Earth Man (12 page)

Danny
leaned against the windshield and whispered to the two adults inside. The woman had long curly black hair that was plastered to her face and Danny couldn’t tell if she was listening to him or not.

“
When I say go, you two run,” Danny pointed back to where he’d left their son.
“Your son is there, head straight from there to the highway.”

The two parents nodded vigorously and Danny knew it was the best he could hope for from them. The bear went
back to prying at the side door and Danny walked into the headlight beams, backing away from the van. As soon as it saw Danny the bear turned toward him, shaking its head as it bound toward him.

“
GO.” Danny shouted as he walked backwards away from the bear.

He heard the doors of the van open but he did not dare take his eyes off the
giant predator in front of him. The bear turned around and spotted the two frightened adults running away from the van, the doors left open behind them.

“
Keep your eyes on me, over here. Come on!” Danny said to the bear.

It charged at him again but he scampered backwards, keeping his hands up in front of him. The bear was not sure how to continue, it was reluctant to leave its meal behind to pursue a human but it did not wan
t to give the appearance of submission to its challenger. It stood on its back legs and roared at Danny. It now had to prove its dominance and he smelled like a rival. Suddenly Danny realized that with all his new-found powers he could not control the bear. Even though he could match the bear, that he could read it and duplicate it, he could not influence it in any way. The words of the stranger from the gas station suddenly came back to him.

Sometimes an act of kind
ness makes all the difference.

Danny looked down at the can of Coke in his hand and he
threw it at the van. The bear turned around and Danny kneeled slowly in front of it, keeping his eyes on the bear’s feet. With Danny in a submissive position, the bear confidently looked around. It could smell the sticky sweet soda in the air as the can hit the windshield and covered the hood with fizzy foam. Danny couldn’t see the bear enough to get out of the way if it took a swing at him, it was now up to the bear if he lived or died. Danny had no intention of making the animals’ painful existence any worse and while he didn’t want to die, refused to hurt something that had already suffered so much. It just wanted to eat and be left alone.

The
bear went back on all fours, trying to make up its mind as to which direction to go. It began to lick the soda off the van. The smell of the fried American food won out and with the doors open, the bear gleefully jumped inside. Danny breathed out slowly. It crossed his mind to pick up the Coke can but the way the bear was tearing up the van, he thought it was safer to get away from there.

             
The RCMP had thanked him for distracting the bear then he was free to leave. They had no reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary when the truth was so far from the ordinary as to be unbelievable. The bear had run off with its prize, leaving the van a ruined mess. No people or animals had been hurt so everything worked out okay for everyone involved. Danny got home fairly quickly and although he was exhausted, he also felt a sense of physical elation unlike anything he’d experienced before. It was contentment, the sense of finally knowing his place in the world. He found Ray reading a book on animals in his bed, stretched out sideways with his head resting on his wrist. Ray had dirty blonde hair that was always dishevelled, just like Danny and Danny’s mother. The red hair Morgan had come from Helen and her side of the family, the Boyle’s were almost all blonde. In every other way he was clearly Danny’s boy; they were built almost identical with lean muscular swimmer’s legs and broad shoulders. Only the eyes were Helen’s and as he got older, more and more of his expressions began to resemble those of his mother.

“
Where’s Mom?” Danny asked.

“
In the bath. Morgan’s in bed, she’s sick.”

“
Is it bad? How sick is she?” Danny asked.

“
It’s just a cold Dad. She’s all snotty and sounds funny though.”

Ray flipped the page, his eyes still in the book. Danny sat down on the edge of his
bed and pushed his son’s stinky feet aside.

“
You can do some pretty cool stuff, huh?” Ray asked, finally looking up.

“
I think so, yeah. Can I ask you a grown-up question Ray?”

Ray shifted and sat up on the bed, drawing his legs up to his chest. Sometimes
you could see in Ray’s face the man he was going to become, while other times the small, curious child was still there peeking out.

“
Sure, I guess,” Ray answered, “What is it?”

“
Does it bother you that I don’t have a job or that sometimes we don’t have extra money for things?”

Ray shook his head back and forth after a moment of reflection.

“Nah Dad, it’s cool. I mean I have everything I need.”

Danny said nothing, letting Raymond finish when he was ready.

“I do wish there was a car for me, you know, when I turn sixteen. But I could always get a job too, I guess.”

“
You could.” Danny said kindly.

“
Maybe I can do what you do. This superhero stuff.”

“
I don’t know, Ray I don’t think it works that way. Anyway I am no superhero.”

“
How did you get home, Dad, after we dropped you off?”

“
What do you mean?”

“
I mean did you call a cab, run, or what?”

Danny knew where his son was headed with the conversation and he smiled.

“I flew.” Danny said.

“
See? Superhero!”

Ray flopped back on his bed, grinning. Danny hugge
d him, said goodnight and left. The smile on his face went from ear to ear.

