“Dad! You came!” I shouted, as I ran to hug him. “I got the ring, see?” I held out my hand to show off the blue opal framed with “BA” and “Arbor State University, Class of 1984.” “I love it!” I cried. “Thank you so much.”
“I’m glad you like it,” said Clyde. “It’s who you are now.”
Trent, in his usual jeans and baseball jersey, had three-year-old Simon perched on his shoulders, who called out to Stella, “Mommy! Mommy’s a doctorette now!”
“Not yet,” said Stella, waving her ribbon-tied scroll. “The doctorate doesn’t start until next fall—give Mommy a little break.” Still inebriated from the dousing of champagne on the fifty-yard line, she kissed Simon and remarkably, even kissed her platonic parental partner, Trent.
My sister Avie was also snapping pictures with a Kolordot Instametric Camera, tears streaming down her face. “The first in our family to get a college education!” she sniffled. “I’m next!”
Preston Percy smoked a thin, menthol cigarette coolly behind mirrored aviators in his usual dress shirt and tie. Aloof, he watched the rest of us, an extended nuclear family of megaheroes, while making some unknown calculations inside his brain. Around us, the crowd continued to swarm out of the Abyssinian Wolves stadium toward parked cars, pausing only to pose for pictures and mug for home movies…
Clyde led us back through Ann Arbor to Ann Street in an impromptu parade. When we got to the house, it was like the scene from The Big Chill after Kevin Costner had died and the Rolling Stones “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” had played over the funeral scene. It was a madhouse—Stella’s parents, Seymour and Serena, waved to us from the front porch, he the official greeter from his wheelchair. Kids from Simon’s daycare were swarmed over the flying Q-Mobile, which sat parked on the front lawn; Koz showed gave them a tour of the dashboard, making sure no one accidentally launched any surface-to-air missiles. Inside, the living room was standing room only, filled with parents of those kids—mostly academic types from the neighborhood. My two mamas, Alice1 and Alice2, had arranged catering—there were enough trays of food in the dining room and kitchen to feed an entire film crew.
In the back yard, Avie’s boom box cranked Weather Report, the Electric Light Orchestra, and some of Maynard Ferguson’s more fusion big-band stuff from the seventies. My adoptive Daddy and Yarn Man stood on the patio wearing aprons; Cray and Bing took turns squirting lighter fluid into a blazing barbecue, preparing to throw trays of various meats onto the grill. My friends from Detroit, Hadleigh, Audrey, Wilton, Nancy, and Chas—having arrived too late for the walk at the Big Yard—had set the picnic table, strung graduation decorations from the house to the garage, and set up a badminton net. Donna Blank, alias the Phantom Jungle Girl, and Jasper Johnson, alias Rubber Brother, along with the entire Y+Thems—including Soren, Kav, Kiddo, and her baby Ben Franklin Phloog—were there; Dana was there, too, wearing actual clothes—jeans and a black tank top—instead of her usual, skimpy bondage outfit.
Once we showed up, the groups around and inside the house began to mix. Kids got tired of the Q-Mobile and swarmed to the back yard to played badminton with Soren, who was used to entertaining at kids’ birthday parties as the mascot of the Motor City Saberteeth; academics questioned Seymour, who held court as emeritus in the physics department, on space and time; and everyone grabbed paper plates of barbecue and coleslaw and spilled onto folding lawn chairs.
“I’m running upstairs to change outta this thing,” I said, clutching at my cap and gown. Avie was about to follow me until we heard a very familiar hum.
By the very back fence, beyond the badminton game, the Time Turntable, quietly materialized in the very rear of the back yard, escaping the notice of the civilians in attendance. My father Clyde’s new teammates, the three core Doomsday Revengers—the Lens, Colonel Turtle, and the Angel of Death—disembarked, live from Bayonne, New Jersey.
“Where the heck are we?” asked the Lens, squinting at the unfamiliar back yard.
“The Midwest,” said Colonel Turtle. “The home of the former Megaton Man and See-Thru Girl.”
“I recognize Stella,” said the Angel of Death. “She’s in really good shape, for the mother of a three-year-old. But I don’t see Megaton Man anywhere, not the Bronze Age one, at least…”
“That’s him, all right, standing next to Clyde,” said Yarn Man. “The skinny blond guy who’s developing a paunch.”
