Chapter 3

I don’t know what I’m doing.

It’s strange. I started off this night wanting to show Joey what it is like to be a superhero, but it has become obvious to me that if he is going to be one, he is not the same type as I am. So I don’t know if I can inspire him. But as we continue, I realize that I miss having a partner. I used to do this with Acoustyx. We would stalk the streets, fight the good fight, and then top off the evening by making mad passionate love under the stars. I often wonder what would have happened if one of us mentioned marriage. I miss him. But now I’m with Joey, and it’s good to have someone to share the night with. I’m enjoying his company.

We are in a different part of the city, on the west side, and as we look about enjoying the view, Joey points down to a busy area and says excitedly “Look! Malcolm X Park!”

I follow his gaze. “No, That’s Meridian Park.”

“Same thing,” he says. “The signs on the street and the maps say ‘Meridian’, but for the people down there, it’s ‘Malcolm X’. Ever go there?”

I shake my head. “Only seen it from up here. Never been down there.”

“You should try it. It’s fun.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to go down into a crowd in costume.”

Joey looks down wistfully, and I feel sympathetic. “Why don’t we take a break?” I suggest. “You hungry?”

“Yeah.” He points down to the late night crowd. “They have hot dogs and sodas. I can go get us some.”

I shrug. “Okay.” Normally I just port a cooler with bottled water and protein bars, but real food sounds good. “Let me get this,” I say, pulling my wallet from The Singularity.

“No, I got it,” he says, pulling out his wallet.

“No, it’s okay. I got this.”

“Quantum!” He looks at me seriously. “I have money!”

It was the way he stressed the word “I” that catches me, and I remember who I am dealing with. Joey was homeless for years, and the fact that he now regularly has money is a big change in his life. It’s something he is proud of. How often does he have a chance to buy something for someone?

“Okay,” I say, pushing my wallet back home. “Your treat.” I move to the side of the rooftop and point down. “I’ll drop you off down in that alley.”

“What do you want on your hot dog?”

“Mustard and sauerkraut. What else?”

He smiles. “And to drink?”

“Anything with caffeine.”

“Diet?”

“Uch! No, gimme the real stuff.”

I port him down into the alleyway and port back up alone, and I watch him as he makes his way through the crowd. Meridian Park is a lively gathering place, with street performers, singers, dancers, artists, a drumming circle, and what appears to be a play being performed on the far side of the small park. Music, laughter, and drums filter up from the park, and I find its draw intoxicating.

I follow Joey’s position without always seeing him directly. I’ve entangled his bracelet, and can track him anywhere. It takes him a few minutes to purchase our food, and a couple more minutes afterward as he gets distracted by a pretty young girl playing guitar.

Why that little flirt...

He finally makes his way back to the alley, and I port down and fetch him. He’s got two hot dogs, a Coke and a Sprite. The smell of the hot dogs makes me salivate. “Thanks,” I say, taking my food and settling down on the rooftop. “So ... Find anything interesting down there?” I ask.

He nods. “The usual. They’re doing a play. Something ... Night Dream.”

I perk up. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”

He nods. “Yeah, that’s it. You know it?”

“I love that one!”

He gestures down to the play. “Why don’t we go watch it?”

I look down. I can’t just sit in an audience in full Quantum Knight costume and watch a play. But I see a small utility building near the stage. It looks like public restrooms, and the top is well shadowed. “Down there. Get your food.”

“Where?” He looks over the side.

“Those bathrooms. We can hide on top of the building.”

“Why don’t we just sit in the audience?”

“Because if Quantum Knight sits there, nobody will pay attention to the play. Come on.”

He shrugs. We collect our food and I port us down to the building rooftop. We get settled, unwrap our hot dogs, open our drinks, and eat and watch. And I hear Lysander’s words.

“Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say, — Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.”

Joey grimaces. “What the hell is this?” he asks nauseatingly.

“Shakespeare!” I answer.

He makes a face. “Don’t like him. I don’t understand him. I tried watching one of these plays once, but I couldn’t stand it. It didn’t make any sense. I don’t know why they do these plays.”

“They’re classics!” I defend. “They’re beautiful.”

