A Superhero Is Born

Future superhero Jett McCloud and supercat Ping

Skylar Bolt was always an outlier.

Mom was all about blending in, like the neighbors, raising two kids in what seemed like a simpler life that kept people planted in their hometowns and married at an alter.

Mom grew up rag poor. She only wanted to give Skylar things that she never had; hand-sewn dresses with puff sleeves, a Barbiesque bedroom blooming with 50 shades of pink, in essence, a better life than growing up in a cinder-block townhouse wedged between two bars. It wasn't the best neighborhood.

Skylar only knew that there was always food on the table and clean bed sheets on Sunday. She didn’t know to push back until she thought she had a voice to make choices. But the air of authority was choking in the Bolt household. She couldn’t catch a breath that permitted her to step outside the norm.

When she wanted to play the drums, Mom called around to find a piano teacher. Turned out to be a neighbor who lived a few blocks away. So old that the veins underneath her thin, white skin looked like an integrated circuit. She focused Skylar's repertoire on the classics, not the move-your-body music she loved.

Skylar stuck it out, then stopped practicing. She was never going to play with the soul of an Edvard Grieg, and, God forbid Mom would waste a dime on something that wasn't going to pay off. When Skylar asked for tap dance lessons, Mom signed her up for ballet. Skylar sucked at ballet. As pretty and slender as she was, Skylar had bowlegs. Nobody else in class did, and that made her feel self-conscious.

Whatever Mom put her in, Skylar noticed someone better, especially that boy, Peter, in high school. A gifted pianist, at least Skylar thought he deserved the title of pianist. When he sat down to play, Peter could bring the house down, and he did.

Skylar's life was something Mom wanted to inherit but couldn't because, well, age is supposed to define behavior. Not for Skylar. Maybe it was Harvey, her imaginary friend who lived under her canopy bed, or something that a young child would struggle to articulate. But she knew there was a different life beyond the city limits of Barkley, Missouri. Her cousin found it in California, and she dated Batman, the Adam West one.

Dad let Skylar tap into her hidden desires, to a point. He was always on the wilder side. With Dad by her side, Skylar learned to fish, catch bullfrogs and bugs in the vast field a few miles from their home. Dad had a big old barn, the kind you'd see along a country road. Inside, there were tractors, bales of straw stacked to the rafters and that frightful bear trap. When the barn door swung open, Dad spread his arms and directed his voice with a cue that warned Skylar to think twice. Tripping the trap would have killed anyone.

At home, Skylar closed her bedroom door to shut out the real world. For a while, she played with her Barbie doll and imagined what life would be like as a mom. But Skylar lost interest in Barbie when she discovered trolls. They had long, up-combed colorful hair, almost electrifying. She begged Mom to buy them a cool house that looked like something the Flintstones lived in. She adorned them in knitted outfits. Capes, hats, even a tan coat with a real fur collar. Grandma made all of them.

Throughout her childhood, Skylar escaped into her imaginary world, exploring the jungles pictured in National Geographic, drawing herself as an astronaut, recording herself reading the news as if she were a TV reporter. She learned the mood of colors from drawing and how to take pictures and edit audio from Dad.

He was a camcorder fanatic, amassing years of B roll for every milestone event in her life. When he compiled Skylar's birthday reel, Dad could advance the tape to the precise moment Skylar made a wish. He always registered the time and wrote it on the VCR label. But Skylar didn’t like her birthday reel because her breasts never got bigger, even through high school. There was no pretending that could change that.

She always compared her figure with the girls who had curves. They got picked for homecoming queen and the varsity cheerleader squad. They had dates and got invited to all the best parties. Skylar wasn't part of their world and turned inward to indulge in her fantasies. Yet, she shared a dream with Mom about walking down the runway as Miss America. Every year, they’d tune in and eat popcorn on the couch, singing along with Bert Parks as he belted, “There she is, Miss America….

As Skylar got older, she felt as if she lived in two states at the same time that became increasingly entangled and interdependent. Mom encoded her to conform, but there was a part of her brain that had assigned her a different destiny. The challenge to find it began to intensify when other worlds opened up for her to explore.