Thank you!

We hadn't written humor together for years when we decided to take another stab at an old idea we had in the drawer about a shlubby would-be writer who befriends a superhero. We had so much fun revising and completing it that we immediately jumped into a new idea, sort of a tribute to the old movies we love and the high-speed typewriter jockeys of the past we admire, about a couple of screenwriters in '40s Hollywood who are desperate to make their mark with their original ideas—and who just won't accept the fact that their ideas are way out of step with their times.

So then we had two books in the works and we didn't quite know what to do with them. We knew they were going to be hard for the publishing industry to niche: they weren't exactly "literary fiction" or "genre fiction" or "humor" as the bookstores define it; and they weren't exactly novels and they weren't exactly short story collections, but rather series of self-contained stories that interwove more and more as they went along until they came together like one big story in the end. They had more in common with the pulp series of Frank Gruber or the humorous stories of P. G. Wodehouse or, for that matter, modern sitcoms than they had with anything being printed on paper these days. But we really, really wanted to know if these stories would amuse people other than ourselves and if it was worth trying to get them out there where they could be read.

That's when we heard about this crazy new thing called "the internet."

For the last year and a half we've been uploading our books to these pages, chunk by chunk. Million Dollar Ideas first, My Pal Splendid Man soon after. Then, intoxicated with the possibilities of the internet for finding and republishing images, we created the screwy Million Dollar Ideas—The Photonovel, where we illustrated the adventures of Ed and Johnny in Hollywood with photos and ads and magazine cover art from the 1940s. And then we decided to see what people thought of the first eight chapters of our newest brainstorm, The Burly Boys, an ostensibly funny novel about America's most famous junior detectives finding themselves flung into the Summer of Love.

Now they're all done. Or, at least, three of them are done and the last is waiting to see if we come back to it. Two whole books, a third of another one, and a few hundred pictures, sitting here online for anyone who wanders by to discover. The result of all this is that we now know there are people out there who like these stories. Who sometimes even get really excited over them. We've even made a few new friends from all this. And a lot of you have heaped inspiring praise on our heads and given us great suggestions for how to improve this stuff. The drafts of Million Dollar Ideas and My Pal Splendid Man that we're now sending to publishers are better for your help.

We don't know how this is going to turn out yet—the book publishing business is still in the midst of its biggest recession since forever, and offbeat humor fiction isn't at the top of every editor's Must Have list. But we know they'll find their way. And when they do, it'll be thanks to you.

Episode One. Splendid Man's Literary Discoveries

I opened the window, moved aside, and vibrated the teeth of my SOS Comb. Splendid Man zoomed into the room before I could count to one.

“What’s the trouble, Will?” he said.

“I lost my damn keys,” I said.

“Where did you last see them?”

“I had them when I drove home after dinner,” I said. “But I can’t for the life of me remember what I did with them after that.”

“That’s easily taken care of, Will. What time did you get home?”

“About 6:30.”

“Well, then, I’ll just fly back through the time barrier and see what you did with them.”

“But Splendid Man, if you tamper with the past, couldn’t that screw up the future somehow?”

“No, Will,” he said. “I’ve tried before to change the course of history, but it just doesn’t work. That’s why I felt confident, for example, in banishing Giganto the Splendid Mandrill to the distant past, knowing that even his great size and Strontiumite vision would have no effect on the millennia to come.”

“Okay then,” I said. “If you don’t mind.”

Splendid Man vanished in a blur and reappeared instants later. “Look in the garbage, Will,” he said.

I did so, and sure enough, under the Burger King bag, there were my keys.

“You’d let so much trash accumulate in your car,” said Splendid Man, “that when you carried it all up, your keys got mixed in with it.”

“Thanks, pal,” I said. “Listen, I hope you don’t mind me using my SOS Comb for something this insignificant.”

“Certainly not. Feel free to summon me with your SOS Comb for any reason, not only because you’ve fallen off a tall building, have undergone a bizarre physical transformation, or are menaced by a motorcycle gang. And the same goes for the toll-free number at my Citadel of Contemplation on the moon.”

“Appreciate it, Splendid Man,” I said. “Hey, now that you’re here, can you stay a while? Or do you have to run?”

“Fly, Will. I don’t think I do, but let me take a quick check.” He turned his body in a complete circle, holding his head at an odd angle. “Everything looks fine. There is a comet hurtling toward Earth, but I see that my Canadian pal, Northern Light, is already zipping off to dispatch it with his power medallion.”

“That’s great,” I said, heading for the kitchen to mix a couple of drinks. “Why don’t you take a load off and we’ll talk.”

“I’d love to, Will,” he said. “But on one condition.”

“What’s that, Splendid Man?”

“That you knock off this ‘Splendid Man’ business. Aren’t we good enough friends yet that you can stop addressing me by my title?”

“Sure thing…Cal,” I said with a grin, using the short form of his native Strontiumese name.

When I returned to the living room Cal was sitting on my couch and scanning my bookshelves. He took a sip of his Manhattan and asked, “So, Will, are there any more books you can recommend for me to read?”

“More books!” I said, my mouth agape. Just last week I’d recommended the entire Britannica Great Books series to him. “You don’t mean you’ve already read every volume you were interested in!”

“I’ve already read every volume, Will. Period. Haven’t I mentioned that, in addition to physical Splendid Speed, the argon-tinged atmosphere and lesser gravity of Earth grant astounding mental speed to all Strontiumese?”

He had, in fact, mentioned that, and in precisely those words. But I still couldn’t get used to it. “And I guess Splendid Vision really helps navigate that tiny print,” I grinned.

“That it does,” he said, in complete earnest. “And I must say, I enjoyed every page of every book.”

I was afraid he would say that. Teaching the big lug some discernment was not turning out to be easy. “Okay,” I said carefully. “But surely you must have enjoyed some more than others?”

He took another sip of his Manhattan, a slow one this time, and I sensed him stalling. For the first time I saw nervousness in those glacier-blue eyes. “Well, of course, I’m no expert…”

“Just tell me what you think, Cal. No one expects you to be a connoisseur of literature yet.”

He breathed an audible sigh of relief. “I appreciate that, Will. I’m a bit gun-shy after all the razzing I’ve taken from Catman, that calico-cowled nemesis of crime, about my taste in books. That’s why I value the way you’ve taken me under your wing. Metaphorically speaking.”

I caught a twinkle in his eye. Before he met me, he would never have been talking about metaphors. “Don’t mention it, Cal. I’m so used to loaning books to friends and having them return them months later only half read. It’s a pleasure to have a pal who actually reads what I recommend.”

“Oh, and I’m starting to get a lot out of them!” he said eagerly. “I thought I knew all about truth and justice until I read those Plato volumes.”

“I had a feeling you’d like the Greeks,” I said. “They appreciated the heroic.”

“And what playwrights! I had no idea great literature could be so entertaining. I laughed so hard reading Aristophanes’s Frogs that I would have busted a gut, if my internal organs, like my bodily exterior, were not invulnerable. Do you have anything else by him?”

“I wish I did. But that volume includes all his surviving works.”

“Surviving?” he asked. “You mean some of them have been lost to the winds of time?”

“You could put it that way. All the great Greek dramatists—the tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides and the comedians Aristophanes and Menander—have been shown to have written far more works than still survive. Ditto for Plato, Aristotle, and the other classical philosophers. One of the great calamities of ancient history was the unexplained destruction by fire of the great library of Alexandria during Caesar’s campaign in 48 B.C., which resulted in the eternal loss of innumerable classics of literature and philosophy.”

“Great Amundsen, Will!” he exclaimed, rising from his seat. “I had no idea! What a tragedy! All those lost works must have been magnificent. One thing I’ve noticed is that those ancient authors never seemed to write a bad book.”

“You said it,” I snorted. “Of course, they were fortunate enough to live in an era when economics and art were in harmony, and an author was encouraged to be true to his vision. They didn’t have to contend with a short-sighted commercial publishing ‘industry’ devoted to snuffing the literary soul.”

“Why, Will,” he gasped, “I’ve never heard you sound so bitter! Have you suffered another setback in your own literary career?”

“You could put it that way.” I explained to him how I’d hit a creative wall in the middle of Chapter 38 of my new novel and how what I’d thought would be the consummation of my years of writing looked doomed to end up as just another item in my trunk.

“Now, Will, you shouldn’t give up so quickly,” he said. “Don’t you think your whole perspective on your work will change once you’ve succeeded in getting published?”

“Published!” I snorted. “What good is getting published if it means betraying my own vision to cater to the blind editors of New York? Even the writers who start out great are seduced into prostituting themselves in this modern world. Look at Norman Mailer! Tennessee Williams! Bret Easton Ellis!”

“But Will. I thought you told me that Bret Easton Ellis has always been bad.”

“That’s beside the point,” I muttered.

He sat back down, took a swig of his drink, and looked at me with grave concern. “It sounds to me, pal,” he said, “as though what you need is some inspiration. Nothing lifts me out of the doldrums of self-doubt like remembering the sacrifices of the great heroes of the past. That’s why I keep life-size statues of Hercules, Samson, and Mother Teresa in my Citadel of Contemplation.”

