Less Than Hero (34 page)

Still, every now and then, I need a slice of pepperoni pizza or a couple of pieces of bacon.

I glance down at Vegan, who looks up at me and licks his chops as if he can read my mind. For all I know, he can.

We finish our meal and do the dishes together, enjoying each other’s company as much as possible. Instead of letting Sophie
cook, I do it with her. Rather, I help where I can. Sophie’s the one with the culinary skills. But I’m present instead of watching TV or reading the paper or surfing the Internet. And likewise after meals, she helps me clean up. It’s like we’re a team instead of two people with separate responsibilities. Maybe that was part of the problem before. I didn’t work hard enough to be part of a team.

At least not with Sophie.

After we finish cleaning up, Sophie waters her plants. She no longer sprinkles her pixie dust on them or throughout the apartment, which has made for healthier plants and a healthier Vegan. So at least my eruption of honesty wasn’t a complete disaster.

Afterward, we sit down on the couch to watch
Annie Hall
.

While Sophie and I get to spend a lot of our days together, we don’t get very many leisurely nights to ourselves, since both of us work six nights a week, so date nights are few and far between. The occasional night we do get together, we usually stay at home to watch a movie. At some point, foreplay and sex enter into the evening, but I’m not always able to hold up my end of the bargain, causing me to experience some mild anxiety, which is also a side effect of Somnata. So I’ve been prescribed Pacifix.

The side effects of Pacifix are similar to those of some of the other drugs I’m taking, including the inability to get an erection and loss of interest in sex. So taking Pacifix to help relieve my sexual performance anxiety makes about as much sense as drinking a beer to cure alcoholism.

At this point, I’m on so many medications that I might as well be popping Viagra or Cialis or some other drug for erectile dysfunction. Sophie suggests we consider trying a more natural sexual
enhancement remedy or aphrodisiac, like ginseng or ginkgo biloba or horny goat weed. But the last thing I want to attract is a horny goat. Besides, I’m already a walking pharmacy. What’s one more prescription?

Vegan jumps up onto the coffee table and stares at me. He’s been doing this regularly over the past couple of weeks, staring at me for a minute or two and then walking away. While I am the giver of bacon, he’s still wary of me when I’m not at the table or in the kitchen. But tonight, rather than turning around and showing me the ass end of his feline disposition, he jumps onto my thighs, where he sits and stares at me for another thirty seconds or so before migrating to Sophie’s lap.

It’s just a drive-by lapping, but at least it’s progress.

Sophie laughs with delight at
Annie Hall
, even though she’s seen the film a hundred times, and then we retire to the bedroom, where Sophie attempts to coax me into an aroused state without much success. We still manage to get in some kissing and touching and I do what I can to please Sophie, but while my heart’s in it, the pertinent part of my anatomy is a disinterested bystander.

When we’re done, Sophie curls up next to me and wraps one of her legs over mine and tells me she loves me into my shoulder.

“I love you, too,” I say, then turn and kiss her on the forehead.

She lets out a contented sigh and snuggles in closer, like she’s trying to find a way to burrow into my genetic structure. After less than five minutes, her breaths start to slow and deepen and I know she’s fallen asleep.

I stare at the ceiling, thoughts chasing each other around inside my head, and I realize I forgot to take my Somnata. I don’t
want to get up and disturb Sophie, so I close my eyes and take deep breaths, then slowly let them out, focusing on the field of black on the inside of my eyelids. I don’t bother counting sheep or backward from one thousand. Instead, I imagine the word
sleep
when I inhale, drawing the word into me like it has magical power—which, it turns out, isn’t too far from the truth.

Every time I inhale and imagine the word
sleep
, my lips start to tingle. I don’t even have to think about going to the dentist; my trigger is right there, waiting to be called up, and I can feel my superpower vibrating like a steady hum of electricity. Only it feels different than before. Stronger. More powerful. As if it’s been working out at the gym. Or taking steroids.

This isn’t something that’s been going on for the past few days or building up over a couple of weeks. This is, to channel my inner Randy, total INXS. A new sensation.

I don’t understand how this happened and spend the better part of five minutes trying to figure it out, until I remember how Blaine claimed to have taken a bunch of prescription drugs to increase the strength of his superpower, and I wonder if that’s what’s happening to me. I wonder if by taking all of these medications I’ve awoken Dr. Lullaby rather than tucking him into bed and singing him to sleep.

I’m still wondering this when the sun comes up the next morning.

L
loyd,” Frank says, embracing me in a bear hug. “It’s been too long.”

Once he releases me, I step back and check him out. “You look great.”

In the six weeks he’s been at the live-in boot camp, Frank has dropped more than a hundred pounds from his high of 310. While he’s still a little chunkier than the Frank I’ve known for most of the past five years, he’s slimmed down to the point where I can almost imagine he was never a superhero named Big Fatty.

“Come on,” he says, opening the front door. “Let’s get some fresh air. I was just about to take a walk.”

We head outside into the late spring, the calendar about to turn from May to June, and it’s not lost on me that nearly a year has passed since all of the events that transpired were set in motion. It seems more like ten years. I don’t know if Frank feels the same way, but I’m pretty sure he’s aware of the upcoming anniversary, since most of the weight he gained after Randy’s death was the result of guilt therapy.

