Chapter 11: Challenges and Change

One of the limitations I'd had to live with since the day the world fell on me was the loss of my driver's license. It hadn't been that big a deal, living near the heart of downtown, and now it was a perfect highlight to have available to hold up when maintaining the facade of being wheelchair bound. But it definitely had an impact on my desire to make a trip up to Des Moines to look for an apartment. Midnight offered a 'midnight express', but I was worried about being able to explain my movements if those I spoke to in Des Moines compared notes with those I knew in Kansas City.

Becka came through in the end, borrowing her dad's car for an overnight trip. It meant taking her with me of course, but other than her parent's potential disapproval, which I presumed I'd managed to avoid or her dad wouldn't have loaned her the car, I didn't see much downside to that. We stayed at the Hotel Savery and enjoyed it very much.

The Register's offices were nearby, and Becka and I spent quite a bit of time with a real estate agent and the newspaper looking for a six month lease on an apartment somewhere within walking distance. Again I was hampered by the wheelchair; most of the buildings in the part of downtown we were looking at didn't have elevators. We finally did find what we were looking for on the corner of 9th and Grand.

The apartment was on the eighth floor and on the southeast corner of the building away from the traffic on Grand Avenue. The building normally didn't have any short term leases available, but it had recently changed owners and was due for a major remodel the following summer, so the normal tenants were starting to leave for more certain pastures. This meant the apartment was a little run down, but I didn't mind that, and the elevator was large and well maintained. Since it was already empty, all I had to do was put down a deposit along with a handshake promise to sign the lease papers within ten days.

The management program had a housing allowance, and since I wasn't going to give up my apartment in Kansas City while I was in Des Moines, I really needed it. Doc Graham really went to bat for me with this one, just like he had during my initial trip to Hartford. Citing my special needs, he got the assistance program to foot the entire cost of the short term lease. I was still going to have to deal with transportation on my own, but the timing gave me plenty of time to get used to the area before I had to worry about winter weather, and the offices were five blocks away. Easy going on city sidewalks, even if it was raining.

The only problem with my leased apartment was the lack of furniture. The Des Moines Salvation Army came to the rescue by having a very worn dinette set and couch available at their second hand store. More importantly, they were willing to spare a few men to help me get it hauled to the apartment. The appliances in the apartment were nothing to write home about, they weren't likely to survive the building's remodel. The range had one burner that didn't work and the oven temperature dial was missing, with a pair of vise-grips fastened to it and the temperatures of 350, 375, 400, 425 and 450 marked off on the oven itself with a marking pen. The refrigerator worked fine, though it was pretty noisy when the compressor was running, and the freezer compartment was small.

Bedroom furniture was the worst problem when it came time to move in. I hadn't found anything yet, and hadn't been willing to shell out the money for a new bedroom set. While I could hang up most of my work clothes in the closet, my socks, underwear and other items I had to keep in the cardboard boxes I'd moved them in. When the time came to spend my first night, I slept on a long cotton and straw stuffed seat from a sleeper sofa I'd seen at the Salvation Army. The sofa was too broken up to be usable but the pad was fine, despite being dense and unforgiving. I was in the best shape of my life by this time though, I felt like I could have slept on the bare floor.

Where the sofa cushion didn't cut it was with Becka. She took one look at it and laughed. "There's no way I'm sleeping on that with you. Even if all we were doing was sleep, I wouldn't sleep with you on that."

So my sofa cushion lasted an entire week and Regal Furniture, just a block away on Locust Avenue, got my hard earned money, for which I received, delivered and set up, a bed, two night stands, a dresser and a small writing desk, chair and lamp.

In between the time Becka and I made our first apartment hunting trip and the day I broke down and bought the furniture, I had two more outings as Iron Man. By design, neither one of them was in Kansas City, and both were in conjunction with other heroes.

"You're not going to be able to be the kind of hero who does stake outs, or tails a criminal back to his lair." Midnight told me one night during a practice session.

"Agreed." I confirmed. "I see myself as more of the applied overwhelming force that can be called in when the situation warrants it."

"Exactly," she agreed. "With that in mind, and given that Iron Man's schedule of availability is somewhat limited by Ceferino Escobar's commitments, you need a broker, who can check your availability when situations arise where you could fill the need of other heroes."

I guess I hadn't thought about it that much, but it made a lot of sense. A fifteen foot tall metal man was not going to be the kind of hero who could just fly around looking for criminals in the act to thwart or impending disasters to prevent.

"I guess I have to be sort of in the bullpen for the major league heroes."

"At least until you think you can organize your own support team. That is something you'll want to go slow on though. It will mean the right kind of people, with the right kind of skills. The kind who can know who Iron Man is and not have you worried about your identity being revealed."

"Man, you are thinking way further ahead on this than I've been," I admitted. "I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I haven't had any thoughts about how I would operate, or setting up a support system."