A Spot of Revision

Good Mor-- er, Afternoon!

This is post 1.5. No reviews, but I thought I'd put up a short story that I revised a little.

In a small industrial town in the Northeast, it’s nothing new when a partical physics professor gets denied tenure and plants a laser-emitting bomb in the University admissions office. It’s not unexpected when an amateur Extreme Sports Wrestling athlete gets busted using steroids and takes a sledgehammer to head of some poor producer.

Thankfully, it is also a city where it isn’t uncommon to see Commander Cosmic use his Star Ray to blast the tires on a stolen Escalade when catching a jewelry theif. It also isn’t rare for Karate Guy to make headlines for lifting a city bus to save a pregnant woman trapped underneath.

It’s a city of heroes and villains. It’s a city of good and evil.

It was a Thursday at midnight when Tracy Orton heard a knock at her door.

“Tracy! Open the damned door!”Derek slammed his fist against the apartment door. His backwards Lakers cap pressed sweat to his forehead and his breath smelled of Southern Comfort.

“Tracy! Please, let’s talk about this, okay?” Derek gave up on knocking and slumped with his back against the door. “Can we just talk, Trace?”

Tracy was sitting on the bed in her bright blue skirt, her blonde wig and half-cape with tears rolling down her cheeks. Tracy was no fool. She couldn’t open the door and let her neighors see that Blue Bonnet, the gorgeous superhero, was living in an efficiency and dating some average looking guy with love handles and a five o’clock shadow. She knew letting Derek sit outside in the yellow wallpapered hallway would help her cool off a bit. She also knew he had been cheating on her.

Derek had stopped calling out to Tracy. He answered text messages with a curt not now or I’ll call you later and after her seven-minute wardrobe change, he was relieved when she finally opened the door. Tracy, now in tight fitting jeans and a Syracuse sweatshirt, watched Derek stand and tuck his cellphone away.

“Thank God… Look Tra--” She slapped him.

“Are you still texting her, dammit?” Her face contorted and her eyes welled up again.

“No. No! I don’t even-- look, there’s no her, okay?” He massaged his red cheek and cleared his throat. “Can I come in? Please?”

Tracy answered by opening the door a little wider to let him pass. She crossed her arms while he walked past the mirrored closet and the bathroom. He made his way to the bed at the far end of the one room apartment. He realized she probably didn’t want him there, pulled a chair from the round breakfast table under the oddly-shaped art deco hanging lamps and sat there instead. She sat back on the bed.

“Trace, I didn’t sleep with anyone.”

“I don’t believe you.” She frowned. Her round face and soft, upturned nose didn’t suit the anger or jealousy it was showing.

“I didn’t!” Derek gestured a hand at her. “I don’t even know where you got the idea that I did!”

“Oh, please! Quit denying it!” She squinted at him. “I just saw you two together at Lucio’s!”

“Tracy, that was my cousin! From Scranton? She’s visiting from school.”

“What a crock! You expect me to--”

“Well, it’s true! I would’ve introduced you if you weren’t in costume. It didn’t help when you threw that table at me and told everyone I was a pedophile!”

Tracy rolled her eyes. “I couldn’t let anyone figure out who I am! Sorry, I just-- it’s all I could come up with…”

“Yeah, well while you were waiting here I was getting drilled by other cops until Sam showed them her ID.”

“I said I was sorry, but that girl is not your cousin!” She pointed at her face and said, “Do you think I’m that stupid?”

“No! I…” Derek buried his face in his hands. He looked at Tracy. Her big blue eyes glared back at him from underneath the light brows that scrunched in sadness and resentment. Four months and he still couldn’t muster those three words he knew she wanted to hear. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I guess you didn’t. Get out.” She pointed hard at the door. “Get out and stay out. I don’t ever wanna see you again.”

Derek walked without saying goodbye.

