True Heroes (11 page)

              Caleb very carefully let out a little bit of his power; just enough to make his eyes glimmer. ‘Not too much.’ He restudied his figure as he slowly pushed his power to fill his entire body and waited. ‘I’m the same. No muscles get bigger and I don’t turn into a fifty-foot monster. Nothing changes…. I know I can do things people shouldn’t be able to do, but my impression doesn’t change. No one would think I’m superior by glance. They’ll have to look beneath my topaz eyes to see that.’

              A knock on the door shocked him back to his normal state. “Yes?”

              “Carol just called and she’s on her way. Are you okay?”

              ‘Perfect timing.’ “Yeah fine. I’ll tell you about it after I get dressed.”

              His mother retreated from the door a few steps as he opened and walked straight for his room. The towel came off his waist and flew to a clothes bin in the corner of the room as Caleb’s underwear and pants slipped on. ‘My room is clean…. We teenagers are rare indeed that have the wherewithal to clean up after ourselves.’ The only misplaced pieces on his floor was a jacket he never wore and a stack of comics he still had to read. Each wall was painted the same sky blue that his parents had let him choose when he claimed the corner room. ‘Not so much blue with me being charred. I guess I’ll like it again when I finally scrape away the burnt parts.’

              The soft vibration of a car door closing reverberated through his room as he slipped his shirt over his wet hair. His wallet and phone fell into his pockets as the doorbell rang and his mother answered. He quietly dashed back into the bathroom and just waited to hear Carol’s footsteps. She was still talking to his mom and walking backwards down the hall when he jumped from the bathroom and scared her. “Boo!”

              The combination of the scare and poking her in the ribs almost sent her into the opposite wall. “You scared the hell outta me, Caleb!”

              He hugged her to spread a calming aura and smiled a little wider at the sound of his mother’s laughter. “Can’t a guy have a little fun?”

              Her scared and embarrassed face was buried in his chest as she mumbled, “At my expense….”

              “Aw, I’m sorry dumpling. You owe me a big punch later, fair enough?”

              She smiled happily up at him and kissed his cheek, destroying anything but happiness in his body. His mother called out a question to them. “How were your respective school experiences today?”

              Carol responded first, but Caleb didn’t pay attention. The cooling area on his cheek left him in a trance with her that his eyes couldn’t seem to break. He watched and studied her like one would a rare gem on a crown. Every change in eye level, mouth movement, fall and rise of her supple chest, and any other rudimentary part of the object of his cautious lust was noted and stored in his mind. He could feel her warmth on his arm and her hair tickling his neck as tidal waves of cool, lively sensation splashed his soul. She glanced at him. ‘She feels it too.’ The glow of her green eyes and the shine coming from her teeth gave her away to him, and he couldn’t be happier.

              “And your day, Caleb?”

              A smile and a chuckle later, he answered his mother. “Um, kinda weird and boring. Mrs. Drit was acting sick today or something, and that ended up being the highlight of my day.”

              His mother smiled. “That boring or hate her that much?”

              Caleb smiled back. “Just that boring. All day, every day.”

              Carol nodded in agreement. “Hasn’t gotten any better then. It was horribly boring when I was there too.”

              Caleb’s mother leaned against a wall and assumed a slightly serious look. “Why were you in pain when you came in, honey?”

              “I pushed my power pretty hard today, or at least harder than I ever have. All my muscles were just tearing off the bone, and I was sweating something fierce. I’m fine now and my power is coming back a little, but all I had to do was walk across the street and I felt like I was going to die.”

              Carol gripped his arm and his mom nodded in a prideful way—‘Not a secret between them, or us, anymore,’—but all further thought was scattered by the sound of a louder car door closing outside. Carol and his mom angled their heads towards the front door, quizzically, but Caleb already knew his father was home. He slid down, snatched Carol’s hand, and began to drag her towards the backdoor. “Be back later.”

              Carol, thankfully, seemed to understand and followed behind until they got outside, walking around the outside to her car. ‘He’s got another new car. Where the hell does he get the money for that? We’re upper-middle class, not Bill Gates. He’s gotta be a car salesman…or a drug dealer…something lucrative if he doesn’t work directly with them. Mom’s always just a laugh and a wave with her answers to the job questions. I do have a right to know how we went from poverty in the first half of my life to the east side in the second. He never cared and always worked back then…now he works at work and at home, not realizing that I’m not a damn paycheck to be earned. Some jackpots are truly impossible to win. I wonder how clear my point still remains in his mind? He hasn’t talked to me since the, settling for stylized and ritualistic observance of suit changing or a sacrifice of new electronic equipment as a bribe whenever I see him. He’s almost always stalled in front of a mirror…suited with one button done and tied with a formal yet colorful tie—’

              He jumped as Carol touched his knee and his mind couldn’t recall getting in the car. “You shouldn’t let him get to you, Cale.”

              “A lot of things shouldn’t happen in this world, but they do.”

              “Yeah, but which do you think is worse your situation or someone getting raped?”

              “My situation is nothing compared to that. That’s unforgivable. My situation just seems unsolvable. Even so, I’ll fight it because not everyone else can fight. I know that’s an ability I can’t waste.”

              Carol stopped at a stop sign and squeezed his knee while chuckling. “Sounds like a pretty heroic ideal to me.”

              Caleb’s head had found itself against the window and his eyes, which had just gone down for an intended blink, weren’t opening as he drifted off.

              In one of the houses that Carol’s blue car passed, a woman lain. Her hands and feet were bound to bed posts and a tied sock had been shoved down her throat hard enough for blood. A man had mounted her as she’d cried and moaned in terror and pain and didn’t relinquish his brutal thrusts for hours on end. When he did finally stop, so did her life with a bullet to her naked chest. She couldn’t fight and nobody protected her.