“It’s different with you. You can defeat Cerebriac as he plunders an alien planet in exactly the way a hero of the past did and people will say, ‘What a hero! Splendid Man is the new Robin Hood!’ If I use someone else’s plot they’ll say, ‘What a plagiarist! Will Jones is the new Jerzy Kosinski!’”

“But Will, didn’t you tell me yourself that every writer draws from the classics? That, for example, Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men is a Sophoclean tragedy in the costume of the Jim Crow South?”

“Words to that effect, anyway,” I grumbled. “But the last thing the world needs is another reworking of Oedipus.”

“Fair enough,” he said, with a shrewd glint in his eye. “But what if you were to draw your inspiration from a classic that no one else living has read? Say, one of the lost works of the Athenian dramatists?”

“Swell. Except where the hell am I going to read plays that have been lost for centuries?”

“Centuries ago, that’s where!” He grinned and slapped my knee. “Didn’t you say they had them all in stock in the library of ancient Alexandria?”

It took me a few seconds, but then I got it. “Of course! Your Splendid Speed can break the time barrier! You can actually go to ancient Alexandria!”

“Oh, I’ve already gone, several times. But I have to confess I haven’t once stopped by the library. I guess I assumed that since I didn’t reside there, I could never be issued a library card.”

“Then, for heaven’s sake, you’ve got to go read those ancient dramas!” I yelled. “And as soon as you come back to the present you’ll have to stop by and tell me what they’re all about.”

“I have a better idea, Will. We can just zip off to 48 B.C. together and you can have a look around for yourself!”

“Me? Go with you?” I gulped. “But wouldn’t I be…I don’t know…”

“Buffeted to death by the temporal winds that rage along the time stream?” he asked.

“Exactly!” I said.

“Oh no, Will. I wouldn’t let that happen to you. I’ll just wrap you in my indestructible cape, as I do with my pal Bobby Anderssen, that albino cub reporter, take you under my arm, and fly you there safe and sound.”

I jumped to my feet. “Then let’s go!”

Bundled securely in Splendid Man’s cape I was unable to hear, see, or smell the passage of eons as we hurtled back through time. It was a lot like a sensory deprivation tank, only different. Suddenly Splendid Man unwrapped the cape from around my head. The sun glinted on the blue Mediterranean below us. On a small island towered a massive stone structure, undoubtedly the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of ancient civilization. And on the coast a great city came into view: Alexandria herself, center of learning of the Hellenistic world!

Despite the awe-inspiring sights, an irrelevant thought crossed my mind as Splendid Man landed in the great agora in the city center, a thought that I nevertheless felt compelled to voice. “Tell me, Cal, is your hair invulnerable too? I’ve noticed that despite the velocities we attain on our flights, it never looks mussed.”

“Why yes, Will, of course it’s invulnerable,” he replied. “But you must understand that not even invulnerable hair will stay in place against the buffeting it withstands at interstellar speeds. That’s why I use a little dab of Brylcream every morning. It even keeps my forelock in place.”

We proceeded through the teeming city. Even as I tried to soak up every sight and sound around me, I couldn’t help looking ahead for evidence of the great library. My heart was pounding in anticipation of the lost literary masterworks that I, Will Jones, would soon find laid before me. And from those masterworks, who knew what novelistic watershed would pour from my newly inflamed soul and what success would follow? I could already picture myself giving notice at Blockbuster!

“I hope we’ve landed at the right time,” I said. “I’d hate to have come here after the library had already burned.”

“Well, we’ll just have to ask one of the friendly locals.”

“Don’t tell me you speak Ancient Greek.”

“With my power of Splendid Recall, I’m able to be fluent in quite a number of languages, Will. Over six thousand on Earth alone, in fact. And, by carefully manipulating the powers of my Splendid Voice, I’ll make sure to provide translations of everything as we go. I know how uncomfortable it feels to stand by while people converse in a language you can’t understand. That happened to me once with the sponge beings of Procyon 3. Boy, is that a tough language to crack!”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I said.

Splendid Man stepped up to a merchant dressed in a toga with a laurel wreath set in his curly blond locks. And sure enough, I heard a simultaneous translation of the conversation as if it were being whispered in my ear. “Excuse me, Citizen,” said Cal, “can you tell two travelers what year this is?”

“What kind of question is that?” responded the merchant. “It’s 48 B.C., of course!”

With a yelp of glee I hurried on, pulling Cal after me.

But as we rounded a corner, the sight of billowing black smoke stopped us in our tracks.

Splendid Man sniffed the air with his Splendid Smell and said, “That’s peculiar, Will. That smells like a gasoline fire to me—and yet gasoline hadn’t yet been refined in this period of history.”

Without another word he caught me under his arm and took to the air. We saw wine-colored flames licking at the marble walls, the broad stairway, and the classical columns of a great building, above the door of which was inscribed, “Alexandria Public Library.” It was too late for even Splendid Man’s powers to make a difference.

Simultaneously, Splendid Man and I spotted a figure wearing a white lab smock and lacking eyebrows, hurrying away with a two-gallon Citgo can clutched in his hand.

“Why, that’s my archfoe, the evil scientist Pox Pascal!” exclaimed Splendid Man. “So he’s responsible for the unexplained destruction of the Library of Alexandria!”

Splendid Man changed direction, but before he could swoop down on the smooth-browed villain, Pascal climbed into a time bubble that he had hidden behind some olive trees and vanished into the time stream. Defeated, we watched the building crumble before our eyes.

“Is there nothing we can do?” I asked.

Splendid Man’s brow was furrowed in thought. “Yes, Will, there is one thing we can do. We can travel a little further back in time and be here waiting for Pascal when he arrives.”

“Great,” I sighed. “And we can go back a little further, can’t we? To give us time to read a few plays?”

“Tragedies, comedies, philosophical dialogues, you name it, pal! And since we’re going back only a short time, we won’t need to take to the air to get there. Borrowing a tip from my friend Quickie, the swiftest man alive, I can vibrate at Splendid Speed and break the time barrier while apparently standing still.”

He took hold of me and vibrated, and I watched the flames die down and the building rise up again before my eyes, as if by a trick of cinematography. Suddenly we were standing before the library in all its splendor. We ascended the stairs expectantly and passed through the mighty doors.

The library was actually only one part of a larger complex called a museum—though “museum” was meant in the ancient sense, denoting an institute of study. There were wings for mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. We passed a botanical garden and a menagerie. The latter reminded me somewhat of Splendid Man’s menagerie in his Citadel of Contemplation, only I didn’t spot any species from other star systems.

Suddenly a sculpture caught my eye. It was of Aphrodite. And brother, anybody who says the ancient Greeks were all gay needs to brush up on his scholarship! I promise you, whoever set his chisel to this honey’s curves wasn’t thinking about Spartan warriors wrestling in olive oil! For a minute I even though of asking if Cal if he knew any Hellenistic dolls he could fix me up with. But then I remembered that long distance relationships hardly ever work out.

Splendid Man, I noticed, had also stopped before another sample of the classical sculpture that decorated the institute. After studying the marble nude of an Olympic athlete, he commented, “The Greeks certainly had a healthy attitude about the body, didn’t they, Will?”

“Great observation, Cal,” I said, and I’ll confess I felt a swell of pride. When the big guy had first asked me to help him become more cultured, I’d had my doubts, but under my guidance he was starting to show sides of himself that I’d never imagined were there.

At last we entered the library itself. We discovered, however, that it wasn’t easy finding the books we were looking for, since the Dewey Decimal System hadn’t been invented yet. Failing even to find an author and title catalogue, we sought out the librarian. An elderly woman in a frumpy toga, her hair drawn back into a bun, sat at the Returned Scrolls counter.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” whispered Splendid Man, once again translating for me as he went. “We’re looking for the later works of the great Athenian dramatists and philosophers of the Age of Pericles.”

“Right this way, please,” she said. She led us down shelves of scrolls arranged into the popular Greek genres: Epics, Odes, Gnomic Elegies, Dithyrambs. She patted a shelf and said, “The Drama section is here. You’ll find Philosophy around the corner, next to Sports Stories.”

We plunged into the scrolls. Going alphabetically, we came first upon Aeschylus. Splendid Man translated the titles from the Greek as he read. “Agamemnon…The Eumenides…. Oh, here’s one that wasn’t in the Great Books, Will. It seems to be a sequel to his Prometheus Bound.”

“You mean…it’s the legendary, lost Prometheus Unbound?”

“Actually, this one’s called Prometheus and the Chamber of Secrets.”

“Wha—?” I exclaimed. “Can you scan it and see what it’s about?”

“I’ll do better than that, Will. I’ll read the whole thing at Splendid Speed and condense it for you.” He flipped through the scroll at a blur and said, “What a clever idea!”

“So what is it?”

“In this one, our plucky Titan hero has to use the magic fire he stole from Zeus to fight an evil wizard!”

“No! I don’t believe it!”

“He’s left the ending open too, so he can continue the series. I wonder if the next one is here?”

“My God,” I said. “That’s…that’s terrible!”

“Well, I enjoyed it,” Splendid Man said. “It’s true that it rambles a lot more than his earlier works, but the characters are certainly endearing.”

“Forget it,” I muttered. “Read something else.”

“Here’s Aristophanes. Goodness, that fellow wrote a lot, didn’t he?”

