I should probably mention that in my student days, especially when I wore my civilian clothes over my Ms. Megaton Man uniform, I was never anything to look at. I dressed down in the cooler months, September through May in Detroit. I wore jeans that were neither excessively baggy nor excessively tight; a baseball jersey, extra-large T-shirt, sweater, or school sweatshirt, depending on the weather; and a hoody, windbreaker, or baseball jacket over that. In really cold weather, I had a winter coat—kind of a weatherproof parka with a fake-fur hood. Oh, and I got an old army jacket just for kicks. I seldom wore makeup during the day, and I never wore my wavy, burgundy hair any special way other than sometimes pulled back in a ponytail. It wasn’t that I was necessarily going for the lesbian look—I never went in for plaid shirts and work boots, the de rigueur uniform of the brush-cut bull dyke; I just never wanted to attract sexual attention to myself when I was hoofing between my classes at the Arbor State Extension and Warren Woodward University campus. In a harsh city like Detroit, it seemed an eminently practical decision.
When I waited tables at the Union Station Restaurant, that was another matter. I couldn’t wear my Ms. Megaton Man uniform under my navy slacks, blue dress shirt, and apron, an outfit that was more form-fitting. I wore a bit more makeup—I wanted to earn tips, after all, not to be flirty. When I went out to the Bottleneck & Tie-Up Bar or Ty’s First Base, either alone or more usually with friends, I wore tight jeans, my French-cut WJZZ T-shirt, and a leather jacket Avie bought me. Nominally, the former was a leather lesbian biker bar and the latter was a regular bar, but as a practical matter I had picked up—as Gene would say—partners of both genders at both places. Although I didn’t think of hitting it off with someone as a pick-up. Call me a romantic.
When I was Ms. Megaton Man, Avie said I looked a foot taller; something about wearing the uniform my Grandma had manufactured must have given me better posture. And when I posed nude for Nancy—which I started to do again, although I still didn’t have the nerve to pose for Mrs. Lick-Thigh’s art class—the drawings made me look like a leggy goddess, which I’m not.
But my default daytime mode, like I said, could be completely self-effacing. When I was really dressed down, neither guys nor girls would ever give me a second look on the street, which was fine with me. Especially when I was in roll-out-of-bed-and-get-my-ass-to-class mode, I could really look like shit—which was more often than I care to say. Again, this was exactly the desired effect. At such times I was invisible, just a dumpy-looking black girl. In fact, once I went to the Detroit Fine Arts Museum, which is right across Farnsworth from the Arbor State Extension after a morning class, and the guard said, “Excuse me, sir, but we don’t allow chewing gum in the galleries.” He gave me a card with the gallery policy printed on it, and you’re supposed to spit out your gum and fold it up in the card. Even I said okay and did all that, he said, “Thank you, sir.” I don’t know what happens to those cards—maybe they save them.
So anyway, I could actually pass for a guy if I wanted to—that’s how dumpy and shitty I could look.
One day I dropped by the Union Station Restaurant to pick up my paycheck. I wasn’t working that day, so I wasn’t dressed up; I was even wearing my army jacket for added warmth. Rick, the manager, didn’t recognize me at first. I had to tell him that it was me, Clarissa, and that I wanted my paycheck. “Jeez, Clarissa, you look like a dog,” he said, before going downstairs to the office to get my check. Thanks, Rick.
After I put the check in my bank, which was right across the street on Woodward, I crossed again to the Big Bookstore, which was actually a hole-in-the wall used bookstore. I often went in there to search for coverless comic books and occasionally paperback novels for lit classes and so on. There was a section by the cash register reserved for used pornographic books and magazines—if you can imagine a used skin magazine. Ordinarily, I would never think of taking a peek at such material in a book store—for one thing, it was aimed at straight men. I never even owned a dirty magazine, although Avie, since she was a teenager, seemed to have a supply of it under her bed which I had perused to satisfy my curiosity. And I’m an attractive woman when I choose to be, so I’d be reluctant to draw that kind of attention from the other patrons of that section of the store.
However, on this day, there was no one in the section, and Bill, the bearded hippie behind the cash register, was absorbed in Kant or something. So, my pulse racing, I pushed open the little door and ventured in. Once I was in and caught my breath, I looked over the stock. On one side were shelves of vintage paperbacks—smutty stories with cheesy, line-drawn covers like The Cock-Tail Hour by Simone Clarendon, or Wife-Swapping Swingers by Milt Twining. On the other was a magazine rack with mass-circulation magazines—Playpen and Pent-Up and Hooker. There were also more hardcore magazines—the kind with no articles or advertising—with plenty of pictures and specializing in every kink or fetish or obsession imaginable.
