Hero–Type
Authors: Barry Lyga
Copyright © 2008 by Barry Lyga, LLC
All rights reserved. For information about permission
to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
The text of this book is set in Legacy Serif Book.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file.
ISBN-13: 978-0-547-07663-8
Manufactured in the United States of America
MP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
D
EDICATED TO
C
APTAIN
P
ETER
G. M
ADRIÑAN
AND
M
AJOR
G
REGORY
C. T
INE
,
U
NITED
S
TATES
A
RMY
,
BOTH SERVING IN THE
M
IDDLE
E
AST
AS
I
WRITE THIS
.
F
INE SOLDIERS, BETTER FRIENDS
.
"There I was one night, just a normal guy.
"And then there I was the
next
night...
"Goddamnit, I was still just a normal guy."
Overture—Bruce Springsteen, speaking to
the crowd on July 7, 1978,
at The Roxy, Los Angeles, California
Y
OU KNOW THOSE PICTURES OF FAT PEOPLE
?
I'm talking about the ones in the ads for diets and weight-loss drugs and stuff like that. You know them. They always show the "Before" picture of the person back when they were a big fat slob. And then they show the "After" picture, which is like this totally buff hottie.
Here's the thing about those pictures, though: For the longest time I couldn't figure out why the pictures were labeled "Before" and "After," because to me it was obvious they were two completely different people.
But I get it now—we're at least supposed to
think
that it's the same person, made over thanks to the miracle of whatever the company is peddling. It doesn't have to be just for weight loss. It can be for any big life change.
I've always been skinny, so I don't need to lose weight, but I think about those pictures a lot. Especially now. After my own big life change.
So why do my "Before" and "After" pictures look exactly the same?
E
VERYWHERE YOU GO
, it seems like there's a reminder of what happened, of what I did. You can't escape it.
I
can't escape it. I wouldn't be surprised if someone suggested renaming Brookdale "Kevindale." That's just how things are working out these days. The whole town's gone Kevin Krazy.
Take the Narc, for example. The big sign out front, the one that normally announces specials and sales, now says thank you, kevin, for saving our leah. That's just plain weird. The same spot that usually proclaims the existence of new flavors of Pop Tarts or two-for-one Cokes is now a thanks to me. It's just surreal, the word my friend Flip uses when he's slightly stoned and can't think of a better word to describe something strange.
But I sort of understand the Narc sign. After all, Leah's dad owns Nat's Market (called "the Narc" by every kid in town
except
Leah), so I get it.
But...
Then there's the flashing neon sign that points down the highway to Cincinnati Joe's, a great burger-and-wings joint. Usually it just flashes Joe followed by Says and then Eat and then something like Wings! or Burgers! or Fries! or whatever the owners feel like putting up that day. Now, though, it says:
J
OE
S
AYS
G
OOD
J
OB
K
EVIN
!
Even the sign at the WrenchIt Auto Parts store wishes me a happy sixteenth birthday. And when you drive past the Good Faith Lutheran Church on Schiffler Street, the sign out front reads: G
OD
B
LESS
Y
OU
, K
EVIN
& L
EAH
. Which almost makes us sound like a couple or something. And I don't even
go
to Good Faith. I'm what Mom calls "a parentally lapsed Catholic." (Usually followed by "Don't worry about it.")
Continuing the Tour of Weirdness that has become Brookdale in the last week or so, you can see similar signs all over. My favorite—the most
surreal
—is the one near the mall, where someone forgot to finish taking down the old letters first, so now it says, S
PECIAL
! S
AVE
K
EVIN
R
OSS
I
S
A H
ERO
!
Gotta love that.
And, God, don't even get me
started
on the reporters.
You probably saw me on TV. First the local channels and then—just this past weekend—the bigtime: national TV, courtesy of
Justice!.
I didn't want to do the show, but
Justice!
was one of the big contributors to the reward money. I don't have the money yet, and it's not like the producers are holding it hostage or anything, but when someone's planning on dumping thirty grand into your bank account ... I sort of felt like I
had
to go on. Dad said it was my decision, but I could tell he was waffling. It's like, one part of him figured I deserved the money, and another part of him hated the idea of this big media company having that over my head, and
another
part of him probably wanted the whole thing just to go away.
Anyway.
They (you know, the
Justice!
people) filmed in Leah's living room, Leah being the girl whose life I saved.
See, here's the deal, the way I told it on TV and in the papers: I'm walking along near the Brookdale library and I hear this scream from down the alleyway. so I go running and there's this big guy and he's hassling Leah and he's got a needle in his hand.
He was big. I was—and am—small. But I couldn't help myself. I just threw down my, y'know, my backpack and I charged him and somehow I managed to get him in a wrestling hold like they taught us in gym class. He dropped the needle and Leah screamed again and the guy grunted and tried to shake me off, but I was sticky like a parasite, man. I just held on and tightened my grip and he couldn't move.
And Leah called 911 and that would have been that, but it turns out the guy in question was Michael Alan Naylor. The surgeon. Or...
"The man responsible for a series of abductions, rapes, and murders throughout the Mid-Atlantic," said Nancy deCarlo, the host of
Justice!,
just before she introduced me to the nation in all my zitty, sweaty, panicky glory.
They stuck me on Leah's sofa with Leah, who looked poised and calm and radiated perfection. It was like "Beauty and the Beastly" or something. Nancy talked. I listened. I answered her questions, but I can't really remember it at all. I was too caught up in the moment, sitting so close to Leah that I could smell her perfume and the hot TV lights and the
Justice
! people running around and everything. It was crazy.
They showed a reenactment of the whole thing, shot in grainy black-and-white, with some little emo kid playing me, running down the alley, jumping...
It was TV. They didn't tell the whole story, of course.
Maybe that's because
I
didn't tell
them
the whole story.
I
T'S HARD TO GET USED TO
the way the world's treating me. No one ever really paid attention to me before, and now...
Well, for example, there's
People.
They wanted to put me on the cover along with other "Teen Heroes!" like the kid who woke up at night to smell smoke just in time to get her family out of a burning house, and the other kid who went to computer camp even though his home had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. (I don't know how going to computer camp makes you a hero, but
People
says it, so it must be true, right?)
But let me tell you something—bad enough I agreed to have my face plastered all over TV. I wasn't about to give
People
an interview, so they cut me from the cover, thank God.
Oh, and then there were the reporters.
Billions
of them.
