Chapter 22: I’ve been Hurt before . . . Never ever quite like This Time
I can’t take it anymore—I’ve been hurt before.
Never ever quite like this time.
--“Never Again”
****
The next day, I went home from work in a good mood. Lois had been pleasant, the Chief had complimented Jimmy, Cat hadn’t gotten out her claws, and Superman hadn’t been needed to perform any dire rescues. I dyed Jericho and took him on a fifteen minute walk. Then I sat down to read Phineas Finn. I wasn’t a great fan of Trollope, but something about his books appealed to me—when they were experienced in moderation—and I liked to read a variety of works. I was speed reading through much of it—pausing occasionally to reflect on a passage—only to put the novel aside when I heard an insistent knocking.
Jericho barked twice and then growled as he ran to the door.
“Retreat,” I told him, evoking what was basically the “back up” command Mom had taught him. Obediently, he backed up, but he still continued to growl.
I opened the door to find seven men. They were all obviously armed except for the brown-haired man in front who shoved a piece of paper at me. “I have a warrant issued by federal court to search your apartment, Clark Kent,” he said curtly, pushing me past me and gesturing his people inside.
Five of the men shoved past me and spread out to survey my apartment. I reflected to myself that it was good I had installed that secret compartment for my suits, but I was furious they were just bursting in here like this. What was going on?
I glanced at the red-haired man who stood behind the warrant holder. His gun was trained on me, and his finger was hovering over the trigger. I could tell he was just itching for a reason to use it.
I returned my eyes to the man in charge, trying to rein in my anger. “Who are you, and what do you want?” I demanded. “And why do you have those guns?”
“We’re with the government,” the brown-haired man told me. “Now, it’s time for us to ask the questions. What’s the connection between you, the alien Superman, and the Smallville meteor shower of 1966? . . . I know you were involved in the Sallya Technologies story. Was the alien’s dog part of that project, or is that dog an alien, too?”
Jericho snarled, his teeth gleaming white with saliva, and he poised to leap at the man. Though it was tempting to let him teach this man a lesson, I didn’t want Jericho’s secret identity to be obvious, and I said sharply, “Nyet!”
The dog put his ears back and sat, whimpering. Still, he kept his eyes focused on the man he saw as a threat to me.
“Why does your dog know Russian?” the government man asked suspiciously.
Exasperated, I told him, “He doesn’t know Russian. My mom just thought it would be cute to teach him ‘nyet’ instead of ‘no.’ Let me see that warrant.”
“We’re giving the orders here, Kent,” the man said in a low voice, sounding unhinged.
Irritated, I took a step toward him. “Look, I don’t know what you’re—”
A bullet cracked through the air. Pain stabbed through my shoulder. Jericho prepared to leap.
Falling to my knees, I cried out, “Nyet!”
Jericho stilled, but his growl was almost as biting as his teeth would have been.
The leader cursed under his breath and grabbed the red-haired man by the collar. “You idiot! We only have a limited supply of those bullets. They’re meant for the alien—and as you can see, he isn’t here.”
The excruciating pain threatened to overwhelm me, but I tried nonetheless to hide the fact that I was struggling to breathe, lest he realize the alien he had mentioned was there. Though I had been exposed to the meteor rock many times, I had never actually had a piece of it inside me. As I placed one hand on the ground and the other on my shoulder, I looked up at the brown-haired man.
“Pull out,” he told his subordinates with a sharp gesture. “He’s still alive—the bullet just went into his shoulder. But someone might have heard that shot, and we don’t want anyone tying this to us.” He turned his head to stare at the red-haired man. “We’ll discuss your trigger happiness later.”
As the last of the men filed outside, their leader looked down at me. “We’ll see you before too long, Kent.”
And then he was gone, the door shutting behind him.
I let out a low moan, and Jericho came over to me and put his nose in my face. I gave him a light pat on the snout and then tried to dig out the bullet in my shoulder with my fingers. But it was just no use. It hurt too much, and I couldn’t get a good grip. It had gone too far in.
As the man had mentioned, it was possible someone had heard the gunshot, but this was Metropolis, and I didn’t know if my neighbors would try to help me or try to protect their own skins . . . . And for that matter, I didn’t want anyone calling the police. There was too much to explain—and I didn’t have many answers.
In desperation, I pointed to my cordless phone and told Jericho, “Retrieve.” Mom had chosen that word instead of “fetch.”
He looked where I was pointing and then back at me, so I repeated myself. He trotted to the table and stood on his hind legs to put his teeth around the phone. I allowed myself to sink onto my back, wincing at the movement.