“Good Lord—that’s Megaton Man?” said Colonel Turtle, incredulous. “Next to our own Silver Age Megaton Man? Bing, you’ve got to be pulling my leg!”
“Nope,” said Yarn Man. “That’s him, all right—the one-time Bronze Age Megaton Man, in the flesh.”
“My, how the mighty have fallen,” said Colonel Turtle, shaking his head.
The Partyers from Mars saucer,the George Has a Gun, had turned off its cloaking device and sat, visible for everyone to see, parked behind the garage. After the kids had gotten bored knocking every shuttlecock into the neighbors’ yards—sending Rubber Brother stretching after them—they threw down their rackets to climb all over the saucer’s emerald-green dome and blue-finned body. The Partyers themselves, elfin waifs, a walking Labrador retriever, a tortoise, a squid-girl, and a skull guy, mixed into the crowd of Earthling adults and children inconspicuously.
Upstairs, in my old bedroom, which was empty now except for a guest bed, I shed my cap and gown, hanging them on a hanger. “At least Chuck’s not here,” said Avie. “Bing reports he’s not even in New York anymore; he’s gone back to France.”
I was sure Stella would be disappointed that her half-brother wasn’t here for her big day. said. But since Chuck Roast had tried to rape my half-sister, I was relieved.
“I wonder what the Megatropolis Quartet is going to do now,” I said, “with the Human Meltdown no longer stateside.”
Comfortable in my own jeans and T-shirt now, we were ready to go back downstairs. But then we heard a screech coming from the front of the house. Avie beat me to the window; on Ann Street below, Pamela Jointly’s Honda had pulled up and parked.
“The commencement address speaker is here,” Avie said. “She must have ditched a college administration dinner especially to be here. What an honor—the woman who broke up our parents’ marriage!”
Before we went downstairs, Avie went to Trent’s bedroom in the back of the house to get a view out the back window. The badminton game had resumes with the kids, the Partyers from Mars, and a few of the Y+Thems. In the very back of the yard, courtesy of the Time Turntable, even more costumed megahero guests were arriving from New York.
Instead of freaking out, Stella was in the midst of it all, still in her cap and gown, was dancing to “Evil Woman.”
“You’d think this would be driving Stella nuts,” said Avie, taking pictures of the scene with her camera. “Isn’t she still on that kick of keeping Simon sheltered from his megaheroic past?”
“She has to be on something,” I said. “Stella’s taking this way more in stride than I could have expected. Anyway, Simon’s only three; I can’t remember anything from when I was three, can you? He’ll probably remember the orange man with lightning bolts and the purple girl with dragonfly wings only as action figures he once broke, or Saturday morning cartoons he once watched.”
“Not if they’re documented in Kolordot color slides,” said Avie, snapping away. “I brought ten rolls of film!”
When we got back downstairs, the celebration was in full swing. We could hardly make our way through the kitchen to the back yard, there were so many guests. In the kitchen, Mama—Alice1—was even hugging Pammy, whose commencement address had been broadcast locally on the Arbor State public access channel. On the patio driveway in front of the garage, Clyde was introducing Alice2 to his new teammates, the Doomsday Revengers, and Alice2 was introducing the Troy+Thems, who were gushing like adulating fanboys and fangirls.
But this serene scene was about to be disturbed.
For, just at the moment, way in the back of the yard, another familiar figure was appearing on the Time Turntable. It was Stella’s former husband, Rex Rigid, in his Liquid Man uniform.
“What the heck is he doing here?” I hissed to Avie. “It can’t be for his ex-wife’s graduation.”
We watched helplessly as Liquid Man worked his way through kids and Martians swinging badminton rackets, waddling like a gelatinous dessert toward the patio. There, Bing, Jasper, Fanny, Koz, and Percy stood near the barbecue, which had died down to marshmallow-baking embers.
“What’s the big deal, Rex?” said Yarn Man. “I thought you said you were going to be too busy in your lab for a trip out here to the hinterlands.”
“But I made a major breakthrough,” said Rex, nearly shouting to be heard over the scream-trumpet version of La Fiesta blaring on Avie’s boom box. “And, I have a major announcement; it concerns all of you.”
Avie and I stood next to Fanny now; everyone was looking at each other querulously.
Kozmik Kat had sidled up, and was sipping a drink with a tiny umbrella in it. “I’ll bet it will change the course of the Megaverse forever,” he said.
