Super Born: Seduction of Being (23 page)

“
How would he know?” I asked, amazed
at her steadfast belief.

“
You have to read it for yourself.
All I know is that my English paper is gonna write itself, thanks
to that site. I know some other girls that are writing about her
too.”

I felt an uncontrollable pride building within
me. I wanted to confess right then and there and admit that I was
the B.I.B. But there was a reason I couldn’t, and a reason I
didn’t: if anyone ever discovered who I really was, my whole
family, but most of all Paige, would not be safe. So instead I
said, “I’m not sure I like this idea, copying your paper from a
website. Is that really what I send you to school for?”

“
No, you send me to school so I
won’t end my sentences with prepositions like ‘for.’”

“
Touché.”

“
I get it. French, right? See,
that’s another reason you send me to school.”

“
Smart ass.”

“
I learned from the
best.”

She made me crack a smile but I had to stay
‘her mom’, “I don’t know. Shouldn’t you be writing about something
serious, something that matters…global warming, or wind energy or
something?”

“
Boring! You know how many people
are writing about that stuff? Besides what could matter more than
a
woman who’s a real-life superhero who can
kick everyone’s ass? ”

“
Paige!”

“
It’s true! Who could be a better
role model for a hot young teenager like me than a hot old
superwoman?”

“
You really think the B.I.B. is old?
And hot?” I said, frowning, then letting a little smile
escape.

“
Try to stay on topic, Mom. Let’s
just agree to disagree. After all, it’s my grade, not
yours.”

“
Okay, but no more of this,” I said
gesturing to the packages in the room, “stuff…for a
while.”

Paige stared at the floor and finally agreed.
“Whatever. I’m out of money anyway…by the way, did Mrs. Brown call
about babysitting the twins Friday?”

“
Keeping track of that is your
job.”

“
I know. I know…you know the
weirdest thing?” Paige asked, holding up her latest T-shirt
purchase against her chest and checking it out in the mirror. “The
guy who runs that website says he actually met the
B.I.B.”

“
Really? Has he met Santa and the
Easter Bunny too?” I said jokingly, but inside was
curious.

“
Mom, I’m not gonna talk unless you
are going to take me seriously.”

“
Sorry, just a little joke…How did
he say he met the B.I.B.?”

“
In one article he says he saw her
once in a bar downtown and was standing right next to her. Man, I’d
love to meet her. She is so awesome. You know, I understand now why
you were laughing at the Batman movie. He’s a movie, but she’s
real. You like how this looks?”

“
It looks great,” I said, relieved
and happy. “I’ll go start dinner,” I added, turning to
leave.

“
Ohhh, I thought we were going to
Lori’s. I wanna see if she got her mask and stuff.”

“
Lori has this…stuff
too?”

“
Lori’s into the B.I.B. big time.
You didn’t know?...Don’t you chat on Facebook? Lori’s my friend and
she talks about it all the time.”

I just shook my head in surprised but pleased
amazement and left.

In the kitchen I pulled a bottle of
Miner’s Lite out of the fridge. With all of Paige’s purchases to go
through, I knew she’d be tied up for a while. As I knew where they
were impounding the Miner’s Lite, I had a little impounding myself,
and now had an almost endless supply at my disposal. I turned to
page 53 in my book
100 ways to make
Chicken
and began preparing some dinner.
While it was cooking, I drifted over to the computer.

I hadn’t told Paige about it, but I had been
looking at the BIB.org site ever since Lori had mentioned it at
dinner. I had not spent much time on the news page but I did like
playing the games. I typed in the web address and then sat back,
made curious by the content Paige had mentioned was available on
the site. The parts written by someone who had actually met me were
of particular interest. . In one night, I had discovered that my
daughter “got it” and now there was a whole group of people that
“got it” too. The whole site honored me as a hero—I was so much
more here than a woman who spent all her time working and drinking
beer with her friends.It was surprisingly easy to ignore the
occasional garbage comments of some idiot or another for all the
positive ones. I got a good laugh out of pictures that people had
submitted, allegedly of the B.I.B. in action somewhere. None were
real, except the Skelly’s photo. With so many people so anxious to
prove that I existed, I felt like Big Foot.

