For Cora, wherever she may be. She taught me to see.
*
I live by myself, in a high rise apartment in Manhattan, which is very cool -- except that I'm on the road for work more often than I'm home. Now, lots of people travel for business -- that, by itself, isn't unusual. It's my work that's unusual.
I do odd jobs for corporations, with the emphasis on "odd." Shards of glass end up in the last production run at your baby food factory? Call me. Russian police shaking down your branch office in Moscow? Call me. One of your employees leaking secrets to a competitor? That kind of thing. I got into it gradually, after handling a couple of unexpected crisis.
As a result, I developed a grab bag of skills -- along with a deep rolodex of people you won't find advertised on web sites: public relations doctors, legal doctors, forensic accountants, investigators, security, and other "technicals."
I do my work quickly and discretely, before the situation blows up in the media and hurts a company's stock price -- before protestors even know there is something to protest. My work tends to be, as they say in business-speak, mission-critical and time-sensitive.
While the work pays well, it is -- by its very nature -- irregular, and solitary. Which, overall, doesn't lend itself to having normal social or personal relationships. That's what my ex-wife said when she left me, and she probably was right, at least about that.
So in the intervals between jobs I read, travel, and enjoy New York. My work almost obligates me to keep a distance from others, to be coolly dispassionate -- and, maybe, after all these years I've just become good at hiding in plain sight, which makes it easy to navigate New York, alone in the crowd.
One night, about five years ago, I was surfing the internet between "consulting assignments." I remember that night because I had just turned 50, and was having one of those reflective moments about life, the reflections aided by an ice-cold vodka martini.
As I jumped aimlessly from site to site I decided to learn more about Comic Con. Do you know Comic Con? It is like a trade show for...comic book fans.
This character convention was coming to New York City that weekend, and the news had been full of stories about cartoon-costumed people walking around, security issues stemming from people wielding make-believe weapons, and the inflow of cash to the city. I popped into a Comic Con chat room to learn more.
It was really weird. I mean, I got the basic concept, but I needed a glossary just to keep up with the names of the characters. Whatever happened to Batman and Superman, the classics? In truth, I had no idea what anyone was chatting about. I sat on the sidelines and lurked as I sipped my drink, the blaring sirens and pounding NYC busses fading outside my window as I tried to concentrate on this odd world.
It didn't take very long for curiosity to turn to boredom. I was about to move on when the Instant Message window opened up, and slowly -- slower than I would have expected -- a message unfurled. "What's your Super Power?"
That was unexpected.
"My Super Power?" I typed back.
Another slow crawl. "Well, duh, you're in a Comic Con room, and you've got a character, right?"
I had to smile. No, I didn't really have a character. "My" character -- in fact, my success, and sometimes very survival -- depended upon my ability to be a chameleon, to be many characters. Changing character, to meet the needs of the moment. That's another thing my ex-wife said. That she never really knew who I was. She may have been right about that, too.
My character. Hmmm.
"I'm Mr. FixIt Man."
There was a pause. "Huh? I haven't read about him."
"That's because he's an unsung hero of the Comic Con world. When things go wrong, like the microphones break, or the ticket machine goes on the fritz, he springs into action, quietly and behind the scenes, so all the other characters can do their super-thing!"
Another pause. "Oh, like my dad used to do around the house. He had some wrenches and pliers and spackle and stuff, and my mom always kept a job jar for him."
Actually, this was kind of fun. The martini helped too, so I poured another. "Yea, except I can fix ANYTHING, not just stuff with a hammer and screwdriver. By the way, how old are you?"
And that's how we met. She was 40, living in Brooklyn, a freelance proofreader and writer who worked from home. Her super power, she told me, came from a pair of magical wands she had that made her invisible.
"That could come in handy" I wrote.
"Well, it could, but like all Super Powers this one is a mixed blessing. I can't turn it off. I'm always invisible."
"I see. Or, I don't see, since you're invisible. Anyway, I thought these things could be controlled?"
"You must be new to this. Think of 'The Hulk' " she wrote. "He just flips out and starts tossing cars. Except in my case, it is always on. My magic wands are always engaged. I'm forever invisible. Totally transparent. You don't get to pick your super power, you know -- it picks you. And sometimes you can't control it."
She had a point. I mean, I never was a big comic book person, but it all seemed to follow. "Well, I guess you save a lot on clothes!" By the second martini we were having fun -- playing with the idea of Mr. Super Fixit and Invisible Woman.
We got to know each other over the next week in the chat room, and when Comic Con ended, and the room went dormant we kept the conversation alive, a combination of emails and messages. As the weeks went by I became more intrigued by her, and more curious, until one night I suggested that we get together. She brushed me back quickly and firmly.
"I'm invisible" she said. "It would be a disaster. First of all, you'd wouldn't be able to see me. Second, you'd bump into me, and wouldn't even know where to look. Or what my body language might be conveying. In fact, you're never going to see me, ever. Nobody ever sees me. I'm invisible."
That was very clear. I didn't need a bumper sticker or a hash tag movement to understand that "no" means "no."
That exchange, though, had no effect on our chats. There's a funny thing about online relationships. Some people use the anonymity of the internet to blur the line between reality and fantasy, pretending to be the person they aren't, or the person they want to be.
For me the opposite was true -- the anonymity gave me a chance to take off my suit and tie, as it were, and be myself rather than a chameleon. And she told me about herself -- her work, her neighborhood.