“It sure will,” said Rex. “I’ve solved our headquarters problem.” In his hand, he clutched a glass rectangle, which he now waved in front of us. “It was so simple, really—I don’t know why I never thought of it before. All I have to do to restore it is use the ‘history’ feature, and a couple of quick ‘undos’…”
“What are you talking about, Rex?” asked Jasper. “The Megatropolis Quartet Headquarters was blown to Kingdom Come in 1980—even us megaheroes in the Midwest know that! The whole world knows it.”
“That may be true—in this dimension,” said Rex portentously. “But the Quantum Towers wasn’t destroyed in every dimension!”
“You better have a beer and settle down,” said Bing. “There’s a keg over by the garage.”
“Yeah, Rex,” concurred Koz. “You’re sounding like a mad scientist you are.”
“I’m not raving, Yarn Man, Kozmik Kat,” said Rex calmly. “The point is, the Megatropolis Quartet is back in business—and I’m going to need a whole new line-up—except for me and Bing. I need you, Jasper,” he said, looking at Rubber Brother, “and this chick in the tiger-striped bikini,” he said, eying the Phantom Jungle Girl. Spotting me, Rex said, “It could even be the Megatropolis Quintet, with Ms. Megaton Man aboard! Whaddya say?”
“What am I, chopped liver?” said Kozmik Kat. “As Yarn Man’s sidekick, at least I rate an invite so’s I can promptly turn it down.”
“No good,” said Rex. “You’d make it a sextet—then I’d have to change all the Qs, and that would defeat the whole purpose.”
“Nobody properly values a talking funny animal,” said Koz. “You’ll be sorry.”
By mid-afternoon, the celebration had died down to a mellow roar. On the front porch, I finally had a relatively quiet moment with my father, Clyde, over paper plates full of bratwurst and German potato salad.
“How do you like being a Doomsday Revenger?” I asked.
“Quite honestly, I don’t think I’m cut out for being a team player,” he said. “I’ve always been more of a solo act myself—or a duo; I really miss the Silver Age Megaton Man and the Miraculous Mod Puma. But, my Alice seems to like mentoring those Troy+Thems, and, well, they need an Atomic Soldier stationed on the East Coast, particularly now that the Meltdown has gone. But, how about you? Are you going to take Rex up on his offer?”
“I don’t see how,” I said. “I have grad school here in Detroit next fall.”
“But that’s next fall,” said my father. “You just graduated college, Clarissa. You deserve a vacation, at least. Why not give the Big Apple a shot this summer and see how you like it? That way, we can spend some time together.”
He put his muscular-though-civilian arm around me; we admired my class ring together.
“Arbor State University, 1984—Abyssinian Wolves forever,” I said. “They can’t take that away from me.”
“And America’s Nuclear-Powered Hero, don’t forget,” said Clyde. “In the absence of the Bronze Age Megaton Man, you’re it, girl. A scholar and a megahero. If you ever forget that, that ring is there to remind you.”
“Not with you back in this dimension,” I protested. “The Silver Age Megaton Man outranks Ms. Megaton Man—don’t’cha think?”
“Oh, I’m just a place holder,” said Clyde. “Preston needs one of us near D.C., in case the president has any missions for me. But you’re the one they really should be grooming for the job, before they send me out to pasture.”
“How do you get along with Harry Foster Lime?” I asked. “Was he President of the United States in your dimension, too?”
“Bah,” said Clyde. “I don’t pay any attention to politics. I just salute sharply and follow my orders—I’m strictly a military man. Which is why I don’t think I could ever adapt to the Bohemian lifestyle you enjoy out here in the Midwest. But I do see your grandmother from time to time.”
“Does she stop by the Doomsday Factory to work on costumes in her shop?”
“Not so much there,” said Clyde. “But I see her in Washington at the old Capitol Syndicate building across the Potomac from the Pentagon.
“The Capitol Syndicate? What’s that?”
“That was the team the Original Golden Age Megaton Man was part of, back during World War II. I suppose you could say it was the counterpart of the Doomsday Revengers in New Jersey—although the Syndicate’s long defunct, now. The Ivy-Covered Halls of Higher Learning uses the building as their administrative headquarters. Your Grandma Seedy’s office is there—she greets Senators and the Joint Chiefs all day long.”
