Novel, part the second
Nov. 10th, 2006 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perpetual_motionThree Weeks After the Very Beginning
“Morning,” Matt dropped his voice to a whisper when he realized Leonard was on the phone, “Apologies.”
Leonard waved him away with his right hand while scrawling away with his left. “What room number is your daughter, Ma’am…Having her room number at my disposal guarantees that your daughter will get the assistance she needs and that we don’t accidentally offer assistance to the wrong person who may have the same name.” Leonard wished suddenly and fiercely for a power outage or a perfectly timed disconnect of the phone lines. What he got instead was a string of words he didn’t think people said at four after eight in the morning. “Okay, Ma’am, I have all the information you’ve given me, and I will pass it along to Mr. Scarpelli as soon as he walks in the office.” Leonard hung up the phone after Mrs. Tennison’s not particularly grateful “thank you”, and turned in his chair to face Matt’s office. “I’ve got a winner.”
“Hold on,” Matt clicked on the coffee maker and set his briefcase by his desk. “Okay, give it to me.”
“Mrs. Tennison is the proud mother of one Lena Tennison, who is apparently having roommate issues. Lena hasn’t spoken to her RA, the Hall Director, or anyone in residence life from what I gather from Mrs. Tennison, but Mrs. Tennison assures me that this is a very serious problem and must be dealt with immediately.”
Matt groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. “Boyfriend of the roommate is sleeping over?”
“Nope.”
“Roommate sleeps naked?”
“Nope.”
“Roommate comes home drunk?”
“Nope.”
“Roommate’s spreading rumors?”
“Nope.”
“Opening mail?”
“Nope.”
“Eating her food?”
“Nope.”
“Borrowing her clothes?”
“Nope.”
“Trying to convert her to her religion?”
“Nope.”
“Trying to convert her to the sorority?”
“Isn’t that the same question?” Leonard grinned.
“Just nearly, sometimes.” Matt grinned in return. “Trying to steal her boyfriend?”
“Nope.”
“Coming in very late and being noisy?”
“Nope.”
“Getting up very early and being noisy?”
“Nope.”
“Swearing?”
“Nope.”
“Attention whore?”
“Nope.”
“Eating crackers in bed?”
Leonard laughed. “Now you’re just pulling at straws.”
Matt threw up his hands. “Fine. I give up. What’ve you got?”
“Nothing.”
Matt raised his eyebrows. “Nothing?”
“Not a thing. The mother’s upset because the roommate isn’t being friendlier.”
“What?”
“Apparently, the daughter is terribly heart-broken because the roommate doesn’t want to be friends. The mother feels this is unfair.”
“Oh, Chirst.” Matt held out his hand, “give me your notes. I’ll call this woman.”
“Enjoy,” Leonard’s voice was just a touch too gleeful, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Matt snatched the notes from Leonard’s hand and walked into his office, wishing desperately that he’d had time for coffee before this. He could put it off, wait until the afternoon when he’d gotten through some of his workload and had time to take a breather, but mothers like this were always best dealt with first thing. The sooner he could put the kibosh on this woman’s idea that her daughter and the roommate had to be bosom buddies, the sooner his day would be easier.
He got comfortable before dialing the phone, and squinted at Leonard’s hand writing as the phone rang on the other end. Matt couldn’t quite believe it had only been three weeks. Leonard has found his niche and made himself right at home. He handled angry parents and moody students with an aplomb that almost made Matt envious. There had been a few snafus, most notably when Leonard had managed to screw up two transfers in a row and had, in the process hung up on the Dean of Students, but they were expected snafus, and Leonard had more than proved himself since then.
“Hello?” The voice on the other end was waspish and the ‘o’ was cut short, almost as if it’d been swallowed.
“Hello, this is Matt Scarpelli with the University. I’d like to speak to Ms. Tennison about a phone message she left with my assistant this morning.”
“This is Mrs. Tennison. Who did you say you were?”
