CAPTAIN INVINCIBLE
Susan Porter

We are at Claire's today. My daughter Julie is on the floor crawling toward the dog's tail. Claire's kid is belted into her high chair and is trying to eat spaghetti with a spoon. After a few failed attempts, she drops the spoon, plunges her hand into the bowl and smashes a goopy mound into her mouth. I smile, impressed. Claire rushes over, flashes me a quizzical look and proceeds to scold the child, explaining that it is not polite to eat with your hands. The dog yelps—a sure sign that it is time to leave.

The subdivision we live in has long, winding roads lined with oak trees and Japanese maples. Each morning, I see the neighborhood walking group move by, all 30- or 40-something moms wearing gold jewelry with pastel-colored polo shirts and white visors to protect their cheeks from the sun. Their toddlers ride alongside, wearing enormous neon-bright helmets that are bigger, almost, than their tiny tricycles. These are the same moms that lobby the PTA against teachers who raise their voices in class, organize formal play groups of acceptable friends for their kids, compete over who can buy the safest car seats, and cart their youngsters around all day to baby Einstein and toddler yoga classes.

They're great moms. I guess I'm not, because the singularity of focus on children in this neighborhood numbs me.

"I may need to go back to work full time," I told Brit over lunch last week. Brit, Claire and I are old college friends, now neighbors. Brit and I still love Claire, even though Claire is a supermom too.

Brit laughed. "Work is over-rated too."

Brit's a hot-shit investment banker. She married the 75th man she ever slept with ("just seemed like the right number," she said). Now she's divorced, enjoying single life again and loving her visitation arrangement—every other weekend. Claire can't believe Brit gave up primary custody of her kids. I can't either, except when I can.

Once home from Claire's, I put Julie down for a little nap and am in the process of scraping carrot puree from under the high chair when I hear the first report about the Caped Invader. Apparently, a home near us was robbed last night by a masked man wearing a red spandex outfit and a cape. The family had been away on vacation but a witness saw the masked thief running away from the house. The so-called Caped Invader took only a few, pricey items—a Rolex watch, tennis bracelet and small Picasso lithograph, "Still Life With Lemons"—and left a calling card on the counter with a giant "CI" scribbled in red ink.

Claire calls me that night.

"Very disturbing," she says. "The Bensingers are just three doors down. Have you heard anything more?"

"No, except he didn't take the fake Vermeer—the guy's a real pro. Either that, or he's just a Picasso nut."

"I didn't even know the Bensingers were going to be away—no idea. Did you?"

If Claire doesn't know, I don't. Shirley Bensinger is a supermom and hasn't talked to me since I gave her kids the idea to use the tar pile at the end of the road as a skateboard ramp. Of course, I don't think Shirley is too pleased with Claire either, given that Claire associates with me.

Brit and I meet for a run the following Saturday. She was away on business during the break-in.

"Caped Invader. What a stupid name," she says. The bulges under her eyes have grown since her divorce. "So, what are people saying? Any suspects yet?"

"Only that it had to be someone who knew the Bensingers were going to be gone."

It is now five days later. I am listening to some supermoms across the street talking about how to teach kids positive play. "I give them $25 if they beat me at Scrabble," one of them says. "My daughter's been asking me for Battleship and Risk for the last six months and I won't do it," another one says. "The plaintiffs bar ought to get smart and sue the livin' bejesus out of toy makers who market such war games to kids."

I walk inside, visualizing a thousand GI Joes melting in a smoldering pile in front of a courthouse somewhere.

My husband Mitch gives me a grim look.

"The Caped Asshole is at it again," he says. "Hit the Sandra and Ken Sheely's this time—ten thousand in jewelry."

A small part of me wants to smile, but I know it would be inappropriate. Intrigue in suburbia. "Is everyone okay?" I ask. Mitch is entirely too good for me.

"Yep—they should be returning from their Niagara Falls trip just about now."

We stare at each other, both thinking about our trip in a couple of weeks to see Mitch's parents in Florida.

The news reports said the crimes are identical. This time, the masked thief was spotted by a couple of teenagers. Their description matches the description of the original witness, except with a little more detail—height, about 5'8"; weight about 150.

"Short little bastard isn't he?" I say while Mitch examines the locks on the bedroom windows that night, his long, slim silhouette so familiar, even in the dim light. "He left Sandra's wedding ring, though—kinda sweet in a sort of sick, twisted way, isn't it?"