As the dog brought me the phone, my mind flashed to Lois. Could I ask her to come get the bullet out? I knew I couldn’t get the police involved—they would want to take the bullet in for evidence, not even realizing what exactly they had.
But would Lois be any better? If she saw a glowing green bullet, she would want it tested, too. And if I told her we couldn’t, then she would demand to know why.
Perry White knew how to keep a secret. And if one of his reporters told him not to ask for more information, he generally abided by that. Of course, he was shrewd enough he might be able to glean more about my situation than I wanted him to, but I didn’t have time to hesitate any longer. The bullet had to come out, or I would die . . . .
A great part of me still wanted to call Lois, but I didn’t want her to see me like this. It was that thought that decided me.
I dialed the Chief Editor’s office number, knowing if he had already gone home he probably wouldn’t make it to my side in time. Fortunately, he picked up.
“Perry White.”
“Chief?” I gasped out. “This is Clark . . . . I need you . . . to . . . come to my apartment.”
“Son, are you all right?”
“Now, please,” I managed with a groan, dropping the phone to the floor without ending the call. I didn’t want to breathe. It hurt to move my chest.
I tried to put my mind on something other than the pain. I thought about how my initial instinct was to call Lois. Calling Perry White had been the smart thing to do—but why had the desire to call Lois been so strong?
It hadn’t taken her long to become important to me. But it wasn’t just that she was important to me—it was also that she had started to make my life feel worth living.
I looked forward to seeing her every day. I wanted to laugh with her, joke with her, bicker with her. I wanted to protect her from all the evil of the world . . . . But what was more, I wanted her to protect me, too.
The thought of me needing protection from anything was strange in itself. But without even knowing it, Lois had been helping me heal those wounds from Africa. She was the one who was slowly drawing me back into society—maybe it was only natural that I turned to her. I felt safe with her . . . and I couldn’t say that about many other people.
But, I cautioned myself firmly, I had to fight against the urge to use her as my pillar of strength. I couldn’t allow myself to hide behind her. If I did, I would surely hurt her.
I groaned as the pain grew so great that I lost the ability to think coherently. I curled up in a ball, wishing I didn’t need oxygen. The fingers of my left hand reached into my shirt and grasped at my locket. I tried to picture the face of my grandmother, but all I could conjure up was haze . . . .
Jericho licked my hand. My fingers curled. The pain in my chest was spreading. Mom. Dad. Should’ve called them.
My vision tunneled, and there was darkness. Not light.
****
“Clark? Clark?” a voice called to me in the darkness.
“Mmm?” My mouth wasn’t working right.
“Clark, what’s wrong?”
“Mmmbull’t,” I managed. “G’out. Gidout.”
“Great Shades of Elvis, son! You should’ve called 911—not an old codger like me. Listen, son, I’ll stop the blood from flowing, but I’m going to call an ambulance first.”
“No. Please. Poison. It’s pois’nous . . . . Gotta gidout.”
“Son—”
“Poison,” I told him again weakly.
There were more noises. Not voices. Sound.
Pain flared in my shoulder. Then there was relief.
I allowed myself to breathe for a few seconds, and then I opened my eyes. Perry White was kneeling over me with the green bullet in one hand and a bloody knife in the other. Jericho was beside him looking concerned.
“There’s a white box on the counter,” I rasped. “Put the bullet in it.” I let out a low moan but kept my eyes trained on him.
He stood and did as I said, placing the bullet in the box and then closing it. He grabbed a washrag and returned to me. I tried to sit up, but he told me, “Just stay there for a minute, son.” He pressed the washcloth against my wound to prevent me from bleeding out. I was thankful he was hiding the wound from his sight. My blood would probably stop flowing soon (if it hadn’t already) since I was no longer being exposed to the meteor rock. The rag would prevent him from seeing my healed or healing skin.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” he noted as he reached for the phone I had dropped.
“No!” I said sharply. “No . . . ”
He sighed. “Well, at least let’s move you from the floor to the couch.”
I draped my arm across his shoulders with his help, and I used my other arm to hold the washcloth against my shoulder. It was a slow process, but we finally succeeded in transferring me from the floor to the couch.
“What in the Sam Hill do you eat, Clark?” he wheezed. “You’re a whole lot heavier than you look.”
I gave him a weak smile and pressed the washcloth back up against my shoulder. “Thank you.”
“You need to go to the hospital, Clark,” he said in a quiet tone. I could tell he was hoping I would be more rational. But he didn’t know what was at stake.
“Please just trust me,” I pleaded softly. I was weak, but I would live. He had reached me in time.
He gave me a hard look. “You mixed up in something, son?”