Matt raked his fingernails on the desk and begged silently for calming thoughts. “I’m Matt Scarpelli. You left a message for me about ten minutes ago with my assistant, Leonard-“
“I don’t care about him.” Her tone dropped into something that Matt supposed was an attempt at motherly sympathy. “My baby girl isn’t making friends with her roommate.”
“I have the information that Leonard took down from you, and it says that they’re not fighting.”
“But they’re not friends.”
“Well, Ma’am, sometimes people who can live together without fighting just don’t become friends.”
“But she needs friends.”
“I’m sure she has friends, Mrs. Tennison.”
“Could you talk to her?”
Matt glanced at his wall calendar, riddled as it was with appointment notes and post-its of meeting location changes. “Ma’am, our standard operating procedure is to have the hall director talk to her first. If your daughter would still like to talk to me after she’s touched base with the hall director, then I’d be very happy to sit down with her, but I do prefer that her hall director have the first conversation.”
All hints of motherly affection disappeared in an instant. “Why? Are you too busy with the duties that are supposed to include taking care of my daughter?”
Matt took a deep breath and forced his tone to stay calm and even. “No, Ma’am. Not at all. It’s simply a matter of familiarity. Your daughter’s hall director has a much better chance of knowing your daughter than I do, seeing as the hall director lives and works in the building. And while I can certainly handle the task of speaking with your daughter, I think she’d be more comfortable talking to someone she recognizes than she would feel talking to me.” There was a long pause, and Matt counted off seconds in his head while Mrs. Tennison breathed into the phone like a particularly irate bulldog.
“Fine. That will be fine. Do I need to call my daughter?”
Matt breathed a sigh of relief, making a point to do so away from the phone. “No, Ma’am. I can call the hall director and have her get in touch with your daughter. We’ll make sure to let her know that she’s in no trouble at all.”
“Good. Thank you.” Mrs. Tennison didn’t sound sincere in the least. The heavy ‘clunk’ as she hung up the phone doubled Matt’s suspicion that she still thought he was a bastard.
“Damn. It.” Matt put the phone in the cradle, rubbed his eyes, and leaned back in his chair. He spoke loudly enough so that Leonard could hear him over the music coming from his stereo speakers. “Next time, I wait until after lunch.” Matt watched Leonard turn around in his chair, place a foot on the table behind his desk, and use his foot for leverage to try and lean back in his chair. Matt was waiting for the day Leonard forgot there were wheels on the thing and injured himself.
“Do I need to do anything?”
Matt shook his head and rubbed his face again. “There’s nothing you can do, but thanks for the offer. She’s going to be mad because she wants to be mad.” Matt watched Leonard press his foot against the table and lean back a little further in his chair. “You’re going to fall.”
“No, I’m-“ Leonard had spoken a half-second too soon. He started pitching backwards, arms windmilling.
Matt watched with a detachment from somewhere inside. It was all slow motion. He was halfway out of his chair and not nearly close enough to save Leonard from the braining he was about to take when Leonard just stopped. It took Matt a couple of seconds to take in what he was seeing. Leonard was leaning back, the chair just inches from the floor, Leonard just inches from getting his head bashed in, and he was frozen, his arms and hands pointing down towards the floor and a large ball of blue energy working like a doorstop against his fall. “Leonard?”
“I-“ Leonard cut off and swallowed hard. “I can explain this, but I really need to concentrate.”
Matt ran across the office and shut the outer door with a press of his shoulder. He jerked the blinds completely closed and turned back around to watch. Leonard was in the same position. “If I grab you, will I get hurt?”
“No. It’s safe. It’s. I just.” Leonard swallowed again. “Never mind. I’ll go into it later.”
“Okay.” Matt positioned himself directly in front of Leonard. He reached out his hands and grabbed Leonard’s shoulders. “On three.”
“Okay.”
“One. Two. Three!” Matt jerked Leonard to his feet as Leonard brought up his hands. The chair clattered to the floor with a loud rattle from the wheels. Matt breathed a sigh of relief and checked Leonard. He was shaking, his face down. “You okay?”
