He couldn’t remember the last time he’d urinated. It just wasn’t something he needed to do much anymore. Was it because of the liquor? Alcohol made you pee, right? Or maybe because he’d taken too much blood from the deer.
Man, the deer. That whole episode already seemed so dreamlike, so long ago. He could almost wonder if it even really happened. But he could still smell the animal on his clothes and the blood on his poncho. And he was strong.
He locked his bike to the rack and pushed through the door of the empty MoPo, into the skim milk light, the smell of pretzels and freezer burn.
"Bathroom?" he asked the checkout girl.
"By the dairy case," she answered without looking up from her acrylic nails.
Doug minced through the faintly spinning store and found the bathroom. If he really did need to pee because he’d taken too much from the deer, did that mean he was about to piss blood? His stomach lurched at the idea, but when he finally unclenched the fist he’d made of his crotch, the only thing that splashed against the urinal was urine. He pumped his free hand victoriously in the air.
He washed up and glanced at his reflection in the mirror. Then he took a long look. Here was a nice-looking guy staring back at him. Doug couldn’t quite place the face.
He retraced his steps through a swinging plastic door between the dairy case and the bottled water and found the MoPo a lot busier. There were two men near the checkout island and a third standing by the entrance with his hand over the lock. One of the men was pointing a toy gun at the cashier.
No, a real gun, Doug thought as he struggled to decode the situation.
These guys are robbing the MoPo. Oh, hell yeah!
This was important, the culmination of his origin story. This would be momentous. Don’t think, he thought. Don’t think.
He unbuttoned his poncho and pulled the hood over his head as he strode toward the men, arms akimbo. The cashier was fumbling underneath the register drawer. "All of it! All of it!" the armed man shouted. An unarmed man between Doug and the gunman saw him approach.
"Roy," he said, with a big-eyed frown.
"Hey!" said Roy. "No names! And, besides, uh, that’s not my—" He flinched and turned the gun on Doug. "Who the fuck is this?! Chad, out of the way!"
"Now he said your name, Chad," said the man by the door.
"You’ve picked the wrong convenience store tonight, gentlemen," Doug announced in what he thought was an intimidatingly low rumble, like distant thunder. Too distant, possibly.
"What? Man, back off!" said Chad. With outstretched arms he threw all his weight into Doug. Doug sprawled backward, clutching at the counter, anything, to steady himself, to no avail. He was dumped backward onto the floor along with a clattering hot-dog cooker. Time slowed. The situation presented itself with intricate clarity.
"Just stay down!" the cashier shouted. "Let these men go!"
Doug said, "HOT DOGS!" and whipped a handful of the sweaty wieners at Chad’s face. Afterward, he wasn’t sure why he’d shouted it.
"Aah! Hey!" Chad screeched through upraised hands.
"Man, move!" Roy shouted as he pushed Chad aside, but when he raised his gun, Doug hurled the steel hot-dog warmer at his head. Roy fired at the stained dropped ceiling and went down.
The noise of the gun was deafening. Doug had never been so close to one before, and his ears went tinny. But it roused him off the floor and toward a snack display.
"POP-TARTS! POP-TARTS! POP-TARTS!" he shouted, throwing twin packs of them like shurikens at the heads and throats of all three men. Again with the shouting, he thought. He was reading too many Silver Age comic books.
Chad came close and threw a punch, but Doug found it surprisingly easy to dodge. Then he returned the punch, and Chad folded backward over the snack foods and didn’t get back up. "Ha!" said Doug, then ducked when he realized he was being shot at.
"Roy, let’s just go!" said the man at the door.
"MAGAZINE RACK ATTACK!" yelled Doug, deciding to just go with it. He swung the rack over his head and onto Roy’s, and the man collapsed in a heap. All around them celebrity magazines and sudoku booklets flapped heavily like chickens and then slumped dead to the floor. The cashier was just finishing up a scream. Doug looked over at the doorman, the doorman looked back at Doug. Then he unlocked the door and ran out into the night.
"He won’t get far!" Doug promised, and followed. His poncho billowed out behind him like a great white sail, a sail borne on the winds of justice. That would be a good name for him, he thought, as he narrowed in on his prey: White Justice. No, it sounded a little neo-Nazi. He might as well call himself Nordic Lightning. You can have black superheroes with "Black" at the beginning of their names, but you can’t really do it with white superheroes. "Jewish Justice" just sounds like a law firm, he thought, before noticing he was about to get hit by a trolley.
"I CAN’T BELIEVE you guys watch it, too," said Cat as she squirted another slug of purple goop into Jay’s hair. "I wonder if Doug’ll get back in time."
