Brat Man lived in his little superhero costume. Once
elementary school was over, the uniform came off and the superhero outfit
replaced it. Playing in the streets with his buddies kept him smiling,
energetic, and happy in his young days. The more he played, the more he would
fantasize about what being a superhero was truly all about. Why just arrest his
Penguin and Joker-like friends when he could play in the big leagues? One
Saturday night past Brat Man’s bedtime, he tiptoed out of the covers, put on
his black leather uniform and mask, and sneaked out of the house through his
window.
The night air felt refreshing against Brat Man’s honey brown
skin. He took a deep breath, twirled his cape around him, and ventured out into
the streets with a high and mighty swagger. So far, everything in the
neighborhood was peaceful and quiet. Not one soul walking the streets this late
at night. But then Brat Man strutted deeper into the streets and could hear the
faint sounds of hip-hop music off in the distance. There was nothing wrong with
that particular genre of music, but Brat Man imagined people in the
neighborhood were trying to sleep.
The further the little superhero explored the streets, the
less it felt like the safety of home. Barbed wire fences surrounded broken down
buildings with spray-painted curse words on them. Smashed up cars with no
wheels were parked on lawns and sidewalks every which way. Brat Man’s anxious
chills multiplied throughout his body when he found a dead cat in the middle of
the road. He reached down and petted the poor little thing, whose body had been
pancaked by a careless driver. He wiped the blood on his cape and closed the
precious baby’s eyes for good. He knew his services were needed now more than
ever.
Brat Man snapped out of his animal-loving trance when a pair
of combat boots stood in front of him. He slowly panned his head up to see a
baldheaded white male with a swastika carved into his forehead and a Resting
Bitch Face that could strike fear in the hearts of ferocious jungle beasts. The
man wore a leather vest with several racist symbols on it as well as a pair of
blue jeans that were several sizes too big. He also had the name “T-Money”
tattooed across his neck with the T looking distinctively like another
swastika.
The little superhero swallowed a huge gulp of saliva, but
put on a brave front as he swirled his cape around him and said, “Give it up,
T-Money! Your days of evildoing are over!”
The racist smiled a slimy-toothed smile before grabbing Brat
Man by the chest and pulling the shivering young man him face-to-face. “Let me
guess: you want to know what that hip-hop bullshit is playing in the
background. Me too, buddy. In fact, if you’re such a fucking superhero, why
don’t you go out there an see what those niggers are up to. Get them before
they get away. Halloween’s over, but they’ll probably give you some candy
anyways.” T-Money threw Brat Man to the ground and snickered at him.
The small child wiped the dirt off of his uniform and stood
back up with his hands on his hips, defiant until the very end. In a godlike
voice, he boomed, “Any last words before I take you to the authorities?”
T-Money shook his head before delivering a thudding knee to
Brat Man’s stomach and dropping him to his knees. While the small fry gasped
for air and whined in pain, the skinhead pulled Brat Man’s puffy until they
were nose-to-nose yet again. “This ain’t no Marvel Comics bullshit, little guy.
The hero ain’t going to win in the end. I tried being nice and letting you
leave, but I guess your welfare momma spoiled your ass, so I’m probably going
to have school you tonight.”
Brat Man threw the world’s weakest punch and only managed to
hit something in T-Money’s pocket and bruise his own knuckles. The child cried
and shook out his hand. The racist smiled and pulled out the object of Brat
Man’s blind attack: a smart phone with a solid steel protection case. “You see
this, you little bitch?” he said. “When you actually work for a living instead
of lazing around on tax dollars, you can afford shit like this. Look at how
strong this thing is!” The last sentence was punctuated by T-Money smashing the
steel case against Brat Man’s temple, knocking him down and bringing tears to
his eyes.
“Please, Mr. Money,” whined Brat Man.
“No more. I just want to go home. I won’t read anymore comic books, I swear!”
He held up his hands defensively to show that his begging was sincere.
“Nah, man, you ain’t going home tonight,” said T-Money. “If
I let you go home, your welfare momma’s just going to spoil your ass some more.