“You can’t-“ Another swallow, just as hard as the original. “If anyone finds out.” It was a full sentence, heavy with everything Leonard couldn’t say at all.
Matt gripped Leonard’s shoulders and led him into his office, pushing him down onto the couch. “Hold on for a second.” Matt retrieved a mostly clean coffee cup from the cabinet above his desk and poured half a cup for Leonard. He reached into his bottom drawer, pulled out the really good Scotch, and tossed in a healthy amount. “Here. Drink that.” He sat in his chair and watched Leonard sip it slowly. “You’re one of them.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Matt tapped his toes against the floor and watched the wariness take over Leonard’s face. “You’re in my confidence. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Sure,” Leonard’s voice was harsh. “Last person to say that called the cops on me. Luckily, I didn’t display any “symptoms”, “ he spit out the word with a flash of anger in his eyes, “and they let me be.”
Matt bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself in check before asking his next question. “Who was it?”
“Former boyfriend. Present douche. He’s somewhere with something pretty and tan and completely vapid. I caught him cheating, and he called the goddamned cops.”
“Jesus Christ.” Matt shook his head. “Leonard, I’m telling you, I won’t tell anyone. You can trust me.”
“And I just told you why I can’t.” Leonard gave Matt a hard look. “Unless you’ve got some awful dirty secret, too.”
“I do, actually,” and it was easier to say than Matt had imagined. “I can,” he blew out a breath and leaned forward, his elbows settling on his knees. “Let me just show you, okay? It’s somewhat disgusting.”
Leonard squinted, still dubious to the whole thing, not sure if he was getting played so that Matt could testify later. That’s what Jason had tried to do. “Fine. Show me your parlor trick.”
Matt opened his eyes wide, and Leonard cursed softly when Matt’s eyes rolled completely back in his head. “You broke your arm once. Looks like it was a clean break. And you’re carrying around an old lotto scratcher ticket with no winning lines.” His eyes rolled back to the front of his head. “I’m also a little stronger than I should be.” He lifted his desk with the first three fingers of his left hand. “And that’s why I won’t say anything.”
“Shit.” Leonard shook his head and took a hard slug of his coffee. “Fuckin’ shit.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s really not.” Leonard stood and his coffee cup went flying. He caught it with a small blast of energy that reminded Matt of a yo-yo. “We’re…”
“We’re fine.”
“We’re criminals under the law.”
“Not criminals. Crazy.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s better.”
Matt stood and put his hands on Leonard’s shoulders. “We’re getting out of here. You need to talk away from here. Where’s your place?”
“Couple of blocks up the road. I walk in.”
“Fine. I’ll drive us there. Get your things.” Matt kept eye contact until Leonard nodded and walked away. Matt picked up the phone and dialed Allie’s extension.
“Allie Edwards.”
“Hey, it’s me.”
“What do you need, Matt?”
Matt, as always, smiled at the way Allie couldn’t ask any question without sounding slightly pissed. “I’m taking Leonard on some errands to make him carry things and build character. I don’t know when we’ll be back, but my calender is clear for the day.”
“Call when you get back; if you get back,” Allie said and hung up the phone.
“Always a charmer,” Matt chuckled as he hung up the phone. He grabbed his briefcase and keys, clicked off the coffee pot, and locked the drawer that held his booze. Leonard was waiting in his office, leaning against his desk, both feet firmly on the ground. “I’m parked over in the yellow lot.”
“Okay,” Leonard fell into step and followed Matt to his car. “My place is a little trashed. I just got moved in a few weeks ago.”
“I don’t care.” Matt tried to inject every bit of honest sincerity he could into his statement. “As long as you’re comfortable being there, it’ll work. Besides, my place is a pit.”
“I don’t have a proper coffee table.”
“One of my bookshelves is made out of cinder blocks and four by tens.”
Leonard grinned and chuckled rustily. “Nice.”
“It’s the latest in lazy sheik, I’m told.”
“By who?”
“The boyfriend that walked out with my actual bookshelf.” Matt grinned a little when Leonard stopped in his tracks. “What? You think you hold the patent on queerness?”
