Superpowers (30 page)

They set upon him as he turned down the alley to take a shortcut to the parking ramp. They seized his arms and shoved him up against cold brick, jarring his skull.
It's the FBI,
he thought.
They're rounding us all up.
But when they spun him around he saw that they were young men like him, students. But not like him. They were white and he was not. They were angry and he was afraid.

"Say it," one of them ordered. He wore a yellow polo shirt, and he was pale and shaky. "Say it!"

"What would you like me to say?" Solahuddin asked.

"The formula. 'There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.' Say that. You're one of them. I've seen you praying."

Solahuddin tried to think when and where this man could have seen him praying. He prayed only twice a day on most days, and very rarely in public.

"He doesn't look Arabic," said a young man with a ball cap. "He looks like a gook."

"I've seen him," said Polo Shirt.

"Where?"

Solahuddin knew, then. "The Islamic Center," he said aloud. "Shut up and say it," said Polo Shirt. The blood vessels of his eyes stood out like cracks in a windshield.

"Islamic Center?" asked Ball Cap. "You were at the Islamic Center?"

"You prayed with us—" Solahuddin started to say, but Polo Shirt cut him off with a fist in the stomach. Solahuddin clutched his belly, but after the initial cascade of pain, calm entered him. He was afraid, but not as afraid as the boy in the polo shirt. The boy was afraid that his curiosity about Islam had brought him to the fringes of an international society of terror, afraid that he could have done something to prevent the events of the day before.

"You did nothing wrong," Solahuddin said.

Polo Shirt backhanded him across the mouth. "Shut up!"

Solahuddin was stunned by the pain and suddenness of the blow. The inside of his lip was raw and wet.

"Dude, let him go," said Ball Cap.

"He's one of them!" Polo Shirt took hold of Solahuddin's collar and shook him. "Say it!"

Solahuddin spat out blood and straightened. If they would hear the Shahadah, he would give it to them.
"As-salaam aleikum,
my friend. There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet."

They looked at him as if he had changed shape, as if he had revealed himself to be an alien among them. Their fear made Solahuddin angry. This was the worst of the American character: people nestled so deeply in their own comfort zones that they could not even distinguish between unknowns. When they felt helpless and afraid, they saw everything through the filter of their ignorance. Difference was dangerous, in their eyes. Solahuddin was tired of it.

"There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet," he repeated.

For a moment he thought they might walk away. Then PoloShirt kicked him in the genitals, and the others closed in around them.

All he could do was recite the formula to himself, a koan, an incantation, a prayer. "There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. There is no god but Allah ..."

_______

Mary Beth had walked all over Madison. She'd gotten lost three times but just kept walking until she saw something familiar. It seemed like such a small city until she actually walked the neighborhoods, saw people mowing their lawns and playing with their kids. Then it became overwhelming, every house with its own tragedies, every inhabitant their own heartbreak.

She hadn't slept last night. Every time she approached her apartment something made her start walking again. She walked for most of the night, and when two boys in a Camaro pulled up next to her at 3
A.M.
and suggested she get in the car, she tore a concrete bench off its foundations to throw at them. They peeled off too quickly, so she set it back down in its place, fighting the urge to pound it into dust. She was powerful. But what good did her power do her, or anyone? What use was it against bombs, flying or otherwise?

"Screw the hero business," said Wanda Benson. She was as Mary Beth supposed she had appeared at the time of her death— stringy hair, sleep bruises under her eyes, swollen ankles. Aside from her belly, which swelled the hospital gown beyond its limits, she was oddly thin. She shuffled along beside Mary Beth, her legs splayed to support her uneven weight.

"There's money in construction, you know. The one that was probably your dad did that. That'd be great to see you on one of those sites, showing up all those guys that are always whistling at the girls. You could put them all out of work. You could buy a house and a bunch of cars and eat steak every night, and you wouldn't have to wear the spandex you're hiding under your sweats." "You're not here," Mary Beth said.

"Fuck you, kid. You think because you're older than I ever got to be that you know more than I do? You never lived on the streets. You had it all handed to you. I mean, good for you. But if I'd lived you'd know the real value of cash money. You'd know to get your own shit together before worrying about anybody else's problems."

