Superpowers (14 page)

SATURDAY

Charlie liked barbershops. He liked the smell of clippings and the blue sterilizing fluid in which the combs and scissors were kept. He liked the feel of the chair, and the warmth of lather against the back of his neck. He liked to close his eyes and just listen to the snip of the scissors and the hum of the electric clippers.

Charlie's favorite barbershop in Madison was four blocks from his house and just a block from the capitol. On weekdays it was always filled with men in suits whom Charlie imagined to be legislators or aides to the governor. They joked with the barbers as they nestled under their smocks, watching the news or dozing while they received shaves or haircuts they never seemed to need. When Charlie came in on weekdays he felt out of place; the barbers looked him over and told him they weren't sure they'd be able to take him. When their chairs were empty they looked calmly around the shop and out onto the street, then motioned Charlie over, as if there would be just enough time to finish his cut before the lieutenant governor arrived.

Today being a Saturday, there was no crowd, just two barbers and a jowly old man sitting at a table under the wall-mounted television. The barbers sat in their chairs, one reading the paper, the other watching CNN. The TV viewer stood as Charlie entered and wiped at the seat of the chair.

"Haircut, son?" he asked. His look said Charlie was long overdue.

"Please." Charlie settled into the chair as the barber swept a smock around him and tied it at the neck. "Short."

The barber nodded, as if that much were obvious. He pumped the chair higher and moved around to the back, reclining it and gently lowering Charlie's head to the sink. Charlie shut his eyes before he had to be told, and relaxed as the warm water washed over his hair, his eyes shielded by the barber's rough hand.

"You in school?" asked the barber.

"Yeah."

This was the ritual of the barbershop. The barber would ask what Charlie was studying, make some comments about sports or the weather, and fall silent. Charlie didn't say much. He preferred to listen to the old men talk.

The barber behind the newspaper turned the page and cleared his throat. "Hal, you still got that septic tank up at your lake place?"

"Yup," said Charlie's barber as he toweled Charlie's hair.

"Says here they passed more stringent laws regarding septic systems due to concerns over contaminations in the groundwater."

"Up, now," Hal said to Charlie, and sat him up straight.

"Seems to me you'd better have someone check to see you're up to the new codes, Hal. Before the state inspectors come around, that is."

"I'll do that, Guy." Charlie caught the annoyance from Hal. Guy was fishing for an invitation to the lake place for next weekend, but Hal had told him two years ago he was never inviting him again, after Guy had gotten hammered on Jim Beam and pissed on the carpet.

Hal took up the scissors and comb and circled Charlie like a boxer sizing up an opponent. After a few circuits he sidled up beside Charlie and started cutting.

"Lot of hair you got here, son," said Hal.

"Sure is," said the old man under the television. He was staring at a checkerboard in front of him, but he made no move. He wore a beige jacket and a gray herringbone cap, although it was already eighty degrees outside.

"What's on the TV, John?" Hal asked.

"Babies having babies." Charlie saw that there were teen pregnancy statistics on the screen.

"Like those two kids out in Jersey a few years back," said Hal. "Damn shame, that. Baby in the Dumpster."

"Delaware," said Guy. "Happened in Delaware."

"Stupid," said John. "No excuse. Wear a goddamned condom."

"Got that right," said Hal.

"Ain't that hard," said John. "Just put the fucker on. You can't figure it out, you damn sure ain't ready to have a baby."

"These girls," said Hal. "They have to lay down the law, these girls. Don't sleep with him if he won't wear a rubber."

"What do you think about abortion, Hal?" John asked.

Charlie caught a flash from John, a memory from forty years ago or more. A girlfriend, a doctor, a cash transaction. John and the girl broke up, graduated high school. She became a nurse, married a doctor, never had children.

Hal took a step back, inspecting Charlie's head. "I can't say I like it much," he said as he resumed his work. "But I'll tell you, I never had to carry a child before—"

"Thank God for that," said Guy.

"—and I can't say I'd want to if I wasn't planning on it. Not to say someone shouldn't be more responsible than that. But in the real world people make mistakes, and in the real world there are a lot of kids out there nobody wants."

John nodded. Guy turned the page in his newspaper. "You boys see that Brewers game last night?"

"Hell, no," said John.

"Says here we'll be paying for that stadium into the next decade."

"Used to be a good team," said Hal.

"Not since '87," said John. "They had a shot then, until they lost twelve straight."

