Dirt Man Season 1

1. Episode 1
2. Episode 2
3. Episode 3
4. Episode 4
5. Episode 5
6. Episode 6
7. Episode 7
8. Episode 8
9. Episode 9
10. Episode 10

Eastside housing development, Gargle City

Dirt Man and Ecology Youth walked down the street in gloomy silence. After leaving Ethel’s Used Books Emporium and their dead-end confrontation with the former Black Panthers, they had decided to walk through the Eastside housing development to the bus depot bordering the industrial section of town to give them time to debrief. Evening was falling, and although it was still light enough to see, the roadside lights were beginning to come on.

“I still can’t believe that we confronted the Black Panthers for nothing,” said Ecology Youth. He’d been saying things along this theme for the past fifteen minutes, and Dirt Man was beginning to get sick of it. He was also beginning to doubt that they had really understood the distance involved with crossing Eastside housing.

“Yeah,” said Dirt Man. “I wish I knew why Detective Walker was so wrong.”

“That’s been bugging me, too,” said Ecology Youth. “From what you said, he sounded like he should be pretty well in the know. You don’t suppose he lied to us?”

“Of course not,” said Dirt Man. “The Commissioner himself told him to tell us what he knew.”

They walked on past several houses in despondent silence. Dirt Man looked up, wondering when they would finally reach the bus station and he could get to his trailer.

Across the street he noticed a man in a trench coat turn off the sidewalk and walk around the back of a house.

“Bizarre,” said Dirt Man. “I could have sworn I just saw Detective Walker across the street, and he walked around back of that house.”

Ecology Youth looked at the house Dirt Man was pointing to, and just at that moment a shadow flickered past the darkened front window.

“Dirt Man,” said Ecology Youth. “I really think we should see what’s going on at that house.”

Dirt Man thought about this. On the one hand, it looked like something odd was going on. On the other hand, he’d already been vastly wrong once today, and relaxing in his trailer was sounding better every passing minute. As he deliberated, several large men came down the street at a fast walk from the other direction, and turned into the house. The front door opened without obvious prompting as they advanced up the drive, and they all entered. The door shut behind them.

“You’re right,” said Dirt Man. “There’s definitely something odd going on. Follow me.”

Dirt Man and Ecology Youth crossed the street in the twilight, and moved with moderate stealth to the front door. “Follow my lead,” said Dirt Man quietly, and he gently took hold of the door knob to ease the door open and scope out the situation inside. Unfortunately, the door was locked.

If he had known any horribly profane words, Dirt Man would have used them. Unfortunately, he hadn’t hung out with the right circle of friends in high school and had missed out on that particular educational experience. In point of fact, he had had more of a triangle of acquaintances than a circle of friends, which certainly hadn’t helped him out much.

Ecology Youth had a few choice phrases in mind, but was too polite to upstage Dirt Man’s mutely angry moment and too careful to give away their presence so easily. He motioned suggestively to the side of the house instead. Dirt Man nodded, and moved away around the house.

Their luck was in. Barely ten feet along the side of the house was a slightly cracked window. With some effort, they were able to force the window further open, and with a boost from Ecology Youth, Dirt Man found himself standing in a darkened room that appeared to be an office. Behind him Ecology Youth hoisted himself over the sill, and slipped into the room. The light from a street lamp glanced through the window and glinted briefly off his yellow lenses.

Moving carefully, Dirt Man circled the room to the door, miraculously missing tripping over any furniture, and leaned out into the entryway. Although the front room was dark and apparently empty, down the hall light filtered around a cracked doorway and rough voices carried to Dirt Man’s ears.

Dirt Man crept into the hallway, and sidled along the wall towards the lit doorway. Behind him, Ecology Youth slipped across the hall and into the front room. There was the sound of a muted scuffle and a brief thunk, but Dirt Man didn’t notice. He was too busy sidling.

According to Lesson 11 of the Happy Hero(ine) Correspondence Course–The Subtle Art of Stealth, Or How To Be A Freaking Ninja In Seven Easy Steps–walls were put on this earth to be sidled along. Only the rashest of amateurs would ever even consider walking brazenly down a corridor into the teeth of the enemy. The mark of the true pro lies in his or her ability to sidle well and without a second thought.

Unfortunately for Dirt Man, it took him significantly more than just a second thought. Sidling often took him a third or fourth thought at the minimum. This was possibly thanks to the fact that he was the polar opposite of a “freaking ninja.” Besides lacking that certain je ne sais quoi he took to stealth like a fish to flight, hated sharp things (katanas and shuriken included), looked terrible in black, and thought that a garrote was likely a stylish type of French food when he thought about it at all. Thus sidling presented him with quite enough to keep him distracted, but as his second grade teacher always used to say in despair, “Well, you’re nothing if not persistent.”

As Dirt Man sidled with all his might, bits of conversation drifted by his ears.

“But he’s a goddamn detective!” said one voice, low.

“All the better,” said another. “One less of the bastards to worry about.”

Someone cursed, and there was the sound of blows being exchanged, ending with the solid thump of a body hitting something solid.

“Shinterman is not going to be happy about this, I tell you,” said the first voice, somewhat more out of breath. “You can get away with stealing shit, but they’ll get you for murder.”

The back door opened, then shut. “What’s the matter?” said a third voice.

“Shinterman,” said the first voice. “I thought you were on the next block.”

“I was,” said the third voice. “Until I heard there was something going down here and hopped a few fences.”

“We’ve got a damned detective,” said the second voice. “We’re going to kill him.”