"I'm sorry you had a hard life." Mary Beth didn't know if she was talking out loud or not. "But I have to use this power the way I think it should be used."

"Spoken like a true white suburban middle-class liberal. You think the people you help are really grateful? Aren't they trying to sue you for that gas explosion thing? And that guy whose collarbone you dislocated pulling him out of a burning car? You better either get out of the racket or start carrying release forms for people to sign."

"Someone has to help."

"Heard of policemen? Firefighters, EMTs? They get paid to do it. What are you getting?"

"Please go away," Mary Beth said. She shut her eyes, and when she opened them Wanda Benson was gone. She was on State Street, beside an alley, and someone was gasping in pain. There were five men stomping and punching someone on the ground.

She had the costume on under her clothes. She liked the feel of it on her skin, but they had agreed not to be seen wearing them until they decided what they were doing. She had promised, and there wasn't time enough in any case.

The muscles in her arms and chest felt like springs, wound to the point of breaking. She ran, and reached out—her hands so small, she thought, too small to contain what was simmering inside her. She grabbed two of the boys by the shoulders and threw them behind her. Too hard. She had to stay in control. She slapped another boy in the chest, and he went down, fighting for breath. She clenched her teeth so tightly that her jaw trembled. She reached for another boy, but the last two were already running. They were all gone except the one she'd struck in the chest, who was gasping for breath, gaping at her.

It wasn't enough to make up for the last two days, the last two weeks, the last four months.

A bloodied Asian man lay on the ground, talking to himself.

"Are you all right?" Mary Beth asked him. "Can you stand?" She leaned close to hear what he was saying.

"There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet," he said. "There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. There is no god—"

Mary Beth dropped her fists to her sides. "I think you should stop saying that." Her breath was shallow, and her throat felt thick. She could call an ambulance from a pay phone. She could go be somewhere far away from people for a while. Almost, she made that choice.

"There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet."

"Shut up." Hot tears ran down her cheeks, making her angrier. "How can you talk like that now? What is wrong with you?"

"There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet."

She seized him by his collar and lifted him to his feet, heedless of possible broken bones or internal bleeding. "Don't say that anymore," she said. "Please."

"There is no—"

She didn't hold back when she hit him. It felt good. She hit him and he went quiet and when she could see again she saw that his head lay at an unnatural angle, his eyes half-shut and still, his mouth open.

He was dead. She had broken his neck, and he was dead.

She set the body down so she could turn and throw up. She straightened and met the eyes of the boy who was still catching his breath, and he shook his head, terrified. She put up her hands in surrender, the hands that broke, that shattered, that killed. And then she ran.

EDITOR'S NOTE

I've been thinking a lot about change, wondering whether it's possible for one person to change anything. Even five people, even with superpowers. Maybe it takes a paradigm shift, a cultural sea change. And for that, you need for people to believe that change is possible. I don't know how I can expect anyone else to buy into that idea when I'm not sure I do myself.

Sometimes I get lost in all the machinations of power. The people doing things start to blend together until I can hardly distinguish them, until their agency starts to bleed away. It's like the power itself is the only active thing, like somewhere along the way we released an irresistible force that's herding us all over some unavoidable cliff. I guess it's sort of like believing in god, or the devil. I wouldn't know.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though, because this story isn't over.

Read on.

WEDNESDAY

In the end it was Stevie Wonder that brought Harriet back. It wasn't that simple, of course. There was groundwork to lay first. She told her dad about Xavier, but it took some time— she'd hidden it from him for so long that the words wouldn't come.

It would have been bad enough if that was the only thing, but there was the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field outside of Pittsburgh. There was Caroline's mother missing, there was Jack dying, there was Charlie losing his mind, and there was Mary Beth.

It was easier to talk about those things, so that's what she did that first night, and the next, and every night for nearly three weeks. She only left her dad's apartment when she couldn't sleep, to take long walks around the lake. She steered clear of houses, flinched at windows. She dreaded telling her father about the last four months of voyeurism almost as much as she dreaded telling him about Xavier. She'd lost herself in other people's lives so she wouldn't have to deal with her own, but she was done with that, she told herself.

