Hero by Perry Moore Page A

the wet suit. As long as I didn't breathe too much, I was able to button up the shirt and put on my tie. My arms sort of stuck out, propped up by the cushionlike effect of the wet suit underneath. I looked at myself in the mirror.
    Not bad.
    I heard the door close downstairs and I looked out the window and spied Dad, impeccably dressed in his old uniform, as he walked out onto the front porch. It was so early that the paperboy was pulling up to our driveway on his dirt bike. The kid took one look at my fathet and did a double take, like he was trying to figure out if today was Halloween or not. With his good hand, Dad took the newspaper out of the dumbstruck kid's pouch, and with a gentle flick of his wrist, casually tossed it over his shoulder so that it landed perfectly square on the front doormat of our porch. Dad pulled the car keys out of his utility belt, climbed into his old Camaro, fired it up, and slowly pulled out of the driveway. The paper boy didn't move a muscle until Dad's car had disappeared down the street.
    I wandered into Dad's closet and pulled an old sport coat from the back rung. It was dark and caked with dust, but it fit nicely over my wet suit, so I wiped it down and put it on. Downstairs I grabbed my backpack, shoved a piece of toast in my mouth, and saw a note Dad had left for me on the front hall table.
    Thorn, gone to the funeral. Good luck at the game today. Sorry I won't be able to make it.    —Dad
    I had told him I had an away game this afternoon a couple hours' drive across state. Under normal circumstances he would have picked out the lie with just one or two questions, like for instance, Hey, what's the name of the school? But in his state all he could do was apologize for not being able to make the trip. The toast felt funny in my stomach; it didn't mix well with the guilt.
    The bus is the slowest mode of transportation ever. It dumped me off downtown about half an hour late, so I ran to the park. When I finally got there, the memorial service was already halfway over. The park was overflowing with people, most of them either weeping or trying to get a look at the celebrities in the front row. I'd never seen so many people in one place in my life, and it was weird to see them overcome with emotion for someone who was a complete stranger. I nudged my way past a candlelight vigil and a large family whose mother was passing out sandwiches to all the kids from a giant igloo cooler. Then I nearly tripped over an elderly woman in a wheel¬chair, who apologized for getting in my way.
    "He saved me during the Disastro Attack of '63. Picked me up and scooted me right out of the path of that death ray, he did." She nodded like of course I would remember the incident, like my scrapbook was filled with her clippings, and I smiled back politely before I climbed past her through the crowd.
    Silence spread throughout the masses, and I saw all heads turn up and look to the sky. The League descended from the clouds and landed on the stage. Justice hovered up to the microphone to deliver the eulogy, and I heard a female fan's distant scream from the outer reaches of the crowd, over by the Porta Potties.
    "We love you, Uberman!"
    A cool trickle made its way down my forehead, and my eye stung with the salt of sweat. The wet suit was boiling hot underneath the sport coat. I wiped my brow with the sleeve of Dad's old jacket and tried to listen, but the reverb was so bad on the sound system, only the closest few hundred people could actually hear Justice.
    There was an endless train of testimonials from people who all thought they were more famous than the next. A few ex-presidents who'd kept in the public eye mostly as guests on cable news shows, some old movie stars, a couple of young journalists who waxed on about Victory's legacy, with words like "resonate" and "zeitgeist." All I could think about was how I never remembered seeing a single one of these people anywhere near that dank nursing home whenever