An Interview with Superman

The moment we passed through the door, I heard the tone of the background noise change. People were pointing and talking, and I began to feel very self-conscious. But Alex plunged right into the crowd, taking me with him right up to the bar.

The bartender spotted Alex and called out in a loud voice, "Superman is in the house." Immediately, the room was filled with cheers and applause, and the level of excitement seemed to increase. After checking with me, Alex ordered me a glass of white wine, and I was interested to see that he really did get a club soda for himself.

Once our drinks arrived, he took my hand and dragged me toward a large cluster of people on one side of the room. As we made our way, people kept reaching out to shake his hand or give him a high five. I got more than my fair share of curious glances, and I began to realize that being with Alex meant being in the circle of a minor celebrity.

Alex dove into conversations the way a kid would jump into a swimming pool on a hot day. Instantly, he seemed to be in the midst of a discussion with virtually everyone within earshot, and I marveled at the ease with which he participated.

As I watched, several things struck me. First, although he had actively inserted himself into the conversation, he was careful not to dominate it. Instead, he kept asking others for their opinions, and when he appeared to disagree with them, he simply turned to someone else and asked them for their opinion. Second, he was unfailingly friendly, smiling at people and giving them positive feedback, making them feel good about themselves. Lastly, even though I was there only as a passive observer, he made it a point to keep me involved, and I couldn't help appreciating his sensitivity. The fact was that he was easy to be with.

Another thing I soon learned was that Alex never stayed still for long. He continued to circulate through the crowd, talking to new people as they entered his sphere of conversation and then moving on in a very natural way.

I was surprised to find myself enjoying the evening. I'd expected to be a fly on the wall, observing and making mental notes for my article. Instead, I found myself talking to people much more than normal and having a good time doing so. I also found myself going through several more glasses of white wine, which probably helped to further lubricate the conversation.

At one point late in the evening, a rather attractive blonde woman pushed her way through the crowd towards us. She came up to Alex and, pointing at me, demanded in a strident voice, "Is she your date?" Alex turned to me with a smile on his face and asked, "I don't know, Elle, are you my date?"

I blushed and quickly responded, "No, I'm just a friend."

"Good," the blonde said, and then proceeded to brazenly fondle the front of Alex's trunks. "So why don't you and I go back to my place and find out if you really are the man of steel?" she asked suggestively.

Alex blushed even redder than I had, and quickly brushed her hand away. "Sorry, but I'm all tied up tonight."

Her face reflected her disappointment, but she wasn't ready to give up. "We could do that too, you know." When Alex shook his head again with a smile, she said, "It's your loss, superhero," and stalked away on her stilettos with a petulant look on her face.

Alex leaned over to speak quietly into my ear. "It looks like the natives are starting to get a little restless," he said with a wry grin. "Maybe it's time for us to call it a night."

I'd been frozen by the little interlude and surprised to realize that the aggressive woman's approach had made me jealous, so I was glad when Alex took my hand and began leading me to the door. Then the very thing I'd been dreading occurred. A huge man, obviously drunk, stepped out of the crowd directly into our path. He stared at Alex and sneered as though Alex had offended him.

"So you're the sissy who thinks he's a superhero!" he roared, and the crowd around us fell silent.

As I cowered behind Alex, I saw two other rough-looking men close ranks behind the giant, and I groped for my cellphone, wanting to be ready to call 911 if mayhem began.

To his credit, Alex didn't flinch. "I'm the one wearing the Superman suit," he said evenly, "but I'm far from being a superhero."

The big man squinted at him. "If you're not a superhero, what the fuck are you wearing a Superman suit for?" he demanded belligerently.

"Do you really want to know?" Alex asked with a solemn look on his face, and I couldn't help but wonder what was going through his mind. Was he deliberately trying to provoke the big man? I was terrified.

"I wouldn't have asked you if I didn't want to know, smartass!" the big man roared.

Alex leaned toward him and said quietly. "My wife cheated on me with another man. She ran off, broke my heart and humiliated me. I'm wearing the suit to protect me because I don't ever want to be hurt like that again."

