“My place is at his side,” said Koz. “Especially if he’s going to be tending bar at the Tudor City Club—someone’s got to keep an eye on him.”
Bing saw the concern in my eyes. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They’re switching over to tea and fruit smoothie drinks, at my insistence.”
It was then I saw something glinting in the distance, above midtown Manhattan. Avie saw it too. “What in the heck is that?” she said.
“It looks like some kind of ancient sailboat,” said Koz. “What’s the name of those buildings it’s descending on again?”
“Roman Empire Center,” said Bing. “Up around 49th Street. That can only mean one thing—Roman Man’s back in town.”
“That ship is the Celestial Actuaria,” I said, recalling the clippings I had studied back in Ann Arbor. “It’s the crystalline sailing vessel Roman Man uses to travel back and forth between Elysium and Terra—heaven and earth.
“It is January first,” said Avie. “The first day of the New Year according to the Julian calendar, first instituted by Julius Caesar in 45 bc.”
“Figures that Latin showboat would have to show up,” said Bing. “He’s such a show off.”
“Do you think you oughta—” Avie began to say, but I already had my civvies off and cape and visor on, and was speeding over the East River toward Roman Empire Center.
The crystalline sailing vessel was already evaporating in the mists and I touched down of the roof, some fifty feet from the cloaked figure, his helmet and armbands glistening in the cool air. I dared not land any closer to him, lest he sense at attack—see how formal I get just thinking about it?
“Hold up,” I called out. “Yo! Roman Man!”
He turned toward me, his magic sword glinting in the sun. His face shown upon me. He smiled and placed the sword in its scabbard.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said, instinctively bowing on one knee. “I realize you have to get to your secret identity job or whatever.” I assumed he was something like CEO of Empire Electric, headquartered below.
I can only describe his manner as gallant. He was the most gallant man I had ever laid eyes on.
“How may I be of service to thee, mortal?” he said warmly.
“Are you my daddy?” I said.
I told you, I blurt things out.
He took several steps toward me, his smile never wavering. Next thing I know, he took my hand and helped me to my feet.
“I cannot truthfully say I have that honor,” he said. “Who is your mother, child?”
“Alice James is her name,” I said.
“Ah, the Mod Puma,” said Roman Man. “But she is a hero from another dimension, is she not?” He looked off into the far horizon. “Yet so many realities seem to converge of late on this earthly realm. It truly boggles the mind.”
“Don’t they, though?” I said. “But the Lens of the Doomsday Revengers says that can’t happen.”
Roman Man sighed. “That guy.”
I gave him my most pleading look.
“Have you no clues of my parentage you might impart to me, O Roman Man?”
I had no idea why I felt compelled to utter such corny dialogue.
“Alas, I do not,” said Gallant Gladiator—I just made that up.
He spoke a few more soothing words and wished me well in finding my true father. He looked into my eyes and nodded, and without words I knelt again; he drew his sword and dubbed me lightly on each shoulder. “I welcome thee to the ranks of megaheroes, Ms. Megaton Man,” he said. When I looked up, tears in my eyes, he was gone. I guess he had to get to work.
I flew back to Brooklyn to pick up Avie and the car. She was alone on the roof, freezing her ass off. “Can you believe those guys?” she said. “They couldn’t even wait with me in the cold. New Yorkers.”
Avie climbed into the car and I hoisted it over my head. Originally, I was going to just descend to the street below, but I said, “Fuck it,” and flew across the East River over into New Jersey, and set down somewhere in the parking lot of a strip mall west of Newark.
I had no idea whether Avie would be shitting her pants or be angry with me or what, since I hadn’t cleared the idea with her before taking off, but she seemed ecstatic.
“That was awesome!” she cried. She was only disappointed that I hadn’t circled around all of Manhattan for one last look.
I put on my civvies and climbed into the passenger side. “So, how’d it go with Roman Man?” Avie asked me. “Do you think he’s your real father? Did he fess up to knocking up Mama?”
“He said he didn’t,” I replied. “And I believe him. But he knew who the Mod Puma was. And he seems to think a bunch of realities have fused together.”
Avie and I looked around at the bleak, grey industrial landscape stretching off in every direction, as far as the eye could see, that was New Jersey.
“Although, looking at this grim, grey modernity, you could have fooled me.”
“Which way?” asked Avie.
She turned on the ignition as I checked my visor for directions home.
