Issue 1
Part One of 'The Boonditch Affair'

The bridges out of Premise City were clogged with people trying to leave, hoping to enjoy the weekend in country homes away from the hustle and bustle of their week.

Smog, thick with exhaust fumes, curled up through the streets, mixing with the mist that drifted along the first stories of the building.

A train emerged from a subway tunnel, shaking the hotel’s windows and sending sparks off the tracks before disappearing beneath the city again.

In his fourth floor room at the Blue Light Motel, Kane Yess took a long draw on his cigarette and watched the city.

Behind him, Diana…at least that was the name she had told him… sat up in the bed, drawing the sheet up to her breasts in modesty.

Seeing the movement in the window’s reflection, Kane shook his head. Sex was the last thing on his mind.

Diana rose from the bed, wrapping the sheet around her as she moved to the bathroom to get dressed and touch up her make-up. Walking up behind him, she put her arms around his waist and hugged his back. He absently reached down to touch her hand before taking another drag of his cigarette.

“Don’t be upset Kane, it happens to a lot of men. I know heaps of guys that…”

He raised his hand and she fell silent. He knew what she had been about to say, and wanted to hear it less than he wanted to try and have sex again.

She hugged him again and moved away.

Picking up her purse, she took the two hundred dollars from the dresser and slipped it in before leaving, quietly closing the door so she wouldn’t disturb him.

Kane watched her leave in the window’s reflection.

He took a final drag of the cigarette and stubbed it out on the windowsill. Walking to the bed to get dressed, he gripped the bedpost as he tried to calm down. He was angry. Two hundred bucks and for what, thirty seconds of foreplay and then a shit load of embarrassment.

Hearing wood splinter, he quickly let go of the bedpost.

‘One day,’ he thought. ‘One day, I am gonna bloody get there!’

He had read in a magazine once…Cosmo he thinks…that wearing a cock ring would increase a man’s stamina. Looking down at his pecker, eight rings gleamed in the fluorescent light.

He pulled them off, one by one, until all eight had been thrown to the floor in disgust. “Fat lot of good that did me,” He said aloud to the empty room. He had thought of using nine, but had run out of room.

Slipping on his shirt and jeans and doing up his belt, he lit another cigarette. Grabbing his wallet, keys, and the overnight bag that held his superhero costume, he left room 414.

Exiting the lift and walking to the receptionist’s desk, he paid his bill in cash and slipped the receptionist a twenty. She smiled at him, full red lips parting to show perfect white teeth.

As she leaned forward to hand him his receipt, he realised the top button of her blouse was undone, inviting him to look at her quite reasonable cleavage.

He thought of the eight metal cock rings lying on the cheap carpet in the cheap hotel room upstairs, and the two hundred bucks he had just given some woman for thirty two seconds work. Thinking of that, he smiled and leaned over the counter, taking the twenty bucks back and putting it back in his wallet.

As he left the hotel, he got another look at her perfect white teeth as she told him to fuck off.

It had stopped raining, and the mist, no longer kept down, began spreading upwards. It curled around the neon lights of jazz clubs and bars where topless waitresses would give you more than a drink if the price is right.

Putting the twenty back in his wallet, he counted the notes to see all he had left; fifty five measly dollars. Looking across the street at a bar called ‘The Happy Spot’, he turned away. Fifty five would barely cover drinks and the cover charge.

He walked back towards Main Street, trying to work out what he would do for the rest of the night with only fifty-five. He had left his credit cards at home. It’s awful hard to resist a pretty lady when she pulls out a mobile EFTPOS machine and smiles.

Water splashed from puddles, wetting the cuffs of his jeans and the inside of his trench coat.

Off to his right, down a side street, he heard the echo of a scream. Stopping, he turned his head in that direction and was rewarded with another cry for help.

Smiling, he wouldn’t have to spend any of the fifty-five. He pulled out his Ericsson R310S – shock, water and dust proof, essential in his line of work – and pressed one as he started down the side street.

“Good evening, sir. Are you enjoying your Friday night?”

“Gerbil, there’s something going on. Meet me at the corner of Drag Street and Queens Boulevard.”

“Certainly, sir. I will be there in five minutes.”

The phone went dead in his ear and he pushed it into his pocket as he ran.

Water sprayed behind him as he sped up, a blur to the few people in the street.

He stopped where he said he would meet Gerbil, listening carefully for a sound. A scream came again, louder and more desperate. It came from the alleyway across the street.

There was no time to wait for Gerbil.

Cursing, he searched around for somewhere he could change without anyone seeing him. Further up the street, he saw a phone booth and made his way there. Reaching it, he swore again. It was one of the modern ones, a pole with a phone on it.

Cursing again, he heard another scream, more desperate. At the entrance of the alleyway was a dumpster, marked Foo Tan’s Chinese Restaurant only. Grimacing, he sped across the street and hopped in.

Moments later, the lid of the dumpster sprang open as a bolt of red shot into the sky, special fried rice and scraps of chicken chow mien dropping to the cobblestones around him. Above the buildings, pulling a piece of mushu pork from behind his ear, he looked around.

The top of the building was empty, a metal fence blocking the view from the street. He could have changed there without anyone seeing him. Popping the mushu pork into his mouth, he shrugged and floated closer to street level.

