“You’ve only seen her while she was pregnant, Avie,” I reminded her. “But she’s been working out since the baby. Already, she’s getting her body back.” This was true; Stella Starlight was looking even better than she did as a fresh-faced ingénue when she first set foot on the Arbor State campus last August.
This conversation took place while I was back home in Detroit with my family for Easter Sunday. It was after church and after supper, and we were up in Avie’s room, the walls of which were covered with Avie’s sketches of costume designs she had been working on for some extracurricular production of To the Finland Station—a “an existential post-structuralist pantomime piece,” as she explained it. Nearly three weeks had passed since Preston Percy injected Trent Phloog with a Mega-Soldier Syrup booster shot, Yarn Man and Kozmik Kat showed up on my doorstep, and Stella gave birth to Simon Phloog—seven pounds, thirteen ounces.
“Besides, you expect me to believe that jive about a talking cat?” she exclaimed, working on another drawing while we talked. “A talking cat that’s also a Megahero?”
“You read about Kozmik Kat yourself, Avie, in that newsweekly magazine,” I reminded her. “He’s for real. Megaheroes are real, Avie.”
“Maybe in New York, but certainly not in Ann Arbor,” she replied. “We don’t have Megaheroes in the Midwest.” She paused in her drawing to sharpen her pencil in a little school sharpener. “What else does this Kozmik Kat do? Does he fly or shoot laser-beams or anything?”
“He just sat on the front porch swing, reading a bunch of our old comics,” I said, “while me and Yarn Man made mad, passionate love upstairs.”
“At night-time? So, what—he can read in the dark?”
“He has goggles, Avie—he’s Kozmik Kat,” I said. “How am I supposed to know how that stuff works?”
All I knew was that Koz had rolled the spines of several of my favorite comics, which pissed me off.
“This Kozmik Kat sounds like a lame excuse for a comic-relief sidekick, if you ask me,” said Avie. “How did he and Yarn Man come to Michigan? On the Time Turntable?”
“No, I told you—they hopped a freight train or something.”
“Megaheroes don’t hop freight trains,” said Avie. “They have flying cars, or they fly themselves. What is he, some kind of hobo?”
“Yarn Man has had a very rough life,” I explained. “He’s had some bad breaks.” I knew this because since that night I had done a little research at Border Worlds Used and Slightly New Bookstore—as well as three Arbor State University library collections. “You should show a little compassion.”
In the first place, Bing Gloom had been the tragic victim of horrific mishap: A veteran of World War II, he returned to college on the G.I. Bill—he played center for the Crosstown College Yowlers in New York. In his dorm room late at night—he was an inveterate tinkerer—he developed a prototype thermal suit for the U.S. Army Arctic Command, while his roommate, Rex Q. Rigid—already an established, brilliant wunderkind—mixed chemicals for a special flame-retardant concoction called Quelluminum. There was an explosion, saturating Bing’s thermal suit—which fused to his skin—leaving him, as he was wont so say, “a useless, hideous freak.” Rex Rigid wasn’t spared, either; his entire, unprotected metabolism dissolved, turning him into the sloshy scientist known as Liquid Man.
“Not only that,” I continued, “but more recently, Bing lost his home—the Megatropolis Quartet Headquarters—when all their arch-nemeses joined forces and bombarded the living heck out of it.” Luckily, Yarn Man had been away—stranded in some place called the Forbidden Future, where all sorts of calamities befell him—until Kozmik Kat located and rescued him. “Not to mention the enormous guilt he must feel at inadvertently having released the Cosmic Cue-Ball in Central Park, which resulted in the catastrophic loss of his pal Megaton Man’s Megaheroic Megapowers.” To be sure, I was inferring most of this; Bing and I hadn’t done a lot of talking during our monkey-sex romp, if you know what I mean. But I was able to connect the dots. “He’s been through a lot, Avie. Besides, not all Megaheroes fly, Ms. Smarty Pants; the See-Thru Girl can’t fly, for example.”