-                            -                            -                           

              Caleb yawned and stretched as Carol released his arm long enough to find her car keys. “Two-and-a-half hours later and hero doesn’t even kill the villain. Freaky bastard.”

              Carol re-wrapped her arms around him and stabbed him with one of her keys in the side. “That was a good movie.”

              “Oh I agree. I just thought they were going to kill one another in the end, but, of course, the hero had to pull a me and save some weirdo from death.”

              She chuckled and snuggled deeper into his warm body as they came to her blue speed demon. “Best decision you ever made, right?”

              He swung her off his hip and plunked her gently on the hood of her car. “That wasn’t a decision because there was never a second option. It was the best action I’ve ever done.”

              “Well, I may be able to think of some other actions as a result of that action.”

              Caleb smiled. ‘How many hints were in that? Let me count the ways. Don’t be an idiot, don’t pass this up.’ “Well, why don’t we see what happens once we get home?”

              She kissed his thin lips a couple of times before pushing him away and teasing him with a look on her way to the driver’s door. He just smiled and got into the passenger’s door to await the movie crowd’s dispersal behind them. The bright movie theatre began to dim slightly as closing time was brought on by encroaching severe weather. Clouds filled the sky and were bright with moisture and reflection of man-made light below as the people began to run from the drizzle. Carol shifted into reverse and looked out the back window as he finally spoke. “I’m getting further and further through my comics. They’re starting to give me some really good ideas and I’ve been thinking more and more about them. I can’t be that far off that one big connection that mixes it all together.”

              Her attention stayed focused on the back window as she asked, “What, exactly, are you hoping to get out of those silly comics?”

              He shrugged. “Anything, really. I’d study a rock right now if it gave me some answers.”

              Carol didn’t seem to have a response as she gunned it out of the spot—‘Faster than usual,’—and waited impatiently for the people to clear a path to the exit. ‘Just let it go. She’s upset with me obviously. Then again, letting an upset Carol drive home wouldn’t be a good idea.’ He just immersed himself in the notes he’d taken and tried to find connections between all the words and actions. With them both submerged in their own thoughts, the ten minute car ride flew by.

              They came to a stop in front of his house and the cutting engine was the only action for a few minutes. Caleb inwardly sighed and asked, “What’s wrong?”

              He studied her. ‘Slightly increased pupil dilation, breathing is still normal, skin not flushed, and her face more relaxed now than at the theater. What’s wrong indeed.’ Her green eyes turned towards him as she spoke, those eyes never breaking contact with his, “I know I’m not the residential hero expert, but I’d still like to think that my opinion means more to you than a few dumb comic books. Are you going to let me help you or not?”

              Caleb scratched his head and allowed her to see his slight sigh this time. ‘I want you to help, Carol. No, think before you blurt out a yes. Talk it out rationally.’ “If I could help it, I would let you teach me instead of those. It’s not like I really value their word bubbles over your opinion it’s just…when these comics were written, the writers thought they knew what a hero would say and do and the illustrators thought they knew what a hero should look like. That’s all my maybe-hero career is right now: thought. I need to gather all the thoughts I can before I make my decision. Trust me, that does include your thoughts, but I don’t have to take notes on you. With you, I just enjoy you until you tell me what to do with my life.” He smiled slyly at her, which caused her bright white teeth to shine, and then they leaned into one another for a kiss.

              A hard knock on the window broke the moment, and Stephen’s face was clouding it up like the worst pollution. Caleb turned and told her to wait in the car with his eyes before giving her hand a squeeze and opening his door. Stepping into the misty air, Caleb noticed quickly that Stephen had brought others with him this time. ‘One big like Stephen. Other two tiny by comparison. All of which already on my last nerve. “Can we help you?”

              Caleb could smell the alcohol around Stephen. ‘Two of the three guys behind him walking around the car, one more staying behind the smiling bastard himself, all all-stars from the high school football team lined up to go straight to college with their talent. Almost makes me feel bad imagining their heads being knocked together for interrupting us.’ Stephen’s musky breath reached his nose before his grating voice invaded Caleb’s ears. “We just wanted a lil action. You gonna share your pretty little girl with us?”

              Caleb’s fist clenched to stop his power from flaring. “No, I seriously doubt she wants anything to do with you guys. Go beat up a middle-schooler and leave us alone.”

              One of the guys he’d seen walk around the car had apparently walked up behind him. He and a fellow cornerback grabbed Caleb’s arms and pinned him to the side of the car as the star quarterback opened Carol’s door. He dragged her out onto the moist pavement, her kicks and screams grating. ‘I’ve got to hold it back. Keep playing the part.’ “You guys are going to have to trust me on this one: I’m
not
the middle-schooler you wanna fight with. Move on. Last chance.”

              Carol’s yelps and protests could be heard as she was pulled to her feet by her wrists, causing Stephen and the two holding Caleb to laugh deeply. Stephen laughed in Caleb’s face, spit flying from his dribbling lips. “Looks like you don’t have a choice.” ‘This joke isn’t funny anymore…. No I’ve got to…. Enough!’

              Nothing Stephen said sunk past his ears. Nothing beyond Carol’s strained repulsion for the guy still clutching her arm sunk in at all. Caleb closed his eyes, and opened them in sync with the release of his power. It expanded through his body like stampeding horses through his veins, and the laughter began to stop. Stephen backed away as he saw the kaleidic glow of Caleb’s eyes and both cornerbacks tried putting their entire body into holding his arms to the car to no avail. With only a small amount of his power showing, they offered slight resistance, his arms curling their entire force easily. He pushed them off as gently as he could and turned to address the boy holding Carol captive. “Let her go.” His stoic voice and glowing eyes were enough of a warning for the quarterback to release her and quickly move to rejoin the group.