Leonard was thinking that Matt being gay really complicated the crush that kept gaining a food hold, no matter how much he tried to kick it to the curb. “No. Of course not. I just hadn’t thought about it. I don’t really think about it. I mean… You know what? I’m just going to stop talking.”
“Okay.” Matt gave Leonard the most reassuring smile he had and gestured to a teal two-door car with peeling top coat. “Here he is; Gil the wonder car.”
“The wonder car?”
“Thirteen years old and he hasn’t given me anymore trouble than a couple of flat tires and an oil change.”
“Nice,” Leonard’s tone made it clear he wasn’t convinced. “Bitching stereo?”
“That too.” Matt had some obvious pride coloring his voice. “Just put in new speakers a month ago.” He unlocked the driver’s side door and leaned across to flip the lock on Leonard’s side of the car. “Put in a bogarted version of an iPod reader as well. Well, Bootsie did.”
“Bootsie?”
“My housekeeper by actual definition. My butler by hers.”
“And your place is a pit?”
“The bookcase stealing ex just recently moved out. Where am I headed?”
Leonard snapped his seat belt into place and watched Matt maneuver out of the lot. “Take a left, then a right on Chester, and I’m in the last building on the right. It dead ends; very hard to miss.”
“Okay,” Matt put the car into second as he accelerated after the turn out of the lot. “Where’d you move from?”
“Just your average shit hole college apartment. I figured if I had a degree I should get an apartment that almost fits the bill.” Leonard watched out the window as the street went by. A girl in the car in the next lane stared at him. Leonard, feeling a bit more reckless than he was admitting, held up his hand and sent sparks up over his fingertips.
“Her mother may see you.”
“I’m palm in. It’s a magic trick to her. Her mother will say it’s a magic trick. We don’t exist, so my powers don’t exist to her.”
“Is that how you’ve covered it?”
Leonard didn’t answer, and Matt let the whole thing drop, leaving them in an uncomfortable but tolerable silence until they mounted the three flights of steps to Leonard’s apartment and Leonard had double-bolted the door behind them. Matt glanced around the place. They were standing at the edge of the living room, a decent-sized kitchen with a butcher block counter to the right. Straight down the hall, Matt could see what looked like an office through an open door. There were two other doors, but they were closed.
“Nice place.”
“Yeah.”
Leonard led the way to the office, which had black out curtains and an interesting set of scorch marks along the walls. Leonard gestured for Matt to sit on the loveseat that was set against the far wall while he settled himself into the desk chair which, Matt noticed, had no wheels. He wasn’t surprised when Leonard immediately set it up on two legs, using a hand on the desk to steady himself. “What have you told people?”
“It’s a magic trick. A little flash paper, a butane lighter, and anything can look like sparks. It was harder when I was a teenager. It built up a lot when I was stressed, and my fingernails would turn blue, and then my eyes, and then anyplace where the skin was a little thin. I put a hole in the ground the size of a basketball after a test once. Lucky for me, no one was around to see it. One of the teachers found it later and figured someone had been out and about with firecrackers in their pocket. They didn’t even bother talking to me about it. I was a good kid.” The last was said with an edge of disgust and annoyance. “I figured out how to shape it. I can make pretty much anything. I kept myself fed through college by forming up full meals.”
“Form up?”
“It’s the only description I have. I think about something, and I can form it up into the shape and the taste and the texture. I had a friend who was a Bio major who I convinced I was trying to find the healthiest food. She’d run tests, and everything came back perfect. My apples were apples. My oranges were oranges. The nutritional value was the same.”
Matt was absolutely fascinated. He’d met a few people with powers before, but nothing like what Leonard was describing. Flying and lightning and telepathy, sure, but not anything so interesting. “You can make anything?”
“Most anything. I tried money a few times, but I can’t get the texture right. And the coloring always gets a little funky. I think it’s just my morals keeping me from breaking the law. It sucks a little. I could have used some extra cash in school.”
