The Normals

Chapter Three: Witty Banter

One of the stories about Fantastic Man, one that nobody really believed, was that when he was starting out as a Super there wasn’t anybody who really appreciated  his work or liked him very much. It couldn’t really have been true, not about a Perfect like Fantastic Man. It wasn’t any more likely than the the rumor Marianne had heard in second grade, that he had once had a Normal as a sidekick. It was preposterous.

But for her, on the other hand, she knew it was true. Nobody cared about the work she did, nobody but James and Nicole, who loved the work she did and cheered her on every day when she told them what evil deeds she had managed to punish that day. And, true, there were a good deal of Normals in Marianne's neighborhood who cared about what she did. She had saved enough people that a great many of them had developed a huge respect for her, or a huge fear. 

But they didn’t count. Or rather, they did sort of count, because a lot of them became her friends and depended on her and loved her, and she was a hero to them. But Marianne didn’t just want to be a hero; she loved it, but there was no future in it. She wanted to be a Super hero. She wanted the respect of more Supers than just James and Nicole. She wanted the admiration of more Normals than those ones who lived around her streets and knew her by her first name and dropped their babies off at Marianne’s mother’s daycare. She figured she deserved it.

There were always problems that the Supers didn’t get to in time, or didn’t hear about in time, or were too busing posing in front of a TV camera to care about. Those were the problems Marianne solved. Marianne solved those problems every day. Marianne solved those problems every day for years and years and years. And it never got better.

“Girl,” said one of Marianne’s friends once, “it’s never going to get better.” 

Marianne and Rox had a long history together. Rox was Marianne's closest Normal friend. They had met when Marianne had run to her shop to buy diapers, interrupted a robbery, beat the attacker on the head with a can of peaches, and come back the next day to pay for the damage. Rox's younger brother Red had gone to Marianne's daycare for several years, and her older brother Richard had dated Marianne for several weeks. (Marianne had tried to keep the relationship dangerous and mysterious, like a Super should, but it soon fell apart mostly out of embarrassment.) Out of respect for their long-standing friendship, Rox saw it as her personal responsibility to educate Marianne about the truths of being a Normal.

“What do you mean,” asked Marianne, “it’s not gonna get better?”

“It’s just not,” said Rox. “The Supers don’t care about people like us.”

“They do too care about people like us,” said Marianne. “Fantastic Man devoted his whole life to saving Normals. And the Fantastic City Supers do the same.”

“Oh, sure, they care about us when it comes to people they can save. They care about us when they need an audience, and applause, and people to love them and pay the taxes that fund all their fancy costumes and gadgets and stuff. They need us then. But Normals who try to do something with their lives?” Rox shook her head. “Marianne, you can do something with your life: you can have the greatest day care center in Fantastic City, because all the mommies will want to leave their babies with someone who knows how to protect people like you do. But anything else? Forget it, girl.”

Marianne frowned at the counter. Rox had an unpleasant habit of saying things that were too true for Marianne to admit. 

Her cell phone rang, showing an unfamiliar number, which meant that it was somebody who needed her help. Everybody around here knew her cell phone number. One day, Marianne promised herself, she was going to upgrade to a beacon like Sparroman's which would light up whenever the day needed saving. Until then, she had to make do with making sure her number was posted clearly in public buildings.