Super Man and the Bug Out | Page 7

movement? No, this is much better. These guys do all
the postering and phoning, they get a good crowd out, this is their
natural role. Our natural role, my son," he placed a friendly hand on
Hershie's caped shoulder, "is to see to it that their efforts aren't defeated
by their own poverty of imagination. They're the feet of the movement,
but we're its laugh." Thomas pulled out his comm and scribbled on its
surface. "They're the feet of the movement, but we're its laugh, that's
great, that's one for the memoirs."
#
Hershie decided he needed to patrol a little to clear his head. He
scooped trash and syringes from Grenadier Pond. He flew silently
through High Park, ears cocked for any muggings.
Nothing.

He patrolled the Gardner Expressway next and used his heat vision to
melt some black ice.
Feeling useless, he headed for home.
He was most of the way up Yonge Street when he heard the siren. A
cop car, driving fast, down Jarvis. He sighed his father's sigh and rolled
east, heading into Regent Park, locating the dopplering siren. He
touched down lightly on top of one of the ugly, squat tenements, and
skipped from roof to roof, until he spotted the cop. He was beefy, with
the traditional moustache and the flak vest that they all wore on
downtown patrol. He was leaning against the hood of his cruiser,
panting, his breath clouding around him.
A kid rolled on the ground, clutching his groin, gasping for breath. His
infrared signature throbbed painfully between his legs. Clearly, he'd
been kicked in the nuts.
The cop leaned into his cruiser and lowered the volume on his radio,
then, without warning, kicked the kid in the small of the back. The kid
rolled on the ice, thrashing painfully.
Before Hershie knew what he was doing, he was hovering over the ice,
between the cop and the kid. The cateyes embedded in the emblem on
his chest glowed in the streetlamps. The cop's eyes widened so that
Hershie could see the whites around his pupils
Hershie stared. "What do you think you're doing?" he said, after a
measured silence.
The cop took a step back and slipped a little on the ice before catching
himself on his cruiser.
"Since when do you kick unarmed civilians in the back?"
"He -- he ran away. I had to catch him. I wanted to teach him not to
run."

"By inspiring his trust in the evenhandedness of Toronto's Finest?"
Hershie could see the cooling tracks of the cruiser, skidding and
weaving through the projects. The kid had put up a good chase. Behind
him, he heard the kid regain his feet and start running. The cop started
forward, but Hershie stopped him with one finger, dead centre in the
flak jacket.
"You can't let him get away!"
"I can catch him. Trust me. But first, we're going to wait for your
backup to arrive, and I'm going to file a report."
A Sun reporter arrived before the backup unit. Hershie maintained
stony silence in the face of his questions, but he couldn't stop the man
from listening in on his conversation with the old constable who
showed up a few minutes later, as he filed his report. He found the kid a
few blocks away, huddled in an alley, hand pressed to the small of his
back. He took him to Mount Sinai's emerg and turned him over to a
uniformed cop.
#
The hysterical Sun headlines that vilified Hershie for interfering with
the cop sparked a round of recriminating voicemails from his mother,
filled with promises to give him such a zetz in the head when she next
saw him. He folded his tights and cape and stuffed them in the back of
his closet and spent a lot of time in the park for the next few weeks. He
liked to watch the kids playing, a United Nations in miniature, parents
looking on amiably, stymied by the language barrier that their kids
hurdled with ease.
On March first, he took his tights out of the overstuffed hall closet and
flew to Ottawa to collect his pension.
He touched down on the Parliament Hill and was instantly surrounded
by high-booted RCMP constables, looking slightly panicky. He held
his hands up, startled. "What gives, guys?"

"Sorry, sir," one said. "High security today. One of Them is speaking in
Parliament."
"Them?"
"The bugouts. Came down to have a chat about neighbourly relations.
Authorised personnel only today."
"Well, that's me," Hershie said, and started past him.
The constable, looking extremely unhappy, moved to block him. "I'm
sorry sir, but that's not you. Only people on the list. My orders, I'm
afraid."
Hershie looked into the man's face and thought about hurtling skywards
and flying straight into