She kept in touch with Caroline and Charlie by phone, though dialing when she couldn't see her fingers was a serious challenge. Caroline was still in New York, though Harriet could tell that she had lost hope of finding her mother. On the phone Caroline's voice drifted in and out, as if contact with Harriet was not enough to connect her to the real world. She told Harriet she hadn't flown since arriving in New York, that she was afraid if she took off she'd just keep on going. Harriet stopped herself from saying she knew the feeling. She didn't feel that she had the right to relate to Caroline.

If Caroline sounded on the verge of being blown away, Charlie sounded like he'd been buried alive—he yawned constantly, as if he couldn't catch his breath, and his voice seemed to come from far away. He spoke to her of conversations they had never had until Harriet realized that he was having trouble distinguishing between things she'd said and things she'd thought.

Charlie had told her Jack was OK but didn't say how he knew. "Did he call you?" she'd asked. "Where is he?" Charlie said Jack had been friends with the Indonesian student that Mary Beth was supposed to have killed. Stunned, Harriet tried to deflect this information with another question, forgetting who she was talking to. "Is Jack still. . ."

"Yes, he's still dying," said Charlie. "Like the rest of us, only a lot faster. And I don't know how long."

Charlie wouldn't say if he knew where Mary Beth was, but Harriet had to believe he did. One night her father had asked to speak to Charlie. Ray Bishop was not in charge of the investigation of Solahuddin Sutadi's death, as the Madison police had not established a definite connection between that case and the All-Stars. But he had obvious interest in finding Mary Beth first. After fifteen minutes, Ray hung up the phone and shook his head.

"I can't tell if he's losing it for real or he just doesn't want to tell me anything."

"Maybe a little of both," said Harriet.

"Harriet?" Ray looked in her direction, his gaze falling somewhere east of her left shoulder. One of the things Harriet missed most was eye contact.

"Yes?"

"You'd tell me if you knew where she was, wouldn't you?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"I'm sure it was an accident, Dad."

"I'm sure it was. But she needs to give a statement to that effect."

"She's still not really used to her power."

"I know, honey."

"You don't really know, though. There's no training for this. One day we were all normal, and the next we can do all these things. It could have happened to any of us. I mean, when I think about all the times I. . ."

"Harriet?"

All those times she'd watched Xavier. In locker rooms, in class, in his apartment. While he slept. She hadn't even known she was thinking it.

"Harriet, you know it scares me when you do that. I can't see you. I don't know if you're all right."

She used to justify not telling her father about Xavier because she was afraid he would kill him. But now she realized that she had been putting herself in situations where she could have killed Xavier without anyone ever knowing. There was no motive, as far as anyone knew, and there would be no witnesses. Only her.

"Dad ..."

"Harriet, what's wrong?"

"Dad, I'm scaring myself."

She told him all of it, not just Xavier, but all the things she had done since she'd discovered her power. She glossed over some of the details, but even so it took forever to get it all said.

When she was finished he said, "You're a better person than me, Harriet. I'd have killed that kid."

"Dad, don't."

"I won't. But I hope I don't run into him anytime soon, because I'd like to hurt him."

Harriet sobbed. "I'm sorry."

"For what? I mean, the sneaking into people's houses, that's got to stop." "It has."

"But other than that, which I think I can be persuaded to look the other way on, you haven't actually done anything."

Harriet smiled, even though her father couldn't see it. "Don't you think that sometimes you cut me a little too much slack, Dad?"

"Harriet, you didn't kill anybody."

And maybe that was it. Maybe it was simply that her misdeeds were relatively minor compared to what was going on around them. Whatever it was, he forgave her completely.

And so a couple of days later, on a Wednesday when she should have been in class, when her father was on shift, she put on his old Stevie Wonder albums and danced around the living room without any self-consciousness. No one could see her, and in that moment she remembered how wonderful that feeling used to be, how liberating. She shut her eyes and just moved, and at some point during "Boogie on Reggae Woman" she saw that her fingernails needed clipping. She ran to the bathroom. She needed a haircut and forty feet of dental floss, but she was back.