Matt laughed lightly, “I’ll just bet.” He sobered at the very serious look Leonard gave him. “I’m not trying to make light. I’m just…” What he was, was elated. There was someone else. Someone with a power, and they were sitting in a room and talking about it. It was real and true, and all Matt could think about was the last time he’d had the chance, how he’d run from it. This time, he was certain, he was going to stick around. Power needed power. He was going to keep it around, keep Leonard around.
Before the Very Beginning: Matt’s Past
He hadn’t meant to, not really, but Daniel was so completely compelling with blue eyes and black hair and such perfectly shaded, pale as moon skin. He’d asked nicely, and Matt had done it, rolled his eyes back, read Daniel’s scars from the inside, and Daniel had laughed and clapped and taken Matt to bed. The next morning, Daniel had shown Matt what he could do, floating above him in the lake, three feet from the water and perfectly level. He’d cannon balled back into the water, laughing and splashing, getting his legs around Matt’s waist and kissing Matt’s shoulder, wet with water and slightly burned from an afternoon on the lake.
“When’d you know?”
Daniel had shrugged, lying back on the blanket they’d laid out on the roof of his parents’ house. “I don’t know. It’s always been there. My mom walked into my room when I was a baby, and I was just floating up there. She and Dad just went with it, just told me not to tell.” He’d leaned over Matt, the edges of his shaggy hair tickling Matt’s nose. “You?”
“I don’t remember,” Matt had squirmed away when Daniel had poked him in the ribs. “I really don’t. It’s just been there. My parents don’t know I have it.”
“Why not?”
And Matt had thought about white vans and shapeless green smocks, about the man down the street who could touch flowers and make them live. He’d always saved Matt’s mom’s flowers. It had been the neighbor across the street who had placed the call. The man was taken. All his plants died. No matter how carefully he and his mother tried to keep them alive. “I couldn’t.” The danger had always been so close. Just across the street with Miss Letty, who had glared out from a sliver in her curtains. There was no way to tell, no way to tell and stay with his family, at least. “I can’t.”
“You should. Everyone should. We can’t all be crazy.”
But we can all be carted away, Matt had thought, and then nearly forgotten when Daniel had kissed his chest. It was only later, asleep under the blanket with Daniel in Daniel’s room in the basement, that he had dreamed about the end of everything. His eyes seeing everything, his strength, which was only just gaining then, atrophying under whatever they did at those places with the men in green scrubs. He’d snuck out of bed, leaving a note in Daniel’s hand, and taken off for his own house. His parents’ were gone for the weekend, the same as Daniel’s, and Matt had curled up in their bed, scared and lonely, realizing for the first time, at sixteen, that the world was fucked up and wrong and that to change it, he’d have to risk the men in green scrubs, the dented white van, and the chance of everyone finding him crazy.
Daniel had never called or come by again, but three years later, just as Matt was going into his sophomore year at college, there had been a letter in a battered envelope. No postmark, no stamp, something that’d been shoved into the mailbox. In it had been a scrap of paper, worn and tearing, Matt’s scrawl from the age of sixteen right in front of his face as he stared at it for hours.
I’m not brave.
And underneath, in handwriting Matt had never seen but still knew, another sentence, written as though every single letter had been considered deliberately.
You’re lying.
And that was the last he ever heard from Daniel.
Three Weeks and Three-Quarters of a Day After the Very Beginning
Leonard made them dinner with a pound of hamburger and noodles out of a box. He watched the way Matt walked around the apartment, taking in everything without being intrusive somehow. Leonard froze his actions when Matt paused in front of the long box at the end of his couch. There were three more under the couch. The one within reach was being reorganized.
“Comics?”
“Yeah,” Leonard wasn’t sure why he was feeling embarrassed. Comic books weren’t terrible, and he had some good stuff in there. “You can look, if you want.” His hopes of Matt not wanting to look were quashed when Matt squatted down and lifted the lid from the box.
Matt flipped through the comics. Spider-Man, X-Men, Avengers, New Avengers, Runaways, Captain
“I’ve got a good haul of Batman a few from the Vertigo line, but mostly, yeah.”
