CHAPTER TWO

RELEASE

 “I know this feels strange, but I think you will both like it in the Superpower.  I grew up there.  It’s where you were born, you know.”

“Really?”

“Your birth parents still live there. It’s okay with me if you meet them.”

“Is there anything I should take?”

“Everything will be taken care of for you.  They only allow you to take one item from the Outside.  So, my advice is to take something that helps you remember where you come from. My mom grew up in Mexico, so as silly as this sounds, she brought a pack of chili seeds.”

Perla takes her childhood teddy bear and I take the airplane ticket from a few years back when we visited our dad for the last time.  Perla asks if she can say goodbye to her friends, but our mom tells us there is no time and that we’d better get used to a more urgent pace. “You can’t hardly use the restroom without being asked to save the world,” she says.

“One more thing, Gabriel.  When you’re there, you need to find the Labyrinth of the Heroes.”  One final embrace and we’re off on a car ride with Cardigan Man and his stone-faced sidekick.  Men in tights walk up to us as we arrive at the airport. It’s a little unusual, but by now my concept of normalcy is fractured beyond repair. We avoid the security checkpoints and instead take an underground tunnel near the tarmac. Jesse is there to greet us.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him.

“He’s my Uncle Carl, too, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll love it.”

“Love what?”

“They have this huge mansion built into a mountain. It’s a cave, actually. The rock formations are all original. You go down this big elevator . . . Or is it still an elevator if it’s taking you down instead of elevating?”

“What are you talking about?”

“They didn’t tell you about where we’re staying?”

I’m relieved at this point. I had assumed we would live in bunkers and go through a boot camp like one of those military boarding schools. 

We step onto a blimp sparsely populated with superheroes, each looking un-heroic as they scratch themselves or pick their noses or scoop out the earwax with the end of their car keys.

I hear snippets of conversations involving Kalos or whether the Council of the People will break with the House of the Heroic and prevent necessary legislation of the Honor Party.  If two days ago someone had told me that superheroes were real and that they would be wearing tights and capes on the way to the Superpower, I would have assumed it was a prank or maybe the alternate reality of a schizophrenic. Instead, it makes sense. It feels as if, after living a life of feeling different, I find out that different is normal. I begin to see the unknown as my refuge.

The blimp ascends slowly, at first resembling only a Ferris Wheel and eventually moving into the clouds.  It’s not like a jet, where the gut-wrenching height reminds us of the reality that we are not so much moving upward as falling away from the gravity.

I glance out the window and see the patchwork quilt of green and brown – an earth divided and tamed by humanity. From up here, it all seems so orderly and safe. For a moment, I’m eight again, staring out the window, holding Perla’s hand and trying to make sense out of a father who is now ashes in an urn.

A man hands me a package and says, “This is from Super Market.”

Jesse turns to me and says, “I got one, too.”

“Who’s Super Market?” I ask Jesse.

“He controls the Superpower. There’s not a thing on the Superpower that doesn’t have his handprint on it,” the man says.

“So, he’s like a dictator?”

“No, he’s not even a member of the legislature and I don’t think he’s on the Council of Graphic Novelists for that matter,” Jesse adds.

“So, where does his power come from?”

Cardigan Man cuts in, “Money. He owns the superhero business. That’s why his name is Super Market.  His superpower is turning ideas into money.”

“Like King Midas,” I add.

“Exactly, Gabe,” Cardigan Man says.

Jesse continues, “The guy is corrupt. You never see his face anywhere. He’s just this silent backhand that pushes his way through everything. He pays off any unions, buys off any candidates, controls the flow of goods to and from the Superpower and ultimately makes a fortune off the superheroes’ stories.” 

“He’s done more to benefit the superhero community than anyone else in the last few millennia,” a woman interjects.

“Do you know what used to happen to heroes?” another guy asks me.

“No . . . this . . . This is all new to me,” I sputter.

“Freak shows. Oh, here’s a two-headed monster. Look, this man can see through clothing. Oh, what a freak of nature this woman is. She’s a werewolf.”

“Or a zombie. Don’t forget zombies,” Jesse adds.

“And before that, you were suspected for witchcraft. It didn’t matter how hard you had worked and how much you had enhanced the gifts of nature. If you were exceptional, you were evil.”

“No one understood the concept of aptitudes.”

“What are aptitudes?”

“Superpowers.  They call them aptitudes here.” Jesse explains.

“Still, it seems like Super Market capitalized on people’s fear and turned it into a big business,” Jesse says.

“I’d watch it if I were you,” a man mentions.

“He’s fine,” Cardigan Man cuts in. “To each his own. It doesn’t matter who sent me, I have a mind of my own.”