There was another scream as he flew around the corner of the alley, two stories above ground. Looking up, he saw an old woman through an apartment window, holding a towel tight to her body, steam coming from the bathroom behind her.

Blushing, he flew closer to apologise and she reached out and slapped him, almost knocking off his mask before the window was slammed shut and the curtains drawn.

Behind the window, he heard her mutter. “Honestly, what is this world coming to, people learning to fly just so they can peep at poor women taking a shower. Honestly!”

Putting his mask back on properly, he rose to the top of the building and flew to the end of the alley.

Below him, five men in studded leather kilts surrounded a woman in a beige business suit. Golden curls swayed as she spun, trying to keep the can of pepper spray on all of them.

“Ach! Why are ye fightin’ us lassie. All we wanna do is play for a bet. Hey lads, the wee lassie no wan’ play.”

He recognised the voice as one of Boonditch’s henchmen, Kuffs. Boonditch ran the Scottish organised crime racket in Premise City, and he had been waiting for him to rear his red bearded head again.

He spun in the air and let himself fall, flying only enough to steer. With a crunch, he landed on the head of the first henchmen.

“Leave her alone, Kuffs.”

They sprung away from him in fear, forming a line with Kuffs in the centre. The woman tried to run but one of them grabbed her.

A toothpick sticking out of his mouth, Kuffs smiled at him.

“Et’s aboot bloody time ye showed up, Inadequate Man. We’ve been waitin’ fer bleedin’ ages!”

“It’s bloody Eradicate Man! How many times do I have to tell people!” he yelled at them. “Anyway, Kuffs, I’m here now, so let her go and I might let you walk away.”

He spaced his legs out and put his hands on his hips. He did not look as formidable as usual. His latex superhero costume was wrinkled from being in the bag, and there were stains on the right shoulder from the mushu pork.

Kuffs smiled, slipping on a pair of brass knuckles.

“Hoo’s aboot we just take the lassie with us, and leave ye here, broken n’ bleedin’ on the groond, hey?”

Kuffs raised his hand and two henchmen came forward, one swinging a chain and the other a long plastic odd-shaped stick. Standard weapons for Boonditch’s gang.

Inadequate ducked under the swing of the chain and hit the thug hard in the ribs. The man with the plastic stick speared him the shoulder, pushing him into a wall.

The henchman smiled as he flicked a switch at the stick’s base and the top started vibrating, grinding into his suit. Shaking his head, Inadequate Man knocked the weapon from his hands and struck him a blow to the head.

Another three henchmen came towards him, but he was too fast. He leapt into the air and flew straight ahead, arms out wide. His fists slammed into the first two’s stomachs as he shot past them, spinning them in the air before they fell to the ground, gasping for breath.

Just before reaching the third, Inadequate Man arched his back and flew straight up, the top of his head smashing into the thug’s chin.

Seeing stars, Inadequate Man stopped just in time before careening into a wall.

“Mental note’ he thought as he picked himself off the alley floor, ‘don’t try the giant prick attack unless wearing the prick helmet.’

He ducked under the swing of another thug, this one armed with a riding crop with spurs on his boots.

Throwing the henchmen into a wall, trying not to look up their leather kilts to check whether the Scottish really wore anything underneath, he flew towards Kuffs, who now held the woman.

Kuffs spat out the toothpick and pulled out a revolver. Aiming, he fired off a shot, the shell impacting into Inadequate Man’s shoulder.

Spinning into the ground, he stood up and sneered as he flicked puddle water off of his suit.

“You think a bullet will stop me? Hello! My suit is made of Latex! Everyone knows that wearing a rubber is the ultimate protection.”

“That as it maey bee Inadequate Man, boot mebbe I just wonted ye to be in tha’ spoot so I cen drop a buildin’ on ye!” He pulled a remote from his pocket and pressed the button, laughing.

“The name is bloody Eradic-”

Explosions shot from the base of an office building, flames shooting out at him and muffling his words. Bricks and mortar crashed into the alleyway, barely missing him as he dove for the cover of a doorway. Rubble glanced off his back but didn’t hurt him – latex suit, ultimate protection and all that.

He heard the explosions begin to quieten down, only to be replaced with a growing rumble, like being in the centre of an earthquake. The ground trembled, popping cobblestones out of the alleyway floor and into the air.

Ominously, he heard the trembles turn to the sound of cracking, followed by the scream of tortured metal girders giving way.

Three floors of office building crashed down into the alleyway, blocking both ways. Above him, the building flexed as the concrete impacted against it, but held.

The night sky was blocked by rubble, small rivers of gravel trickling down the cracks and filling them in, shutting off access to air.

After a few minutes the rumbles completely stopped as the collapsed building settled into place. In the distance, he could hear the sound of sirens heading towards the explosion.

Muffled through all the rubble, he heard laughter.

“Like I said to ye, I take the lassie wit’ me, and ye get a buildin’ drooped on yer ‘ead.” The laughing faded as Kuffs left.

Everything was dark around him and he felt the air grow thick. Shivering, he began to worry. He pushed but even his super strength couldn’t move the crushed concrete and bricks.

Swallowing, he thought, ‘How the hell am I going to get out of this one?”

Could this be the death of Inadequate Man? And in the first issue as well? I guess you’ll have to read Issue 2 to find out.

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Copyright © 2001.
Any queries can be sent to inadequateman@hotmail.com