Super Born: Seduction of Being Page 19

  That was when a gasping, painful breath brought me back to the ground. I wheezed and heaved, struggling to move lungs that felt like stone. I rose up on my hands and thought of nothing but getting air into my lungs. After a minute the struggle eased, and I became aware of the alley around me, the screeching of sirens and moans for help. I knew they would be on me soon and that I couldn’t afford to be found. I crawled on my hands and knees under a stairwell nearby and sat huddled under it as the rain poured down around me, not knowing if it was the rain or my tears that poured down my face.

  Eventually I began to take deep breaths, which reminded me how precious and wonderful it was to be alive. My arm burned from the bullet that had grazed it, but compared to facing death, that seemed more like having a splinter in a finger than a real wound. I listened to the sounds of EMS and police cars arriving in the street outside the alley and the scurry and splashing of frantic boots for as long as I dared before staggering along the wall of the building beside me. I slipped and fell, even crawled a couple of times, but I was determined to be one victim of the blast they would never find.

  ***

  I was sitting in my boxers watching the championship game of the women’s football Lingerie League—wondering what could possibly be the purpose of pizza crust when the toppings were so delicious—when the special report broke in.. “Come on, it’s the championship, for crying out loud,” I complained to the TV. The local newswoman, Sarah Easton, had somber news, but delivered it with a smile.

  “We are interrupting our programming to share breaking news of unconfirmed reports that the B.I.B. is dead. Apparently she was killed in a massive explosion on the city’s west side. Our city bureau supplied us with this security camera video of the explosion. You are advised that this video contains an extreme act of violence and may be disturbing to some viewers.”

  In the video, a beer truck was approached by a figure in black. It was grainy but clear enough. I watched in horror as the truck turned into a giant fireball that consumed the black figure.

  I couldn’t believe it. My jaw dropped, my pizza dropped, and my heart stopped. This has to be a mistake, I thought.

  Sarah reappeared on the screen. “In addition to the B.I.B., six people have been injured in the blast, three listed in critical condition at local hospitals. Also, there is a confirmed report of one other fatality whose name has yet to be released. Police are investigating the cause of the blast, which damaged buildings and broke windows in a three-block radius. We will update you on this breaking story as we receive more information. This is Sarah Easton reporting. We now return you to your regular programming. Have a nice day.”

  I refused to believe it. I stood up and paced back and forth, wondering what to do and how to breathe past the lump in my throat. This can’t be, I thought. It’s a mistake. I had to believe that, ’cause if it was true and she was gone…I would have to face becoming a directionless pile of mush. Step-by-step, the search for her had absorbed more and more of my life. Now I had nothing else left. It had to be a mistake. My mind spun around wildly, frustrated. I wished I could pick up a phone and call her.

  “Hey, you’re not dead are you?”

  “Of course not, Logan, you stud. It’s all a mistake, and I’m as hot and luscious as ever. Come on over, big boy.”

  Or something like that.

  Then I remembered Sarah mentioning that these were ‘unconfirmed reports.’ They didn’t know the B.I.B. like I did (or at least wished I did). She was okay. Yeah, she was okay. I knew it. I felt it.

  I pounded the Internet and left my TV on. It was going to be long night.

  ***

  I got the call just after the blast, with all my guys reporting the bitch was dead…trapped in a hail of bullets and finished by a few pounds of C4 exploding on cue. Man, I wished I had pressed the button on that detonator myself. When I saw the video for the twentieth time it was just as enjoyable as the first. She deserved it for messing with Carmine Camino.

  I knew goodie-two-shoes wouldn’t be able to resist a beer truck with the sounds of kids trapped inside blasting through speakers. Why don’t you “B.I.B. Rescue” that, bitch! 20,000 points for me; game over, I thought imagining her avatar blowing up on the B.I.B. Rescue video game.

  My boys just had to wait with those new 50 caliber sniper rifles and night scopes for her to show. The explosives were my idea; just a little insurance. But now the pain in my ass was gone.

