About a week after my tumble with Nuke, I was coming home from my summer class at the Arbor State Extension and passing the church, hoping perhaps to get another glimpse of the man with the stretchy arm. A white van had just pulled into the church parking lot with a New York license plate. The brake lights went out, the engine shut off, and the side passenger door opened. An orange, fur-covered arm had pushed it open; then, a leg that looked more animal than human stepped out. Long, shiny saber teeth protruded from the mouth of the enormous tiger-man that appeared. He wore long shorts, a tank top, and tennis shoes.
“Soren!” I called out. “What are you guys doing here?!”
Soren Sneed, the megahero I’d met in New York known as Sabersnag, turned, claws out, glaring at me for an instant. When he saw it was me, he relaxed.
“Clarissa!” he said with relief. “You startled me. For a second, I thought someone had followed us from the east.”
I ran to Soren and gave him a big hug as the others clambered out of the car. Dana Dorman, who’d been driving, climbed out of her side of the van. She wore jeans, a T-shirt, and a denim jacket—not her usual black-leather microkini. Her spikey Mohawk and studded leather headband—and her pure, white eyes—were the only markers that gave her away as the dominatrix-megahero Domina.
“How are you, Clarissa?” she said, almost smiling came around the parked vehicle. “Sorry, we’re a bit jumpy. When you’re on the lam, and you can’t be too careful.” She looked around glumly at the turn-of-the-century architecture of the North Cass neighborhood. “I don’t suppose anyone will think to look for the Y+Thems in this town.”
The van’s side door slid open, and out hopped Kavanaugh “Kav” Kleinfelter, the slender, long-haired, tele-empathic hairdresser of the group. Nicknamed “Tempy,” his full, sensuous mouth stood out on his chiseled face, no doubt because he was fully made up, with lipstick, mascara, and eye shadow. Even though he wore a baseball jersey and jeans for the road trip, he looked like a refugee from a heavy metal hair band. “Hope you don’t mind a bunch of freakish permutations as neighbors, Clarissa,” he said.
Kav turned to help out Beatrice “Kiddo” Bryson, the teen mascot of the group, who had given birth since I had last seen her over the winter. She cradled a quiet, sleeping infant in her arms.
“Meet Benjamin Franklin Phloog,” Kiddo whispered to me. “The son of the Golden Age Megaton Man—nine pounds, five ounces.” Kiddo was dressed in a polyester jogging suit. Slimmed down now after her delivery, she looked even younger than when I saw her before—no more than her sixteen or seventeen year of age. “Born January 24, 1983.”
I looked at the tiny, sleeping baby in her arms, his head covered in orange-brown hair. This was the cousin of the Megaton Man I knew—Trent Phloog—which made the little bundle the second cousin of Simon, the three-year-old son of Megaton Man and the See-Thru Girl, a child I sorely missed back in Ann Arbor. And, unless I missed my guess, Ben Franklin Phloog was also a relative of some kind to me.
“He’s so quiet,” I said. “Any problems?”
“Doctor Quimby said not to worry until he reaches his Terrible Twos,” said Kiddo, all the while beaming at her darling child. “Until then, he’s going to grow up a Michigander.”
“Doctor Quimby!” growled Sabersnag. “We left New York to be rid of Professor Rex Rigid and that whole megahero scene. Megahero teams—phooey!”
“You’re not just visiting?” I asked. “The Y+Thems are here in Detroit permanently?”
“We were getting tired of truck-stop motels and barns in Lancaster county and basement hideouts,” said Tempy. “We figured in the Midwest, we could have some kind of life where we weren’t hiding all the time.”
I remembered that, although the Unwieldy Y+Them were individually some of the most awesomely powered megaheroes in the world, they were a young team, still in training. Who their enemies could be, I couldn’t imagine, but I was certain their fears of being hunted by unknown adversaries were well-founded.