“Do you see any lost works?”

“I sure do pal,” he said, already speed-reading a scroll. “Wow! I can see you doing something really great with this plot!”

“What is it?”

“It’s called Fast Times at Plato’s Academy.”

“Oh no!”

“Oh yes! And there’s a hilarious scene where those rascally students wreck Eupolos of Thessaly’s chariot and blame his Olympic opponents!”

“Oh, Lord,” I said.

“What’s wrong, Will? I thought you’d be more excited.”

“Let’s try again,” I said. “I know Euripides won’t let us down.”

Splendid Man looked and said, “Here’s one. It’s called The Phallus Monologues.”

“Gasp!” I gasped.

As he finished zipping through the scroll, Cal’s cheeks reddened in a blush. “This one’s rather daring,” he said. “It’s a series of men talking about their…er…manhoods.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “It ends with a loud dramatization of a orgasm.”

“By the entire Greek chorus, yes. But how did you know?”

“Move along,” I said. “Move along.”

The rest were no different: Menander’s My Big Fat Hellenistic Wedding and Sophocles’s Oedipus III: Revenge of the Sphinx. I crumpled against the shelves in despair. “I can’t believe it,” I moaned. “How could they do it? How could they throw it all away for a quick buck?”

“Will, didn’t you tell me once that all the basic plots of Western literature are contained within the works of the Greek dramatists?” asked Cal. “Couldn’t they just have burned themselves out?”

I glared at him.

“Well, I’m sorry you didn’t find anything to inspire you,” he said. “Maybe we should move to the Philosophy section. Didn’t you tell me there’s always consolation in classical philosophy?”

That I had, and as we rounded Sports Stories and came upon shelves filled to bursting with copious scrolls, I felt my spirits rise a little. For I, Will Jones, was about to become the first modern man—or at least the first modern, non-Splendid-Powered man—to discover the lost works of the men who had forged the consciousness of the West.

“Here’s something by Aristotle I don’t recognize,” he said, unrolling a long scroll.

“Aristotle,” I said in hushed tones. “The greatest mind of the ancient world.”

“Yes. It’s called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Sophists.”

I began to see spots before my eyes.

“Oh, and here’s an interesting one, Will. It’s by a fellow named Heraclitus and it’s called The Same River Never Runs through It. He seems to be trying to explain metaphysics through fly-fishing.”

An anguished groan escaped my lips. “Put it down! I don’t want to know any more!”

“But here’s the Plato section!”

“No, Cal! Don’t look at it!”

“But you love Plato, Will. And here’s one I’ve never heard of before. Don’t you want to know what it’s called?”

I couldn’t help myself. After all, it was Plato, the fountainhead of western thought. “Okay,” I said. “Shoot.”

“Attaboy, Will,” he said. “It’s called Men Are from Athens, Boys Are from Sparta. Would you like to know what it’s about?”

“No!” I screamed. “Let’s just get out of here!”

As I dragged him toward the exit, Splendid Man said, “Aren’t you being a little harsh, Will? Some of those philosophy tips were awfully useful. And those plays were sure entertaining.”

“Catman was right,” I said. “You’ve still got a lot to learn about literature, Splendid Man.”

“But I don’t understand, Will. What exactly is it that distinguishes high art from hack work?”

“It’s not something I can put into words, Cal. Ernest Hemingway expressed it best. He said that you just have to have a built-in shit detector.”

“Will!” exclaimed Cal, aghast. “There are children here!”

He hurried me outside. As we stood on the steps, his splendid nose sniffed the air. “I smell gasoline again,” he said.

“Pascal must have arrived via his time bubble,” I said.

Before the words were out of my mouth, tongues of flame were darting around us. Splendid Man reacted instantly, using his Splendid Suction to rob the flames of oxygen and snuff them. I saw spots before my eyes again, although for very different reasons this time, but then he exhaled and I could breathe again.

Pascal appeared from around the corner of the museum. “Splendid Man!” he gasped. “How ironic that we should meet thousands of years in our past for our final showdown!”

“Fiend!” snarled Splendid Man. “How could you try to deprive the world of one of its great treasure troves of literature?”

“The world will be better off!” hissed Pascal. “If not for me, every classical scholar on earth would be crushed by disillusionment at the spectacle of the world’s greatest writers disgracing themselves! Without me, what would become of the world’s intelligentsia?” With that, he drew a glowing silver rock from under his shirt, tossed it at Splendid Man’s feet, and ran for his time bubble.

I reacted instantly as Splendid Man crumpled groaning to his knees beside me. I hurled the glowing Strontiumite at Pascal. My years as a Little League pitcher paid off, because I struck him smack on the back of his head.

“Good toss, Will!” said Splendid Man as he apprehended Pascal and pushed him into his time bubble. “This will teach you, Pascal, that no matter how well-educated we may be, none of us has the right to decide which books will or will not be read by succeeding generations! That’s the democratic way!”

With one hand, Splendid Man hurled the time bubble into space, explaining, “I’m sending Pascal on a little trip through time and space. Thanks to my Splendid Aim, he’ll materialize back in our own time, orbiting the moon. Later I’ll retrieve him and return him to the maximum-security penitentiary where he belongs.”

As he vanished into the sky, we heard Pascal calling, “We’ll meet again, Splendid Man, for our final showdown!”

Splendid Man turned to me and said, “Although he is a twisted, diabolical genius, Pascal does have a love for the finer things in life. This love has made him a hero on the argon-free planet Poxor where, ironically, I am looked upon as a villain.”

Suddenly the elderly librarian rushed down the stairs, waving a slip of parchment in her hand. “I saw what you did for us, young man!” she said to Cal. “And as a token of appreciation, I’d like to present you with this honorary library card to our wonderful library, the center of learning in the Hellenistic world!”

Splendid Man’s face lit up and he said, “I’m truly honored, ma’am. I’ll give this card a place of honor beside my many trophies of past adventures in my 21st Century Citadel of Contemplation.”

We waved goodbye and Splendid Man flew us to a nearby hilltop for one last look at this glorious city. As we gazed in awe at this monument of civilization, Splendid Man put his arm around me. Suddenly, by an ironic twist of fate, a lightning bolt cleaved the clear blue sky and struck the museum. The great building burst into flames.

Splendid Man twitched beside me, but he made no effort to fly down and combat the blaze.

“Splendid Man!” I cried. “Why don’t you do something?”

“Because it was meant to be, Will,” he said. “As I explained before, not even a Splendid Man can alter the course of history.”

“How tragic,” I said. But I have to confess that I was secretly thinking it was probably just as well. I never would have guessed it could happen, and I certainly wasn’t going to mention it to my heroic pal, but on this one I actually found myself agreeing with the evil Pox Pascal.

Splendid Man looked awfully glum as he wrapped me in his cape for our return to the present. “I hope you’re not too disappointed that this trip to the past amounted to nothing, pal,” he said.

“Well,” I said, “I’ll admit that I was at first. But I hope you know that I'm not in this friendship in the hopes of benefiting from your Splendid Powers. It was worth it just to have this time together, even if I am still as stuck as ever on Chapter 38 of my novel.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, Will. And I want you to know that, even though my Splendid Powers turned out to be of no use to you, your own splendid knowledge of history and culture was a huge boon to me.”

I didn’t get the chance to thank him for that, because just then his cape closed over my face and we hurtled into the time stream.

When he uncovered my eyes I found us high in the air over San Francisco Bay. Our leisurely flight took us over Telegraph Hill. I would never have thought that it could happen in real life, but as we flew by Coit Tower, a little girl on the top pointed at us and said, “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a U.F.O.!”

“No!” her mother cried. “It’s a weather balloon!”

“No, it’s Splendid Man!” said a man in a business suit. “But who the heck is that with him?”

Splendid Man and I smiled at each other knowingly.

Episode Two. The Girl in the Canned City

The doorbell startled me. I’d been sitting in my room catching up on my self-pity and the last thing I’d expected was a visitor. I threw open my door and blinked.

“Well,” I said. “I sure didn’t figure to find you in my hall. Especially in that get-up.” I was referring to the conservative blue business suit that Cal is so often shown wearing in the comic books but which I’d never seen on him in person. “Come in, come in.”

“Long time no see, Will,” he said, brushing past me into my apartment. Even in the dull clothes I had to admit he was a splendid specimen of manhood.

“Would you like a drink?” I asked.

“What have you got?”

“Only bourbon and soda, I’m afraid. I hope you like highballs.”

“I love highballs,” he said.

“Good. Have a seat and I’ll be right with you.”

“No. Let me get them, Will.”

One moment, he was standing there empty-handed. The next, two highballs seemingly materialized in his hands. He’d mixed the drinks at such blurring speed that he didn’t appear to have budged. The only evidence of his motion was the slight breeze it had stirred up. As I accepted one of the drinks, I wondered how he got liquid to flow at the speed of light.

“So, what brings you by, Cal?” I said as we sat down.

He took a sip of his drink and said, “You’d better call me Ken as long as I’m dressed like this, Will. You never know, one of my enemies, like Pox Pascal or the Hideous Thing from 1,000,000 A.D., may have seen us together and bugged your apartment. Certainly ‘Cal’ is safer than my full Strontiumese name Calv’In, but even so, if they overheard you they might tumble to my secret identity.”

