The young man standing at my front door offers to safeguard my heart. “I already have a couple of people doing that,” I tell him. “One of them is out back, sharpening the axe.”
I know he wants me to commit to his superhero for the next fifty years. But I already have a superhero.
“Her bra size,” I say, “is three times larger than a normal woman’s and she has this incredible desire to dress like a slut. A lot of men don’t like her because she’s so stunning and monumental. Girls and women,” I add, “tend not to be interested in overly muscled guys with thick necks and big chains beating each other up. Is your superhero one of those?”
“Jesus Christ!” he says.
“Well, mine’s such an icon,” I say. “She’s just like Marilyn Monroe. Women dress up like her for Halloween and at conventions. Do you dress up like yours?”
He doesn’t get to answer because the phone rings, Bizzy barks, my superhero shoots through the door in her blue satin shorts, and Manny Moss comes round the side of the house swinging his axe.
The sun flickers like it is shorting out and the young man backs away. The scene is a bit funny in a conceptual kind of way. I think, Here is a moment of perfection, one where you want everything to stop. 