All My Friends Are Superheroes Read online

  ‘That must be very popular.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘What else have you got?’

  ‘I’ve got the love that’s yours as long as you do what you’re told, the love that worries it’s not good enough, the love that worries it’ll be found out, the love that fears being judged and found lacking, the love that’s almost – but not quite – strong enough, the love that makes you feel they’re better than you ... ’

  ‘Stop.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t want any of those.’

  ‘What kind do you want?’

  ‘I want the kind I had with Tom.’

  ‘And what kind was that?’

  ‘It was true love,’ the Perfectionist said.

  She locked eyes with the salesman. He swallowed. It made his eyes look sad.

  ‘Then you’ll need one of these,’ he replied. His eyes didn’t look sad any more. They sparkled. He dipped to his right, picked up his sample case, lifted it as high as he could and slammed it onto the kitchen table. He snapped the left clasp open. He snapped the right clasp open. He flipped open the lid, reached in and pulled out a vacuum.

  ‘You are a vacuum salesman?’ the Perfectionist hissed.

  ‘You don’t really believe true love exists outside one of these?’ he asked.

  The salesman stood motionless, holding out the vacuum. The kitchen was silent. His arms got tired. He lowered the vacuum and put it back in the sample case.

  ‘Thank you for your time,’ the Perfectionist said. She took his card and gently escorted him to the front door of the apartment.

  The Perfectionist returned to the kitchen and noticed her lit cigarette in the ashtray. It was half burnt. She reached out and extinguished it. She flipped through the yellow pages and phoned the first travel agency she saw. She purchased a one-way ticket to Vancouver.

  TEN

  TASKS #5 TO #7

  The Perfectionist wakes up. She watches clouds and mentally rechecks her ‘Things To Do Before Leaving’ list. Tasks #5 to #7 were all ‘call sister’ (#4 final mop and wax; #8 call airport to check for a flight delay). The Perfectionist replays these phone conversations in her mind. The first call (#5) was to her eldest sister, the Face.

  The Face was eight years old when she first noticed how photographs taken of her were slightly out of focus. When the Face looked in mirrors, even if she kept very still, her reflection was always blurry. During high school she was very popular but she had no close friends.

  After high school the Face studied at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In painting class the first assignment was a self-portrait. Holding her brush, the Face studied her classmates. They mixed colours and applied thick brushstrokes to the canvas. The Face’s brush was still. She didn’t know how to begin.

  That night she phoned three of her classmates and asked them to describe what she looked like. They all responded that she was the most beautiful woman they’d ever seen. But when she asked for details, they couldn’t provide any. They couldn’t tell her what colour her eyes were. They didn’t know if her teeth were straight, or if her hair was wavy, or if her lips were thick. They only knew she the most beautiful woman they’d ever seen.

  The Face submitted a blank canvas and got an A+. Everyone agreed it was the most beautiful self-portrait they’d ever seen and it looked exactly like her. That afternoon she started sewing a hood. She finished it the following Wednesday. She hasn’t taken it off in seventeen years.

  The Face wasn’t home. The Perfectionist had planned this. She left a message apologizing for missing her and a promise that she’d call as soon as she landed in Vancouver.

  The Perfectionist went on to task #6. She called her other older sister, the Elongating Woman, who was named Donna at birth. On Donna’s eighteenth birthday her boyfriend was the passenger in a Toyota Corolla that was t-boned by a pickup truck. He died on his way to the hospital and for the next three years all Donna could think about was timing. What if he’d stopped for something? What if they’d hit a red light? What if he’d gotten into that car ten seconds later? It seemed like such a simple thing, so easy to change, and she started believing she could change it. All she had to do was reach back into time and delay him, so she stretched out her arms.

  She stretched her arms down Queen Street, past people and streetcars. She stretched her arms onto the Gardiner Expressway. She stretched her arms faster than highway traffic. She stretched and stretched and stretched but she was only able to put her arms around the city. She couldn’t reach back in time and she’s never forgiven herself.