The big man stared at Alex for a long minute, and then did the last thing I would ever have guessed: he threw his arms around Alex and hugged him! "Shit, man, I know how you feel. My wife did the same thing to me." Then he released Alex, patted him on the shoulder and said, "You take care of yourself, you hear?" With that he stepped aside, opening our path to the door. Behind us, someone yelled out, "Good night, Superman!" and as others took up the cry, we left the building.

Out on the sidewalk I began to shake. "Oh my God, Alex, I thought he was going to kill you!" I said in a trembling voice.

Alex looked at me solemnly. "I thought so too," he said. Then his smile returned and he said, "Let's go grab a bite to eat."

I let him lead me to an all-night diner, and after we'd ordered, I began to babble. "What made you say that to that guy?" I wanted to know. "How did you know he'd react like that?"

Alex shook his head. "I had no idea what he was going to do. I just decided that Superman wouldn't have tried to talk his way out of the situation, he'd tell the truth and see what happened."

"Yeah," I said, "but Superman couldn't be hurt. That guy could have taken your head off."

Alex smiled sadly. "You're probably right, but I've been hurt already, so I figured, 'what difference would one more time make?'"

I took a bite of my sandwich to give me time to think. I was beginning to realize just how badly this man had been wounded, and just how much he relied on the nominal protection of his costume.

I decided to change the topic. "I was impressed by the way you were able to talk to all those people so easily. You should run for political office."

"No," he said immediately, "I wouldn't have any interest in that. I'm just learning to enjoy being with people."

I shook my head. "How many of those people in the bar did you know?" I asked curiously.

He smiled. "None of them. The only guy I recognized was the bartender."

That was hard for me to believe. "How did you learn to make conversation so easily with strangers?"

He shook his head. "It's funny, Elle. All my life I've been shy around people. Back in school I hung around with a crowd because I wasn't confident being on my own. In the group I could just react to what everyone else was saying."

His face lost the trace of smile around the corners of his mouth. "It got a lot worse after Glenda left. I didn't want to see or be with anyone, I just wanted to dig a hole and crawl into it. But after I started wearing my Superman suit, it got a lot easier for me to go out by myself, meet new people and talk to them. I'd just think about how Superman would handle things and try to act the same way."

The image of Alex as shy and hesitant just didn't fit with the extrovert I'd witnessed only minutes before, so I pressed him on the topic. "Maybe the suit helped you come out of your shell," I said, "but that doesn't explain how you learned to talk with people like that."

"It's nothing special," he said. "I really like people -- it's just that I've never felt comfortable around them. Now I do, and I want to know what they think and how they feel. I'm having a good time, and I want them to have one too."

I didn't respond, but all I could thinks was, "There's a lot more to this guy than I thought."

At that moment a woman came into the diner, and that made me think again about the confrontation with the predatory blonde. I asked Alex about the incident. "Does that kind of thing happen often?" I wanted to know.

He was clearly embarrassed. "Yeah," he admitted, "it's happened a few times."

"Did you go home with any of them?" I demanded.

He wouldn't look at me. "A couple of times, maybe."

"Well, how was it?" I demanded before I could close my mouth. What was I thinking asking a question like that?

But before I could backtrack, he was already answering. "The first time, I hadn't been with a woman since Glenda left, and I guess I was pretty, um . . . eager." He gave a little laugh. "Afterwards, she accused me of being faster than a speeding bullet."

"But it got better after that," he went on guilelessly. "I just kept reminding myself about the kind of control that Superman would have had, and the ladies liked me better. But pretty soon I got to the point where hooking up didn't seem that attractive to me." He looked at me with pain in his eyes. "I guess I'm sort of old fashioned that way. All I really ever wanted was one woman, if she was the right one. I thought Glenda was, but I found out different."

He suddenly glanced up at the clock over the counter. "Do you need to get home?" he asked considerately, and when I looked at the time I was shocked at how late it had gotten.

He walked me out to the curb and flagged down a cab for me. I guess having a cape blowing in the wind comes in handy sometimes. As the cabbie gawked at him, Alex opened the door and helped me inside. "Thank you, Elle," he said. "I know this was just for your article, but I really enjoyed being with you tonight." Then he closed the door, and as the cab pulled away I looked back to see him standing there on the curb.

