CHAPTER 1
All day at school Purdy’s mind had been flying around above his head like a bird on a leash. He had a new story simmering, and he knew the only way to stop thinking about it was to write it down. As soon as he got home, he set right to work.
In walked trouble. C.B. was standing in the candy aisle of a mini-mart and could see it right away. Two young punks came through the door with shifty eyes and long jackets. “Who wears long jackets in the desert in summer?” C.B. thought. One punk stopped to look at the magazines in the front of the store. The other came down the candy aisle. As he zipped past C.B. the punk’s jacket flew open and C.B. could see a gun tucked in his pants.
The punk with the gun went all the way to the back of the store then started up the next aisle. Over the shelves he swapped glances with the other punk, then took the gun out. Suddenly a giant purple claw reached down from the ceiling, clamped onto the gun and yanked it out of his hand. “What the…” said the punk, and then his eyes opened wide. “Crab Boy!” The giant claw smashed into his face and down he went.
Purdy put down his pencil and re-read what he had just written. The part about the candy reminded him that he didn’t have his usual snack when he got home. He reached into the backpack beneath his desk. His hand crawled through the dark, crowded interior and emerged at last bearing a limp candy bar that had been smashed flat by his heavy 7th grade math book. Once he had poured all the broken bits of candy into his mouth he returned to reading. He paused again when he got to the part about the purple claw, and glanced up at the clear plastic box on his desk where a small hermit crab was poking at a cube of dried fruit with its own purple claw.
“Hey, Claw Machine,” Purdy said, “you’re a superhero.” Like millions of other boys, and perhaps a few dozen girls, Purdy had always wanted to be a superhero himself. All of his favorite movies, TV shows, and video games seemed to point to superhero as the ideal career. He had found, however, that there were considerable obstacles to achieving this goal. The first and most obvious roadblock to his becoming a superhero was the fact that he had no super powers. He wasn’t especially strong or fast, his eyesight and hearing just average. He was bright, but that only served to make him bored with school. His only weapon – the occasional witty remark; his only defense – the protective space he maintained between himself and others, for reasons he himself did not entirely understand.
In addition to his lack of superpowers, Purdy felt disadvantaged by the fact that he was not an orphan. All the great superheroes – Superman, Batman, Spiderman – were orphans. Purdy was, at best, only half an orphan because his father had disappeared when he was three. He loved his mother and could not imagine getting along without her. Still, she was a drawback.
Finally, Purdy was appalled to live in a trailer park on the edge of a small town in southern Arizona. Everyone knows superheroes live in big cities. Yes, Superman grew up in the country, but he didn’t stay there, preventing tractor accidents, and protecting cows from getting tipped over by bored teenagers. There aren’t enough evil, demented scum in a small town to keep a superhero busy for a half hour. To be a superhero you have to live in a big city where the supply of evil, demented scum is limitless.
Even when very young Purdy did not believe superheroes really existed, though he ardently wished they did. Having accepted that it was all a game he enjoyed applying the rules of logic to their illogical world. “Batman couldn’t possibly be strong enough to pick that bad guy off the ground with one hand,” he would reason, “so his suit must be equipped with hydraulics.” To compensate for his inability to become a superhero, Purdy liked to write stories about superheroes and, for a while, live vicariously through the adventures of Captain Gas or Crab Boy.
“Knock, knock. Hi darlin’.” Purdy’s mother Doreen appeared in the doorway of his bedroom, sipping on a can of beer and leafing through a handful of mail. She had not yet changed out of her supermarket uniform, a white shirt and khaki pants, but her feet were bare. “How was school?” she asked, her speech still shaded by the Appalachian mountains of her childhood.
“It was there,” said Purdy. “How was work?”
“There,” Doreen said. “What are you up to?”
“Writing a story.”
“Well that’s nice, but couldn’t you do that later? I wish you’d get outside more and blow the stink off you. Aren’t there any boys you can play with?”
Purdy shook his head. “The boys in this town are all morons.”
“Oh. Well, I didn’t say you had to play chess with them. How about the girls?”
His mother’s raised eyebrow told him he’d better be careful with his answer. “And the girls…” Purdy said, “are all too smart to mess with me.”
His mother laughed. “Well, at least that much will change. Once they get to be teenagers girls get a good sight dumber about boys. Besides, you’re good looking.”
“You have to say that because you’re my mother.”
“No, I don’t have to say it ‘cause I’m your mother. I have to say it ‘cause you look like me.”
Purdy’s mother did, in fact, look quite a bit like him, the same red hair and green eyes, but where Purdy’s countenance was generally closed and suspicious, Doreen nearly always looked to be on the verge of giggling. Adult faces are of two sorts. When you look at some adults you see ahead to what they will look like when they become old, see where the skin will sag and eyes will sink, where all the little lines will deepen and set. The faces of other adults point backwards. You can clearly see what they looked like when they were young children, detect, beneath the façade of maturity, youthful anxiety and glee. Doreen Hooper’s face fell into the latter category. Looking at her you could easily imagine her as a child, running through the forests with her sister and cousins, or watching with hushed expectation as her father made a show of lighting the Christmas tree for the first time.
When his mother had left the room Purdy returned to writing his latest adventure.
The other punk came around the corner. “Crab Boy!” he said, and pulled out his gun. “You know what? I hate seafood.”
“Well,” said Crab Boy, “I hate greasy, gun-toting slime burgers like you. Does that make us even?”
The punk started shooting. With super speed, Crab Boy’s giant claw flicked away all the bullets – Ping! Ping! Ping! When the punk’s gun was empty he threw it and ran. Before he reached the door Crab Boy’s giant claw grabbed the back of his jacket and tossed him into the air so forcefully the punk’s head got stuck in the ceiling.
“Clean up on aisle nine,” said Crab Boy.
“It’s a good story,” said a voice.
“Thanks,” said Purdy. Then, startled, he sat straight up. He looked for a moment at his pet crab, and then swiveled in his chair, looking all around the room. “Who said that?”
There were a few moments of silence and then the voice spoke again. “You can hear me?”
“Yes, I can hear you,” said Purdy, standing up now, and shaking a bit. “Who are you? Where are you?” All he heard in response was the sound of muffled sobbing.