I wasn’t interested in a literary experience, so I picked up a magazine. My heart was still thumping in my chest, and I was still shaking a little. I glanced out of the corner of my eye; Bill behind the counter was still reading Kant. Nervously, I flipped through the pages. “My God, this is degrading,” I blurted out loud. I looked again at the counter; Bill still hadn’t looked up.
I went up to the counter with a stack of four or five of the dirtiest magazines I had ever seen, let alone thought of owning—all clean copies that looked like they’d never been read, chock-full of color photographs of the most perverted heterosexual and girl-on-girl acts I’d ever seen. “Oh, hey, Clarissa,” said Bill. “I didn’t recognize you at first.” I expected him to ask me why I was buying these very explicit, hardcore pornographic magazines—I was prepared to say they were for a class paper I was writing in sociology, which was completely made up. But he only said, “Let’s see—that’ll be twelve dollars and sixty-seven cents.” I paid him in exact change, and he put them into a brown paper bag and went back to his book.
“Thanks,” I said. I slid the bag into my army jacket and walked out onto Woodward Avenue.
I could still feel the heart beating in my chest. I was so eager to sit down and look at the magazines, I didn’t want to walk the six or eight blocks back to my apartment. Instead, three blocks down Woodward was a porno theater that showed X-rated movies on film. I went inside and paid for a ticket. The old white lady who made change didn’t even look up at me—I guess the patrons of such places don’t go there to make human contact.
I went inside the theater; the movie was already running. In better days, it had been a small, neighborhood movie house that ran conventional Hollywood movies. Now, it was much bigger than necessary for the tiny number of customers it served. I could barely make out anything in the dark, but it seemed like only three or four other people—all men—were sitting closer to the screen but far apart among the sixty or so seats. My bag crinkled inside my army jacket as I found a seat alone somewhere near the middle.
I watched the screen quietly for a while; a white guy and a white girl were going at it, in all kinds of different positions. I reached down inside my jeans to touch myself; I had to move the bag from one side of my jacket to the other so that the movement of my army didn’t crinkle the paper.
I relaxed and started to get into. It was all stagey and artificial—there was no tenderness between the performers—but it was fascinating. It was more the audacity of what I was doing that was exciting than the specific acts on screen that had me aroused. So far, the sex seemed rather garden-variety; the performers moved from position to position, act to act, like they were going down a checklist.
Just as I was humming along, the action on the screen shifted. The girl had been in the doggy position, but now she turned around and started sucking the guy. But before she could get very far, the guy pulled out and started smacking her across the chops with has member, striking her cheekbones with his erection and calling her a bitch.
This was shocking enough, but what really horrified me was the response from the other patrons of the theater, who now began to moan loudly. Each time the girl was slapped, each time she winced and flinched, the moans got louder. It sounded like a dozen guys or more had filed into the theater behind me—maybe they had already been there in the dark the whole time, and I merely hadn’t noticed. The chorus of moans was deafening. They were really getting off on this.
I was absolutely traumatized. I never thought for a moment the girl on-screen was in any real distress; but this enactment of male hostility, and the reaction to it by the males surrounding me in the dark, completely freaked me out. I shuddered to think if they knew a woman was in their midst; the blood was pounding in my ears so loudly it drowned out everything else. In shock, I jumped up and ran out of the theater. On Woodward avenue again, blinded by the overcast afternoon daylight, I shook like a leaf.
I was barely aware of my surroundings as I made my way back the ten or so blocks to my apartment. At one point, I stopped at a garbage can with the idea of ditching the brown paper back of porn magazines I’d bought. But I’d paid twelve bucks for them, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be seen throwing a bag away, and even less sure I wanted some street hobo to garbage-pick them. So I kept it inside my army jacket.
“Oh, my God,” said Avie, as she looked through the magazines. I had left them out on the kitchen table. “You are oversexed, Clarissa.”
“I think after that shock treatment, I’m going to become a nun,” I said. “Too bad there aren’t nuns in the Holistic-Humanist faith.”
“Can men actually produce this much?” asked Avie, who was examining a particularly graphic photo-spread. “It has to be fake. I’m merely wondering, from a theatrical perspective.” She turned the page. “No, wait; there’s one actually spurting. My God. You’d think straight guys would only want to look at naked women—why would they get off seeing another man ejaculate? The men who like looking at this stuff must all be closet homos who can’t confront their own sexuality.”
