Hey, wait a minute
He walked through the empty dirt boulevards of his LiveJournal Township; hand twitching against the butt of a literary six-gun. Swaggering, every fiber of his alpha-being oozing John Wayne-like machismo, the storybook champion looked set to unleash another lethal slug of pretentious, overwrought short fiction. Administered to any of the peon townie yokels, who, looking on slack jawed at such a magnificent pen-bound dead eye dick, would dream their dreamy dreams of a day when, somehow, they or theirs may posses such inspired fire power.
But which one? thought the man.
Our Dukeish penman looked up to select the most promising candidate for his high-octane pen-lashing and found himself face to face with a ghost town; a skittering tumbleweed.
“hurm.” he grunted, wiping the grit and sweat from his brow. High noon was hitting him hard and his legs began to buckle; Mother Sun just dropped a load of bricks on his back. Our hero needed shelter.
To his left was the Postacomment Saloon; his bread and butter. If ever there was an unwitting mind to spin his garbage in, it would be in there. Dukeish lumbered a-jingling-jangling up to the double doors and used both arms to push them open.
A complete bust. Every stool, both and table: empty. A hard exhalation of air blew though Duke’s shock-frozen lips as his legs failed him. Panic seized him like a bear trap. Where are you? He wanted to scream to his throngs of adoring fans, but, well… where were they?
Wide-eyed, crazed, only one thought permeated his weather beaten dome. Only one thought made sense. Mindlessly, he grabbed for his belt, lifted the longwinded revolver to his head,
and fired…
Defenderman
Defenderman stood atop one of the countless steel-framed spires overlooking the megalopolis empire of Krenshaw City. Erect, tall, and dressed in the full Defenderman regalia that has become his most identifiable iconic staple, our leather-clad savior was a master of his domain. He surveyed the shimmering, black skyline of reinforced Plexiglas stretching out in thousands of miles all around him. He owned this city in more ways than one; more ways than the average citizen could possibly begin to understand. Defenderman knew that he had saved his city from inexorable peril more times than he could count on his own gloved hands. And what’s more, he was certain that if he were to stop his nearly twenty-year rein of heroism, Krenshaw would instantaneously become engulfed in the darkest swirl of crime. But tonight, he was on the job.
He leapt from the tower, hundreds of stories above ground. His cape flapped wildly behind him as he fell to earth in standard swan-dive formation. The look on his chiseled face was one of a pensive stone wall as the planet’s concrete floor rushed up to meet him. Faster and faster he fell; every building stretching into a dark grey blur around our boldly stoic hero. Only a mere 50 feet from the inevitably fatal ground, our courageous caller’s face is now ridiculously distorted by speed. It’s only seconds before our plucky protagonist becomes a puny pockmark on the ass of the earth.
Is this the end of Defenderman?
Well, no, of course not. In that final moment before the terminal meeting of flesh and stone, the audacious Defenderman swung his beefy legs around to hit the ground dead-on with a force more powerful than a speeding locomotive; sending up a cloud of earth and crushed concrete. And when the dust settled, it was Defenderman crouching unscathed in a crater of his own making; just as he had the hundreds of times before.
Defenderman crawled out from his hole and stood in front of an office building owned by none other than “Chuckles” D’Addario, leader of the notorious D’Addario crime syndicate. It’s common knowledge that nearly every crime and misdemeanor committed in this area was backed in whole or part by D’Addario thugs. And now there was word the elusive capo was hold up in this, one of the many castles in his organized kingdom, hammering out the details of a large-scale cigarette smuggling with undoubtedly another of his wop, scum buddies. Defenderman hated Italians.
Sir Dr. Defenderman PhD. (Hon.) made his way to the sheer face of the building; dancing past the no doubt cadre of unseen cameras that may record his every move and give away his intentions all too soon. He stepped up to the glass wall and removed the patented Defend-O-Pads*(which where, admittedly, ordinary suction pads) from his Defend-O belt. He placed each pad in a firm starting position and poised his cut, superhero bod for a forty story ascent. With a weary sigh he started, one Defend-O-Pad in front of the other.
En route to D’Addario’s floor, Defenderman saw his likeness plastered thirty feet tall above him with a viscous white substance adorning his upper lip. There was a caption to his right asking if the assessor of this advertisement had at all in his or her possession any amount of processed bovine lacteal. Defenderman did not, however, and felt somehow guilty of letting his thirty-foot-tall self down. He spent the rest of the climb felling hot and ashamed; adverting his eyes from the accusing stare of Giganto-Defenderman.
