Getting married outed me.
You know what they say: The only way to keep a secret is to not tell anybody.
Not that my wife betrayed me. If anything, she did a better job than I did keeping my superpowers hidden. She was worried about what the neighbors would think.
But people saw us together when I was in street clothes, and they saw us together when I wore my superhero outfit. (Not that I need a special costume to use my powers; I just used it to hide my identity. Anyway, all superheroes wear fancy costumes.)
People noticed my wife. She is one good-looking woman. Some enterprising reporter put two and two together, and all of a sudden my face was plastered across the front page of The New York Times. Online and print.
(You knew I lived in New York City, right? Never mind what the comic books call it, it’s always New York. Where else would superheroes live?)
After that we got no peace: reporters camped outside the door twenty-four/seven, police showing up at all hours to arrest me.
A hell of a note. I spend years fighting crime, and when they find out who I am, instead of giving me a parade, the cops come after me. Okay, so there were a few warrants out for me. I’ve had a few misunderstandings with the police, though most of the beat cops always knew I was on their side.
I don’t think they really thought I was a bad guy; I figure some of the brass just wanted their pictures on the front page of The Times.
I climbed out the window every time they showed up—they couldn’t catch me twenty-seven stories in the air. Hey, if you’ve got superpowers, might as well use them to take care of yourself.
It’s not like they were going to shoot me, even if I was supposed to be Public Enemy Number 1. Too many people worshipped me.
A photographer with a telephoto lens got a picture of me on the side of the building with the cops hanging out the window, yelling at me. I hear she’s up for an award.
Running away got old, so I got myself a lawyer. Man, you wouldn’t believe the bidding for that job. An awful lot of lawyers wanted their pictures on the front page of The Times.
I considered going with the guy who took over William Kuntsler’s practice after he died. I mean, in some ways I was a political prisoner. The powers that be don’t like it that superheroes don’t answer to them.
Plus I’m certainly a minority—the number of people with superpowers has got to be one hundred thousandth of a percent of the population. Or less. And we are different: A few people born with a mutation, a few who got a jolt from a toxic exposure, the rest mostly aliens.
Somebody who’d fought for Civil Rights seemed the way to go.
But he wanted to do a political defense, and I could see that putting me away for a long time. So I went with a more establishment firm, the kind whose partners could explain to the district attorney just how bad he would look if he prosecuted me.
Not only did they get the charges dropped, they made themselves invaluable in all the money deals.
You know, I just shake my head over all those years when I didn’t have two cents to rub together. You got any idea how much my life story was worth? Let’s put it like this: When the Powerball gets to that number, people stand in line for hours to play.
Of course, my big legal troubles were just beginning. That comic-book guy—the one who’s been chronicling my life all these years? Seems he trademarked my name and costume some years ago. He claims he owns the rights to them. Even got an injunction.
How do you like that? I can’t even use my own name, the one I made up. Or wear the costume I designed. Not to my personal appearances. Not even out fighting crime.
My lawyers are hard at work, though, and I expect a settlement any day now.
It is settled that I’ll play myself in the movie. I had a hole card: I could save them a bundle on special effects, and I flat refused to just do the stunts.
Unfortunately I haven’t had much opportunity to fight crime lately. Every time I go outside. people line up for autographs. And what with all the public appearances and meetings with lawyers and my ghost writer and so forth, I’m busy all the time.
On the whole, the public has been very supportive. I needn’t have worried so much about what my relatives—or my neighbors—would think. Hell, like my friendly neighborhood hot-dog vendor said, “The world needs heroes.”
I don’t get to patronize him much—it’s too hard for me to stroll the streets these days, much less stop for a half-smoke—but he’s drawing quite a crowd since he posted a sign telling everyone I ate there.
There are a few naysayers. Some of my old fans think I’ve sold out. I’ve stopped getting invited to the comic cons. One actually dis-invited me after I’d already accepted.
Just as well, really. Who needs a bunch of pock-marked teenagers and fat middle-aged guys suffering from arrested development analyzing every detail of his life? It’s not like they ever paid me.
I don’t have time for the comic cons anyway.
I’m going to Disney World™ [advertisement].