I did manage to get through four bars in Pub
Crawler, got up to twelve hundred points in the Antler Game, and
saved myself twice in B.I.B. Rescue before the oven was ready and
the water was boiling. The video games rocked.

I smiled and put the cursor over the “Add A
Comment” button. I clicked it and a window appeared for me to enter
my comments. My fingers hovered over the keys as I debated entering
this B.I.B. Internet world, and then I closed the window. I had
started one more game of Pub Crawler when Paige came in—she caught
a glimpse of the computer screen before I could close
it.

“
Aren’t those games awesome? I
thought you’d like that one.” Then she saw the Miner’s Lite on the
desk. “You know those are illegal, don’t you?”

“
Just be quiet,” I said, standing up
and heading for the kitchen.

Paige opened the fridge and pulled out a soda,
but then stopped and stared at all the Miner’s Lites on the shelf.
“No, Mom, seriously. Where did you get those? There weren’t any in
here this morning and now there are eight. You can’t buy ’em,
right?”

“
Someone at the office knows I like
them, and she had some her husband didn’t want,” I lied while I
stared at the counter, anywhere but at her eyes, preparing some
chicken.

“
Who? What man doesn’t like Miner’s
Beer?”

“
Bobbie Jo. Her husband Frank
doesn’t drink ’em.”

“
Frank the Tank? He and Bobbie Jo
were at the Christmas party you gave in Grandpa’s basement a few
weeks ago. He drank Miner’s all night. You were worried that we’d
have enough. He spilled one on my red dress, you
remember?”

“No! I don’t.
And I don’t like you questioning everything I do—I get enough
of that crap at work.”

Can’t I just have a stinking beer in the
privacy of my own home without triggering the Spanish
Inquisition?”

“
Sorrr-yyy. I didn’t know I bugged
you that much.” Then she left the kitchen, grabbed her coat, and
stormed to the front door.

“
Paige? Where you going?”

“
Out. Maybe to Kelly’s
house.”

“
What about dinner?”

The slamming door was her only
response.

I covered my face with my hands for a long time
before I wiped them down over my eyes and cheeks. Add Mother of the
Year Award to my list of accomplishments—only I could take my pride
in a daughter that thought the true me was ‘awesome’ and turn it
into a nasty fight. My whole body turned frustrated and sour. I
slapped the chicken back into the fridge, pulled out the Miner’s
Lites, tossed them in the trash bag, then carried the bag out to
the Dumpster. I stopped for moment, went back, and liberated one
bottle out of the trash. I left the opened bottle on the desk too.
I was guilty and frustrated, not crazy.

I dropped onto the sofa in the
living room with a loud
plop,
as if I was a beer truck being dropped on a
schoolyard. “Damn beer embargo,” I mumbled to myself.

In the last few days the rate of beer trucks
dropping on the city had slowed. I figured they were slowly giving
up. But if I ever wanted another Miner’s without my daughter giving
me the third degree,I’d have to end it now.

* * *

Unlike Gambrelli, that fat fuck, who ran his
business out of a restaurant, I ran my mob business out of the
offices of a unionized and legitimate waste-removal company, Camino
Waste Management. The building looked run down, pretty much the way
you would imagine a company that handled the slime of trash would
look. But on the second floor, my office was more like a
palace.

The differences didn’t stop there. Unlike
Gambrelli, I’m fit, a vibrant thirty-eight, and mentally, sharp as
a knife. I sat behind my glossy black desk just staring off into
space, thinking; which I like to do from time to time. On my mind
was the rebuilding and expanding of my business. I would not let
myself fall into the same trap as Gambrelli. After that bitch in
black had cleaned out all my guys, I knew my organization was
fragile, vulnerable, like a baby. I knew that Gambrelli’s plan to
eliminate the B.I.B. with the power of force had caused his
downfall. I had to keep her at arm’s length while my organization
gained strength, or my time as boss would be over before it
started.

