Dead or Alive
I'll be posting on Tuesdays and Fridays
Part 19
“How about Italian? I think I’m in a mood for pasta. If that’s fine with you.”
“Good. I haven’t had Italian for a long time,” Clark said as he put his hand on the small of her back and moved her through the crowd on the sidewalk.
When the sidewalk cleared out a bit, Kara paused to let him catch up to walk alongside her. She smiled at him. “This is nice. Thanks for asking me out.”
“My pleasure, I’m lucky you were free on such short notice!”
“Well, I really wanted to go hear this band, but I don’t like going to nightclubs alone. I don’t really like bars much actually, there are too many people that drink there, and they’re usually pretty smoky. I’m glad you wanted to go with me!”
He smiled at her, pushed the door open, and stepped aside to let her go into the restaurant ahead of him.
The maitre’d greeted them “Would you like to sit inside, or out front? Or we have a balcony upstairs.”
Clark turned to Kara and raised his eyebrows. She considered a moment. “How about on the upstairs balcony?”
The maitre’d nodded, “Right this way, please.” He led them to a spiral staircase with a thick wooden railing, in the center of the room. Upstairs, they followed him outside onto a large balcony overlooking the busy street. A tall leafy tree provided partial shade from the bright street lights and the neon signs. Italian music emanated from inside. Beside their outdoor table, a tall silver, cylindrical heater radiated warmth as the evening air began to cool off.
Clark pulled out Kara’s chair for her, and then went around the table to his own, while the waiter put the menus on the table. “May I get you something to drink, red wine perhaps?”
“No, I’d just like a glass of water,” Kara responded as she opened the menu.
“I’d like a root beer, please.” The waiter nodded and turned away. Clark picked up his menu and opened it.
Decorative lanterns hung around the periphery of the balcony. Candles flickered in the centerpieces of each table.
*******
“So what have you got for me? Superman’s head yet?” Lex Luther put his fingertips together and looked over his desk at the Englishman who’d served as his faithful butler for many years.
“No sir. But I think you’ll be pleased with what we are planning.”
“Well, Nigel, have a seat. Let’s hear what you have to say!” Lex smiled warmly, hardly like a man that can kill with a word and the gesture of a hand.
“As you know, Superman has been working very hard, to show that he is in charge of the game. However, we are the ones with the kryptonite bullets.”
Lex nodded slowly. “Go on, Nigel; tell me something I don’t know. I’m becoming weary of this cat and mouse game.”
“We can stage an accident, or cause one I should say, and then have our hit men take him out when he arrives for the rescue. We can dump the body before anyone has a chance to rescue him.”
“…or we could imprison him until he’s dead,” Lex offered.
“Either way. We have perfected a bullet that can be used in a machine gun. What do you think of a hundred lugs of kryptonite in Mr. Blue Tights?”
“How are you going to pull this off without anyone seeing? I don’t think silencers have been invented yet for machine guns.”
“I think you will enjoy the surprise, Sir. If I may have your approval on the plan, I will just say the word. Is tonight soon enough?”
“Now would be better,” Lex grinned pushing his chair back, and turning to look out the sliding glass doors onto his balcony. “But you can’t rush a perfect ending, now can you?”
“No sir. So, I’ll give them the go ahead for tonight.”
“Thank you, Nigel, and could you send in my snake charmer?”
“Yes sir,” Nigel nodded at his boss and retreated from the room. He picked up the phone in the study and pushed a button. “All clear for tonight.”
Part 20
A warm breeze blew through the balcony, rustling the large leaves on the tree nearby. The sounds of laughter and music wafted up from the sidewalk. They could see people sitting at tables at the outdoor café across the street. A balcony above each of the restaurants was filled with people. Red, green, and yellow neon lights blinked further down the street.
Clark leaned back in his chair, his jacket falling open to his sides. “I like your tie,” Kara noticed.
“Thanks.”
”Did you buy it in Metropolis?”
“No, I got this one in Smallville.”
“Really? It’s a nice one. Do you have some good stores there?”
“I guess, nothing very fancy, but the selection is completely different there than it is here.”
“I used to give my dad ties for Christmas every year. Finally he showed me how many he has and I had to move on to something else,” Kara conceded.
”So what do you give him now?”
