| Talking to Heroes |
Every city has a voice. Some are quiet, some are loud. This one was a long, drawn-out scream.
He sat there on the ledge of the building, his feet dangling over it. Staring down past his untied
shoes, he could see over fifty stories, by his own guess. Probably more. If he’d walked through the
building itself, maybe taking the elevator to the top, he could’ve counted them up properly. But he’d
walked through a doorway instead, one he’d opened between dimensions, using a half-piece of chalk.
Its the shit like that that kept him from being nervous about falling fifty-plus stories.
He was waiting. Behind him, a huge, golden sphere sat, centered on the rooftop. It was a symbol
of the work done inside the building. The work that manifested as the voice, although a somewhat
quieter one, of the city’s people. A newspaper, editorial-heavy and as biased as any other paper. It
had the conceit to believe it was speaking for the entire planet, which is where it got its name.
The globe had been recently defaced. Red paint, still dripping in some places, marred the icon in a
bold script. It just had two words. “I’m here.”
He played with the nozzle on the can.
Air whizzed past his head. Stronger than a normal gust of wind, even at this height. A quick eye
would’ve seen the blur, a red and blue slash of colour cutting through the skyline, hurtling towards the
globe. It stopped instantly, ignoring the laws of things like gravity, inertia, common sense in general.
The man that stood there, more of an icon than the sphere, the building, even the whole city, wasn’t
subject to those laws.
“You could’ve picked a different calling card,” he said. It wasn’t a deep voice. It was
commanding, perhaps regal, but it could’ve just as easily been from a janitor or some lame reporter as
from Earth’s greatest hero. “I’m not partial to graffiti.”
Cheyne stood, not stepping away from the ledge. Even with the foot of concrete under him, he
still only came up to the man’s chin.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “Don’t have my signal watch with me.” Joke. Bad. No sign of
amusement.
“I figured we should talk,” he continued. “It’s bound to happen sooner or later. Everyone wants
a cross-over. Forty-eight pages, no ads, sickly overpriced.” He reached into his jacket, pulled out a
box of Camels. He started packing them on his opposite hand. “I thought I’d save us the time. It
takes forever to get those contracts worked out, and then they always have some hack writing it.”
He broke the seal on the pack, pulled one out and popped it into his mouth. He looked at his guest
in askance. “Light?” He expected a shot of heat vision, but just got a shake of the head. After more
digging in the jacket pocket, he found a matchbook, two left inside. “Just my luck,” he muttered,
looking back at the new pack.
“I still don’t understand your reasoning for coming here. Obviously, you want attention of some
sort. Why mine?”
He exhaled. “Good question. Really.” He started walking around the edge of the building, in a
pacing sort of way. Cigarettes don’t necessarily calm everyone down. “And I don’t want you to
think I was just looking to piss you off or anything like that. I mean, I’m not a complete asshole.
But...
He sat down again. “I just needed to talk. To you, or to somebody like you.”
The man gave him a hard stare, the kind that seems to last longer than the day when you’re under
it. Then he relaxed his gaze, and his stance a little.
“Okay,” he said, “it’s your dime.”
“I don’t know if I can do it.” It had taken him two minutes until he could even say anything. His
first cig was going. He pulled a new one out and lit it off the one still in his mouth. He started to
throw the dying one over the edge, then turned a guilty look at the man next to him. He snuffed it and
put it in his other pocket, hoping he’d remember to clean it out later.
“What don’t you know?”
“You know. This ‘hero’ thing. I look at myself, and this role I’ve landed myself in, and I think,
‘What a bunch of crap!’”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, you know,” he frowned, feeling incredibly stupid. “I don’t mean for you. I mean, look at
you. You’ve been at this for longer than I’ve been alive. You can move fucking planets, you fly. You’
re from outer space, for Christ’s sake. I don’t even have x-ray vision. I’m from Michigan, and I live
in my parents’ basement. You do the math.”
“So,” the man said grimly, “you think you can’t be a hero because you haven’t got a superpower?”
“CHRIST!” Cheyne yelled. “Do you really believe I’d think it was that cut and dry? Of course it’
s not about powers... but then, you know what, maybe it sort’ve is.”
“I don’t think...”
