by Chris Buchanan
Flash fiction, 2013

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I got lucky straight off the bat. Third day on the job. Let me tell you though, those first two days were the stuff of adventure books: angst, falling in love, rising to challenges, making amazing discoveries, secret identity and learning all the beginners’ lessons about responsibility and stuff. All the stuff that they make the movies out of, before the capes’ lives start to get boring and the relationships beak up and after a while nobody thinks their powers are exactly ‘super’, just kinda cool. And they get their sponsorship deals fixed and everything. All the romance is gone and they’re just getting the job done.

We have three names. Not everyone knows that. There’s the name we got before we got lucky, you know, Whatever Man, Incredible Gal, The Human, you know, rhino or whatever. Then there’s our real, actual names, which even though they’re out in the open now we still only really use with girlfriends and so on, and nobody ever seems to remember them. And then there’s the names that we call one another. I guess we still like the idea of little secret names and underworlds, you know, like to pretend that we’re still disconnected from the public. Does any other profession still have this problem? It seems very adolescent, doesn’t it? Firemen, they’re heroic, right? As much as we are. They don’t have secret names.

My name among the fraternity is ‘the smiler’. The idea is that because I started in the seventies and I got lucky nice and quick, I’m some sort of wise old man who knows everything and watches over the other capes with a wry, old man smile, you know. You know. I’m not sure why they want to think of me that way. Back in the day the name was Captain Amazing of course. Seventies, like I said. Ha ha. Golden Age. That’s what we call the, uh, early days. Nowadays you’re not allowed to call yourself Captain-something if you’re not in the military or the police. Can’t complain about that.

They don’t call us super-heroes anymore, do they? Again, I don’t think I can disagree with that. I mean I’d like to say I was outraged and that nobody remembers what wonderful things we did for them and the world is such a miserable place these days, but that would be bull. Super-heroes was always stretching it a bit, and we always knew that. What we are is people born with birth defects or with very odd childhoods and exceptional skills who work on an independent basis as either vigilantes or an emergency service. Super, not really. Plus it’s not really a good attitude to describe people with strange abilities as super, is it? That’s one step away from special. Ha ha, poor old Ladybug Man used to complain a lot – said it was like being in a Victorian freak show, being called that. But he was the one who drew a little ladybug on his jumpsuit! I was always trying to paint spots on his, uh, ha ha ha. I don’t do that anymore.

And as for heroes, well pal, you hang out with some of these people, you know? Huh. You hang out with The… well I won’t embarrass him, but we call him Mister Stretch! They’ll all know what I mean. They’ll all know what I’m saying. And it’s not who you’re thinking, by the way. You don’t have to be heroic to get into the business. But I don’t even want to get into the whole issue of what heroes are, or aren’t. If you see people doing what they can instead of working regular jobs as heroes, then sure.

Maybe we were heroes when we had the secret identities, i.e. when we worked another job and had to juggle between the two. Is that what makes a hero – his financial situation? Back when we were constantly getting dumped for failing to show up to dates and not paying enough attention to our families. Heroic? I said I didn’t want to get into this. We certainly were different back then, when we wore the costumes under a shirt and tie. Some of them still do: I have no idea why. Naming no names, again. Let’s just say there’s a certain cape who never wears short sleeves and goes around pretending to be a newspaper editor and leave it at that! Let’s just say… nah, his name is kind of obvious, so. He’s a weird guy though.

I got lucky early. Third day of flying around and fighting crime on the streets of New York. I thought I was invincible and I thought I was brave. Yadda yadda yadda, a city block destroyed completely by what used to be called a super-villain. I fail to stop it, I fail to save my girlfriend’s life, I fail to save anybody’s life, and yes, I make it that much worse by floundering around feeling sorry for myself and getting in the way. Entirely my fault. Headline writers can’t quite bring themselves to call me Captain Amazing, not even in a sarcastic way. And why did I fuck it up? Because I was in a phone booth, getting changed, and I was late. I didn’t want people to know my real name. I was worried about the people close to me.

And every day since then has been quite dull, by comparison. Now that I know my limits, know what I’m doing, and prize doing a good job over any sort of sense of adventure. We all do a better job nowadays. We’re on call, all day every day, with sensible shifts and sensibly-structured teams and management, you know? Police protection for family and loved ones. And no secret identities. Names are all police checked. Nobody goes rogue any more and turns ‘villain’, in fact when was the last time you even heard of a villain? I guess we’re no fun to fight any more. Good.

Two days of high adventure and melodrama, one catastrophe, and a lifetime of solid work. Lot of lives saved. Very lucky, I’d say. There are a lot of youngsters still doing the job, and one or two still have the urge to come into the office and make out like there’s some huge emergency or impossible choice they have to make. We have counsellors and stuff. And we’re five days on, two weeks off now, too. They’re even talking about government funding! Which, honestly, would be a really nice relief. Just between you and me, here, I hate wearing ‘Duracell’ and ‘Vodafone’ and ‘Shell’ all over my uniform, you know? So even if there was a serious pay cut, I’ll be voting for that.

Yeah, it’s okay now. It’s all okay for us.