Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [181]
That was clear. That was vibrant. That was alive.
And now it—she—was going to be denied me forever, lost in another dimension when Washburne somehow destroyed the storm hole off US 108.
That bastard. He couldn’t have her, so he’d deny her me, and me her. Sometimes there were no grays. Sometimes there is the pure, stark, clarity of right and wrong. And the fact that the Boones were intending to deny me Wisper was wrong. Something a superhero could, and should, fight against.
So where were they? Where were the real superheroes to be found when you desperately needed them to stop villains, open doors, and bring you pants? Where was Spiderman, or Captain America, or even War Woman with her velour-splitting sword when you truly, and honestly…?
That’s when I noticed Wendy’s suitcase.
“What are we going to do, Corky?” Waboombas asked.
And the extension cords connecting the glowing, poster-signs to the wall outlets.
“Say something!” Morgan demanded.
And the fact that the windows opened without needing chairs thrown through them.
Sophie pleaded with me, silently.
I looked around at my fellow heroes and smiled a radiant smile. A courageous smile. A superhero smile.
“We’re going after them,” I said.
Within minutes, we were lowering ourselves out the window on several, twisted-together electrical cords, and dropping to the ground beside the Teen Titans kids.
“Mom, look!” one of the little boys said, pointing at me. “It’s
Spiderman!”
“Oh, dear GOD!” his mother said, as you can imagine, a bit less enthusiastic about my ‘costume’ than her kid.
I had been painted with Wendy’s body-paint, head to toe in blue and red, with enough markings to pass as the worst Spiderman ever. Ms. Waboombas was War Woman, Sophie was a kind of Supergirl, and Morgan was Son of Satan. He really wanted to be Archangel, but we just didn’t have time to make it look right, or manufacture razor wings to his exacting specifications. We were, understandably, in a hurry. So we simply painted him up with red ‘pants’, yellow ‘boots’, and a sort of a pentagram thing on his chest that looked more like a crooked Star of David.
“I don’t wanna be Son of Satan,” he whined, for what must have been the thousandth time. “No cape. No pitchfork. I look like a tool.”
The rest of us ignored him and moved quickly off in the direction of the exits. I can only imagine from the looks we received that the men in white coats had already been notified.
Hair stuck out everywhere, including on the tops of our heads, though we had finally managed to rip free some of the sofa to fashion makeshift codpieces for the boys and thongs for the girls so at least that hair wasn’t visible. But on the whole, we were still barely passable as ‘clothed’.
“Sicko!” the Titan’s mother said, pulling her little one away as quickly as she could without dislocating any of his important bones. “SICKO! THERE ARE CHILDREN PRESENT!”
Her reaction was pretty much the same one we got from anyone with enough brains or experience to know what freaks we were. But being that it was ‘all part of the show’ no one stopped us, and no security guards mistook us for the ‘streakers’ Washburne had undoubtedly made good on his promise to warn them about. In fact, far from impeding us in any way, most people were happy to get out of the road and run for the hills at the sight of us. One man did come up to Waboombas and ask her to pose with him for a photograph. She obliged, thankfully without breaking stride, reminding him to come by her booth later for a copy of her comic. Promising he would, he then scurried over to Sophie and requested a picture with her as well. She, of course delighted, obliged bouncily.
“Can I touch your tit?” he asked her.
“Sure!” she said, bouncily.
He reached for it, holding his camera to record the event for posterity and his website, no doubt, when Morgan finally caught on that something was amiss.
“HEY!” Son of Satan shouted, and felled him like a redwood. The punch shocked everyone, especially