When it comes to Charlie, Randy, and Vic, I know Frank feels
more responsible than I do about what happened to them. For all I know he even feels guilty about Blaine and Isaac, though he hasn’t said as much. As far as I’m concerned, he’s still the patriarch of our little guinea pig clan, even if there are only five of us left and one of us is partially paralyzed, another has amnesia, and a third is a supervillain.

Hey, every family has its issues.

“I still have another twenty pounds to lose,” Frank says as we walk along the grounds, which are located in Ronkonkoma, halfway to Montauk. “But even with the extra weight, I notice how much better I feel without the toxins of all those experimental drugs coursing through my system. It’s as if I’ve been cleansed. No.
Purified
. I tell you, Lloyd, I feel better than I have in years.”

I smile and nod and give him a congratulatory pat on the back, but I can’t relate. If anything, I feel just the opposite. I’m a walking pharmaceutical lab.

Frank continues to talk about how far he’s come and when he expects to get out of here and how excited and nervous he is to get back to living a normal life again.

“But enough about me,” Frank says. “How’s Lloyd these days?”

“I’m good,” I say, and elaborate with anecdotes about Sophie and my job and my volunteer work at the SPCA. I leave out the part about how I’m taking so many drugs that my side effects have side effects—including a really big one.

When I’m finished with my rose-colored Lloyd update, we walk for a few minutes along the sidewalk that winds through the grounds surrounding the boot camp, chatting about nothing
of consequence. Finally I decide to bring up the topic that’s been on my mind.

“Are you still able to access your trigger?” I ask.

Frank shakes his head. “Not in a while.”

“How long is a while?”

“I don’t know. A couple of months? Why?”

“I’m just curious if your superpowers went away once you stopped participating in clinical trials,” I say.

“Yes,” he says. “They went away. They’re gone.”

“So you can’t access them?”

Frank stops and turns to look at me, a crack appearing in his façade of good humor. “You can’t be serious?”

I shrug. “Can you?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” he says, as several more cracks appear. “I’ve put all that behind me. Big Fatty is history.”

He starts walking again, probably to get away from me. But I didn’t come here to let him get away.

“So if you thought about Famous Ray’s or Dunkin’ Donuts, you wouldn’t get all gassy and floaty?”

Frank turns around, the façade crumbling, his old anger flaring up. “What the hell are you trying to do here, Lloyd?”

“I’m not trying to do anything,” I say. “I’d just like to know if you can still access your trigger.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do?” He walks up to me, a single angry finger pointed at my chest. “Do you know how hard I’ve worked to feel good about myself? How hard
I’ve worked to get my life back? I don’t need you coming here and making me feel guilty about the choices I’ve made.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty about anything,” I say. “I just wanted to find out if Big Fatty is still lurking around inside of you or if he’s gone for good.”

“He’s gone for good.”

“You’re sure?”

He stares at me, his face flushed and his nostrils flaring; then he closes his eyes and takes a couple of deep breaths. When he opens his eyes, he gives me a smile that looks more forced than genuine.

“It was good to see you, Lloyd,” he says and gives me a cool pat on the shoulder. “Take care of yourself.”

Frank walks past me and makes his way back to the boot camp dormitory. Before he can get out of earshot, I call out to him.

“By the way, Charlie says hi.”

He stops but doesn’t turn around this time, just stands there for a few beats as if contemplating the repercussions of beating the shit out of me. Then he starts walking again and doesn’t look back.

A
few days later, I’m in Washington Square Park, sitting in the shade on the west side of the fountain as the sun drops toward the Hudson. It’s a beautiful spring afternoon in Manhattan, with everything green and the flowers in bloom and the promise of a sweltering summer just around the corner.

You haven’t experienced New York until you’ve smelled the garbage in August.

My sign today reads:

IF YOU WERE IN MY SHOES, I’D BE BAREFOOT

In the two hours I’ve been here I’ve only earned fifteen dollars and change. A far cry from what I used to take in and not enough to pay Time Warner or T-Mobile. It would buy half a dozen black-and-white cookies from Greenberg’s, but I don’t panhandle for personal profit anymore. Instead, I use the money I make to help out the homeless and the hungry I see on the streets of Manhattan.

Usually I buy them lunch or dinner, sometimes a pair of shoes or some clean underwear. Unfortunately I haven’t had as many
bullish days as I used to, mostly because I haven’t been able to use my
WILL TAKE VERBAL ABUSE FOR MONEY
sign since I started taking my brew of prescription medications. Having someone insult and verbally abuse you while you’re experiencing the side effects of a strong antipsychotic isn’t the best way to avoid jail time for assault and battery.

I’ve already started to discontinue some of my medications, though it’s a gradual process that might take up to a month. Once I’ve been weaned off of my meds, I’m hoping my mood swings will balance out and allow me to get back to living a normal life. Except at this point, I’m kind of wondering just how “normal” that’s going to be.

Although Frank told me he couldn’t access his superpower, I’m not sure I believe him. Even though he’s no longer volunteering for clinical trials and has all of those drugs out of his system, I believe Big Fatty is still lurking beneath the surface of his newly trim figure. I don’t know what it would take to bring him out, but he’s there. I’m sure of it. Almost as sure as I am that my own superpower is being nourished by the drugs that are coursing through my system. The only question is how strong it will be once I’ve been weaned off my concoction of prescriptions.