Never Meet Your Heros

Becca loves The Flash. He runs faster than time itself and is strong and good. We were at Six Flags so that Becca could cross that off her list of things she's never done and they had a time slot where DC characters would be around to meet, take pictures with, and give autographs to fans. Okay, so picture a man in his early twenties in a somewhat authentic looking Green Lantern costume posing and smiling like a superhero while actually looking like a total dork in an ill-fitting skin suit and that's basically what it was. We were about thirty feet away from him and Becca, who holds the Green Lantern in the utmost contempt, turns to me and says, "What a fucking tool." (She actually said something more offensive, but just pretend she called him a tool.) I laughed because Becca's general purpose of existence is to offend and when the people in front of us were finished taking pictures with the man who was very "in character" for someone playing a fictional superhero in an amusement park, we approached him, Becca in her Flash shirt, me in my Superman one. Becca asked him for a picture and we talked to this very sweet man for a few moments before he said, pointing to Becca's shirt, "So, do you like The Flash?" Becca said, "Yeah," in a way that implied that of course she fucking liked flash you stupid fucking tool you don't even have superpowers asshole there are a million green lanterns out in the universe flash is one of a fucking kind do you understand that fuckface.

To this, Green Lantern only said, "Well he's right inside." By "inside," he had meant the mock Justice League HQ behind us. Becca's eyes got so wide and her jaw dropped and smiled at the same time and we both turned and sprinted. There was a little boy in front of us who was getting Flash's autograph. Becca waited impatiently and then we walked up to The Flash. He gave a smile that sort of implied he was exhausted and that there was a reason the man playing Green Lantern was outside and this Flash impersonator was kept away from the public eye. "Can I get a picture?" Becca asked. And so I took a picture. The Flash had noticed Becca's Flash t-shirt and said, "Okay, we've got to do this right." They both struck the classic Flash pose, which is basically someone's stance mid-stride of a sprint. Then I handed Becca her phone and they took a selfie together. We thanked the man and hung around the Justice League HQ, flicking switches that didn't do anything and pressing buttons on keyboards that weren't connected to computers.

I could tell she was disappointed. The Flash was just a man dressed as Flash and he wasn't even all that interested in being The Flash. It seemed like a wasted opportunity. But when we came home, Becca bragged about meeting The Flash, sliding through the pictures on her phone and gathering the attention of her entire family. They didn't have to know that while we explored the HQ, no real, more authentic Flash busted through the door and threw the impostor out of the way. They didn't have to know that The Flash we met didn't offer us to race and ask if we had seen Kid Flash, The Flash's sidekick. No one had to know that the real life versions of our heros weren't nearly as good as they were in our heads or the fictional universes they inhabit. The real problem with fictional characters is that no matter how much you love them, they'll never be real.

2/38 Selfies Becca took on my phone

In my grandmother's car. very important Italian dinner

Park in Waterbury by the train tracks

Our last tournament

Some lady was handing out fruit roll ups with tongue tattoos

They told us not to have phone out, we didn't care because we were 400 ft in the air.

After that, we saw my friend Will who had turned from a slightly more than pudgy 6th grader into a slightly less pudgy, going-to-be-senior who picked me up and spun me around. We helped my sister move into her dorm at GMVS, hung around the park in Waterbury, put coins on train tracks, and rode my longboard around the Waterbury park and ride. We were there until at least 9:30; Sheila, Becca's mother, texted us asking where we were. There weren't a lot of cars around and Becca and I took turns on the longboard. It was getting dark and we were happy to just bask in the incandescent glow from the buzzing street lamps. We were happy to be a cliche. 

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Other than that, I don't want to pack for school. Sunday was my last day of work. My mother has finally decided that she will help me move in. I don't want to deal with orientation and I need a nap.