Recapping from 15
Back out on the sidewalk, Clark was practically walking on air. He wasn’t, he assured himself, checking. What a nice girl. It wasn’t usually easy to meet people in the city. But she wasn’t from the city, perhaps that was why. He thought about what she’d said, doing chores. He’d done chores all his life, twice a day, right up until he’d moved to Metropolis.
He thought about what she’d said about the cartoons. They had really meant a lot to him. He’d rushed through his early morning chores to be able to spend Saturday mornings in front of the television with all of his superheros. He’d watched Spiderman, Batman, Popeye, Wonder Woman. She was a bit too racy for him though. But Hercules had always been one of his favorites. It came on every afternoon at four, just after he’d gotten off the bus.
Popeye was another of his favorites. He’d wondered at times if his strength had come from all the spinach his mother fed him from the garden. He’d never had spinach from a can like Popeye, though.
Dead or Alive pt 16
Lois found the laundry room at the hospital and walked in. Looking around, she found a woman pulling sheets out of the dryer.
“Excuse me, do you have a lost and found here?”
“Oh certainly, Ma’am. It’s right over here. She led Lois over to a plastic container and opened the lid. These are the unclaimed clothes that patients have left behind.”
”May I look through it for some things?”
“Yes, that’s fine, dear.”
“You wouldn’t have found a wallet would you?”
“I think so.”
She moved over to another smaller box on one of the wire shelves along the wall. What’s the name?”
“Clark Kent.”
The woman shuffled through eyeglasses, wallets and watches, finally finding a brown leather wallet with the name Clark Kent marked on a sticky paper on the outside. She looked at Lois. “Um, I'm going to need some identification. We’ve tried to phone him but there was no answer.”
“He’s been very ill. He works with me at the Daily Planet and asked me to come down and pick it up for him.” Lois pulled out her press pass to show that she worked at the paper.
“Well, you look honest enough, here you go. Tell Mr. Kent that I hope he’s feeling better.”
“Thank you, I will. He will really appreciate it .”
Lois put the wallet in her satchel and returned to the bright sunny day outside, grinning from ear to ear. She did it! She had Clark’s wallet! She walked down the path from the hospital to the parking lot, turning off at the pathway to the flowers in the woods. She sat down on a bench overlooking a reflecting pond surrounded with colorful flowers, and pulled the satchel onto her lap. Opening up the large flap, she pulled the wallet out and opened it, ready to examine its contents.
It contained $75 in assorted bills. It also contained many cards. First was his drivers license. Yes, that was Clark. That was where he lived, he was older than she was, he was born in 1966. Next was his press pass. The photo was better than his driver’s license was. She compared the ties. That man never wore the same tie twice. He sure was good looking, and what a nice smile he had. He did have good taste in clothing, even if some of the ties were a bit bizarre, they were usually silk and shimmered when the light hit them just right.
The next card was his home insurance, State Farm. His health insurance card didn’t have a photo on it either. He had a MasterCard, Diner’s Club card, a Visa and a Cheese of the month club card. Cheese of the month club, that was a new one.
Then there were the photos. His mother in the kitchen, she was a nice looking lady. She was certainly pretty. His father in front of his tractor, which looked like it was brand new. One of himself and Jimmy and his father fishing from a boat that didn’t look big enough to hold them all. A photo of Superman with herself. Why’d he have a picture of them? There was a picture of just her from when she was young. Where’d he gotten that photo? It looked like her high school graduation picture. There was another of her with Clark. She remembered when that photo had been taken back when they were partners.
There was one of her that Superman had taken. She was lying on her stomach on the grass, smiling at the camera in front of her. One of her legs was bent and leaning over her back with a flip flop about to fall off it. There was another of her with her sister Lucy.
She paused in reflection as she looked at all the pictures Clark Kent carried of her in his wallet. There weren’t pictures of anyone else, no previous girlfriends, no friends from work, nobody at all, just the ones she’d seen. Clark Kent cared about her. He cared about her a lot. Okay, maybe he was Superman. Superman cared about her a lot. Why had he said that about their relationship? Just how had she treated him anyway?