I averted my eyes. I didn’t want to lie to him—he had just saved my life. I answered vaguely, “You could say that, Chief . . . Perry.” That was the first time I had called him by his first name. I looked up at him to see those discerning eyes staring at me. I had to give him something. “This . . . crazed lunatic came with some men and started searching my apartment. He had what he said was a federal warrant, but I don’t know if it was real or not. One of his men got a little trigger happy and shot me before I managed to get a look at it.”
Perry frowned. “We should investigate this . . . . ”
I shook my head slowly. “I don’t have any leads. I just know the man in charge said he’d be back.”
“Can you give a description of what he looked like?”
I resisted the urge to shrug in case my wound hadn’t healed yet. “All I can tell you is that he had brown hair.”
The Chief Editor crossed his arms. “You may not want to get the police involved in this, but maybe we should get you a bodyguard—or maybe you should stay somewhere else temporarily. What if they come back?”
Though I felt bad about it, I faked a wince to distract him.
He looked worried. “Clark, if you’re not going to go the hospital, you should at least try to get some rest. Now, do you think you can make it to the bed with my help?”
“I think the bleeding has stopped,” I told him, though I still didn’t remove the washcloth. “I should be able to make it on my own . . . . Perry—thank you for helping me. You saved my life.”
“You can always count on this ol’ newspaper hound,” he said gruffly. “After we get you to bed, I’m going to call Alice. She won’t mind me sleeping over here for one night to take care of you.”
“No, Chief, I’m fine,” I insisted uncomfortably. “After all, I have Jericho.” I gestured to the dog. I wasn’t sure if I had ever told Perry about him.
He gave Jericho a “uh huh” kind of look and then told me, “Nevertheless, son, I’d like to stay here, if only for my peace of mind. I’ll sleep on the couch. Just give me some blankets and a pillow, and I’ll be good.”
I shook my head. “I think I’d prefer to stay here on the couch. Why don’t you take the bed?” I didn’t want to be the reason the Chief Editor had a stiff neck in the morning.
“No, I insist. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to sleep on the couch lately,” he jested. “Alice and I haven’t exactly, uh, been gettin’ along lately.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Chief . . . . ”
“Aww, well, you know how it is. Now, let’s get you into bed.”
****
When I woke up in the morning, sun was streaming down on my bare chest from between the blinds. I had opened the blinds after Perry had gone to sleep on the couch, knowing the sun would help revive me. Still, it would take a lot more sun exposure before I would be feeling “super.”
The smell of bacon and eggs caused me to sit up. Evidently, Perry was busy in the kitchen. The delicious scents wafting toward me made me want to investigate their source further. But I knew there was a chance Perry would want to have a serious discussion if I did. I had the feeling he had held off from such a talk to enable me to regain a little of my lucidity.
“Now or never,” I mumbled to myself. I grabbed a shirt and was about to pull it over my head when I thought of something. My shoulder was completely healed, and I didn’t want any awkward questions about it. Considering the matter a little more, I taped a few cottonballs to my shoulder. They made a small lump that looked like a bandage. If I was lucky, it would be enough to fool the Planet’s Editor-in-Chief. If he insisted on seeing the wound, I could use the excuse that I didn’t like touch. Hopefully, this would work.
After putting on my shirt, I padded into the kitchen on bare feet. Perry was placing the last of the bacon onto the second of two food-covered plates. It seemed he believed in a hearty breakfast. Jericho was at his feet, staring hopefully upward. I wondered if Perry had slipped him a few bites of bacon.
“You didn’t have to cook,” I told him quietly.
He turned around with a smile. “Wanted to. There’s nothing like the smell of eggs and bacon in the morning.”
I laughed. “That’s true.”
Perry handed me my plate, and we went and sat at the table. Jericho whimpered pitifully as he sat at our feet.
“I wasn’t aware you had a dog,” Perry commented.
I smiled down at Jericho. “Yeah—I haven’t had him for long. But he makes a good companion.” I turned my attention downward to my plate. “Do you cook breakfast for Alice like this?” I asked as I brought up a forkful of egg to my mouth.
His face sobered. “No. We don’t get up at the same time—the Chief Editor for a major newspaper has to rise with the roosters. Shoot, I can’t remember the last time I made her breakfast . . . . ”
“It must be hard not seeing her much,” I remarked quietly.
Perry nodded, but we didn’t say anything else until we were done eating.
“Why don’t we take a look at that shoulder of yours?” he suggested, inclining his head toward the place I had been shot.
“It’s doing fine thanks to you,” I said in an attempt at smoothness. “You should probably go home and get ready.”
He stared at me for a few seconds, and I held my breath, readying my excuse for why he shouldn’t be able to see my shoulder.