The cabbie turned around to look at me. "Who was that guy?" he asked curiously.

"I'm still not sure I know," I said.

Terri was waiting up for me when I got home, and she wanted to know all about my evening. After I finished recounting the night's adventures, she asked what I thought about Alex. When I talked about how badly he'd been hurt, she looked at me closely. "He may have had a hard time over his ex-wife, but he's not a lost kitten, Elle. You don't need to give him shelter and a bowl of milk, you know."

"I know," I said, but it was hard to stop thinking about him and all he'd been through.

When I sat down to write my article about Alex, I found it extremely difficult to get started. On the one hand, recounting the experiences Alex had shared with me would be easy, and what I'd observed in the park and at the bar would definitely make for great copy. But I found myself struggling to capture what was really going on inside Alex. The one question every reader would want answered was why a seemingly normal guy would do such a seemingly irrational thing.

I started over several times before coming up with a lede that I liked. "Superhero with a broken heart" seemed to capture the contradictions best for me, and once I'd gotten that down the rest seemed to flow easily.

When I'd originally gotten the assignment, I was sure that it would all be a waste of time and my work would get killed. But after my wild day and night with Alex, and after spending another day struggling to describe what was really going on inside of him, I began to feel very protective of my article. I didn't want it to wind up on the spike, and I was really apprehensive when I finally turned it in to my editor.

An hour later she called me. "Have you got any more?" she asked brusquely.

"What do you mean?" I asked irritatedly. "It's already the right length." I'd carefully edited the article down to standard length for the City section. I consider myself a serious writer, and I've learned that if I don't edit my own work, somebody else will start hacking at it and ruin what I've done.

"It's not the right length for the Sunday Magazine," she said, and I gasped. An article in the Sunday Magazine can run much longer. More importantly, the pieces that appear there tend to get a lot of attention, and, unlike daily articles, they stay up on the online Times for the whole week. I was in shock – admittedly, a pleasant shock, but still . . .

I went back to my computer and started pulling up all the material I'd cut. With the luxury of all those beautiful extra column inches, I quickly started revising what I had, changing it from a news item to a feature article. I kept my lede but let the story flow much more organically now that I was freed from inverted pyramid style.

By the end of the day I had it done and my editor was quite pleased. "This is really good, Elle," she told me, "and you've submitted it in time for this Sunday's edition." I felt like I'd hit a grand slam home run.

That evening I did something I shouldn't have: I called Alex and told him to check the Sunday Times Magazine this weekend. "So it's not going to be in the daily news?" he said uncertainly. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Oh, it's definitely a good thing," I said. "You'll see."

After I hung up, though, I began to have second thoughts. What I'd turned in to my editor was a positive, honest, human interest story, and I thought it captured Alex pretty well. But that didn't mean that the finished product would turn out that way. What if some editor higher up decided to turn the story into a humor piece poking fun at Alex or, worse, holding him up to ridicule? I'd seen things like that happen before and the result could be pretty cruel. If that happened, he'd think I'd written it that way. The more I thought about it, the more I wished I hadn't called him.

Reporters are supposed to keep a distance from their subjects, to be dispassionate. If they don't, they lose their objectivity and then they aren't reporting any more. But, dammit, I found I couldn't help liking Alex, and if my article got turned into a slash-and-burn piece, I'd feel terrible. Plus, I admitted to myself, I'd likely never see the guy again. While that wasn't likely anyway, it would be nice to think it could be a possibility.

I deliberately avoided taking an advance look at the magazine, but when my own copy of the Times hit my doorstep, I quickly pulled out the magazine section. There on the cover, staring back at me with smiling eyes and a steely expression on his face, was the picture of Alex standing on the boulder in Central Park. Below it was the headline: "The Brokenhearted Superhero from Queens."

OMG, my story had made the cover! I quickly flipped to the story -- under my byline! -- and began reading. No, I was relieved to see, they hadn't turned my article into a parody. In fact, the more I read, the more I realized they had used it almost exactly as I had written it! Not only that, but they'd used it all, my whole damned submission! What a rush!