“Ken. I just can’t get used to calling you that.” I’d been stumbling over the name since the night we’d gone out for pizza and he’d divulged his secret identity. I was about to inquire again as to the nature of his visit but I stopped myself. I realized that with his power of Splendid Recall my question would come back to him soon and he’d answer me when he was good and ready.
Sure enough, a moment later he said, “I just thought I’d drop in, Will. You haven’t summoned me with your SOS Comb for such a long time that I was getting worried about you.”

“Couldn’t you have just checked up on me with your Splendid Vision?”

“I prefer to do that only in emergencies, Will. Otherwise, it would be a breach of privacy. Now tell me, why have you been making yourself so scarce lately?”

“It’s nothing,” I said, and before I knew what I was doing I was pulling a pack of cigarettes out of my pocket. I was embarrassed that I’d started smoking again, but you know how it is when you’re in a funk. “I’ve just been working through some personal issues and I didn’t want to burden you with them.”

“Let me have one of those,” Splendid Man said.

It took me a second, but then I realized he meant the cigarettes. “Don’t tell me you smoke,” I said.

“Although I can live interminably without food and drink,” he explained, “I find I need a little tobacco now and then. It helps me think.” He took a cigarette and set it between his lips. I offered him my lighter, but he waved it away and lit the cigarette with the heat setting of his Splendid Vision.

“I hope I’m not giving you my bad habits,” I said.

“Don’t be silly, Will. Friends always pick up one another’s habits and attributes.”

“Depends on how you look at it, Ken. Have I started flying at interstellar speed, stopping bullets with my indestructible chest, or battling such menaces as the cybernetic space villain Cerebriac?”

“No,” Splendid Man said. “But you certainly are picking up my speech-patterns.”

“Heaven forbid,” I said.

“Now what’s this tomfoolery about not burdening me with your problems?” he said, blowing a perfect smoke ring that spiraled toward the ceiling like a celestial body. “You and Bobby Anderssen are my best pals. I’m only delighted to help you with your problems, like the time Bobby turned into a giant abalone-man and I helped him by telepathically summoning my old mermaid sweetheart Pura Poseidonis and her friends in Lemuria to find the cause of his bizarre transformation.”

“Yeah, I know, Ken. But you’ve got more important things to do than play psychologist to me.”

“What’s the problem, Will? I insist.”

I shrugged and looked at my feet. “I’ve just been feeling lonely of late.”

“Great Amundsen, Will! What do you expect? You never get out of the house, except to go to work. And you’re never going to meet people as a security guard at a self-storage facility. All you do in your time off is read and write. Don’t get me wrong. I think the literary life is very honorable. You know that. You know how much I enjoy our literary talks. But there’s more to life than books and comics. You’ve got to get out more. Meet more people. Try different activities.”

“I know that, Ken. Don’t you think I know that? But Christ, sometimes you get into such a deep rut that it feels like you’ll never climb out again.”

“Will?”

“Yes, Ken?”

“Please don’t take the name of the Lord in vain.”

“Sure. Sorry about that.”

“Even though He went by a different name on my native planet Strontium, where a great flood destroyed all life except for me and Stronto the Splendid Dog whom my father Marl’In sent in a tiny space-ark to Earth where we gained Splendid Powers under Earth’s lesser gravity and argon-tinged atmosphere, there is still only one true God.”

“Of course, Ken. By the way, what was His name in Strontiumese again?”

“Jeez’In.”

“Right.”

Cal suddenly stood up and in the twinkling of an eye stripped off his outer garments and revealed himself in his gleaming gold tights and red cape. He super-compressed his blue suit into the pouch in his cape and said, “Put out your cigarette, Will. We’re going on a little trip.”

“Where to?” I asked.

“First to my Citadel,” he said. “Then you’ll see. Now open a window and let’s get going.”

“Why don’t we just stay here? Picnic’s on TV tonight. It’s one of my favorite movies.”

“Great Amundsen! You really are in bad shape.”

That got to me. It’s one thing to know yourself that your life is a mess, but when somebody you respect agrees with you, then you really feel lousy. I crushed my butt, drew back the curtains, and opened the window wide.

Cal had removed his cape. He wrapped me in it from head to toe and put an arm around me to lift me into the air.

“Wait!” I said. “Won’t I need a space suit, lest the vacuum of outer space cause my non-invulnerable body to hyperinflate?”

“You see?” he said. “You are beginning to talk like me.”

“Okay,” I said. “Won’t I blow the fuck up in space?”

“Only if we dawdle, Will,” he said. And a moment later I felt us take to the air.

For a couple of seconds I heard an incredibly loud whoosh, then nothing. With a thrill I realized that we had left Earth’s atmosphere behind and were hurtling through airless space! I started to panic when I realized I couldn’t breathe, then immediately felt stupid. Splendid Man could fly from the Richmond district in San Francisco to the moon in far less time than it would take me to suffocate.

Then I was standing on the surface of the moon, feeling so light that I was surprised I didn’t float off into space. Even though I was still wrapped up in the cape and couldn’t see anything, I could clearly visualize the scene around me from a previous trip, when Splendid Man had provided me with one of those goldfish-bowl space helmets. In my mind’s eye I could see the vivid chiaroscuro of the moon’s surface, imagine the glorious orb of the Earth hanging in the sky. And if sound could carry in a vacuum, I’d have heard the click when Splendid Man unlocked the door to his Citadel of Contemplation with the giant key he’d disguised as an American flag. Then we were wafting down into the bowels of the unearthly structure.

Splendid Man’s citadel is actually a generation starship that Strontium had launched decades before its destruction. Something had gone horribly wrong (which, if science fiction stories are any guide, seems to be pretty standard for generation starships), and all hands had perished except for Cal’s cousin Kar’En. Cal had discovered the ship just in time to rescue her before her air gave out. She, of course, went on to become Splendid Girl, and he buried the gargantuan ship on the moon, gradually refitting it into his home away from home.

Even though he’d brought me here a few times before, I was still flabbergasted by all the trophies from different worlds, his intergalactic menagerie, and his scientific gadgetry. I was no less flabbergasted by his meticulous housekeeping and superb taste in interior decoration. Perhaps, I thought, these were parts of the cultural legacy of Strontium, or perhaps they were simply two more of his seemingly limitless Splendid Powers.

I followed him through several rooms, admiring the life-size statues of Catman and Sparrow, both in costume and in their identities as Wyatt Brewster and his ward, Greg Dickson, his library, which includes for the most part titles I’ve recommended, and finally the room containing Strontor, the City in a Can. It became clear what Cal had in mind when he brought out a couple of parachutes. I, Will Jones, was about to visit the sole surviving city of Splendid Man’s native world, which the cybernetic space criminal Cerebriac had shrunk and imprisoned in a can.

“Wow,” I said. “I sure feel honored.”

He smiled and instructed me to place on my head a metal cap connected by wires to a bizarre apparatus on the wall.

“This machine,” he explained, throwing a switch, “will enable you to speak in fluent Strontiumese in moments.”

“You’re putting me on,” I said, and realized as soon as the words had left my mouth that I’d spoken in a strange, alien tongue.

“You can take it off now,” he said, also speaking in Strontiumese, which I understood perfectly.

“Amazing,” I said. “I can’t believe it.”

“It’s one thing to understand Strontiumese,” he said, “but quite another to speak it. You won’t have any problems though because, being fluent in Spanish, it’s a cinch for you to roll your R’s. Bobby has a heck of a time.”

The next part of the operation startled me. Splendid Man turned on the shrinking ray and in instants we dwindled to the size of gnats—clothes, parachutes, and all. Then he put his arms around my shoulder and up and away we went toward the now-distant top of the can. “As you well know,” he explained on the way, “I lose all my Splendid Powers in Strontor, the City in a Can, and so I, too, have to parachute down.”

“Of course,” I said. “And I’ll have to be fitted with special shoes when we get there in order to withstand the terrible gravitational pull of Strontor.”

“Why Will, where did you learn that? I don’t remember telling you about it.”

“I read about in the comics, Cal. Bobby always needs special shoes when you bring him to Strontor.”

“Of course, Will. I’d forgotten you were such a big fan of AC/DC Comics.”

We’d finally gotten to the top of the can and we approached one of the many air holes. I saw that the hole was covered with what looked like grating to my tiny eyes, but which I realized must be the filter that removes the trace argon from Earth’s atmosphere. “Say, Cal,” I asked, “what effects can I expect from breathing argon-free air? Oddly, that never seems to be addressed in the comics.”

“Just a slight tightening of the scrotum, Will. Nothing to worry about.”

“Okay,” I said, “not so odd.”

Splendid Man waved me back and, kneeling down, peered over the edge of the air hole. “We’re in luck,” he said. “Strontor’s artificial sun isn’t in our path of descent.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

He motioned me forward. “Don’t look down,” he cautioned. “In our present size the drop is awesome. Just jump in, count to ten, and open your chute.”

