The Death and Life of Superman (32 page)

“He did not care about our religious beliefs or our politics. He did not care about our nationalities or our gender or the color of our skins. He cared about people. He cared about us. We are, all of us, richer for having known him, and poorer for having lost him.

“Superman was, as I said, from another planet—and I do not know what God, if any, he worshiped. But I pray to my God to comfort and protect him, as he comforted and protected us all.”

Lois had heard so many prayers that day—dozens, it seemed—but few had been as personal, or as direct, as the pastor’s. The image of Superman as an angel was strangely comforting, and she let the pastor’s words repeat over and over in her head. She became so caught up in his final prayer that she barely heard the next speaker.

The next thing Lois knew, the President of the United States was walking onto the dais, accompanied by the First Lady. Hand in hand they approached the microphones. His face lined with sorrow, the President began to speak.

“Undoubtedly, Superman himself would remind us to care for the many victims of Doomsday’s attack, and so we do. But how could we not especially honor the man who gave his life to save so many more?

“His powers and abilities were amazing, but how much more amazing was the way he chose to use those powers! If there is a lesson in this, it is that the greatest power of all is our own ability to care about each other, to help each other.”

The President nodded to the first lady, and she stepped forward to complete their brief eulogy.

“As we extend our help, our care and concern, to the families of Doomsday’s other victims, we also send our thoughts and our prayers to Superman’s loved ones . . . whoever they may be.”

Upon hearing those words, Lois felt a great barrier breaking apart inside her. It was as if the first lady were speaking directly to her, as if the hundreds of thousands of people around her simply weren’t there. She turned and slipped back through the crowd. Incredibly, the people let her pass.

On the edge of the park, Lois saw a pay phone, and before she was conscious of it, her telephone credit card was in her hand.

“. . . we also send our thoughts and prayers to Superman’s loved ones . . .”

Lois punched in the code for directory assistance. She saw now that she didn’t have to make sense of Clark’s death; no one could do that. She didn’t have to resolve her own grief; only time could do that—time and sharing.

“Directory assistance for what city, please?”

“Smallville—Smallville, Kansas. The number of Jonathan and Martha Kent.”

Lois still wasn’t certain what she was going to say, but she knew that she had to call—that she had to reach out to Clark’s parents—that only by trying to speak could she ever hope to find the right words.

In Kansas, Jonathan and Martha Kent stood side by side in an untilled section of field at the far south end of their property. It was here that they’d first found the vessel that had brought them their son over thirty years before.

Jonathan had pried away the half-rotted planks that covered the eroded old impact crater. Now he leaned on his shovel and stared down into the Earth as if he could see to its core the way his late son could.

“Here’s where it all began, Clark . . . where the rocket that brought you to us came crashing down. I’ll never forget how amazed we were when we found it. It didn’t seem possible that anything could have lived through that crash, but there you were.”

Martha inched nearer the crater, cradling an old strongbox in her arms. “I remember, Clark. I reached right in and lifted you up in my arms. We didn’t know where you’d come from, but we didn’t care. From that moment forward, you were ours . . . the sweetest little baby in the universe. You were our gift from heaven, and right from the start, we loved you with all our hearts.”

Martha opened the strongbox, and together they looked once more inside, as if to pay their last respects. Within the box was an old threadbare blanket that Martha had wrapped her baby in when they’d first taken him back to the house. There was also a battered old teddy bear that Aunt Sal had sent the boy for his first birthday and a worn baseball and mitt that Jon had bought Clark when their son had turned ten.

Jonathan closed the box and latched it. “Doesn’t seem like much.”

“These were just a few of the things Clark loved. There were others in the house, but I couldn’t bear to part with any more.” Slowly, Martha stepped down into the depression, setting the box into the ground as gently as if it held the body of her son. “Good-bye, Clark. Good-bye.”

Jonathan gave his wife a hand up out of the crater and then tossed in the first shovelful of dirt. The dirt hit the old strongbox with a thump that seemed to echo forever. Jonathan hurried to finish the burial. He was just tamping down the last bit of soil when he felt a painful pressure building in center of his chest. He stiffened, gripping the shovel for support.

“Jonathan, what is it?”

“Nothing.” He caught his breath. “Just my stomach acting up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Course I’m sure.” He wasn’t really, but the last thing he wanted was for Martha to worry about him. “I’d hoped that this little service would help some, but . . . it just wasn’t enough, was it?”

“No. No, it wasn’t.” Martha covered her face with her hands. “I feel like nothing can plug the hole in my heart.”

Jonathan leaned against his shovel, trying to rub the ache out of his left arm. He felt just as empty.
I’m just a useless old man. If it wasn’t for Martha, I don’t think there’d be any reason to go on living.
He put his arm around his wife and they headed for home.

As they got closer to the house, they could hear the phone ringing. Though they had no way of knowing, it had been ringing off and on for nearly ten minutes. Martha hurriedly unlocked the back door and rushed across the kitchen to answer it.

“Hello? Kent residence—”

“Martha, thank heavens. I was so worried!”

The voice that cracked over the receiver sounded so frantic that it took Martha a moment to recognize it. “Lois? Lois, is that you, dear?”

“Yes. Oh, Martha, I’m so sorry I haven’t called sooner. I—I just couldn’t. I couldn’t believe it was true . . .”

While Lois had been trying to call, she’d imagined the worst, that the Kents were ill or had suffered some terrible accident. Now that she’d gotten through, all her grief and guilt came gushing out.

“. . . just couldn’t believe he was really gone. I kept asking myself, what could I say to you? And I just didn’t know, so I didn’t call, but the longer I waited, the worse it was.”

Lois began to cry softly, and Martha put her hand over the phone’s mouthpiece, gesturing for her husband. “Jonathan, it’s Lois! The poor child needs us.”

