Walnut Street: KJ Hannah Greenberg Short Story Series, #7

The Day Captain Wonder Failed to Rescue Planet Earth

WITH ONE OF HIS SUPERSONIC breaths and a flick of his maximum strength hips, Captain Wonder performed a forward salto and then a backward one, before volleying, with double force, Mouse Evil’s most aggressive attack. His response concluded with a full twisting double tuck followed by a layout double Arabian.

Mouse Evil was smashed to smithereens. Anyone who threatened Planet Earth wound up getting punished. Evildoers’ henchmen, too, got chastened. More exactly, Squeaky Door and Martian Sulfur were dispatched to the fire and ice penitentiary run by the Do-gooders’ security staff. Crime does not pay. Crime against humanity pays worse.

Stephen took a sip of his lukewarm coffee. That episode had required fourteen takes. His throat felt scratchy.

The engineer in charge of recording, editing, mixing, and matching the cartoon characters and the voiceover actors’ speeches nodded from his control booth. He gestured with a shoulder toward the breakroom.

Stephen shrugged at the engineer and then slipped a granola bar out of his shirt pocket, instead. He couldn’t stand cigarette smoke and knew that there were only fifteen minutes before the cast had to record the next scene. It wasn’t worth his bother to go all the way down the hall and then all the way back to the production room.

The engineer shrugged before redirecting his attention to his computer. He would use generic sound files to fill in the noise of vehicles, people, and random objects crashing, breaking, or otherwise being reduced to fragments.

Stephen exhaled noisily. His was a good gig that had lasted, so far, seven and a half years. He enjoyed playing a hero and didn’t mind that Captain Wonder had a disease that made him both invincible to projectiles and blind in sunlight. It was good for children to learn about and to love champions with disabilities.

He moreover enjoyed having to change his cadence and pitch whenever antagonists such as Little Miss Doom, Mouse Evil, Tyrannical Brain, or Sadistic Strongman got vanquished. It would be unseemly for Earth’s guardian to gloat. Lesser miens were the province of wicked boys and wicked girls.

To wit, Stephen didn’t know how Jerry Marianum and Tabatha Doicia could still smile after a day’s worth of voicing baddies since all of their characters were regularly overpowered. Like ancient myths or other consistent, predictable patternings in global storytelling, Captain Wonder’s adventures always, without exception, ended with him posed as the narrative’s lionheart, a champion, who, through a combination of hew and humility, plus a touch of intelligence, defeated all lurking scoundrels.

It seemed like the public liked such pablum since the show was in its eighth year. To bolster that profitable popularity, the production company hosted fan nights. Additionally, the company employed two interns to exclusively respond to website questions posted by devotees.

To boot, a company vice-president represented Captain Wonder at comic book conventions. An executive, not Stephen, was the show’s face as Stephen had successfully persuaded the board of directors that to maintain Captain Wonder’s mystique, Stephen ought never to appear in public under the Captain Wonder guise.

Jerry and Tabatha had teased Stephen about the parties, the fan girls, the fan boys, the corporate sponsorships, and the other perks that he was missing. Stephen usually just looked through them in answer.

Over the years, many viewers had written to the production company about how much they loved that their Captain W giggled in a way as to not appear indomitable. Often, admirers asked for autographed pictures of Captain Wonder, but not one of them ever received a photograph of the voiceover actor who played him. Stephen’s expensive lawyer had helped him seal his contract against such provisions.

Granola bar and coffee gone, he reached for a bottle of water. His was thirsty work.

Next, Stephen readjusted his microphone and headphones. The director indicated that it was time to read the next scene. In that passage, Captain Wonder would be trapped by Little Miss Doom in a chamber strobing with artificial suns. Although his tinted glasses would be confiscated, somehow, Captain Wonder would be able to communicate with the Do-gooders.

Stephen snorted. Even if superhuman, Captain Wonder ought not to have an unlimited threshold for pain.

Unfortunately, after soirees and before holidays, the show’s writers got excessively inventive. Like Stephen, most of them had graduated with useless degrees in English or philosophy. One aspired to be a social worker but had never matriculated past his undergraduate sociology degree. Another had majored in management, but was, Stephen suspected, a high functioning, undiagnosed, untreated autistic.

Be that as it may, improvisation was frowned upon. Thus, Stephen began to read into his microphone, verbatim, the scene’s opening lines.

