His ass was the first thing I noticed.
I found myself gazing at a pair of perfect cheeks in perfect blue superhero tights, and as the wind fluttered the piece of taut fabric that bridged one cheek to another, I wondered how a butt could look so perfect that it became utterly unsexual. I was so preoccupied that it took me a moment to process the wind whipping through my hair and the clouds passing below me. I was flying through the air, upside down, slung over his shoulder. My body tried to jerk forward in shock, but the speed and the wind and the flight held my face to his backside.
Oh my God, I thought, but before I could even voice it out loud, I already heard his deep, enthusiastic voice inside my head.
“Hi! I’m Hyperman, your American Hero, and you’re being rescued! This experience may feel disorienting, so please stay calm until we can land.”
“OK,” I said. His tone was chipper, saccharine — like a call center employee who hadn’t been broken yet.
“Because it’s hard to hear over the wind noise, we’ll communicate through telepathy. I can read your thoughts — but don’t worry, not in a weird way.”
Oh. OK. I thought. I looked down and saw the edge of Hoboken, New Jersey. We had flown out of the city. What hap—
“I can sense you’re wondering what happened to you. No worries! One of Yoyodyne’s designated crisis response representatives will debrief you once we reach the ground. For now, just relax and enjoy the view. We’ll land shortly.”
Enjoy the view. I stared down at the river, catching glimpses of the boats and their wakes. I stared at his buttcheeks. And then I remembered he could read my thoughts.
My head hurt. My brain hurt. I think I was hungover.
What happened? I remember being outside. I remember being angry I had to get up early for my stupid dog-walking job. I remember being really mad at Erika. I remember trying really hard to write an apology text while I had six leashes wrapped around my wrist. I don’t even remember what I was saved from. I don’t think I even knew I was about to die. How sad is that? Without him, my last moments would have been struggling with autocorrect and thinking about kicking a chihuahua. What about this was worth saving?
“Everything about you is worth saving!” his chipper voice responded, inside my brain.
“Oh, sorry, that wasn’t for you. I was just thinking it.”
“Well, you shouldn’t think it. Everybody has value. You especially.”
“You don’t know that. What if I end up a serial killer? Or a mega nazi? Or what if I just stay a loser who never makes a diffeence in anything?”
Just then, he stopped flying. Or rather, the momentum stopped. We stayed in the air, floating, hovering miles above the water. He pulled me off of his shoulders and flipped me over, all at once, like I weighed nothing at all. I gasped at the sensation of my feet, my body freely dangling down over miles of space.
“I won’t drop you. I’m pretty strong,” his voice said in my head, though softer, less robotically happy this time.
He looked at me in the eyes and I tried not to think anything.
Finally, he spoke. Out loud, proper words. His real voice was softer, with less boom to it.
“You make a difference. You do. Every human life is precious and deserves to be saved. And that’s why I’m here. That’s why I was made. To save as many lives as possible. Because you all deserve it. I wouldn’t keep getting hurt for you people if you didn’t.”
I could feel the earnestness in his voice, almost pleading. What a man. Our first national superhero really was a perfect Boy Scout.
“Do you really believe that?” I said. But he just smiled.
I tried to hear what he was thinking the rest of the way, but I couldn’t. Eventually he set me down, tenderly, on the pavement outside a hulking skyscraper. I tried to say something to him, thank him, say something, but before I could get the words out, he winked and became a blue streak across the sky.
#
The second time we met, the first thing I noticed was a sagging gut. I didn’t know what it was at first, just that it was soft and felt nice against my head.
“Hey” echoed the voice in my head. “Quit it.”
“Mmmph.” I moaned, then pushed my head in more.
“Seriously. I’ll drop you.”
I opened my eyes and saw my face digging into a belly hanging over a pair of worn-out Wranglers. Typical fare for around here, except these were flying through the air, suspended a good six hundred feet over the ground.
Wait, I’m—
“Yeah, yeah. You’re in the air. You’re being rescued. Don’t have a conniption.”
Seriously? I thought. Again?
“Wait, what do you mean ‘again?’” His voice resonated in my head.
The memory flashed through my mind. Waking up over Hyperman’s shoulder. His sweet, totally patronizing morals. The way I landed suddenly in the street, next to all six of the leashed, befuddled dogs I was walking. The suits who took me aside and explained the short term memory loss and general bewilderment I would be experiencing.
I remember taking the PATH back to the city, feeling like I was in a dream, until I returned to my tiny apartment and decided to finally get my life together. It was the most important day in my life.