  I was light as a feather as I sat on my sofa, put up my feet on the coffee table, took a sip of Miner’s, and hit the remote to replay the explosion video a couple dozen more times. Before long they would find some pieces of her to identify and everyone would know who ran this town.

  “Carmine!” shouted my wife, Maria. “How many times do I have to tell you to change the garbage bag under the sink?” When I didn’t answer she marched over to where I sat, “Carmine!”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll do it in a minute.”

  “Get those feet off the table! And how many times do I have to ask you to use a coaster for your beer bottles?” Apparently Maria hadn’t gotten the memo on who ran this town.

  ***

  I spent a totally sleepless night unable to think about anything but hearing that the B.I.B. was okay. I sat at the computer for hours pushing the refresh button on various local news sites for any kind of update while the TV blared in the background.

  Around midnight I couldn’t take the waiting anymore, so I stepped out into the rainy night to walk the streets—as if I would find her somewhere out there. I just felt like I had to do something, and moving seemed better than sitting. The rain fell as I splashed my feet through puddles. The dark, cold gloom outside matched my mood. Somewhere in there, I clung to the belief that she was fine. It had taken so long for me to believe in someone that I couldn’t accept anything else.

  I lost track of how far I had walked, but the blinking lights of familiar bars told me it was a really long way. The rain had let up when I saw a familiar face on the sidewalk across the street. Jones emerged from Flanagan’s with a gorgeous woman with long, dark hair by his side. I shook my head in wonder at his success with the ladies. How did he do it, the horny little bastard? What am I, the plague?

  My first thought was to call out to him, but then the voyeur in me took over and I watched. I heard Jones mumble something like, “Oh, you’ll see. I’m sure it will worth your while.” They began crossing the street, stepping away from me. I was about to ask him if he had heard about the B.I.B. when the side door of a parked white van slid open and four arms grabbed Jones’s companion. Her eyes flashed with panic, and she reached out and called for his help, but Jones just stood there and watched. After a moment, he too slipped into the van before it sped off into the night. I was stunned.

  So that explained Jones’ success with the ladies. The old bonk them on the head take them back to your cave, caveman style. I knew that wasn’t all that was going on, but in my concern for the B.I.B., Jones’ kinky little sex games where the least of my worries. I let thoughts of Jones and his lady friend flitter away like a happy little bird.

  I returned home as the dawn was breaking, wet, cold, and as anxious as when I had left. I put on a dry T-shirt and some sweat pants and drifted over to the fridge. Even my collection of cheap beer held no attraction for me. So I closed the door and sat down to search the computer for updates, but there were none. I closed my laptop and rested my arms and head down on it.

  After a minute I looked up to see the image of the B.I.B. in my bedroom hallway. She wore a long flowing white dress that was waving in a breeze I didn’t feel. In her hand was a Miner’s Lite bottle, which she lifted in a gesture to follow her as she slowly moved away down the hall. I rose as if hypnotized and followed. She smiled and said, “This way to heaven.” I was so happy she was okay. I’d known all along. I knew it.

  Just as I reached her and my arms surrounded her, my head slipped off the laptop and bumped on the table. I was back in the real worl
d and I didn’t like it. I looked up at my now B.I.B.-less hallway and said, “Crap.”

  By morning, I was blurry eyed and still hanging on to my hope. (Twelve hours or so, that’s a lot of hanging on for me.) But they were still calling the reports unconfirmed. The mayor held a press conference, voiced his sadness at the loss of the B.I.B., and officially ended the Miner’s beer embargo—the only good news.

  I had spent a couple hours at the site of the explosion abusing my press pass and connections to try to get any information I could. The search went on, but no one I spoke with had any proof of the B.I.B., or parts of her, having been found at the site.

  Pundits on TV reviewed the video over and over, speculating on how anyone could have survived the blast and where her remains might be found. Eyewitness who had survived the blast talked about cheering her as she approached the truck, but then losing sight of her in the blast. So I did a post on the website to emphasize the total lack of evidence that she was injured. By late morning a local TV station interviewed me and my hopeful position grew legs.

