I Guess I'm a Hero

Spaghetti and Meatballs

"So I wasn't seeing things!" Timmy pounded his fist on the table in his excitement. "I did see you lift your car this morning."

Timmy and I were sitting at his table with Peg and Jess, having just finished a nice dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. I brought along a bottle of cabernet sauvignon which always goes well with pasta and meat sauce, in my opinion, and for a while we were just four friends talking over dinner. Peg was looking better and apparently Jess had her headache under control. The two of them had spent some time alone – "girl talk" they said – while Timmy and I prepared dinner. I worked on the meatballs (hey, it's the Italian in me), and he cooked the pasta and veggies. It was so...normal. Dinner conversation was fine. We just talked about the restaurant or what movies were coming out or politics; whatever it is that normal people talk about during dinner. Jess would look at me and then over to Peg and smirk a little bit which caused me to look at Timmy and roll my eyes. "Girl talk" indeed. We held off the big topic of conversation for as long as we could, but... well, talk about the proverbial elephant in the room.

"Yes," I replied. "You did see me lift my car. You weren't seeing things."

I was sure that Peg had filled Jess in on the details because Jess didn't look surprised at Timmy's outburst or the fact that I had just calmly admitted that I had lifted my car. After the incident with the little girl and the truck, he and I had gone back into the restaurant. We both sat with a glass of water each, but neither of us said anything to each other. I did go back to the office and told Peg what had happened. She seemed a little bit surprised, but not as much as I thought she should have been. Had she dreamt about Timmy's rescue of the little girl too? And no, I didn't actually ask her out. After I told her about what had happened outside, the four of us being together tonight seemed to be a foregone conclusion.

"So what now?" he asked.

"You're asking me like I know. This is all new to me too."

"Well," Tim and I turned to the sound of Peg's voice. "If this is all really happening and we all didn't just go crazy and don't know it yet, the next thing we should do is find out exactly what's happening to you two - what your limits are. And also what exactly your powers are. Are you just strong, Bill? Is that it? Is Tim just fast?"

"And just how are we going to do that, Peg?" I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, but it seemed like this conversation was heading towards all kinds of crazy. "I mean, fast is easy. We can just head to the track at the high school with a stopwatch and let him do sprints until the sun comes up. But strong? You do know that those barbells that say 'one ton' on them are only in the cartoons, right? What are we going to do? Start with my small car and see if I can work my way up to bench-pressing a semi?"

"I don't know," she shot back. "I'm just trying to come up with ideas. The easiest thing to do would be to have you lift cars, as crazy as that sounds. But if you have a better way to test..."

"Test what? I tell you it's just an aberration. I was about to be crushed by my own car and Tim was about to see a little girl get run over by a truck. We both had an adrenaline induced incident that made us seem super-strong or super-fast, but that's all it was – adrenaline."

Yes, I know it sounded lame. But what else was I going to say? This whole thing had "nuts" written all over it.

"Dude, calm down," Timmy said. "She is only trying to help. Both of us having an adrenaline rush is way too far-fetched for it to be the true explanation. Don't look at me like that. You know I'm right. You don't hear those super-strength stories every day. They are rare and you know it. It happening to both of us though...on the same day? Something strange is going on and we need to figure out what – and exactly what level of strange."

"Yeah, you're right," I admitted. "But why now? Why wait until I am in my 40s to give me super-strength? Why couldn't I get powers when I was younger, like you are? And for that matter, where did the powers come from? Who gave them to us? And why us? Is it just us or are there others? The more we think about it the more questions we can come up with. None of this makes any sense at all and I am not sure how we can make it make sense."

I'm sure I was getting a little frantic at this point, which was actually pretty surprising. I could hear my voice rising – in pitch, and volume – with each new question I posed. In truth, I really am a very calm person. It takes a lot to get me angry or excited. I'm a "go with the flow" sort of guy, you could say. But, I guess being cornered with the fact that you suddenly have a super-power is one of those things that can rile even the calmest person.

"Bill," Peg grabbed hold of my hand. "That's why we're here – the four of us. So we can try to figure it out together. None of us knows what is happening or why. But what is it your heroes are always saying? 'With great power comes great responsibility'? There has to be a reason. You and Tim – the things you did today. It has to mean something. It can't just be blind chance. It has to be important."

She was right. She and Timmy both were. And I knew it. You know, all my life I wished that I had super-powers. Whether it was a power ring from the Green Lantern Corps, the power of flight or super-speed, or Superman's all inclusive set of powers. Every kid in the world has a hero and wants to be just like him or her. Adults do too. We all do - especially when times are tough. I remember on 9-11 when I was watching the horror on TV; watching the replays of the planes hitting the twin towers. Watching people jump out of the windows of one of the tallest buildings in the world on the slim off-chance they would survive the fall rather than be burned alive in the fire. I remember watching the towers fall and thinking to myself - and I know I am not the only person in the world who thought this - this world could really use a Superman now. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was a chance to make a difference. Maybe I didn't know what came next or why, but maybe it was time to just accept it. So I calmed down, straightened my shoulders and did just that.

"And don't forget your dream," I added. "That has to be important too."

"That's just a coincidence," Peg said lightly, and a little too quickly, if you ask me. "I don't have any special powers because I didn't have a dream about Tim rescuing that little girl."

"No," Jess, who hadn't said a word about this strangeness all evening, finally broke her silence. "I did."