“That, or they just like seeing women degraded,” I said. “They’re probably all bitter and resentful that they have to jerk off.”
“What have I been telling you?” said Avie. “You would never let a man do this to you, would you, Clarissa? Chuck wanted to do that to me. I told him, ‘If any of that stuff lands on my face, this relationship is so over.’ My men always have to come inside me.” She closed the magazine and set it on the table. “I wonder what it would be like, staging something like that.”
“You’re thinking of shooting pornos, Avie?” I asked.
“I could find plenty performers,” she said. “Some of the actors I know—I wouldn’t even have to pay them, not even for the money shots. Distribution would be the problem—you have to deal with the mob to get your product into all those shady theaters. I bet Dana would be good at it.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Funny you should mention Dana,” I said. I reached up for a magazine I had stashed on top of the refrigerator. “This is what I wanted to show you.”
I flipped to a page I had earmarked. To girls were entangled on a bed in what looked like a cheap motel room.
“Wow, that kinda looks like Dana,” said Avie.
“It is Dana,” I said. “I’d know that body anywhere. I didn’t spot her, at first. She’s not a very convincing bleach-blond.”
“Jeez, you’re right,” said Avie. “That’s her olive skin, all right. And she’s only doing it with another girl. When do you suppose these photos were taken? Not since she’s lived in Detroit.”
“She said she had some pretty tough times in New York after she dropped out of art school,” I said. “She made it sound like she was nearly homeless. Not everyone who models for a drawing class ends up shooting porn, but she was probably desperate for money. Maybe that was how she discovered she preferred women. She looks really young.”
“Do you really think Domina could responsible for all that anti-Ms. Megaton Man graffiti around town?” asked Avie. “I find it hard to believe that Dana could judge anyone’s sexuality, considering her own history.”
Since the first “Ms. Megaton is a Skank” scrawl had appeared, several more instances of been reported around the city, claiming that “Ms. Megaton”—always without the “Man”—could suck the chrome off a ’57 Chevy and the like. And all in the same safety-orange spray paint. I’d had to send my cape out at night to eradicate as much of it as possible as it cropped up, but it was hard to keep up with it. Besides, it was only effective when the graffiti was public. Apparently, my phone number also started appearing in men’s room stalls throughout the neighborhood—I’d gotten so many heavy-breather calls at odd hours I’d had to switch my phone number in the past few days. I only told Avie, Nancy, Audrey, and Hadleigh my new number after making them swear on a Nerene tract that none of them would tell Dana.
“Domina’s unhinged,” I said. “She’s gone apeshit ever since I dumped her—and we were only ever together that one night. She seems particularly upset that I’ve been with guys since her—you’ll notice the graffiti only mentions crude sex acts with males.”
“She could get kicked out of the Holistic-Humanist residence,” said Avie. “Reverend Enoch has a strict policy that residents can only be positive influences in the community. Crime or vandalism of any sort would be an egregious violation.”
“Which is why she denies it,” I said. “Even to my face—although I can tell when she’s sneering at me, even when she’s not sneering. It’s something in her eyes. How did she know I partied with the entire Arbor State field hockey team, anyway?”
“You never told me that one,” said Avie. “So it didn’t come from me. Maybe it’s some of those jocks doing it, maybe someone whose angry you cut them off from Grady’s bootleg Mega-Soldier Syrup.”
Avie had a point. Some of the anti-“Ms. Megaton” graffiti had also appeared in a couple of allies in downtown Ann Arbor. I later learned Trent had actually gone out with a can of paint and a brush one weekend and whitewashed as much of it as he could.
“It’s my own fault,” I said. “I’ve lived such a foolish, frivolous life.” I swept the magazines off the table and threw them in the garbage can.
“Are you genuinely ashamed of anything you’ve done, Clarissa?” asked Avie.
“Well, there are some things I’m not so proud of,” I said. “Some things that didn’t work out so well.”
“That’s not what I’m asking. Is there truly anything you wish you hadn’t tried, sexually?”
“I guess not,” I said. “But I still don’t feel good having rumors and innuendo plastered all over walls everywhere, and knowing that people are talking about me behind my back.”
“That’s a different issue,” said Avie. “We live in a puritanical, misogynistic, patriarchal, slut-shaming society. If you don’t conform to gender roles, if you’re free and liberated, you’re persecuted; you’re called a slut.”