"He has been gone longer than he said," Sejal observed. She considered how awful it would be if Doug had had an accident after she suggested he keep his appointment, and was feeling a little nervy. And this after having a mild panic attack on Friday, at the show. She was taking a full Niravam a day now, and wondered at how bad she’d feel without it. "Isn’t it dangerous to cycle at night?"
"I think he’s okay," said Jay. "Really. He’s safer than most people." He turned on his television and began flipping up the channels to the Crypt, on which Vampire Hunters would be starting in a few minutes. "How is it looking?" he added, staring upward at the mysterious process that was playing out on his head. Cat had talked her way into coloring Jay’s hair black with a half bottle of leftover dye.
"It doesn’t look like anything yet. It looks wet. Don’t worry, it’s gonna be totally hot. Do you have any hair gel? I like that your hair’s messy, but there’s messy and then there’s messy—you know?"
Sejal pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin. She saw a panicky thrill in Jay’s eyes that told her that he didn’t know but wanted to.
"My hair used to be a lot more messy," he said. "And blond. I used to have uncombable hair syndrome."
Cat laughed. "You had what? Is that real? It sounds like one of those bullshit drug commercials, like for restless leg syndrome."
"They’re both real," said Jay. "I think. If you Google ‘uncombable hair syndrome’ you can find a picture of me from when I was four."
"Oh my god. When I get this shit off my hands, I am totally doing that. Forget Crystal Math, when we start our band we’re calling it Uncombable Hair Syndrome."
Sejal was content to let the two of them flirt as she fortified her position on Doug. She had a decision to make, and she was beginning to notice the return of a cowardly, impetuous approach to problem solving that was not characteristic of the girl she wanted to become. Fear and guilt boiled holes in her stomach. She was not being honest with Doug, but that would come to an end tonight. Unless he’d had an accident.
"Wait, what was that?" said Jay. He flipped backward two stations and stopped at a newscast that was live and in West Philadelphia. Police lights strobed on the screen. The sound came up by degrees.REPORTER (V.O.)…dria Franklin, an employee at the MoPo, describes what happened next.MOPO CASHIERAfter he…after he knocked out those two he chases after the third guy, an’—an’ they run out into the street, an’ just as he was about to catch the guy there’s this screech and the trolley comes and POOF!REPORTERPoof?MOPO CASHIERYeah, poof! The hero guy disappears! An’ the trolley rolls right by! And there ain’t nothing left but his clothes!REPORTERI just want to be clear about this. The vigilante vanished and left his clothes behind?MOPO CASHIERYeah. The cops took them.REPORTERWhat was he wearing?MOPO CASHIERA white cape and a hood. Like in a comic book.
"Oh my god. Like in a stupid comic book," said Cat. Jay didn’t answer, only stared with hard features at the screen.EXT. A WEST PHILADELPHIA DELI CALLED SAMMY’S IIREPORTERThe story may continue at this nearby deli, where a startled shopkeeper says he had a close encounter with the hero shortly after the foiled robbery. A close encounter of the…thirst kind.CUT TO THE SHOPKEEPER, WHO DOES NOT APPEAR SO MUCH STARTLED AS VACANT.REPORTER (off camera)What makes you think it was the hero who came into your deli?SHOPKEEPERWell, it was, like, right after I heard what happened at the MoPo, you know? And…then there was suddenly this guy at the counter, right? And I thought, that’s weird, I didn’t even see him come in. He was just there, all of a sudden.REPORTERWas he naked? Or wearing a white cape?SHOPKEEPERUm, no. But he was really tall and musclely. Like a superhero.REPORTERAnd did this mystery man identify himself to be the MoPo hero?SHOPKEEPERNot exactly. Not exactly, but he acted like he was in a real hurry, right? And he bought some beer and some BullShake Energy Drink, right? Energy drink.REPORTERI see.SHOPKEEPERPlus, his driver’s license looked totally fake. Like it could be a secret identity.PAUSE.REPORTERShould you have sold him the beer if his license looked fake?SHOPKEEPER LOOKS CONFUSED, STARES NERVOUSLY AT CAMERA.
Just then something smacked hard against Jay’s bedroom window, and all three kids jumped.
"Holy shit," said Cat. "Is that a bat?"
It was without question a bat, twitching, pasted flat against the glass like a Halloween decoration. It shook itself and flapped away.
"It must have been attracted to the light," said Sejal.
"I…don’t think it was a bat," said Jay.
"It was definitely a bat."
"IT WAS A MOTH," he answered in a voice that was suddenly like a car alarm. "A big moth. I have to go to the bathroom." And with that he hopped to his feet and strode out of the room without moving his arms.
Cat smiled after him. "Weird guy."
"He likes you," said Sejal.
"Yeah. Probably just because his best friend likes you."