“Now hold on and listen. Think about it. You’re not a normal person. You didn’t just wake up
one day with this cape hanging out the back of your neck. You were born on another planet. You
rocketed through space in some pod-thing, crash-landed in farm country, and maybe you were raised
like you were human. But you’re not. What if this code you have, the thing that let’s you pull off all
the shit you do, and the ideals you have to not use it for getting laid or something else just as devious...
maybe that’s in your Krypto-DNA or something. Maybe you’re just better than us at everything, not
just stopping bullets with your chest and picking up Winnebegos and all that crap.
“And maybe Batman’s just a psycho who doesn’t see how hopeless it all is, and Wonder Woman
is blessed by the gods, and Aquaman’s got this little fish in his ear telling him what to do.
“And maybe it works for all of you, but that doesn’t mean it works for me. I’m scared, and I’m
stupid, and all I ever seem to do is fuck things up for everybody, and... and... Are you laughing at
me?”
“I’m... I’m sorry,” he gasped. He was actually holding his stomach. “It’s just... Arthur... with
a.. a fish.. in his ear...” There was a low roar, and finally the laughter just seemed to erupt out of
him. At first, Cheyne found it disconcerting. Then, eventually, he let himself go enough to join in.
“So, you don’t think you’re good enough to be a superhero.” They were both sitting with their
feet over the edge now. Of course, he could’ve stood up and walked right away from the building,
never falling an inch. “Do you know haw many pep talks I’ve had to give to kids like you? How
Green Lantern, or the Titans, or Superboy have each come up to me and said the same things?
“Why do you really think I do it? And it’s not because I’m an alien. And I hope I’m not a
psycho.”
Cheyne kept his face towards the ground, as far away as that was from him. “I suppose you just
think you’ll make a difference. That whole, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ thing.” He
paused. “Oh wait, isn’t that Spider-..”
“Not the point, but you’re half right.” He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “There is a great
responsibility that we, especially people in my position, hold. To make the world a better place. To
help people. But I’ve known men, women, and even children that, with no powers, no extraordinary
abilities, give themselves completely to that vision. Its up to every person to make this world a better
place. Some of us take that much more seriously than others.”
“And you’re saying that’s what I should do.”
“No, I’m not. You’ve got something inside of you, perhaps a voice or hope, or guilt, that is
asking you to make that decision. I couldn’t give you that. And I couldn’t ask it of you.
“There are a lot of days when I feel as though people aren’t getting it. Sometimes, being the
strongest man on Earth, I feel like I need to shoulder all the responsibilities myself. Sometimes I feel
alone.” Cheyne looked at him, wondering if it was a lie, something just to make it sound like they had
some sort of connection to each other. If it was, he couldn’t see it in the man’s eyes.
“But, you know, if that was how it was, maybe I would feel different. Or maybe not. All I know
is that, I go out and I try to do the right thing, and that allows me to live with myself.”
“And when you screw up? I mean, do you screw up?”
“Well,” he said, “I died once. I saw an entire city destroyed. I’ve watched friends die.”
“been there...”
“And that’s just a small part of it. It’s not always fair, and we’re not always going to understand.
There are some cruelties that I can’t even comprehend, people filled with such a seething hatred.” It
was hard to tell, but Cheyne suddenly felt like maybe the man was a lot more human that he’d
originally thought he was. “You can’t fix everything. But you also can’t walk around with a self-
defeatist attitude that you won’t make a difference, or that you’ll only make things worse. Tomorrow
may bring you everything you’ve ever wanted. The day after that, you may die horribly in some tragic
way.
“Which one would you rather focus on?”
Cheyne had let his cigarette go out without lighting a new one. He pulled out his last match and
struck it on the outside of the pack. The wind blew it out directly.
“Damn,” he cursed. “Okay, I guess that’s all for me then. I can only think about this shit if I’ve
got a smoke.” He stood up and started heading back to the wall he’d walked in through.
“Did this change anything for you?” He’d stood also. He looked like the big, blue-and-red god
again, the cape blowing in the breeze, all amazing. The icon. It almost didn’t seem as ridiculous
anymore.
“I dunno’.” He pulled the chalk out, started tracing out the familiar pattern. “Maybe. Hey, you
know, maybe you could walk through sometime and come see. I’ll leave this here for you.” He
started to open the door.
“Wait a second.” He pointed up at the globe. “Aren’t you forgetting. You have a little clean-up to
do.”
