the fossil record
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I'm reading a Hawkman comic book while
my sister, upstairs, listens to the Byrds
and my mother's parakeet takes flight
in his imagination, if he has one,
in his cage. Father's skimming this evening's
Atlanta Journal & Constitution
("covers Dixie like the dew"). Behind his
pages he chuckles. That Piney Woods Pete,
he says. He always has something to say.
Hawkman and Hawkgirl are in a bad way,
being engulfed in liquid diamond by
the Matter Master with his Power Wand
which he invented in, of all places,
Sing Sing. Dad, are there smart men in prison?
--I ask from my corner to his and through
the newsprint. No, son, he says. Crime does not
pay. That wasn't my question but I don't
ask again. My brother comes through the door.
He's filthy. He's been working on his car,
a '62 Austin Healey Sprite. It
always breaks down or he breaks it down and
puts it back together again until
it falls to pieces a few days later.
Once he left it idling in the driveway
--it slipped into reverse and followed the hill
down to the road, which it crossed by itself
--even I don't get to cross by myself
--and hung up on the new county sidewalk
laid for the children to walk to school and
back home. It just perched there, wheels turning.
Helpless. It's a pile of junk but it's his
pile of junk, like comic books are mine, like
the evening news and easy chair are my
father's. My mother's too busy for trash
except the bird. It has feathers and sings
so it's disqualified. Brother walks past
my chair, then turns around, snatches Hawkman
with his greasy talons and returns it
upside-down. Oops, he says. You lost your place.
I right the thing and he pretends to read
over my shoulder. He whispers, Hawkgirl
has some nice tits. Well, alright. Well, alright.
Who's that goober? He points at the villain,
fakes reading. The Matter Masturbator,
he says. I don't know what that means, but in
the bottom left-hand drawer of his desk,
underneath three-ring filler paper and
Motor Trends are Playboy magazines. I'm
not supposed to look in there so I do
only when he's somewhere else and I know
he won't barge in and catch me. In the June
issue, in the photo in the middle,
Debbie's standing on the beach and gazing
into the camera as though she sees me
but isn't offended. Her bikini
-top is gone--she holds it in her right hand
so I guess she took it off. She's pretty.
She likes romantic candlelight dinners
--so do I--and wants to be an actress
and Playboy has given her the chance
to get her career soaring. That's real nice
of them, I think. She's naked in other
pictures, too. She looks healthy as a horse.
I think I know what Brother sees in her.
In this issue of Hawkman, he gets some help
from the Atom, who can shrink to nothing
and travel through the telephone line and
pop out the other side, and just as he
does, he clicks those tiny controls in the
palms of his uniform and grows enough
to punch out the person at the other
end. His real name is Ray Palmer. Get it?
And no matter how small he makes himself
he always keeps the constant mass he has
when he's a full-sized man, so when he stunts
his growth and pounds a bad guy it still hurts.
He got the power from a dwarf star. Life
is full of clues to life. You can learn stuff
from comic books. This one cost me twelve cents
and it was worth every penny I earned
by sweeping the front porch and taking out
the trash and picking up rocks for five cents,
a mere nickel, the twentieth part of
a dollah, my father sings out when he
searches into first one pocket and then
the other for the change to pay me. I
don't know what he's singing for, but it gets
old, though he means well. The Matter Master
can change things into other things; what's more,
he can command those things to do his will.
So Hawkman and Hawkgirl, with Atom's help,
figure out a way to neutralize that
Power Wand, which is like a magic wand,
just as his costume's like a magician's,
but supervillainized to suit the tale.
The ending is revealing: Hawkman and
Hawkgirl remove their beaky masks and show
Atom who they really are. Atom does
the same. I think, Suppose he changed his mind
and said to them, Thanks for letting me know
who you really are. So long, suckers! That
would be something. Hawkman would have to pay
off Atom to keep his secret secret.
Or, Atom could sell that knowledge to some
superbaddie at the highest bid. Or,
just spill their identities for kicks. I
look up from The End at Mother's bird.
What if that's just a mask he's wearing? He
might have an alter ego, too--a spy
here to learn our secrets, whatever those
are. I'm not old enough to have them yet
so he must be after my parents' and
brother's and sister's. Crime does not pay, I
say aloud--Good always defeats evil.
The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Hawkman
is Approved by the Comics Code Authority,
it states on the cover. High-Flying Thrills
and Action! it reads at the top. And how,
I think. Brother returns from the kitchen
with his favorite, a bologna sandwich.
I used to peel the plastic off the round
edge of a slice and chew it like gum or
a rubberband, or wear it on my head,
like a halo. I got a san'widge,
he manages to say between gulps. And you
can't have any. I don't want your crummy
sam'widge, I say--I don't make deals with crooks.
Before he goes outside he plunks me on
my head while I'm reading the letters-page,
"Hawkman's Roost." I think about writing one
to ask about how Atom's uniform
can shrink and expand as his body does,
and what does Hawkman do when his feathers
get wet, and if Hawkgirl will lay an egg,
ha-ha, and will the two take turns warming it?
I've never seen myself like this before.
Gale Acuff