The mayor’s feeble beer embargo was having no
effect and was now just pissing people off. His Searchlight Event
had been a disaster. It was obvious to me that the B.I.B. did not
want to join hands with the city or make herself known to the
public.

I had settled on the idea of trying to turn the
public against her, to disgrace her in some way, so that she would
be occupied defending herself or hiding, instead of standing in my
way. I knew Gambrelli had started working along those lines by
shooting the first witness to have actually seen her, Ed, and
trying to blame the murder on the B.I.B., but that story had never
taken off. The police had been content to deal with the death as a
unfortuate barroom accident.

My first attempt to make her public enemy
number one had been dropping the beer trucks all over town—the plan
was to make people assume that she was a powerful, unpredictable
flake who had to be stopped. I had trucks moved by helicopter at
high altitudes to different areas of town at times of day when
there would be no witnesses—other than my own—and then dropped the
trucks. I had thought the drop on the day care center would really
get the sentiment going against the B.I.B., but it only moved the
needle a little.

I needed to turn up the heat. Tonight we had
three beer truck drops planned. By morning there would be a beer
truck on a church, on a school, and on an abandoned house. Six sets
of witnesses would swear they saw a black figure drop the trucks.
If that didn’t motivate some negative press, what would?

But there had to be other ways to make everyone
hate her. God, that woman was an itch I couldn’t scratch! Maybe I
would find my answer by checking out that B.I.B. website. The
thought gelled; I smiled like the cat that ate the cannoli, and
entered thebib.org on my browser, totally committed to finding a
way to hurt that flying black pain in my ass. I was going to turn
this site into a battleground.

I scanned the site and made a few anonymous,
nasty posts about the B.I.B. But then I noticed the flashing button
that invited you to play Pub Crawler. I clicked on it, and before
long, was drawn into a two-hour search for the B.I.B.

I was certain I had her cornered in The Banshee
but, instead, ran into the Nelson Twins. “Crap!” I said, pounding
my fist on the desk as my blood alcohol level in the video game
spiked over the legal limit and my avatar crumbled to the floor
with a big smile on its face. “Man, those two bitches can
drink.”

I started another game, looked at the clock,
and tried to remember what made me come to the site in the first
place. I shrugged and decided to start looking for her at Skelly’s,
and maybe a new avatar might help. (This time, if I saw the Nelson
twins, I’d run!)

Chapter 18

Frustration and Hell Night for
Scranton

With Paige gone I was alone with my
fantasies. I could feel the warm surge of blood in my abdomen, my
muscles starting to convulse. My breaths became short, interrupted
by short moans.
I
was almost there. I closed my eyes to concentrate on the
feeling. I felt a tidal wave forming between my legs and a scream
forming in my throat. My ass began to roll and my legs widened
apart and lifted off the bed. I was right there, and I could feel
the surging waves coming at long last. I had waited so many months,
and was now finally ready to explode.

Then the buzzing between my legs began to
hesitate, stutter, then stalled and went suddenly
silent.

“
No! No! Not now!” I shouted, “Not
now! Crap!” Without the buzzing of my toy, all the feelings and
sensations began to drop off. When the frustration kicked in and
the fantasies turned to realities, the feelings dropped off the
charts.

I rocketed up to sit on the edge of the bed and
threw my powerless toy on the floor—where it landed, crashing into
a large pile of equally powerless batteries that I had gone through
that evening. I slammed my fist into the mattress with frustration,
over and over. “Son of a fucking goddamn bitch,” I said bitterly
through gritted teeth. Then I took some deep breaths and pushed my
hair back off my forehead. I sighed and stared blindly for a
moment, then lifted my eyes to look at myself in the large dressing
room mirror nearby.