The Indestructible Man Read Online Free Page A

stagehands ran to his aid.
     
    After the stage crew helped him to his feet and he showed the audience he was unhurt, he walked across a bed of small explosives, fire and sparks erupting around him. As he brushed the dust from his singed clothes, an old baby grand dropped on his head, disintegrating into a splintery mess. Romulus slowly dug himself out of the wreckage, smiled politely and waved as the audience applauded, and sat down beside the host’s desk.
     
    He answered the host’s questions politely: he headlined a touring stage act; he used no stuntmen; it was not a good idea for anyone to attempt to copy him; no, he would not reveal the secret of his invincibility; yes, he was married; they had just bought a place in New York; yes, she traveled with him. Bobby waited for Romulus to say her name. He never did.

    Romulus rattled off his tour dates for the next couple of weeks; none were within driving distance. When the show went to commercial, Bobby switched off the TV. It might not be her, he thought; there were millions of women in New York; Romulus and Abigail must have parted years ago. But the more he tried to convince himself otherwise, the more he suspected it was her.

    He finally shook the thought; that business had been over for ten years. He had a job and a life. He had Cindy. Still, he decided not to watch Romulus on TV again; the power button was his best weapon, and as long as he was willing to use it, Romulus Wayne could never touch him.
     
    For nearly a month he watched only PBS; there were no commercials and the documentaries put him to sleep faster than any pill. He drank beer with Brooks and let Cindy wheel him through the park by the river, and thought very little of Romulus Wayne.
     
    One day, after his physical therapist finished the painful job of stretching and bending his legs, he wheeled himself to the newsstand and bought a paper. As he flipped through his thumb caught the edge of the “Arts and Entertainment” section. The cover story caught his eye—a feature on the Indestructible Man’s traveling show. He studied the gathered troupe: a hairy, grotesquely-muscled bald man with a cheesy handlebar mustache; an Indian with black hair down to his waist, a long bow over his shoulder; a thin man in a long caftan dotted with embroidered eyes; and in the center, Romulus Wayne. But no Abigail—he wondered if she had been there, just out of camera range. The caption read, “The Indestructible Man and his Human Marvels.” Bobby stared for a long time, his sweaty fingertips absorbing the ink from the paper. In ten days Romulus and the Human Marvels were to perform at the Simms Theater in Rockford, an hour away. Bobby balled the insert in his hand and wheeled down the sidewalk, searching for a phone booth to look up the Simms’ box office. He did not know what he would see at the show; he only knew he was going.
     

     
    Since the Self-Help van did not go as far as Rockford, Bobby had to ask Brooks to drive him. He knew it would take some convincing, since Brooks rarely left town for fear of being recognized.
     
    “Is it really that important?” Brooks asked.
     
    “Yeah.”
     
    “All right, then. But if anybody even gives me a sideways look, I’m outta there.”  
     
    He did not tell Cindy where he was going or why. Had he mentioned the show she would’ve wanted to come; had she known the whole truth, she would have thrown something at him. He could already think of a hundred good reasons not to go, and did not need another.
     
    By the time the minibus pulled into the Simms’ parking garage Bobby’s hands were raw from clinging to the rail. With Brooks in tow, Bobby—in a black baseball hat and zip-up sweatshirt with the hood up—wheeled himself toward the stage. They were early; the auditorium was empty except for a stagehand examining a shiny black grand piano hanging unsteadily over the set, and a white-haired grizzly of a man who walked in behind Bobby and Brooks. Bobby