Just then, the door of the church’s side building opened. My sister Avie burst out, waving as she stepped out on the elevated platform. “Hey, guys!” she called. “Hey, Clarissa!” She ran down the wheelchair-accessible side ramp. “Good—you can help us move their stuff in!”
Avril James was the last person I’d expected to see pop out of the church, but it made sense—she knew the Y+Thems from our trip to the old Navy Yard in Brooklyn.
“Avie?” I said. “Let me guess—you convinced the Y+Thems to relocate to Detroit.”
“I told you the church has live-in caretakers,” said Avie. “The residence has been a commune since the sixties, with very slow turnover in residents. A bunch of long-time residents left at the start of the summer, with only one holdover remaining; suddenly, the church needed a whole new commune, wholesale. This guy was impressed with my application, but told me I needed to find four more candidates I could vouch for. That’s when I heard from Tempy; I told him all about the First Holistic-Humanist Congregation of Cass City.”
“It sounded ideal,” said Tempy. “But when you’re calling from a payphone along the Pennsylvania turnpike, anything sounds good.”
“Anyway,” said Avie, “here they are.”
I didn’t need to be reminded of the awful dormitory rooms in that awful converted building that served as the Y+Thems headquarters when Avie and I visited them in New York. Nor did I have to be reminded of the awful management that left the predatory Human Meltdown in charge of the nascent team. The Meltdown—Chuck Roast, Stella’s ne’er-do-well half-brother—attempted to rape Avie, and I had to kick his ass over the Bay of New York. I was glad to hear the team had decided to cut ties with Rex Rigid—Liquid Man—and Bad Guy, the team’s underwriters, and that Chuck Roast, who’d returned to France, was completely out of the picture. But I had misgivings about the Y+Thems moving into the church residence—where the deal was they’d serve as watchmen for the church in exchange for living in a cramped, communal space—especially with my civilian little half-sister—only two doors down from the off-campus apartment I rented on West Forest.
I wanted to pull Avie aside and voice my concerns, but Domina had already opened the back doors of the van and the other Y+Thems began unloading suitcases, bags, and cardboard boxes. Reluctantly, I pitched in to started carry stuff up the ramp to the residence.
But before I could grab an armful, a fifth figure appeared around the van, wheeling a hand truck. He was a tall man—in fact, elongated—and dark-skinned, with a short Afro. He smiled, and I instantly recognized his as the stretchy groundskeeper I had spotted the day I’d moved from Ann Arbor; he had come out of a side door of the church.
“I come with the property, I’m afraid,” he said. “I’m the last holdover from the old communal group. Jasper Johnson’s the name, but you can call me Rubber Brother.”
He wrapped his elongated arms around several suitcases like rubber bands and set them onto the hand truck. He then took the stuff I was holding off my hands and piled it on top.
“What’s the matter, girly?” Jasper said to me. “Never seen a Malleable before?”
“A what?” I said.
“Haven’t you two been introduced?” asked Avie. “I thought you would have run into each other before now. Jasper, I’d like you to meet my sister, Clarissa James. Sissy, I’d like you to meet Motown’s own Malleable.”
“Sure, I’ve seen you around,” said Rubber Brother, extending his hand on the end of a serpentine, rubber arm to shake mine. “Chemical accident in a latex factory,” he explained. “Liquid Man had a similar mishap—technically, he’s a Malleable, too, although he’s more sloshy than stretchy. That’s how I got to know these here Y+Thems, from going back and forth to New York all the time.”
We hauled the belongings of the transplanted Y+Thems up the ramp and into the residence, but we still had to cart them up three flights of stairs to the residence on the top floor, making four trips each. I wasn’t using my megapowers, so I was pooped when we were finished—they packed a lot into that van, and it took us three trips—even more than when I had made my own move from Ann Arbor back to Detroit.
After we were done, we all crammed into the church residence’s tiny, outdated, but clean little kitchen of the residence and sat around a big, wooden kitchen table that was clearly too big for it. Avie had pulled out some chilled cans of pop from the refrigerator and was handing them around to us—which as timely, because we were thirsty. Not only were we sweaty from our exertions; our body heat was making the residence stifling, and there was no air conditioning and little in the way of ventilation. Tempy went through all the rooms and opened a few windows, and turned on a box fan.