She thought back over the many times they’d been together. She’d always treated Clark like he was just a notch above barnyard slime. She looked at the pictures of him again. He certainly hadn’t deserved that. And what about Superman? He’d done so much for her, always being there for her, always concerned about how she felt, about her being warm, having enough to eat, being happy, getting enough rest. How did she treat him?
She could barely remember. They’d had a lot of arguments. She’d usually stomped out on him or flung insults at him. This self reflection was for the birds really, all it did was make you feel bad.
So what did her relationship with Superman mean to her? Well, he was always there and if she needed a scoop, he was always ready to get her one. She’d had many awards for the stories he’d helped her get. That was probably what she really liked about him the most, how he had bettered her career.
Of course when he hadn’t come through for her, or let someone else scoop her, she’d blasted him but good. But then, she didn’t want him to ever think it was okay to help other people before he helped her. That had certainly irritated her. She’d spent all day making a nice meal for him and he’d been late. It wasn’t like she was used to cooking so it had been pretty important, but he’d been about an hour late. Sure there had been a shootout downtown, but they happened every day. She didn’t cook every day. Sometimes it really burned her up that he’d just dash about his Superman business without telling her where he was going or being back when she’d told him to.
He also wouldn’t listen to her. She’d tell him not to follow her somewhere and there he’d be, hovering overhead in the clouds. She’d gotten so she’d take a mirror with her in her satchel just so she could see if he was up there without being too obvious about it.
She looked back at the collection of pictures he had in his wallet. Why did he even care about her? She certainly wasn’t very nice to him. She thought about how his parents treated each other. She didn’t know them well, they were Clark’s parents after all, but she had met them a few times. They were much nicer to each other than she was to Clark, or to Superman.
A tiny infinitesimal bit of guilt began to creep through her. She pushed it down. She didn’t need to feel guilty about anything. She’d not…well, she’d been…
Try though she might, she couldn’t find anything to justify the way she’d treated either of them. Superman had done nothing but help, encourage and compliment her. He’d listened to her, let her cry about her problems and watched over her. But, in return she’d nagged, disapproved, yelled and complained. Clark had always been courteous and polite to her, listening, giving good advice, helping her with story ideas and leads but…in return she’d suspected him, belittled him and treated him with utter disdain.
‘A relationship isn’t working if you have to die to get out of it.’ Was that what Superman had said the other day?
She brushed a tear away from her cheek and stood up, dropping the billfold back into her satchel, uninterested if the contents spilled out or not.
She’d even been mean to Lucy. She headed back to her jeep. Perry tolerated her. She unlocked the door. At work they called her Mad Dog Lane. She got in and put the keys in the ignition. Tears were running down her cheeks now. Why hadn’t he told her? Why had he gone off and used Red Kryptonite? He should have told her how she was treating him.
Their arguments came to mind. He had told her. But she’d thrown his mistakes in his face time and again. She’d shown him his inadequacies. She’d never changed. Nothing he had ever said had ever made a difference. But red kryptonite? Superman? The Strength of the planet turned to red kryptonite. Because why? Because of her? Because he couldn’t stand how she treated him? Why didn’t he just leave her? She’d seen the pain in his face many times when they’d fought. It had only fueled her fire.
Tears ran down both her cheeks and she wiped at them with the already wet back of her hands. She fumbled around in the jeep for a box of tissues and blew her nose.
She remembered more conversations, more hurtful things she’d said to him, to others at work. Superman hadn’t approved of her dishonesty, her picking locks, her stealing files, her taking freebies because of her position at the paper, but she’d never listened to him.
She’d ignored his opinions as those of some uneducated moron. That was pretty much the category everyone fell into, actually.
She’d not heard from him lately. Not since their last phone call from the cemetery when he’d told her he’d wanted to break up with her. Would she hear from him again? She’d seen him on television a fair bit. What was she thinking, if Clark was Superman, difficult as that might be to imagine, then she’d see him all the time. But he certainly didn’t seem to be interested in being friends with her.
He’d been working on a Superman article. Superman articles were her territory. But he WAS Superman. What was his territory then? She pursed her lips trying to come to some sort of less painful place in her mind, but it didn’t exist.
She put the vehicle in gear and pulled out onto the road, heading home. She’d have to stop and get some ice cream and double crunch fudge bars on the way, she certainly wasn’t very prepared for a pity party tonight.
