How Jeremy Learned To Stop Being So Nervous

“Ahoy nasties! Your time has run out!” The Night Defender leapt from the roof. Landing in the alleyway in a hero’s pose. The four criminals gasped as the sound echoed across the bricks.

Glass littered the ground, the former rear windows to Kane Jewelers. One of the two lead thugs raised a revolver and fired. The Night Defender dodged expertly and returned with a fist to the criminal’s face.

The second thug attempted to fire as well but was met with precision movements. A second hero had entered the fray.

“Aha! Fear, rapscallion! Flic-Flac— the boy gymnast!— will give you a perfect score!” Night Defender announced.

Flic-Flac perched on his hands like a balance beam. With a deft twist his legs became a propeller. The thug hit the wall head first. Wham! Out cold. The heroes turned their attention to the two remaining criminals.

“King Crosby—,” Night Defender said of the larger of the two. Dressed in a purple suit and sporting a crown, the leader of the Kingdom of Crime, “and his lap dog! Hell Squire!”

The villains scowled at their challengers.

King Crosby flexed his huge arms, “I shoulda’ known you’d be creepin’ around, Night De-flubber!—.”

Hell Squire looked at him oddly then rolled his eyes behind his mask.

“I’m always creeping around— for creeps!”

The Boy Gymnast just sighed.

Within an instant a flurry of fists broke out as the four men blocked, parried and threw punches. Suddenly a smoke bomb was dropped, a rope extended from the sky into the smog.

As the smoke cleared only the Dynamic Double was left. Night Defender clenched his fists, “dammit!” He said.

“Dude, what was that?” Flic-Flac asked.

“What was what?”

“You’re creeping around for creeps?”

Night Defender looked incredulous, “I don’t see you coming up with any catchy quips!”

“Maybe we could just— ya know?— stop them from doing crime and save the exposition for later?”

Night Defender began climbing the fire escape back to the top of the building, he scoffed, “that’s why you’re the sidekick!”

——

Night Defender Saves The Day! The paper reads.

“Not a damn word about Flic-Flac,” Jeremy flipped to the comics.

“You gonna’ order?” Gladys snarled.

“Just a coffee please.”

He turned his attention back to a cartoon dog. Four years as Night Defender’s sidekick and barely a lick of press. But they gobbled up that idiot’s every word. Creeping for creeps? He rolled his eyes again.

“Anybody sittin’ here?” A heavy city accent said. Jeremy turned to see a man about his age. Well kept in a grey suit.

“Uh— no,” he answered. The man sat and gestured for the waitress.

“Whattcha’ want?” The old lady sauntered up to the man and took out her notepad.

“Lemme’ get a slice of that cherry pie, Gladys, and a coffee. You know how I like it,”

“Whipped cream, Tommy?”

“How do I say no?”

Jeremy was beside himself. He’d been coming here off and on for years and never seen the man once. She knew the guy’s name, she never learned his name.

“You okay friend?” Tommy turned to him.

Jeremy blushed, “I just— she doesn’t know my name.”

“Did you ever tell her?”

Jeremy felt like he’d been asked an evasive question. What a stupid question to ask. Just like everyone else, Tommy must have figured him for a push over. How dare he assume Jeremy hadn’t done such a simple thing.

“No actually, now that you mention it— I guess I never have.”

“Well, if you wanna’ grab the brass ring— you gotta’ reach out,” he extended his hand, “name’s Tommy.”

“Jeremy,” he accepted, “nice to meet you.”

Tommy motioned for Gladys again, “hey, could you get Jeremy a slice and put it on my tab?”

“I couldn’t, really,” he said, fake pleading.

“C’mon! Break bread with me Jer’!”

Jeremy mulled it over. He was hungry. He only had money for the coffee, “well— I wouldn’t want to offend you.”

He ate three slices. Afterward the men left the diner and walked down the crowded street. Tommy handed him a cigarette. Jeremy kindly refused. Dan would never let him hear the end of it.

“Nothin’ like a smoke after a meal.”

“I’ve never— my contract has all kinds of— moral clauses.”