We took our time getting back to Detroit; in fact, we cut through Canada and made our way through London and Windsor and crossed back over the Ambassador Bridge straight into downtown Detroit. It was a straight shot up Woodward to Boswick-Addison. School was off until the second week of January, and I spent that time with my family.
Since this was all purely civilian, personal time, I’m not going to go into detail. Suffice it to say that my sister is strong, and after Avie’s bruises healed, she was even stronger and more committed to fair treatment and social justice for all. She was already a tremendous positive influence on Ms. Megaton Man, and was only going to be moreso in the years that followed. In many ways, the civilian Avril James was already more of a megahero than I was ever going to be.
I flew back to Ann Arbor under my own steam, with just my backpack. I left my bigger suitcase in Detroit, which I could always retrieve later; I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone by having them have to drive me back to school.
When I touched down in our back yard on Ann Street, I sensed something was amiss.
I walked into the kitchen, still in my Ms. Megaton Man uniform. Simon sat in his high chair—it was mid-morning and he was having breakfast. He waved at me and smiled, his fingers and face smeared with Wheat’n Cream.
Through the doorway into the dining room, I could see a guest seated at our dining room table, his back to the kitchen. He was a plump, elderly man in a plain brown business suit with crazy patches of grey hair flying off his pate in every direction. When I say plump, I mean sloshy—his ass was a large, bulbous, waterballoon sagging off the seat of the chair. Across from him sat Stella. Her eyes met mine, briefly, then returned to the old man. I smelled coffee; there were cups on saucers, which no one in the house ever used—we always used mugs. It was a serious discussion—like when the pastor or a lawyer used to visit my parents.
I had gone all the way to New York—seen the hole on Fifth Avenue that was once the Megatropolis Quartet Headquarters, met the Youthful Permutations, visited the Doomsday Factory. I had met almost everybody I had wanted to meet or could meet—except Liquid Man.
And here he was, sitting at my dining room table on Ann Street, calmly talking to his estranged wife.
I grabbed a towel from a drawer and wiped Simon’s mouth, I listened for sounds elsewhere in the house, but I heard nothing. I assumed Trent was at the bookstore and wondered if Preston was aware this meeting was even taking place.
Stella was discussing something important with her estranged husband, all right—he pushed some unfolded papers toward her, across the tablecloth, which seemed to cause her dismay.
Presently, Liquid Man rose from the table, straightened his ill-fitting civilian attire, and picked up his Fedora. “I’ll see myself out,” he announced.
He turned and came through the threshold into the kitchen. He stopped dead when he saw me—maybe it was my primary-colored uniform.
“Ah,” he said. “Ms. Megaton Man, I presume; speaking of the off-spring that I—directly or indirectly—have fathered.” I couldn’t see through his opaque spectacles, but his smile was cold and cruel. He stepped toward me and extended his hand. “Professor Rex Q. Rigid, at your service.”
“The Q is for Quimby, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yes, as a matter of fact it is.”
“Like the Dr. Quimby who neutralized the Son of Megaton Man’s Megapowers.”
“Only a mild, temporary remedy,” said the professor. “No more harmful than a circumcision or a tetanus shot.” He picked up the spoon resting on the tray in front of Simon, and gathered up some porridge. “And why not? I am this child’s father, after all—legally, if not biologically—even if he is just a bastard born out of wedlock.”
Rex moved the spoon toward Simon’s mouth.
Stella had gotten up from the dining room table and come around to the threshold of the dining room, where she now stood; she held the papers, now folded again, in her hand. “What’s this about a remedy?” she asked.
Rex ignored her. “Moreover, I’m the inventor of the Megaton Man process—the father, you might say—despite having my intellectual property ripped off by those thieving…by Elias Levitch and his brat, Joseph. That makes me even more of a parent, wouldn’t you say?”
Simon, giggling, slapped the spoon away. Porridge went flying everywhere; the spoon clattered across the kitchen floor to Stella’s feet.
“Simon!” said Stella, who stooped to pick up the spoon with her free hand. “Be nice to your decrepit, anti-Semitic stepfather.” She set the spoon in the sink and grabbed another towel.
I folded my arms. “What do you think about the newest Megaton Man being a woman of color, Professor?” I asked. “And even little queer?” My cape fluttered slowly, although there was no breeze. “Do you think of me as your daughter, too?”
