Alina Bronsky - Just Call Me Superhero

In the little grocery store we realized that Janne’s wheelchair wouldn’t fit through an aisle because it was full of cartons. I was going to steer to another aisle but Kevin stopped me. He put his handbag in Janne’s lap and began to move the boxes out of the way. He lifted them up and stacked them in another aisle, next to a pallet of mustard jars.

“It’s fine,” whispered Janne, turning bright red. Even her neck, which I could see from behind, was covered with red splotches. Now I felt really sorry for her, I could feel her embarrassment in physical form, I could grip it in my hands. Then I roused myself out of my stupor and started to help Kevin. Some of the boxes I just threw behind Janne, figuring we didn’t have to go back by the same aisle.

A short-legged man in the blue uniform of the store hurried over to us.

“Put everything back immediately,” he cried in a high voice that, combined with his mustache, created cognitive dissonance. Even Kevin’s voice was lower, at least when he wasn’t trying to speak in an artificially chirpy voice.

“We can’t get through here.” Kevin handed one of the boxes to the man and smiled innocently with his lipstick-covered mouth. “We’re here, as you can see, with a wheelchair.”

The man took the carton and held it to his chest for a second before putting it down, befuddled.

“You can run riot at home,” he said, and his unbearably high voice made my teeth hurt.

“We’re not running riot.” Kevin maintained his sweet temper. “We’re trying to get through.”

“Get out!” yelled the store manager suddenly. Janne cringed. I moved a box aside with my foot so I could get past the wheelchair and make sure she wasn’t about to cry. For the first time, I entered the foreground in the store manager’s field of vision. Apparently up to that moment I hadn’t stood. He gasped nearly silently, stumbled backwards, and tripped on one of the moved boxes and fell onto his back. With his feet he kicked a pallet of cans. That’s when things got loud and messy.

I SIMPLY CAN’T BELIEVE IT!!!” I never would have thought the guru could shout like that. He screamed like he was at a soccer stadium. His spit flew in every direction, I cowered so it wouldn’t hit me in the face.

“Psst,” said Kevin calmly. “The police are listening.”

“THE POLICE?”

We hadn’t yet left the station, but the guru had already blown a gasket. I thought he was overdoing it. Or to put it another way, I could certainly understand that his nerves were shot after this first day, but I was aware of nothing I’d done wrong in this case, and the same was true of Kevin and Janne. We tried to explain but he didn’t want to hear it.

“Get out the camera,” said Janne when the guru stopped shouting.

“WHAT?!” He lost it again for a moment.

“The camera. You have to film this. The way we’re being arrested. Wrongly, just because we’re handicapped. This is amazing stuff, really.”

“Not arrested, detained,” I corrected.

The guru squinted his eyes.

“I feel sorry for your mothers.” But he pulled the camera out of the blue bag that was hanging from his shoulder.

“Film us coming out of here,” said Janne.

Kevin picked his handbag off the floor and held it up. I got behind the wheelchair. The guru held the camera. At that moment a police officer popped out of a side door and asked about our filming permit, shouted that we’d already caused enough trouble, and threw us out.

“Are we going to have to appear in court?” asked Kevin, scratching his nose. Once we left the police station the guru wanted to go by himself into the supermarket where the manager had called the police to get us arrested for disturbing the peace. We would have to wait outside, which we didn’t mind at all.

“I don’t think we’ll have to go to court,” I said. “Any trial, if they even initiate one, would get shut down fast. No supermarket chain can afford to look so hostile to disabled people these days.”

“We’ll have to hope that’s true,” said the guru darkly.

“Our pride should keep us from shopping here,” said Kevin.

“If there was another store in this dump,” snapped the guru before storming into the grocery store. I suspected he wasn’t pissed off only because of the police but also because his plan to grill was threatening to fall apart. But that wasn’t our fault. There was only one butcher in the village and it closed up at noon. The refrigerator section at the supermarket had just two packages of pork sausages left on offer. The view of those sausages seemed to put the guru over the edge. We could see him through the glass front of the store, standing there in the aisle, and I was afraid he might break down in tears, too. Finally Kevin ignored our ban from the store and went in, and a little while later they emerged carrying heavy bags of groceries.

Aside from the ten pathetic sausages, we grilled corn on the cob and sweet peppers, wrapped in foil and buttered and salted. It was all Kevin’s idea, including the lentil salad and tabouli. It all tasted great, and Kevin was pleased by the compliments until I asked whether he really liked to cook or was just a picture-perfect queer. No idea why he got so pissed off.

If anything more happens, we’re cancelling this whole thing,” slurred the guru. There’d been five bottles of red wine in the shopping bags. Kevin had poured a little for each of us, but now all five bottles were empty. “If anyone else falls down the stairs or starts beating each other up, or if I get even the slightest hint that you’re not all in your own rooms at night, or if you cause trouble and I have to bail you out of the police station, then you’re all packing your bags right away!” He tried to pound his fist on the picnic table but he lost his balance. Marlon, who was sitting next to him, caught him.

“I’ll be in the shit if anything happens to you guys,” blubbered the guru after he’d freed himself from Marlon’s grasp and laid down under the bench to, as he put it, feel the earth. “So many children and I wasn’t able to be there for them, and you guys aren’t kids anymore and you still don’t have a clue. You’re already crippled, it wouldn’t take much. A slight breeze and you’re done for. It’s probably all my fault.”

Kevin, who had also hoisted more than a glass, also started to cry. He slumped to the ground and laid his head in Janne’s lap. I tried not to step on the guru in the dark, and looked quizzically over at Marlon. I hadn’t given up hope that he might actually still meet my gaze at some point.

Richard gathered up paper plates that had fallen on the ground and stacked them on the table. Four skinny cats emerged from the darkness. They sat next to each other on the edge of the lawn, aiming their shiny eyes at us and meowing. Janne fished a cube of cheese out of the salad and tossed it to them. They all pounced on it at the same time, creating a writhing, snarling ball.

“I think I need to go to bed,” mumbled Friedrich, his head resting on his crossed arms.

It had gotten cold. Janne ran her hands along her bare upper arms. Marlon stood up and went across the lawn until he disappeared into the darkness. Richard watched him go.

“To him it doesn’t matter,” I said, “whether it’s day or night.”

I stood up and got behind Janne. This time I didn’t grab the handles, I put my hands on her shoulders. It seemed like an eternity ago that I had touched her, and even kissed her.

Janne put her head back. I leaned down and touched her forehead with my lips. In the dark her eyes were unfathomably deep, and she looked like a completely different girl, a stranger. She didn’t protest as I kissed her first on the tip of her nose and then arrived at her lips. She tasted of the vinegar from the salad dressing and I ran the tip of my tongue along her lips.