“Who needs to fly when you’re the See-Thru Girl?” asked Avie. “The question is, can the See-Thru Girl really ‘turn naked with but a thought’? Have you ever seen her do it?”
Good grief. My sister can be so obtuse.
“I don’t go around asking Megaheroes to show me their Megapowers, Avie,” I said. “That would be rude. And I have no desire to see my housemate naked.” Although I had, by accident, seen Stella naked a few times, inadvertently. I mean, can I help it if she doesn’t bother to put on a towel when she dashes from the bathroom to her bedroom—and me with my door open right across the hall? “Besides, Stella doesn’t want to be a Megahero anymore; she’s totally into motherhood now, and all about raising a normal child. And her own schoolwork, of course.”
“Do you realize how long-ago World War II was?” asked Avie. “If Yarn Man’s a vet, he probably collects Social Security already. Good Lord, Sissy—you were banging a senior citizen.”
“Megaheroes are ageless, Avie,” I replied. “At least he seemed to have no trouble keeping it up until daybreak.”
Avie laughed at me. “You’re a connoisseur of love-making after only one experience,” she chided. “How do you even kiss a guy with lips made of yarn?”
“We did a lot of Frenching, if you must know.”
“Oh, yuck,” said Avie. But she wasn’t even slightly grossed out. “If Yarn Man’s forever trapped inside a thick, orange woven suit, how does he even get it out to make love? For that matter, how do Megaheroes even go to the bathroom in those crazy get-ups?”
Oh, dear Lord. The questions never stopped with my sister.
“I don’t know about other Megaheroes, but Yarn Man wears polka-dotted boxer shorts,” I said. “And that’s all I’m going to say. Bing Gloom may be 100% worsted on the outside, but on the inside, he’s every inch a man.”
“A tongue in his mouth and thing in his pants,” said Avie in disgust. “And the rest of his body—just a giant sock puppet with a couple of eyeballs stuck on. There’s no accounting for taste.”
“He’s soft and cuddly, and in all the right places,” I told her. “And when his thing needs a break, I can always sit on his face. Although his red-tassel nose kind of tickles.”
“Ewww!” cried Avie, covering her ears.
Mama called up from the living room. “Will you girls keep it down up there? We’re trying to watching The Ten Commandments—in color. It wouldn’t hurt the two of you none, either, to get some extra Bible devotions on Easter Sunday.” Mama always could sense when we were having a dirty conversation.
I knew Avril was just being histrionic—she had lost her virginity long before I had, and was already on the pill. She was only pretending not to want to hear such details from her late-blooming big sister—although she really wanted to know every position, every act, Bing and I did, blow by blow.
“I’m only curious from the standpoint of costume design,” Avie claimed. “Here, look at this.” She’d been sketching a design for a costume made out of cardboard boxes wrapped in tin foil. “I have to figure out exactly how to ventilate this get-up, else the actor will sweat to death in under twenty minutes. If Yarn Man has worn the same suit for—How long? Thirty years?—he must be pretty rank by now.”
I explained that he had built-in climate control—although I wasn’t sure about that. At any rate, I explained I found him to be very hygienic and well-groomed, especially considering he had been riding the rails with a cat and a bindlestiff for days on end.
Avie took her Broadway musical calendar down from the wall. “All of these events you say happened on the last day of March, spilling over into the next day.” She turned the page over the first of the following month. “If you ask me, this creepy Secret Agent was playing an April Fools’ Day prank on some of his old college pals, and you just happened to get caught up in it.”
“You can believe what you want,” I said, as she hung the calendar back up on the wall. I remembered I brought along a stack of Kolordot Kolorprints from Kolormat of newborn Simon and his doting parents, photographed just after he arrived home on Ann Street. “Are you going to look at these baby pictures or not?”
“Oh, he’s so cute,” said Avie, working her way slowly through the stack. “But none of these show the Son of Megaton Man flying around in a hospital room.”