“I was always very fond of your grandmother Seedy,” said Rex. “We collaborated on many things—like that fabric you’re wearing. I was an orphan wunderkind; when I was younger, I suppose I regarded her as a surrogate mother and mentor. That is, until she unfairly blamed me for the unfortunate and unpreventable death of her daughter.”
“Then you know my mother, Alice James,” I said. “Maybe you know my father, too—who he really is.”
“I knew the Mod Puma,” said Rex. “She was childless before her death. Your mother is a different matter. I never had the honor of meeting that particular version of Alice James.”
Rex walked—or rather waddled—past me, stopping at the sink. He placed his hand on the counter, then paused and turned toward me.
“Clarissa—may I call you Clarissa?” He looked me up and down. “As for whom your biological father might be, I cannot say. Judging from your alleged megapowers, my guess would be one of the Levitch’s counterfeit Megaton Men. But I doubt that it was Farley—not that the Original Golden Age Megaton Man had anything against darkies. It’s just that he was such a simple farm boy; I should think a daughter of Seedy James would have been a might too intellectual for him.”
He seemed to think for a moment. “Who would that leave? Clyde—I never knew him—although that would be even more surprising. He struck me as rock-ribbed reactionary—practically a segregationist.” Rex looked at me, at the black skin of my torso revealed by the plunging V-neck of my costume. “He would have an aversion to miscegenation.”
“You’re saying it’s impossible?”
“Not at all. Just surprising.”
Surprising, perhaps. But miscegenation—fusion would be a more positive term—had certainly taken place. I was the product of it, just as seemingly incompatible dimensions had somehow fused together, or miscegenated. One could object on whatever grounds one liked—racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, anti-communism. One could even make their objections sound scientific. And yet it could happen. It had happened, it was happening. And even those who declared their staunch opposition might inadvertently be furthering it along.
“You seem to know a lot, Professor,” I said. “Maybe you can explain the Multimensions to me—their splitting apart and reintegration—when you have the time.”
“I know everything, young lady,” said Rex. “And if I ever convene a symposium on the subject—here at your hinterland university—you’ll be the first to know. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
Liquid Man pulled a chair from the kitchen table, used it as a stepping stool, and hopped into the kitchen sink. Doffing his Fedora, he turned on the faucet and—baggy suit and all—disappeared down the drain.
Simon was delighted. He clapped and cried, “Woo!”
Startled, I looked at Stella—I thought maybe Rex had come on the Time Turntable—but no; Stella said Rex pulled this stunt all the time. Liquid Man especially liked shocking people he had just met with his “down the drain” schtick.
I noticed Stella was still holding the papers she had discussed with Rex in her hand.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “My husband was just explaining to me that—according to the state laws of both New York and Michigan—Simon Phloog belongs to him.”
Over the semester that followed, Preston met with Stella and Trent several times to discuss precisely this matter; I wasn’t privy to these discussions, but I gathered it should be a relatively simple matter to prove Trent’s paternity—and to revoke the purely technical paternity of Rex Rigid that the law assumed. The problem was Rex was an enormously wealthy individual who could put up a prolonged legal battle; the mystery was what he really wanted from Stella in return for an uncontested divorce. Clearly, an old man would have no interest in raising a child by himself. Was he trying to get back with Stella? Did he have some kind of scheme in mind for the Megaton-Meltdown?
I don’t know how the matter stood for the moment, or what options were discussed. I had my own concerns, involving both my double-major at school and my civilian job at the Li’l Drown’d Mug Café. I hardly had any time to consider Stella’s woes, let alone other megaheroic matters.
If fact, the semester raced by without so much as another megahero incident to speak of—as the weather warmed, I took to leaving my Ms. Megaton Man uniform in its garment bag in the back of the closet, and wearing athletic shorts and tank tops, which I sensed Trent kind of enjoyed.
All I knew for certain was that Simon remained with Stella and Stella wasn’t going to give him up over her dead body. So, for the time being at least, everything remained preternaturally normal on Ann Street.
Next: Man, Woman
First Chapter | All Chapters | Latest Chapter
Archival Images:
_______ |
| Major Meltown (the Golden Age version of the Human Meltdown), unpublished. |
 |
| Meeting of Megaton Man and the Human Meltdown (unpublished). |
All characters, character names, likenesses, words and pictures on this page are ™ and © Don Simpson 2019, all rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment