....“Russ,” says Mike, “you can’t fly right now. But you can build your wings again. Or even better, build a new set. Metri’ll help you. And if you need stuff, your aunt’s filthy rich, remember? I could have the cook or someone else buy you your stuff when they go on shopping trips. And if you need stuff that you can’t get at the local hardware store? No problem! I’ve got friends in construction. You’d be surprised how much stuff just goes missing from a construction site alla time.”

I thought for a bit. “That’s real nice, Mike.”

“You bet it is. Russ, when my girl dumped me a while back for a guy whose dad owned a grocery store, I thought I was gonna die. Couldn’t even look at another girl for maybe six months or more. But a buddy of mine brought me to this thing at the Emporium, and whammo, girls all over the place. Met a nice one, danced with her all night, and I was back in business. For you right now, your wings are your girl. And you need a new girl. You know?”

Yeah, Mike was a good fella. Oh, did I make new wings? Hell, yeah! I took a day, one day, to feel bad for myself. And then the next morning after that? I was up bright and early and at the drawing board, Metri looking over my shoulder and giving me advice where and when and what and how. Mike was bringing home parts soon, from garages where stuff just ‘fell off the backs of a truck’ if Lulu the cook couldn’t get them on her grocery outings.

It took another six months, but since I still had a lot of my notes, it took a lot less time to design, put together and test from start to finish. That’s why when I see or hear about some cape saying they were a one-man band I just wanna laugh in their faces. Maybe if you were some kind of billionaire you could do it, or if you were just one guy or gal with a costume and a few fighting skills. But really? Even then you’d be hiring out folks to build or fix your gadgets, or counting on someone to bail you out if a fight went bad. Or fix your costume if it got tears in it from the latest freak who thought a mask and a fancy knife made him a supervillain. Even if you’re some kind of karate-chopping whiz-kid, they’re gonna get their licks in, especially if they’ve got minions of their own.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Six months later, I had my new set. Jane, honey, it just looked lovely. I coulda cried. When I took them out for their first run, they were all silver and steel, polished and shiny. I’d only had pop’s little out-back-shack to make my first set, and that’d been only one-room with a wooden table and a few tools. But at my aunt and uncle’s place? A whole workshop, with tools that let me do in a few minutes what sometimes took me a week to do back in Fort Orlan. That, plus I had an experienced mechanic to help…only after a while I realized he was ‘way more than a mechanic. The fellow knew a lot, and when I asked him why he’d moved here from Greece he just stayed quiet and smiled.

Well, fine with me. I had my new wings, and I flew again. I won’t bore you any more with the details- I flew, the papers yelled again, and the Airman tried to rip them off my back again. But this time, Jane, I was ready! Whenever I could, I flew with my back to the sun and close to the ground. Why? Yep, sounds a little odd, I know. But one thing I’d learned about the Airman was that when something worked, he liked to keep doing it that way. I gambled that he’d try the ole’ sneak-up-from-behind thing again, and I was right! Soon enough, I saw his shadow behind me, but I waited until I saw his hands go up to clap me on the back again.

See, I had it all in my head. He had no right at that point to attack me. None. I probably shoulda sued him after the first time he beat me up, but you know, it was a Depression thing, wasn’t it? Take care of your own problems. Besides, I’d been raised on stories of corrupt cops and courts. It was the ‘Forties, nuh? No chance I was gonna get the Airman to do time or pay me back for wrecking my life, even if all I’d done was flip a few hats and get my head caved in by a lady with a brick in her purse.

But I did figure that if he came at me again, when all I was doing was minding my business, flying, then I had a right to defend myself.

And when I saw he was reaching out to take me down, I was ready. I’d been practicing the move I was gonna make so much I could almost do it in my sleep. And when he was about six feet away, I did a quick, sharp bank, turning all at once so I was flying pointed at the Airman, but slanted so I flew just below him. I also tipped sideways so my left wingtip was pointing up in the air, and my right wingtip pointed down at the ground.

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My goal wasn’t to kill the poor guy; I just wanted to slice up his pretty little leather jacket a bit. Most bullies don’t stop unless you give them a damn good reason to back off, and I thought that’d be it. But me? Did I know how a super would take that? Nope. See, a normal bully figures it out, and tries to beat you up a couple times more. If that doesn’t work, then he’ll either be your friend or he’ll have to try and wreck you as publicly as possible.

But a super being a villain’s friend? Nope. That just wasn’t in the cards then.

Now, in literally one fell swoop (never figured out what that meant, other than something that happened real quick and changed everything), I went from a public nuisance to a hardened, stone cold killer. Even though all I did was slice open his jacket and shirt, drew a little blood off of his chest, and cut his belt. He was saved that embarrassment literally by an inch or so, I figured out later. And really, it could’ve gone a lot, lot worse for him, if you get my meaning. I mean, another inch to the right and he coulda been talkin’ high the rest of his life. Not much stock in changing your name from The American Airman to The Flying Choirboy, now, is there? No seven year old boy is gonna bug his parents to buy him that kind of action figure at Christmas time, eh?

Well, you can guess how it ended. Except this time the Airman went all whacky on me, my wings, the whole bit. Blew his wig like no one ever saw before or since. He could maneuver way easier in the air than me, flying straight and zigzagging where I hadda move my wings and catch thermals and all the rest.

So, he caught me pretty damn quick. And just like before, he ripped the wings offa my back. But before he wrecked them this time, he thought he’d go all Jack Dempsy on me and try to punch me out. Lemme tell ya Jane, I ain’t never seen a guy so mad before or since as he was that day. His eyes, the snarl on his face- sure I was scared. If some weak kid in high school got put in the football QB’s crosshairs, you betcha that poor kid’s gonna get scared. And I was scared.

And you know what? At that moment I didn’t care. And you know what else? He wasn’t that great a knuckler, either. I mean, he was better than me, no doubt. But when I saw how he was after getting his precious jacket sliced up, I saw him different. He wasn’t this lantern-jawed, high cheek-boned demi god with waves in his perfect black hair, trading punches with a perfect one-liner with every blow he landed. He was every schoolyard kid I’d seen who’d taken a hit and gone all nutty as a fruitcake. He was just a guy, and I think he’d gotten too used to criminals just folding when he went after ‘em and didn’t know how to handle it when someone actually tried to fight back some way.

Anyway, he went into a total frenzy, screaming, wailing on me. I fought back best as I could, which wasn’t very good. But I did land a punch or two before he threw me down in some judo move he’d learned in the Air Force. I still remember how it felt against my knuckles when I hit one of those cheekbones of his. Remember, in real life, he wasn’t the handsome, perfect looking devil that you saw in the comics of the old black-and-white movie serials. When I landed that punch he seemed more stunned that someone would fight back than by the actual punch itself. He looked, for the first time to me, anyways, like just a normal guy. A regular guy, with a bigger-than-average nose and an Adam’s apple that was almost begging to get punched someday.

But when I landed that punch on his face, I shoulda followed up with a dozen more. Maybe I would’ve been the first guy to take down a super, hey? Instead, I got all scared and hesitated. Then the Airman looked at me again, and he got all sore again, and then he moved in and grabbed me, threw me down, and then stomped on me. Hard.

Oh, what? The American Airman, kicking a man while he’s down? Hell yeah. I’d taken my share of lumps and bumps, but I’d never had the wind knocked out of me before like that. I started to panic a bit, trying to suck in air and not being able to breathe.

And then, while I was trying to suck in air, the crowd formed- they always formed, again, just like in a schoolyard – everyone cheering the Airman, the hero of the hour, and looking at me like I was a fresh pile of manure that had been dumped in the street, and using cuss words if they said anything to me at all.

This time the coppers got me. I got hauled into my own paddy wagon while the Airman smashed my second set of wings into powder.

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TO BE CONTINUED...