Helen had a job lined up Saturday morning so Danny got up and made breakfast. This time he avoided bacon, instead making eggs and toast. He fried
the eggs sunny side up and served them on a bagel. The kids loved the yolk of the egg bursting in the middle of the warm bagel so much they didn’t even notice he’d used whole grain bagels. Helen stood by the door, finishing off her breakfast by cramming it in her mouth.

“
I’m going to talk to Dr. Rue today.” Danny said, sitting at the table with Morgan and Ray.

Helen slung her tool belt around her waist, adjusting it so it hung at an angle on her hips like a cowboy.

“Good. Who’s watching them?” Helen asked, waving her hand like a magic wand at her two children.

“
Linda and Phil are going to stop in; it’ll only be an hour or so.” Ray answered between mouthfuls of eggs.

“
I’m going out anyway.” Raymond said. Egg dripped from the corner of his mouth and he wiped it with his sleeve.

Helen shook
her head at her son and husband who seemed like two peas from the same pod, or perhaps two matching pigs at the trough. She hugged her daughter, wiping her nose for her with a napkin.

“
You feeling okay?” Helen asked as she kissed Morgan on the forehead.

“I’m okay.” Morgan said, kissing her Mom back.

“
I’ll get her some ice cream while I am out.” Danny said.

Morgan grinned at him and nodded her head.

“Okay,” Helen said, opening the door. “But get the real stuff. Not the soft serve crap.”

The kids ran up
and gave their mother a big hug. Helen waved by to Danny over Morgan’s head and he gave her a big smile in return.

“
See you later, honey.”

Phil and Linda
didn’t visit just so Linda could babysit. They’d come to hang out with Danny, which explained the twelve pack of beer Phil had brought with him. Danny’s plan was to run over to the doctor’s office, make sure the doctor was not concerned or worried, then hurry back home, kick up his feet and drink a few beers with Phil and Linda.

“
Don’t go Daddy.” Morgan pleaded.

“
Why? You feeling sick, baby bear?”

Danny lifted his daughter up in his arms.
The little girl’s nose was red and swollen but otherwise she seemed to be getting over her cold quickly. She had the sniffles but there was no fever or nausea as far as he knew.

“
I just want you to stay home today. With me.” Morgan said sadly.

“
Don’t worry, we’ll have fun. He won’t be long.” Linda popped her gum as she spoke to Morgan, right in Danny’s ear.

“
She’s right, I’ll be right back.” Danny said.

Danny put Morgan on the floor and she sauntered
off into the living room.

“
I’ll call you if there’s a problem.” Phil said as he filled Danny’s fridge with beer.

Ray was already out of the house so Danny shouted
goodbye to Morgan. He could hear Dora in the background. She’d put on her favourite show and forgotten about him already.

“
I’ll be back in a minute.” Danny said to Phil as he headed out the door.

There was a September chill in the air,
the kind that served as winter’s warning. Even though the sun was bright in the sky so he grabbed his jacket. He was already in the air before he had his arms in the sleeves.

Dr. Rue
’s promotion to Kelowna General had only happened the previous spring; he still ran his private practice out of his house on the other side of town. Danny flew within a block of the cul-de-sac with the intention of walking the rest of the way. There was a crisp breeze, especially up in the air and he was glad he’d grabbed the jacket. It was a thick old beaten leather thing he’d had for years, inherited from his father.

There were children in the park playing soccer but they barely noticed
when Danny dropped down from the sky and landed behind a tree. Children had a remarkable ability to ignore adults, even when they flew. More than a few people had witnessed him using his abilities but no one ever said a word, almost all of them just assumed their eyes were playing tricks on them. Nobody could accept the fantastic because they had never experienced it before. People doubted themselves so easily that any shift in reality was simply ignored, after all how could the universe change the rules? It was much easier to doubt themselves then their reality. Danny was beginning to see why people were willing to believe ludicrous stories about weather balloons, or blame it all on an overactive imagination, or a trick of the light. No one wanted to accept the world was more amazing and wonderful than they’d thought when it was easier to find some flaw inside them to explain it. Danny didn’t hear their chatter but the kids playing were offended; they thought Danny had been urinating in their park. Why else would he have been hiding behind the trees?

Danny stood outside the doctor
’s home, a large sign on the lawn made it clear this was the home and office of Dr. W. Rue. The parking space was designated FOR PATIENTS ONLY and was three cars wide. There was no car in the driveway, but it could have been in the garage. The house was fairly traditional, built in the 1980’s with a small pair of stone stairs leading up a slight hill to the front door. The white door matched the rest of the house and there was a gold doorbell on the right side. The garden next to the stairs had already died, the wilted flowers buried under the weeds. The lawn and bushes alongside the house were landscaped rather nicely. Someone had taken care of the property up until recently. Danny wondered how Dr. Rue found the time to keep the house in such good order. The answer, of course, was money. Obviously the young handsome doctor had been paying someone until recently to keep the property in shape; he might even have hired cleaners for the interior.

‘
What must it be like to have the money to hire other people to do things for you, people like him and Helen’, Danny thought.