“But the Original Golden Age Megaton Man and the Devengers are from different dimensions,” I said. “You mean to tell me the headquarters of the Farley Phloog’s old team is now in this dimension, too?”
“Wasn’t it always?” said my father, shrugging. “Anyway, we’re one big, happy dimension now. Don’t ask me to explain it.”
Back in Detroit that evening, Avie kept bugging me about it. “So, are you going to do it? Are you going to go with Jasper and Fanny and Koz, and join the Megatropolis Quartet?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Would you?” Then I remembered she was just a non-megapowered civilian. “Don’t answer that—I don’t want the Wondrous Warhound fighting crime and megavillains on the eastern seaboard. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m going to be a summer camp counselor up at Michi-Fo-La-Ca, remember?” said Avie. “Then I’m rehearsing that dance piece with my troop for the street fair in Ann Arbor in July…but you oughta go to New York, Clarissa. What else are you going to do, sit and broil in Detroit all summer?”
>“I’m not looking forward to those dorms at the old Navy Yards,” I said. “You remember those awful showers, don’t you? And the bed bugs in the bunks? It’ll be like moving back into South Quad all over again.”
“Rex said he has some scheme to resurrect the old Megatropolis Quartet Headquarters,” Avie reminded me. “What do you think he has up his sleeve?”
“I’m not sure, but I think the nutty professor may have finally lost his mind,” I said. “All of Megaton Man’s and the Megatropolis Quartet’s old nemeses ganged up and destroyed the Quantum Tower—we saw that fearsome excavation on Fifth Avenue for ourselves, remember?”
“I sure wish you’d make up your mind,” said Koz, who was busy clawing open my graduation gifts. “I coulda gotten a ride back to Megatropolis on the Time Turntable with Bing and Rex.”
“You liar,” I said. “You hate the Time Turntable worse than Yarn Man does.”
“Regardless,” said Koz. “Ms. Megaton Man’s gotta give me a lift to New York now—it’s my destiny to join the reconstituted Megatropolis Sextet.”
“Do you think you’d be able to fly that entire distance, Clarissa?” asked Avie. “All the way to New York? You’ve never gone that far before, as Ms. Megaton Man.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Koz. “What if she crashes in Buffalo, with me on her back?” He peeled the wrappings from one of my graduation gifts. “Hey, look! A new Mr. Caffeine coffee maker. Maybe I’ll stay in Detroit!”
After a week, though, I was bored out of my skull. There was no work at the restaurant, and from the heights of my excitement at graduation I had crashed into a post-diploma funk. Bored with the North Cass neighborhood, I found myself back in Ann Arbor, hanging out at Border Worlds Used and Slightly New Bookstore.
“What do you think I should do?” I asked Trent, who was working in the basement, sifting through piles of textbooks that had been sold back to Border Worlds Used and Slightly New textbook department the during the post-finals crush.
“I think you should give Megatropolis a try,” he said. “I think you’re ready for it. You’re never going to find out if your cut out for being a megahero around here, the Troy+Thems notwithstanding. What good is Ms. Megaton Man in the Midwest? I think you’re ready for a new challenge, Clarissa.” He saw my frown. “I don’t know—what do you want to do?”
“I was kind of thinking of hanging around town,” I said. “You could drop by…”
“Boy, you women sure can’t make up your mind,” said Trent.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “If you’re seeing somebody else…”
“It’s not that,” said Trent. “Look, you need to do what’s right for you, Clarissa. I say if Rex is getting a reconstituted Megatropolis Quartet or Quintet or whatever back together, it’s worth a shot. What have Jasper and Fanny decided?”
“They’re going to go for it,” I said. “Last I heard, they were making sure things were in order up in Troy and Royal Oak, and were preparing to make the move. Rubber Brother and the Phantom Jungle Girl on the Megatropolis Quartet, with Liquid Man and Yarn Man—it boggles the mind. And, if I’m being honest, I will feel kind of left out…”
>“See? You have to be there, just to witness that,” said Trent. “Besides, you’ll get time to see your father in New Jersey.”
I looked sadly at Trent.
“Clarissa,” he said. “I’m never going to be Megaton Man again; I’m only going to Simon’s civilian dad. But you’ve got a whole different destiny. It’s time you embrace that.”
I left Trent at the bookstore and strolled up to Ann Street to see if Simon and Stella were around, and if the house had been put back together since our graduation celebration. The neighborhood was quiet, as was all of Ann Arbor, after the end of the school year. There weren’t even any ICHHL vans to be seen in the off-campus neighborhoods.