“Of course not, silly,” I said. “Nobody thought to bring a camera to the maternity ward.”
Avie found the photos charming, but she wanted to know why the baby wasn’t lifting a crib over his head, or bending steel with his bare hands, or tearing up Ann Street or something.
“I told you, Dr. Levitch and the nurses took him up to a specialist on another floor—somebody named Dr. Quimby. I don’t know exactly what transpired up there, but when they brought him back, Simon was just a normal baby boy—no more flying.” It was true: Since Stella came home from the hospital, Simon had been the most well-behaved infant you could ever hope to see. At first, I was afraid he’d been lobotomized or something; but whatever they did to him upstairs in that hospital, it only seemed to have put a damper on his extraordinary Megapowers, but not on his other cognitive or developmental functions. All day and all night, I only ever heard him cry when he was hungry or needed his diapers changed; otherwise, he was alert and playful—he and I used to play with his rattle, mobile, and other toys for hours and hours.
“And he sleeps right through the night, just like a little lamb,” I told Avie. “Stella’s fortunate to have Trent to help her out; his room is right next to hers, and he’s on hair-trigger alert should Stella or the baby need anything. He’s tried to do as much as possible so Stella can concentrate on her schoolwork.”
“Why doesn’t Megaton Man want to be America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero anymore?” asked Avie.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Why don’t you go and psychoanalyze him? Ask yourself: Would you want to be forced to work for the government as part of the Megahero-Industrial Complex?”
“No, I guess not,” agreed Avie. “It’s a crime there aren’t more retraining programs for unemployed Megaheroes—to help them to readjust to Civilian life.”
Avie had finished the sketch she was working on and taped it to the wall.
“You ought to have your head shrunk, though,” she said, “wanting to fit in so badly with those white friends of yours. Sounds like you’re trying to have Yarn Man’s baby, so you can be like your housemate who had Megaton Man’s baby. Clarissa, did you even use protection?”
I hadn’t, but my period wasn’t late—not even slightly. Still, I had been more than a bit reckless—who know what kind of sexually-transmitted disease I could have picked up.
“You’re lucky,” said Avie. “Does he even call you, this Yarn Man?”
No, to be honest. Bing hadn’t called—or written—or passed on any communication from New York through any of our many mutual acquaintances. I was a little heartbroken about that, to tell you the truth.
“I’ll bet he dates Youthful Mutant babes that aren’t even a third his age,” said Avie.
When she saw I was about to cry, Avie suddenly changed her tune and put her arms around me. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said.
“Well, how did you mean it?” I demanded.
“I just mean it’s his loss,” said Avie. “If Bing Gloom is too stupid to stick around Michigan for the best gal in the world, forget him.” She gave me a big hug. “You’re in a college town, Sissy; you need to play the field a little—now that you’ve lost your maidenhead.” Avie liked to sprinkle the occasional Shakespeareanism into her advice—maidenhead. “After we get you some prophylactics, and the pill, you ought to just cut loose, spread some wild oats.” That was something of a male metaphor, I thought, but I didn’t correct her. She had one last admonition: “Just don’t do it with Mr. Megaton; Mrs. Megaton might get jealous.”
“You mean Megaton Man,” I said. “He’d only be Mr. if he were married.”
The spring semester came to an end just ten days later. Stella had passed all her classes with flying colors; Trent Phloog had been a hero, not only holding down two jobs but also nursing Simon—another full-time job; Pammy had sent off the manuscript of her anthology-memoir to her literary agent in New York; and naturally, I made the Dean’s List, again.
To honor my accomplishment, my whole family would be coming out that weekend to take me out for a celebratory dinner. Only problem was that Daddy and I had convinced Mama of the lie—that I’d been working part-time at some restaurant all semester. Now Mama would want to see where I worked. As soon as school let out, I got a job at the Drowned Mug Café—I had spent so much time there doing homework that the entire staff already knew me—as a dishwasher. Dishwashing’s a grueling job, but practically anybody can get the hang of on the first day, which was an advantage. Waitressing would have been far more lucrative, but it would have also required a longer learning curve—even though I practically knew the routine of the Drowned Mug by osmosis. In any case, it meant I could pay for my own rent until my camp counselor job kicked in the following month—and it would prove to Mama I was really working.