  By that evening, the banner on my site read “She’s Alive!”, but her silence still weighed heavily on me. Again, I wished I could just give her a call.

  “Babes, why aren’t you telling everyone you’re okay?”

  “,Don’t you know anything about women? It’s just like in the fashion magazines. I’ve been too busy standing in an expensive gown on a windblown beach looking sexy and contemplating the meaning of life while I wait for you to ravish me. Why would you ask?”

  “Well, everyone thinks you’re dead. I’ve been telling everyone you’re not, but I could use a little help here.”

  “Anything for you, cowboy. And I do mean anything.”

  Or something like that.

  By the time I went to bed—not sleep, mind you, just bed—I felt better, but the frustration of not knowing was eating me alive. My mobile phone rang and somehow (bizarrely), I thought it was her. “Hello!”

  “Tell me my friend, what have you heard?” asked Jones.

  I was disappointed and it probably showed in my voice. “Oh…I think she’s okay. I think the report of her death is going to remain unconfirmed.”

  “You are knowing this, how?”

  “All they have is the video. There’s no body—no indication of a body. Everyone else has been accounted for. It’s all bullshit.”

  “If that is true, it would be good news.”

  “She’ll show. I know it.”

  “That may be good enough for you, but I am a man of science. We may need to change our plan in case you are wrong.”

  “She’s alive! We don’t need a new plan! Go fuck yourself!”

  “Well, thank you for that wonderful suggestion, but you may need to prepare yourself.”

  “Prepare for what! Her kicking everyone’s ass who doubts her? She’s fine! You’ll see.”

  “I can see this is an emotional issue for you. I didn’t know you were so attached to this project of ours.”

  “Yeah, I’m very attached…to the project, I mean.”

  “Good, good. I hope you are right about the B.I.B. Have a good night, my friend.”

  “You too, Doc…. Sorry if I got a little carried away.”

  “Yes, yes. A very difficult day for everyone.”

  It flashed in my mind to ask him about the woman I had seen him take away in the van, but thought better of it. It might not have been him or if it was I had no desire to hear him tell me tales of the High Definition Anal stimulator or imagine him climaxing crosseyed.

  ***

  The next morning the police held a news conference on the steps of City Hall regarding the explosion, and I was there front and center with my laptop in a case on my back and my video recorder in my hand. I don’t know why, but I was feeling good, and also highly combative. I guess a lack of sleep can do funny things to a person.

  Twenty minutes late, they rolled the reluctant press secretary out of the building to the top of the stairs. The pool of sharks below were waiting for his statement, his blood, and answers.

  He waved for silence while I lined him up in the sights of my camera. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have a brief statement and then will take questions, a few questions.”

  As he pulled out some written notes, there came a screech, then a whoosh of wind that blew away his papers and rearranged his hair. When I looked up, papers were swirling all around me, and the crowd began to murmur en masse, wondering what had happened. Then someone at the back of the mob yelled, “Look!” A hundred heads turned at once to see a tiny speck grow out of the clouds and descend like a missile upon us. The image grew until it came screeching on by just over our heads, the image of a woman in black.

  I was so enthralled and happy to see her that I forgot to record any of it, hoping she would fly by again. Her image disappeared and then returned, this time higher in the sky. Now I filmed until she disappeared, then let my camera dangle from my wrist as I wrapped my arms around the person nearest to me, who happened to be a man about my age in a brown suit who I didn’t know. We jumped for joy together. Then I picked up a petite young female reporter who I had never seen before and spun her in a circle before putting her down. Then I turned to the next person near me, a reporter who turned out to be a very large woman in a suit whose buttons were straining to stay closed. I knew I was in trouble if I tried to lift her, so I smiled, dropped my arms, and then yelled something up into the sky as I pumped my fist. The large reporter picked me up and buried her face in my chest as we spun joyfully together.

  ***

  “Mom!” yelled Paige as she burst into our apartment. “Mom? Did you hear? The B.I.B. is okay!”

