Superman

Back in March, I received an unexpected phone call from one of my closest friends. I will call him Zach to protect his privacy.

“What’s up, bro,” I asked. “It is great to hear from you.”

Without any introduction at all, he unleashed a torrent of words: “I grabbed my granddaddy’s pistol and my grandmother’s wedding ring. I stumbled out the back door onto the porch, my head dizzy with disbelief.”

“Zach, what in the hell are you talking about?”

Pistol? Ring? Dizzy? Disbelief? I had no idea what he was talking about, yet the desperation in his voice was gripping.

“She left me. My wife left me,” he continued.

Honestly, I was shocked. “I don’t know what to say. Zach, I am so sorry,” I managed. I tried to listen, empathize, and decipher the ramblings of a man rebelling against his crumbling universe.

“Zach, why the pistol, the ring?”

“I don’t know, Matt,” he said sheepishly. “That pistol and that ring are the most valuable tangible items I own. They make me feel tethered to reality. They represent unconditional love, strength, stability. It was pure instinct. If nothing else, I have to protect these things,” he said.

I interrupted, “Where is she? Is she seeing someone else? Where is your daughter Lucy? What are you going to do? Are you okay?”

“Matt, I have no idea where she is. Lucy is with me. Yes, she has found someone, and I think it’s been going on for a while. I have no clue what to do. I am not okay. Actually, this is the absolute worst thing that I have ever been through in my life.”

He continued, “I can’t eat. I have lost twenty pounds.  I can’t sleep. I am having panic attacks. I am angry. I feel betrayed. Matt, I screamed into the sky and pleaded, ‘God, if you are up there, you have my attention. Please, help me.’ The sky remained impervious and silent.”

I was silent. His pain was visceral, bone deep, and paralyzing. He talked; I listened. He wept; I wept. He raged; I raged with him.

Forty-five minutes into the conversation, he said, “There is more.”

“More?” I marveled aloud. How could there be more?

His voice softened and with hesitation, he said, “My little girl met the guy she is seeing the other day. Amy (I will call her Amy to protect her privacy) picked Lucy up for an overnight visit. I was hesitant because I did not know where she was staying, but I agreed. Lucy came home the next day and passively said, ‘I met mommy’s new friend yesterday.’

Instead of someone revealing his identity, Lucy was told to “just call him Superman.”

“Superman?” I blurted.

“Yeah. Superman,” he said with pain and confusion just below the flat tone.

“I didn’t want this” he went on, choking a little on the words. “Yet I am here. I cook. I clean. I take Lucy to school. I comb her hair, fix it every morning the best way that I know how. I clean her ears. I tuck her in. I am a good dad,” he said. “Superman,” he said again in disbelief.

“Superman,” I echoed.

“Do you think there is hope for reconciliation between you and Amy?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said without the confidence that was such a part of him. “All of my failures as a man, as a father, as a husband, they are so clear to me now. I am just not sure that I will have the opportunity to fix any of them.”

“I am so terribly sorry,” I said.

He thanked me for listening, assured me he was okay, tried to sound resolved, promised to check in soon, and we ended the call with hesitant goodbyes.

I don’t think he is okay. I don’t think there is much resolve left, whatever that means.

I think about Zach, Amy, and Lucy, almost every day. I think about the pain, the bewilderment. I have attempted to put myself in their shoes.

After I ended the call with Zach that evening in March, the words of “Devils and Dust” by Bruce Springsteen crept into my mind.

I’ve got my finger on the trigger
But I don’t know who to trust
When I look into your eyes
There is just devils and dust

I got god on my side
And I am tryin to survive
What if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love

Fear is a powerful thing
It can turn your heart black you can trust
It’ll take your God-filled soul
And fill it with devils and dust

I got my finger on the trigger
And tonight faith just ain’t enough

Zach is broken. He is lost. The devolution of his existence must feel merciless and menacing. Hope is cruel. Reality is an unwaveringly brutal taskmaster.

I think about Zach’s wife, Amy. Unfortunately, I am reminded of the time in my own life when I followed the alluring mirage of fresh starts and unencumbered new beginnings away from my own family. It is incredible how the mind can create such illusions, rationality be damned.

Thought by thought, we can build the life we imagine we want with little regard for the life we have. The misguided neuron is capable of producing unwavering confidence in the unseen, unknown, and the untested. The spell of the illegitimate suiter is nothing more than a chemical called dopamine but the entranced mind calls it love. I have never seen so clearly, we tell ourselves, yet we have never been so blind.

It’s a mystery; however, this tragic tale of self-deception is as old as time. I guess we all like to believe we are different, special.

In a different time and under different circumstances, Tom Joad and countless others like him in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath have wondered about fresh beginnings:

“Maybe we can start again, in the new rich land-in California, where the fruit grows. We’ll start over.

But you can’t start. Only a baby can start. You and me-why, we’re all that’s been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that’s us. This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years, and the drought years are us. We can’t start again.”

Fortunately, I came to understand the addled and perverted trickery that I was inflicting upon myself. I have made bad decisions, and I have had to live with the consequences of those bad decisions. I hope Amy realizes this before it’s too late.