When my folks dropped by the café in the afternoon, my shift was just ending. With the cooperation of my new fellow employees, who liked me right off the bat, I put on an apron and stuck one of those receipt pads and pens in the pocket. Then I pretended to spot my family, take off the apron like I was just ending my shift, and wave goodbye to my coworkers. Then I took my family back to Ann Street. I felt bad about tricking Mama like that, but I hadn’t actually lied; I did work there, just not as a waitress—and only for the past few days.
I was thrilled Mama finally got to see where I lived—Daddy gave her the tour of the house, which he knew intimately—while I showered and changed. They were taking me out to a nice Asian restaurant—they treated Trent and Stella, too. Pammy was invited, but she had already made plans with Matt for later that evening. We left Pammy at home with baby Simon until the babysitter could arrive; it was someone Pammy knew and could vouch for—presumably one of her students. So, me, Mama, Daddy, Avril, Trent, and Stella—all dressed up—said goodbye to baby Simon and Pammy and went out to dinner.
For Mama’s benefit, I had privately asked Trent and Stella to pretend to be a couple for the evening, and to act a little more affectionate toward one another than their usual abstract parental partnership called for. Neither one cared for the idea at first, but when I explained that that’s what I had told my Mama all these months—that I lived with a married couple, and that Mama would likely freak out and disown me for living in some kind of Godless Hippie commune otherwise—well, Trent and Stella weren’t exactly happy, but they tried their best to play along.
At first, they were stiff and awkward, and hardly demonstrative like a real couple at all; knowing Mama, she probably just chalked this up to them being repressed, middle-class white folk. But after a few drinks, Trent and Stella became all chummy and flirty—and then some. As I say, Stella had been working out and was looking good again, and Trent didn’t look too bad either, in a tailored suit and tie for once that actually fit his frame. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought they were really into each other. By the time the check arrived, it was getting a little embarrassing. Daddy whispered to Mama, “Those two need a room!” I was beginning to wonder what kind of Frankenstein monster I had created; at least everyone was in a good mood as we headed home to Ann Street for desert. But I was worried that Trent and Stella would get their own room—and then I imagined we’d have to pretend not to hear them humping upstairs while we were trying to have coffee and cake in the dining room downstairs.
My fears were dispelled as soon as we walked in the front door; in the living room, the babysitter was there to greet us. It was Secret Agent Preston Percy.
Preston wore slacks, an open-collar shirt, a loose tie, and dress shoes; he reclined languorously on the sofa. He still wore his mirrored aviator glasses, even though it was evening outside; his suit jacket was slung over the back of the sofa and his cigarettes and lighter were on the coffee table next to an ashtray. In a bassinet, baby Simon dozed amiably. By all signs it appeared that Preston had confined his smoking to outdoors, on the porch. Good thing too, or Stella would have murdered him.
Notwithstanding Preston’s precaution about protecting the infant from second-hand smoke, Trent was livid. “What are you doing here?!” he demanded of Preston. Trent forgot for the moment that my family was even there. “I thought I made it clear to you the last time—I’m through working for you.”
“I’m the one who’s working for you,” replied Preston, smiling, as he calmly rose from the sofa. “Pammy said you needed a babysitter; that’ll be twenty bucks.”
I introduced Preston to my parents while Stella checked on the baby. Trent just stood where he was, motionless, silently fuming at Preston. Stella moved Simon in his bassinet into the dining room, then led Mama, Daddy, and Avie down the hall into the kitchen to start the coffee and get out the cake out of the fridge. I started to follow but hung back in Pammy’s study nook near the foyer. Trent and Preston remained in the middle of the living room glaring at one another. I was honestly concerned that Trent might murder Preston for real, on the spot.