As I rounded the corner at State Street onto Ann Street, I saw somebody leaving the old communal house I had once called home. It was an older gentleman, white-haired, dressed in a black turtleneck and black slacks—uniform of the humanities. I recognized him, but he certainly wasn’t Rex. He was Stella’s grad advisor, whom I’d seen at the Wilbert Dunlevy Himmelfarb Presentation Festival of Undergraduate Research, where both Stella and I had both presented that past spring.
He passed me on the sidewalk heading in the direction of State Street, back to town. In a faintly Australian accent, he said, “Good afternoon,” but he gave no indication that he recognized me. I wasn’t surprised, since we’d never been introduced.
“Good afternoon,” I said, turning to watch him walk away.
I looked up at the porch of the old Ann Street house. Through the screen door, I could see the front door was still open.
I walked up and rang the bell.
Stella appeared behind the screen in an oversize man’s shirt and panties, holding a black umbrella. “You forgot your…” she said, then saw it was me. “Oh, it’s you, Clarissa.” She opened the screen door and looked down the street after the black clad figure. “I don’t suppose he’ll be needing it. It looks clear out. I’ll just drop it off at the department later.”
Stella went back inside and I stepped into the foyer. “Was that your grad advisor just leaving?” I said. “I mean, not that it’s any of my business…”
Stella set the umbrella on Pammy’s old desk off to the side of the living room. “Terrell Smythe,” she said. “He was just, um…dropping off some papers. I have a lot to study over the summer.”
“Like I said, it’s none of my business,” I said, as I followed her to the kitchen. I thought of her former husband, the decrepit Rex Rigid. “From one extremely senior authority figure to another…” I muttered to myself.
I had known of several teacher-student relationships that flouted non-fraternization policies; Audrey Tomita and Wilton Ashe, for example, or Michele Selket and Doctor Messiah. I had noticed that Terrell Smythe was about the only person who had been conspicuously absent from our recent post-commencement celebration.
“Simon’s not here,” said Stella matter-of-factly. She had walked to the kitchen and had picked up a bottle of meds from the counter. Popping the child-proof cap and spilling a white tablet onto her hand, she drew a glass of water from the tap. She downed the pill, recapped the bottle, and placed it in the cupboard, eager to conceal it from me. I imagined it was a mild prescription tranquilizer.
You are on something, I thought to myself. “I guess Simon’s at a daycare,” I said.
Stella shook her head. “He’s with my parents in Redford. They took him back with them; I’m driving there this afternoon. Want a lift back to Detroit?” she said suddenly. “It’s not far out of the way.”
“Are you sure you can drive?” I asked, glancing toward the cupboard. “I mean, usually they don’t want you operating heavy machinery…”
“Oh, that,” she said. “It’s just a little something for my nerves. You know how it is; a little letdown after graduation.”
“I can relate, for sure,” I said. “But, Stella…”
A tear was rolling down her cheek. “I could study anywhere, you know,” she said. “With my dad’s connections, I could get into any program I wanted. That’s always been the case. But I want to make it on my own, you know?”
“I know,” I said. “Stella Sternlicht, instead of Stella Starlight.”
“It’s Simon I have to think about,” she said.
“Oh, Stella,” I said, putting my arms around her. “If this Smythe guy is forcing you into something you don’t want, that’s not right. You don’t have to…”
“I just have to set boundaries, that’s all,” said Stella, breaking away. “I’m fine; I can handle it.”
There wasn’t much else I could do or say, except to make her promise not to try to drive to Redford until her medication wore off. She agreed that she was feeling kind of sleepy and decided to lie down and take a nap.
I took my time flying back to Detroit, just as I had flown to Ann Arbor, in my civilian clothes. In 1984, the Midwestern landscape below me was still mostly lakes and forests and farmland awaiting suburban sprawl. I studied the terrain as it became more urban: Canton, Inkster, Dearborn, Detroit. By the time I landed on my apartment building’s roof near the Warren Woodward campus, I had made up my mind.
Ms. Megaton Man would give New York a shot.
Next: The Quantum Tower
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| This week's chapter foreshadows a similar Ann Street backyard picnic shown in Yarn Man #1 (Kitchen Sink Press, October 1989). |
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