Moments later, Jerry and Tabatha returned to the recording booth, making enough noise with their belated entrance to cause the engineer future headaches. Over a private channel, the director yelled at them.

Stephen coughed a little at the smell of cigarettes that his peers had brought into the workspace. They were sweet associates and he forgave them that they earned higher salaries than were higher than his even though he voiced the show’s star. Those two voiced all of the rest of the characters.

Tabatha held up an index finger to her lips in admonishment of the cough that the engineer would have to digitally erase. She then flashed an engagement ring-bedecked finger at Stephen. As Captain Wonder’s real-life counterpart gasped silently, Little Miss Doom complained about how tedious it was for a rogue to have to compete with a miracle man, who was married to his quest to preserve justice and homemade blueberry pie.

Rather than shudder anew at the script, Stephen raised an eyebrow in question.

Tabatha inclined her head toward Jerry, who was as red as the flags on Captain Wonder’s citadel.

Stephen nearly groaned into his microphone, but since he was already feeling sheepish about the cough that he had added to the recording, he made no further unscripted sound. He hoped that Tabatha and Jerry would stay in Vancouver and continue to serve as voice actors alongside of him. They were more than colleagues — they were friends.

Once, when the city’s bus drivers were on strike for an entire week, Tabatha had brought her van to Stephen’s door every morning and had dropped him back at his building every evening. Another time, when Stephen’s cat had gotten out, Jerry had headed up the search for that pet. Although Stephen’s dear one was eventually found dead in the territory of some rabid dogs, that is, near a construction site a few blocks from Stephen’s apartment, that weekend, Jerry was more of a hero than Captain Wonder ever had been.

A voice in Stephen’s earpiece returned his attention to the script. With bravado, Captain Wonder welcomed his echolocating bats, Bradly, Samantha, and Guinevere. Those familiars often aided the marvel when he faced down evildoers. With great magnanimity, he produced a banquet of fruit for his winged friends. Oranges, mangoes, and yes, we have bananas, intoned Captain Wonder.

Stephen could not help shaking his head. The show’s biggest sponsor, a pet food manufacturer, had asked the production company to create an episode that would segue nicely into an infomerical about caring for puppies and kittens.

The voice actor far preferred scenes in which Captain Wonder was hanging by his hood from a great precipice or in which he was being crisped by a fire monster. Mawkish matters didn’t resonate with his youngest audience. A legend could be saccharine, but honeyed deeds had to be balanced with the right amount of pungent discourse if a superhero’s ability to instill fear in his enemies was to remain credible.

Stephen regarded his coworkers. Jerry was still blushing. Tabatha was still gushing.

Later that afternoon, when Captain Wonder’s chief companion, an elderly Komodo dragon, was revealed to be evidencing the three forms of senescence typical of lizards, including and especially a decreased metabolism, the director called it a day. The company’s sales office had sent a text message that they had sold a product insertion for that scene and that, consequently, both the writers and the actors would have to rework it.

Jerry offered to go with Stephen to the bus stop, but Stephen declined because he did not want to witness his colleague’s red face again. Stephen countered with an offer to meet Jerry for coffee at a nearby smoke-free café at hour before the next day’s recording session began.

Stephen wondered how recordings would change when Jerry and Tabatha moved on. The pair had told him that they meant to try to buyout their respective contracts. If they succeeded, the director would have to audition replacements. Captain Wonder’s nemeses would change, but, more significantly, so, too, would Stephen’s life.

The next day, Stephen spoke with the sound engineer about how the show would differ without Jerry and Tabatha. While listening to Stephen vent, the engineer reached for a cigarette and lit it despite the fact that smoking was forbidden everywhere in the studio. Putting his arm around Stephen, he grunted about how he was going to have to match the voice prints of the substitutes to those of original actors. He would need a vacation, thereafter.

Stephen let his mind wander to the kind of vacation that he, himself, would enjoy. He’d disconnect from the Internet and let his answering machine take all of his calls. He’d wear his flannel pajamas for days on end and eat only popcorn. Probably, he’d keep his shades closed, too.

If Stephen had take-out delivered and laundry picked up, he could live as an urban hermit for the entire fortnight that represented the break between seasons. He certainly had the funds to do so.

One shelf in his apartment was covered by a herd of origami animals that he had fashioned out of fives, tens and twenties. If he sacrificed those beasts, he wouldn’t even have to go to an ATM during his two week hiatus.

