Excerpt: Mr. Normal Guy, Superhero Extraordinary

Chapter 1

My name is Mr. Normal Guy. I’m a superhero. Well, kind of. I don’t have any superpowers. I’ve been to all the specialists. I’ve seen all the doctors. I’ve contemplated exposing myself to gamma radiation just to see if I can acquire some, but so far I haven’t been brave enough to take that step. Also, too many before me have fallen via that route. The success rate is very low. I do pal around with some real superheroes though. Well, I go to the monthly meetings. I haven’t really solved any crimes or busted any criminals, but I have a great publicist. Well, I have a publicist that I pay and she gets me sweet gigs like ice cream shop openings, hot dog stand special appearances, County Fair gigs and an ever-growing group of disappointed kids whose parents decided to hire me as the Superhero for their kids’ party. To my detriment, I also have a roommate and friend Mo who fancies himself as a publicist of mine. I don’t pay him or encourage his mostly off-the-wall ideas. In fact, quite the opposite. I actually discourage his antics and try to siphon his energy for helping me into other projects like, say, a fulltime job or stalking other better known celebrities and attempting to get him to assist their publicists. So far it hasn’t worked.

His most recent publicity stunt did make it so that I am publicly known. Lots more people now about me as a superhero. Unfortunately, most of these newfound fans of Mr. Normal Guy also now despise me. For the record, I was much happier when I was anonymous and unknown.

Mo decided to put my face on a magnet as well as my name, phone number and email address directly below that slightly unflattering picture of my face. He didn’t use my headshots. He used a shot that he had taken himself shortly after waking me up at 3AM and telling me that there was a crime happening directly outside our apartment. He insisted that I pose for one shot before heading out to thwart my first crime. He used this shot for the magnet. I’m staring at the camera, bleary eyed, half-awake, with a small bit of spittle stuck to one side of my mouth. At least I was smiling. He had 15,000 made. I have 10,000 of these useless items in my small room in our two-bedroom apartment . Once I can get Flambé or Bombshell Belle to acknowledge my existence, then I’ll have them completely destroyed.

Per usual, Mo didn’t bother to tell me he was making the magnets and, even more distressing, that he was handing them out to passersby at our local coffee house. My phone started ringing more than normal, especially late at night. There were asking things like “What could you do for me?” or “I need it really bad. Do you do single person appearances or do you only work parties?” These were confusing, but such is the life of a superhero. Sometimes you get the real calls for people looking for help (well, so far I don’t get these) and, at other times, some weirdoes get your number and won’t stop calling. I thought these were the latter so I politely declined. I got a lot more weirdo calls now that my name was listed in the SuperSociety directory.

One day, I got a call where the caller simply stated, “Hey, I got one of your magnets and the guy told me that you work parties and are a great instructor with years of experience. Would you be willing to work a party for my friends and me? We could really use the assistance of someone ‘Superher extraordinary’.”

“HOLY MOLY, an actual paying gig!! Today’s the day I stopped getting laughed at by my superpeers!!” I thought.

“I’d be more than willing to work the party, but I am pretty booked for the next few weeks. What day were you thinking?” I said looking down at my blank calendar except for the monthly SuperSociety luncheon and notes scrawled across pages saying “Do gay superhero stuff”, “Dress in tights and prance around like a fairy boy”, etc., randomly scribbled in there by Mo. I had to lie though. I mean would you want to hire a superhero who wasn’t in demand?! It’s like walking into an empty restaurant with a skinny waitstaff. It doesn’t bode well.

We superheroes are considered ‘big time’ when we no longer have to work a day or night job as our alter ego. So far, I haven’t made it big, but I was laid off from my last job and have some savings, some severance and make just enough through the few appearances I do get to pay my Society dues, rent and cell phone bill.

“Friday of next week? I’ll pay extra.”

“Hmmm, let me see here….well…I did have another event I was supposed to attend that night, but, as luck would have it, they just called a few minutes ago to reschedule and you caught me before I could get to those on my waiting list. I do have to ask, Society rules you know, is this for a good cause? I’m not allowed to work Evil events, you have to call The Empire for that.”

“Oh yes, a wonderful cause. The best, in fact! We’re releasing a new queen into the wild. We want her to learn from the best and, from what your friend says, you are the best. It’s going to be fabulous!!”

My friends? Discussing entomology? Recommending me? Why not Insecticon, that 16 legged freak, umm, I mean 16-legged Hero? What did I have to teach a queen? Well, whatever, maybe he was booked or they just decided they wanted a superhero at their event, but not a REALLY expensive hero like Insecticon. He did save that train full of people last month from giant pill bugs, so his appearance prices have probably skyrocketed by now.

“Well, ok. I’ll try my best to teach you all I know about the art of ‘queening’. It sounds like a wonderful event! What time?”