“Revenge?”
“I don’t know. I read them when I was a kid, and then, when everything started to happen…” Leonard trailed off, shook his head and shrugged. “I couldn’t give them up. What I had, what I could have done with what I have, it’s all right there. Stan fucking Lee.”
“Yeah,” Matt swallowed his disgust and stood, smoothing the line of his pants. “I used to read Avengers, but then Beast joined, and I couldn’t anymore. Have you read all of them?”
“All the ones I have. I’ve skipped certain arcs. Chuck Austen is a fuck.” Leonard didn’t miss the amusement that Matt tried to hide by rubbing his face with his hands. “I’m a nerd. It’s not news to me. I take it you never read them.”
“I couldn’t. There’s just too much…” Matt shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “There was a guy, once, and he…he was braver than I was. I haven’t spoken to him since I was sixteen. I ran away. Everything about him, it was like something out of one of those books, and I wondered if he was a template for one of them. A guy that flies, with blue eyes and black hair and pale skin; I wondered if there really was a Superman somewhere, and if this kid was his. I wondered if anyone even remembers the real X-Men anymore. If anyone even knows how real they were.”
“Stan does.”
“Stan the fucking man.”
Leonard slammed his hand on the counter. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” He shook his head when Matt took a step forward. “No. Sorry. It’s just completely unfair. If it hadn’t been for Stan, we wouldn’t be talking with the curtains closed and worrying that having what we have is some kind of curse. One wrong move and off we go. You, me, a couple of straight jackets, and one of those lovely, non-descript buildings no one ever admits to having seen. We could be out there, and we could do things. We could save babies from trees and pull kittens from in front of cars, but here we are, making Hamburger Helper and cursing Stan the fucking man. Stan fucking Lee. We’re working at a goddamned college putting up with over-protective whiny mothers who think the fact that their daughter’s roommate isn’t a total drunk or violent or just slovenly is some sort of defect, and we could be doing something. Something.” Leonard took a deep breath, scrubbed his fingers through his hair, and gave Matt a chastised look. “Pardon that.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s okay. It’s-“ Matt paced around the room once, twenty-six steps all the way around, and he came to rest by the long box with it’s comics, neatly ordered and marked by blue post-its. He suddenly realized that no matter what else he wore, there was always some sort of blue on Leonard. Either a blue shirt, or blue socks, or even just the thin strip of blue that had been in his tie on the day of his interview. Blue as close as he could get it to himself because he couldn’t use the blue he had, the blue that made his eyes spark and made his fingers look cold. Matt pinned a stare on Leonard, watched the way Leonard watched him back. No flinching, no twitching, just a matched look. “Why aren’t we doing it?”
There was a lengthy pause as Leonard just stared at Matt. Finally, in the kind of even, measured tone usually associated with discussion of bank transactions and rent checks, Leonard said, “Have you lost your goddamned mind?”
“What? You’ll talk the talk and bitch and moan, but you won’t do anything?”
“White vans. Green scrubs. You’ve seen it too. I know you have. Everyone’s seen it.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it, but that’s my point,” Matt’s voice quickened, his words running against each other, nearly bouncing off one another. “We’ve seen it, and we can stop it. We can take it back. Show Stan the fucking man that what he did only delayed what was happening. That no matter what his fucking comics cost us, we can earn it back, come back from it, be who we’re supposed to be. I can see through walls. You-“ Matt’s voice choked and he cleared his throat and took a step forward, stared into Leonard’s eyes that were starting to spark blue. “We’re the goddamned superheroes. We’re supposed to be the goddamned superheroes. What’s a white van? I can throw that over my shoulder. What are green scrubs? You can make those. What’s a few doors at a few unmarked buildings? It’s not shit with what we can do. With what other people can do. We can set up something, an underground. Make a code or a symbol or a huge goddamned spotlight to shine in the fucking sky from the top of the clock tower on campus. I don’t care how we do it, but we can do it.” Matt took a breath, listened to the way Leonard’s breathing was shallow and uneven. “We’re made to do this.”
