SuperCat Next Door?

This morning, before leaving for work, I heard a noise outside our second-story bedroom window. Even though the weather has turned cold, I still haven't removed the window air conditioner. The seasonal temperature changes have to get fairly extreme before they get past my natural (supernatural?) resistance.

I looked to see what was causing the noise, and found our next door neighbor's cat. This cat is a young tomcat in a solid grey. It has a name, given by the neighbor, but around our house we call him Smoky or Thor. Well, there was Thor, clawing his way into our bedroom window.

How does a cat manage to get to a second-story window on a vertical wall? I'm wondering that myself. I might not be the only one on the block with special powers.

I'm going to have to keep an eye on that cat.

Excerpt from an Interview with the Unknown Superhero

PEN: I suppose we should start at the beginning. What led you to the superhero life?

TUS: I was always a fan of comic books. I read more than my fair share of comics like X-Men, Batman, Spiderman and such. This was long before I had superpowers of my own. When I got my powers, I had the dream of being a superhero, but no real clue of how to go about it. One day, I witnessed a car accident and I was the only one, because of my powers, who could do anything about it. My powers were a secret, and I had to do something. All I had handy was a hat and a bandana, so I made a quick disguise and ran to help. One car was upside down, sliding into a drainage ditch, so I pulled it out and got the people out. Once I'd gotten the people out of danger, other people were showing up. Somebody had called the police, so I got out of sight. After that, I started working on a costume I could put on quickly, just in case I needed to do something. That was really how it started.

PEN: So, even though it was a dream, you really didn't go out to become a superhero?

TUS: That's right.

PEN: Since then, you've done quite a bit of work. Does the hero business keep you busy?

TUS: Not as busy as you'd think. I help out with the local police once in a while, and there's an occasional badguy with powers. I actually live in a more rural area, and most of the crime is either low-key or domestic. I actually go to a lot of crimes, or house fires, and stay out of sight just in case I'm needed.

PEN: Have you ever thought of moving to a larger city where you might get more action?

TUS: No. I've lived in the same town all my life. I like it there. Besides, I'd rather be a policeman in a low-crime area and catch speeders than be in a large city's SWAT team.

PEN: Have you thought about turning pro? I would think you'd be able to make a good living working for one of the large security firms.

TUS: I've thought about it. The main problem is that I'd have to give up my anonymity. Right now, when I'm out of uniform, I'm a normal guy with a normal life. I'd also have to move to another town, be on call, and play by a whole new set of rules. Going freelance, I can afford to stop and change flat tires for little old ladies if I want. Who's going to pay me to do that?

PEN: Who made your uniform?

TUS: I did.

PEN: Really?

TUS: Yep. For the most part, I bought it off the rack. I made a few changes. I made my utility belt and added pockets here and there. There's some screenprinting work here and there, too. It wasn't really that hard. In fact, most of the time, I'm wearing regular street clothes under the jacket and mask

Auto Repair Woes

I learned a lot of lessons about having a car with on-board gadgets from my first car, a 1982 Toyota Celica. It was my first experiment with gadgetry, and my first chance to capitalize on the childhood dreams of a spy car. Through these experiments, I learned which gadgets are easy to implement and which are near impossible. Early mistakes led to improvements in later cars, and some problems cropped up in instances I had never thought of.

The first gadgets I thought of were the obvious ones. I simply had to build an oil-dump, along with some sort of tire-puncturing system, smokescreen and rocket launcher. I was young, then, and these all seemed like fairly easy beginner systems. My first gadgets that I actually implemented involved practically rewiring the entire lighting system so that I could turn off the lights. I could turn off the entire rear lighting system with one switch, to help in a nighttime getaway. With all of the lights off, I could take a turn at night and a pursuer would have no idea which way I went. Having night-vision, I didn't actually need the lights to drive.

Putting together an oil slick system took several tries. Early models had a tendency to dump when the car went over a speedbump. My first try would dump if I slammed on the brakes too fast. Eventually, I worked out a system that would stay shut until I wanted to use it. When I did use it, I often had mixed results. Sometimes the slick would make no difference, other times a disaster. After the great bread truck incident, I thought seriously of removing it altogether.

Implementing a tire-puncturing system never worked out well. Like the oil-slick, it was nearly impossible to keep it closed when it wasn't in use. When I did want to use it, I ran into even more problems. The tire-pokers I designed never worked very well for one reason or another. They clumped together, got crushed under the tire, failed to puncture properly or, in one case, just rolled off the road. The dropping device wouldn't disperse the things properly, either.

For a smokescreen, I found that the best system was to drip oil directly on the exhaust system of the car. The oil would heat up and create smoke, but not a whole lot of it. If you've ever seen a car go down the road pouring smoke, you know what I'm talking about. It's an annoying amount of smoke, to be sure, but there's nothing obscuring about it. If anything, the smoke draws attention and leaves a big trail for the pursuer to follow. Once you stop the oil drip, there's still oil on the exhaust system for a while, too. Until it all burns away, you're still smoking.

