I Guess I'm a Hero

The Flat Tire

I'm a hero. At least that's what I hear. I thought I was just an ordinary guy, but I guess not. You are probably going to want to hear how all of this got started. It's sort of cool, in a weird sort of way, but I suppose I should tell you a little bit about myself first. My name is Bill and before I became a "hero" I really wasn't anybody. Divorced, 40-ish (You think I'm going to tell you my real age?), a few more gray hairs than I would like and definitely not in the shape I was in when I was in high school. See? Just an ordinary guy. There are probably a million men in the world who can describe themselves just like that. And then stuff started happening in the world, and I guess that is really where the story starts.

See, the world was going to hell in a hand basket. Bad things were happening. No, this isn't some sort of post-apocalyptic tale. There were no nukes. No guy running around with his donkey doing bad Shakespeare. The government in my country, the good ol' U.S. of A., wasn't the same as I remember, and it was like that in all countries. Sure, they tried, but there is only so much a government-turned-corrupt can do when the people pulling their strings start making decisions of their own. Who were these people? Who knows? Call them The Corporation, The Yakuza, Big Brother...whatever. When you think of "They with a capital T", that's who we're talking about. They were just the people who were running the show and our "leaders" seemed powerless to do anything about it. Heck, our leaders were all in their back pockets. A lot of people were out of work. A lot of people were depressed. There were high prices and high suicide rates. Police and fire departments had their hands full, if they even tried, since the corruption had spread there too...spread there first really. There were no more rules about safety on the job. Just get it done as quickly as you can, so They can get their money faster. So yeah...there were a lot of accidents, accidents of the big industrial kind: The kind of accidents that used to make the news.

That's where I come in I guess. Just so we're clear, I'm not a kind of hero that wears tights and has some cool logo on my chest. I don't wear a cape (Ha-ha..."No capes!" Remember that?) Jeans and a t-shirt usually. Also, I'm not the only one. See, sometime after the "bad things" started happening, the "cool-in-a-weird-way" thing happened. Not really sure how it did. Maybe the earth passed through the tail of a comet or maybe a bunch of radioactive spiders got together at one of their conventions and decided to go out and bite a bunch of people. Maybe it was just karma or the hand of God. We'll probably never know. But some people – not everyone – in all parts of the world were changed, and only in one specific way. All the men that were affected got enhanced speed and strength. And I mean enhanced. All the affected women got a kind of foresight. They could see things happen before they actually did. Weird, huh? But cool. That's not even the weirdest part. We later found that the changed men and women were more effective if they found each other and worked together. You didn't know who your partner was, so that was a bit tricky; but once you did, if the man followed the directions of his seer partner, the possibilities were endless. I mean I could stop a speeding car or catch a falling safe or something if I was there. But once I found my partner (which is later on in the story...just be patient), I could do anything. If she told me I had to get to some city across the country in 15 minutes to perform some impossible feat of strength to save someone, then I could do it. That's how effective being paired up made us.

So, now that you have the basics, I suppose I should take you a little further back to the time when I first discovered that I was a little different. It really began just like any other day for me. My alarm went off at 8 o'clock; I got up, had a bowl of cereal, played a little solitaire on my computer and then had a quick shower. It's pretty much how I start every day. I got dressed, got in my car and got on my way. And then, something ordinary happened – I got a flat tire. Not that that happens all the time, but it just wasn't something overly heroic when you are about to discover you have super-powers. So I pulled over, popped the trunk and got out the jack.

Another thing about me is that I am not the most mechanically inclined person in the world, as many in my family can attest to. I mean, I can check the oil or change a flat tire or maybe point out where the spark plugs are. But I don't really know a whole lot more than that. That being the case, I probably set the jack incorrectly. It lifted the car, but I should have seen that something was wrong.

OK, so how many of you out there have seen Star Wars? Everyone? Yeah, I thought so. Remember how after you saw that movie you thought you were a Jedi? Every stick you found became a lightsaber or maybe you would try to Jedi-mind-trick your brother or even your mom when she told you to clean your room. You would wave your hand in front of her face and say, "I don't have to clean my room right now." And, of course, she would reply that you, in fact, did have to clean your room if you wanted to get your allowance that week. Anyhow, you thought you could do things. Even later on in life, maybe you were playing a game of pool, made a sweet shot to sink the 8-ball but the cue ball was heading straight for a pocket. You would hold your hand out just knowing that if you concentrated hard enough, you could use the Force to prevent yourself from losing the game. Before you laugh too much, I just have to say that I can't be the only person in the world that has done that. Anyhow, that is the kind of futility I am talking about. You know something can't work, but you give it a try anyhow.

I had loosened the lug nuts and was removing the tire when the jack slipped. Gravity started doing its job and the car started coming down. So, did I jump out of the way? Heck no! Remember the cue ball? In a spectacular demonstration of futility I put my hands under the wheel well and tried to stop the car from falling. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm sure that I was thinking, "This should earn me a trip to the emergency room." But that's not quite what happened. I didn't fall back or break my arm or get my leg pinned under the car – I was on one knee holding up my car. Now, here's the part I still shake my head about. I didn't just think, "Cool," hold up the car with one hand and replace the tire with the other. No...my thought was pretty much, "Holy shit!" I jumped back and the car finished its lopsided fall to the pavement. What a waste of a perfectly good feat of strength, right? Well, what would you have done?

For the next five minutes I did what I thought anyone who just did something impossible would do. First I flexed my arm muscles to see if I could notice anything different. Nope. My arms pretty much looked the same. I stepped forward and lifted the car then set it down and stepped back again and blinked a few times. I could hear other cars passing by slow down while the drivers looked on; surely thinking I had lost my mind. At the time, I can't say I could have disagreed with their supposed assessment of my mental state. I repeated this cycle, including the arm-flexing, a few more times before I lifted the car, put the jack back under it (securely this time), finished changing the tire and continued to work – only 20 minutes late.