“Oh, naw... It’s water soluble paint. It’ll go in the next rain, which,” small droplets started to
come down, “should be any time now.” He had a grin, like he planned it all along. The man wasn’t
sure that that wasn’t the case.
“I’ll see you around,” he waved. The door closed behind him.
The rain came down heavier. He watched the globe. The words stayed their place, ever-defiant.
He picked up the can, read the back. It said nothing about being water-soluble.
He looked over at the wall. The chalk had quickly washed away. There was no door.
Big, red letters on the globe.
“I’m here.”
A second city; this one also had a voice. It was not a scream, although it may once have been.
Now, it was more like the whimper of a frightened child in the night, alone in the house, with no one
to hear.
No one, except one man.
A door opened from a wall that had no door. The roof was a gothic nightmare. Gargoyles, their
mouths water spouts, spitting out the buckets of rainwater that smelled heavily of old sewage. There
were fires down the street, randomly set. Smoke was so thick in the air, even the rain couldn’t wash
it out.
A figure came through the door. He just stood there, unsure how far out of it he wanted to step.
Carefully, he came to the center of the roof.
The shadows around him came to some sort of life. What looked to be a demon of pure darkness
emerged from them, the light too fearful to shine directly upon it. It flowed, not walked, to the figure
from the doorway. When it was ready to be recognized, it spoke.
“What. Do. You. Want.”
“BLA-!” screamed the boy. “I... Jeesh! You might want to let a guy know... Uh...” He looked
at the bat-shaped demon. He knew that wasn’t what it was, but it was hard to argue with the image
standing before you.
“I’m... I’m Kaln.” He stuck out his hand. It sat there, in the empty air, for a moment. Then he
slowly withdrew it. “Anyways, I... God, you’re creepy!”
Silence.
“Okay... Anyways, I wanted to ask you something. My friend, Cheyne.... well, he and I go way
back. And I said, ‘Man, if you’re gonna’ get to do a cross-over, then I’m gonna’ get to do one, right?”
Nothing.
“Um... Right. Shoulda’ asked for Supergirl. My bad. But... I just wanted to, you know, ask
you...”
“What?”
“Uh... you know, it’s not an easy thing to ask...”
“WHAT?”
Kaln rubbed his chin.
“Where can I get a cape like that?”
Talking To Heroes, © C. Christian Scott, 1999
He sat there on the ledge of the building, his feet dangling over it. Staring down past his untied
shoes, he could see over fifty stories, by his own guess. Probably more. If he’d walked through the
building itself, maybe taking the elevator to the top, he could’ve counted them up properly. But he’d
walked through a doorway instead, one he’d opened between dimensions, using a half-piece of chalk.
Its the shit like that that kept him from being nervous about falling fifty-plus stories.
He was waiting. Behind him, a huge, golden sphere sat, centered on the rooftop. It was a symbol
of the work done inside the building. The work that manifested as the voice, although a somewhat
quieter one, of the city’s people. A newspaper, editorial-heavy and as biased as any other paper. It
had the conceit to believe it was speaking for the entire planet, which is where it got its name.
The globe had been recently defaced. Red paint, still dripping in some places, marred the icon in a
bold script. It just had two words. “I’m here.”
He played with the nozzle on the can.
Air whizzed past his head. Stronger than a normal gust of wind, even at this height. A quick eye
would’ve seen the blur, a red and blue slash of colour cutting through the skyline, hurtling towards the
globe. It stopped instantly, ignoring the laws of things like gravity, inertia, common sense in general.
The man that stood there, more of an icon than the sphere, the building, even the whole city, wasn’t
subject to those laws.
“You could’ve picked a different calling card,” he said. It wasn’t a deep voice. It was
commanding, perhaps regal, but it could’ve just as easily been from a janitor or some lame reporter as
from Earth’s greatest hero. “I’m not partial to graffiti.”
Cheyne stood, not stepping away from the ledge. Even with the foot of concrete under him, he
still only came up to the man’s chin.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “Don’t have my signal watch with me.” Joke. Bad. No sign of
amusement.
“I figured we should talk,” he continued. “It’s bound to happen sooner or later. Everyone wants
a cross-over. Forty-eight pages, no ads, sickly overpriced.” He reached into his jacket, pulled out a
box of Camels. He started packing them on his opposite hand. “I thought I’d save us the time. It
takes forever to get those contracts worked out, and then they always have some hack writing it.”
