Metal Man Meets Godiva

​“911, what is your emergency?”

​“I'm hungry.”

​His name is Craig, he's nine, and he lives in a rich neighborhood in Dot's town. “Where are your parents?” Craig doesn't know. “When was the last time you saw them?” He doesn't know that, either. “I'm going to send a squad car. Will you be okay waiting for them to arrive?”

​“No cops,” the kid says, “or I'm out.”

​Dot has been a dispatcher long enough to know this isn't a prank call. “I'll send someone,” she tells him. “Not the police. Just hold for two minutes, alright?” She clicks over to a free line and calls the local police. When she clicks back, he's hung up.

​Riding the bus home, the boy is on Dot's mind. She's taken abandoned child calls before, but never from Coventry. She's talked to kids who're scared of the cops, but never a white kid. Most calls come from Providence, and the kids are wounded or already dead. Dot has handled kidnappings, abuse, runaways, accidents in the home, children electrocuted by downed power lines, attacked by dogs, shot to bits by cranky neighbors. Someone, usually the mother, shrieks into the phone. The hysterical mothers make Dot want to quit her job, to gradually fade back into a life where tragedy is always for other people.

​Nearing her stop, a man steps into the aisle in front of Dot, cutting her off. Not terribly polite, but she's used to that. He probably didn't see her. Most people don't. Then the man collapses, bucking and writhing, head in the aisle, legs wrenched under a seat. Some passengers scream. A teenager films the convulsing man. The bus driver hollers for everyone to shut up and sit down, still driving while he calls 911 and misses Dot's stop.

​When the seizure passes Dot rolls the man onto his side, pries open his teeth and fishes his tongue out of his throat. She steps back to give the man room, but the other passengers crowd into her vacancy. Some people suspect drugs, others a virus. The teenager calls his death at six seventeen. Dot monitors his breathing.

​When the man opens his eyes the enthusiastic crowd jabbers. This is all so exciting. Did he see a light? Were there angels? He should get tested for Novichok. The baffled fellow latches onto the nearest woman, who helps him to his feet. He thanks her effusively. The bus driver makes his next stop and Dot gets off unnoticed.

​If Dot were a superhero, her superpower would be invisibility. She'd take the name Lady Godiva, in honor of the Englishwoman who rode naked and unseen through Coventry to alleviate her people's suffering. Dot can't quite remember how that worked. Something to do with a lord husband, probably. Something to do with being rich and sexy and famous and white. Dot is none of those things. If she rode naked through Coventry, Rhode Island, she wouldn't alleviate anyone's suffering. She'd be riding the bus, and people would look away, but not as a sign of respect. Her superhero name should be plain-old Ms. Godiva.

​The next day Dot calls out sick from work and stays home to job hunt. She likes answering phones because she likes talking to people she'll never have to meet. So she sends her resume to phone banks, secretarial positions, cold call sales jobs, then sits back to wait. While she waits, Dot drinks a second cup of coffee. She never drinks a second. The energy is too much. She's crackling, humming like a power line. She'll have to walk it off, so she puts on her cloak of invisibility, a ragged pea green wrap. It makes her look like a bag lady, but in a good way, augmenting her natural ability. No one can see her. She can do what she wants. In this coat, she could do great deeds. If she finds anyone in need – people, plants, animals – she can come to their aid.

​Ms. Godiva sees a stray dog drinking from an oily puddle and buys him a bottle of water. One of her neighbor's forsythias badly needs pruning, which she achieves undetected. She sneaks into someone's parked car to turn off their headlights. Near the liquor store she finds a man slumped on the sidewalk, crying into a whiskey bottle. Ms. Godiva sits beside him for a full five minutes, until he stops crying and looks at her, confused. She pulls her cloak tight and makes her escape.

​That evening, after she's applied to every job that might take her, Dot decides to work on her superhero resume. Stealth-pruning, serving fancy French water to stray dogs, hanging around disheveled drunks hoping they might have a seizure – this is no work for the self-respecting youngish woman Dot aspires to be. She can do more.

​She remembers Craig. Remembers his address, too. It's a large house on a small hill with a long, winding driveway. The grass is knee-high. The mailbox is crammed with junk, two weeks' worth at least. If there were ever a time to spring into action, this is it. Ms. Godiva wraps her cloak tight, ties it off with a mismatched belt, and strides up the driveway. It's steeper than she thought, but Ms. Godiva struggles and is rewarded. The front door is unlocked.

​It's cool inside. She squats to rest. There's nothing in here but dust. No furniture, no carpets, bare walls and lightbulbs. The power is out. Bootprints crisscross the dusty hardwood. Bending lower she sees smaller, bare footprints beneath them. She follows these little prints upstairs to a bedroom, which is empty except for a blanket on the floor.