Tracy burst into tears and plunged her face into a pillow. It still smelled like him; a strange combination of spearmint and that mentholated Nivea aftershave he used. She threw the pillow at the refrigerator. For a minute, she worried that he might blab away her secret identity, but just like the rest of Precinct 14, he’d sworn an oath of secrecy. Superhero secrecy. Besides, Derek didn’t deserve a second chance. She’d been suspicious ever since he’d told her she looked better as a blonde. He was vocally disappointed when he found out about the wig.

He won’t have to worry about that now she thought. Eventually her tears dried and she slept.

Saturday night. Tracy, or in this case, Blue Bonnet, who had just yesterday had her costume dry-cleaned, stood on the brim of the ramshackle rooftop of a recently condemned apartment building. Saturday night patrol.

She felt much better without her cheating boyfriend around. Beating up crooks and muggers was therapuetic.

Why just tonight, she caught four vandals in zip-up hoodies creating an alternative representation of the Immaculate Conception on the side of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church with spraypaint. The youngest one, a Hispanic boy with an eyebrow piercing, left a streak of blood across the knuckle of Blue Bonnet’s right white glove. The others hadn’t put up much of a fight.

Tonight she wore a smoky eye-shadow and her skirt was hiked up just a little higher. She practiced her heroic poses. Her half-cape flapped in the wind. Knuckles pressed to her hips, she smiled. Maybe a wink? Pouty lips? Toothy grin?

Her expression changed to surprise when she saw a young black woman in high-heels and a matching pink dress and handbag being dragged by a portly man wearing a knit cap into and alley across the street. She clambored down the side of the building using the noisy iron fire escape.

When Blue Bonnet reached the alley, the man was choking the woman against the cold brick wall. It wasn’t more than twenty seconds before his face and the wall had a more intimate relationship.

“Are you okay?” Blue Bonnet picked up the handbag and gave it to the woman.

“I’m… I’m fine.”

“Here,” Blue Bonnet produced a twenty dollar bill from the inside of her left glove. “Take a cab this time.”

Blue Bonnet heard tires screeching and a horrible metal crunch. She dropped the cash and ran in the direction of the sound.

The front end of a blue Nissan was wrapped around a crooked fire hydrant that leaked on the freshly mangled corpse of young man pinned beneath the car. As grotesque a sight as this was, Blue Bonnet was even more shocked when the airbag deflated enough for her to see Derek behind the wheel.

She opened the driver side door. The car reeked of bourbon.

“Derek? Derek!” She grabbed his collar and shook him.

Derek groaned. “Tra--”

“It’s Blue Bonnet.” She sniffed loudly. “And you’ve been drinking. You just… You’ve, you… You’re gonna be placed under arrest. DUI. And manslaughter.”

“Manslaughter?” He opened his eyes. “Oh my God! No! No!”

“Shut up.” She struggled to keep her face straight and her voice low. “You don’t get to feel sorry. Can you move?”

“Tracy…” Derek sobbed. “I… I missed you…”

“I said shut up.” She pulled him from the car.

“Ow!” He struggled to his feet. He was favoring his right leg, his arm was bruised and his teeth were red from a busted lip. He saw the damage. “Oh God! Oh my--” Derek turned and threw up on his front tire.

“Derek…”

“Please!” He looked back at her. “Please, Trace! I swear I didn’t mean for this!”

“What does it matter whether--”

“Let me go…”

Tracy’s head was spinning. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. There he was. The man she had been with for as long as she could to remember. She had even considered giving up the superhero gig and suggesting they move out of the city. His lip quivered and his watery eyes’ gaze moved slowly between the body and her own eyes. But right now she was Blue Bonnet. Blue Bonnet couldn’t let anyone go. He never should have been out tonight. He should have known better. What’s a girl to do?

Her options were cut short when she heard an explosion a few blocks away. There was no one to save at the scene of Derek’s car wreck, but people could be hurt, or God forbid the villianous Lobsterclops get away with another bank robbery.

“Stay here, Derek.”

She didn’t know that night whether he stayed or not, because she herself did not go back to find out.

The courtroom was bright and noisy on the morning of the 24^th. The faint smell of citrus wood cleaner lingered when Tracy, not Blue Bonnet, walked through the big double doors.

