Superman's Cape (3 page)

Kyle picked up his little brother’s hand and gave it a small squeeze. The gesture was an assurance that he was there. Jonnie looked up at Kyle with words perched on his lips. Kyle gestured a
no
through short shakes of his head. Both turned back and peeked around their father’s legs to see the man. He wished his mother was with them so she could hold and comfort them and tell them it was going to be all right. But then as Eileen’s voice screamed out, Kyle flinched and pushed the thought out of his head, thankful his mother was home.

The large man was screaming at Eileen for more money. He was bigger than their Dad but skinny, very skinny maybe even sick skinny. The sweat beads forming on the man’s brow connected and ran down and into his eyes. Kyle thought the wet might be stinging the already blood red eyelids that looked inflated and sore. Large pouches of gray carried the man’s eyes. Unshaven growth complemented what Kyle thought was an attempt to look Goth. Kyle saw Goth at his school, especially with the older kids – this wasn’t Goth. This was someone sick.

“I know there is more money back there,” the man screamed with a spray of wet. Beads of sweat tip-toed across his lips before jumping with his words.

“Fuck! I know there is more money. Dig it out – Dig it out or I’ll put ya in the fucking ground!” the man demanded, his voice escalating to a yell.

“That is all the cash – I swear. Everyone uses bank cards. We don’t have that much cash.” Eileen said pleading with him.

The man shifted his feet then swung his head around. “How stupid do you think I am? Those kids over there, the old farts back there – no more cash than the twenty-two you gave me?” the man said lifting his gun even further and waving it in connection with his words like a choreographed dance.

“Here, take the Tip money … take my money. Just please leave.” Eileen said crying and choking back the tears between her words. Pushing away a stray mat of brown hair pasted to her cheek, she started to move the Tip jar forward. For a moment, the sound of the Tip jar sliding across the counter top was the only voice heard. Returning her hands, Eileen struggled to empty her front pockets. The contents were trapped in denim that should have been a size larger than they were. She glanced to Kyle and he thought he’d never seen more terrified eyes.

An infection of shakes swelled in the man’s hand. The gun waved in the air. How long has it been since this started; seconds, minutes? Kyle thought of the book punishment his mom showed him once. Extend your arms, palms up, she told him. And then she placed a dictionary in each hand. How long did he manage that challenge, a minute, maybe two?

The infection was spreading. The shakes from the man’s hand spread past his elbow and was entering his shoulder.
That gun probably weighs twenty pounds by now
, Kyle thought. The man’s legs were infected with tremors too.

Chris felt the tension rising in the Dairy Queen. It was growing thick with fear sparking like a cold front pushing electricity across the sky. The teens sat mesmerized. Their phones still in hand but the rapid tap tap tap of thumbs silenced by the happenings just ten feet from where they sat. He was hoping one of them had the sense to text out a 9-1-1. But, he couldn’t exactly be sure how to do that. The old couple might as well have grown frozen. Chris caught the old man’s eyes. Without any words, he told him we need to let this thing blow over. No need for heroes. Hold onto your little ones and let this storm travel through. Chris agreed and offered a conservative nod.

Eileen continued to negotiate. Chris begged in his mind that the man take what she offered and leave. He saw in the man’s stand that his desperation was reaching a boiling point. Chris recognized this was a sick man. An addict in a last resort move you never expect you will be witness to – at least nothing beyond the viewership of an afternoon news item. An addiction needed to be fed. A chemical imbalance that was this man’s brain and body which physically could not be denied. And at the same time a voice deep in this man’s rotting mind was explaining that all this was the right thing to do. There is justification in these actions. Your very soul depends on it.

Chris tightened his grip on his boys’ shoulders so they knew to stay behind him. Looking down, he saw Jonnie was crying. He didn’t hear a sound, but he could see the tears welling up in Jonnie’s eyes before they ran away down his cheeks and onto the floor. They left teardrop marks in the white and black tiles where a coating of dust from the outside gave way to snowflake shaped droplets. There were a handful or more of Jonnie’s snowflake shaped tears staining the floor –
please let this end soon
, he thought. Chris collapsed his eyelids and tightened his grip on his sons again when he heard the chilling sound of the gun hammer being pulled back.