​Standing over the blanket, Ms. Godiva has the feeling she's being watched. From a tree near the window, a boy is staring at her. He sees her. “Craig?” He can't hear her. She moves to open the window and the kid scurries groundward. Ms. Godiva runs down the stairs and around the house, but by the time she gets to the backyard the boy is gone.

​The next evening, she decides to bring all her powers to bear. She approaches in darkness, with sandwiches. Shrouded in flea market magic, she leaves a bag lunch on the front porch, then circles to the backyard and climbs the boy's tree. Dot hasn't climbed a tree in twenty years. It's no fun in a grown-up body. The kid, Craig, he climbed like a squirrel. Craig would make a valiant sidekick.

​Ms. Godiva drapes herself over a branch outside the second-story window. A light flashes inside, a dog's shadow thrown on the white wall. Good, she thinks, the boy has his dog with him, though it's terribly malformed. From a higher branch she can see into Craig's bed. He's making shadow puppets – dog, bird, rabbit – and talking to them. When the conversation comes to an end, he turns off the flashlight and lies down to sleep.

​Ms. Godiva came prepared with a pocketful of pebbles. It only takes her five tries to hit the boy's window. He opens it. “What?” the boy says, not surprised or relieved, hardly even curious. Ms. Godiva says she's there to help. “Who are you?”

​“Nobody,” she says. “That's why you can't see me.”

​“I see you.”

​“No you don't.”

​“What are you doing?”

​“Watching over you.”

​“Like a fucked-up social worker?”

​“Watch your mouth.”

​“What do you want?”

​She tells him she left a treasure on the front porch and the kid takes off running again. Ms. Godiva rolls an ankle jumping to the grass, then limps to her bike and pedals through the lawn to make her getaway, to remain mysterious and powerful. She needn't have bothered. Craig opens up, snatches the sandwiches, and slams the door shut again.

~

​Citing her ankle, Dot takes the rest of the week off work. Her boss complains, but she's accrued so much vacation there's not much he can do.

​That night she takes a taxi to Craig's house with another bag of sandwiches and apples. Police cars are parked in the street and driveway, the yard lit up like Christmas. Ms. Godiva arranges her cloak and dissipates from the taxi. Skirting the driveway in the dark of the hedge, she hears the police talking. Dot knows one, Officer Kwiatkowski, from a training session at work.

​“They found most of him in the bathtub, a leg on the living room sofa. Did herself with pills in a bed covered in rose petals. Beautiful house, right on the lake, got a boat and everything. It's like, what more do these people want?”

​Their voices fade as Ms. Godiva slinks around back. Craig is in his tree. She calls him in a whisper, but he doesn't answer. “Craig, I see you.”

​“Did you call the cops on me?”

​Ms. Godiva reveals herself in the guise of her unassuming alter ego. “I brought more sandwiches.” She shows him the bag and he slides down the trunk, landing nimbly. “You should go with them,” she tells him. “Someone has to take care of you.”

​“Cops are good at that.” He puts a finger-gun to his temple and drops his thumb. “Taking care of people.”

​“Eat,” she says. “I won't tell them you're here.” While he eats, crouched in the hedge, she coaxes a confused story from him. The police arrested his father, twice. He didn't even do anything and they totally wouldn't listen when Craig said it was someone else doing it, not his dad, but he couldn't say who, and anyway they didn't listen, they didn't even hear.

​“I understand,” Dot says.

​“Can you find my dad?”

​“I don't think so.”

​“He's dead, right?”

​“I think so.”

​“My mom killed him.”

​“It seems so.”

​“I'm not going with the cops. I told them a hundred times my dad never hurt me.”

​“See this coat?” Dot asks. The boy nods. “When I tie this coat shut, it becomes a cloak of invisibility, and whenever I'm invisible, anyone who holds my hand turns invisible, too. If you want, I can make you disappear. We'll walk down to the street, get in a taxi, and get the heck outta here.”

​Craig takes her hand. His is tiny, but firm, long nails crusted with mud, cuticles scraped from climbing.

~

​It seems like an adult's name misapplied to a child, but it suits him. Craig is a silent, rigid boy. Dot gives him two apples and a glass of milk, he says thank you, eats the apples to the core, chugs the milk, and doesn't ask for anything more. “You have to eat healthy,” Dot tells him, “to get your powers.”

​“I don't have powers,” he says. “Nobody does.”

​“I saved you, didn't I?”

​Craig shrugs. “My dad is dead.” Dot wants her cloak. “My mom's dead, too, and she was crazy, and I'm their kid, so what do you think's gonna happen to me?”