I followed directions, not daring to look down until my chute had ballooned about me and I was gently wafting down. But even then it was quite a shock. We were much higher over the city below than any jet plane ever gets above the surface of the earth. Relatively speaking, that is.
Cal, being more experienced at this sort of thing than I, had timed the opening of his chute so that we descended side by side.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“It’s fantastic!” I exclaimed. We were close enough to the city now that it began to take on distinctive contours. It was mind-boggling to find myself in such an exotic setting when from the outside it looked like a restaurant-size can of pork and beans. “Strontor looks a lot like San Francisco,” I said. “Only different.”

“I’m glad you appreciate things like that, Will,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons I value your friendship.”

That reminded me. “Hey, Cal,” I said, “let me ask you a question.”

“Sure, Will.”

“You remember when I told you my middle name?”

“Why, of course I do, Will. It was the same night I divulged my secret
identity to you.”

“Exactly. It was no coincidence that that’s when you really decided you
could trust me as a friend, was it?”

“Well, no, I have to confess that it wasn’t. As you must know from the comics, an odd quirk of fate has thrown me over and over again into intimate contact with people bearing double P’s in their names. Pepper Pine, Patti Pert, Pura Poseidonis, and Pox Pascal, to name but a few. Of course, I already valued our literary discussions, but that alone isn’t enough to form a basis for a genuine friendship. I’ll admit that the discovery that you had two P’s in your middle name made me feel instantly closer to you than I would have to, say, Michael Chabon or even Paul Auster.”

Through the rest of our descent, I reflected on how glad I was that, despite my father’s desire to call me William James Jones, thus naming me after a great philosopher and a fine novelist at once, my mother had stuck to her guns and insisted on Skipper.

As soon as we touched ground, a delegation of Strontorians gathered around us. A maiden fell to her knees and replaced my boots with special gravity shoes. She had stooped so quickly that I hadn’t gotten a look at her face, but something about her seemed strangely familiar.

“People of Strontor,” said Splendid Man to the crowd, “this is my friend Will Jones, from San Francisco.”

An elderly man in a green headband stepped forward and said, “Yes, we have monitored San Francisco on our screens. It looks a lot like Strontor, only different. And a lot bigger.”

After him, a young man in a red headband who looked remarkably like Splendid Man addressed me, “Our screens reveal that you’re a writer, Will.”

“Well,” I said uncomfortably, “I do like to write.”

Just then the maiden finished buckling the shoes to my feet and stood before me. I nearly choked when I saw her. “Ellen!” I gasped. “What are you doing in Strontor, the City in a Can?”

She looked mystified. Cal chuckled. Then I remembered. Through another of fate’s odd quirks, many Strontorians are the exact physical doubles of people on Earth. The comic books mentioned doubles of Pepper Pine, Bobby Anderssen, Patti Pert, and Mugsy Ricketts, so it should have been no surprise to find myself face to face with a double of Ellen, my ex-wife. Except that I’d had no idea there were Jews on Strontium.

Cal was looking at me with a peculiar glint in his eyes. He said hastily, “Will, I have to pay a visit to some scientist friends of mine who are working on a ray to restore Strontor to its original size. I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Jen’Ee here.”

“Well…er…I…” I began, but before I could complete my protest he had waved and turned his back and left me alone with Jen’Ee.

I had thought that in the two years since my wife had left me I had gotten over her. But now, in the presence of her Strontorian double, I began to have my doubts. I suddenly understood how Monroe Stahr must have felt in The Last Tycoon. It made me wonder if Splendid Man had ever brought Scott Fitzgerald to Strontor. But it seemed unlikely, since Fitzgerald didn’t have any P’s in his name.

“Would you like me to take you on a tour of our canned city?” Jen’Ee asked.

“That would be nice, El…er…Jen’Ee,” I said.

She showed me the great statue of Splendid Man in Strontor Square, the monitor rooms, and the laboratories filled with super-scientific Strontorian inventions. “This is the training ground for the Splendid Man Calamity Unit,” she said at one point, “those miniature marvels who have so often in the past left Strontor to gain splendid powers under Earth’s argon-tinged atmosphere and lesser gravity and fly to the aid of their hero, the Man of Splendor.”

“Yes,” I said, “like the time Splendid Man was turned into a woodpecker by Aeaea, the evil sorceress from ancient times, and the Calamity Unit had to trick her into reversing the spell.”

“Very good,” Jen’Ee said. “Did Splendid Man tell you about that case?”

“Uh…sure,” I said. Actually, I’d read about it, but I don’t like to admit on a first date that I read comic books.

Despite the special gravity shoes, I found my feet hurting by the time we had walked through the whole downtown. Not to mention the rather uncomfortable tightening of the scrotum that I was experiencing. I spotted a bar and suggested we go in for a drink.

“I’d love to,” she said.

We sat by the window and watched Strontor’s artificial sun sink behind the futuristic domes and spires of the city. I wondered where it went. I beckoned to the waitress, who looked amazingly like my landlady, and Jen’Ee ordered the drinks, since I was unfamiliar with Strontiumese mixology.

While we waited for our drinks, Jen’Ee asked, “Why do you keep staring at me like that?”

“You remind me of someone I once knew.”

“Oh. Was it someone you liked?”

“You could say that.”

“Do you still see her?”

“No. But I feel like I’m seeing her right now.”

She blushed. And then our drinks arrived. There were two tall glasses of frothing green liquid with golden globules floating within.

“What do you think?” she asked, as I sipped mine tentatively.

“Interesting,” I said. “It tastes a lot like Tang.”

“What is that?”

“An advanced beverage developed by Earth’s scientists for the use of astronauts. Maybe someday, once Calv’In and his scientific friends perfect their enlarging ray, you can come visit me on Earth and try some.”

She averted her eyes and stammered, “I…I’d love to. But I’m afraid I can never leave Strontor, the City in a Can. It’s my home.”

What a contrast, I thought, to my ex-wife Ellen, whose restlessness had driven her from the canned city of our life into the bigger world beyond, in search of herself.

“But maybe you could live in Strontor for a while,” she said. “Being bilingual, I’m sure you could find a job.”

”It’s tempting,” I said. “As stimulating as I find San Francisco, I’ve often thought I’d be happier living someplace smaller.” I paused and added, “I trust that if I live here, I’ll be able to keep seeing you.”

“Of course,” she said softly.

“Do you think I could find a writing-related job?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “The advancement of science on Strontor has rendered art and literature obsolete.”

“That’s discouraging. I never even learned DOS.”

“I’m sure we can find some line of work for you, Will.”

“Do you need salesmen on Strontor?” I asked. “I’ve held plenty of sales jobs. Temporarily, of course, until my writing takes off.”

“Why, that’s perfect! As long as you don’t mind wearing a white headband.”

“Why a white headband?” I asked.

“Just as salesmen on earth were once distinguished by their white shoes,” she explained, “so are Strontorian salesmen known by their white headbands.”

“Oh,” I said.

She must have mistaken my bafflement for rejection of her idea, because she suddenly grew very thoughtful. Then her face brightened and she said, “Will! Don’t you speak Spanish?”

“Si,” I said.

“Why that’s marvelous, Will! Strontorians are crazy to learn Spanish! You could get a job teaching it!”

“That’s great,” I said. “But why the fascination with Spanish?”

“Because we in Strontor worship the great comedian Cantinflas,” she cried, “and we want to be able to enjoy all the cinematic masterpieces he made in Mexico!”

“Oh, well,” I said. “Better him than Jerry Lewis.”

“Who?” she asked.

“Skip it,” I said.

We left the bar and strolled through the twilit streets of Strontor. I saw dead-ringers for Mickey Mantle, Floyd the barber and, to my horror, Ann Coulter. I took Jen’Ee’s hand and she didn’t snatch it away. She offered to show me more of Strontor’s technological miracles. When I glanced at my watch I saw that it was 8:30. I asked if I could see the monitor rooms again.
Three hoary-bearded scientists in gray headbands were tending the monitor screens.

“What would you like to monitor, Mr. Jones?” asked one. “The Great Pyramids of Egypt?”

“Or would you rather see the Marianas Trench, the deepest point in all the world’s oceans?” chimed another.

The third smiled kindly and said, “Or better yet, perhaps you’d like to see the famous frozen leopard carcass high on the snowy peak of Mount Kilimanjaro.”

“Scratch that last suggestion,” the first one said. “Have you forgotten that global warming caused the leopard to thaw and decompose?”

“Actually,” I said, “I was wondering if you could tap into the satellite transmissions of American Movie Classics.”

Their hands flew to the dials, the screen flickered with wavy lines, and then Picnic came on the air.

We’d arrived just in time for my favorite scene. Everyone was at the Neewollah Ball, and Kim Novak and William Holden were about to begin their dance on the pier. As usual, I was completely enraptured by what I consider to be the most sensuous scene in the history of cinema. But as soon as it was over I caught myself. What would Splendid Man think of me, spending my first evening in Strontor, the City in a Can, glued to the TV? Or monitor screen, as the case may be. How could I ignore and flesh-and-blood woman beside me in favor of a televised image, even if it was Kim Novak?

I turned to her and found her gazing at me with big limpid eyes.

“Do you know of a place where we can go dancing?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I know a nightclub where the patrons dance the Sango, a provocative dance from the southern hemisphere of our native plant Strontium.”

“Lead the way,” I said.

