The Inconveniences of Doing Superman's Laundry: Epilogue
by Nan Smith
Epilogue
"What did the guy at the repair place say about your Jeep?" Clark asked as he climbed into the passenger seat. It was the morning after their adventure, and the sky was a bright blue, dotted with high scudding clouds. The light storm of the previous day had departed during the night.
"Joe said our friends -- or somebody, anyhow -- had loosened one of the battery connections," Lois said. "If I'd had the time, I could probably have fixed it myself. One of my electives at New Troy State was Auto Mechanics."
Clark regarded her thoughtfully. "I guess I should be surprised," he said, "but since I know you pretty well, I'm not."
Lois grinned slightly and started the engine, which responded with a smooth purr. She pulled the Cherokee carefully away from the curb in front of Clark's apartment, and turned the nose of the vehicle toward the Daily Planet.
Clark observed the large, dumpster sitting between his building and the one next door with a raised eyebrow. The container manifestly hadn't been emptied, although the trucks usually came by around five in the morning on Friday. That could mean only one thing. "I guess the garbage strike is on," he remarked.
"You guessed it. It started this morning," Lois said. "I hope they get it settled pretty soon."
"So do I," Clark said. "The last time it got so bad that I nearly had to climb over the bags on the apartment steps to get out of the building."
Lois shrugged. "That's one of the drawbacks of living in the city," she said philosophically. "I still wouldn't live anywhere else." She signaled and turned left at a yellow light, just as it turned red, and blew her horn savagely at a blue VW that tried to jump the gun. There was a squeal of tires as the nearly suicidal driver of the much smaller car slammed on his brakes. The irate motorist shouted an imprecation after them, which Lois ignored.
Clark resolutely didn't look back. "Did Jimmy have any luck with his research on Jason Mazik?" he asked.
"Not much," Lois said. "I guess we're going to have to pound some pavement and see what else we can find out. Wouldn't be the first time."
Clark nodded. "If he really was involved in that robbery, this won't be the last time, either," he said. "Sooner or later, he'll slip up."
"That's for sure. I'll give Bobby a call when we get to the office. Maybe he's heard something else since yesterday." She glanced sideways at him. "It was too bad Superman had picked up his uniforms by the time we got back to your place," she remarked, changing the subject with her usual speed. "I'll bet you'd look good in one of his Suits."
"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now," he said.
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe you could wear one on Halloween, next year. Maybe he'd loan you one."
"I don't think I'd have the nerve to ask him," Clark said. "He'd think I was weird."
"I don't think he would," Lois said. "I'll ask him, if you're afraid to."
Clark hoped devoutly that by next year she would have forgotten the whole thing. Now might be a good time to change the subject. He glanced out the side window, noting the presence of un-emptied dumpsters along the sidewalk. They were in for several weeks of rapidly accumulating garbage along the thoroughfares of Metropolis, he knew. In spite of Lois's expressed wish that the strike would be over soon, the chances were that it would take some time to settle. During the previous strike, Superman had simply carried his own garbage to the city dump after dark. He didn't generally produce much trash anyway, but the ordinary citizens of Metropolis were in for an annoying episode in the city's daily drama. Speaking of which ....
"How come you didn't get your car stolen?" he inquired idly.
"What?" Lois looked genuinely puzzled, and he realized that he'd confused his partner, since she hadn't been privy to his thoughts.
"Sorry; I was thinking about what you said yesterday," he explained. "About how you got rid of your garbage during the strike last year. If you left your window rolled down, why do you still have your car?"
"Oh, that," Lois said. "I told you I took Auto Mechanics. I just unscrewed one of the screws in the distributor enough to break the contact, put the cap back on and left it. If anybody tried to steal the car, it wouldn't have started, and it would have taken too much time to figure out what was wrong to bother. Of course," she added, "it wasn't this car. It was the one I drove while I was in college, that I got for three hundred dollars from a second hand place. It finally died last year, and I didn't need to get another one right away, so I saved up for a good down payment -- so I could afford to get the Jeep."
"Oh." That, he thought, was a little humiliating. Lois apparently knew more about the workings of car engines than he did. Maybe he should read up on them a little bit -- or maybe he should just get Lois to teach him. It seemed that, in spite of the fact that he was Superman, his beautiful partner still had the ability to frequently leave him in the dust. He laughed suddenly.
"What?" Lois asked.
"Nothing important," he said. "But you amaze me, sometimes."
"Naturally," Lois said. "You just stick with me, partner, and you'll learn a lot."
He turned his head to look out the window again so she wouldn't see the wide grin on his face. "I've never doubted that, Lois," he said, sincerely. "Not for a minute."
The End