I spent the next two weeks boning up on insect lifestyle and learning all I could about being a queen insect, or, as Wikipedia later taught me, insects in the Eusocial strata of insect hierarchy. Good, huh? I picked up all kinds of interesting fun facts. For example did you know that queen bees made noises outside of buzzing? Me neither. According to Wikipedia, “[f]ully developed virgin queens communicate through vibratory signals: "quacking" from virgin queens in their queen cells and "tooting" from queens free in the colony, collectively known as piping.”

Armed with confidence and carrying my collection of Wikipedia printouts and other reference materials, I headed off to the supposed Entomology party hoping to at least impart some knowledge to those attempting to “queen”. I incorrectly assumed that this was, as most parties I worked, a soon-to-be-disappointed group of kids at a themed birthday party. I was, in fact, about to alienate an entire segment of the greater Metro area's population and kick off a series of previously unforeseen events that would shake up the world and the SuperSociety from this day forward.

Chapter 2

I arrived at the party 15 minutes early, met the host and was shuffled off to an outer room to make my surprise appearance. The host asked me if I needed to change, seemed confused when I said “No, I generally just do these gigs in my SuperSuit.”

Fifteen minutes later, I entered a room filled with what I originally mistook for women and quickly learned that I was actually in a room filled with men dressed as women. I didn’t learn that they were all men until a bit later when I made an offhand comment to one of the more attractive looking men (I thought he/she was a woman) about drag queens being a little overly sensitive almost like they were real women. Apparently, that kind of humor is not well received in the drag queen community. After a number of minutes of yelling and screaming about insensitivity and letter writing, they showed me the magnet.

“Is this your face?” an irate drag queen said thrusting the magnet into my hand

“Ummm, yeah? What the hell is this?!”

“Is this your phone number?” pointed another angry queen.

“Yes?”

“And are you Mrs. Norma Gay, Superher Extraordinary?” said the first queen.

“And what kind of person…” started in another.

“Now hold on a minute, please,” I said, “One at a time. Now what was he saying over there?” A silence fell over the room as everyone gasped.

“Wait, wait, I meant she? It? No! Wait! ‘It’ can’t be right!! Oh gosh, I’m really sorry! What was he/she/it saying over there?” At this point, I did learn an important lesson. Most drag queens prefer to be called she. Use the feminine pronoun and never, EVER use ‘it’. Not under any circumstances. This wasn’t the worst of it though.

“Where do you get off, Mr. SuperStraight? Are you a homophobe or something? You think there’s something wrong with us.”

“No, ma’am, err, sir. Most of you are very pretty and I totally respect your lifestyle choice. I mean lifestyle. I mean…” At this point I started to sweat profusely. When I sweat, I start to speak without thinking. “Well, all of you except for maybe that guy/girl. Yeah, you Jeff or Darla. It doesn’t look like you were really even trying. I mean you haven’t shaved in, what, three days and how many women do you know with a five o’clock shadow. I mean there was my 3rd grade teacher, but she had a hormonal disorder…” That didn’t help either. Apparently, it was that Jeff’s party.

Everyone started speaking at once at this point and I tried to answer as many questions as possible.

“Actually, no. I’m Mr. Normal Guy. Superhero Extraordinary. You see, that’s my thing. I’m just a normal guy who wants to be a superhero, so I created this costume, but couldn’t think of a cool name like Mr. Astounding or Steak Tar Tar…yes I know he’s dead, but the name is still cool….see it’s got the mask that covers my face, the skin tight clothes so I don’t get caught in doors, gears, etc…..wait, what? Yes. I know I’m not the most in-shape fellow around. Hey! That was uncalled for!! It’s been a few months since I’ve had a paying gig and my gym membership ran out. So yes, the costume is a little snug. Muffin top? What’s a muffin….hey don’t pinch that!! Anyway, see the costume has all the cool….yes I know black would be more slimming, but this gray was on-sale and they said that it hid dirt better than black, I’m beginning to think they might be wrong about that…actually I don’t know much about being a drag queen… No, I can’t really show you any moves…does this count, it’s called the pencil sharpener…Yes I know it’s from like fifth grade…Yeah, I kinda do expect to be compensated. ..well, it’s Society rules… it’s not my fault you got some faulty magnet from…who did you get this from again…some guy in front of where…was he about 5’10” with long black hair and a fu-manchu…yes, I know him…”

Apparently, Mo hadn’t checked the sample received from the magnet maker. He hadn’t looked for simple things like typos, etc. So instead of getting 15000 magnets that stated “Mr. Normal Guy, Superhero Extraordinary”, he, in fact, received 15,000 magnets stating “Mrs. Norma Gay, Superher Extraordinary”.

I left without getting paid and profusely apologizing for the confusion caused by my idiot roommate. Unfortunately, there was a reporter there. He/She managed to track down Mo, so what was a minor public relations catastrophe got much, much worse.