Heroes never die

1982

I’ve never been that good at separating fantasy and reality.

Fig.1: The cover of my first Spider-Man comic. He’s about to get a solid beatdown, but Madame Web needs saving!

When I was six, my grandma asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I responded with “an X-Wing pilot.” I hoped beyond hope that the Star Wars movies were based on a satellite broadcast George Lucas actually intercepted from a galaxy far, far away, and that he turned into a movie. When I was eight, my dad bought me my first Spider-Man comic book. Even at that early age, I was immediately drawn to Peter Parker and saw myself in him — taught to be shy by classmates who taunted him for his love of science (the nuns at St. Mary’s were immediately taken by my ability to recite all nine planets in first grade; the other students, not so much), but granted abilities that allowed him to set aside his personal demons and focus on helping others. That was often at the expense of his own happiness.

1986

Fig.2: Our hero in fifth grade, a year before defending the family’s honor. Jesus, look at that hair.

In January, my dad gets busted for drunk driving after he leaves the bar one night to pick up Mom from her job at the hospital, six miles away in Chilton. Word travels fast in our tiny village — that week the kids at school give me the business about my drunk father. Fortunately, my parents have given me the ammunition to defend the family honor on the playground. He’d only had a beer or two, and he wasn’t drunk; Wisconsin’s legal limit just happens to not allow for individual tolerance, that’s all. I was 11 years old. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I knew my classmates were treating my dad the way they treated me, and I didn’t like it. I argued and pled my case, using logic a preteen could never recognize as convoluted. But in my mind, I had done my job. My first act of heroism.

Like I said, I’ve never been that good at separating fantasy from reality.

1991

What were you doing at 8 p.m. on a weeknight when you were age 16? Probably watching TV while finishing up some homework or hanging out with friends playing video games, basketball, whatever. I got my homework done during class time — I was smart enough, and besides, I had other things to do at home. On this particular night, I’m letting out an audible sigh as I leave the house, heading to the bar my dad’s sitting at. Mom’s at work, and none of the kids know how to cook dinner; so we’ve been waiting for Dad to come home and feed us. I suppose I could throw a pizza in, but that’s what we had last night, and besides, Saturday afternoon is supposed to be pizza-for-lunch day. Mom’ll be mad if we burn through all the pizzas. So, off I go to track down our caretaker because if I don’t, we’re going to bed hungry. When I find him, he looks at me indignantly and asks, “Why don’t you just make a pizza?”

But he lets out an audible sigh, comes home, makes us dinner and my 7-year-old brother doesn’t go to bed hungry. The hero saves the day again.

Jenny’s moving into the apartment I share with the bassist in my band. He’s not happy — she and I don’t exactly have a stable relationship, and she’s kinda mean. But right now she lives with her raging alcoholic parents, and things are getting really bad with her living at home. She needs me, and we just happen to have a spot opening up in the apartment.

A month after she moves in, she breaks up with me and goes to Chicago to have a threesome with some people she met … through me. But at least she got out of her parents’ house.

2004

Saara’s spent the last week off her antidepressants, but I don’t know that. She’s gotten another rejection letter from a grad school and I want her to know it’s going to be all right. But my attempts — “It’s just one school,” “You can try again next year,” “I know someone’s going to accept you” — just upset her even more. “You don’t know that! Stop trying to placate me! Stop trying to fix this! You can’t make this feeling go away!” Don’t tell the hero there’s a problem he can’t fix. We go around and around in a feedback loop that eventually leaves us disoriented and exhausted.

She knows I can’t fix her because she’s been through the therapy and through the recovery. She knows my game. I may think I’m Spider-Man, but she knows I’m a different kind of “hero” — the kid that grows up fighting to keep his alcoholic family stable. She gives me a book called Recovery: A Guide for Adult Children of Alcoholics. In it I find this: “The hero provides self-worth for the family with hard work, success, and achievement. He or she will show everyone the family is all right. The hero will make up for the family’s weakness. He or she is admired and respected, but feels like a failure and inadequate.” Oh shit.

2006

I’m in a therapist’s office. Saara and I have split up (she finally got into grad school … in Florida), and I’m a wreck. I don’t want to be the hero no one’s asked me to be anymore.

2008

At least, that’s what I tell myself. But there’s still some bargaining going on with my not-so-secret identity. While one girl drinks away her depression, I tell myself that I can indulge the hero a little bit and be her shoulder because she purposely keeps me at arm’s length, warning me not to get too attached. She’s independent; she won’t let me play the hero, even when I try. When another dates me between stretches with her boyfriend, I accept the rebound but betray myself by getting attached, seeing myself as the white knight that she would be so happy with if only she’d be brave enough to leave him. How patronizing to assume people are incapable of saving themselves — or that they even need to be “saved.” No, really, Spidey — you don’t have to get my cat out of the tree; I have a ladder, and I’ll use it when I’m damn good and ready.

One girl sends me text messages while I’m in Chicago, playing a show with the band. She’s somehow ended up at a coke party, sending me updates about how much she regrets it. “I wish you were here,” she says. “This wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have done this. This is so weird. Come get me when you’re back in town.”

Alarms ring in my head as the hero stirs. “No,” I tell myself. “This is not my fault. Why do I feel like this is my fault?” But the hero is telling me that we should never have gone out of town to play this show. We’re needed elsewhere.

“Shut up. This is not my fault. Fixing this is not my job,” I tell the hero, as I drive to the house where she is, so I can pick her up.

Another follows up our relationship by dating a guy who hits. I try to explain to her how messed up I think this is, and how I’m worried she’s going to get hurt.

“Then why don’t you whisk me away on a white horse … show me something different?”

The hero stirs, and I shout him down. “I am NOT your white knight. That’s codependency. Everyone is their own hero.” I’ve had it with this. Finally, someone wants me to be the hero, but I see how monumentally wrong it is.

2010

A new year, a new decade. A time to start afresh. I’m looking ahead, looking to change. I’m sick of trying to save other people. But the hero’s not going anywhere. Just ask Superman — heroes never die. But maybe I can redirect his attention to someone who wants to be saved … me. Everyone is their own hero.

It’s not like I haven’t been trying to save myself — this will be the fourth year of my own recovery. But that’s four years against 35, and I have to try harder. For a long time now, I’ve felt like an inadequate failure, just like the book said. But when I put things in perspective, when I look at the timeline, I see some miniscule progress in that failure.

In 2010, this is my New Year’s Resolution: to take what I need from the hero — namely, the classic triumph after the lowest, most bitter defeat — and toss everything else aside. The hero knows who needs saving now — that 11-year-old kid who confused the real world around him with the fantasy he wanted.

Also in 2010, I resolve to start reading comic books again. Hey, fantasy does have its place, you know.