I, Superhero!! :. Mike McMullen
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on a budget” shade of green); more smoke bombs; and random bits of white paper, all blank.
Having exhausted the pockets, I inspect the outside of the jacket: there’s an aftermarket collar—large, round, and opalescent green—and a custom Geist patch sewn onto the chest.
“I had Jack make that for me,” my host says, returning from the bedroom more Geist than Reginald in his trademark green pants and striped green shirt.
“Jack?” I ask.
“He’s the guy who runs Hero Gear. He makes a lot of stuff for us,” he says, referring to the RLSH community.
Geist quickly crosses the living room and shuts the blinds before taking a seat across from me.
“I have some nosy neighbors,” he explains. “I don’t want anyone to see me Geisting-up.” As he speaks, he laces up his boots, then straps on a pair of leather bracers.
“Those look like you got them from—”
“A renaissance fair, yeah,” he finishes, displaying them proudly. “I’d been looking for something like this, and they were green, so it was perfect.”
The overall effect is slightly more patchwork than it seemed in the pictures I’d seen, but he still looks like someone with a mission. What that mission happens to be may be inscrutable from his appearance, but it’s a mission nonetheless, which is more than most people can say. I notice what appears to be three ropes with tennis ball-sized rubber balls on the ends hanging from his belt.
“Is that a bolo?” I ask.
“Bola,” he says, correcting me.
“Oh, is that how you say it?”
“Well, that’s what it said on the Internet.”
“No, you’re right. A bolo is one of those skinny ties like country singers wear.”
“Yeah, I’ve got some of those, too.”
“Nice.”
“Here, let me show you some other stuff,” he says, as he pulls out a cigarette pack and removes a small rectangular device from it.
“This is a minitaser. It’s designed to be hidden in a pack of cigs like this. I use it more in my civilian life. I make sure Suze uses it, too,” he adds, referring to his girlfriend, Susan.
“What was her reaction to your decision to do the superhero thing?”
“Oh, she was great. Totally along for the ride, just as long as I did it safely. She’s the one who insisted I take self-defense lessons first.”
“Like karate or something?”
“Kinda, but please don’t call me a martial arts expert. That’s happened twice already in different articles, and it’s not true. If I was, I probably wouldn’t need this,” he says, putting down the taser and picking up a large black nightstick. “It’s a stun baton.”
He pushes a button on the weapon’s handle, and wicked-looking blue arcs crackle to life between two metal nubs on the end of the club.
“Sweet.”
“Yeah,” Geist says, “now what else?…Oh yeah, the glasses.” He pulls out a pair of what appear to be common, ordinary sunglasses, but which are surely equipped with ultraviolet, infrared, night-vision capabilities.
“They’re Oaklies that I’ve spray painted green. These have kinda green reflective lenses. I have another pair with black lenses.”
“Oh,” I say.”
“Well, they’re fake Oaklies. I have real ones, too, but I didn’t want to paint them.”
“Well, yeah.”
“I only wear the mask when I’m patrolling. I’ll be wearing the bandanna and glasses today, since we’re doing charity work. I’ll put them on in the car after we’re a few blocks away. I can’t have the neighbors seeing Geist leaving Reginald’s house in Reginald’s car, you know?”
“Totally.”
On our way out, Geist picks up Sheba and says his goodbyes. If you’ve never seen a grown man in a superhero outfit baby talking to a cat, it’s a sight I highly recommend you avoid at all costs.
We get into the car, a nineties model Toyota, and Geist puts the stun baton on the back floor, explaining that he only wears it on patrol. It lands on top of a copy of the City Pages, a local publication. A dramatic picture of Geist graces its cover.
“Good photo,” I say.
“Yeah, they did a story on me a while back. I carry that around and use it as an ID sometimes, so people know I’m not just some weirdo.”
“So—car get good mileage?” I ask, my lack of interviewing experience deciding to kick in.
“Yeah, it’s okay. It’s Suze’s. I’d like to have a green truck, that’d be pretty cool. But then on the other hand, people would be like, ‘Hey, there’s Geist in the green truck.’ It’s identifiable. That’s why using my girlfriend’s car is good, because it blends in.”
“Uh huh.”
“I think we’ll go by the children’s home first. I have some comic books and Pokémon cards to drop off. I’ve been there a few times before, so they mostly know me there.”
“Did you buy the comics with the Geist fund?”
“No, I got the guy at my comic book store to donate them. It was kinda funny…. I went in there all dressed as Geist, and told the guy who I was and what I did, and asked if he’d be willing to donate something for the sick kids. He said he could give me all the leftovers from Free Comic Book Day, and I thought that was really cool.”
“Yeah.”
“But when I thanked him and left, he was like, ‘Bye, Reggie!’”
“Heh. That sucks.”
“Yeah, I guess I’d underestimated people’s ability to recognize my voice.”
“You should try growling like Christian Bale does in Batman. That seems to work.”
11:15 A.M.—MCDONALD’S PARKING LOT
“Oh, up here, there’s usually a homeless guy,” Geist says, as we’re nearing the children’s home. “I have some bags of nonperishable food items in my trunk I keep to give out. It’s all flip-top, pull-tab-type stuff that you can open without a can opener.”
“That’s good thinking,” I say as we pull into a McDonald’s parking lot. I look across the street and see an old woman holding a sign that says Please Help.
“Oh, it’s a woman today. It’s usually a guy,” Geist says, as he gets one of the food parcels from the trunk. As we approach the woman, a car pulls over and a college-age girl gets out, runs across the street, and gives the old woman (hereinafter called Gerty, because that’s shorter and easier than saying “the homeless woman” every time she’s referenced) some cash.
“Do you have a rubber band?” Gerty asks the girl as we reach them.
“Do you want my ribbon?” the girl answers, reaching up to remove her headband.
“Noooo,” Gerty says, “I say, ‘I need prayers, money, and a rubber band today!’”
“Awww.”
“By the way, thank you for helping,” Geist says to the girl. “My name’s Geist and I’m a real-life superhero.”
“Awww.”
“And I’m standing behind you to help!”
“Awww. Thank you!”
Geist hands Gerty the bag o’ food before launching into what I will, from now on, refer to