No more free rides, motherfucker. No more nigger money. No more of those geeky
ass comic books.” He leaned down and whispered angrily, “Welcome to the real
world, buddy. There are no heroes here. Just bad guys. Lots and lots of bad
guys. In case there’s any confusion…”
T-Money pulled out a hypodermic needle filled with a
mysterious substance and grabbed Brat Man firmly by the wrist, leaving purple
marks in his wake. The little guy yelled, “No!” as loud as he could and
squirmed around like a cat avoiding a flea bath. This was not the way he
imagined his superhero life to be. Superman never had to worry about getting
beaten to death by skinheads. Wonder Woman could break any sexist man with her
warrior spirit alone. The Flash could run circles around even the biggest and
baddest motherfuckers. Brat Man wanted all of that, but instead got a dose of
heroin stabbed into his arm like a murderer’s knife.
Once T-Money pressed down on the plunger, Brat Man convulsed
violently on the ground and coughed hard enough to bloody his mouth. He gasped
for air while clutching the B symbol on his chest. Visions of T-Money blurred
around him with a sadistic, devilish grin. The words, “Welcome to the real
world” echoed like a schizophrenic demon in Brat Man’s head. The obtrusive sounds
of sirens blaring caused Brat Man’s ears to pulsate with agony. The veins in
his brains thumped and pumped to where they almost exploded. His vision grew
dark and fuzzy until all that remained was cold silence.
In his nightmare, he huddled up for warmth while the
bandages around his body did nothing to toast him up. The entire Justice League
along with the Legion of Doom gathered in a circle around him, pointed, and
laughed like horses at his “stupidity”. Tears flowed from Brat Man’s bloodshot
eyes while he mouthed the words, “I’m sorry!” over and over again. No matter
how many times he wiped his tears away, they just kept coming back stronger
until they were more viscous than pipeline oil. Comic books formed a wall
around him, but all he wanted to do was burn them all. With matches in hand, he
struck the whole book and set the wall of paper ablaze while screaming, “I hate
you! I hate you all!”
“Hey!” shouted a masculine voice, which jolted Brat Man out
of his drug-induced nightmare. Except he wasn’t Brat Man anymore, not in those
hospital bandages. The fact that he was lying in bed sicker than Superman
around kryptonite made him even less of a hero on his mind. More tears were to
come.
The trench coat and fedora-wearing detective standing over Brat
Man’s bed patted him on the arm and said, “No more tears, young man. If you
hadn’t dialed 9-1-1 when you did, we would have never caught that skinhead.
We’ve been looking for him forever.”
Brat Man wiped his tears away and stuttered, “But…but…I
didn’t call 9-1-1.”
“Maybe not on purpose, but somebody dialed 9-1-1 on
T-Money’s phone,” explained the detective. Even in a drug-induced haze, Brat
Man vaguely remembered accidentally striking T-Money’s phone. He pocket dialed
the cops and they heard the entire conversation that night. Brat Man chalked
this up to luck instead of having any real superhero potential.
“Make no mistake about it, young man,” said the detective.
“Going out there in that silly superhero outfit at that time of night was
dangerous. You may have done the right thing, but there’s always that chance
that you could have died out there. Don’t ever do anything like that again.”
“I promise I won’t, sir,” sobbed Brat Man. “I
hate being a superhero.”
“Funny you should mention that, sonny,” said the detective
while ruffling Brat Man’s puffy locks. He pulled out his badge and showed it to
the wide-eyed vigilante. “You see this? This is what a real superhero carries
around with him. No kryptonite can ever take away this kind of power. But it
takes a lot of work to get one of these. That includes doing well in school and
training hard before you graduate. If you ever decide to be a superhero again,
consider having this on your new uniform…when you’re old enough, that is.”
The cop left the room and gave Brat Man some privacy. He
didn’t that much thinking time in order to know that the Brat Man gimmick was
dead in the water. There was no way anybody could be that invincible. But with
a police badge waiting for him at graduation, it was a good start. For the
first time since being mauled by T-Money, Brat Man, or rather Officer Brat Man,
formed a tiny smile on his face. But before he could take on the role of a real
hero, he had to detox this poisonous drug out of his system. Beating withdrawal
was a tough challenge worthy of a superhero’s might. He could do it. He had to
do it!