Hand in hand, we left the monitor rooms. As we turned onto a main street we saw Splendid Man emerge from a building, looking dejected.

“Cal! We’re over here!” I called.

“We’re going to a nightclub,” said Jen’Ee. “Would you care to join us?”

“Oh, I should be getting back to Earth,” he sighed.

“What’s the matter, pal? Did something go wrong with the enlarging experiments?” I asked.

“We failed again,” he said. “We succeeded in enlarging a test group of Strontiumese rainbow mice, but after twenty minutes they reverted to savagery. I hate to think what would happen if we trained it on Strontorian humans.”

He looked so depressed that I hated the thought of sending him home alone. But I had big plans for the night ahead, and for tomorrow…who knows? Maybe I’d go to the Strontorian equivalent of Berlitz and ask for a job.

“Why don’t you go ahead, pal,” I said, giving Jen’Ee’s hand a squeeze. “I think I’ll stick around here…a while.”

Splendid Man looked quickly from me to Jen’Ee, and if he had looked bad before, it was only a moon-cast shadow to the grief that now clouded his features. He drew me aside.

“It breaks my heart to tell you this, Will. I’m happy you found a girl you like well enough to want to stay with. But there’s a danger in staying in Strontor. If you stay too long, the effects of the shrinking ray will become permanent and you’ll be unable to return to your original size.”

“How long do I have?” I asked.

“Ten minutes at the outside,” he said. “Make it five. It’ll take us that long to get to the airbase where our exit craft is waiting.”

“Hey wait a minute,” I said. “You and Bobby have stayed here for weeks on end and he was always able to go back to his original size.”

“That’s true, Will. But during our experiments on the rainbow mice a ray escaped from the laboratory which mysteriously altered the atmosphere of Strontor, reducing the amount of time you can safely spend here. You have scarcely five minutes to decide whether you want to return to the outside world or stay here forever with this woman who has won your heart.”

I spun around to face Jen’Ee. She must have overheard us, because tears filled her eyes.

“Nuts,” I said.

“Will…choke…you must go,” she said. “Your place is out there, in the world of literature and culture and human passions. Your place is in the glamorous world of book publishing, which we have monitored for years on our screens.”

I knew she was right. Where was there room for a writer here, in the alien city of Strontor, where the advancement of science had rendered art and literature obsolete? There was no point in fooling myself. I could never be happy as a Spanish teacher. Not even a super-scientific one. Just the thought of it made my scrotum tighten even more.

I nodded in resignation. We hugged in farewell. Then Cal put his hand on my shoulder to signal that we must go.

“Go, Will,” said Jen’Ee through her sobs. “Go and make Earth a better place to live. Visit me again if ever you can. I’ll never forget you, Will.”

“Be sure you don’t, kid,” I said, and turned away.

As the anti-gravity craft raised us toward the top of the can, I brooded on the unwelcome lesson I had learned tonight: Nothing, not the promise of love, not even the futuristic civilization of Strontor, the City in a Can, could tempt a writer to turn his back on his art.

Splendid Man interrupted my reverie. “You know, Will, it’s really remarkable. This young lady Jen’Ee has an ‘en’ in her name, just as did not only your ex-wife Ellen, but your old girlfriend Maureen and your high-school sweetheart Henrietta. What an odd quirk of fate!”

“Yes,” I sighed. “Isn’t fate quirky?”

Episode Three. Will and Splendid Man's Double Date

“Tell me, Will. Often, when I read the liner notes in novels, I encounter the word ‘Rabelaisian.’ What exactly is meant by that?”

“Well, Cal, François Rabelais was a sixteenth-century French surgeon who wrote novels in his spare time. His work was characterized by ribald humor and gargantuan absurdity. So today, when a novelist displays those traits, he’s often said to be Rabelaisian.”

“But Will, that sounds like what you told me about Lawrence Sterne. Why don’t we hear the word Sternian?”

“Literary critics are a superstitious, cowardly lot,” I said. “If one phrase catches on, the others are afraid to deviate from it.”

“You know, that reminds me of the Ghost World, where Strontiumese criminals were exiled before the extinction of my people and now herd together like hyenas.”

I chuckled and said, “You always were a wit.”

Cal looked at me mystified.

“Forget it,” I said.

Cal shrugged and said, “Tell me, Will, are Rabelais’s books still in print?”

“Sure,” I said, reaching to the shelf behind me. “I can lend you my Viking edition of Gargantua and Pantagruel.”

“Good. That’ll save me a trip back in time.” He stuffed the book into the secret pouch of his cape. “Thanks, Will,” he said. Then he added, “I’ll tell you what. It’s such a nice evening, why don’t I go get Pepper and you get a girl and we’ll all go out to dinner together?”

“That would be great,” I said. “But…er…I’m afraid I don’t have any prospects lined up.”

Cal’s brow furrowed with concern. He said, “Come on, Will. You don’t mean to tell me there isn’t a single girl you can ask out?”

“Single or married,” I quipped, even as I fidgeted uncomfortably. “We all fall upon hard times, Cal. Metaphorically speaking, I’ve undergone a loss of my romantic powers similar to the loss of Splendid Powers you suffer under an argon-free atmosphere.”

“Will, you don’t mean you’re…” He drew up short, unable to finish the sentence.

It took me a minute, but I finally got it. “Oh, no!” I blurted out. “I didn’t mean anything like that. I’ve been considered pretty splendid once or twice myself, you know. What I meant to say is that I’ve lost the ability to get to know girls, let alone romance them.”

“I know,” Cal said. “How about if I bring my old boyhood friend Patti Pert along?”
The thought of going out with that fiery redhead made my head spin. But then I realized that it could never work out with Pepper and Patti at the same table. First thing you know, they’d be scheming to uncover Splendid Man’s secret identity.

“I’m not sure that would be wise,” I said.

“Isn’t there any woman who interests you?”

“Well, there is a girl up the street I’m rather taken with.”

“Well, there you are!” said Cal, clasping my shoulder. “Ask her if she’s busy tonight.”

“There’s a problem with that. You see, I don’t really know her very well.”

“How well do you know her?”

“I usually see her when I go to Albertson’s. I guess we keep similar schedules.”

Splendid Man’s brow furrowed. “Have you ever talked to her?”

“Once, when we were in the produce section together, I asked her if she knew how to select a good avocado.”

“What did she say?”

“She doesn’t speak English very well,” I confessed.

“Where is she from?”

“I’m pretty sure she’s Japanese.”

Cal chuckled. “You know, it’s funny. I’ve never been able to tell Japanese from Chinese. I guess it comes with being from another planet. But we should do something about this young lady you’ve been admiring from afar. If you know a little bit about her schedule, I think we could manage to have you encounter her.”

“Well, I have happened to notice that she walks home from the bus stop at about 6:45 every evening, except every other Friday,” I said. “But I’m afraid I won’t be a very entertaining date if I can’t speak her language.”

“Don’t worry about a thing, Will. With my power of Splendid Ventriloquism and my command of all the languages in the known universe, I’ll take care of everything. Fortunately, Pepper is in town on a newspaper assignment with my secret identity, Ken Clayton.” Splendid Man now routinely swept my apartment for hidden microphones with his Splendid Senses, so it was safe to call him by his various names. “I’ll be back, as Ken, within a half hour.” He opened the window and prepared to go.

“Cal?” I said.

“Yes, Will?” he said.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Anything for a pal,” he said. He waved and disappeared in a flash of red and gold.

Getting through the next half hour was hell. I changed clothes three times. I brushed my teeth twice. I even trimmed my beard. Was I really about to meet this woman who’d tantalized me so much from a distance? I tried to think of ways I could repay Splendid Man for making it possible. How could even the finest literary education possibly equal this? Not that the first and greatest of Splendid Heroes would ever expect repayment for anything he did for me or the rest of the human race, but still…

The doorbell rang and I jumped. It was 6:40. I greeted Cal in his guise as blue-suited reporter Ken Clayton. He introduced me to his companion, a perky brunette in a tailored yellow dress and a pillbox hat that managed at once to evoke the ‘60s and yet look utterly modern. They both seemed a little ill at ease, as if they’d just broken off an argument.

“Will Jones, this is my fellow reporter, Pepper Pine.”

“Pleased to meet you, Will,” said Pepper. “Ken tells me you’re an aspiring writer.”

“Well,” I said awkwardly. “I do like to write.”

Pepper chattered on. “I hope we aren’t too early. Ken is always so nervous about being late. As you probably know, he doesn’t exactly have nerves of steel.”

Ken winked at me.

“We all have our faults,” I said, smiling knowingly. “Would you like to come in for a drink?”
Pepper was about to accept, but Ken said suddenly, “I think it’s time to go to dinner.” His eyes were fixed at a spot on my wall, and I knew he was using the x-ray setting of his Splendid Vision to keep track of my Japanese woman.

“Honestly, Ken, you are the most nervous man I have ever known,” said Pepper.

Just as Ken must have planned it, we saw the girl approaching when we reached the street. Suddenly, as we drew near, a pure-white dog charged at her from nowhere, barking and snarling and foaming at the mouth. She screamed in horror. At that instant a blast of Ken’s Splendid Breath picked me up and hurled me toward the dog. Not knowing what else to do, I yelled, “Scram! Scoot! Get out of here!” and waved my arms frantically.