Judge Walthers, already and imposing man, sat a good four feet higher than everyone in the room. Tracy just made sure to sit in the furthest row, and on the opposite side, from the defendant’s table, where Derek was covering his face with one hand. His receding hairline was more apparent without his favorite Lakers cap.

Tracy wore her black-framed glasses instead of contacts that day, just to be safe. It wasn’t as if anyone would recognize her though. Derek and Bailiff Kiplinger were the only ones who knew Blue Bonnet wasn’t a blonde.

Tracy had been pleasantly surprised that morning when she learned that Derek had called the police on himself from another man’s cellphone. Less pleasantly surprised when the charges of his arrest did not include murder or manslaughter. How had he gotten rid of the body? How could anyone clean up the scene of that accident? She didn’t tell anyone what had really happened. Attending his trial was not just a way to learn these details, but also a form of closure.

Regardless of the details, Tracy crossed her arms and resolved that no matter what history she and Derek shared, she would never forgive him for getting away with murder.

“Defence, your witness.” Walthers pointed at Derek’s attorney.

Tracy thought she recognized the man sitting at the stand. He wore a red shirt and a tacky Beatles White Album tie.

“Mister Callahan, you say you were out walking your dog when you stumbled upon the scene of my client’s collision. Did my client seem intoxicated to you” The attorney chewed his pen after each question.

“No sir.” The witness rubbed his neck. “He seemed disoriented. Like he just woke up.”

“And what did you do?”

“Well, I called 911. Even though he woke up, he might’ve been hurt.”

“And did the officer that arrived breathlyze my client?”

“No.”

“Did he conduct a field sobriety test.”

“No, he--”

“Stop!” Derek stood up and waved his arms.

The attorney turned his head and gestured with his hand to sit down. The witness’s eyes widened.

“Look, Judge, I killed this man.” Derek buried his face in his hands for a moment. “I was drunk. My girlfriend left me and I got drunk and I killed that guy.”

“What are you on about?” Walthers raised an eyebrow.

“I’m… I’m a superhero.” Derek rubbed his eyes. “I bring people back from the dead.”

“You liar!” Tracy jumped out of her seat.

“Ma’am, please sit down!” Walthers banged his gavel.

Derek turned and saw Tracy. He began to cry. “It’s true, Trace. Why do you think there’s never been any injured victims when I respond to car wrecks?”

“Mr. Young, are you admitting guilt to manslaughter and driving while intoxicated? But… you resurrected the victim?”

“I…”

Tracy was still standing. She bit her lip and clenched her fists. She thought back to Winter when she was seventeen. The snow. The ice. The crash. The guy she saw when she woke up. The Lakers cap he wore.

“You son of a bitch!” Tracy ran up the aisle. Kiplinger knew better than to try and stop her from charging and pulled his gun. Derek closed his eyes and cowered. Tracy grabbed an empty chair and threw it and a wall, smashing it to pieces.

“Stop! I’ll shoot!” Kiplinger’s hands trembled with the pistol pointed at Tracy. He wasn’t sure if she was bulletproof or not, but he didn’t want to risk being wrong.

“Did you…” Tracy started crying. “Did you bring me back to life?” Derek opened one eye.

“Trace, I--”

“DID YOU?”

“Yes.”

Tracy hugged him. Kiplinger sighed heavily and lowered his gun.

“Thank you.” Tracy whispered in Derek’s ear.

“Ahem.” Walthers waved his gavel at everyone. “Order? Order please, in the court?”

“Sorry.” Tracy said as she let go of Derek. They both turned toward the judge.

“Well, since there’s no victim, I can only find Officer Young guilty of DWI. Turn in your badge and gun. Your license is revoked. You must enroll in an ASAP class. Otherwise, you’re free to go.”

“Thanks, your honor.” Derek turned to Tracy. “Can I get a ride home?”

“Hold on you two.” Walthers pointed at Tracy. “This young lady owes me a new chair. With a side order of explanation.”

“Well,” Tracy winced a little, “it’s a funny story…”

I think it still needs lots of work. The ending sucks. What do you think? Ideas for me?

-Steve