“Ohhh yeah, I get it brother— my boss is a pain in the ass too,” he patted Jeremy on the back, “thinks he’s real king shit, ya know?”

“So what do you do?”

“Right now? This and that— but not forever. I’m working on my own thing.”

Jeremy thought about that. His own thing. He didn’t have his own thing. N.D. probably wouldn’t like that.

“What do you do?” Tommy continued.

“Oh just— manual labor— it’s a night job.”

“I get that, I work a lot at night too, but you’re not stuck, buddy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you need to find your own thing. If your boss’s thing ain’t your thing. Then you’re unstuck.”

His own thing. The job had come to him unexpectedly. He had barely any school. Dan fed him. Raised him. Put clothes on his back and purpose in his heart.

“Hmmm.”

“Oh those guys! I love those guys!”

“Night Defender is pretty great.”

“I’m sorry but the Night Defender is a jerk! Now Hell Squire!— that guy’s got panache.”

“Wha— what makes you say that?” Jeremy said, eyes wide.

“The guy runs around town with all those gadgets and uses that poor kid as bait,” Tommy said more seriously, “all these big bad guys with their resources and they use schmoes like us to get them in the headlines— no different than a Rockefeller— that’s my motivation. I want to be the Rockefeller— not Flic-Flac.”

He flinched at the sound of his secret identity. Everyone said it like they were throwing it up. N.D. had chosen it out of a gymnastics book. He still had no clue what it even meant.

“You know what?— I think I will have that cigarette.”

Tommy smiled, “atta’ boy!”

——

Ack Ack! Jeremy coughed into his elbow. His throat was raw. He loved the feeling of freedom the smoke gave him— but not the physical result.

“Are you sick? You should have told me if you were sick! How am I supposed to fight crime with a stuffy nose?”

“Sorry Dan, I think it’s just allergies.”

The caped protector scoffed, “Night Defender! When I’m wearing the costume it’s Night Defender!”

“Sorry— Night Defender, so what’s the plan?”

“Ah! The usual plan of attack!”

His mood sank even more, “Do we have to?”

“Do we have to?” Night Defender looked at him like he had just swallowed a goat whole, “of course we have to! It is our job to protect the city!”

Ugh, he thought to himself as he put on his disguise. A school boy’s uniform. He straightened his Jeff cap and stared at the alley way in front of him.

“Well—,” N.D. nudged his back, “what are you waiting for, boy gymnast?”

To wake up from this nightmare, he thought. Cautiously he entered the dark side street. He strode about halfway when he heard voices.

“That one,” said a deep booming voice.

“It’s just a kid, are you crazy?” The other voice.

“Who’s the king here?”

No answer.

Ahem! Who is the king here?”

“Ugh, you are.”

Suddenly Jeremy saw a flash in front of him. A glint of gold in the dark alley.

“Sorry kid,” the second voice said.

——

“You did it again, Night Defender! You probably saved his life!” Jeremy awoke to a policeman standing over him.

“All in a night’s work officer! Crime will not find a home in this city as long as I’m around!”

He heard applause from a crowd he didn’t even know had formed. His mouth tasted like copper and his head pounded something fierce.

“Do you need medical attention, young man?” N.D. said, keeping up the charade.

Jeremy rolled to his side and tried to pick himself up. Everything hurt, including his pride. The crowd started to dissipate after the cops left. Soon it was just the two of them again.

“What exactly was that?” N.D. glared at him.

“I got knocked out! That’s what that was!”

“But— your training!”

Jeremy spit a glob of blood on the ground, “what training prepares you to be snuck up on blind?!”

“Tell that to the Blind Mouse!”

“There’s absolutely no way that guy is blind! Ugh!”

“You’re getting rather testy, Flic-Flac.”

“Oh whatever! Did you get them?”

N.D. snapped his fingers, “the dastardly do-bads escaped into the night!”

Jeremy tried to roll his eyes but it hurt too much. So he settled on slapping his hands together, “great, can we go home?”

“Uh— not yet— there’s still that alley over on a hundred and fourth.”