“Last warning bitch – all of the money now,” the man screamed and yelled stomping his foot to the ground.

Kyle responded to his dad’s hand and the reaffirmation to stay close. He obliged, then moved in so that most of his body was hidden behind his father. He did this for Jonnie as well, pulling him in closer. He thought at this point anyone on the other side might see just one person. Three empty blizzard cups on the counter and just his dad and that was all.

Kyle watched the defeated look in Eileen’s face erupt. She was done. The crying turned uncontrollable and her breathing shallowed, and then deepened. All she could do in response to the demand was raise her arms, palms forward, and beg. Not beg, but do what sounded more like whimper. Kyle felt the sting of fear and realized a tear in his eye danced while the corner of his mouth juggled a frown.

“I don’t have anything else.” she whispered in a lost breath.

The hands that held Kyle and Jonnie were gone. In their place were the fading leftovers of someone’s touch after a hug or a pat on the back. The surprise lifted Kyle’s eyes upward to look at his father. It left him wanting to scream
put your hands down, put them back where they were
, but as he opened his mouth and reached up with his hand he could already hear his father’s words.

“Listen buddy, there is nothing else here for you.” Kyle’s father pleaded as he raised his palms forward. Kyle heard the uncertainty in his dad’s words. His dad was scared.

The man turned toward Kyle’s father – the gun remained fixed on Eileen. The hammer was cocked. The gun barrel’s nose made small figure eights in the air as the tremors increased.

Eileen had drawn her arms back to shield her face from the room. Hiding behind them, green eyes that could not see the world around her. Kyle’s mind went to images of an ostrich with its head buried in the sand,
if I cannot see the world then the world cannot see me
. When his father’s words broke the air, he saw Eileen lower one of her arms just enough to peek past her shield. She fixed her gaze on the father of the boys she babysat from time to time.

“Take what is there and leave. Please. Nobody is going to follow – nobody is going to call the police. We all want this over and have you on your way. You won’t be going empty-handed,” Chris said motioning to the money. For a moment the man turned his eyes down to the money and lowered his gun to his side. At once the air seemed near void or evaporated of all tensions. It was replaced with a relief that seeped from some magical place you’d experience after a good storm. Whether he was drug-sick or in need of a new fix, the man looked to have taken Chris’s words as the best option offered. He seemed resigned to the negotiation and prepared to leave the DQ. After a long wheezing pull of air, and the man turned his head to one side as everyone saw the gun swing up in a short half circle that landed in the direction of Chris Connely and his boys.

Perhaps the lowering of his gun was just a respite to settle the infection of tremors racing through the muscles of the man’s arm. Regardless of what everyone thought was going to happen, they’d have a different story to tell. And the story wouldn’t be spoken with relief sprinkled across the words from one’s lips to a listener’s ears.

Kyle saw all reservations leave the man’s face as he turned towards his father. There would be no rebuttal, no negotiations, no anything except a final straw that was the end of desperation and frustration. And for a moment a release from the needs to feed an addiction that was eating this man’s soul. Maybe Kyle’s father saw it in the man’s face as well. Kyle watched his father draw his arms down and pull him and his brother closer behind his body. His father never threw his arms up to cover and hide like Eileen. His father’s first and last concern was the safety for his boys.

A concussion of air lifted Kyle and Jonnie out from behind their father as the Dairy Queen filled with a white flash and a thunderous pressure pushed against his ears. It wasn’t a gunshot he recognized from his video games. It was instead a state of place he’d not experienced before. He landed hard on his shoulder and was forced to pause before he could move and get to his feet. He heard muffled screams beneath a groan of constant ringing that intercepted everything. It chewed it up and spit out the remains for him to try and understand. The smell of burn met his nostrils and without having experienced gunpowder before he recognized the familiar discharge. It smelled like the nights when the families gathered together to watch fireworks rise up and join the fireflies painting the evening sky.

Through the ladened air, Kyle saw the man’s figure fade past the smoke. His body pulled streamers of gray and white air as he exited through the doors. The man never turned back. He never saw the faces of the stunned patrons who were left to digest the remains of his interruption to their lives. Kyle was the first to get to his feet. Jonnie soon joined him at his side. The two looked down at their father who was motioning with his arms to hear them speak.

