I'm better than you," Clark said simply.
"Because I'm normal. Now get out of my way. I'm going home and going to
bed." He looked at Wonder Girl. Her face was awash with pride for Clark.
Clark could see Gloria in that face, bits and pieces of the girl he'd pledged
his love to forever.
"Alone," he said.
As Clark moved through the mass of super heroes, they let him pass. By
the time Clark passed the ruined McDonald's, he realized his headache had gone,
and that stupid song was finally out of his head.