Kiddo, meanwhile, whipped out her preternaturally swollen tit and began nursing her infant. Benjamin Franklin Phloog, who sucked contentedly without opening his eyes or even seeming to wake up. No one except me seemed to find this open display even slightly remarkable. “This is going to be quite an intimate little commune,” I said.
Rubber Brother downed his pop in nearly one gulp. “Ain’t you a megahero, too?” he asked me, wiping his mouth on the back of his rubbery arm. He looked me up and down, his head craning on an elevated, rubbery neck. “That’s right—you’re Ms. Megaton—I’ve heard about you. But, you’re such a little girl.”
“Ms. Megaton Man,” I said, correcting him. “And I’m not that little; I’ve grown three inches in the past couple years. Maybe it’s just your aerial view.”
“Ms. Megaton would be better,” said Jasper. “It’s short and sweet—better suits a little ol’ thing like you. ‘Sides, you don’t need to remind folks of bygone days.”
Avie, who’d been trying to get me to drop the “Man” for some time, chimed in. “See? I told you. Ms. Megaton needs to cast off her male subjugation.”
“Clarissa tougher than she looks, by whatever name,” said Soren. “Ms. Megaton Man beat the snot out of the Human Meltdown—practically spilling his highly radioactive, pyroclastic protoplasm all over the Eastern Seaboard.”
“Clarissa’s tough, all right,” added Dana, nodding solemnly in affirmation. “I wouldn’t want to be the first major megavillain who tangles with her.” She smirked and winked at me lasciviously. “Anyway, I’m glad we’ll be neighbors. I’m looking forward to getting to know Ms. Megaton Man better.”
“I have two grown daughters and an ex-wife that keep me on my toes,” said Jasper. “I have a healthy respect for strong women.”
“How long have you lived here?” I asked. Even accounting for the separate bedrooms and shower-stall bathroom, the entire church residence was hardly bigger than my studio apartment. For six full-grown adults, not to mention a baby on the way…”
“I’m used to it,” Jasper replied. “Been here since 1978, so let’s see…that’s five years.” He explained that since the accident that transformed him into Rubber Brother, he had traveled back and forth to New York several times, working short stints with different megahero teams. “The Devengers, the X+Thems before they became the Y+Thems, the Bronx Bombers—even the Teen Idols, before they disappeared into that quasi-dimension. None of them have turned into a permanent gig, unfortunately. But what’s nice is I can leave my stuff here and not have to vacate an apartment every time. Besides, this is about as cramped as New York, so when I go back there, I’m not spoiled from having too much space back in Detroit, nor am I encumbered with a lot of possessions.”
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“Teen Idols?” I said, noting the thinning hairline and wrinkles around Rubber Brother’s eyes. “Aren’t you a little long in the tooth to be considered a teen?”
“Some of them Teen Idols are immortal, assuming they’re still alive,” said Jasper. “Leastwise, they considered me a young buck. ‘Sides, Ganymede Gal is pushing fifty, and that ain’t no gal.”
“I happen to know she’s had some work done,” Tempy whispered.
“I don’t care if I ever go back to New York,” said Soren, scowling darkly. “I’m through with megaheroics, and Megatropolis—forever.” The other Y+Thems nodded in agreement.
There was no need to question why they chose to leave New York. After what I had witnessed there, it seemed obvious enough. The team had been poorly run; the facilities—except for the Devastation Chamber, which was state-of-the-art—were shabby and rundown; the living and working conditions were entirely dangerous, if not fatal. Nor did it seem odd that they would connect with Avie, a non-megapowered civilian. Jasper, with his frequent trips back and forth to New York, sounded a lot like Avie’s friends in the theater world, who would get up the nerve and take a stab at the Big Apple—only to return months or even mere weeks later, their enthusiasm dashed. Then, after a spell, they’d, only to come back more discouraged than before. Chewed up and spit out, as the saying goes—breaking into acting or megaheroics were both tough, I thought.