Preston calmly straightened his tie and put on his jacket; then he reached inside his breast pocket. “I brought you something, Trent,” he said, producing a clear plastic hinged box. It was a kit containing a syringe, a hypodermic needle, and three doses of Megasoldier Syrup in little jars all nestled in spongy foam. “You’re to keep this on hand in case America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero is ever needed.” Preston’s tone implied a clear order not only from the Ivy-Covered Halls of Higher Learning or the White House, but the president of the United States himself.
“It’s particularly crucial, since…” Preston began to explain, then halted. “Well, things haven’t been going too smoothly with the start-up Youthful Mutant team in New York.” Preston intimated that Trent’s Uncle Farley—as the revamped Original Golden Age Megaton Man—was proving more than a little unstable, and required more frequent and longer recharges courtesy of Professor Rex Rigid. “Simply put,” said Preston, “the old codger’s batteries are just wearing out and need to be replaced.” I couldn’t tell if Preston meant this figuratively or literally.
“That’s too bad,” Trent said vehemently between tight lips. “I’m still never going to use this junk again—and I don’t want it lying around the house, particularly with a baby here now. I’ll just flush it down the toilet the minute you’re gone, Preston; I swear to God.”
“You wouldn’t want to do that,” said Preston. “First of all, it would be a violation of federal law. Second, the stuff is insanely expensive for Dr. Levitch’s government lab to produce. And third, who knows what havoc you might cause to the environment—not to mention the Civilian population of Southeastern Michigan—were it to seep into the Huron River watershed.”
He held the kit out to Trent, who only glared back at him.
“Fine, be that way,” said Preston. “I’ll just leave it in the medicine cabinet upstairs—unless Ms. James here would like to try her hand at some Megaheroics. Would you, Miss James?” He held out the booster shot kit toward me.
“Quit fooling around, Preston,” said Trent. “You know that stuff’s custom-designed for my metabolism, and my metabolism only. Are you trying to kill her?”<
“Me? A Megahero?” I said. “Good Lord, no; what would Mama say?”
“I didn’t think so,” said Preston. He walked past me and started up the stairs. “No need to show me the way; I’ll let myself out when I’m done. Nice meeting your parents, Clarissa.”
After Preston disappeared upstairs, I took Trent by the hand and led him—reluctantly—into the dining room. Trent was still upset, but seeing baby Simon resting quietly in his bassinet seemed to calm him down. A few moments later, I heard the front door open and close; Secret Agent Preston Percy had left the building.
As if on cue, Stella and my family moved from the kitchen into the dining room. Mama had a Fingerman’s cheesecake on a silver tray she brought and Stella had a pot of coffee. Daddy and Avie brought the cups, plates, and silverware. Turned out we had a relaxing time eating dessert, cooing at the baby, and opening my gifts: from my family, a Warren Woodward University sweatshirt and matching sweatpants —where I hoped to go to grad school in Detroit in a couple years; from Avie, a drawing of me in my cap and gown she drew for me; and from Trent and Stella all three of my Dean’s List certificates I earned so far they had framed for me in town.
The saddest part of Preston’s appearance may have been that it completely soured the mood between Trent and Stella. They didn’t go upstairs and hump—and they weren’t going to be in quite so romantic a mood again for a long, long time.
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Archival Images:
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| Cover of Yarn Man #1 (Kitchen Sink Press, October 1989). Digitally remasters from the original acrylic painting. |
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| Trent and Preston from Return of Megaton Man #3 (Kitchen Sink Press, September 1988). |
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| The birth of the Son of Megaton Man from Return of Megaton Man #3 (Kitchen Sink Press, September 1988). |
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| Clarissa and Yarn Man from Return of Megaton Man #3 (Kitchen Sink Press, September 1988). |
All characters, character names, likenesses, words and pictures on this page are ™ and © Don Simpson 2019, all rights reserved.
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