  The Elongating Woman answered her phone.

  ‘It’s me,’ the Perfectionist said.

  ‘Don’t go,’ said the Elongating Woman.

  ‘I can’t wait any longer,’ the Perfectionist said. ‘There are limits.’

  ‘I know,’ the Elongating Woman said. ‘I know that.’ The Perfectionist promised to call the moment she landed in Vancouver. She hung up the phone and called her younger sister, the Ticker (task #7).

  The Ticker is a quiet superhero who makes everyone nervous. Her superpower is her amazing potential. Sitting at the edge of parties, responding to inquiries but never starting them, the Ticker is always watching and waiting – as is everybody else.

  Certainly she could do anything she wanted to, but what would that anything be? Brilliant art? Mass crime? World peace or medical school? And will she ever do it? Not even the Ticker knows. She answered her phone on the first ring.

  ‘I’ll miss ya,’ said the Ticker.

  ‘I’ll miss you too,’ said the Perfectionist.

  ‘Perf?’ asked the Ticker. Her voice made the Perfectionist nervous. The Ticker rarely sounded this serious.

  ‘Yes?’ asked the Perfectionist.

  ‘Why am I not working out?’

  ‘You will. I know you will,’ the Perfectionist said. There was a silence.

  ‘Okay,’ the Ticker said.

  ‘I should get going,’ the Perfectionist said.

  ‘I’ll let you go then.’

  ‘Okay.’

  They both hung up.

  The Perfectionist replays this last conversation and worries that she rushed her sister off the phone. She worries about all of them. She puts her finger on the airplane window and draws a circle. Her sisters, the Perfectionist concludes, are perfectly sad. She feels lucky to have escaped the tragedies that happened to them. Then the Perfectionist remembers her wedding. She remembers the six months since. She remembers why she’s flying to Vancouver.

  ELEVEN

  THE TWO BOXES

  Tom has returned to the toilet on the airplane. He’s in the one on the right. Three people have knocked. He puts his fingers underneath his eyes and pulls down the skin. He studies his eyes, all red rims and dark circles. ‘Raccoon,’ he says. He’s never seen himself look so tired.

  This isn’t true. Tom has seen himself this tired once before, but that tired was so different from this tired. He can remember everything about that tired; the television was still on, the only light in the living room, and it flickered blue like a strobe light.

  The Perfectionist had sat up. She pulled down her shirt. Her hair was messed up (perfectly). She studied him. She kept her eyes open and kissed him. The kiss lingered. Tom lost track of whose lips were whose. Then the Perfectionist stood up. She pointed the remote at the television and turned it off. She reached out for Tom’s hand and he gave it to her.

  They walked upstairs, Tom a step behind her. He tried not to stare at her ass. He squeezed her hand and wished his palm wasn’t so sweaty. They reached the top of the stairs and turned towards her bedroom.

  Only three days earlier they’d had their first kiss, but this wouldn’t be the first time Tom had been in the Perfectionist’s bedroom. One night, a Wednesday night, not even a month ago, she’d brought him upstairs. They’d both attended the Ear’s birthday party, and they’d both been drinking, and they’d ended up walking home to
gether. At her front door she’d invited Tom up. He’d accepted.

  The Perfectionist hadn’t been with anyone since she broke up with Hypno. The sex with him had been so good the Perfectionist had taken it for granted. She really liked Tom, was sure they’d become really great friends, but nothing more. She didn’t know if their friendship would survive a one-nighter but she felt reckless and took Tom straight to her bedroom.

  The Perfectionist pushed Tom onto her bed. She took off his shirt. She took off his shoes and his socks. She took off his pants. She took off his boxers.

  With most guys the Perfectionist would stop there. She didn’t. She was still feeling reckless. She took off his skin. She took off his nervous system. She lifted up his rib cage. His heart beat in her hand. And there, underneath it, she found a jewelled golden box. She opened it. Inside she found his hopes, his dreams and his fears. She stared at them. She was surprised to find them there and surprised at how beautiful they were. At that exact moment, the Perfectionist fell in love with Tom.