If the fact that the smoke generator didn't work well wasn't bad enough, it also caused me trouble when I took the car in for some major brake work. I had removed all of the gadgetry that was visible from the underside of the car before taking it in for service, but that wasn't enough. When I came to pick up the car, the garage wanted me to leave it a while longer, because they couldn't figure out the source of the tar that coated the exhaust system. In addition, they had found wires and cables that went nowhere, and some strange stuff that was really hard to explain. According to them, the whole car needed to be worked on in one way or another, once they figured out what was going on with it.

You've never seen mechanics as confused as these guys. I'm sure, had I left the car for another hour or two, they'd have crawled all through the thing, and found more than they bargained for. It was this experience that taught me an important lesson. If I'm going to be a superhero, I'm going to have to learn to do my own automotive work.

This wasn't my only close call. My second super-car, a Ford Fairlane, broke down on the side of the highway. I was forced to call for a tow truck. I thought fast, before the truck arrived, and disconnected the extra equipment from the underside of the car in the front. I didn't want the driver to discover them during hookup. The truck arrives, and it's one of those flatbed rollup trucks.

The driver backs up to the car, lowers the ramp and hooks the chain under the front of the car. He engages the winch, pulls the car onto the truck and moves the flatbed back into the horizontal position. As he walks around the rear of the truck, he looks up at the underside of the rear of my car.

“What the Hell's That?”

You can't tell me that Batman ever had to deal with this.

Oh, and the rocket launcher? It worked.

The First Date

My wife and I met when I was 22. I was working at a local theater, and she had come to see Men at Work. I had the night off, so I was just there to watch the movie. I was playing a video game when she came up to say hello, and we hit it off pretty fast. We watched the movie together, and I got her some free popcorn and a drink, taking advantage of my job.

The following weekend, we went out for our first real date. I picked her up in my car. I had an interesting time convincing her not to touch the switches and buttons on the dashboard. I was starting to experiment with some gimmicks. My little Celica was turning into the closest approximation of the Batmobile that I could afford.

I took her out for pizza. Afterward, we went for a walk in the park. It was late, and the park was technically closed, but that just made it a better place for a date. We sat and talked for a while, and watched the creek flow by. When we came out, a police car was in the parking lot. We got a talking-to about tresspassing in the park after dark, but the policeman let us go with no troubles.

As we were leaving, the policeman got a call about some action. I had no idea what it was, but he sped around us and up the highway with his lights on. In any other situation, I'd have been following him with my lights out. (That's what some of the switches were for) This time, though, I couldn't give chase, as I had a "civilian" in the car. Needless to say, she had no idea of my powers at the time.

It was time to drive my date home, so I went in that direction. Coincidentally, that was also the direction that the policeman had gone. I decided that turning on the scanner, to see what the police were up to, wouldn't give away anything of my secret identity.

As it turns out, the police had given chase to a stolen police car. There had been a standoff at a man's house, and he ran. He got into a running patrol car and took off across town. There was a high speed chase all the way across town. He then spun around in a vacant lot and started back the way he came. By this time, the police chase had grown. One policeman had opened fire on the stolen patrol car before he was stopped by another. Things really got out of hand.

My date looked at me, amazed by the story that was unfolding. I realized that the chase was coming our way. After doing a quick calculation in my head, I suggested we stop for ice cream and watch the chase go by. She agreed.

The ice cream shop was on the left side of the road, requiring me to cross the other lane as the chase was about a half-mile out. As I crossed the lane, I pulled a lever below my seat. The lever connected to the earliest version of the oil-dump located inside my rear bumper. Five gallons of used engine oil dumped onto the road, spread across the entire lane. My date was watching for the oncoming traffic, and never saw me activate the dump.

We pulled into the parking space and got out of the car just in time to see the chase go by. The stolen police car skidded a short distance and turned sideways. Suddenly, the oil on the tires wore away. The rubber grabbed the road, and the car flipped. Several of the chase cars skidded on the slick as well, and before I knew what had happened, six police cars had been totalled.

Needless to say, I didn't take credit for the catch.

Nobody was hurt. The guy who stole the car had thought to put on his seatbelt during the chase, and was suspended upside-down until the police pulled him out and cuffed him.

For the first six months while we dated, my wife thought that the crazy things that happened on our dates were just coincidence. It wasn't until one day when she borrowed my car to run to the store when she discovered part of my secret. She tried to adjust her seat, and took out a bread truck. That night, I told her everything, and asked her to marry me. The next week, I started putting safety switches on my gadgets.

Lesser Powers - Stealth

Normally, when people envision superpowers, they think of flight, super-strength and leaser beams from the eyes. There are many, MANY more powers out there than that. One of them, which I am lucky enough to have in repertoire is stealth. Stealth is defined (thanks Google) as The act of moving, proceeding, or acting in a covert way.

Although stealth does come in handy in my hero work, I find that I get much more use from it during my normal life. I use it at home, at church, at work, while I'm shopping, and anywhere else that I need. Stealth isn't one of those powers like flying, that automatically labels you as super-powered through its use. In fact, stealth is one of the few powers that makes it LESS likely you'll be labeled as a super-powered person.