The dog turned tail and ran. The woman nearly fainted and I caught her in my arms. When the dog was far down the block it stopped, turned, winked at me, and flew into the air like a bullet. Only then did I realize it was Stronto, the loyal Splendid Dog of Splendid Man’s boyhood, no doubt following its master’s ultrasonic commands. Evidently, Ken was planning to make me the hero of the evening, without once revealing himself as the Man of Splendor.

When the Japanese girl regained her composure, and I had reluctantly released her, I heard Ken whisper, “Bow, Will,” above the pounding of my heart. As I did so, I heard strange Oriental words coming from my direction in a voice uncannily like my own. Good old Ken. The girl was soon chattering animatedly and I, still facing downward, was conversing with her. Suddenly she ran indoors.

“Why that’s marvelous, Will!” bubbled Pepper. “How did you ever become so fluent in Chinese?”

“Well, actually, it’s Japanese,” I said. “And it isn’t so difficult. The only tough part is learning to read from top to bottom.”

Ken ventriloquized in a whisper to me: “Her name is Michiko, she’s single, she’s grateful, and she’ll be right out. Remember, try to cover your mouth discreetly with a drinking glass or a napkin whenever I speak Japanese for you.”

With Michiko at my side we were soon en route to a local Japanese restaurant. At Pepper’s insistence we sat at the sushi bar and sampled odd, nameless meats on rice balls.

“My, this is interesting food,” said Pepper. “I hope we get some raw fish. We don’t have things like this in Municipalitus. San Francisco is so colorful! Did Ken tell you why we’re out here? We’re doing a story on the gay singles scene for our Lifestyle section.”

“That’s fascinating,” I said.

“I’ll say,” Pepper said. “In fact, it’s finally opened my eyes.”

“Now, Pepper,” Ken said. “Don’t start in on that again.”

“Don’t you ‘now Pepper’ me, Ken Clayton!” she snapped. “You know darn well I’m onto something here.” She whirled on me and demanded, “Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that Splendid Man is gay?”

I blinked. Then my jaw fell open. Then I threw back my head and laughed. “Is this a joke?” I sputtered.

“Look at me,” Pepper said, without batting an eye. “Do you find me physically repulsive?”

“No!” I said. “On the contrary.”

“Does it seem reasonable to you that a man would date me for years and never make a pass?”

“Now, Pepper,” Ken broke in. “It’s not nice to put Will on the spot.”

Pepper started to retort, but broke off when Japanese sounds suddenly leapt from my direction. I quickly whipped my face in Michiko’s direction and threw a sake cup before my lips to hide them. She looked a little perplexed, but whatever I said must have been witty, because she dropped her chopsticks to giggle behind her hand. She inclined her head toward me in laughter, her sable hair brushing my shoulder.

Pepper babbled on to Ken. It must have been a chore even for Splendid Man to keep up witty banter for me while not neglecting Pepper, but fortunately conversation with Pepper calls for less talking than listening. When he couldn’t ventriloquize for me, he helped in other ways. A cool breeze sprang up and Michiko snuggled close to me for warmth. It was Ken with his Splendid Breath. When Michiko offered me a chunk of her raw fish and I wondered if I could summon up the courage to eat it, what with all the stories you hear these days about parasites, I noticed Ken discreetly cooking it with the heat setting of his Splendid Vision.

My only fear was that she would ask what I did for a living and Cal would give the wrong answer. After all, I was a novelist for life. I was only temporarily a fitting room supervisor at Mervyn’s.

Suddenly I realized that Pepper was addressing me again. “Tell me, Will. Did you ever read the comic in which I was turned into Jungle Pepper?”

I nodded. “Splendid Man’s Paramour Pepper Pine, issue number 19.”

“Well, if you think the artist made me look sexy, you should have seen me in real life. That leopard-skin shift was like a USA Today story—it barely covered the essentials, if you know what I mean. And what did Splendid Man do when he rescued me? He bundled me up in his cape!”

I couldn’t believe my ears. I’d thought she’d been joking earlier. And yet she forged on, with no punchline in sight. “Then there was the time I adopted the role of Gun Moll Pepper to get the goods on a gangster. And was I one sweet dish! Eight-inch heels. Sheer black dress. Décolletage down to my navel. Lock of raven hair falling seductively over my left eye. And what did Mr. Splendid say when he showed up to make the arrest? He told me I looked like Morticia Addams!”

Pepper smacked the tabletop with the palm of her hand. “Oh, and it isn’t just me who leaves him cold! Take Ms. Torrid Redhead, Patti Pert. She mooned over him all those years when they were growing up together in Turnipville, and he never even tried to get to second base with her. This is a teenage boy I’m talking about. And her with those spandex sweaters! And Pura Poseidonis, the fish girl. Not that I can figure out how you’re supposed to make it with a mermaid, but the point is that Splendid Fella never tried. You tell me, Will. What does all this add up to?”

“That he’s not just the greatest hero in the universe, but the greatest gentleman as well,” I said without missing a beat. Although I must admit that for a moment my words gave me pause. Could Splendid Man have carried his gallantry so far that he was still a virgin?

“Oh, I’ll grant you that he’s a gentleman,” Pepper said. “But even a gentleman gives a girl a meaningful glance every decade or so. Look at you. You only just met your Vietnamese girl and already you’re desperate to jump her skinny bones. Like a normal man!”

“Well, I do like to think I’m…” I started to say, but this time it was Ken who interrupted me.

“Tell me, Pepper,” he said. “Do you think I’m gay?”

Pepper turned to him in surprise. And suddenly Japanese sounds were filling the air again, and I was fumbling for my bowl of miso soup. Good old Splendid Man. Even while having to listen to Pepper’s nonsense, he was making sure I didn’t lose any points with Michiko.

“Why in heaven’s name would I think that?” I heard Pepper say over Michiko’s titters.

“Well, since you’ve often suspected me of being Splendid Man,” Ken said, “then it only stands to reason that….”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ken,” Pepper said. But then her eyes were narrowing. “Wait a minute. You’ve dated me for years, too. And you’ve never made a pass at me either. Not even the time I posed as Nurse Pepper to get the lowdown on a twisted gynecologist, and even that two-sizes-too-small nurse’s uniform couldn’t get a rise out of you!” She broke off and her eyes opened wide. “But if you were secretly Splendid Man…!”

Ken chuckled. “Good old Pepper, “ he said. “You’ll just never get that silly suspicion out of your head, will you?”

“Hey, no you don’t,” said Pepper. “No changing the subject. This isn’t about Splendid Man’s secret identity. It’s about his secret orientation!”

But Ken was sitting stock still, as if listening to something none of the rest of us could hear. “Excuse me, folks,” he said, sauntering toward the restroom.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Pepper called, but he just kept on walking.

Michiko looked at me, smiling expectantly. Her cheeks were flushed from drinking sake and her luxurious hair fell across one eye. The right eye, in this case. She made me forget Pepper’s babblings in an instant. But I had no idea what to say. I tried to think of an intelligent question.
“Er…what did you think of Mishima’s suicide?” I asked.

“I sorry,” she said. “Japanese please.”

I was saved from great embarrassment by sudden cries of “Splendid Man! Splendid Man!” from the tables by the windows. Apparently, his red and gold form had cleaved the sky for an instant, and everyone was craning to see. Michiko ran to the windows.

Pepper jerked upright in the seat beside me. She stared misty-eyed toward the windows, a hand held to her throat. “What a man,” I heard her sigh. “What a dreamboat. How could he possibly be…? How could I have ever doubted his…? Oh, what gets into me, anyway?!” But an instant later she was leaning toward me and whispering confidentially, “Have you ever noticed that Ken is never around when Splendid Man appears?”

I shrugged. “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”

“Oh, that’s what Catman always says,” she snapped. “I think you’re all trying to keep something from me.”

And just like that she seemed to be her old spunky self again. I guess years of unrequited love can cause some wild mood swings.

“Say, how did you and Ken meet, anyway?” she asked.

I gulped. I couldn’t very well tell her that I’d met Ken in his identity as Splendid Man when he’d swooped to my timely rescue the time I’d panicked in the dentist’s chair and let out such a loud scream that he’d picked it up with his power of Splendid Hearing from across the country, and that he’d decided I was too shaky to walk so he’d flown me back to my apartment and noticed my floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with novels and told me that he wished he knew more about literature, and that one thing led to another until I’d agreed to serve as his sort of informal cultural mentor.

“Well…er…” I said instead. “I went to Municipalitus for the…er…vintage paperback show and…er…Ken was covering it for your paper and we discovered that we both had a soft spot for the novels of…er…Gil Brewer.”

“Well, look who’s back, right on cue,” she said, and I realized she hadn’t been listening to a word I’d said. I turned to see Ken strolling back from the restroom, combing back his hair.

“What’s all the excitement?” he asked. “Did I miss something?”

“You don’t know a thing about it, I suppose?” said Pepper icily.

When Michiko returned, she squeezed my hand and bubbled over with words, probably about Splendid Man. I longed to say anything that would encourage her to keep seeing me. I figured that once Ken got her interested in me I could learn Japanese and keep things going on my own. Almost inaudibly I whispered, “Tell her that I can introduce her to Splendid Man.” I knew only Ken’s Splendid Hearing would pick up my words.

