#36: Sex and the Single Megahero

It was strange for me to realize, but considering the variety and sheer number of sexual experiences I’d had in the two years since I'd lost my virginity to Yarn Man, my relationship with Nancy—that is to say, Agatha—was the closest thing to a normal, dating relationship I’d ever had. This was due, in part, to her being a civilian—as opposed to being a megahero or former megahero. But it was more because most of the sex I’d had up to that point in my life had been impromptu hook-ups: I shagged Yarn Man the moment I’d laid eyes on him, and later we shacked up in the basement rec room my Daddy built and seldom went out thereafter. That summer, when I became Ms. Megaton Man, I spent a couple of weeks binge-partying with every college athlete on the Arbor State University campus—male or female—just before the fall semester of my repeat junior year began. At the very end of the school year, I finally did it with Trent, whom I had gotten to know from living in the same house as him over the previous two and a half years; we certainly had never gone out on a date.

#35: Giving Nuke a Tumble

So, I have to tell you about the magenta-haired art student, Nancy—although that’s not her real name, turns out.
     My summer class hadn’t started yet, but I was settled into my garret apartment, such as it was; I just had my bed and a side table, and a few milk crates, as I mentioned. I had a big empty space in the corner of the small studio next to my bed, directly when you walked in the door. It was too small for a sofa, and I was going to need a desk or something to set my portable typewriter on and do homework—the fifties kitchen table wasn’t going to cut it. I’d left my desk in Ann Arbor—but there was time to find something else. First, I needed to find a job.

#34: You’re Not the Boss of Me

The apartment I found was affordable—that was perhaps its first and only attribute, aside from being next to the First Holistic-Humanist Congregation of Cass City, a free-thinking quasi-Christian sect housed in a rusticated Gothic church. Located on West Forest Avenue a couple blocks west of Woodward at Cass, my apartment was on the third floor of a once-modest townhouse turned into sawed-off rental units run by a white-trash couple from down south. You think I’m being mean, but if you saw them, you’d agree. The woman was a mean old bitty who dyed her hair red and the man wore a toupee that looked like a bird’s nest…but that’s neither here nor there.
     I had the picturesque garret apartment in what was once part of the attic, basically one room, a kitchen, and a bath, with all kinds of ceilings angling every which way, and windows pointing to the front and side of the building. There were other apartments on the top floor, and a long hallway that ran to the back of the house to the external back stairs—these egresses would come in useful if I needed to be Ms. Megaton Man in a pinch. At least it was a place to hold my stuff, although I’m not sure I’d call it secure. But at least it was within easy walking distance of the Arbor State extension, Warren Woodward, and the Union Stripe restaurant, where I landed a waitressing gig.

#33: Arbor State Extension

The spring before my senior year, I left the main campus of Arbor State University fully expecting to return to Ann Arbor in the fall to complete my double-major in Labor Studies and Urban Issues. I planned to take one class through the Arbor State extension in midtown Detroit over the summer. I could have taken it just as easily back in Ann Arbor in the coming fall, but getting it out of the way while I was back home would “even me up” in terms of credits and allow me to start my senior year as a full-fledged senior. This was important to me following the debacle of my repeated junior year—a series of regretful incidents I fondly referred to as my “delayed freshman crisis.” These involved sex, drugs, and Yarn Man, not necessarily in that order; an intervention by my parents; and an eventual return to the straight and narrow.