  She put back the box and his skin and his clothes. She held him.

  The Perfectionist remembered that moment as they approached her bedroom door. Tom slowed down. The Perfectionist didn’t. She walked past her bedroom. She kept walking.

  There was a room at the very end of the hallway. Tom hadn’t noticed it before. The door was closed. The Perfectionist let go of his hand. She opened the door and flicked on the light. Inside, the carpet was worn and grey. Finishing nails stuck out of white drywall. In the centre of the room were two giant cardboard boxes, the kind refrigerators come packed in.

  On the box to the left, in the Perfectionist’s handwriting, was the word ‘FRIEND.’ On the box to the right, also in the Perfectionist’s handwriting, was the word ‘LOVER.’ These two boxes were the only objects in the room.

  Tom looked at the Perfectionist. The Perfectionist looked at him. Tom looked back to the boxes and then back at the Perfectionist. He scratched his head.

  ‘Well?’ the Perfectionist asked.

  Tom looked at her, looked at the boxes and looked back at the Perfectionist. He still didn’t understand.

  ‘Which one?’ she demanded. She moved her arms, suggesting he should get in one.

  Tom walked into the room and stood between the two boxes. He looked at the one marked ‘LOVER’ and he looked at the one marked ‘FRIEND.’ He made his decision quickly. With sharp steps he moved in front of the box marked ‘FRIEND.’ Picking it up, he lifted it over his head and put it inside the box marked ‘LOVER’. Then he turned around, picked up the Perfectionist, and lifted her inside the boxes. He climbed in with her. In the morning, there wasn’t much left of either box.

  Tom runs his finger along the stainless-steel tap above the sink. With a little water he pats down his hair. He puts fresh toilet paper on the cuts on his wrist before unbolting the bathroom door. The ‘occupied’ light switches off.

  TWELVE

  FIND YOUR OWN SUPERHERO NAME

  It’s true most superheroes have funny names. But they have to come up with these names by themselves. Think about how hard it is. Try it, right now; boil down your personality and abilities to a single phrase or image. If you can do that, you’re probably a superhero already.

  Part of the problem with finding your superhero name is that it may refer to something you don’t like about yourself. It may actually be the part of yourself you hate the most, would pay money to get rid of. Certainly the Perfectionist had a hard time coming to terms with her superpower. The Gambler, OneNight and Brutally Honest all spent years accepting their superpowers.

  The final stage of finding your superhero name is accepting how little difference it really makes. Okay, there’s this thing you can do, a thing you can do like no other person on the planet. That makes you special, but being special really doesn’t mean anything. You still have to get dressed in the morning. Your shoelaces still break. Your lover will still leave you if you don’t treat her right.

  THE SLOTH

  The Sloth hated himself. He considered himself lazy. He had a dead-end job and no plans to get a better one. His relationship was on-again-off-again, and he never got to the gym even though he kept paying the membership dues.

  There was mould in his refrigerator and he watched reruns on TV. Sometimes he wore the same pair of socks twice in the same week.

  The Sloth would sit on his couch, paralyzed by all the things he wasn’t taking care of. Then one day, a Wednesday, he just said, ‘Fuck it!’ He threw his hands up into the air and said, ‘Fuck it!’ This was the day that the Sloth discovered his superpower, an amazing ability to say ‘Fuck it’ and really, truly mean it.

  WILD MOOD SWINGER

  One of the few superheroes to wear a costume, Wild Mood Swinger is never seen without his large-lapelled polyester plaid leisure suit with white shoes and a matching belt. Blessed with the ability to achieve the highest emotional heights and cursed with the ability to sink to the lowest emotional depths, Wild Mood Swinger often does so during the same conversation. Strangely attractive to women.

  COPYCAT

  Copycat has the ability to mimic anyone’s personal style. Which wouldn’t be so bad, perhaps even a compliment, if she wasn’t able to perfect her subjects’ style to the point where they start looking like less successful versions of themselves.