“Well, if they’re so good, why don’t they do them in English?”

“It IS English. It’s just four hundred years old. That’s the problem.”

“Do you understand this?”

I nod. “Mostly. Sometimes.”

“You know this story?”

“Uh-huh. I read it in high school. Loved it.” I look at him. “Do you want to know what it’s about?” He nods. I scoot closer to him and ignore the fact that he just checked out my boobs. “Let me see if I can remember it ... Okay. There is a big wedding, and everyone is invited, not only everyone from our world, but also from the world of the fairies.”

“Fairies?”

“Yeah. Fairies. Now, there are three different stories going on. One story is about four young lovers. They are ... let’s see ... Lysander and Hermia are in love with each other. Demetrius loves Hermia as well, and Helena is in love with Demetrius.” As I say this, I point out four spots in a line in mid air, illustrating the four lovers. “So these two are in love with each other,” I reiterate, pointing to points 1 and 2 and drawing a circular path between them. “Demetrius loves Hermia,” I draw a line from point 3 to point 2. “ ... and Helena loves Demetrius.” I draw a line from point 4 to point 3. “So when you draw it out, it looks like a ... well ... it looks like a giant sperm.”

Joey chuckles. “Okay. I got it.”

“Good. Now, Oberon, the king of the Fairies, sees Demetrius dissing Helena,” I indicate points 3 and 4. “And he decides to do something about it. So he gets his man Puck to fetch a love potion.”

“Puck?”

“Puck.”

“Does this have anything to do with hockey?”

“No. Now Puck is supposed to use the love potion to make Demetrius fall in love with Helena, so that...” I gesture to the four points, indicating two tight circles. “ ... these two are in love, and these two are in love, and everybody is happy. Okay?”

Joey nods. “Okay.”

“Bu the problem is, Puck doesn’t get out of fairy land much. Basically for him, all white boys look the same.”

Joey laughs. “Okaaaayyy...”

“And he gives the potion to the wrong guy. He makes Lysander fall in love with Helena. So now we have Lysander, who loves Helena, who loves Demetrius, who loves Hermia, who loves Lysander.” I indicate this with a big circle.

“Oh. I get it.”

“And as they say in show business, ‘hilarity ensues’. They all chase each other for a couple acts, and Oberon tries to fix it and just makes everything worse.”

“Okay.”

“Meanwhile, Oberon is pissed at his wife, Titania, and he uses the love potion on her to make her fall in love with some random forest animal. But Puck comes along and he finds the ugliest character in the cast, a guy named Bottom...”

“Bottom?”

“Bottom.”

“BOTTOM?”

“Bottom.”

“As in ... butt? Ass?”

“You’re way ahead of me. Now Puck transforms Bottom so he now has the head of a donkey.”

Joey stares at me with a blank face for a long time.

“A donkey head?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Now, you’re just making shit up.”

I laugh. “No! I’m serious. That’s what happens!”

“What kind of stupid story is this?”

“A well written stupid story.”

He throws his hands up in resignation. “Okay! If you say so.” He picks up his soda.

“And Titania sees Bottom, who currently has a donkey head, falls in love with him, and she takes him off into the woods, where in the standard tradition of Elizabethan period pieces, he donkey-dicks her.”

I timed this perfectly as Joey is taking a swig of soda. He spit-takes and breaks into uncontrollable laughter. I sit back and enjoy it.

“WHAT?”

“Shh-shh ... Keep your voice down.”

He’s laughing and holding himself, trying to calm himself down, and he takes a look at me and bursts into laughter again. “I can’t believe you said that!” I grin and take a bite of hot dog and a swig of soda as he tries to contain himself. He looks at me again and bursts into giggles. “I mean, it’s funny enough on its own, but to hear that from someone in a Spandex superhero suit...”

“I’m not being very responsible, am I?”

He shakes his head. “No.” He giggles some more. “Okay. So what happens next?”

I look back at the play. “Not much really. Oberon has had his fun and he cleans up the whole mess. He fixes Lysander and Titania so they are no longer in love with the wrong people, and then he keeps Demetrius in love with Helena, which is abusing the power if you really think about it, and then they all sit down and watch a bunch of really bad actors put on a bad performance of ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’, and they make snide comments throughout the show. And then everyone just writes off the entire evening as a really bad acid trip.”