“Which is why it hurts even more—that Dana’s the one doing the slut-shaming.”
“If it is her, she’s evil,” said Avie. “She’s taunting you because she knows you’re sensitive about your private life. But you can’t let her get under her skin, or lose any sleep over it.”
Avie pulled the magazines out of the garbage. “You don’t want to throw these out,” she said. “They’re keepers.” She went into my studio to put them on the milk-crate shelving next to my bed.
“I don’t want them anymore,” I said. “I’m through with them, believe me. You can have them.”
“Really?” Her eyes lit up. “Thanks!”
Speaking of Nerene tracts, I’d picked a few of those up as Reverend Enoch had suggested. They were on a brochure rack in the narthex of the First Holistic-Humanist Congregation of Cass City, right by the front door. I squirreled them away in my book bag as if I was smuggling them out of the church. I didn’t want to read them on sacred ground, lest the spirit take hold of me and I ended up joining a cult right then and there. I waited until I was in one of the Warren Woodward libraries, surrounded by rational, scholarly books, so that I might maintain my purely detached, critical perspective.
As literature, these poorly-printed pamphlets, mostly folded leaflets, were only slightly more professionally laid out and typeset than the smutty magazines I’d purchased down on Woodward Avenue. As texts, they were only marginally better written than the coverless comics me and Avie read as kids, and the material even more far out. According to tradition, Anna Clarabelle Bartlett, a poor farmer’s wife in Missouri, had a revelation in her kitchen during a particularly long, hot drought in the 1930s. There she was, old Anna Clarabelle, in her simple frock and her frugal kitchen, her pantry devoid of food and no water in the well, about to lose the farm, when the Archangel Ariel—also spelled Arielle because he was sexless—came and revelated to her. Ariel revealed to Anna Clarabelle the real name of God, which she transcribed as Nere. And she told Anna Clarabelle about all kinds of other, wonderful realities where there was happiness and abundance and whatnot, and not some dried up old farm she was about to lose anyway.
And there appeared in the field a glowing circle of light, and the archangel took Anna Clarabelle by the hand, and the walked out of the kitchen and across the field to this circle of light, and stepped on it; and lo and behold, Anna Clarabelle was shown all of these wonderful realities, and actually lived the life she was meant to live for a while, which entailed living in a big fancy city with a big fancy car and an Art Deco apartment and a gorgeous man in a tuxedo instead of the broken-down old farmer who was about to lose their farm. And then, after some years of this, the archangel took Anna Clarabelle back to her kitchen, and put her back in her plain frock, and told her she could access any reality she wanted just through prayer, and dreaming, and reading pulp magazines and so forth. And after the archangel disappeared, it started raining, and the crops started growing. And although they didn’t lose the farm, Anna Clarabelle wouldn’t work the farm or do house chores anymore; she just sat at her kitchen table and wrote down her revelation. And it’s been translated in a hundred and eighty-seven languages.
“Oowee,” I said. “That disc of light sounds like the Time Turntable.”
I turned the tract over. On the back, it said that if you’ve read this far, you should now start praying, saying the word “Nere” over and over again, because that was the name of God revealed to Anna Clarabelle Bartlett, and that you should send money to an address in Missouri for more publications. There was an address on Cass Avenue near the University-Cultural Center, too, rubber-stamped on the back. Another tract offered much the same information, but the rubber stamp announced monthly meetings held in the Community Hall of the First Holistic-Humanist Congregation of Cass City—the church often rented or provided free space to various groups in the neighborhood.
One cold, cloudy afternoon I walked all the way up to my old Boswick-Addison neighborhood, which was a good three-mile hike from my North Cass apartment. Normally I flew as Ms. Megaton Man or took a city bus up Woodward, or Avie gave me a ride in her Pacer if we were going home for Sunday dinner. But there were no more Sunday dinners at home since Mama and Daddy split up, and I felt like walking. I took Third Avenue past the Warren Woodward athletic fields, and walkways over the freeways, and the back way generally, to get to my house.
It was shocking to see the real estate sign in the front lawn. At least it hadn’t been sold yet.
I realized I’d forgotten my key, so I went around to the back. Daddy’s pickup was in the driveway; the back door was unlocked. I didn’t really want to run into Daddy; I opened the door slowly and listened. No one appeared to be in the house. I crept upstairs and then into the attic; by the time I came down, Daddy was setting groceries on the table and taking off his coat.