  THE INVERSE

  Shake the Inverse’s hand and the exact opposite of your life will flash before your eyes. This can be so overwhelming that the Inverse will not shake your hand unless you ask him to, and sometimes not even then.

  A case in point is Businessman. When the Inverse shook Businessman’s hand, Businessman saw himself as having a work and going to life. The experience was so intense that Businessman retired the next day.

  It’s exactly that sort of responsibility that the Inverse seeks to avoid and it’s why he has never shaken his own hand.

  MR. OPPORTUNITY

  He knocks on doors and stands there. You’d be surprised how few doors get answered.

  MISTRESS CLEANASYOUGO

  The most powerful superhero of all, the one everyone wishes they were, is Mistress Cleanasyougo. At the end of every day she folds her clothes. She never leaves scissors on the table, pens with no ink are thrown in the trash, wet towels are always hung up, dishes are washed directly after dinner and nothing is left unsaid.

  THIRTEEN

  BEGINNING DESCENT

  The captain’s voice comes through Tom’s headphones. In confident tones he announces that flight AC117 is commencing its descent. They will be arriving in Vancouver in twenty minutes. Local time will be 5:17 p.m. The captain requests that all passengers return to their seats and fasten their seatbelts. Tom looks up. None of the passengers are standing so no one moves. He feels the plane tilt downwards. He tries not to cry. He has twenty minutes to convince his wife that he isn’t invisible. He disobeys the captain’s orders and dares another trip to the bathroom. He pushes past the man in seat 27D.

  As Tom walks down the aisle, the man in seat 27D begins to study the Perfectionist. He watches her watch clouds out the airplane window. The Perfectionist notices she’s being studied. She doesn’t look over. She keeps her eyes on the clouds.

  He swallows, clears his throat. His thumb and forefinger rub together.

  ‘Perf ?’ he asks.

  The Perfectionist looks over. He’s looking right at her. For the first time she looks right at him. She reaches out and traces her index finger across his lips.

  ‘Literal?’ she asks.

  ‘Literal?’ says the Broken-Hearted Man. ‘Nobody’s called me that in years.’

  The Literal and the Perfectionist dated in high school. They were very much in love. They were each other’s first. They separated to go to university but pledged to stay together.

  To prove his love the Literal gave the Perfectionist his heart. He put it in a shoebox, wrapped the box in silver paper and carried it down to the post office. After licking twenty-nine dollars and fort
y-seven cents’ worth of stamps, he addressed the package to the Perfectionist, c/o McGill University, Montreal, Quebec.

  Three weeks later, the same shoebox arrived in the Literal’s mailbox. It was wrapped in the same silver paper, but the box had been opened. His heart was inside. At that moment, the Literal stopped being the Literal. He became the Broken-Hearted Man. He was so crushed he never talked to her again.

  ‘What are the chances I’d be sitting next to her on an airplane?’ the Broken-Hearted Man asks himself. Impossible odds. Must be fate. Daily for thirteen years, sometimes three times a day, he’d rehearsed this moment. He knew exactly what he was going to say, what tone of voice he’d use. He wouldn’t be bitter – that would make him look weak. He’d be casual. He would be glad to see her. It wouldn’t be the most important moment of his day.

  ‘It’s been so long,’ the Perfectionist says.

  All the Broken-Hearted Man’s plans evaporate. His eyes go wide. He can’t stop it. He can’t spin it or control it. It simply floods out of him.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ he wails. ‘Why would you do that to me? Why did you return my heart?’

  The Perfectionist stares at the Broken-Hearted Man. Her teeth grind together.

  ‘I loved you so much,’ the Perfectionist says. Her eyes have gone glossy. ‘Without it, what would you have loved me with?’

  The Broken-Hearted Man says nothing. He looks at his shoes and nods. He moves to the back of the airplane, finds an empty seat.

  Tom returns from the washroom. He sees the Perfectionist crying. He strokes her hair with his hand. He almost feels her lean into him. She doesn’t hiccup.