Son of Superman by Fan Li
The first time I saw my father fly was the Christmas of ’75. He was standing on a retractable ladder, hanging lights along our eaves. I was twisting a carrot into a snowman’s face when I heard a sound like somebody had slammed a two-by-four against a brick wall. I spun around just in time to see my dad fall from the roof, but a second before he hit the ground, my father hovered. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There he was, my old man, five foot four with a beer gut, floating like a dumpling in a boiling pot. Then he eased himself down to the ground, light as a feather. I ran into the house and told my mom what I saw, but she just shrugged and rubbed my head. Thinking back, she must’ve known.
"Clark Kent - Superman?" (photo by Flickr user Steve Punter)
My dad was a mechanic in the Chrysler factory down the street like most men in Oshawa. Like most men, he went to Molly’s after work, came home sometimes for dinner and sometimes went straight to bed. Mom never said more than two words to him and they didn’t cross each others’ paths much except in the kitchen. One thing’s for sure, my dad didn’t go around fighting bad guys all day in leotards and a cape. How could he have when there was the mortgage and car insurance and Dora’s tuition fees? Being a man was hard enough.
Then one day, my dad disappeared. Our town had two suicides that year, and I was just finishing high school. There were all kinds of stories going around, but mom neither confirmed nor denied any of them, just let them buzz around our house like flies around a corpse. In those days, I dreamt a lot about my dad soaring in and out of clouds in his plaid shirt and old jeans, stretched out like a spit roast in the sky. I dreamt about him fighting crime somewhere far away and exotic, like Japan or New Zealand. I figured wherever he was, he was having a good time. It used to fill me with anger, but after Jill and I split and she took the kids and the car, I came to understand some of it. Maybe he just wasn’t cut out to be a family man. And to think all that time he could’ve just leapt up and flown away but didn’t, it was more than I did for my own kids.
Anyway, it’s all water under the bridge now. Ma passed away back in 2000, so I moved back to take care of the house. I got all the rooms to myself and that ain’t so bad I guess. Every day I go to work at the factory: safety inspection (that’s one level up from what my old man used to do). Afterwards, I go to Molly’s and have a drink or two. Things are fine in my life. Got nothing to complain about. So, let’s get this straight: I wasn’t trying to kill myself; I just wanted to fly.
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Fan Li wants to live a life full of gun fights, car chases, hand-to-hand combat, and write the great American novel that he has to smuggle out of a fascist regime on a USB key shoved up his ass. That’s the life.
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