All My Friends Are Superheroes (2 page)

Tom took off his shoes. He took off his shorts and shirt. He dove naked into the pool and swam to the bottom.

The chemicals made it impossible to keep his eyes open. He felt around with his hands. His fingers found something
slimy. It was firm in the middle but the top layer felt soft. Tom pulled. Whatever it was was really stuck.

Tom put his feet on the bottom of the pool, got his legs into it and freed whatever it was. He squinted his eyes open. What he saw made him gasp. He swallowed a mouthful of chlorine pool water, then raced for the surface as fast as he could.

It easily beat him. It slipped out of the pool.

Tom didn’t want to get out of the pool knowing it was waiting for him. He swam around, trying to figure out what to do. Eventually he ran out of breath and had to break the surface.

‘Thanks!’ the Amphibian said.

Tom looked at the Amphibian’s green skin, webbed feet and webbed hands. He’d thought it was about to rip him limb from limb, and relief flooded through him when this didn’t happen.

‘No problem,’ Tom answered.

‘What’s your superpower?’ the Amphibian asked.

‘Superpower?’

‘Yeah, you know. Your superpower.’

‘I don’t have one,’ Tom told him. ‘I’m just regular.’

‘Really?’ the Amphibian said.

Tom swam over to the side of the pool. They shook hands.

The Amphibian introduced Tom to all his friends. All the Amphibian’s friends were superheroes. The
Amphibian’s friends became Tom’s friends. Now all of Tom’s friends are superheroes. But because they all have a superpower, and everyone they know has a superpower, having a superpower is nothing special to them. What’s special to them is not having a superpower. They can’t imagine how anyone could get through life without having a superpower. It seems unbelievable to them.

‘Now boarding rows 14 through 34. Rows 14 through 34 now boarding,’ the airline representative announces.

The Perfectionist picks up her carry-on luggage. She stands in line. Tom waits in his seat. He hates standing in any line he doesn’t have to; the Perfectionist can’t watch any line she could be standing in. At this stage, they would have been separated anyway.

THREE
AMBROSE HEART-REPAIR SERVICE

For the first week of invisibility Tom did nothing but follow her around. There are perks to having your lover believe you’re invisible. He watched the Perfectionist dress and undress. He watched what she watched on television when she thought he wasn’t around – mainly game shows and reruns. He watched her separate the coloured laundry into shades. In ways, his invisibility let him be more intimate with her but safer at the same time, and he fell deeper in love with her.

Four weeks after the reception, a Wednesday, the Perfectionist came home with a package of cigarettes. She had never smoked before. She took to it quickly. She began
smoking at the kitchen table, smoke rings floating through the kitchen. For four straight days the Perfectionist sat at the kitchen table blowing smoke rings across the room. Her fingers turned yellow. She did nothing else. She waited for Tom.

That night Tom started having pains in his chest. The first one came at ten in the evening. It was sharp and enduring. He doubled over but it passed. The next came two hours later; by morning they came every ten minutes. The Perfectionist was sleeping and he knew not to touch her. He called the Amphibian.

‘Hey,’ said Tom.

‘Hey,’ said the Amphibian.

‘Ahhhh,’ said Tom. A pain shot through his heart.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Pain in my chest.’

‘Sharp and enduring?’

‘Yes.’

‘But recurring?’

‘Yes!’

‘In greater frequency?’

‘Less than ten minutes now.’

‘I’m sending over a doctor.’

‘What is it?’

‘He’s the best there is.’

‘Tell me what it is!’

‘Your heart is breaking,’ the Amphibian said.

It took Ambrose, the Amphibian’s doctor, ten minutes to arrive at Tom’s door.

Ambrose’s hands were thick. His fingers were muscular and the knuckles bulbous, well oiled. He pulled a red rag from his back pocket and mopped his face. ‘You the guy with the heart?’ he asked Tom.

‘Yes.’

Ambrose took off his baseball cap. He put it back on his head. He raised his eyebrows. ‘I ain’t got all day ... ’

Tom backed out of the doorway.

‘Where’s the kitchen?’ Ambrose asked.

Tom led Ambrose through the living room into the kitchen. Ambrose’s eyes went to the kitchen table.

‘This sturdy?’ Ambrose inquired, leaning all his weight on the corner of the table. He kneeled and inspected the joints underneath. ‘It’ll have to do,’ he said and started clearing the breakfast dishes and newspapers. ‘Strip,’ he commanded.

Tom started unbuttoning.

Ambrose pointed to the kitchen table. ‘Face down,’ he said.

Tom climbed onto the kitchen table. He was naked. The linoleum tabletop was cold on his cheek.

Ambrose snapped a rubber glove over his right hand. He put one finger up Tom’s anus. Tom gasped. Ambrose pulled up and Tom felt a
pop
in his chest. Ambrose turned him over and Tom saw how his chest had released, come
open like the hood of a car. Ambrose raised Tom’s chest, propping it open with a rib bone at a forty-five-degree angle. He started poking around in there.

‘Think about your girlfriend,’ Ambrose commanded.

‘My wife,’ Tom said.

‘Whatever, just picture her face.’

Tom pictured the Perfectionist’s face.

‘Now picture her best feature,’ Ambrose instructed.

Tom pictured the Perfectionist’s nose. He felt Ambrose’s hand on his heart. Tom took shallow breaths. Ambrose reached behind his heart. He squeezed from underneath and a quick line of blood squirted up, hitting Ambrose in the face.

‘That might be it,’ Ambrose said, reaching to his back pocket, grabbing the rag and wiping off his face.

‘What? What is it?’

‘When’s the last time you had this cleaned?’

‘I’ve never had it cleaned.’

