6/4/24

“You’re nuts,” Amy said. “No I mean you were always crazy. But now you’re absolutely batshit.”

Amy helps me out a lot. I’m a single dad who has four kids most weekends, so she watches them when I go out. She helps me clean my house. She’s a house cleaner and a pet sitter and a dog walker for a living, but lately she’s had some physical ailments, so I lift shit and carry stuff up stairs for her and she helps me with single dad shit. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship. Plus I tell her everything. Everything except stuff about Mary Jane. They used to be best friends and had a bit of a falling out, so Amy and I have a deal where neither of us can talk about Mary Jane around one another. Like I said, mutually beneficial.

But I’m starting to think telling her about my plans to become a sort of a vigilante super hero type person was a mistake. I figured I needed to tell her because if I had to buy equipment, I could have it sent to her place so it would be hard to trace it back to me.

“And that’s pretty fucked up by the way,” she said. “That you want to get your shit sent here. You’re safe but put me in danger. I’m a middle aged woman who can barely walk and you want all the drug dealers and murderers you pick fights with to come here. Great plan.” She rolled her eyes. Amy is the queen of sarcasm.

“No I won’t put your name on the packages,” I said. “I’ll use some made up name. And it’s just my paranoia anyway. Nobody’s gonna try to trace any of this stuff.”

“And what sort of stuff are you talking about?”

“I don’t know. Black clothes, ski masks, gloves, knives, ammunition…”

“Who the fuck does this?”

“You know I’m not like other people. I’m the ‘Anomaly.’” That’s my nickname for myself. I always joke that if you think of what a normal person would do in any situation, I do the opposite of that.

“You’re gonna owe me.”

I smiled. “I already owe you.”

“You’re gonna owe me more.”

So I’ve been studying the neighborhood app looking for crimes. A lot of people get packages stolen off their porches in my neighborhood. Looks like me beating those two kids with a bat helped them make up their minds not to cause trouble anymore because I haven’t seen their descriptions on there lately. Some drunk guy has been hanging out in the alleys behind peoples’ houses. Not worth my trouble.

Last night was my writing workshop I run the first Monday and the third Thursday of every month. It’s been picking up a bit. My poet friend Mary usually comes, and John comes sometimes. My friend Chris is a regular and he draws up all my fliers for me. There was this woman Michelle who drives in from the mountains out west from time to time. And then there’s this woman named Darcy who’s possibly one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met.

Darcy travels around the world doing odd jobs. She’s lived in New Zealand, various places in Europe. She’s been to Antarctica for Christ’s sake. But lately she’s been house sitting and pet sitting in Hampden of all places. Right near the church where I run my workshops, which is the same church that has the acupuncture sound baths.

So Darcy tells me that she’s been on guard walking the dogs lately because apparently some people in Hampden have been jumped recently. So after the workshop, I made sure everyone left, then went into the bathroom and changed into an all black outfit with gloves. Then I locked up the church and went on the prowl.

I found an alley with a dumpster and some cats, so I decided to practice sneaking up on the cats. I mean if you can sneak up on a cat, you should have no problem sneaking up on a person right? I walked on my tiptoes, quiet and slow, trying to stay in the shadows, but of course one of the cats saw me and ran and then all the others ran too. I chased them until I saw a woman looking at me and I stopped. “It’s not what it looks like,” I said, standing there in all black with black gloves on a warm evening, having just chased a bunch of alley cats.

“I don’t even know what it looks like.” She shook her head and walked on.

I wandered the streets for a bit until I saw a guy and a woman yelling in the street and the guy pulled his hand back and hit her. I jumped out from the shadows. “Hit her again and see what happens.”

They both looked at me like I was crazy. She slapped him in the face, then turned back to me. “I can handle my own shit, thank you very much.”

The man glared at me. “What the fuck are you doin’ you dumb mother fucker?”

The woman laughed and shook her head. “Get the fuck out of here.” Then she slapped her man again and he hit her back.

I was confused and not sure what to do, so I just walked away. Apparently she didn’t want my help anyway. So that was my first night as a costumed superhero I guess. Didn’t exactly go great. Hopefully things work out better next time. I’m tired. I’m gonna wack off and go to sleep. Fuck this city.