I sat there in my pajamas and felt great. Getting a cover story was a terrific coup, something a reporter like me could only dream of. Then another thought surprised me: I found myself wishing that Alex would read it and tell me he liked it. "Where did that come from?" I wondered.

After Terri read the article, she just shook her head. "You're doing it again, Elle. This guy is damaged -- I don't want to see you get hurt."

I ignored her.

I got lots of calls of congratulation on Monday, but I didn't hear from Alex. I knew that there was no particular reason why he should call, but I found myself becoming more and more apprehensive as the day went on. Perhaps he had had a different reaction to the article, I thought, or perhaps he had resented my efforts to give a balanced picture of him. Or maybe, I thought sadly, he just wasn't interested in talking to me again.

I was deep in self-pity mode when my cellphone rang. It was Alex! "Hey, Elle," he said, "I'm sorry I didn't call you earlier, but things have been crazy around here. None of my friends at work can believe it's me. My Mom back in Illinois even called – I don't know how she found out about it. She's worried about me," he said with a laugh, "she thinks I've lost my mind." He continued to ramble on as I tried to get a word in edgewise.

Finally he paused to catch a breath, and I seized the opening. "So," I said, "what did you think about the article?"

"Oh, it was . . ." he said, and then he paused, and I heard him speak to someone else for a few seconds before he came back on the line. "Listen, that was my boss, so I'm going to have to go. But before I do, I wanted to ask if you could have lunch with me on Wednesday? We can talk some more about it then."

"Um, sure, I guess," I said, trying not to sound eager.

"Great!" he enthused, and gave me the name of a little place on 8th Avenue not too far from my office. "See you on Wednesday at noon," he said, and then he was gone.

As I hung up the phone, I wished we had had longer to talk about the article, but it didn't sound like he was displeased with it. Anyway, I thought, at least he wants to see me again. As I turned back to my computer screen, I saw a little smile in the reflection.

I got to the restaurant a few minutes early on Wednesday, but when I looked inside Alex was already there and he was wearing his Superman suit. I hadn't expected that. He was chatting animatedly with a man when I walked in, but when he spotted me he shook the man's hand like they were old friends and then came rushing over to me. He bent over and gave me a kiss on the cheek before leading me back to the table.

"Who was that man?" I asked curiously.

"Oh, that was the restaurant owner. When he saw me come in wearing my suit, he came over and wanted to talk with me," Alex explained nonchalantly as though such things happened every day to him.

Then his face took on a look of great animation. "You won't believe everything that's been happening to me," he said, with the excitement of a little boy. "I told you about my friends at work and how surprised they were to read about me. Well, they absolutely demanded that I wear the suit to work on Tuesday. I'd never even thought about doing that because I really want to be taken seriously in my job and I was afraid of what the reaction would be. But they kept insisting, and finally I decided 'what the heck.'"

He paused as the waitress delivered our food, then quickly resumed his story in between bites. "Anyway, when I went in Tuesday morning, my friends started going wild, and then my boss walked in. I was terrified, but she just looked at me for a minute. Then she sniffed and said, 'Alright, I guess you can wear that thing, but if it detracts from the work environment, you'll have to change.'"

"I was blown away – I thought sure she'd have a fit about it. But the fact that she didn't freak out made me feel just that much more confident. So after lunch I took another big gamble: I did something I'd wanted to do for a while but hadn't dared before I wore the suit."

He leaned toward me across the table, and his enthusiasm was palpable. "Every week, publishing houses get dozens of unsolicited manuscripts from wannabe writers. They just get tossed in the 'slushpile,' and most get ignored or sent an automatic 'thanks-but-no-thanks' letter," he explained. "But I started looking through some of them just to see what they were like, and I found one that I thought was really good."

"First-time authors are usually pretty terrible; they use poor grammar and devise plots that are either trite or ridiculous. But this one was so much better, and I really thought it might have what it takes to be a good seller. I'd been afraid to take it to Mrs. Grissom, my boss, because junior editors just don't do that."