PHOTO COURTESY OF GEIST

      The drive itself was a beat down. Traveling up I-35 from Texas to Minnesota is like being in a sensory deprivation tank that’s moving eighty miles an hour. My notes from the drive:

      Oklahoma

      Brown.

      Flat.

      Kansas

      Green.

      Flat.

      Nice rest stations.

      Iowa

      Barn.

      Silo.

      Barn.

      Barn.

      Silo.

      Barn.

      Silo.

      Holy crap, another barn.

      Minnesota

      Green.

      Slightly undulating.

      The worst part of the drive was that all the nothing gave my mind plenty of downtime to go where it wanted, and I usually don’t like where that leaves me. I tend to focus on the negatives in my life, and thoughts of bills; of home repairs that we desperately need but just can’t afford; and of how much I was missing Wife and Biscuit assaulted me the entire time.

      Finally, mercifully, I reached Geist’s stomping grounds of Rochester, home of the Mayo Clinic. It was 9 p.m., and I’d been on the road since six o’clock that morning. I pulled off the interstate and, eyes bleeding, turned into my hotel’s parking lot. My first thought after having to cruise around the lot four or five times before finding a spot was, Gee, this place is a lot sketchier in person than on its website. What the hell is going on that this place is full up?

      I checked in with a desk clerk who looked like the lead singer for Flock of Seagulls after being victimized by a drive-by face piercer. He asked whether I was there for the Jehovah’s Witness convention, which explained the parking situation. My first response to his question was to worry about hearing polite yet insistent knocks on my door throughout the night and tripping over stacks of The Watchtower left outside my door. Then I decided that, as far as these things go, sharing a hotel with a few dozen Jehovah’s Witnesses is probably better than a biker convention or a dozen soccer teams in town for the under-sixteen state championship.

      I lugged my bags up to Room 427 and called Geist, letting him know I’d arrived safely. That done, my only thought between collapsing onto the bed and passing out was, This better be worth it.

      Notes from My Day with Geist

      11:00 A.M.—GEIST’S HOUSE

      My first impression as I sit down across from Geist is Gosh, this guy’s older than I imagined.

      “I’m in the second half of my forties,” is the way he puts it.

      We’re sitting at a table on a screened-in back porch on a pleasantly warm late-summer day. Reginald, a fairly average-looking guy who’s in pretty good shape for someone in the second half of his forties, is having a cigarette, a vice not too common among comic book superheroes. But then, apart from the costume, Geist doesn’t have all that much in common with the superheroes most people know. For one thing, he’s not rich. He’s firmly entrenched in the middle class, even complaining at times of the difficulty paying bills every month, putting him much more in the vein of Peter Parker than Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, Oliver Queen, or any of the dozens of other superwealthy superheroes.

      “I try to pay most of my Geisting expenses out of the Geist Fund,” he tells me. My first hint that he uses his chosen name in much the way the Smurfs used theirs. “How does Geist make money?” I ask.

      “Well, I used to have a pretty extensive comic book collection, but I’ve sold most of them through the years to pay for Geist-stuff. I still have a few valuable ones, but they’re tucked away in a safe-deposit box. I’m trying not to touch those if I don’t have to.”

      Reginald stubs out his smoke and leads me back into his house, a nondescript wooden single-story decorated with an eclectic mix of art deco pieces and African masks and weaponry, resulting in the general impression that Jay Gatsby and the Black Panther both went broke and had to move in together.

      I take a seat on the couch and a black cat approaches me, warily.

      “That’s Sheba. She bites.”

      Undaunted, I extend a hand in friendship and immediately learn to listen when a person tells me something about his or her cat.

      “Sheba…bad girl.”

      “That’s okay,” I say. “You warned me.”

      “I’m going to go Geist-up. Here’s my jacket, if you want to check it out while I’m getting ready,” he says, handing me a full-length coat in standard army-issue green. It feels like it weighs fifty pounds.

      “I probably won’t be wearing it today since it’s so warm, but you can check out the pockets and get an idea of what I usually carry with me,” Reginald says, before heading into the other room to Geist himself.

      I pick up the coat, but I’m hesitant to rifle through a stranger’s pockets. That’s usually frowned on in polite society, and if there’s one thing my mother taught me, it’s to be polite. After a few seconds, and for some reason checking to make sure Geist isn’t about to return and catch me doing exactly what he’s just explicitly told me to do, I slide a hand into a side pocket. It’s surprisingly deep, and after getting in about halfway up my forearm,