He broke the seal on the pack, pulled one out and popped it into his mouth. He looked at his guest
in askance. “Light?” He expected a shot of heat vision, but just got a shake of the head. After more
digging in the jacket pocket, he found a matchbook, two left inside. “Just my luck,” he muttered,
looking back at the new pack.
“I still don’t understand your reasoning for coming here. Obviously, you want attention of some
sort. Why mine?”
He exhaled. “Good question. Really.” He started walking around the edge of the building, in a
pacing sort of way. Cigarettes don’t necessarily calm everyone down. “And I don’t want you to
think I was just looking to piss you off or anything like that. I mean, I’m not a complete asshole.
But...
He sat down again. “I just needed to talk. To you, or to somebody like you.”
The man gave him a hard stare, the kind that seems to last longer than the day when you’re under
it. Then he relaxed his gaze, and his stance a little.
“Okay,” he said, “it’s your dime.”
“I don’t know if I can do it.” It had taken him two minutes until he could even say anything. His
first cig was going. He pulled a new one out and lit it off the one still in his mouth. He started to
throw the dying one over the edge, then turned a guilty look at the man next to him. He snuffed it and
put it in his other pocket, hoping he’d remember to clean it out later.
“What don’t you know?”
“You know. This ‘hero’ thing. I look at myself, and this role I’ve landed myself in, and I think,
‘What a bunch of crap!’”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, you know,” he frowned, feeling incredibly stupid. “I don’t mean for you. I mean, look at
you. You’ve been at this for longer than I’ve been alive. You can move fucking planets, you fly. You’
re from outer space, for Christ’s sake. I don’t even have x-ray vision. I’m from Michigan, and I live
in my parents’ basement. You do the math.”
“So,” the man said grimly, “you think you can’t be a hero because you haven’t got a superpower?”
“CHRIST!” Cheyne yelled. “Do you really believe I’d think it was that cut and dry? Of course it’
s not about powers... but then, you know what, maybe it sort’ve is.”
“I don’t think...”
“Now hold on and listen. Think about it. You’re not a normal person. You didn’t just wake up
one day with this cape hanging out the back of your neck. You were born on another planet. You
rocketed through space in some pod-thing, crash-landed in farm country, and maybe you were raised
like you were human. But you’re not. What if this code you have, the thing that let’s you pull off all
the shit you do, and the ideals you have to not use it for getting laid or something else just as devious...
maybe that’s in your Krypto-DNA or something. Maybe you’re just better than us at everything, not
just stopping bullets with your chest and picking up Winnebegos and all that crap.
“And maybe Batman’s just a psycho who doesn’t see how hopeless it all is, and Wonder Woman
is blessed by the gods, and Aquaman’s got this little fish in his ear telling him what to do.
“And maybe it works for all of you, but that doesn’t mean it works for me. I’m scared, and I’m
stupid, and all I ever seem to do is fuck things up for everybody, and... and... Are you laughing at
me?”
“I’m... I’m sorry,” he gasped. He was actually holding his stomach. “It’s just... Arthur... with
a.. a fish.. in his ear...” There was a low roar, and finally the laughter just seemed to erupt out of
him. At first, Cheyne found it disconcerting. Then, eventually, he let himself go enough to join in.
“So, you don’t think you’re good enough to be a superhero.” They were both sitting with their
feet over the edge now. Of course, he could’ve stood up and walked right away from the building,
never falling an inch. “Do you know haw many pep talks I’ve had to give to kids like you? How
Green Lantern, or the Titans, or Superboy have each come up to me and said the same things?
“Why do you really think I do it? And it’s not because I’m an alien. And I hope I’m not a
psycho.”
Cheyne kept his face towards the ground, as far away as that was from him. “I suppose you just
think you’ll make a difference. That whole, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ thing.” He
paused. “Oh wait, isn’t that Spider-..”
“Not the point, but you’re half right.” He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “There is a great
responsibility that we, especially people in my position, hold. To make the world a better place. To
help people. But I’ve known men, women, and even children that, with no powers, no extraordinary
abilities, give themselves completely to that vision. Its up to every person to make this world a better
place. Some of us take that much more seriously than others.”
“And you’re saying that’s what I should do.”
“No, I’m not. You’ve got something inside of you, perhaps a voice or hope, or guilt, that is
asking you to make that decision. I couldn’t give you that. And I couldn’t ask it of you.