Neither Guy nor Hal responded to that, but they were both thinking about a Saturday back in May 1987, the day after the Royals had knocked the Brewers out of first place in the AL East. Hal hadn't shown up for work that Saturday, because he was in jail for beating up his wife. He had never lifted a hand to her before that or since, and they had never divorced. But she lived in Eau Claire now, near her sister. Since 1987, Hal hadn't paid much attention to baseball.

"Put your head down for me," Hal said, and Charlie complied. He looked down at the white floor, littered with locks of hair that might or might not be his, lying damp and disconnected on the vinyl. His hair, his blood, his bones, all just like everyone else's at the basic level. Everyone with secrets. Everyone making mistakes.

A tall black man in a blue dress shirt and green pants entered, and Guy put his paper down. "Ray," he said. "I wondered if you'd be coming by today."

"I had to," said Ray, easing himself into Guy's chair. "I'm getting a bit shaggy."

"Working today?" Guy spread the smock over Ray's lap.

"In about an hour," said Ray.

"Keeping you busy?" John asked.

"Oh, yeah. Lots of cold cases getting hot. More work than we can handle."

"I read about that," Guy said, leaning Ray back toward the sink. "Anonymous information, the paper said."

"Anonymous, yeah," said Ray. "I'd sure like to know who it's coming from."

"You still looking for those All-Stars?" Hal asked.

"I am," said Ray.

Hal shook his head. "You ought to leave them be. You never saw the police harassing Superman."

"Vigilantism is illegal," Ray said. "These people aren't trained. Someone's going to get hurt."

"I thought you had too much to do already," John said.

"I'm just working on this here and there," Ray said. "But I'll find them eventually."

"You can't catch them if they don't want to be caught," Hal said. "They're something better than you and me. Keep your head forward," he said to Charlie.

"One thing at a time," Ray said. "First I need to find out who they are."

Hal combed Charlie's hair back and looked him straight on to make sure the sides were even. Then he had him put his head forward again and shaved the back of his neck.

A phone rang, and Ray fumbled beneath his smock. Guy stood at ease with his scissors while Ray talked.

"I have to go," Ray said when he hung up. "We'll have to finish this up later."

"What's happening?" Guy asked, pulling the smock from around Ray's neck.

"We just arrested one of the All-Stars."

SUNDAY

It appears that reports that a member of the All-Stars was arrested yesterday may have been premature. We go to Prudence Palmeiro for details.

"Thanks, Dick. As we reported yesterday, police sources indicated that they had apprehended a man whom they believed to be a member of the All-Stars. However, it now appears that the man was either an impostor or a copycat. Witnesses tell us that one Bernard Reiss entered a Laundromat on East Washington Avenue wearing a green jumpsuit with a cardboard star pinned to his chest at about ten
A.M
. yesterday morning. From what we understand, Mr. Reiss then accused a female customer of attempting to rob a change machine and pursued her around the Laundromat until she and another customer managed to subdue him and notify police. According to the witnesses I spoke to, Mr. Reiss does not appear to be a member of the All-Stars. First of all, the All-Star known as Green Star is, by all accounts, female, and in addition Mr. Reiss has been described as being in his sixties and noticeably overweight."

Prudence, I understand that the police chief made a statement a short time ago?

"That's correct, Dick. Police Chief Monica Miller stated that Mr. Reiss was exhibiting delusional behavior and would likely be remanded to the custody of his family after being assessed by police psychiatrists. She also had some harsh words for her own officers, saying that some of them needed to think before speaking. She told us there had never been an official presumption that Mr. Reiss was a member of the All-Stars. I asked the chief why the police would wish to arrest the All-Stars, and she indicated that there was no active investigation targeting the All-Stars. At this point police would simply like for them to come forward to answer some questions."

Did the chief indicate whether she expected any more copycat behavior like this?

"She did express concern that others might consider taking part in vigilante behavior, and she reiterated what she has said ever since the department first acknowledged this situation, that this sort of activity is dangerous and shouldn't be undertaken by members of the general public."

Thank you, Prudence. Coming up in sports, could the Brewers lose a hundred games this year?

WEDNESDAY

Professor Smith's office was a windowless hole in an inner hall of the Helen C. White Building. Mary Beth wondered why a tenured professor with his standing couldn't get a better office, but perhaps he preferred dark and cramped to bright and spacious.

"Miss Layton." He glanced up from his gray desk. "Please have a seat. I'll be just a moment."

Two gray chairs faced the desk. Mary Beth sat in the one that wasn't stacked with books. Books hid the walls of the room, packed into ceiling-high shelves, shoved into boxes, piled on the floor. Mary Beth guessed that there were more than a thousand books, maybe more than two thousand. She wondered how many books Professor Smith had at home.

