Author's note: This chapter references events in the "Smallville" TV show episodes "Vessel" and "Zod".
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Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
"Alcoholics Anonymous," Perry said. "May I help you?" He sat back in the battered office chair and adjusted the telephone handset to a more comfortable position.
"Um, yeah," a male voice reported. "I was wondering if you could tell me if there's any meetings right now."
"Just a minute, let me check," Perry said, reaching over to a well-thumbed booklet. He quickly flipped to the "meetings-by-time" section. "Hmm, late night…looks like there's an eleven PM at the Metropolis-Carran Community Center over on Sixth and Montrose." His finger moved down the list. "And an eleven-thirty at the First United Methodist Church in the downtown area, on Trumbull Avenue, and a midnight at the YMCA on the West Side, on Delray Street. Any of those work for you?" Perry paused a moment. "Oh yeah, the midnight meeting is a non-smoking one."
"Thanks, man. I'll be heading out to the eleven p.m. Montrose goes all the way through from the freeway, doesn't it?"
"Yep. If you're coming from the freeway, get off at Exit Thirty-Eight, Montrose Ave, and turn right. Go about a mile and you're at the Community Center," Perry replied. His encyclopedic knowledge of Metropolis and surrounding environs was proving an unexpected bonus when he handled the AA hotline.
"OK. Thanks. One day at a time, bro." The man hung up. Perry knew the night, when the dark fears and deep cravings came out. It was better to go out and take in a meeting rather than to sit at home fighting temptation and maybe losing. He leaned back and stretched his arms.
It had been a fairly busy night. Dark Thursday was only a few weeks past, and the unexpected chaos had disrupted people's routines, shattered their carefully maintained sobriety rituals. Perry felt proud that AA had lost its hotline only for the few hours that communications were down; despite riots in the streets, crumbling buildings, and even unexplained earth tremors, the volunteers had kept on coming to man the telephones.
So a lot of recovering alcoholics and addicts called for extra meetings, for information on cancelled or moved-to-a-new-building meetings, or just to talk. Perry found that he needed to do something other than his job, even though that kept him busy enough. Since he had a fairly flexible schedule, he filled in at the hotline at least one four-hour shift a week, and sometimes more. It never failed to reinforce his sobriety.
The phone rang again, but this time Doris, his co-volunteer, answered it. By the look on her face, and by her conversation, this was serious. Someone had decided to take the first step and call AA. Perry knew how frightening that was, making that first call. Doris was an old hand at soothing callers; she'd get the information from this person. Then she'd refer them to a meeting, or she'd arrange for a couple of AA members to make a Twelfth Step visit to this caller. The members would counsel the newbie and get him or her going in AA.
Perry's phone rang again. "Alcoholics Anonymous."
"Hey, man, the judge said I had to go to AA. How do I do that?"
Perry sighed as he gave information to the caller. They got a lot of calls based on DUI convictions. And a lot of people would attend their court-ordered meetings, and then go out and drink and drive again.
He looked at the clock. With all the calls, his shift had passed quickly. It was already after midnight. He and Doris packed up, leaving the calls to the answering service. It was too hard to get volunteers for the dead-of-night shifts, and most drunks were well into their drinking by then. It was more productive to be there in the morning when the drunks sobered up.
"Hey, Doris, everything OK with Fred and the kids?" Perry asked as they gathered their coats and went out onto the street.
"Fine, Perry. We're going to take a week off next month and head out for a fishing vacation."
"Glad to hear that, Doris." He walked with her to her car, stood by as she got in and buckled up. "You take care, now." He liked Doris. She'd been a waitress, later a bartender and had heard it all. Then she started sampling the wares and ended up in the Friendly Friday group. She had a tolerance for human frailty but didn't put up with any crap.
Perry chuckled as he remembered one of her bartender stories. Doris told Perry that the owner of the bar she used to work at would supply all his bartenders with uniforms. When she got the uniform for the first time, she discovered that all the pockets were sewn shut.
And, thinking of bartenders….that reminded him of Karl K., who had stood up in a meeting and said, "I was drinking so much I was having blackouts. I was kind of concerned and thought I might need some professional help." Pause. "So I asked my bartender." Laughter from the crowd. "My bartender said, "Ah, don't worry! It happens to me all the time!"
