By Ian Salavon
The rain was cool on his neck but made him heavy with the weight of what he was trying to do. Like the city he worked to defend all his life was staring him down judging him for why he couldn’t keep up. He was old. Not old by regular standards, old for a superhero. He wasn’t a superhero either. Not yet.
People without his judgement, without an understanding of the common man, people with no damn clue were the ones who could fly at near light speed and bench press elephants. What did he get? Pummeling muggers in slums. Jimmy “Ironhide” Franks didn’t complain when he first started using his skill to help the weak fight back. That was a long time ago. His knees popped with almost every step. He couldn’t sprint fifty yards without wheezing. He wasn’t old, but without powers of his own, he wasn’t young. It wasn’t fair. Not yet.
Jimmy slinked through alleys looking for a safe place away from cameras, away from the prying eyes of the citizens he protected, away from the Supers he would soon join the ranks of. The vial sat like a lodestone in his trench coat pocket. Mixed with the rain, it was a weight almost unbearable.
He crouched down behind a dumpster and pulled the tube out uncorking it. Jimmy was like any one of the derelicts he sometimes fought for and against. The irony wasn’t lost on him. Soon, he wouldn’t have to fight them. Soon he’d soar above the pettiness of smash and grab jewelry thieves and muggers. He’d be able to stop meteors and reroute tidal waves like a real hero.
He held his hand over the uncorked vial to keep the pelting rain from diluting the thick translucent liquid. Jimmy looked around the side of the dumpster and all around as if someone was watching. He took one last look up into the rain, blinking as the water pattered against his fedora. “Please,” he whispered to whatever benevolent deity was listening and downed the serum.
The man he got it from insisted it would boost him to superhuman levels. He said he couldn’t guarantee what his powers would be, nor could he predict side effects, but he made sure Jimmy understood there would be some. Jimmy broke his savings for it. There was no other way to keep up. And he needed to be in the game. His wife needed less convincing. She’d backed him without question his entire life. He couldn’t let all those youngsters, as well meaning as they may have been, leave him behind with their holier than thou attitudes forgetting that one half of superhuman is “human”.
“You do what you have to do,” Etta told him after Jimmy explained his plan. She put her soft hands on the sides of his worn, beat-up face. “I am behind you all the way,” she said. He didn’t deserve her.
It was cool and thick like thin pudding going down his throat. Jimmy tried not to taste it but couldn’t avoid the flavor of horrid bitterness, like tannic ear wax, from assaulting his tongue. Jimmy stood and pressed his back against the brick wall of the building, bracing himself for his body to accept the new matrix of his abilities.
He flexed his fingers making fists. Nothing. He jumped up and down on his toes like when he was a prize fighter. Zip. He even tried to punch the brick wall though halfheartedly. There was nothing. Jimmy half expected pain like from the comic books. When his idols, the fictitious people who inspired him to be a hero in the first place, got their powers the event was accompanied by a radical change or a personal stand enduring agony at the transformation. He got none of that. Jimmy cursed and threw the bottle against the wall watching it and his new life shatter into a thousand pieces.
The rain fell off his face like the broken promise of his new abilities. He stood alone. No pain. No spark. No indication that he was any different than before other than the biting taste in his mouth. Not super. Not anything.
Jimmy pulled his collar up, his fedora down and stuffed his hands into his coat pockets guarding against the rain. His diner was just around the corner. Coffee, danish, and a chance to dry off before he went into the night looking to defend the hapless victims of his crime torn neighborhood. Any single ability would be enough to clean up the area. To rid his stomping ground of the filth that terrorized good people. He cursed himself for ever thinking he could fly.
The light inside showed the overnight waitress, Annie, in her blue uniform wiping down the counter. The door dinged and Jimmy gave her a head nod as he walked to his favorite table. She was already pouring a cup of coffee and putting a pastry on a plate. She met him at the booth before he sat down.
“Don’t go getting my clean floors all wet, Jimmy,” she said with sass and a smile. Jimmy nodded again. He heard the joke. He knew Annie would say something snarky. He always responded with a jibe that teased her right back. It was all in good fun. Jimmy searched for a wisecrack. A little jab that he’d said a million times, anything to show how appreciative he was for her attention. Bupkis.