She chuckled, “I try to vary it! Once I gave him suspenders. That went over like a bale of hay!”
Clark laughed at the Kansan expression. “My dad wasn’t impressed when I gave him suspenders, either.”
“My dad likes to read so I finally started giving him books.”
“Did he like that?”
“I guess. He read them all. They were mostly things I thought he’d like, you know, how to raise the best cows, what to look for in a show cow, that sort of thing.” She smiled at her choices, “I think he was just humoring me.”
The waiter brought a basket of bread and put it in the middle of the table.
Clark acknowledging the waiter and then looked over the scene below. “What made you decide to get a job with State Farm?”
“They were hiring when I was looking!”
“Do you like it?”
“I guess. It’s not what I’d like to spend my life doing.”
“Oh?”
“I would like to be working with children, teaching maybe. Actually, I really just want to be a mother and raise a family. It would be nice to be a stay-at-home mom.”
Clark nodded. “My mom always stayed at home while I was growing up.”
“So did mine. It was a lot of fun. She played with us and taught us all sorts of things.”
“Mine would, too. She’d let me cook with her. I learned a lot,” Clark recalled his many days in the kitchen beside his mom.
“Me, too. I think making apple pies became my specialty. I also liked sewing. At one time I thought I’d like to become a dressmaker or a fashion designer, but then as I got older I realized I really didn’t want to be involved with the fashion industry. I guess I'm too much of a country girl at heart.” Clark smiled as she turned the conversation to him, “How about you, why did you get into journalism?”
“I liked to write. It was easy for me and I was good at it. I wanted to do investigative journalism when I saw so many crimes go unpunished. It seemed like there just wasn’t enough interest in finding out who was at the bottom of various scams and stuff. I wanted to bring the truth to light.”
She nodded, taking a piece of garlic bread from the basket. “A lot of that goes on doesn’t it? There was a family back home that always seemed to get away with everything. They never got caught, but everybody knew they were up to no good. It would have been great to see them finally convicted for what they had been doing.”
Clark took a piece of bread and broke it in half. “I guess I wanted to help clean up society. I would have loved to change some laws and get rid of some of the loopholes in the legal system, but being in law didn’t really suit me. Journalism seemed the best way to change society. You know, the power of the pen. It really makes people make changes sometimes.”
Kara looked out over the scene beyond the balcony railing. A street dance was beginning. Traffic was being rerouted around the restaurant district. Shouts and yelps came from below. Clark turned to see the activity as well and began to tap his foot with the music. Kara tapped her fingers on the table.
The waiter brought their salads and they turned their attention to their meals. Clark thought about Kara. She was nice. She was very easy to talk to, friendly and sociable. He liked the way she talked about her family and her goals. She was more like his mother than anyone he remembered meeting. It was nice to spend time with her.
He looked up at her and smiled as their eyes met. She brought up her napkin to wipe a bit of salad dressing off her lips and smiled back at him, picking her fork back up.
“Are you going home for the long weekend?” she asked, a few bites later.
“I haven’t really thought about it. I might, I guess. I haven’t seen my parents lately and should go home for a visit.”
He dreaded seeing his parents. He hadn’t phoned them since he’d gotten out of the grave. It had been too embarrassing to have to admit to himself what he’d done with his death charade. They hadn’t phoned him yet and he hadn’t phoned them either. He could just imagine how furious they were with him and wasn’t in a big hurry to go home and face the music. He’d been able to avoid seeing Lois as Superman for nearly a month. Perhaps as time passed, his good works in rescuing the world would help them forget what a louse he’d been. Of course, when he explained about the red kryptonite, they’d probably understand, but he still couldn't forgive himself for even having it, much less for using it to deal with his problems with Lois.
He’d forgotten that Kara knew about him, or at least Superman, faking his own death. They’d avoided that topic and he hoped that she really didn’t know that he was Superman. He didn’t feel threatened by her, though. She didn’t seem to hate him for what he’d done. She may have just believed what he’d told the press.
He pulled his mind away from that train of thought. He just liked being with her. She was a great girl to be around. She was funny and kind and had a certain glow about her. An essence of goodness and wholesomeness surrounded her. It was nice to be within her aura. She seemed content with life and accepting of people, a loving person who actually wanted to raise a family. Most women he met in metropolis were too busy with their careers to be bothered with children. It was something he admired in a woman. There wasn’t a lot of prestige or fame involved in raising children, just a good feeling about oneself. Lois was consumed with her desire to be famous, to win Kerths and Pulitzers. Everything else was secondary or nonexistent.