“There are a lot of days when I feel as though people aren’t getting it. Sometimes, being the
strongest man on Earth, I feel like I need to shoulder all the responsibilities myself. Sometimes I feel
alone.” Cheyne looked at him, wondering if it was a lie, something just to make it sound like they had
some sort of connection to each other. If it was, he couldn’t see it in the man’s eyes.
“But, you know, if that was how it was, maybe I would feel different. Or maybe not. All I know
is that, I go out and I try to do the right thing, and that allows me to live with myself.”
“And when you screw up? I mean, do you screw up?”
“Well,” he said, “I died once. I saw an entire city destroyed. I’ve watched friends die.”
“been there...”
“And that’s just a small part of it. It’s not always fair, and we’re not always going to understand.
There are some cruelties that I can’t even comprehend, people filled with such a seething hatred.” It
was hard to tell, but Cheyne suddenly felt like maybe the man was a lot more human that he’d
originally thought he was. “You can’t fix everything. But you also can’t walk around with a self-
defeatist attitude that you won’t make a difference, or that you’ll only make things worse. Tomorrow
may bring you everything you’ve ever wanted. The day after that, you may die horribly in some tragic
way.
“Which one would you rather focus on?”
Cheyne had let his cigarette go out without lighting a new one. He pulled out his last match and
struck it on the outside of the pack. The wind blew it out directly.
“Damn,” he cursed. “Okay, I guess that’s all for me then. I can only think about this shit if I’ve
got a smoke.” He stood up and started heading back to the wall he’d walked in through.
“Did this change anything for you?” He’d stood also. He looked like the big, blue-and-red god
again, the cape blowing in the breeze, all amazing. The icon. It almost didn’t seem as ridiculous
anymore.
“I dunno’.” He pulled the chalk out, started tracing out the familiar pattern. “Maybe. Hey, you
know, maybe you could walk through sometime and come see. I’ll leave this here for you.” He
started to open the door.
“Wait a second.” He pointed up at the globe. “Aren’t you forgetting. You have a little clean-up to
do.”
“Oh, naw... It’s water soluble paint. It’ll go in the next rain, which,” small droplets started to
come down, “should be any time now.” He had a grin, like he planned it all along. The man wasn’t
sure that that wasn’t the case.
“I’ll see you around,” he waved. The door closed behind him.
The rain came down heavier. He watched the globe. The words stayed their place, ever-defiant.
He picked up the can, read the back. It said nothing about being water-soluble.
He looked over at the wall. The chalk had quickly washed away. There was no door.
Big, red letters on the globe.
“I’m here.”
A second city; this one also had a voice. It was not a scream, although it may once have been.
Now, it was more like the whimper of a frightened child in the night, alone in the house, with no one
to hear.
No one, except one man.
A door opened from a wall that had no door. The roof was a gothic nightmare. Gargoyles, their
mouths water spouts, spitting out the buckets of rainwater that smelled heavily of old sewage. There
were fires down the street, randomly set. Smoke was so thick in the air, even the rain couldn’t wash
it out.
A figure came through the door. He just stood there, unsure how far out of it he wanted to step.
Carefully, he came to the center of the roof.
The shadows around him came to some sort of life. What looked to be a demon of pure darkness
emerged from them, the light too fearful to shine directly upon it. It flowed, not walked, to the figure
from the doorway. When it was ready to be recognized, it spoke.
“What. Do. You. Want.”
“BLA-!” screamed the boy. “I... Jeesh! You might want to let a guy know... Uh...” He looked
at the bat-shaped demon. He knew that wasn’t what it was, but it was hard to argue with the image
standing before you.
“I’m... I’m Kaln.” He stuck out his hand. It sat there, in the empty air, for a moment. Then he
slowly withdrew it. “Anyways, I... God, you’re creepy!”
Silence.
“Okay... Anyways, I wanted to ask you something. My friend, Cheyne.... well, he and I go way
back. And I said, ‘Man, if you’re gonna’ get to do a cross-over, then I’m gonna’ get to do one, right?”
Nothing.
“Um... Right. Shoulda’ asked for Supergirl. My bad. But... I just wanted to, you know, ask
you...”
“What?”
“Uh... you know, it’s not an easy thing to ask...”
“WHAT?”
Kaln rubbed his chin.
“Where can I get a cape like that?”
Talking To Heroes, © C. Christian Scott, 1999