Yet the Midwest seemed like it was going to be a big adjustment for the Y+Thems, native New Yorkers who were exiled more or less against their will. Detroit was urban, but nothing compared to Manhattan—a Megatropolis in the most superlative sense of the word.
I looked around the cramped kitchen at the three men and three women—including my sister—who would now be watching over the First Holistic-Humanist Church of Detroit, and also be my neighbors.
Avie must has seen the skepticism in my expression. She leaned over and whispered to me, “It’s just like the troupe of performers I organized when we came out to Ann Arbor for the street fair. Remember? We all lived in your basement, no problem.”
“That was only for a night or two, Avie,” I whispered back. “Now you’re going to be living in close quarters with five Youthful Permutations”—I was generously including Rubber Brother under that umbrella term—“not to mention a megapowered baby. We’ll see how that works out.
Sure enough, before the week was out, Avie was over at my apartment, sprawled on my bed, venting her pent-up complaints about her roommates while I cooked up some chili-mac.
“Those guys are unbelievable,” she said. “Kav—Tempy—has his beauty supplies and hairsprays and stuff all over the place, he’s forever fussing with my hair—”
“Your hair does look good,” I said. “Never better.”
“Thanks,” said Avie, running her fingers through her lustrous tresses; she always responds to flattery. “But I still hope he gets some clients soon—he’s made me over five times. And then there’s Soren—Sabersnag—do you know, he actually uses a litterbox? And he’s no little kitty—he’s a grown tiger-man, and those are some big turds that pile up, let me tell you.”
I cringed at the thought. “Please, Avie. I’m fixing dinner.”
“And that horrid little baby,” said Avie. “He cries all the time—”
“I told you so, Avie,” I said, stirring the macaroni. “Roommates aren’t easy to adjust to.”
“And if I see any of her milk in the refrigerator—she has one of those pump things and milks herself, then keeps it in old mayonnaise jars—I swear to God, I’m going to puke.”
I winced. “Dana hasn’t tried to put the moves on you, has she?” I asked. “She’s the one I’d keep an eye on.”
“I’m too fat for her taste,” said Avie, a little hurt, I thought. “You weren’t worried about that, were you? Living with a lesbian and two gay guys? I can handle myself. You’ve been known to have your same-sex flings yourself, you know. How do you know I’m not hooking up with your magenta-haired art student, Nancy, behind your back?”
“I’d be fine with you and Nancy,” I said. “I have qualms about Dana, though. She’s too domineering.”
“Look at what she had to put up with,” said Avie. “That sexual predator Chuck Roast. And she had the others to look out for, too. She’s very protective of the whole group, especially Kiddo.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. “Honestly, I’m more concerned about Kiddo’s baby, being he’s the son of the Golden Age Megaton Man and all—not to mention whatever kind of megapowers Kiddo has.” Avie and I had both watched in horror and Kiddo repel the automated onslaught of the Devastation Chamber, training room of the Y+Thems, with a simple, impenetrable force field, while still pregnant with Benjamin Franklin Phloog. “I’ll admit, he’s a very well-behaved child, but if he should throw a tantrum, you could all be in grave danger. And if the church’s insurance company knew—hoo-boy! You’d all be out on your asses in a second.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time around Simon,” Avie reminded me. “He’s the son of megaheroes, too. He hasn’t exactly destroyed Ann Street.”
“Simon Phloog underwent some mysterious treatment administered by Doctor Quimby,” I said, referring to Professor Rex Rigid, otherwise known as Liquid Man and Stella’s ex-husband. “Do you know if little Ben Franklin has?”
“I don’t know about any treatments,” said Avie, rubbing her sleepy eyes. “All I know is he cries a lot—all night long. I’m not saying Kiddo is a neglectful mother, but she could sleep through a thermonuclear war. One night, out of sheer desperation, I stuck my own tit in his mouth, just to see if that would keep him quiet.”