“Oh shit,” he said, in my brain. “I do remember that.”
We landed in a clearing in the woods some way outside of town. He grunted as he put me down.
“You’re lucky,” he said. “I like dogs. And I have a type.”
We took a moment to size each other up. He had the body of a former football player — someone whose muscles remembered being strong, but had since been overrun by a series of bad choices. His shoulders were hunched and he had dark, tired circles around his eyes. I could see his hair thinning.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Oh I didn’t mean to think that.”
“You can’t help it. I get it though.” He slapped his belly. “I got chunky.”
“Yeah. What happened?”
“Booze, mostly. Do you know how much Jaegermeister it takes for me to get drunk?”
He didn’t give me time to answer.
“I’ll tell you. Fifty-eight point two-seven cubic liters. We had a scientist work it out. There were bathtubs. Augmented people actually burn energy at nine times the normal rate, so it was harder than I thought. And then there was the cocaine, oh my God. I mean, you remember the coup in Bolivia six years ago? Yeah. My bad. I basically necessitated knocking over an entire junta. Pretty crazy. But that stuff takes a physical toll, especially with all the overeating afterwards. I mean, the hangovers did it more than anything.”
“Oh,” I said. “I meant, like, how did you end up here?”
Here was a small mining town that had grown into a small mining city in middle Tennessee. I had landed here for my nursing school residence and ended up sticking around since then. But I couldn’t imagine anybody else would do that. Especially if they could fly.
“No offense,” I began, but I could already feel him taking offense.
“No, it’s OK. I get it. I’m not sure my disappearance made sense to anybody.”
“There were a lot of rumors,” I said. He laughed, drily.
“Oh yeah. Poochy returned to his home planet….”
“I heard you defected to North Korea and became a singing sensation.”
“The Sackler family killed me in a failed cloning experiment.”
“You converted to Mormonism and raised a traditional family.”
“I went to Mars, decided I was tired of humans. Yeah, got pretty crazy.”
I laughed again. “I heard they found you hanging from a noose in your closet, then you woke up six days later like ‘who are you? Why aren’t I dead?”
“Heh. Yeah,” he gave a half smile, then pulled at his neck. I saw a faded scar. “Guess I underestimated how hard it was to kill me.”
“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”
“Oh, no, it’s fine. I wouldn’t know which rumors to believe, either.”
He sighed and looked off into the distance.
“It’s a bummer. At first, I thought of everyone I rescued as a life saved. But after a while, all I could think about were the people I left behind. Whether I could have done more. It was so easy when it began. And the more it built up in my mind, the more distracted I got, the worse I performed. I mean, Cleveland is a crater because I couldn’t wake up before eight thirty in the god damn morning.”
He held his hand in a fist. I could feel the earth vibrating from the strength as he held back the tears.
“So I ran to a place no one could possibly care about. Somewhere I didn’t have to give a shit. Because I couldn’t handle it anymore.”
I wasn’t sure what I could do. But I walked forward until I was close, and then I pulled him into an awkward hug, from the side, until he turned and put his arms around me fully. Then he cried until he had nothing left.
“Hey,” I said, after a long moment. “At least it was only Cleveland.” He chortled snot out of his nose.
“Seriously,” he said. “That place already looked nuked.” He pulled out of the hug and laughed the last of his tears off, embarrassed. He spoke in a still-shaky voice. “Anyway, that’s me. What have you been up to the last few years?”
“I became a nurse,” I said.
“No shit?”
“Yeah. Really,” I wrapped my hand around his. “Because of you, you know. I realized that I that I wanted to help people.”
“I really inspired you?”
“Really.”
“And you couldn’t even become a doctor? Jesus, why did I save you?”
“Hey, come on.” I bumped his shoulder. “What happened to me this time, by the way?”
“Crazy driver with Ohio plates ran a red light. Just a snap reaction from me. You’re lucky I was getting a taquito at the gas station.”
“Wow. Must be some reason you keep rescuing me.”
“Maybe you just like the attention.”
“Maybe.”
He stood up and stretched, then blew his snotty nose to the ground.
“Alright,” he said. “You want a lift back home?”
“I think I want to walk.”
“Suit yourself,” he said.
He smiled and winked, just a hint of that old Boy Scout, and I knew I wouldn’t have time to say anything else. But even though I couldn’t get the words out before he became a blue streak across the sky, I hoped that he was reading my mind.