“We’re made to hide it.” But there was no venom, no anger or remorse. No self-hatred like there’d been when Leonard was first showing Matt what he could do. Factual and cool, was Leonard, as he took the pan off the burner and flicked off the stove. “What do we do?”
Matt threw his arms in the air. “I don’t have a goddamned clue. But something’s better than nothing.”
And right then, in that single moment with Matt looking lost and exuberant, his shirt wrinkled and his slacks still with their crease, Leonard fell in love.
Before the Very Beginning: The Fable of Stan Lee
Years ago, after the Golden Age of Comics, after the decency hearings and after the World War II heroes had been forgotten on the trash heap and at the back of closets, at a time when comics were limping along and making due, there was Stan Lee. Stan the Man. Beloved by millions because of what he could do, of what he created. Spider-Man and
The X-Men were real people. A dozen people in the middle of New York City who worked for quarters and limp dollar bills on a handful of street corners in Times Square and Manhattan. There was a woman who moved objects with her mind, made the wooden puppets she’d found at a five and dime dance around to music from a guitar that hung in mid-air and played the songs with no help at all. There was a man with bright red eyes who could shoot anything thrown up in the air. On a lark, someone threw up a handful of unpopped popcorn kernels. They all came down fluffy and light, eaten by a stray dog that was sitting on a leash, a white X on his side. There was a man who could fly. No wings, not in real life, but he could fly with a twist of his shoulders and a touch of momentum. In his heyday, he took a running leap from the Empire State Building and landed perfectly, miles away, on the top of the Statue of Liberty. A young man, just barely sixteen, who would stand outside the museums, a stack of soda bottles at his feet, and his arms iced up to his elbows. A man with huge hands and feet, who could flip and twist and jump like the greatest of gymnasts. And an older gentlemen, polio leaving him in a battered wheel chair, who would read minds and smile softly, tucking the dollar bills he was handed into the front pocket of his worn suit jacket.
They were real, every one of them, and there were more, but they rarely interacted. New York, even in those days, was huge and sprawling. They worked different corners on different blocks, in different neighborhoods. Stan the Man, out one day for a lunch time walk with Jack Kirby, passed the man who popped the popcorn and shot quarter clear to the subway stairs a half a block away. Stan the Man asked the Red Eyed Man how he could do what he did.
“No idea, really,” said the man, “it’s just been like this.”
And Jack Kirby remembered the girl who could make the guitar strum. Stan the Man had seen the boy with the ice hands, and they’d both seen the reels of the man who could fly. They’d never seen the acrobat, but a no name penciller at the office had heard of him, had a friend of a friend who’d seen him.
And then, soon enough, the X-Men were born. The people on the streets didn’t see the comic, didn’t know about it at all. They were performers with barely the money to pay rent and eat a lukewarm meal. They didn’t know each other, had never seen it each other. They had no idea what they had, what they used to scrape by, had been turned into millions of dollars with millions of readers and a world that suddenly stopped believing in superheroes all together. At least in the light of day, when they had to carry real books. At night, with a flashlight and the covers over their heads, there was still belief, still hope, but it faded away as time went on. As the comics became plentiful, the belief disappeared. The man who could fly was killed in a mugging. The woman who made the puppets dance without strings was called a fraud. The others simply faded away, fearful of the new breed of people, out to make things rights, make them “normal”. The performers were frauds, it was said, just shysters who knew a good trick. These things couldn’t really exist. They were silly comic books.
And that is what Stan the Man did, with the help of Jack Kirby. Stan the Man made great heroes who made it impossible for real heroes. There were still people with powers, but there were also white vans and green scrubs. There were too many people who stopped believing that the impossible had happened every day for years. Too many people who thought that what they’d seen, a man who could fly, a man who could really, truly read minds, that those people were simply a figment, a mix-up between what they’d read under the covers and what was really happening.
“It’s not real,” they said to each other as a white van drove by, “simply too many comics as a kid.”
And that is the true legacy of Stan the Man and his accomplice, Jack Kirby.