“Hey. You OK?” Annie said placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“Fine,” Jimmy heard himself say. A rote response. Disengaged. Like something he might say to a stranger.
He sat at the table and cupped his hands around the steaming mug. It was warm, but the soothing feeling he expected was missing. Jimmy raised the cup to his lips and sipped. He registered the heat, the richness, the undertones of chicory and chocolate. But the internal calm he was used to, the relaxing feeling from his pre-crimefighting ritual was gone. He took a bite of the sticky cheese danish. It was like tasting substance. There was no uplift of cloying icing. No spike of sugar on his tongue. Jimmy had been coming to the diner for years. Coffee. Danish. Same booth. Same waitress. Same banter. The ceremony used to mean something. It felt like an obsolete tradition now. He wanted to be disappointed, but he didn’t feel that either.
Jimmy pulled out a couple of dripping dollars and set them on the counter as he walked out. “Take care, Jimmy,” Annie said as he opened the door. He didn’t say anything back.
In the rain, Jimmy kept his coat pulled around him as a shield from the cold. He didn’t need it. He wasn’t chilly in the least. He was acting out of habit. It was late. The streets were mostly empty. Jimmy couldn’t put his finger on it. The rush of excitement, the vision he had of saving folks, gone. He chalked it up to the disillusionment of being tricked when the serum he mortgaged his future for didn’t work. But oddly, he was just as empty as the place he patrolled.
A scream from not far away broke him from his trudging march. Maybe he wasn’t super, but Jimmy wouldn’t let some poor sap get taken advantage of by the trolls that kept a stranglehold on the city at night. He donned his leather gloves and his domino mask and ran to the sound.
Boots pounded against the hard pavement splashing through puddles as Jimmy raced through the labyrinthian backstreets. The near crippling pain that usually shot from his feet through his shins to his knees? Absent. He took in air as if he was asleep. A far contrast from the recent wheezes and hacks he had when he ran after purse snatchers. Jimmy noticed the difference, but he chalked it up to adrenaline, though he didn’t feel the usual rush from going into the unknown. No fear. No confidence. He ran with dispassionate conviction. Like he was checking off a to-do list
The street scene when he emerged waterlogged and fists clenched was right out of the pulp novels he used to read. Rain fell in the cone of a streetlamp over a woman on the ground holding up her hand in a futile defensive gesture against two men. One held a long thin blade, the other a small caliber pistol.
The woman shivered in the damp midnight glow of the light. Her clothes were soaked, and she cried shielding herself with her outstretched hand. The contents of her bag were strewn on the wet sidewalk. The thugs hovered over her closing in slowly. Their wicked grins made them look like hungry jackals licking their chops.
“No! Please! I have nothing,” she pleaded over the pounding of the rain.
“Maybe not,” Knife guy said as he poked his blade at the woman. “But we’re gonna take something anyway,” the duo laughed, low and guttural.
He lunged at the woman, and Jimmy raced to intercept him. A week ago, he would have been too slow, too old, and in too much pain to stop the thug, but he crossed the distance in the span of an eyeblink and grabbed him by the wrist. Jimmy twisted it, sending the punk sprawling to the pavement with a thud and a splash.
“You two sleazeballs got anything better to do?” Jimmy said. He wanted to sound mean and gritty, but the words came out flat, like he was delivering a book report.
“Ironhide!” Gun guy said and leveled his pistol at the hero. “It’s about time someone put you out of your misery, old man!”
Jimmy had nowhere to go. If he tried to dodge, the bullet might hit the woman. If this was his end, so be it. He could be proud of what he’d done to help others, but he would like to have had powers, even if for a day.
A shot pierced the air. Dull and muted by the buildings and the rain. Jimmy held his hands over his chest. He’d been stabbed, punched, slashed, and thrown down flights of stairs, but he’d never been shot. He wasn’t prepared to feel nothing. The bullet could have been another raindrop for as much as it bothered him.
Jimmy pulled his hands away fully expecting to see a blossom of red. Maybe it would be the last thing he would ever see. He looked at his gloved hands, and there was nothing. He fingered the hole where the bullet went through his trench coat. There was no entry wound. With his head focused down he saw the gleaming brass bullet in the lamplight resting at his feet. It should be in his heart. He looked back up at Gun guy to see his eyes wide with fear.