Finally, without as much as a grunt, he reached the floor of forty and pulled out his patented Defend-O brand glasscutter (again, your garden variety glasscutter) from one of the many snap pouches and zippers on his belt. After cutting a generous circumference for himself, the wily Defenderman slither into the building’s fresh wound. He landed soundlessly, like a cat (albeit a cat with a cape), on the cushy burbor carpeting of a darkened corridor… ok, darkened hallway.
Slowly… he… crept… and… slunk… toward… D’Addario’s… office… as… to… not… make… a-- “Not so fast Defenderman. HA ha ha ha ha!” said D’Addario in his nasal wine littered with hiccupped laughter. Our beloved Defenderman jumped; not only startled by being caught, but also balking at the disgusting bray of feverish laughter which followed everything “Chuckles” said. Oh, he was a truly evil person D’Addario was. I once heard he shot a man for being cordial to him… I don’t really know why. Maybe he thought it was faux cordiality or something, I’m not sure. Look, I’m sorry I even brought it up lets get back to the story.
A light came on silhouetting the bepinstriped Italian’s portly frame. He wore a fedora and a perpetual haze of cigar smoke hung about his scarred face. Believe me when I tell you there’s a slimy story written in every scar on that sweaty mug. “You’ve made it this far Doofus-Defender, heh heh, but let’s see if you can make it past my goons. HEE ha ha hawh hoo!”
Just then a phalanx of muscle descended upon the caped wonder, coming after him one by one from every angle. It was now when his Defend-O-Senses came in handy (well, really just his reflexes), telling him exactly where to turn. To the Right! BOFF! The left! POW! 30*N latitude 70*W longitude! KERPLANG! Wait a second there’s a goomba coming in from the left flank but BOOM Defenderman connects with an elbow to his olive colored maw.
The last of the long arms go out with a whimper as a not-even-winded Defenderman wipes the blood from his suit (dry clean only, ya know). Finished, he turns his attention to “Chuckles” only to see the light in obvious absence of his corpulent shadow. He looked behind him in time to see a helicopter whirr past the window. So he had a private heli… huh, well that was unexpected. How many times had he gone through this song-and-dance? How many times will he go through it?
An outsmarted Defenderman walked pissed-off down the stairs to the ground floor; mumbling to himself over how he could have been so stupid. Out in front he used the Defend-O-something-or-another to summon is patently futuristic car. How embarrassing; a gas-electric-solar idiot mobile complete with esoteric blipping and bleeping lights and useless switches and dials. He knew what none of them meant.
It was an hour drive back to the Temple of Privacy (eychh, gag me) and pulling in through the overly complicated security doors and super-polished, neon-colored floors, Defenderman realized how pointless this all was. What was he doing; a 40-year-old man gallivanting around the city in a leather unitard under the grandiose preconception that he’s this town’s salvation, “single handedly stomping out crime” one dim-witted crony bar-bell at a time? What the hell are policemen for! The truth of the matter, one that he had been trying to deny since he first donned the haberdashery, is that he does this town no more of a service than the local hotdog vendor. He was just a face that people put on lunchboxes to make them feel safe. All the time he led them under this false guise of his protection while the police did all the real perp-busting. It was time to face facts; he was the Brad Pitt of the crime fighting world.
Vapidly our aging quasi-hero stumbled past glass-encased replacement suits, super weapons, super-duper gadgets, super-atomic-rocket-booster-equipped vehicles and other crap. All of which meant so much to him, now so meaningless. He peeled off his costume, chest and cape branded with the patented Defenderman insignia, laid naked and splayed on his futuristic recliner and wept. He wept as though no other superhero should have wept, but he wasn’t one anymore.
Meanwhile, the direct line to Commissioner Terrance’s office began to ring. That constant (brrrrring!) incessant (brrrrring!) ring (brrrrring!). Then, without missing a beat, the hero formerly known as Defenderman grabbed for the first blunt object he could find… a candelabra. And still crying he went for the phone. He swung once… missed completely. Twice! A piece of shrapnel cut his face. THREE TIMES! The phone busts into pieces and falls to the ground. He then musters a primal scream, heaving the candelabra in an arc over his head, hitting it over and over and over and over until it was a stagnant pile of gears and red plastic pulp.
Defenderman dropped the candelabra and rubbed is face, smearing blood and snot all over his sweating visage. He felt good, too good. His face bore a bloodstained ear-to-ear smile. He looked about his lair surveying all of its beakers and glass casings and picked back up his candelabra.
“There’s so much more to break.” Said Defenderman, then he took his first swing.