Professor Smith set his pen down and shut his book. "Miss Layton, do you think people tell the truth?"

Mary Beth hadn't known what to expect from this conference. Everyone was supposed to meet with the professor to discuss their midterm paper before they started their final paper, but when she'd asked classmates what their meeting had been like, none of them had seemed to want to talk about it.

Mary Beth had thought he might ask her to defend her paper, then rip apart her proposal for the final. Or possibly he would sprout wings and drop heavy books of literary criticism on her head. Instead he seemed almost casual, as if he were actually interested in her answer. It had to be a trap.

"I think people tell the truth as they see it."

Professor Smith leaned back in his chair and still managed to look stiff and formal. "Explain."

"I think some people only see what they want to see, what fits with the things they believe. Anything that contradicts it, they ignore. So they may think they're telling the truth, but it's the truth according to them."

"So truth is subjective, because people are not objective. No matter what we do, we all operate from a set of prejudices, don't you think?"

"I suppose so."

"Certainly so. I myself have prejudices against illiterates, drunks, and believers of any sort."

Mary Beth caught herself staring, so she coughed and looked around the room. Her paper had been a comparison study of
Moby Dick
and
Catch-22.
She wasn't sure there was any connection between that and the professor's line of questioning.

"What are we talking about?" she asked finally.

"What are you studying, Miss Layton?"

"I'm premed. I'm a biology major."

"Very noble. I think you should drop it and study English." He set her midterm paper on the desk. "Your insights are fresh and interesting, and your arguments are well founded and persuasive. They need work, of course, but the raw talent is there."

"I'm going to graduate this year. I have two semesters left."

Professor Smith nodded. "Do you enjoy biology?"

"It's required."

"Do you enjoy it?"

"Not really, but I need it."

"What kind of doctor are you going to be, Miss Layton?"

"Probably a pediatrician."

"Ah. You like kids."

Mary Beth didn't like the professor's tone of voice. "Yes. I've always wanted to be a doctor."

"Always?"

"OK, not always. I wanted to be a rodeo clown when I was five."

"What changed your mind?"

Mary Beth laughed. "I didn't think it seemed like a career with a lot of potential."

Professor Smith nodded. "So now we come to your prejudices. You think that being a rodeo clown is a dead-end job."

"I didn't say that. It probably doesn't pay a lot."

"I would imagine that most rodeo clowns have other full-time careers in addition to their part-time work behind the barrels."

"I guess."

"You could be a full-time doctor and a part-time rodeo clown."

"I doubt I'd have time for that," she said. "I'll have four years of medical school, another four years of residency, and I'll probably be working sixty-hour weeks after that."

"It doesn't sound like you'll have time for much, will you?"

"Probably not."

"Time to read?"

"Probably not."

"Do you like to read?"

"Yes."

"Why do you want to be a doctor?"

"I told you."

"I'm not sure you have."

"To help people."

"That's it? Forgive my cynicism, Miss Layton. While I believe you are a caring soul, I doubt you are free of self-interest."

"Well, I'd like to make money, too."

"The kind of money rodeo clowns don't make."

"I guess not."

"Or English professors."

Professor Smith was almost smiling. Mary Beth sighed.

"I don't know what you're getting at, Professor. I'm not looking down on you because you don't make as much money as a doctor might. I don't know how much money you make."

"But money is important to you."

"It's nice to have. Better than not having any."

"How much do you suppose an English teacher might make, to start with? Enough to live on?"

"I would hope so."

"Do you know why I teach the summer introductory course, Miss Layton?"

"To give yourself an annual lesson in humility."

Professor Smith waved a hand. "I mean the real reason."

"I have absolutely no idea."

"I teach the summer course because there is always, among the illiterates, drunks, and believers—the great majority of whom are merely fulfilling course requirements—at least one engineering, business, or premed student who is in the wrong field of study. I like to catch those students and steer them in the right direction."

"You're telling me that I'm in the wrong field of study."

"Yes."

"Are you saying I'll be a bad doctor?"

"I suspect you would be an excellent doctor. But it would be a mistake. You are free to make your own mistakes, of course. But I will do everything in my power to convince you to change your course." Professor Smith opened a drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper. "I'm teaching a seminar in the fall on the lost generation. It's an intensive course. We will read two novels or the equivalent every week, and each student will do a presentation in addition to weekly papers. Undergraduates need my approval to register. You have it."

Mary Beth took the paper. "My fall course schedule is set."

"It is? No elective courses you could change? You must have some open credits to fill."

"Professor, I—"

"Tell me you'll think about it."

"I'll think about it."

"Good. Now, let's talk about your paper."