Another shot. Jimmy felt a thump on his cheek, but it wasn’t even enough to make him blink. He closed the space between them and delivered a shattering blow to the jerk’s face. Jimmy felt the bones turn to powder under his punch, and the man fell to the ground splayed out like a starfish, unconscious.
“Look out!” The woman screamed too late as Knife guy jumped on Jimmy’s back, stabbing and slashing. Jimmy didn’t so much as flinch. As calm as a man flicking a mosquito off his arm, Jimmy reached back and snatched his attacker’s hand. But he missed and grabbed the knife instead. There was a pinging metallic snap and the sound of metal hitting the pavement. Jimmy snapped the knife, and like the bullets, there were no penetrating wounds to his fingers or back. Just a coat with a handful of holes in it and a shredded thin leather glove.
Jimmy shook the man off and threw a left hook his midsection doubling him over. He finished the punk off with an uppercut to the chin. The force of the blow lifted Knife Guy off his feet, and he hit the ground like a sack of garbage, out cold.
The woman, other than being scared out of her wits and drenched, was fine. She shook on the ground as Jimmy reached out with his torn glove hand helping her to her feet. He watched her gather her things as he waited for his debilitating arthritic pain to blur his vision. It didn’t come. Any minute the headaches brought on by years of injury and exertion would send him to his knees. Nothing.
The woman threw herself into Jimmy in a huge hug. “Thank you! I thought I was dead. You saved me!”
Jimmy never got tired of hearing gratitude from those he saved. It was the only reward he ever wanted. Her embrace was warm despite the chilly deluge. Sincere. Jimmy expected his chest to swell with pride and accomplishment in keeping her safe, but there was nothing there. No feeling for her. No success for a job well done. He put his hands on the woman’s shoulders and pushed her away. “You’re welcome,” he said. Robotic monotone.
He waited with her until the cops showed up saying very little. He gave his statement. She gave hers, and they parted ways. Hopefully, Jimmy would never have to save her again. He thought it, but hope was one more thing he didn’t feel. Even the fact that he was bulletproof didn’t faze him. He expected to be elated. Superpowers, invincibility no less, was the dream. The reason he stayed in the game. He reached into his psyche for the push that sent him to a desperate act and found a hole. Empty existence. He described it as weird to himself, but again, it didn’t feel weird.
It was that moment when he fully understood his predicament. The serum worked. He didn’t get fleeced. He had the ability to rival the caped demigods that protected a larger world. And it didn’t matter to him. Elation, nervousness, the epiphany that he was among the ranks of the divinely gifted gave him all the excitement of brushing his teeth.
The rain was letting up. It would be light soon with the comings and goings of early commuters. Like the diner, that was Jimmy’s ritual cue to get off the streets. After a patrol, he felt a deep sense of relief when he got home. He couldn’t care less. The morning sun lit the sky with deep orange and dark pink streaks. Any other day, Jimmy would think it was beautiful. Not today.
He walked up the steps to his crumbling brownstone he shared with his wife. She’d still be asleep. He opened the door and closed it without consideration for waking Etta. That part of him was gone too. He spied the picture of them on the mantle above the fireplace. They were embraced on a carousel horse smiling. Jimmy put his hands to his mouth and tried to mimic the look from the picture. Etta was lovely, or maybe she wasn’t. He couldn’t tell anymore.
His home was rundown but cozy with furniture that molded its cushions to his backside and scrapes on the floor from scooting his dinner chair out. The lingering smell of a meal cooked hours ago rested in the air. It may as well have been a display in a department store for as much warmth as he felt, as much warmth as he could feel now.
He took off his clothes and took a shower turning the hot water on as high as it would go. He washed off the rain and the night, but Jimmy couldn’t wash away the loss. He turned the water to as cold as it would go. Same thing.
Jimmy dried himself and crawled into bed with his wife. The woman who mended him when the beasts of the street took him apart. The woman who stayed by him when he had nothing but memories of times when he stole glory in the ring. She was a body taking up space. He laid down next to her and turned away. She rolled over and draped her delicate arm over his ribs and gave him a kiss on his shoulder. Pressure from her lips. Nothing more.
“I wasn’t meant to fly,” Jimmy said.
“Wh…what was that, Honey?” Etta asked in a daze between waking and dreams.
“Nothing,” Jimmy said. Same as he felt.