Perry chuckled again at the memory. He looked down at Doris' receding taillights and set off on the twelve-block walk back to his own apartment. Perry had considered driving, but decided against it. Not only did he need the exercise (he tended to meet with sources in diners, coffee shops, and around food and drink), but the disruption from the events of Dark Thursday still affected the streets.
Case in point: rubble still littered the street, not just gravel but large blocks. City services had pushed the large rubble over to the curbs but hadn't picked it up yet, leaving only one-and-a-half lanes open, at best, on this nominally two-lane street.
Perry set off at a brisk pace, keeping alert to his surroundings. This wasn't the worst neighborhood in Metropolis – certainly not like Suicide Slum – but it wasn't the best either. He looked behind him for a moment, feeling a tingling on his neck, as if he were being watched.
Perry peered ahead – was that movement in the next block? Too difficult to see, with most streetlights being out and the moon in its dark phase. A few lonely storefront lights and neon signs pushed back the black curtain of night, but their fitful illumination served only to emphasize the darkness past their bounds.
Definitely footsteps behind him now. Perry increased his pace a little. Any mugger would definitely be disappointed by the thinness of his wallet, but he'd prefer not to let them check it out.
He moved past the cross street (one working streetlight here, hurrah) down onto the next block. Perry raised his eyebrows in surprise. He hadn't realized that the city had come through and cleaned up this street yet. But apparently it had, because all the rubble had been removed, the street swept, and even a severely damaged building was braced and ….is that rebuilt? Perry stopped in surprise and peered again. There was an odd blur at the other end of the block – was the city cleaning now? Certainly not at midnight. Was it someone? He couldn't tell for sure.
Perry regretted stopping when a hand grabbed him from behind. It spun him around, and Perry found himself staring into the barrel of a handgun. That didn't worry him as much as fact that the person who was holding it was a obvious, trembling junkie in need of a fix.
"Gimme your money," the junkie said.
Short and sweet. The demand, and the gun. Perry tried to back away a little. The twenty bucks in his wallet wasn't enough to get shot over.
"OK," he said. He tried to put reason into his voice. "Hey, you've gotta let go of my arm so I can reach my wallet."
Apparently this idea was too complex. Or maybe the junkie was having a really bad day.
"Don't think so," the mugger said. He raised his other hand, the gun hand. Perry saw his finger tighten on the trigger.
This is it, Perry thought. Somehow he was more upset about not being able to finish the story he was working on than getting killed. With the icy-clear comprehension that comes with a life at stake, Perry realized there was no hope for him. The gun was pointed right at him, from three feet away. He heard a bang and felt a rush of wind.
Then Perry was gasping on his knees, the wind knocked out of him, but not the blinding pain he expected with a gunshot wound. He turned his head to one side; the junkie lay unconscious on the ground. Perry looked up to see a hand reached out for him. He grasped it and pulled himself up.
"Clark Kent," Perry said wonderingly. "What are you doing here?"
"I was in the neighborhood," the kid – no, the young man – said. "I saw you getting mugged and I pushed the guy away."
"Just in time, too," Perry said, shaking in delayed reaction. I'm not going to die. I'm not going to die.
"What about this guy?" Clark said disdainfully, poking at the erstwhile mugger with a foot. "We've got to take him to the police."
"Yeah, like the police would care about this when they're dealing with the aftermath of Dark Thursday," Perry said cynically. His heart still raced.
"I don't want to leave him here," Clark said stubbornly. He picked up the gun and after engaging the safety, stuffed it into a pocket.
"OK, then. There's a precinct house about five blocks that way," Perry said in exasperation. He knew the location of every police precinct in Metropolis, and had contacts at most of them.
"OK." With an ease that stunned Perry, Clark lifted the unconscious junkie into a fireman's carry and set off in the direction of the police station. Perry scrambled to keep up.
As he walked, Perry's breathing slowed and he stopped shaking. Then his mind began working again. He looked at his companion, striding straight and tall despite carrying an (admittedly thin) man. How had Clark Kent knocked away the mugger in time? Perry would have sworn that no one was within a block of them. He certainly hadn't seen Clark, although to be fair, the latter's navy blue jacket and denim jeans did blend in with the shadows.