“You guys OK?” he asked, sounding winded and distant. Kyle gave himself a quick look and then turned Jonnie around once then twice. He looked for signs of trouble, any trouble, and was relieved to find none.

“I think we’re both good Dad,” Kyle answered but sounded concerned.

“Daddy, that man burnt your shirt,” Jonnie said, pointing a finger.

Kyle saw the bullet hole and dropped to his knees. He laid a hand on his father’s chest in an attempt to see how bad it was.

“I’m just winded – can’t catch my breath … fell back is all,” Chris struggled to say. Kyle saw a stain of blood growing in his father’s mouth. Red started closing in on the white of his teeth and spilling over the corners of his lips.

“Daddy’s bleeding,” Jonnie whimpered and started to cry. That was when Kyle saw a large pool of dark blood. The burn hole crested and grew to a bright red. But the dark blood didn’t come from the small hole in his father’s shirt; it came from beneath their dad. It was a dark mass that crawled toward his and Jonnie’s feet.

“Here Daddy,” Jonnie said kneeling next to his brother. Jonnie took off his Superman’s cape and covered the bullet hole. He pulled up a corner of the blue and wiped the blood that was spilling from his dad’s mouth.

“Here Daddy,” we’ll clean it up he said with words so choked and soft they were lost in the air that had turned ugly and gray.

Kyle was stricken with fear. He didn’t know what to do as a helplessness stole his thoughts. “Can someone help my Dad!” he pleaded.

“Someone help him – he’s bleeding. Please Please Please help!” Kyle begged. People began trickling in and forming a circle around them. Kyle turned back to his dad whose color faded and whose breathing started to stutter between choked bubbles of bright red.

“Boys, I love you,” Chris said raising his hand to each of their faces.

“We’ll clean it up,” Jonnie repeated and continued wiping the blood from his dad’s mouth. Blood from the bullet hole invaded Jonnie’s Superman cape. Kyle watched the pool of it pulse through the blue and then watched it slow and then stop. In his father’s eyes he saw that his dad was dying.

“Dad?” Kyle yelled before looking around at the crowd of empty faces.

But his dad let go of his last breath. His heart stopped. Some of the blood at the corner of his father’s mouth was drying and turning brown and scaly. All the strength that remained in his father fell away as his arm dropped. It made a wet sound as it settled in the blood pool that covered Kyle and Jonnie’s knees.

“We’ll clean it up – I’ve got Superman’s cape,” Jonnie continued through his tears.

Jonnie’s Superman cape was red after all
, Kyle thought as he pulled his brother back from their father. The two held each other. They cried, rocking back and forth. All around them a commotion of people spoke to them. Spoke at them. And tried to move them away from their dad. Kyle held his dad’s hand tight. He held onto his brother even tighter. The two turned off the world around them and sobbed.

Superman’s cape is red
, he thought again. The power he begged to see that afternoon, the power they needed to see that afternoon was the power to save their dad’s life. But it was just fiction like the Superman movies they once watched. Their dad was dead and Superman’s cape was red after all.

Sara’s eyes were wet with tears that felt cold. She resented crying. And as she finished recounting the tragedy, a feeling of hurt and anger stirred. Stabbing at her cheek with the palm of her hand, she wanted to hold it back. All of it. She pushed her sobs away and drew a deep breath that stumbled past the new tears before she dried her other cheek.

Dr. Pada did listen to Sara. He did not say a word. He did not stray in providing his attention. At the end of the story, he heard his fill of what Sara was willing to share. There still remained very little he could offer except the name of a child psychologist. Thoughtful, he also offered some office samples to help her sleep.

A fleeting thought came to her – she’d take all the samples. All of them at once. As long as it meant going to a place where real sleep could be had. She looked at her boys and guilt pained her. Some shame was there too. How dare she think such thoughts? In the end, she and the boys left Dr. Pada’s office not much better off than when they entered it. She carried Jonnie while holding Kyle’s hand and took care in walking the set of steps leading outside to their car.