“Ba-dada-da.”
Eddie Danson skirted across the uppermost ledge of the soot-covered brownstone apartment building, seven stories above the cramped streets of Sanders.
“What’s a superhero without a theme song?” he pondered out loud to himself and the pigeons that littered the rooftop to his right, edging forward along the crumbling ledge of the old building.
“Well, maybe not a superhero, per se. Just a normal hero. That will have to suffice for now, since I haven’t been lucky enough to come across any radiation,” he lamented. Shaking his head at his poor luck, he searched for a consoling look from the expressionless pigeons sitting on top of the humming A/C unit. “Lawless vigilante also has a nice ring to it. That’s how the Sanders Police Department refers to me, so it has some authority behind it as well. And they’ve already gone to the trouble of making fan art of me, hanging posters around town. Even though they have no idea what I look like.”
He squatted as he reached the corner of the building, pulling out one of the wanted posters he had kept carefully folded in his chest pocket. “Nose is too small. Eyes too far apart. Hair is completely off. Stan culture is wild.” He gestured as he talked to the pigeon sitting next to him on the ledge.
A siren blared a block away, joining the symphony of sirens providing Sanders its soundtrack, causing the pigeon to fly off to another roof.
“Best not to get too hung up on the title anyway.” Putting the paper back in his pocket, he sighed. “A rose by any other name can still draw blood, or something like that.”
“Get back!”
The woman’s scream, more of a threat than a cry for help, came up from the alley beneath him.
After leaping ten feet from his building to the one across the alley, he grabbed a rusty fire escape. With graffiti racing by in front of him, he dropped from the outside railing of one landing to the next, then landed less than fifteen seconds after the scream.
He surveyed the scene as he crept up to the party from behind. The only light in the alley came from the streetlight at the entrance, leaving most of the street covered in shadows.
Two men with knives hovered over a young woman and two children. Both men were a few inches taller than he was, but as a five-foot-six sixteen-year-old, he had gotten used to that being the case.
Maybe I’ll hit that mythical growth spurt one day.
The woman was shorter than him, with long black hair falling to one side of her brown face. The boys had short black hair and the same complexion as the woman. The only noticeable difference between the two in the dim lighting was the one in the back was shorter than the one directly behind the woman.
She clutched her small bag in her right hand, waving it back and forth in front of the men as a weapon, though the jingling change lessened its intimidation. The jingle, however, mixed with the ongoing sirens and the hum of the A/C units sticking out of every other window, was enough to keep the men from detecting Eddie’s footsteps as he closed in on them from behind.
He kicked the man to his right in the back of the knee, sending him toppling to the ground with a shout, before lunging for the other mugger. With a grunt and a thud, the two landed on the pavement as he rolled over the mugger.
“Brought a knife to a fist fight, I see,” he observed, pinning the mugger’s knife hand to the ground with his foot while the man’s eyes widened in fear and fury. “That doesn’t hardly seem fair.”
Turning to the young woman and two boys, he sighed.
“That’s the issue with criminals today. They no longer understand honor. Makes me yearn for the days of yore with men who at least had a code when they stole from you. Alas…” He shrugged before delivering a succession of punches to the mugger’s face, leaving him limp.
He looked up to see the second mugger hobbling out of the alley on his one good leg. Leaping to his feet, he cut off the injured man, delivering another round of punches but holding the wit this time.
My deadliest weapon.
He dragged the body back to where the man’s comrade had fallen and dropped him as he checked on the young woman and children he had so valiantly fought to protect.
“Are you all right, little lady?” he asked in his best southern accent, tipping his imaginary hat, drawing from the old Westerns he had watched as a kid.
Always nice to be chivalrous after saving a damsel in distress. Rule number one.
“Tonto!” the woman cried out, hitting the man in the arm with her purse as the little boys laughed. “You could’ve gotten us all hurt! Or we could’ve been thrown in prison, Eddie!”
“Relax, Maria,” Eddie answered with a smile. “I promised your mother I’d look out for you and the boys while she was gone, and the Danson men are men of their word.” Fisting his right hand, he pounded his chest once for emphasis before approaching the two unconscious men. “Now, it’s time for the cruel mistress irony to join us.”
“Why do you talk like that? It doesn’t even make sense…” Maria sighed as she walked over to join Eddie by the fallen muggers.
“It’s poetic,” Eddie responded, bending to one knee as he emptied the first mugger’s pockets. “When they write my biography, they’ll need good quotes to use from my time at every stage in life. I can see the title of the second or third chapter now.”
He closed his eyes, spreading his hands out in front of him. “Poetry in Poverty. I’m going to be such an inspiration to the homeless teen demographic publishers are dying to cater to.”
“Not if you die before you can do anything worthy of a biography.”
Eddie stood, looked at her for a moment, and shrugged. “They would still make great quotes in my obituary. Here.” He dropped a knife and thirty-seven dollars into Maria’s bag, holding onto a pocket watch for himself. “Who knew pocket watches were still such a fundamental accessory to a life of crime? I can’t imagine the success I’d be enjoying if I’d only had a pocket watch sooner.”
“Are you going to search the other mugger, too, or are we going to have to do this again tomorrow night?”
“Oh, ye of little mercy. What would Rosa say if she saw how cruel her daughter had become?”
“Not nearly as much as she would say when she found out you were running around stopping crime and then stealing from the thieves themselves. And using her children you ‘swore to protect’ as bait.”
Eddie handed her the knife and twenty-one dollars he pulled from the second man.
“We’re coming away from this with only fifty-eight dollars, a pocket watch, and two knives. That’s not enough value to really be considered stealing, is it?”
“We could leave with nothing but some loose change and a button, and it would still be stealing. That’s how stealing works.”
“And besides,” Eddie continued, “I take down a lot more crime in this city than I get money. I guarantee you I stop more crime than the average SPD officer, but they come away with a much bigger paycheck than fifty-eight lousy bucks for a night’s work. But I guess I have the coolest job ever as a superhero, and they’re just ordinary, boring cops, so it all evens out in the end.”
“You’re not a superhero. You don’t have any powers.”
“Details.” He waved dismissively, taking a length of rope from one of the young boys. Eddie tied up each of the men and dragged them to the sidewalk.
“Now—” he crouched to eye level before the boys, “—who’s ready for dinner?” He raised his eyebrows.
The boys nodded along furiously to what Eddie was saying. “Maria?” All three looked up to where their sister was still standing with her hands on her hips, each making puppy-dog eyes to varying levels of success.
“Yeah, okay. Let’s go get some dinner.”
Eddie gave the older boy a high-five and ruffled the younger’s hair as he stood and followed them out of the alley and into the light alongside Maria.
“I need to come up with a name and a costume. They don’t give biography deals to anonymous heroes without a costume. It would be unbecoming.”
“You could be The Street Rat instead of just being a street rat,” Maria answered with an eye roll. “You could wear whiskers and a tail. Surely that would get you a biography.”
“I’m not so sure about the costume idea, seems a bit too 1960s silliness, and I expect more from my director of public relations, but ‘The Street Rat’ would be a fantastic name. That’s a great start, Maria. Now, all I need is a costume, one that could preferably incorporate this new pocket watch.” He dropped the watch into his jacket pocket. With a flourish. “Professionalism is of the utmost importance in my line of work.”
Eddie opened the diner door, welcoming the cool air and the smell of greasy food. The bell above the door rang as it closed behind him while he followed all he’d ever really had for a family in for a late dinner at Sal’s.
The Street Rat continues with The Street Rat 102!
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K. B. Kirtley 