And how had Clark not only disarmed the mugger, but knocked him unconscious? Unless Perry had been knocked unconscious himself (which he couldn't rule out) it had happened really quickly.
"Do you know Tae Kwon Do or something?" Perry blurted out.
Clark gave a momentary smile. "No. I just do a lot of farm labor. You can get some pretty good muscles baling hay." He adjusted the junkie's position slightly. "I'm stronger than I look."
Perry stared once again, saw Clark not even breathing hard as he carried the junkie, walking at a rapid pace. Perry knew he himself would be gasping within a block.
They reached the precinct house; lonely strands of light spilled out through barred windows. Before they came into view of the door, Clark stopped.
"Can you do me a favor, Perry?" he asked.
"What?"
"Don't mention my name."
Perry must have looked surprised, because Clark went on, an abashed expression on his face. "Well, my mother doesn't know I'm here in Metropolis, late at night."
Perry smiled inwardly, then gave up and chuckled. "Past your bedtime?"
Clark returned a reluctant smile. "Actually, I was visiting my girlfriend – "
"The lady editor?"
"Yeah. And my mother would be worried to know that I'd strayed into a bad area. And it might not look OK for her reelection campaign."
"Oh. That's right. Your mom is a senator." Perry put the pieces together.
"And I'm really tired of newspaper publicity," Clark said earnestly. "We had enough of that during the campaign."
"What about this guy?" Perry asked, indicating the stirring junkie.
"He tried to mug you, an anonymous Good Samaritan helped you out, and you're making a citizen's arrest here."
Perry considered it for a moment. It went against the grain. He was a reporter. On the other hand, a simple mugging wouldn't get much newspaper space. And Clark had saved his life – he'd earned this favor. Although Perry's newspaperman intuition told him that the excuses given for anonymity weren't the whole story.
"OK," Perry said. "You're anonymous." The two both smiled as they remembered the meetings they'd attended together.
"Thanks, Perry," Clark said. "I'll drop him off inside, and then I'll be on my way." He shook hands with Perry and strode to the precinct entrance.
Perry stood still just a moment, then hurried to follow. The handshake stimulated a sudden flashback. It left him wondering. Back when they'd met in Smallville, Clark got rope burns on his hands from saving Perry from Perry's fake (and almost all-too-real) suicide attempt. Perry had seen the blood himself.
But the very next morning, when Perry got on the bus to Metropolis, Clark had shaken his hand. And there were no rope burns on the palms then. Perry had forgotten this till now, the whole episode a strangely surreal montage of images, mixed up in memory till he wasn't sure what had really happened and what was a hallucination or delirium tremens. But shaking Clark's hand now, the touch of the smooth palm and strong fingers, brought back a vivid memory of the handshake at the bus stop. Perry could feel no scars on the other's palms now.
And when Perry stepped in the police station, the cops just now responding to the presence of unconscious junkie on the floor, Clark was gone.
Perry made absent responses to the cops' questions, his mind racing all the while. Let's see. Clark was strong, he was fast, and he seemed to heal really quickly too. How did he do that? Perry suddenly remembered Chloe Sullivan's "Wall of Weird" in Smallville and her contention that meteor rock affected people, gave them powers. If Perry could get proof, God, what a story that would be.
Then Perry thought about step four. "Searching and fearless moral inventory." His curiosity, his reporter's persistence, was at once both his greatest strength and greatest weakness. A feeling came to him. Was this any way to repay Clark for saving his life? If Perry persisted in this, he would hurt Clark. Perry knew that Clark wanted to avoid the limelight. Look at how Clark had asked for anonymity today.
OK. This once, he could stifle his reportorial instincts. He wouldn't put Clark's name in the paper. He wouldn't actively pursue an investigation. It would be tough, cramming down that worm of curiosity, but Perry could do it. He could work on other stories.
And besides, Perry thought, rationalizing it and feeling happier, I did promise him anonymity.
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Author's note: Thanks to EllenF and her marvelous fic, "Shades of White", where she pointed out that Perry would have noticed that Clark's hands healed overnight. The URL is ellyfanfiction.blogspot.com. Highly recommended, along with the rest of the work on Elly's site. Don't miss this fine author's work.
