Bonds of Love

angled back, obviously hit. By the third frame, Vic wassupine on the ground with someone huddled over him—had to be Matt.Frame four showed him sitting up, Matt’s arms wrapped tight aroundhis shoulders in a relieved embrace.
Beneath the image, the caption named the store’slocation on Broad Street and the one assailant in custody when thepaper went to print. Matt’s name was mentioned, and underlined withred pen. The same ink had been used to draw a line from the fourthframe of the photo to the margin, where Matt wrote in his thick,blocky scrawl, My Hero! The period on the exclamation pointwas drawn into a heart. Under that, Vic’s lover had added, Theyspelled my name wrong. Where are you?
Vic looked at the caption again. MatthewdiLorenza, an “a” instead of an “o,” nothing major. At leasthe’d been given a name…Vic read through the short article anddidn’t see his own, not once. The reporter called him simply “anunidentified male who, rumor has it, works for the City’stransportation department.” Later, he was referenced again:“According to several eyewitness accounts, the City worker stood upto the robbers and was struck by a hail of bullets.”
Three, Vic amended. Hardly what he’d call ahail. And City worker wasn’t exactly how he wished to godown in history. Couldn’t they have at least found out his firstname? The article continued… “According to police reports, thegunman missed. Security footage, above, shows that the would-behero fell when shot at, then sat up and later walked away withoutany serious consequences.”
The word hero was circled in a redheart—Matt’s handiwork again. Vic thought it unusual that thepolice gave out Matt’s name but not his own, when the femaleofficer he spoke with last night had known who he was. Superman,she’d thought of him, as erroneous as that was—Vic’s powers camefrom his lover, not the yellow sun, and he wasn’t some superdemigod from a distant planet. He came from Washington D.C., an oddplace to be sure, but nothing alien. Pouring himself a cupof coffee, he reread the article again and decided that the copmust’ve left out his name to protect his identity, for whateverreason. He could read between the lines and see that the copsinterviewed knew more than they admitted.
But why?
* * * *
Despite the fact that he wasn’t called out in thepaper, Vic felt as if he were on display the moment he steppedoutside. Keeping his head down, he hurried to his car and refusedto look around, just in case any reporters or police lay in wait.Once behind the wheel of his car, the door slammed shut beside him,Vic closed his eyes and let his mind expand beyond the confines ofhis skull, a trick he’d picked up while learning to master histelepathic powers. His thoughts skipped over the minds of thosearound him, just glancing at things that didn’t concern him as hesearched for someone who might be thinking of him.
A handful of kids playing with a basketball at theend of the block didn’t even bother to notice him. An elderlywoman, distrustful, watched him as she watered scorched flowerswilting on her stoop, but she just wanted him to drive off already.Farther up the street, a young man dozed behind the wheel of hisown car—Vic lingered, probing deeper into the sleeping mind, butthe guy’s girlfriend had thrown him out the night before and he wascatching a quick nap before he had to start his shift at the coffeeshop on the corner. Nothing suspicious about that.
You’re just being paranoid, Vic chided himselfas he started the car. The paper didn’t even mention you. No onecares that you deflected those bullets because no one knows, and noone’s waiting to jump on you for comment because you’re old news.Let’s face it—Matt’s the only one who thinks you’re a hero. Isn’tthat the way it should be?
Vic glanced in the mirror before he pulled away fromthe curb, and gave his reflection a curt nod. Was Bruce Wayne thisworked up when he went out in public after appearing in the news asBatman? Did Clark Kent worry this much about being found out? Vichadn’t read a comic book since his stint as a teenager years ago,but the superheroes of his youth had always seemed so confident.Maybe that developed over time?
Vic only felt sure of himself with Matt. Without him,the day stretched out ahead of Vic, and the thought of being withhis lover this evening glistened at the end of his work shift likea distant promise. As he eased the car into the flow of traffic,his thoughts drifted to when he’d see Matt again.
* * * *
Vic worked for the City as a bus driver. Nothingglamorous, but it paid the bills and put food on the table. Formost of the year, he drove a steady route through downtownRichmond, circling around the Civil War statues on Monument Avenueand navigating through the traffic that clogged Broad Street duringrush hour. But in the summertime, with a number of other driverslooking for a few weeks off to hit the beaches before theirchildren had to be back in school, Vic took on a second shift tocover those out on vacation. Sixteen hour days cut into the freetime he liked to spend at the gym, but the extra cash that theovertime brought in was worth the double route. As long as he heldMatt every night, he didn’t much care how he spent the rest of theday.
The City garage was south of the James River, and farenough off the interstate that the cars lining the narrow dirt roadlooked suspicious as hell. Vic ducked down in the driver’s seat andkept his gaze straight ahead, but he still saw the letters paintedon the cars and vans as he drove past—call letters for variouslocal stations, television and radio both, damn it. Hedidn’t even have to reach out with his mind to read the buzz-hungrythoughts of the reporters and cameramen just waiting for a glimpseof…well, of him.
How many rolls of film would they go through today,recording each and every worker who showed up in the hopes offinding the guy from last night’s story? This was a largecity…wasn’t there something else