The Amazing Adventures of Phoenix Jones: And the Less Amazing Adventures of Some Other Real-Life Superheroes: An eSpecial From Riverhead Books Read Online Free Page B

I tell Phoenix.
    I can practically hear his heart pounding.
    “They had the weapons, the numbers, but they backed down to the image of Phoenix Jones,” he says.
    “I’m going to bed,” I say.
    “We’ll stand here for ten minutes and solidify the corner,” he replies. “You don’t want to stand with us?”
    “No,” I say. “I definitely don’t.”
    I jump into the taxi. And when I arrive back at the hotel my legs buckle and I almost fall onto the floor.
    5 am , Phoenix telephones. He’s shrieking with laughter, babbling, hyperventilating, letting out all the adrenaline.
    “That was ridiculously intense!” he’s yelling. “In a few hours I’ve got to be a daycare worker!”
    It is the next afternoon. There’s a comic convention in town. I spot Knight Owl and one of Phoenix’s friends, Skyman.
    “Ooh, look, The Rocketeer!” says Skyman. “You never see Rocketeer costumes! That is PRICELESS! I gotta get me a photo of that! Ooh! Lady Riddler! Nice!”
    Skyman approaches a Batman.
    “Is that a real bulletproof outfit?” he asks him.
    “No,” Batman replies, a little apologetically.
    “This place,” I tell Knight Owl, “is full of costumed people who would never confront drug dealers in the middle of the night. You and Phoenix and Skyman exist in some shadow world between fantasy and reality.”
    “Yeah, man,” Knight Owl replies. “What we do is HYPER reality!”
    And then there are cheers and gasps and applause. Phoenix Jones has arrived. He is a superstar here. He sees me and we hug—two brave warriors who have been through a great adventure together.
    “Thank you for making our city safe!” a woman in the crowd calls out to him.
    “You’re a very cool man!” someone else shouts.
    I tell Phoenix it is time for me to leave.
    “When you write this be sure to tell everyone that what we do is dangerous,” he says.
    “I think you’re great,” I say. “But I’m worried you’re going to get yourself killed.”
    “Well, don’t make it seem like I’d be dying for a choice,” he replies. “I couldn’t quit if I wanted. You know how many people in this city look up to me? I’m like the state’s hero.”
    And I suddenly realize that I feel about Phoenix the same way everyone here does. I think he is an awesome superhero.

    Phoenix Jones, REAL superhero.
     
    As I walk out I hear a father whisper to his young son, “That’s a REAL superhero.”
    “Are you a real superhero?” the little boy asks Phoenix.
    “I’m real as you can get,” Phoenix replies.

 
    Afterword
    Six months pass and then, one day in mid-October 2011, Phoenix is everywhere. My first thought when I see, via my Google news search, that 433 media outlets have in a matter of hours published articles about Phoenix, is that he must be dead.
    It turns out that he isn’t dead.

Self-proclaimed Seattle crime fighter “Phoenix Jones” was arrested early Sunday morning when he pepper sprayed a group of people leaving a club. Now, in the aftermath, his identity has been revealed. Phoenix Jones is actually Benjamin Fodor. He is 23 years old, lives in Seattle and is a Mixed Martial Artist. Seattle police detective Jeff Kappel said the group was leaving a club near 1st Avenue about 2:30 a.m. when Fodor, in costume, intervened.
“They were dancing and having a good time,” Kappel said. “An unknown adult male suspect came up from behind and pepper sprayed the group.”
—Seattle’s Q13 Fox News Online, October 10, 2011
     
    Hours later one of the partygoers—a woman named by the media only as Maria—gives an interview to a Seattle radio station, King/5:

“We were just walking down to our parking lot after having a good time in Seattle, when a little argument broke out between our group and another group, and all of a sudden we were attacked. I turn around and we’re being attacked by these guys wearing Halloween costumes. He says, ‘I’m a superhero’ and sprays everyone. Nothing gives him a right to do that.