Sunday, December 13, 2009

Snowfall

Superman: We had the first snow of the, well, I guess not year and not quite winter yet, but of this cold season; that doesn’t sound right, either, because it’s not that cold season, the illness kind, but the temperature one.

Irreconcilable Dictions: It snowed, we got it.

S: Right. But that point, the one I’m still groping for, is that I was cold. Not just that seeing your breath, maybe I should have put on a hoodie cold, but the feel it in your bones cold, the way my great aunt used to say she was cold, no matter how many blankets you put on her, she couldn’t stay warm, because the cold was in her bones.

I’m not, I’m not thinking clearly right now; I’ve had a headache the better part of the week, though it’s a bit more acute right now.

ID: So you decided to finally come record this week’s segment when you were at your absolute least useful.

S: Hmm. That actually annoys you. You put up a good front of affrontation, but very little actually irritates you. But this, you take this interview seriously, don’t you?

ID: All evidence to the contrary?

S: I know, now that I’ve called you on it, it’s natural to want to pull back, to become even more evasive and cold. I don’t think, you don’t just spend hours on end week after week talking and discussing with someone without growing attached to them. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t, I don’t know, friends might be much, since I have trouble seeing you holding my hand in a hospital room, but I think there’s some kind of a respect and affection there. Hell, I wouldn’t have approached you in the first place if I didn’t hold some respect for you on a professional level

ID: Respect which I have tried, systematically, to undermine since you introduced yourself to me.

S: You both have and you haven’t. I think for all the world you wanted to play it both ways, give me my Frost/Nixon grilling while giving me a forum to express myself; I think at times you willfully denigrated yourself, personally and professionally, to make sure I came out the cleaner of the two of us.

ID: To level with you? The work is important; this is, for parts of the public, your last will and testament. Given everything you’ve done in your life, it’s a responsibility for both of us to do this right.

And I never thought you’d go fishing for it, but of course I respect you- in the same vein I respect soldiers and firemen and police. I know you work and you sacrifice for the good of a lot of people. And I know that I’m a writer, that there’s some sacrifice but that mostly I’ve chosen to do what I love, and the fact that the stories I tell and the light I shed is a byproduct of that fairly selfish decision, it’s ancillary and even unintended.

So yes, coming into the interview, of course I respected you, and of course, by virtue of who you are, of course I bore some residual affection for you. But I think you give me too much of a pass, that I have a bit too much of that wholly American sense of iconoclasm: we love our stars, our celebrities, or heroes- but we love their destruction more.

And journalistically, I’ve never set out to treat you any differently than any of my other interview subjects. I have; I’m still objective enough to recognize my bias, at least some of the time, but I hope on balance that I’ve shot as straight down the middle as possible.

S: I notice you sidestepped the important point: namely, that over the course of this last year, I’ve grown fond of you. And you don’t have to say you reciprocate, and I wouldn’t take it personally if you didn’t.

You have been a pain, in my backside and elsewhere, a perpetual thorn in my palm and my side. But I’ll miss you.

ID: Do you think it’s time for that? Time to say goodbye?

S: It’s never too early to say goodbye. I just always hope that it’s not for the last time.

ID: And I’d like to end there, it’s, too pretty not to, but I have to ask, I have to know. Has something changed? A new test result, do you feel differently?

S: No. And I think that’s the problem. Nothing has changed. I continue to decline at a predictable rate. I’m cold. And I’m tired. And I don’t want my last thoughts to be about how my pride prevented me from saying goodbye one last time. So goodbye.

ID: Goodbye.

(pause)

Wait. I’ll see you next week.

S: I sincerely hope so.

We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.