Although her first instinct was to stay far away from Clark and Superman until she had control of her emotions and had her head all sorted out with what she was going to say, she knew that she owed them an apology. Big time.
pt 17
Lois lay in bed crying. The floor around her bed was littered with wet tissues and chocolate wrappers. The comforter was pulled up around her shoulders where she was curled up in a nest of pillows.
She felt so bad. She wished she could run away and hide. She felt embarrassed for how she’d acted in public and in private. She didn’t want to ever face the people at work. She didn’t want to face Superman or Clark, whether they were the same person or not. She felt so bad for all the trouble Superman had gotten himself into, all just to get away from her. What a mess she was responsible for. Sure he had his own free agency, but he’d never have pretended he was dead if it hadn’t been for how she’d treated him.
He was the best person she’d ever known and just look how she’d treated him. She blew her nose again and buried her face in her pillow.
Clark was finished with his stories for the day. It had been a busy day for Superman and Clark had been pretty busy, too. He remembered that he was going to have to pick up his wallet at the hospital before he took Kara out to dinner. He phoned and found out that the lost and found was in the laundry room. The woman on duty who answered when his call was transferred said that a woman had been in earlier and picked up his wallet. She was sorry he had been so ill and hoped that the lady from the newspaper where he worked would see him soon with his valuables. The clothes were still at the hospital, however.
Clark hung up the phone, irritated at what Lois had done behind his back. Should he phone her and ask for it back? Was she planning to give it to him when she saw him at work tomorrow? Why had she gone over there for it anyway?
He flew up above metropolis, landing near the hospital. He entered as Clark, finding the laundry room where his suit was probably in that box of miscellaneous clothing.
It didn’t take long to find it. “I'm sorry you missed your friend, she was in here only a couple of hours ago.”
“That’s okay. Thank you for helping me find my clothes.”
“Oh you’re welcome, Son, it’s my job looking after the laundry.”
He shook her hand with a smile and headed home. Lois had his wallet. Why? How did she know it was over there? She was certainly an amazing investigative reporter. Nothing slipped past Lois Lane! So did that mean that she knew Clark was Superman, or that Superman was Clark? He’d told her he was, but she’d not believed him.
How would things change now that she knew he was both people? She’d probably be angry. It didn’t take much to infuriate Mad Dog Lane. How had he ever gotten involved with her in the first place?
He turned on the television, perhaps his feats in the suit had made people happy today. He’d much rather think about that than about an irate woman. He didn’t know if he was more mad at her or at himself for letting himself fall so completely head over heels for her.
Acceptance, appreciation and admiration. Those were the three A’s his mother had told him to look for in a wife. His father showed them to her and she certainly felt that way about her husband. Lois had shown him none of those as Clark and only occasional admiration as Superman. That was mostly the hero worship he’d experienced when they’d first been dating.
The pain of his decision to leave her was coming back again. But the pain he’d endured in staying for so long also hurt. This was when he’d usually open his red kryptonite box. But it was gone, and he didn’t want to be a crippled superhero. He had a life to lead, an example to set and most of all millions of people on the planet that did accept him, that did appreciate him and that certainly admired him.
‘Surround yourself with people who make you feel good about yourself,’ his mother had said so many times when he’d felt alone at school. Lois certainly wasn’t one of those people. She had been at first, but now she brought out all the worst in him. It was beyond him why he had ever been interested in her and why he was still working at the same paper as she did. But now he had to get his wallet back from her.
He sat on the couch and picked up the remote. He really didn’t have time for this. Perhaps he had a bank card or a credit card in his dresser drawer. Thinking about his date with Kara, he hopped up and headed into the bedroom. There, under his shorts were several credit cards he’d removed from his wallet. A bank card for an account he used for a savings account at Metropolis First National lay among the pile he rifled through. Great. He wouldn’t have to talk to Lois again. Not yet. Perhaps she’d just drop off his wallet tomorrow. But knowing Lois, he was in for the third degree. He sighed. That was tomorrow. Tonight he had something pleasant to look forward to. What he needed was a pleasant social life.
He checked himself in the mirror again, then skipped down the stairs to flag a cab.