But then he dipped his chin and admitted in a reluctant tone, “Guess you’re right, Clark. But I’d better not see you at the Planet.”
“Chief, I can come in—”
He pointed a finger at me. “Don’t come to the Planet today, Clark. That’s an order.”
I sighed. “All right.” At least it would give me time to soak up some sun.
Jericho let out another pathetic whimper, and in exasperation I gave him a small bit of egg from my plate. He ate it greedily.
****
Jericho and I did a lot of sunbathing that day. I had to go out a few times to take him on walks, but I could feel my strength returning, and it heartened me. As dinnertime approached, I called my parents and told them what happened—which wasn’t a pleasant conversation, especially considering that I didn’t really have any answers to my questions, let alone theirs—and then I hung up. Jericho was sitting by his food bowl, looking up at me with his pleading dark brown eyes.
“You hungry, boy?”
He wagged his tail and nudged the bowl with his nose.
Chuckling, I poured him some food. “There. You happy?”
The only noise I got in return was the crunching of food. “Guess so,” I mumbled. “Now, I just need to find something to eat myself.”
I was walking to the refrigerator when a knock caused me to pause. I jogged to the door and opened it. “Perry!” I said, surprised. I hadn’t expected to see him again.
“Lois was going to come bring you dinner, but I told her I’d do it. I figured you’d need a warning ahead of time that she wants to know why you missed work today. I told her you weren’t feeling well, but you know Lois. She’ll want some specifics.”
“Thanks,” I told him warmly. “Come on in.” It seemed as if everyone wanted to feed me whenever I got sick. I thought that had ended when I left my parents’ house, but evidently I was wrong.
He put the bag of food on the table. “I can’t stay long—I still have a few things at the Planet that I need to do—but I did want to talk to you for a minute.” He took a seat, and I sat in a chair across from him. Here, then, was the conversation I had dreaded.
“Now, I couldn’t help but notice that the bullet which was so . . . well, poisonous to you seemed to have no effect on me,” he began casually.
One of my hands tightened into a fist. I was terrified about where this was going. Why had I thought it was a good idea to ask the newshound to help me out? If anyone had a nose for news, he did.
“Of course, there’s probably a reason for that. You weren’t really yourself—being shot does that to a man—and a man can say funny things sometimes. Why, I remember one time I stepped on a nail and started spewing all sorts of crazy things to Alice . . . . ” He laughed at the memory and slapped his knee. “I believe the phrase ‘son of a moose muffin muncher’ came out. She liked to never let me live that one down.”
His Southernism—“liked to”—was almost enough to make me smile, but I quickly remembered how I was in a situation that was teetering on the edge of disaster. I needed to know was what he knew and what he was going to do. So I said nothing.
“Now, while I may not know things officially,” he noted, returning back to his former subject, “that doesn’t mean I don’t know certain things unofficially. Sometimes, a newspaper man like me just sees that certain pieces fit together and form a bigger picture.”
If he hadn’t known my secret when he asked me to write that plea to the Black Knight, he had to know now. To say I was nervous would be to say a porcupine was unpleasant to touch. It was a good thing that I didn’t have my powers at that moment—if I had, the edge of the seat I was gripping would have splintered into pieces.
“But knowing that bigger picture and doing something about it are two different things,” he continued. “The most obvious action isn’t always the smartest one . . . . And a man of my position doesn’t stay a man of my position if he doesn’t stop to think before he acts.”
I could tell he wanted some sort of acknowledgment, but I still wasn’t sure what action he was going to take, so I remained quiet and stared down at the table grimly.
“But even if I only know something unofficially, that doesn’t mean someone couldn’t come to me again in a time of need—even if it leads to me knowing something officially. You, uh, understand, son?”
“I . . . think so?” I managed. It seemed to me as if he were telling me—in a roundabout way—that my secret was safe . . . and that I could come to him if I ever needed anything. An intense sense of relief washed over me. “Th-thank you, sir.”
He slapped me on the shoulder. “It’s Perry, son. Now, enjoy your dinner.” He turned to leave and was almost at the door when I called to him.
“Perry?”
The Chief Editor looked at me. “Yes?”
“Could you . . . take that box and bullet and keep them safe for me?” I asked. Hesitantly, I added, “And use it if you ever need to.”
He frowned. “Clark—”
“Please.”
He stared at me for a few seconds before nodding. “All right.” He grabbed the box and went out the door with it. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Clark,” he told me before shutting the door.
I was glad the bullet wasn’t in my apartment anymore . . . . And I was glad there was one person in Metropolis whom I could trust to use the meteor rock to take Superman down should the need ever arise. But hopefully that would never happen.