“You’re not nursing,” I said. “Did it work?”
“He nearly chomped my nipple off,” said Avie, rubbing her left breast. “That little fucker bites hard. He’s teething. Last time I try wet-nursing.”
“How’s Jasper?” I asked. “I mean, as a roommate?” To be honest, I was most concerned about my little sister living with an older man.
“Oh, Rubber Brother is very flexible.” Then, Avie laughed at her own inadvertent joke. “He’s a Malleable, after all. He doesn’t mind the baby; he gets along with everyone.”
“I don’t mean with the baby,” I said. “I mean, he doesn’t bother you, does he?”
“He’s a perfect gentleman,” said Avie. “You heard him—he’s got two grown daughters himself, and he expects to be a grandfather soon. I guess that’s why he’s used to babies.”
“Yeah, well you gotta watch those older guys,” I said.
Avie giggled. “I think he likes you; he told me he thought you were pretty.”
“That didn’t upset you?” I demanded.
“Why? What’s the problem?” asked Avie. “You did it with Yarn Man, like it was going out of style. And Bing Gloom was part of the Norman Conquest, for Christ’s sakes.” She spotted my marked-up copy of Pamela Jointly’s Megamusings on the milk-crate shelf, and pulled it down. “Why, is it because Jasper is a black man?”
“Avie, put that book down,” I snapped. “I’ve made notes in it I’m going to give to Pammy.”
“Must have hit a nerve,” said Avie, still leafing through the book.
“It just so happens I’m seeing a black man,” I said. I didn’t mention the fact that Samson “Body by Nuke” McSampson was some years my senior, or that it had been only a torrid one-night stand. “I’m no Oreo.”
“I never said you were,” she Avie, horrified. “I would never use such an ugly term, least of all on my sister. All the same, you don’t like it when I date black men; admit it—you never liked any of my black boyfriends.”
“That’s not true,” I protested. “I liked Zephyr.”
“The one who turned out to be gay,” said Avie. “Figures.”
I began to imagine skinny Jasper Johnson and massive Samson McSampson getting all possessive and wrangling over me; then, my thoughts turned to what a Malleable could do erotically with all those stretchy parts.
“This is some pretty personal stuff you’ve penciled in the margins about Trent and Stella,” said Avie. “You sure you want to pass it along to Pammy? She’s a writer, you know; she’s likely to include it in her next book.”
“I want her to see the human side of the what she’s writing about,” I said. “Megaheroes aren’t just sociological abstractions—we’re people, too.”
“But wouldn’t Pammy have seen all the same stuff, living in the same house as you guys for two years?”
“I’m sure Pammy made her own observations,” I said. “But she was busy teaching and traveling a lot toward the end; maybe she wasn’t privy to everything I saw. I just want her to have a fuller understanding of the megahero lifestyle—she’s only a civilian, after all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m a civilian, too,” said Avie, hurt. “I can empathize. My half-sister’s a megahero—I live with a whole commune of ‘em.”
“Maybe you should write a book.”
“If I did, they’d kill me,” said Avie. She gasped and made whistling sounds as she continued to read though my marginalia. “Do you have to go into such lurid detail about their screwed-up sex lives?” she asked. “Stella and her pint-sized Martian lover before she moved to Ann Street? Trent getting handjobs from the hippie chick at the bookstore after Stella gives birth to his love child? Even I wouldn’t go that far. I’m sure it will make for fascinating reading, but think about baby Simon—he’s going to grow up and read it someday.”
“I know I’m probably just wasting my time,” I said, turning off the stove burner, “thinking that a professional reporter and published author like Pamela Jointly would find my amateur remarks of any interest. After all, she writes about politics and social commentary and big idea stuff—she’s not going to be interested in torrid soap opera. But what else will we have to talk about, if not what I thought about her book? I just wanted to give her my two cents. I don’t know; maybe I got carried away. But I want to be prepared you know? As for Simon, I wish my real father had left me some kind of documentary record—even if it was only notes scrawled in the margins of a coverless comic book.”