Clark leaned back against the cushioned chair when he’d finished eating his salad. Kara was still eating. He watched her. Her complexion wasn’t flawless; she had freckles on her cheeks. Her nose was straight and her lips were thin. She had a natural red tint to her cheeks which were full. When she smiled her face lit up and her mouth opened. It was a contagious smile, one borne of self-confidence and peace with the world.
She put her salad fork down and wiped her mouth again, then took a sip of water. “I can’t wait to go home.”
“On the long weekend?”
“Yeah. My little brother has been making kites and he’s going to enter his in the kite flying festival that Saturday.”
“Really? How old is he?”
“He’s 11. We used to fly kites together a lot. He’s pretty good at it.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, I really like flying kites. I used to think that lying on the grass watching the clouds was the best thing ever, but then I discovered that if I was in the right place for the wind, I could lie on the grass and fly my kite, watching the clouds behind it.”
Clark smiled. “I like watching the clouds go by, too.” He didn’t bother to mention that he liked to watch them go by when he floated on his back high overhead. It was the most fun to be just underneath the big clouds where you could feel the winds they created or were surrounded by. “But I’ve never flown a kite while cloud watching. Doesn’t it crash when you’re not looking?”
“Not if you’re careful. If you pay attention to the tension on the kite string you can feel when it’s going slack or when it’s taut. You just keep sliding the string back and forth through your hand to keep the kite tension just right. You don’t have to even be looking at the kite to fly it. As long as you’re not near trees or wires, anyway.”
“You sound like you’re pretty good at this.”
She smiled, her white teeth showing. “I’ve had my share of practice. I used to teach children how to fly them. Most kids think you’ve got to run to get a kite up in the air, but I try to show them that it’s all in the way you move the string. Some kids just take off running with the kite and there’s nothing you can do to teach them, but it really feels good when you get through to someone and they become a pro at it!”
“Like your brother?”
Kara blushed a bit. “I guess so.”
“How many children are in your family?”
“I'm the oldest of five. How about you?”
“I'm an only child.”
Her face hinted at a bit of sadness. “Oh. Did you have friends come over to play with a lot?”
“Sometimes. I guess I liked being alone with my parents. They’d spend a lot of time with me. In a way I think we’re so close because we did spend so much time together.”
Kara nodded. The waiter appeared and removed their salad plates, then returned a moment later with their spaghetti.
It felt good to sit and chat with Kara while they ate. She certainly seemed to like him, but she wasn’t swooning over him as most Superman fans did. She just liked him as a good friend, which in itself was a bit strange, considering they’d just met. Perhaps she’d met him in Kansas years ago, or known a friend of his.
After desert, they sat quietly having a hot drink. “I guess it’s about time to get to the Junction.” Clark looked at his watch, “What time does the band start to play?”
“Late, usually. I don’t think anyone will be there before ten, anyway.”
“Do you know where the Junction is located?” Clark was about to tip his glasses down to look down the street, but thought better of it.
“It’s about five blocks from here and then a block off to the east.”
“Oh that’s not far. What’s the band’s name?”
“Kelly Russell and the Planks.”
“I’ve never heard of them.”
“They’re from Canada, a Newfoundland band. They play fiddling and accordion music, sort of Irish. Kelly Russell is supposed to be the best fiddle player in Newfoundland.”
“How’d you ever hear of them?”
“They were written up in the Metropolis Entertainment Magazine. They’re supposed to be a great band. I like music that has a good beat.”
Clark smiled at her. “Now why did I suspect that?”
She grinned shyly, “I guess I talk too much.”
“No, not at all. I love listening to you. You’re a fun-loving person. It’s refreshing.”
“Thanks Clark,” she blushed slightly, turning her attention to wiping her mouth with her napkin. She looked around for the Ladies room. “I’d better go freshen up, I’ll be right back.”
“Sure,” Clark said as the waiter arrived with the bill. Kara got up and left while Clark pulled his credit card out of his pocket and put it in the tip tray on top of the cheque. He’d have to go pick up his wallet soon. He wasn’t looking forward to that, though.