Lucy. I hurt for Lucy. I have been Lucy. My parents divorced when I was ten. Just like me, Lucy may try to fill the gaping hole that will be left with a trail of rationalized bad decisions. The aftermath of my parents’ divorce shaped my malleable mind, manipulated my developing emotions, and allowed me to justify my own deviant desires.

I am sure Zach and Amy will handle their divorce with the best of care and intentions, but there is always collateral damage. For what?

After contemplating the bleak realities of this situation, I am left to wrestle with the starkly painful emotional part of this older-than-time story … this 83-year-old fictitious character from Krypton … Superman.

Out of all the options available, why in the hell would Amy ask Lucy to call her new romantic interest Superman? Why not Bob, Bill, or Tom? And if fictitious superheroes are the go-to, why not Aquaman, Batman, or Thor?

What’s so super about this man? Perhaps it was his idea. If so, what makes him think of himself in such grandiose terms?

There are practical reasons that can be considered: Amy did not want to reveal his true identity, but why not Clark? Perhaps, they just watched a Superman movie or Justice League? Maybe, Amy believes her new endeavors will require superpowers?

I don’t know, but the question haunts me.

I am confident that Zach does not consider himself to be any version of Superman; however, I believe that he wants to be Lucy’s hero. I know he believes that he could use a bit of superhuman strength to survive the chaos into which he has been thrown. Zach does not have a red cape. The kryptonite is fixed like a millstone around his neck.

Zach’s not Superman. But … if anybody in his young daughter’s life is going to be given that moniker, he’s the only candidate.

Zach is educated, well read, and articulate. He’s a good father, a good man, and a good friend. He’s done some impressive things professionally. He has also sacrificed career goals for his family, and he has readily admitted there are so many things that he could have and should have done differently.

Superman.

Superman?

Sure, the term “super” is easy enough to define, but what about man? What does it mean to be a man?

We cannot determine who, if anyone, deserves the title of Superman, assuming there can be more than one, until we grasp the concept of true manhood. Only then can we dare attempt to determine if someone is doing it with superiority.

Expressions like “be a man,” “man up,”  “what kind of man are you,” “what kind of man would…,”  “that’s not very manly,”  “take it like a man,” are tossed about carelessly.

But what do they mean? Who gets to decide? Religious creed? Society? The individual?

What is the standard?

Americanized masculinity evokes images of John Wayne and the like. The dramatized and romanticized version of the American male. In America, manliness is synonymous with physical strength, emotional fortitude suppressed and rarely expressed, family and societal hierarchy, entitlement, power, and superiority.

In reality, the narrative we have created for ourselves regarding manliness has given us fragile egos, inequitable public policy, entitlement, male fragility, #metoo, and overinflated versions of ourselves that have no foundation in reality.

Not stirring up controversy, I simply want to name a few things that Zach and his situation have made glaringly obvious to me. Zach is broken, hurting, and grappling with the idea of handling the tyranny of his reality “like a man.”

From Zach:

“Lucy has seen me weep uncontrollably for the first time in her life, and that’s ok. She has seen me at my most vulnerable, but she has also seen my unwavering commitment to always be there for her no matter the pain.

“I wanted to kill this faux Superman imposter, but I haven’t. Amy is not my property; she’s a person. Sure, I wish she were making different decisions, but I can’t control that.

“My happiness is secondary. Finding something to fill the void that has been left by my world being torn apart is not my priority and also a mirage at this point. Lucy is number one, and happiness is an illusion unless I am comfortable with the man in the mirror.

“I cook, clean, give baths, clean toilets, wash clothes, and every imaginable household chore imaginable. Growing up, society assigned these duties to women, but I have always done them. Good thing, I guess. I can run my house like a boss.

“I asked Amy to come home. I told her that I would forgive her; she said she didn’t want it. I told her that we could fix our family; she disagrees. I remained hopeful for a while. “Manly?” he asked rhetorically. All I know is this, I wanted it, believed it possible, and understood that my family is the only enduring achievement in this world.

“I want Lucy to grow up believing that she is not inferior to anyone. I want her to know that there is not a man in this world who possesses the power to rob her of her authentic self, her goals, or her desires.”

After contemplating Zach’s words over the last few weeks, my thoughts revisit his first words to me: “I grabbed my granddaddy’s pistol and my grandmother’s wedding ring.” I see the irony now; these two treasures from Zach’s past embody the explicitly defined gender roles throughout history. I see his instinctual reaching for things familiar.

Zach is standing at the intersection of programmed responses to primal fear and progressive fortitude in response to a recognition of considered priorities.

How will he respond?

Has he felt the need to pursue a more traditional path forward as he wrestles with his pride, his “manhood,” his pain of not being chosen by his wife? Will the temptation to “be a man” and metaphorically take the pistol by its grip, grab a fistful of ammunition and reinstate the ring on Amy’s hand?

A pistol and a ring. A king and his kingdom. A soldier and his war. A man and his woman.

The struggle regarding what it means to be a man has been, and will likely remain, a construct that dominates conversation on a macro level in American life. It will continue to be an issue as society grapples with issues like equality, diversity, relationships, marriage, and child rearing.

On a micro level, Zach represents a definition of man that appears to be thoughtful and hard fought. Hell, he may be even a bit super.