Claire stops by the next day with her kids on their way to the park. "Scary," she says. "Thank goodness we don't have any trips planned. You don't, do you?"

"What happened to your cheek?" I ask, ignoring her question. It was scraped.

"Cat—caught me as it jumped over my head last night in bed."

"Ouch," I say, gauging her height. "No trips planned—you know us, boring as usual," I add.

When I was a kid, I'd spend hours in my room bringing life to my stuffed animals and creating one misadventure after another for them to endure. Hip was my favorite. He was a big hairy ape that I usually cast as the bad guy. Once I had him beat up my bunny Mr. Cassidy, steal his car and crash it into Blubber-the-Blue-Whale's home, then grab a bird (Tweetie) and hold him hostage, asking for a $100 ransom, only to strangle the poor bird before collecting. I have kept Hip in my closet for years—my hairy, villainous (and one and only) heirloom for Julie. If there was a motherliness quotient, where would that one fall? Surely Mitch must see this part of me, yet he never questions my maternal nature—something I am slightly more stunned by than grateful for. I question it all the time.

So just as in childhood, left alone and with too much time, my imagination still does vicious things. I decide I need a sanity check. The next Saturday morning when I am out strolling with Julie, I stop in on Brit.

Brit looks surprised when she opens the door. Her place is a mess.

"Look, can we visit later?" she asks. But I shimmy past her holding Julie and tell her I just need a quick slap across the face and I'll be on my way. She stays by the door. I can tell I've interrupted her, so I blurt it out quickly. She steps back.

"Claire, the Caped Invader?" she says, leaning forward. "Please!" she shakes her head. I blush and look away into her living room.

"Well—"I start to say. Then I see it: a pair of long red boots next to a rumpled mass of red spandex. I gape, and look back at Brit.

"Shit," she says. "You weren't supposed to see that." Her mouth curls into a grin. She walks over to the red mound. "The Caped Invader. Christ! They didn't even get it right!" she says, and picks up the red spandex cat suit and points to the insignia on chest area: "Captain Invincible."

I feel like I am teetering on the event horizon of a black hole, my assumptions of what is real and sane having just been sucked in.

"That last hit was a close call."

"Hit?" I think. Dear God, there is an imposter in Brit's body—has to be. Hit. Maybe some aliens took it over as an experiment.

She explains. She had lost her job several months ago, right after her divorce. She got caught up in some internal scandal that ruined her professional reputation. Her mortgage was consuming, and she owed her husband a lot of child support and didn't want anyone to know about her job. The costume was one she had purchased years ago for a dress-up party—"paid cash for it, never went to the party—no possible way to trace it to me."

She lifts a plastic chest plate from behind the couch. "See." She smiles and holds it out to me like a kid at Show and Tell. "This goes underneath—to give me a V-shape—and six-pack abs."

Part of me wants to say: "Brit—I'm sorry about your job—I really am—but you have lost your fucking mind! You can go to jail for this! What the fuck are you thinking! Now return the stuff and go get a fucking job or I'm going straight to the police."

But instead, I say, "So, bet that makes your ass look great."

She hugs me and puts her hands on top of my shoulders. "Look, I wasn't going to tell you—I want you to know that," she says. "And shit, Sandra Sheely has plenty of money to go around. So do the Bensingers. So do most people on this street. Besides, this next one'll be my last."

I nod. "I know you wouldn't deliberately put me in that position. No one else knows, I assume."

She pauses. "No one else," she says, "except Claire—she almost borrowed the suit last year for a Halloween party."

"Claire?" I say, astonished. I shake my head, looking down. "I'll be damned."

A week later, Claire tells me that she has heard the police are going to interview everyone on our street as part of their investigation.

And now the police are knocking on my door. It briefly occurs to me that if I lie I could eventually go to jail, Mitch would lose a wife and Julie would lose a mother—at least temporarily. If I don't lie, I won't go to jail, but Brit will. I part the living room curtain and stare out at our manicured lawn. Two supermoms are walking by, the neon yellow helmet on the tricycler next to each glowing big and round as a harvest moon. I picture Brit, Claire and I, twenty years from now, laughing together over clippings of the Caped Invader's brilliant heists, that kernel of truth tucked among us having pinched me awake from time to time in the interim, and I open the door.

© Susan Porter 2005

Susan Porter lives in Chicago where she practices law and helps run a theatre company. In addition to writing short stories, she is currently at work on her first novel.

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