Joey has this weird, dumbfounded, and entertained expression on his face. “And this is entertainment?” he asks.

“This was very big in the sixteenth century.”

“Well, thank God for Nintendo!”

I chuckle and we watch the play some more, eating our hot dogs and drinking our sodas. What is the phrase? ‘Eat, drink, and be merry!’ It’s a fun night. I originally thought that I was just going to show Joey a bit about the life of a superhero, but it’s turned into something like a date, and I feel like a teenager again.

Joey points to the actors. “Are fairies real?” he asks.

I nod. “Yes. There was an infestation, but they were pretty much banished back in the eighteen hundreds. There was a dimensional rift over in England, but a coven of mages called the Morning Mist closed it off.”

He nods. “Are there any fairies left?”

I shake my head. “Not here. The rift is closed, so they can’t survive here.”

“Oh. I was just wondering if Fairy Night had anything to do with real fairies.”

I look at him. “Who’s Fairy Knight?”

He shakes his head. “It’s not a person. It’s that ... you know, that thing that happens some nights.”

“What thing?”

“You know. Fairy Night. When all that fire shows up in the sky?”

I squint at him. “What are you talking about?”

He looks at me weirdly. “Fairy Night. You know.” He gestures up into the sky. “With all those lights. It’s like fire, or ripples, or flashes.”

“I have no idea what that is. Is this something that happens here?”

“Yeah. It’s about every couple months, there are these ripples and silent explosions in the sky. Haven’t you seen it?”

I shake my head. “No. Sounds like your confusing it with lightning.”

He shakes his head. “No. Lightning is on stormy nights, and it’s shorter, with just flashes of light, and it’s all white. Fairy Night is on calm nights, and it goes for several minutes, and it’s all these colors.” He cocks his head at me. “Are you sure you haven’t seen it?”

“Yes. I’m out here every night, and I’ve never seen it. Never even heard of it before.” This concerns me. “How come I’ve never seen this? How long has this been going on?”

Joey shrugs. “As long as I’ve been here at least. I don’t know.” He looks at me curiously. “I don’t know why you haven’t seen it, but I bet I know why you haven’t heard of it.”

I look at him quizzically. He continues. “People only talk about Fairy Night at nighttime. They love it. Sometimes they even do a drumming circle down here to try and summon Fairy Night. But at night, you’re always on the rooftops, hiding from people. That may be what Quantum Knight does best, but when you’re hiding, you’re not talking to people.” And he gestures down to the crowd around us. “You say you’ve never been down here before. Maybe you need to try it. Get to know them.”

I’m quiet for a moment. I’m not really sure about this, and he can tell by my frown. He continues. “Look, you said that there are different types of heroes. There are those who run around at night fighting little crimes, and there are those who do the big jobs like rescue and fighting supervillains. Well, I think there’s a third type, the kind that goes out into a crowd and gets up close and personal.”

I shake my head. “I can’t go down in costume.”

“Then don’t. Go in normal clothes. You don’t have to be Quantum Knight ALL night, do you?”

I hesitate. “I don’t know...”

“Come on.” He leans in to me. “You’ve been showing me the city the way Quantum Knight sees it, and it’s been fun. Now let me show you the city the way I see it.”

He’s right.

How can I argue with that? I do isolate myself too much. I’m on a first-name basis with more repeat offenders then any other type of person. But the worst thing is, I don’t even TALK to them. I don’t get to know them. Quantum Knight never chats with people. I’m so worried about her tough-girl grim-city-avenger image that I’ve been missing out. I’m completely in the dark about this Fairy Night phenomenon, and it disturbs me. I can’t figure out why I’ve never seen it, but the fact that I’ve never heard of it makes sense.

After moving us both back on top of the rooftops again, I teleport back to The Singularity alone, shrink down, and strip naked. I’ve left Joey behind, waiting for me on the rooftop. I run to the bathroom and quickly rub myself clean with a couple baby wipes. (I love baby wipes! I don’t know how I survived without them. I must thank Annie for introducing them to me.)