  She’d found me lying on the sofa in the living room with an unopenned laptop on my belly. I sat up slowly, like an old woman, holding my ribs as I did.

  “That’s great. How’d you hear about it?”

  “It’s everywhere, the Internet, the TV.. I was really worried, but somehow, I knew she’d be okay…by the way, you should really use that thing,” Paige said, referring to the laptop. “Anyway, she flew over the news conference this morning, so they had video of her coming out in the daytime, just so people would stop saying she was dead. Wanna see?” Paige asked. She pulled up the video on her phone of the B.I.B. that had been taken in the sky above City Hall that morning.

  “Oh yeah, isn’t she just somethin’?” I said a bit sarcastically as I watched myself on the video, remembering the extreme pain I felt as I flew.

  “She is just so awesome. She was in that big explosion and came out just fine. I am sooo glad she’s okay….oh, and how you feeling? Is your flu any better?”

  I produced a little fake cough. “Yeah, I think I’m a lot better than yesterday…I got out for a little while today.”

  “I don’t know. You sure you should be going outside already? Maybe you should see a doctor.”

  I smiled. “I’m a lot better already. Don’t worry.”

  The ring tone of her phone rang the first verse of some pop song Paige liked. She looked at her phone. “Oh, it’s Kelly. I gotta take this…What’d he say?” She said and then walked away, back into her little teenage world.

  It had taken an excruciating effort to fly that day, so I was glad to see that I had gotten my point across. Now everyone knew I was alive and Camino probably thought I was indestructible. But I wasn’t.

  It was true that my powers had saved me. That explosion would have collapsed a normal person—for me, it just emptied my lungs of air. But had I been ten feet closer…who knows. I noticed I was healing faster too. Yesterday I could barely move, today I could fly, tomorrow or the next day I would be myself again…whatever that was.

  I knew Camino was behind the blast. The public embarrassment I’d caused him at his offices must have been too much for the little baby to bear. Amazingly, I wasn’t angry. He had taken his shot. If I were him, I probably would have done the same. The next shot would inevitably be mine, and I wouldn’t miss. I f
elt no revenge or motivation to strike at him right away, but I also felt no mercy.

  Those days of healing alone had left their mark, though. I had almost died. I had almost abandoned Paige to this uncertain world, and for what? Did anyone really care what I did? Did I matter? Was the risk worth the price?

  I thought back about how those questions had haunted me that morning. The doubt was like poison that crept through my veins. If I had wanted the B.I.B. to just stay dead, I could have left her that way. Everyone believed it. I’d had a chance to end it all, to change directions. Was helping the ungrateful a cause worth the price of someone trying to kill you? With my powers, I could have slipped away and become whoever I wanted. It would be so easy to just leave this all behind.

  I remember having walked slowly with an aching chest and head to where I kept the B.I.B. costume behind the panel in my closet. I took it out, fully intending to stuff it in the trash forever. I’d studied it for a second, seeing its rips and tears and spots of my own blood. Then I remember something clicking in my head. It was a choice to be normal, or succumb to the seduction to be extraordinary. Paige had a mom, but to her, the B.I.B. was awesome. I had a gift and I wasn’t going to waste it. That was when I struggled to slowly put on the costume and flew over the news conference to let them know the B.I.B. was back. The doubts would catch me one day, but it wouldn’t be today.

  Now I had to live with that decision. I opened the laptop and replayed the video taken outside City Hall a. I watched the close-up reactions of the crowd as they cheered and danced around. Almost everyone I saw had a spontaneous reaction of happiness—people who were obviously strangers even hugged one another. It was great to see the love everyone had for the B.I.B. It made me smile.

  Then I laughed, seeing a familiar face. The TV news video showed the man I’d seen at O’Malley’s who’d made the googly eyes at me, the one I’d flashed my eyes at, for who knows what reason. I paused the video, and replayed it. It was funny to see him again, cheering while some big woman picked him up and spun him around.