——

Jeremy and Tommy met up a few times a week now. Always starting at the diner for pie à la Tommy. Then they’d wander and talk.

“I’m just waiting for the right thing to come along— ya gotta grab that brass ring, right?” Tommy puffed away as they sat on a park bench.

“I just don’t know,” Jeremy said, gently rubbing the bruises on his chest.

“You okay brother? You’ve been rubbing your chest all day.”

“Just a work accident.”

“My boss ain’t so great with workplace safety either.” He exposed a large bruise on his right forearm.

“Yuck, how’d that happen?”

“You know? Just doin’ whatever his majesty says.”

“I hate the way they all act— just because they have money they push us all around—!”

Jeremy had grown up in Hooverville. Begging for scraps and doing whatever he could to survive. Until Daniel Blane Esq. found him,

“—I just wish for once we were on equal ground.”

Dan had turned a rough street kid into a proper young man. And he was indebted to him forever apparently.

“Jer’ this is America! Don’t get mad— do better than them.”

Jeremy looked at Tommy. His wide salesman’s smile. He reached his hand out to touch Tommy’s.

“I uh— gotta’ go—,” Jeremy retracted it and turned.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?!” Tommy yelled after him.

“Yeah! Sure!”

——

“A raise?” Dan sat smoking in his lounger. Attempting— and failing— to blow smoke rings.

“I think I deserve it, I’m twenty nine now. I should be able to make enough to get my own place,” Jeremy sat opposite N.D., hands together twiddling his thumbs. Not meeting his eyes.

Dan started to laugh, “what are you? A communist now? Am I supposed to starve so you can have your own apartment?” He picked up his crystal glass. Filled with a cognac costing several small nations’ GDPs.

“No, I want to be my own man.”

“You have your place here with me! Defending th—”

“City! I know,” Jeremy interrupted, “but what about what I want to do?”

“What do you want to do?”

He thought. And he thought. The question felt strange outside being asked his thoughts on dinner. Which was rarely the case anyway.

“I don’t know! I just—”

“See? No direction. Just like the day I found you. There are two types of people in this world. Heroes— and sidekicks. Not everyone gets to be the shark, somebody has to be the zebra.”

“Wha?— Nevermind— So I can’t have a life of my own?”

“I never said that— you go out whenever you want, you don’t even have a curfew.”

“I’m not a child anymore! God dammit!”

“You watch your tone with me young man! Now you listen here! Everything you have is because I gave it to you! Everything you are is because I paid your parents— obscenely, I might add— to take your sniveling ass to Defender HQ.”

“It’s your GARAGGGGEE!!!!”

“You know what? You go to your room!”

——

“You look chipper as usual,” Tommy was dressed to the nines as usual. Smelling like the new cologne they’d been spraying around the department store, “work?”

“Yeah,” Jeremy sat smoking, “how’d you tell?”

“I didn’t have to offer you the cigarette,” Tommy was breaking off pieces of bread for the pigeons.

“It’s just— how do you do it? How are you so confident all the time? I can’t even stand up to him!”

“I’m a mess!” Tommy clapped his hands together, “I worry about everything— but that’s what they want— that’s how they keep you down, they make you want to be like them so you worry about every moment you’re you!”

“I’m so scared all the time,” Jeremy sank back. His eyes tearing up.

“I know what that feels like. I was scared to sit next to you that first day, I’ve been scared every day since I first seen you, but you gotta’ grab that brass ring.”

“What are you talking about?”

Tommy leaned over and kissed him deeply. Jeremy felt a strange rush come over him. He thought about pulling away but he couldn’t.

He didn’t want to.

——

“This ends tonight,” Dan rolled his mask over his head.

“I doubt that.” Jeremy pulled up his leotards.

“No, I’m serious my boy! I’m tired of going back and forth with those moofffffffff,” he twisted his mask around the correct way, “morons.”

“I’m sure you have some masterful plan that ends up with me getting knocked out?”

“Not this time,” Dan walked over to a trunk on the ground. He produced a silver pistol with an ivory grip, “your raise.”