At home, I use stealth almost constantly. My kids are convinced that I have the ability to read minds. I can, but it's no more than a parent's ability to understand their children. In addition, I use stealth to get into position to eavesdrop on my daughter's phone conversations. Usually, it's fairly boring teenage girl stuff, but a couple times I've caught her planning to sneak out of the house in the evening. When she goes out her window, she finds me standing 3 feet away, ready to take her back inside. Recently, I heard her on the phone with a friend saying that she simply could NOT sneak out, because her father always knows. You have to stay one step ahead of these kids somehow.

My son is a much simpler matter. If he's not cleaning his room when he's told, he'll look up from his playing to see me standing next to him. It scares the willies out of him. Also, he's a bathroom hog. If I stand up and announce that I'm going to the bathroom, he'll immediately yell, "I have to go too!" He then runs to the bathroom to get there before I do. It's better if he never knows I've moved from my spot. Of course, if nobody sees or hears me going to the bathroom, then nobody knows there's anybody actually in the bathroom, which can cause other problems.

I find that stealth is a necessary skill to have at work. Part of my duties include doing desktop support work for people in my department. They have problems, and I solve them. Some of the people I work with can complicate the simplest of matters. If I have to fix a problem with them present, it can take four times as much time to complete the job. I love to wait quietly until they get up for a cup of coffee before going into action. With a combination of stealthiness and a burst of super-speed, I can fix their problem in no time. They come back from their 1 minute break to find a note explaining what the problem was, and that it has been fixed. They think I'm a super-genius, but that's another story for another time.

The person who unknowingly witnesses my powers in action the most is my mother-in-law. She'll be looking down at something, turn around, and there I am, two feet away. I'll wait for just the right moment and say, "Hello!" with a loud voice. She still hasn't gotten used to that. What's more, once we've gotten past the meat of a conversation, and have gone into the unimportant follow-up chat, I'll dissapear. She'll be talking, and I'll respond. She'll say one more sentence, look up at me, and I'm gone.

Remember, if you use stealth properly, nobody knows you can't teleport.

I Am More Than My Alter-Ego

Life is hard as a superhero. Before the horrible high-school chemistry lab accident that gave me my powers, I had dreams of all the wonderful things I could do as a superhero. The reality just isn't like my dreams at all. Sure, there are the battles and supervillains, but most of my hero work is pretty mundane, and I still have a life to run. On top of it all, hero work is like having two full-time jobs, and only one of them pays.


As you may imagine, I have to keep my true identity a secret. This becomes a double issue as I write this, because publishing my thoughts to the world is a big thing. I might reveal things about my personal life that could cause my friends and family to be put in danger, so I have to keep my superhero identity a secret as well. Nobody ever worries about their family being put in danger because of their job as an accountant, but we heroes chew a lot of antacids over the issue.


So, without revealing too much, I'll try to give you an introduction to myself.


I am the guy down the block. My life is pretty boring. I am husband to a wonderful wife, and father to two great kids. I have a son we'll call Franklin, with a nod to Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four title. He's in elementary school, and wants to be a superhero and a fireman. Personally, I think the latter job entails the former. My daughter is entering her teen years, and attracts far too much attention from the boys. I'll refer to her as Kathryn, from a character from the glory days of the X-Men. I think her superpower is charm. Her mother thinks it's bedroom destruction.


I live in a small but growing town. My house is located near the downtown area, but all the growth and action is happening on the edge of town on the other side. We've got Wal-Mart, K-Mart, two McDonald's restaurants and, rumor has it, we'll soon have one of those big bookstores like Borders or Barnes and Noble. Most of the crime around here is small, so I end up going out of town to help out when there's a big crime going down in the capitol city or somewhere else nearby.


One thing about being a small-town superhero is that supervillains don't just pop out of the woodwork. Granted, before high school, I only remember there ever being one supervillain in town. That was when I was a kid, and the local police wrapped it up fairly easily. Since I "donned the costume," so to speak, I've been involved in a couple dozen supervillain crimes. Most of those have been fairly tame, compared to the exploits of Superman or the X-men.


I mentioned that I have a job. I need one. Being a superhero rarely pays. When it does, it's usually a nice country-cooking meal by a grateful crime-victim. I work in a support role for the largest company in town. They are a major player in a small, but important role of the high-tech industry. My job there is probably the equivalent of being a superhero. When you fix, over the phone, something important that a customer is having trouble with, you really feel like you've done some good. When that doctoral student can't turn in her thesis and calls you in tears, and you save the day, you know you're making a difference in someone's life.


Being a superhero is truly like having multiple personalities. In the comic books, the true identity is seen by the reader as secondary to the hero's life. In my life, being a superhero is a responsibility of real life. I am not my hero identity. I am a man, with a life, a job, a wife, kids and a station wagon. My secondary identity as a hero is a lot of work, and plays a small part in my whole life. I hope that you, the reader, will come to understand this fact through my writing.


Sincerely,
The Unknown Superhero