“Pammy’s a reporter,” said Avie. “She uses other people’s life stories as raw material for her own writing. All I’m saying is your two cents might not look so good in print by the time she’s through with it.”
“I’m a friend,” I said. “Pammy wouldn’t use my second-hand observations verbatim. Which reminds me, I have to make photocopies.” I walked over to the bed. “Here, gimme that, nosy.”
Avie reluctantly handed over my copy of Megamusings. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said, rolling over on my bed and gazing up at the garret’s angled ceiling.
I tucked it into my school bag on the drawing table. “Avie, I’m just concerned about you,” I said. “The fall semester hasn’t even begun yet, and my little sister is already having a Youthful Permutation roommate crisis.”
“Oh, it’s no crisis,” said Avie, climbing off the bed. She joined me in the kitchen and grabbed the strainer from on top of a cabinet. She set it in the sink while I put on my oven. “It’s kind of fun, seeing how mundane all your megahero lives really are.”
I took the pot off the stove and dumped the water and pasta into the strainer.
“I suppose you can always move back home with Mama and Daddy,” I said, taking off the mitts, “if the pressure cooker in the First Holistic-Humanist Congregation residence proves to be too much. Just take the bus up and down Woodward Avenue—it’s a short hop.”
“Mama and Daddy are getting a divorce,” said Avie, matter-of-factly, as the steam rose from the draining macaroni.
Avie had said this as calmly as if she were talking about the weather, but I almost dropped my pasta ladle. “Mama and Daddy are what?”
I was glad I’d taken the macaroni off the stove before Avie dropped this bombshell—I certainly would have overcooked it. As it was, it almost grew cold in the time it took me to get Avie to spill everything she knew. To say I was astonished was an understatement; I’d been living on West Forest for barely six weeks, and I hadn’t noticed any unusual tension between my parents during my regular Sunday dinner visits.
“What do you mean, coming over here on the pretense of complaining about your roommate problems, then nonchalantly mentioning Mama and Daddy are getting a divorce, like it was no big thing?”
“Cray Bellisle’s got a little something on the side,” said Avie, resignedly. “It’s that Cajun animal magnetism—Lord knows, I got it. Mama’s suspected for a while; then a friend of hers spotted Daddy’s truck outside a motel in Dearborn, right smack in the middle of the day.”
“You sure he wasn’t doing some extra contracting work?” I said, grasping at straws.
“Oh, he was fixing something, all right,” said Avie. Her face expressed no emotion, but I sensed she had already done a lot of crying over this. “I heard them arguing over it last week. I’m not saying the old homestead is going up for sale right away, but let’s face it—with you and me all grown up now, there’s nothing exactly to keep them together.”
I resisted the urge to order my little sister to go back home right this very instant to keep my ancestral home intact. But she was right. After raising two daughters and remodeling the house, I couldn’t think of any mutual interests Mama and Daddy truly shared. Tears welled up in my eyes.
“You’re letting the pasta get cold,” said Avie. I was too busy toweling my eyes, so Avie grabbed the can of beanless chili and can opener. “The way I figure, they might as well go their separate ways than stay miserable together. They’ll both be in wheelchairs and iron lungs soon enough.”
Avie put the macaroni back into the pot and stirred the can or chili into it. Then she got the grated cheese out of the refrigerator. She set out two bowls onto the old, fifties kitchen table and filled them. We sat with bowls of chili mac on the rug on the floor of my studio apartment.
“I’ve got to find out who this homewrecker is who’s coming between Mama and Daddy,” I said. “This is a job for Ms. Megaton Man.”
“What are you going to do when you find her, Sissy? Beat her up?” Avie shook the grated cheese violently over her chili mac. “Face, they’re adults. We’re adults. This is our grown-up life.”
She shoved a heaping spoonful of chili-and-Parmesan-covered macaroni into her mouth.