Passing on the mantle from father to son is a frequently repeated theme in traditional storytelling. Contemporary storytelling requires something a little different.
The problem with my daughter is that she has too much energy. Way too much energy! Rollerblading, karate, managing the metal club, marching in pro-choice demonstrations—and today she still found time to come over and harass me.
"This house is too much for you, Pop," Cadi said. As she moved down the sofa, plumping each pillow in turn, her chains jingled and swayed. "You ought to move to a condo."
"Your mother loved this house," I protested.
The dangling silver skulls in her ears clanked as she whirled to glare at me. "Mom passed away in 1989, Pop! And look at this mess," She pulled three Iron City beer cans, a used plate, and a cloudy glass from under the end table. "While you're away I'm definitely going to spring-clean."
"Don't bother, Cath—you're so busy all the time." Actually I didn't want her messing with my stuff. "I'll have someone come in and clean, when I get back from the reunion."
"Men are another species," Cath grumbled. She whizzed over to the bookcase and began straightening books. "Visiting battlefields? Looking up the people you tried to kill?"
"We were all fighting the Axis together—the Greeks understood that." It was scary, like watching a tornado. I sat tight, not daring to recline my chair back. There was more crockery, I knew, underneath the Barcalounger.
Suddenly she hauled a book off the bottom shelf. Dust rose in clouds, showing white on her black leather jacket. "Now you could easily toss these—"
"No!" I yelped. "Cath, those are mine!"
"Pop, you don't even read them," she said patiently, the way you'd talk to a baby. "Look at the dust." She let the volume fall open on her miniskirted lap. "This one's nothing but a scrapbook. 'The Gazorcher Saves Tot from Ledge.' It's so juvenile, to adore superheroes these days."
"That does it!" Creaking, I stood up. My own daughter, the punk-ette, calling me juvenile! I felt in my pants pocket for the ring. "Watch this, Cath."
Too late I remembered why my costume had goggles. The air swooshed past, buffeting my face and bringing the water to my eyes. Stopping was always the devil, too. I missed the TV by a whisker and skidded painfully into the panelling.
"Jesus! Pop, what the hell?"
I took a hanky from my sweater sleeve and blotted my eyes. "I wish you wouldn't swear, Cath. Indulge an old superhero, okay?"
"You? Pop, you were the Gazorcher?"
"Yep, that's me." I hobbled back to the Barcalounger and sat down to nurse my bruises. "The master of line-of-sight teleportation himself. Pittsburgh's own superhero."
"Ohmigod!" If she laughed, I promised myself I'd rewrite my will. But she just sat on the linoleum by the bookcase, flabbergasted into immobility. "Pop, how is it done?"
I showed her the ring: an old, old bronze signet, the design worn almost away. "I got it in Heraklion."
She leaned to look, her unpleasant jewelry jingling. "A guy in a toga appeared in a puff of smoke, and told you to fight the Nazis with it," she guessed.
"No, I think that was Captain America. I bought this in a junk shop. Some Cretan must've dug it up. The past few years I've read up on it—this is Minoan work."
Cath stared wildly around at the bookcases which lined the rec room. "All your books about ancient Greece," she said.
I nodded. "This is the lost ring of King Minos, Cath. He ruled a naval empire back then. Bet gazorching was really helpful to him."
"And—wait a minute, Pop! And you're taking it back to Greece next week?"
"Well, you know, Cath, it might be a really significant artifact. The archaeologists would like to see it, I bet. I thought, when we do the tour of the air base outside Heraklion, I'd pretend I just found it, in the grass or something. It's not like I had a sidekick, to hand it down to…"
I could tell from Cath's sudden blowtorch glare that I'd said something sexist again. "What about me?" she demanded. "Why can't a girl be the Gazorcher?"
"Uh, there are reasons, Cath." I could feel myself going pink with embarrassment. "You know what a gazorcher is?"
"It's a gigantic slingshot arrangement, right?"
"Fraternity men at CMU use them to lob water balloons," I mumbled. "In my day the Pi Lambs made 'em out of bicycle inner tubes. But in the beginning, when the frat first invented them, we used, uh, women's undergarments."
Cath looked at me as if I were stuck to the bottom of her shoe. "You used bras. Great! I always knew frat men were adolescent swine, and this proves it."
"You could use another name," I suggested quickly. "How about the Feminist Avenger? Nail rapists. Embarrass dirty old men. Testify at Supreme Court confirmation hearings."
That made her laugh. "Are you serious, Pop? Would you let me inherit the superhero job?"
When I looked at her, so competent, so full of bouncy energy, I had to say, "You've already inherited everything you need, Cath." Besides, she wouldn't need a cape or anything—the studded leather dog collars and the green streak in her hair were terrifying enough. Batman would have nothing on her. I put the ring in her hand.
She closed her fingers slowly around it. "This is amazing. I can't believe it. My father, the costumed crimefighter. Would you, you know, teach me how to use it?"
"You bet!" The last time Cath wanted me to teach her anything, it was how to ride a two-wheel bike. All of a sudden I felt great. There's life in the old boy yet!
Suddenly she seemed to have second thoughts. "One more question, Pop. Why'd you quit? How come the Gazorcher retired?"
That's Cath all over, examining the drawbacks before committing herself. "Look it up in the scrapbooks," I said. "The Gazorcher's last case was in October 1967. And you were born—"
"November second," she said. "Oh, Pop, you're kidding! It was my fault?"
"It wasn't anybody's fault," I corrected her. "But your mother was ill, in the hospital for six weeks. What was I going to do, leave you alone, a newborn baby? It was easier to just hang up the goggles."
"Child-care pressures did you in." For the first time today Cath stared at me with not astonishment but respect. "I'm gonna tell my women's action group. They'll award you an Honorary Ovary. It's a pin—you can wear it on your lapel."
I winced. "Uh, thanks… Oh, the goggles! Now those are essential; you'll see what I mean. Let me look upstairs, see if I still have mine." Come to think of it, the Gazorcher's goggles were black leather too. Obviously it was meant to be.