I cleverly arranged my chopsticks over my mouth and Ken promptly ventriloquized. Michiko looked perplexed. Ken tried again. The words were strange, full of P sounds and strongly rolled R’s. Michiko asked a question in Japanese and this odd language filled the air more and more stridently. People turned around to stare. Then Ken gave up. Michiko drew away from me, troubled. I desperately tried to communicate with her.

“Er…you likee sushi?” I asked.

Suddenly she bolted from the sushi bar, tears shining in her eyes.

“You men!” Pepper cried. “Whatever did you say to that girl?” She ran after her to the bathroom.

I was dumbfounded. I shook Ken by the arm. “What happened? What was that language?”

“I don’t understand it,” he said. “I tried to speak Japanese and instead spoke Strontiumese, the language of my native planet Strontium on which all life was destroyed by a great flood when I was an infant. Then I tried Korean, Mandarin, and two of the Ainu dialects of Hokkaido, but for some reason whenever I try to speak a foreign language it comes out Strontiumese!”

“You were doing fine before you disappeared!”

“I picked up an ultrasonic intergalactic distress call with my Splendid Hearing,” he said. “A planet of peaceful alien creatures orbiting Arcturus was being attacked by my old enemies in the Vengeance Is Mine Squad. I flew out to set things right and hurried back by the shortest—Great Amundsen! Now I remember! That lavender meteor I passed must have been composed of lavender strontiumite, the mysterious substance from the planet Strontium which mutates all Strontiumese natives in the most fantastic ways possible for forty-eight hours!”

“Damn it, Ken!” I snapped. “Forty-eight hours is too long! This is my only chance with Michiko, and she must already think I’m snubbing her!”

I was frantic, but Ken, as always, remained calm. “You know, Will,” he said, “lavender strontiumite always lands me in some seemingly inextricable predicament. But somehow a way out usually presents itself.”

I fumed. “What is it with strontiumite, anyway? I mean, why the hell are there fragments of your planet floating around? Strontium was devastated by a flood. It’s not like internal stresses made it explode or anything.”

“That’s true, Will. But the waves of the great flood were so powerful that they actually flung chunks of strontiumite into the air at such speed that they escaped the planet’s gravitational pull and flew into outer space, where cosmic rays then transmuted them in various peculiar ways. Many of them hurtled to Earth as meteorites, while others, like the one I encountered this evening, continue to drift endlessly through space.”

“Just my damned luck,” I muttered.

“I’ll admit that this is awfully bad timing. I’ll have to think hard to get us out of this one.”

“Well, you’d better think fast,” I said. “Because here come the ladies.”

Pepper approached us huffily while Michiko waited behind her, eyes averted. “I don’t know what your friend said, Ken, but Mariko here thinks he doesn’t want to talk to her anymore. I’m taking her home.”

“Er…” I said.

“Now Pepper, I’m sure…er…Will didn’t mean to offend her,” said Ken.

Pepper angrily led Michiko to the door. Michiko turned to me with a look of sadness that tore my heart out. “Sayonara,” she said.

“That means…” Ken started to say.

“I know,” I interrupted. “Sayonara means goodbye.”

But they never got to the door. To everyone’s amazement, most of all mine, Splendid Man appeared. He strode through the restaurant, meeting the awed whispers of the patrons with a reassuring smile.

But wait a minute, you say: How can Splendid Man be here when his alter ego Ken Clayton is standing by my side? Can it be one of the Splendid Man robots Ken keeps in his Municipalitus apartment to help preserve his secret identity?

But Splendid Man bowed to Michiko and addressed her in fluid Japanese. Michiko squealed and clapped her hands like a child. When Splendid Man finished his speech she turned to me and shook my hand.

“I sorry. Before I not understand what happen,” she said. “I hope you feel better soon.”
Mystified, I bowed and thanked her.

“Well,” said Ken, “shall we finish our sushi?”

But Michiko, having said her piece to me, turned back to Splendid Man. He tried to extricate himself, but Michiko sidled close and pelted him with questions.

Ken frowned. I guess he could tell as well as I could that, despite all his trouble, Michiko wouldn’t be thinking much of me anymore that night. “I’m sorry, Will,” he said.

“I guess it just wasn’t meant to be,” I said.

Without moving his lips, Splendid Man suddenly said in English, “Pepper, this girl has had a trying night. Why don’t you walk her home? I’ll explain the whole situation to Ken and he can fill you in later.”

“Well, all right,” said Pepper reluctantly. She was gazing at Splendid Man with such naked longing that I could tell all the ridiculous accusations she’d made earlier were forgotten. “Come on, Yoko. If the men want to have secrets from us, let them.” As they left, Michiko waved plaintively to Splendid Man alone, and Pepper muttered, “I was sure Ken was Splendid Man this time.”

Outside, in the welcome darkness, Ken and Splendid Man and I found one of Splendid Man’s robots waiting patiently.

“I want to get to the bottom of this mystery,” I said. “Obviously, one of your robots couldn’t speak Japanese fluently without the aid of Splendid Ventriloquism. But, just like in the comics, one of your prominent friends could have disguised himself to resemble you and done your talking for you.”

“Yes,” said Ken. “By an ultrasonic whispered command I ordered one of my robots in Municipalitus to find a Japanese-speaking friend and whisk him here, along with a Splendid Disguise kit. Then I informed him of the problem in English by Splendid Ventriloquism and he was able to save both the social situation and my secret identity.”

“Let me guess,” I said, gesturing toward the ersatz Splendid Man. “Under that lifelike rubber mask is the face of Wyatt Brewster, better know as Catman!”

“That’s a good guess,” said Ken. “But even the remarkably well-educated Wyatt Brewster isn’t fully conversant in the Asian languages. For this delicate assignment I needed someone in full command of Japanese.”

The false Splendid Man peeled the rubber mask from his head to reveal the countenance of a grey-haired, cheerfully smiling Asian.

“Will, this is my friend Akihito, the Emperor of Japan,” said Ken. “Your Excellency, this is my friend Will Jones.”

“Well, this is a surprise,” I said.

“Very please to meet you,” said Emperor Akihito in accented but elegant English. “Splendid Man inform me that you wish to be novelist.”

“Well,” I admitted, “I do like to write. But tell me, what did you say to Michiko?”

“Ah, very simple,” said the Emperor with a quick bow. “This one say to young lady that Splendid Man battle old Nemesis, evil genius Pox Pascal, in sky above San Francisco. During this battle, malevolent ray from Pascal’s villanous device strike unfortunate Jones-san, making him unable to speak our humble Japanese language.”

“It’s awfully nice of you to go out of your way to help me,” I said.

“Akihito and I have been close ever since we were introduced by our mutual gal pal, Pura Poseidonis,” said Ken, putting his arm around the nobleman. “She was helping him with some of his amateur ichthyological research when she needed me to zip in and head off a tsunami. But now I guess I should have my robot whisk him back to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo before he’s missed.”

“Please, one moment,” said the Emperor. He backed away, fishing in the pouch of his Splendid Man uniform. “Please stand together,” he said, drawing out a digital camera.

Ken and I posed, Akihito snapped a picture, then Akihito and Ken posed, and then the Emperor and I. At last we bowed and shook hands.

“This one hope to meet you again, Jones-san,” said the Emperor. “And please, visit me anytime, Splendid Man. I mean...Clayton-san!” He giggled and replaced the rubber mask of Splendid Man. The Splendid Robot gathered him up, wrapped him in its cape to shield him from the buffeting of the wind on his trans-Pacific flight, and launched itself into the sky. We waved until they were out of sight.

“Cup of coffee?” asked Ken as we walked along the dark street, watching the fog pour in from the ocean.

“Maybe you should get back to Pepper,” I said.

“Please don’t think harshly of Pepper,” Ken said. “She gets a little…frustrated sometimes, but she’s really a lovely person.”

“Of course she is,” I said.

“And sometimes she says things that are better left unsaid.”

“In one ear and out the other, pal.” I said.

“And I’m really sorry about how things worked out tonight,” said Ken. “Lavender Strontiumite always picks the worst times to afflict me. I should have been more careful.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ve learned a lesson from tonight. Nobody can make me more appealing to a woman than I already am, not even Splendid Man.”

“There’s a million fish in the sea, Will,” said Ken.

“She seemed taken with you,” I said. “Or at least with Emperor Akihito dressed up as you. Will you be seeing her yourself?”

“I wouldn’t do that to you, Will,” said Ken. “Neither would Akihito. You know, a lot of fellows who were raised to believe they were the direct descendant of the Sun Goddess and then suddenly had to get used to being just another guy might go around with a chip on their shoulder. But he’s as decent as they come.”

“At least I can feel that Michiko doesn’t hate me,” I said. “Though I guess I’ll never be able to see her again.”

We stood on a hill looking out at the lights of the city, softened by the fog. Ken put his arm around me.

“I know it’s disappointing, Will,” he said. “But think of the heartwarming lesson we’ve learned. You may have lost a girl, but we’ve seen how the leaders of the free nations of the world can come to the aid of their allies in solving international problems.”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s some consolation.”



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