The Rumbler

I don't really like to talk about my superpowers very much, mostly because of the shameful way in which I received them. I wasn't shipped away off of an exploding planet of neon green sheetrock. I wasn't nipped on by a chemotherapeutic spider. I'm not avenging my parent's deaths. I'm not out to get a corporation that 'wronged' me, and I never seemed spooky after any trips to foreign planets. All I ever did was fall on my head as a kid.

Wait. Scratch that. I jumped on my head as a kid. Let me explain:
As I was bouncing in my crib, I accidentally jumped too high off the mattress, sending me over the bars and slamming a generous amount of ability directly into the soft spot of the 'awesomezone' of my brain.

However, like Jesus, who took 15 years to realize his superpowers of fishloaving, wineturning, boardless waterskiing and Darth Vader force grip, it took me until the 3rd grade to learn about mine. During a routine class activity, where we were all instructed to put our fingers in our ears, and then wiggle our toes, we all discovered the joys of hearing a slight rumbling sound in our heads, which was, as the teacher said, "the sounds of movement."

But I quickly learned just how much better I was than everyone ever, when I realized I could make the low rumble noise in my head whenever I wanted to, fingers in ears or not. I was stunned, and gripped with confidence. Here I was, an unbreakable man, and my secret was safe to the world. The secret remained safe for 18 seconds, before I blurted out "HA! I DON'T NEED MY STUPID FINGERS! I CAN HEAR 'THE RUMBLIN' WHENEVER I WANT!" The only other emotion I felt at the time besides supreme dominance was sadness, because I didn't have a cape to flutter as I ran out the door several hours later as the bell rang.

Assuming my new identity as 'The Rumbler' proved to be quite difficult. I was constantly faced with the temptation to use my power for evil, instead of good. I had to bite my tongue extra hard, when I realized I could easily use my rumbling powers to drown out a boring conversation. And when it came to imagining a road runner cartoon in my mind, I was often faced with the dilemma: do I use my rumbling power to make awesome sound effects for it, or should I stay true to my human roots?

As I wrestled with this horrible paradox, life continued to get more and more difficult with the discovery of my second power. It was discovered on a cold October night, only one year later. As I sat quietly in our living room, casually watching E.T. I felt a strange twinge in my brain. Almost a spidey sense, but definitely not a spidey sense, because copyright infringement is wrong. This was more of a static sense: meaning, I could literally feel that a television somewhere in the house had a bad picture on it. And sure enough, as my grandmother came bounding out of her backroom, and kicked us out of the living room so she could watch the rest of Real Stories of the Highway Patrol, I knew that I had the gift.

And my mind was flashing wildly, on how I would be able to use my powers to get out of the dilly of a pickle I was now entangled in. Here was my older sister, standing in front of me, superpowerless as macaroni salad, trying to use me as a pawn in her sick, evil game of manipulation. She stood there, with one hand on my back, pressing my body towards her, and the other hand furiously scribbling on a piece of paper that had been pinned to my chest for leverage. My sister squinted, second-guessing her work on the note, and after a moment, shrugged indifferently. She capped her pen and looked directly in my eyes. She spoke sweetly, much differently from her normal shrieking and whining. I knew I was in deep now.

“Now Mikey, all you have to do is walk down to Burbach’s, and just stand there. Let the woman read the note, and this is the important part, don’t say anything. Show me your poker face.” She said.

At this point I had absolutely no idea what the note said, or what I was doing. But, I figured that if you could buy whatever she wanted at a drug store, then certainly it could not be illegal. Maybe she just wanted me to buy them for her because of my fantastic poker face, whatever that was. Perhaps she knew of a secret third power that was only visible to others! When she said the phrase, my face immediately imitated the Jack of hearts, sneering slightly and looking like I had just eaten a very sour lemon, or had just smelled fresh dog poo. My sister, dissatisfied, returned to her normal shrill scream.

“THAT’S NOT A POKER FACE! QUIT JOKING AROUND! Look….just don’t think about anything. Just stand there and…and…and look like you do when mom’s telling a story about Indians, okay?”

Suddenly, it all made sense.

I was sent out the backdoor for some reason, I guess to be hidden from my sleeping grandmother who occupied the front room, and I headed out. Burbach’s was only a block away, and it was a relatively nice day outside. I made my way up the street without incident, but paused as I reached Burbach’s door.