​“You'll be a hero,” she says. “I can tell.” Craig puts his head on the table, looking away. “It sounds dumb, I know. I didn't even find out I had powers until last week. I always thought it was bad being invisible. Then I realized that if no one can see me, I can go where I want, do whatever I want. That's a superpower, right?”

​“I'm really tired,” Craig answers. “Can I go to sleep?”

​Discouraged, but not defeated, Ms. Godiva tucks him into her bed and makes up the couch.

~

​Dot wakes to a pounding on the door and a stern voice calling her name. “Police, ma'am. Please open up.” She checks the peephole. It's Officer Kwiatkowski. “I saw you leaving a crime scene last night, Dorothy. We already talked to the cabbie. I just want to talk to you, okay?”

​Dot is about to open the door when Craig rushes out of the bedroom. He's dragging her green coat and he pushes it into her stomach. “Put it on,” he whispers. She gets the coat around them both, and they crouch under the kitchen table. Even after the officer leaves, Craig holds onto her.

​“I have to make your breakfast,” she says, unwrapping the boy. She needs to get away from him to think. Is this kidnapping? Is she a kidnapper?

​She questions him over waffles. Does he have grandparents? No. Aunts or uncles? No. An older brother or sister? Nobody. Where does he go to school? Craig pretends to have forgotten. “The police are coming back,” she says. “I have to tell them something. What do I do?”

​“Make me a super suit,” Craig says. Dot leaves the dishes in the sink and makes him a uniform: a dishrag cape with tin foil bracers and helmet. “Metal Man,” he says into the mirror. “This is my power pose.” He jumps, landing with his legs spread and a fist upraised. “I'm made of metal, so nothing hurts me.” Then Craig slumps against the wall and cries. He rips off the helmet, which he crushes in his fists, then he pounds it into the carpet.

​Dot wraps him in her coat, shaking with him.

​“Good will prevail,” she whispers.

​When Craig calms down she reforges his helmet and puts it back on his head, so small and fragile the tinfoil seems to offer real protection. Sniffing the last of his tears, Craig suggests some modifications to their Fortress of Solitude. The kitchen table needs to be draped in invisibility blankets, with regular pillows inside for comfort. This lair is where they will hide the food. He empties Dot's cupboards, stashing snacks in pillowcases. With their defenses fortified, Metal Man falls asleep hugging a bag of marshmallows.

​Dot unknots the dishrag from around his neck, then looks up the number for social services. She can't make herself dial. What hero could? Instead, she waits until Craig wakes, then makes him hot chocolate and explains why he can't stay.

​“It's not kidnapping,” Metal Man says. “I want to be here.” His helmet is crooked, bracers rucked under his armpits. She straightens him out. “You could adopt me,” he says. “We could be partners.”

​Dot explains her tiny bedroom, tinier couch, no TV, no toys, no money. “I don't even have a goldfish, or plants. Nothing lives here.”

​“Better than my house,” Craig says, which is true. But his parents had money. They bought him clothes, sent him to school, fed him decent food. With her it would be ham sandwiches, secondhand rags, some educational factory for poor kids. “So I'll run away.”

​“Run away where?”

​“I don't know. Let me stay. I won't sleep in your bed. I can sleep in the fortress. I won't make a mess. I'll do whatever you say.”

​“Sounds like a lousy deal for you, Craig.”

​He stomps. “Metal Man. That's my name.”

​Craig's feet are planted on the stained carpet, fists clenched, eyes locked into hers, ready for battle, with or against her. Dot's not ready for anything. She has only doubts and worries, all of them legitimate.

​“I don't think it's going to happen, Metal Man. I make twelve bucks an hour. Nobody's going to let you stay with me.”

​Craig shrugs. “So we'll live at my house. Not the lake house. You can burn that fucking place. My house, where you found me. That's how it works, right? I get my parents' stuff? We should have lots of money.”

​“Look at you, Craig. Look at me. What are people going to think?”

​Craig gives her a look so withering she wishes she were invisible, then snatches the dishrag from the kitchen table and tries to knot it around his neck in a fury. “You don't want me, just say so. I don't care.” He can't get the rag tied, so he tucks it into the collar of his shirt and yanks at the door, then unbolts it, but Craig has never seen a chain lock before and can't figure out how to open it while he's crying.

​Dot reaches around him to fasten his cape, then puts the forgotten helmet back on his head. “They're probably waiting for you out there,” she says. “Like an ambush. You'd better stay in the fortress. I'll call CPS, that's Child Protective Services. They're the ones we'll have to convince.”

​Metal Man wipes his eyes and nose on his cape. “Tell them we're partners,” he says.

​“I thought you'd be more like a sidekick.”

​“Partners,” Craig insists. He takes her phone from the kitchen table and crawls into the fortress of solitude, then holds the blanket wall open for her.