I, Superhero!! :. Mike McMullen
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Eventually, I click on a lamp on the nightstand. Wife registers nothing.
“So,” I say, after clearing my throat as conspicuously as possible.
Wife lays there like lump.
“So,” I say, slightly louder.
“Hmms uh na,” Wife answers.
I gently shake her leg. She stirs, cracking open one eye.
“So,” I say again.
“What?”
“I was just saying ‘So.’”
There’s a brief but extremely awkward silence as Wife attempts to comprehend what she’s woken to.
“Were we having a conversation?” she asks.
“No, I just couldn’t decide how to start.”
Wife’s attention is suddenly focused like a laser beam.
“Start what?” she asks, eyes narrowing.
“Telling you about it.”
Now she’s awake, with a hint of panic in her bloodshot eyes.
“About what?”
“My new book.”
Relief and annoyance briefly duel for control of her facial muscles.
“What?”
“The new book I’m working on.”
“Oh,” Wife says, flopping back onto the mattress. “Why don’t you finish the other five you’ve started before you start on something else?”
“This one’s different. It’s nonfiction.”
“How does that make it different?”
“I don’t have to make everything up, so it should be easier. I just have to do stuff and then write about it. A monkey could do that. A monkey who can type, anyway.”
Wife sits back up.
“What, precisely, are you going to do?” she asks, and from her tone, I know she wants details on a subatomic, nanosecond-by-nanosecond level.
“Just some stuff. Just thought you should know. See ya!”
“Waitwaitwaitwaitwait. The last time you did ‘just some stuff,’ you made a little tube that shot big fireballs from your hand.” *
“They weren’t that big.”
“They were fireballs. From the palm of your hand.”
“Cool, huh?”
Sigh. “What are you going to do?”
“Do you know there are people who put on costumes and fight crime?”
“Yeah. They’re called cops. Are you going to be a cop now?”
“No, not a cop. And those are uniforms, not costumes.”
“Same difference.”
“Actually, if only one person is wearing it, it’s a costume. If a hundred people are wearing it, it’s a uniform,” I say, explaining helpfully.
Wife picks up her phone from the nightstand and checks the time.
“Just tell me what you’re going to do. Other than be late for work.”
“I’m gonna be a superhero.”
The room falls silent. Perhaps Wife is so overcome with pride and happiness she can’t speak, I think. I’ve done what every married person dreams of—rendered my spouse speechless.
As the silence enters its second full minute, I start to wonder if she even heard me in the first place.
“I’m gonna be a…”
“Yeah, I heard.”
“So whatcha think?”
“Are you serious?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Like, with a cape and stuff?”
“Well, capes aren’t really that practical. I’d have a costume and a mask, though.”
“And you’d go out in public dressed like that.”
“I’d have to, yeah.”
“You’re killing me.”
“What?”
“That is so embarrassing.”
In the pitch-black room, I actually see her reddening.
“For me, maybe, not for you. I’m the one that’s going to be going out in public dressed up like a goon.”
“Then why do it?”
“For my art, baby.”
“I’m going to assume you said ‘fart’ and continue as if I’d received a satisfactory answer. On another note, aren’t you a little…you know…for spandex?”
“Fat?”
Wife shrugs her shoulders in a very “You said it, not me, but I’m not disagreeing” sort of way.
“I’d lose weight first, of course. Get into shape.”
“Like you’ve been saying you’re going to do since I met you?”
“Yeah, like that, but I’d do it this time.”
“You’re going to lose weight, get in shape, buy a costume—”
“Make a costume.”
“You don’t sew, but fine, make a costume, fight crime, aaaand—”
“Write a book about it!”
“Write a book about it.”
“Sure.”
“What about those five other books you haven’t finished? I mentioned them a few minutes ago?”
“Yeah, but this is diff—”
“And the model ship?”
“Yeah, but—”
“And the drawings, and the paintings, and the woodworking projects, and the sculpting?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“You don’t finish things. You’re not a finisher.”
“You just say that because I haven’t finished anything yet.”
“You’re right. Because that’s how we determine those things. If you don’t write, you’re not a writer, if you don’t swim, you’re not a swimmer, and if you don’t finish things, you’re not a finisher. Based on your previous history, why should I believe you’re going to follow through on this?”
“Because I’m excited about it.”
“You were excited about the other stuff too. At first. Then you get bored.”
“But this is different.”
“You keep saying that. How?”
“Um. I’m really excited about it.”
Wife looks at me with either resignation or despair. The two look a lot alike, especially at 7:30 A.M., and in this case it doesn’t really matter which it is—six of one, half a dozen of the other.
“Okay. Whatever. You’re late for work, Commander Quitter.”
I decide to take this as a victory, kiss her before she can think of anything else to say, shower, and get out of the house before she realizes what she’d tacitly approved.
It’s early evening, a few months