Wait a minute….I thought. Shouldn’t I at least read the note first to see what it says? Of course I should. What harm could it cause?

As I attempted to pull the note off, I realized it was not only safety pinned on, but stapled in all four corners. I can’t imagine how I had missed this with my supersonic sensory abilities, but I realized that I would have to rip the note off. I had to know what it said. After all, this could be a big joke, and the note could say something ridiculous like: Bun in the Oven or Future Home of Black Semen Depository.

As I ripped the note off, I realized she had used one of my many weaknesses, cursive! Damn her! She had done it on purpose, not only for it to look legitimate, but to confuse my mighty brain. The only phrase I recognized was the bottom signature, and it was a poor attempt at my mother’s name, signed over a heavily erased patch of the paper, where the blue lines in the background had all but disappeared.

Although I had a strong hunch that my mighty essence was being used for evil, and not for good, I realized that I had to go through with it. Not only was I already here, but my sister was huge compared to my 9 year old self, and had the possibility of saying that it was my idea all along. (Why I didn’t think that I had all the power in this seeing as how the note was in her handwriting I had no idea) I took a deep breath, and begrudgingly entered the store.

I walked up to the counter, and just stood there. I had no idea what to ask for, or how to get the woman clerk’s attention. She was busy rummaging around through display boxes of gum, so I just stood there like an idiot. Suddenly, it occurred to me that even if my body was being used for evil, my mind could still remain untainted. I quickly switched on my rumbling, and I was successful in drowning out the woman’s ranting and raving at me. The only words I was able to make out from the entire outburst ended up being “oh NO! Cigarettes? NO WAY!” as she waved her hands wildly and pointed to the door.

Cigarettes? My god! I felt so dirty! So..so cheap. How could a woman, who I had called my sister, use me for nicotine development? I felt defeated, but morally untainted. I would just tell my sister that the store said no. How simple is that? And the best part was, it was the truth. My supremely crafted alibi was making me feel much better about the entire situation, when all of a sudden; my static sense kicked in, and let me know that this horrible incident wasn’t over yet.

Sure enough, before I could even reach the door, a tall, gangly man shuffled from the back of the store, and began yelling at the woman clerk in their own bizarre language. They argued back and forth for a moment, rather intently, before both of them hurried back to the rear of the store and disappeared into a sliding door next to the coolers. I couldn’t possibly understand what they were saying, but I didn’t have to. I knew that their television in back was on the fritz.

I was left alone in the store, and realized that I was at a crossroads. I still held the money my sister gave me in my right hand. I began to think of what I should do, when a little red-faced sister popped up on my right shoulder.

“Just put the money on the counter, and take the cigs. Marlboro lights, IN A BOX.” The devil sister whispered. I waited for the angelic version of my sister to appear, but instead, an even darker red-faced version of my sister popped up, and told me to not only not pay for the cigarettes and pocket the money, but to “grab a liter of Cherokee Red Pop for yourself, go ahead, you deserve it.”

I began to feel very rushed all of a sudden, as I heard the voices in back getting louder, as if their door had opened. I made a snap decision and scuttled behind the counter and quickly grabbed the pack of Marlboros, and threw the money on the counter. Without pausing, I ran toward the door, not looking back, and hustled off their front steps. After I heard their jingle bells chime, I knew I was safe.

It was a long walk home afterwards. I constantly wondered how I had fallen from a hero to such a swine in just one single act. I was a villain now, a criminal.

Although technically I had paid for them, I tried to reassure myself, but I knew there were laws against underage children, let alone children under 10, buying cigarettes. I tried to think I did the better of two evils, by not actually stealing anything, but I knew that I had disobeyed the sacred superhero oath I had recited word for word from the back of my Batman action figure playset box. I finally decided that when I got home, I would no longer wear the beach towel fashioned around my neck, and would retire my identity as The Rumbler forever, hoping that others would forget my secret shame.

With my mind racing on all these points, I had failed to notice that I was supposed to enter the house through the back door, as my sister had instructed. I also failed to notice that my mother’s car was now home, and parked in the driveway. I walked right by it, not giving it a second thought, as I was still distraught over the fact that I was a sham. I walked in the door, and was met in the living room directly by my mother and grandmother, both talking at the table. Their conversation died immediately when they saw me, cigarettes in hand walk in with the facial expressions of a melting Droopy Dog. As I walked by them, I only snapped into the moment when my mother asked:

“What’s that pinned on your chest?”