A day later, when Stephen gave an impromptu reading of the most recent scene’s reworked lines, which, allegedly, the writers had spent two entire days and nights retooling, at the cost, to the company, of Moroccan takeout and Philippine neck massages, he stopped articulating abruptly.

It made no sense to him that Captain Wonder would shuttle his scaly friend to Planet Z, where the beast would retire in comfort. It was known in the world of speculative fiction that attending animals would rather die accompanying their humans on missions than give up their work. Besides, it would make an interesting plot twist if the dragon’s infirmity compromised Captain W’s ability to safeguard the Earth.

The director yelled at Stephen and reminded him that despite his long tenure at the company, he was easily replaceable. What’s more, since the group had already missed its original recording deadline, objections were inexcusable.

Stephen swallowed his words. Working for the studio was fun. Except for the portion of his contract that stipulated he had to be available, albeit at double pay, for two holiday specials, his was a straightforward, creative employment.

That night, he rode his regular bus, the one with the kneeling stairs, home. The regular driver greeted him warmly and the regular commuters moved over to make room for him. They didn’t know he was Captain Wonder; they considered him a regular, who shared their commute.

The following morning, when the team was voicing the final retake, Captain Wonder faced down a pack of kids, all of whom were less than five feet tall, and all of whom were gathered in a moment of civil unrest. He was supposed to offer those children a trip, on the flaps of his miracle cape, to the local dog pound, where he would encourage them to call their parents, and where arrangements would be made for them to provide forever homes for the pound’s strays. The pet food company had signed up for two future seasons of ads.

To voice that gang of youngsters, Jerry and Tabatha, with the director’s blessing, had recruited their siblings, all of whom were in town for Jerry and Tabatha’s engagement party.

The actors’ booth was crowded with people ranging in age from twenty-something to nearly fifty. Fortunately, only a few of them had given Stephen the side-eye.

Having deposited the mini gangsters at the animal shelter and having speed dialed all of their parents using his super powers, Captain Wonder flew back into the sky, without his trusty Komodo dragon and without his sunglasses. Age was making him forgetful.

As Jerry and Tabatha read the credits, Captain Wonder spoke again of searching the universe. It was his job to find: beneficent assistant bank managers, lost tentacle monsters, and Paralympic athletes faced with politically incorrect journalists.

Afterwards, some of Jerry and Tabatha’s relatives tried to take selfies with Stephen, both openly and furtively. Company guards permanently confiscated all of their cellphones. Whereas the director took liberties in threatening and cajoling Stephen, the producers insisted that their star ought not to be aggravated by anyone.

Some of those relatives of the soon-to-be-wed hissed at the man behind Captain Wonder, menacing that he dare not deign to show up at the nuptials, the bride and groom’s wishes notwithstanding. One of the younger cousins, tears running down both of her cheeks, kicked Stephen before an older cousin grabbed her and pulled her away.

Stephen sighed. He liked his coworkers but hated confrontation. Now, he would have to think for himself whether it would be worth his while to attend Jerry and Tabatha’s wedding.

The conflict between him and his colleagues’ families was stupid, in his esteem. His face was not worth filming. Altogether, he was far from photogenic.

Similarly, few of his devotees would follow him if they saw his apartment with its kitchen sink full of dishes and his bedroom with its high piles of laundry. Unlike Captain Wonder, who was always energized, Stephen was usually too tired for anything, including chores, once he came home from work. Also, unlike Captain Wonder, Stephen found helpers to be intrusive.

Before she left the building, the older cousin, the one who had manhandled the aggressor, made a point of coming up to Stephen and of thanking him for voicing her favorite cartoon character. She confided that she felt it a privilege to have met Captain Wonder’s alias and that she would tell her children, when they were old enough to appreciate such things, about her momentous day.

Eventually, the room cleared. The engineer waved at Stephen from his booth and pantomimed smoking a cigarette. Stephen shook his head and smiled. He stopped at the other’s work area for a short chat, which became a long chat, which became the reason for his delay in leaving the studio and for missing his regular bus.

The other passengers, who rode the later bus, regarded Stephen as one more thing to cram into the crowded aisle. The driver just yelled at Stephen to clear that space so that the bus could pull away from the curb.

Stephen was more tired than he had realized. As the bus wove through traffic, he fell asleep and nearly missed his stop. No one on that