Jonathan came near, as Martha cradled the receiver between them. They both did their best to reassure Lois, but when she could speak again, she kept on apologizing.

“I was there . . . all the time Clark was fighting that monster . . . and all I could do was report on the battle . . . a-and watch him die. I couldn’t do anything but watch him die. Clark died in my arms and I didn’t even call you. How can you ever forgive me?”

Jonathan spoke up firmly. “Now you listen to me, Lois. It was
not
your fault. You did all that you could. Everyone did what they could. You’re talking with us now. That’s all that matters.”

“Jonathan is absolutely right. We’ve all had a—a terrible loss. And I think we need to be together.” Martha looked over at her husband, and he nodded his agreement. “You hold on a while longer, honey. We’re coming to Metropolis.”

Jonathan pulled out his bandanna and dried his eyes. If he could do anything to help that young woman through her pain—well, maybe he wouldn’t be so useless after all.

14

As night fell
on Metropolis, the gangs came out to reclaim Avenue M.

Avenue M skirted the edge of Suicide Slum and for almost a decade had been teetering between renewal and squalor. The Newtown Plaza project had been designed to save a five-square-block area and perhaps even bring the possibility of rebirth to all of Hob’s Bay. Doomsday had put an end to that. All that remained of Newtown Plaza now were several blocks of rubble and twisted girders. The project had been left in such a hopeless mess that the construction company hadn’t even bothered to post guards.

The police were busy elsewhere. Superman was dead. And so, the gangs filtered out of Suicide Slum, out of the shadows, and down Avenue M.

On a vacant lot that had been planned as a green space for the plaza complex, the Dragons met the Sharks, and words were exchanged. Both gangs were armed and dangerous, but the Sharks were packing what amounted to one-man portable artillery pieces. They called their weapons Toastmasters, and the big guns lived up to the name. Within minutes, their incendiary shellfire had reduced a half dozen young men to toast and sent the surviving Dragons running for their lives.

The Sharks had little time to savor their victory. Their ammunition spent, they were forced to fall back as police sirens wailed up the avenue.

The first patrol car onto the lot had to brake sharply to avoid hitting the smoldering remains of what had been a fifteen-year-old boy.

“My God, what happened here?” Patrolwoman Jean Coyle was suddenly thankful for the head cold that had blocked her sense of smell.

“Looks like a freakin’ war zone, Jeanie.” Fred Moore, her partner, had served a hitch in the army and seen action in the Middle East, but this was beyond his experience. He fought to keep the contents of his stomach down.
What kind of weapons do this? What kind of people would use them?

A second cruiser was just pulling up to join Coyle and Moore when there came a sharp, cracking noise from not more than twenty feet away. The officers had their automatics out and were bringing them up to the ready position when the headlights of the backup car silhouetted what appeared at first to be a huge figure crouching behind the rubble.

“Police!” There was just the slightest hint of an edge in Fred’s voice. “Get those hands up where we can see ’em! Now!”

“Hold your fire!” Jean rushed forward, bringing up her flashlight. “He’s not hiding back there. He’s—oh, Lordy. He’s trying to dig his way out!”

“Huh?” Fred couldn’t believe it. “I thought this place had been evacuated. Who—?”

“Who doesn’t matter.” She turned and barked at their backup, “Call for an ambulance.”

In the glare of flashing lights, ironworker Henry Johnson rose up out of the rubble, his sledgehammer still in his hand. His shoulders were cut and bruised, and his overalls hung in tatters. The big construction worker’s every pore was caked with dust and dirt, but he was alive!

“Take it easy, mister.” Jean was cautiously solicitous. “You can put that hammer down now. Why don’t you sit down and let us help you? Is there anything we can get you?”

“Doomsday . . .” Henry’s voice was a parched croak.

“What?”

“Gotta . . . stop . . . Doomsday.” Henry took one step forward, and then all the strength drained out of him. His hammer slipped to the ground, and he toppled forward, unconscious.

It was pouring rain the day that Mitch Andersen arrived in Metropolis. For several minutes, he stood in the doorway of the old midtown bus terminal, hoping that the rain would let up. He was alone in this big city, hundreds of miles from home—from where home had been, anyway—and he didn’t have enough cash in his pocket even for bus fare back. Hailing a cab, even if he could find one, was out of the question. Still, Mitch knew where he had to go, and the man at the information desk had told him it was only twelve blocks away. He turned up the collar of his jacket and stepped out into the deluge.

By the time Mitch had gone two blocks, he’d discovered two things: Metropolis city blocks were a lot longer than Ohio city blocks, and his jacket wasn’t as waterproof as he’d thought. Looking back, Mitch found that the bus station had already disappeared from view.
No sense in turning back now,
he thought.
It’s not like I have a ride back or anything. Mom is probably gonna freak when she finds my note anyway.
Head down, he trudged ahead, convinced that the lousy weather was probably just what he deserved. At one point he took refuge under a storefront awning, only to be drenched from the splash of a passing truck. Mitch cursed under his breath. As far as he was concerned, this was just more evidence that his life sucked.

Still, Mitch pressed on, plodding his way downtown with a determination he rarely displayed except, perhaps, when he was trying to advance to the next level of the latest video game. As he progressed against the downpour, his thoughts kept going back to his mother and how she had changed, how everything had changed, since things had fallen apart. She somehow seemed tougher and stronger to him now.
Maybe she
wouldn’t
freak over my blowing town and coming to Metropolis. Maybe she’d understand that it was something I
had
to do.
Mitch hoped that he’d made that clear enough in his note. His note—if he’d done something like this a couple of weeks ago, he wouldn’t have bothered to even leave a note. Maybe he had changed, too.