“Clarissa, sweetheart,” he said. “What are you doing here? I’ve tried calling, but your phone’s been disconnected. Do you need money?” He reached for his wallet. “I’m sorry I was out; I just had to run down the block to the store. Your Mama used to do all the shopping…”
“I’m good,” I said, waving my hand at the bills he offered. “I just needed to pick up my clarinet. See?” I showed him the dusty case I’d retrieved from the attic. “I had to change my number because…here, let me write it down for you.” I found a pad and pencil on the counter.
“You sure?” he said, waving the money. “We’ve been really busy at work, good overtime. If you need anything, maybe for the holidays…”
I shook my head. “Really, I’ll be fine.” I tore the sheet of paper from the pad and attached it to the fridge with a magnet.
He put the bills back in his wallet and got a towel from a drawer. He took my clarinet case from me and dusted it off. “You playing in the band at school now? That’s good. Your mama and I both liked the way you played.” He set the case on a kitchen chair.
“Not at school,” I said. “Maybe at church.”
“You go to church down near Warren Woodward? That’s good.”
“It’s not a traditional church. I’m really not a member. But you never know—maybe I’ll join a cult.”
Daddy shook the towel out the back door and hung it up, then finished putting away the groceries in the cupboard and refrigerator. “You’ll stay for a cup of tea or something? Sit down, have a seat.” I remained standing. “I don’t know what we’re going to do for Thanksgiving this year. Avie suggested we could just go out to for Chinese or something. I don’t expect you girls to choose between me and your Mama…maybe you’ll let me take you out the Friday after.”
“Maybe you can invite Pammy,” I said, picking up my clarinet case again. “We can all be one big, happy family.”
Daddy looked surprised and hurt. “You know about that?” he said.
“What, that you broke up with Mama because of another woman, and that other woman happens to be an old roommate of mine from Ann Arbor?”
“It’s not what you think,” said Daddy. “It’s not what your mama thinks, either. I try to tell her, but nobody will listen to my side. Not even Avie.”
“I suppose you were in the motel room giving Pammy the scoop on some story,” I said. “All perfectly above-board.”
Daddy looked surprised for a fleeting moment. “Oh, you must have flown over in your little cape,” he said, “seen the pickup. But yes, that’s exactly what happened. It was her idea—Ms. Jointly wanted to know all about Alice and all that megahero stuff.”
“Pammy was interested in the origin of Ms. Megaton Man?” I was more than a bit shocked by this. When she and I had met at the museum, she had only asked me questions about Trent and Stella, the former Megaton Man and See-Thru Girl. She feigned complete disinterest in me. Was the former controversial columnist really pumping my adoptive father on my biological and biographical background?
“She wanted to know all about Mr. Silver Age or whatever,” said Daddy. “I told her I couldn’t remember, that Alice never talked about that stuff…much.”
“And that’s all that happened in the motel room?”
“Well, no,” said Daddy. “That was when we met for coffee, one or two times. I told her I couldn’t remember any more, but said she had really nice jambes. So, she gave me the address of that motel in Dearborn, and asked me if my memory would be any better there. I said maybe. So she suggested we meet about a week later.”
“Oh, Daddy!” I said. I almost threw my clarinet case at him. “Pamela Jointly slept with you for a story? Where are her journalistic ethics?”
“Technically, she’s not a reporter now,” Daddy reminded me. “She’s a college professor—and you know how those people are. She said it was background for a fictionalized novel she was working on.”
“Great,” I said. “I have graffiti going up all over town calling me a skank, and my former friend writing an exposé about my personal life during my years in Ann Arbor.”
“I’m sorry, Sissy,” said Daddy. “I never could make Alice forget what’s-his-name, not entirely. Even after Avie was born. You were both my daughters—I never distinguished. I’m not perfect, like you heroes. I’m only human, like…whaddyacall…”
“Civilian?” I replied. “I hate that word. But it’s all I ever wanted to be. It’s true; I never wanted to be Ms. Megaton Man. I never wanted to be anyone other than Creighton Bellisle’s daughter. Your daughter, Daddy.” Tears now welled up in both our eyes. “Megapowers don’t make you better than anybody else; we’re as imperfect as any other human. Maybe even more flawed, in some ways. I’m convinced of it.”
I put down my clarinet case, and Daddy and I hugged. We both sobbed profusely, convulsively, for several minutes—in the kitchen in my old house that was now up for sale.