‘Exactly,’ Ambrose said. ‘I’ll need the Stewart for this.’

The Stewart was a long, unwieldy tool Ambrose rarely used and kept in the back of his truck. Leaving Tom naked on the kitchen table, Ambrose left the room.

Tom listened to the apartment door open and close. Ambrose was gone for fifteen minutes. Tom lay naked on the kitchen table. He craned his neck down and to the right and watched his heart beating.

Ambrose returned carrying a long metal toolbox. He took out an instrument that was long and sharp and made of thin stainless steel. This was the Stewart. Ambrose used two hands to hold it.

‘Take a deep breath,’ Ambrose instructed. ‘And think of the first time you kissed her.’

Tom pictured the horrible basement apartment he used to live in. The worst thing was the linoleum floor in the kitchen. Boot scuffs and cigarette burns covered it. No longer white, it was a grey that always looked dirty.

The Perfectionist couldn’t stand it. One Wednesday, five days after their first official date, she showed up with two buckets of bright blue floor paint and two paint rollers.

‘Great idea,’ Tom said.

They set to painting the floor. They started where the carpet hit the linoleum. They worked backwards at a furious pace. They’d paint what was in front of them, then shuffle back a few feet and paint that. In no time at all their feet hit the back wall of the kitchen. They’d painted themselves into a corner. Tom looked up and the Perfectionist was smiling.

‘What the hell do we do now?’ Tom asked her.

The Perfectionist kissed him (perfectly).

Tom remembered this moment as he felt the instrument push down his aorta. The pain was unbelievably sharp. Tom opened his eyes. He craned his neck. He saw a tiny ghost coming out of his heart.

Tom recognized the ghost as Jessica Kenmore. Her head, then her chest, her hips and finally her legs squeezed out of his heart. She floated upwards, dissolving just before she touched the ceiling.

Ambrose pushed the instrument deeper. The head of Sally Morgan appeared. Sally’s chest, then her feet came clear. She floated up, dissolving just before reaching the ceiling.

Next came Nancy Wallenstine. Then Sara Livingston. Then Debbie Cook.

‘Christ, how many do you have in there?’ Ambrose called.

‘There should be one more,’ Tom told him.

Tom gripped the edge of the kitchen table. He clenched his teeth. Ambrose pushed the instrument deeper. The head of Jenny Remington popped out of his heart.

Jenny Remington pulled herself free. She floated over to Tom’s head. She stared at him. She looked so sad. She continued staring him in the eyes, then dissolved.

Tom closed his eyes. He took a deep, deep breath. He could feel the Stewart every time his heart beat.

‘Well, that didn’t work,’ Ambrose said, pulling the Stewart out of Tom’s heart.

‘What?’

‘Still broken. Good that you cleaned her out. You won’t be getting those pains any more, but she’s still broken.’

‘Can’t you fix it?’

‘Nope. The whole thing’s broken, and when she breaks like that, there’s nothing anyone can do,’ Ambrose said, wiping the Stewart clean with the cloth from his back pocket. ‘Maybe it’ll mend itself. Sometimes they do.’

Ambrose set the rib bone back into place. He held the hood of Tom’s chest with the tips of his fingers and let it drop. Ambrose packed up his tools. He shook his head, didn’t say a word, and left.

FOUR
REGULARS

‘All passengers are reminded to present proper identification with their boarding passes,’ the airline representative announces through the P.A. system. ‘Proper identification must be presented with your boarding pass.’

Tom reaches into his jacket pocket. He has proper I.D. and a boarding pass for flight
AC
117. His seat,
E
27, is beside the Perfectionist’s. But he hasn’t shipped his belongings to Vancouver. He’s paid another month on their apartment. His ticket is a return ticket.

Tom is so desperate he’s secretly hoping he’s a superhero. He’s never hoped for this before. There’s a chance he might be. All superheroes are born superheroes, but some
of them, for part of their lives, appear regular. Their superpowers are inside them, dormant, waiting for the right event to trigger them. Tom doesn’t know how else he’ll make the Perfectionist see him.

He puts his I.D. and boarding pass back in his jacket pocket. He thinks about the Shadowless Man.

Before the Shadowless Man was the Shadowless Man, he was Henry Zimmerman. He was regular. He always knew when the toast was going to pop. He routinely opened the telephone book to exactly the right page when looking for a phone number and was always finding money on the street. But nothing incredibly strange, nothing that’d suggest he was a superhero, had ever happened.

Then one Wednesday he woke up at 6:34 a.m. This was early for Henry Zimmerman. His shadow was sitting on the edge of his bed.

‘I’m leaving you,’ his shadow told him.

Zimmerman leaned on his elbow. He studied his shadow. It looked so tiny.

‘Are you unhappy?’ he asked his shadow.

‘Yes.’

‘Then you should go.’

Zimmerman’s shadow hesitated. Almost imperceptibly, it nodded. It pushed itself to its feet. It walked across the room and closed the bedroom door behind itself.

Henry Zimmerman was now the Shadowless Man. That night he made his wife fettuccini alfredo. It was the first
time he’d cooked for her in two and a half years. They had wine. He made her laugh. They’d opened a second bottle by the time they went to bed.

The Shadowless Man started jogging. Domestic chores like vacuuming became almost fun. On particularly sunny days, the Shadowless Man will look down and notice the absence of his shadow. He’ll remember his shadow fondly and briefly wonder where it could be. But it doesn’t happen that often.

Businessman was also once regular. He was Lewis Taylor until his
BMW
began billowing smoke during rush hour in the heart of the financial district. It was a cold Wednesday morning, –17 °C plus wind chill. Cars were conking out all over town.
CAA
was backed up.