Then he asks me, “Have you opened your Guide yet? Whatever you think of Super Market, he got you that thing and I think it’s pretty nifty.”

“Just put the ear buds in and press the touch screen and you’ll get the hang of it,” Perla explains.

He points to the flat screen I’m holding.  It’s as thin as a paper, but more pliable like terry cloth. Then, when you turn it on, it straightens up.

“Hi Mr. Dunn. How are you?”

“I’m okay, I guess.”

“A little shocked by what you’re seeing? Oops, I shouldn’t refer to your shocking abilities so soon.”

“You’re fine,” I explain to the automated voice.

“You don’t have to speak to it,” Jesse explains. “If you move into silent mode, it reads your brain waves or something and answers your thoughts. Just ask a question.”

It starts out with the basics of the Superpower.  Mostly boring explanations of the government and culture. Before long, it’s a two-way conversation, with the soft voice gently drawing out my story. Someone to listen, even if a little artificial, is refreshing. It’s not like the composition book, where my lonely thoughts run through pages of rigid blue lines. Her quiet purring white noise settles me down as we float through the atmosphere.

“Every hero has three aptitudes,” the Guide explains. “You’ve probably figured out that you have the ability to stun others. Think back now and figure out your second aptitude.”

“Can I get a hint?”

“It has to do with your mind and it relates to your first power.”

“Stinging . . stunning . . . a stunning intellect.”

“Think harder. Think back to your earliest years as a child, if you can. Are you willing to go there?” she asks.

Eyes shut.

I’m five years old. We’re sitting on cold desks, the molded plastic forming a cocoon around the rambunctious boys. I’m quieter, calmer, a bit reticent to speak. The desk isn’t a prison for me. It’s my security blanket and I cling to it, hoping the teacher will pass me aside. I yearn to be invisible.

I listen closely and hear a rain drop against the metal roof. A few more drops and then a loud clap of thunder. A late summer monsoon pours down on the flat concrete and I listen. The teacher combats the rain by talking louder, screaming almost, trying to cajole us into learning the “silent e” sound.

A boy runs to the door, which she immediately slams shut and says, “This is important to your life. You have to learn to read.”

“And you have to learn to listen! For Christ’s sake, listen!” I yell at her, mimicking a phrase my mom had used with us.  I have no evidence to prove that she is wrong, but something deep within finds this lesson to be an injustice toward the rain.

“Good, Gabe. Nicely done. I know it doesn’t feel too great, but I need you to stay there for awhile.”

“I felt scared,” I tell the Guide.

“Don’t worry. No shame needed. Power feels scary. Now what happened next?”

“I got sent outside,” I tell her.

I can hear the pattering drops and smell the fresh desert rain. I hold my hand out under the ledge and let the individual drops touch my little hands. People make a great deal of how every snowflake is so unique, but raindrops are no different. They just disguise themselves as normal until they explode on a child’s hand and cry out, “I am different. I am here.”

“I remember feeling a little hurt, but also a little glad.”

Why were you glad?

“It’s as if I belonged out there. It’s like I connected with whatever it was that the storm had. I can’t explain it.”

But you were atypical.

“A freak,” I add.

Unique.

“I felt normal not being normal.”

But you were isolated.

“I guess I’ve always been outside ever since. It’s like the door itself slammed shut for good and I’ve never been able to walk back into the classroom completely.”

So, what did you create as a result of your outburst?

“Silence,” I add.

Yes, awkward silence.

“That’s not a power. That’s a curse. Do you know how often I make people uncomfortable with my awkward silence?”

The goal isn’t comfort. The goal is safety. Those students were quiet for an hour. You helped them to see and to hear and to think.

“Yes, but that’s not a superpower. There’s nothing special to it. I mean that’s not at all out . . .”

Out of the ordinary? No, it was entirely out of the ordinary.

“But I didn’t save the day? I didn’t fight a villain. I didn’t go out and chase after a bad guy,” I add.

You helped thirty kids hear . . . no you helped them listen. You saved the day. And the villain . . .

“My teacher?”

No, Distraction. The villain was Distraction and they were all under its intoxicating power and it took a courageous boy using his solitary gift of awkward silence to liberate them. If that’s not an aptitude then I’m not sure what is.

I pull the ear buds out and set the flat screen down. I hardly notice my screen is soaked.

“Rain water? Did I really feel the rain water on my hands?”

“I’ve been trying to get your attention, Gabe. You’ve been so into your Guide that you didn’t hear me?” Perla answers.

“The rain. I felt the rain,” I tell her.

“On your hands?”

“Those were tears,” she says.

Release.