He took the pistol in his hand. It felt heavy. Too heavy. He shoved it back at the grinning man.

“Whoa! No way! You’re crackers!” Jeremy yelled.

“Those idiots always get away and it’s starting to make us look like fools.”

“So you just want to kill them? What about justice? You never kill.”

“That’s exactly the problem my boy! That’s why you’re going to do it. Of course, you can’t be Flic-Flac anymore— that’ll be terrible for the brand.”

“What?—”

“Once I disown you we can work up a new character and we’ll be right back in business— with some serious street cred’!”

“That’s just— no! No, I’m not doing that!”

“How about this? I can do it myself and when I explain to the policeman how Flic-Flac shot him I can also tell them who you really are?”

“You’d really do that?”

“Listen, Jeremy, one way or another this is happening. Come tomorrow our biggest foe will be down and the city will eventually move on— I’ll tell them how you had no choice and how you left to live a life in solitude.”

“You promise you’re going to take care of me?”

“Haven’t I always?”

——

The dim alley lights flickered like a faint heartbeat. Jeremy stood in his disguise, shaking. From the cold? From the gun in his pocket? From the anticipation? All of those things danced around him. Shadow boxing with him on the wet asphalt.

This is stupid. This is stupid. He hadn’t stopped weighing his choices. Even if Dan didn’t frame him he’d still disown him completely. No connections. He’d have to wash dishes and sleep on the street. He’d have even less than the meager rations Dan let him have now.

But could he really do it? These were bad guys, right? They hurt people. Well not really— they’d been thwarted in the middle of every attempt. It was almost like a game of cops and robbers with no real victim.

Footsteps reverberated around the alley. He tensed up and placed his hand around the gun in his pocket.

“Well look what we have here!” King Crosby stepped out of the shadows. Hell Squire close behind, “how about you just give everything you have to my Squire here and nobody has to get hurt— get it? Or you can suffer the royal consequences!”

Hell Squire chuckled. He stepped forward, extending his hands.

“C’mon guy, give it up. I don’t wanna’ be here any more than you.”

Jeremy pulled the pistol from his pocket. He cocked it and held his breath. Boots dropped to the ground behind him.

“Now! You got them!”

Hell Squire’s eyes went wide, “oh wow, I did not sign up for this.”

“I’m sorry! I don’t have a choice,” Jeremy yelled.

“Do it now!” Night Defender screamed.

“I guess ya’ gotta do what you gotta’ do kid,” Hell Squire said.

Jeremy closed his eyes and prepared to squeeze.

“Gotta’ grab that brass ring,” the villain continued.

Jeremy’s eyes popped open, “what did you say?”

“I said do what you gotta’ do!”

“No! The other thing?”

“Can we get on with this?” King Crosby shouted, clenching his fists.

“End it Flic-Flac!”

“I said you gotta’ grab the brass ring— maybe this is your chance. I don’t know. Just get it over with.”

Jeremy lowered the gun. He looked back at Night Defender who was foaming at the mouth and getting confused. With his free hand he pulled his mask off.

“What are you doing you idiot!” Night Defender stomped in place like a toddler.

“Yeah! What are you waiting for Squire! Kick his ass!”

“You gotta’ reach out,” Jeremy extended his hand.

Hell Squire stood speechless. Jeremy could see his eyes now. He’d never looked before. They were beautiful eyes. Tommy removed his mask and let it fall.

“So this is your job, huh?”

“Haha— yeah.”

“You wanna’ just get outta’ here?”

“What are you talking about? This is mutiny!” N.D. screamed.

“Yeah! Quit the shit and get back to kickin’ ass!” King Crosby charged at Night Defender.

Jeremy emptied the gun and tossed it on the roof. Scuffling started behind him as the men began to exchange blows.

“You wanna’ kill me?! I’ll kill you more!”

Jeremy stepped to Tommy and kissed him briefly, “let’s go get that ring together.”

They walked from the alley to the sound of battle. The further they walked, the less they heard it. They would use that strategy for the rest of their life.

“Hey— are you really a gymnast?”

“Fully trained.”