There was a brief silence. “Do it,” said Shinterman. “And then get him and yourselves the hell out.”

“Who the hell is that?” said someone else. Dirt Man looked up. He had sidled straight into the kitchen.

Ranged in front of him were four men, all dressed in the worn clothing of workers from the industrial district. Held splayed against a table by two of them was Detective Walker, his trench coat in disarray and his mouth covered with duct tape.

For a second or so, no one moved.

“Well, what do you know,” said Shinterman, looking at Dirt Man from across the kitchen. “Gargle City’s damned super hero, here to save the day.”

Dirt Man straightened up, and gave each of the robbers what probably, coming from someone slightly more intimidating, would have been a withering stare. “Release Detective Walker and no one needs to be hurt,” said Dirt Man.

Shinterman shrugged, and looked to the man standing in the middle of the kitchen and holding Walker’s gun. “Kill them both,” said Shinterman. The man raised the gun.

Dirt Man jumped into action. Unfortunately, so did everyone else.

The man with the gun had obviously been expecting Dirt Man to come for him, because he whipped the gun around at Dirt Man’s head. Luckily for Dirt Man, a man who he hadn’t noticed but who had been standing quite near the door kicked his legs out from under him just before the gun barrel connected with his skull. One of the men holding Walker piled onto Dirt Man as he hit the floor, while Walker twisted around and tried to kick the other man holding him down.

Shinterman stepped forward and slammed his fist into Walker’s face, throwing him back into the table where his head connected with a sharp crack. Walker slid to the floor, where blood dripped from his nose onto the kitchen tiles.

Meanwhile, Dirt Man flailed at the man who had fallen onto him, which briefly forced him back onto his knees. Rolling out from under him, Dirt Man ran directly into the path of the man by the door’s foot once more, which connected with his stomach and lifted him slightly into the air and back. He lay on the ground, out of breath and momentarily stunned.

The man by the door lined himself up for another kick, while the one on the floor aimed a punch at Dirt Man’s head. The one with the gun took aim at Walker. And then the side door to the kitchen opened and Ecology Youth stepped in.

The kitchen lights reflected off his lenses as he quickly glanced around the kitchen. He wasn’t smiling, and no one noticed the mildly goofy look of his earth-covered shirt or pseudo-spandex pants.

The man with the gun was turning to see what had come into the room when Ecology Youth’s foot connected with his hand, throwing the gun across the kitchen and sending him to his knees clutching his hand to his chest in pain. Ecology Youth’s elbow took the man by the door in the face, and he quickly followed it up with a kick to the head of the man on his knees by Dirt Man.

Walker’s second captor threw a punch at Ecology Youth, but he dodged it and came back with a solid hit to the stomach, which barely fazed the man. The two circled away from Dirt Man and toward the center of the kitchen, each seeking to subdue the other.

Dirt Man got painfully up, glanced to the corner of the room, ran over where Shinterman was leaning down to pick up Walker’s gun, and kicked him in the shins. Shinterman in turn punched him in the stomach, and then noticed that Ecology Youth had somehow managed to subdue his last remaining gang member and was heading his way.

Shinterman cursed and ran for the door, slamming it behind him in the face of Ecology Youth. Ecology Youth abruptly changed direction and ran over to Dirt Man.

“Are you hurt?” said Ecology Youth. Dirt Man stood straighter somewhat painfully.

“Always with the stomach,” he said. “We’ve got to help Detective Walker.”

Between the two of them they were able to rouse him, and help him out of the house. “My car’s around the corner,” said Detective Walker. “We need to get out of here before more of them show up.”

* * *

Shinterman ran through yards, jumping fences and avoiding the light from windows. Jumping a final fence, he shoved his way into a darkened house where a group of men were taking the final electronics out to a van parked in a nearby alley. “Come with me,” he said.

They arrived at the house to find their fellow gang members helping each other out of the house and into the back yard.

“Where are they,” growled Shinterman.

“They ran off,” said one of them. “That bastard broke Vic’s hand.”

“We’re going, now,” said Shinterman. “Damn cops will be here too soon.” Shinterman looked out at the road, his gaze hard. “We’ll find that damned hero later. And he won’t like it one bit.”

* * *

Karen Young looked up from a plate containing the remnants of a blueberry crisp into the light eyes of Sill and smiled. “That was delicious,” she said.

“This is one of my favorites,” said Sill. A waiter silently drifted over, a soul of efficiency. Sill shook his head slightly, and the waiter drifted off. They wouldn’t be bothered anymore, even for a check. When you own the restaurant, they don’t bring a check.

Karen sipped the last of a glass of wine like none she had ever dreamed of being able to taste. “That really was a wonderful meal,” she said.

“I’m very glad you enjoyed it,” said Sill. “There’s a park just down the street. Would you like to walk with me?”

Karen watched the light refract through her wine, glistening within the crystal of the glass. After a moment, she drank the last dregs of wine, and set the glass down on the table.

“Sure,” said Karen. “I think I would enjoy that quite a bit.”

Dirt Man Season 1

1. Episode 1
2. Episode 2
3. Episode 3
4. Episode 4
5. Episode 5
6. Episode 6
7. Episode 7
8. Episode 8
9. Episode 9
10. Episode 10

Ethel’s Used Books Emporium, old downtown area of Gargle City

Dirt Man and Sam stood outside the aging brick façade of Ethel’s Used Book Emporium, looking up at the smiling grandmotherly face of Ethel painted on the sign.

“Maybe it’s just me,” said Dirt Man, “but this doesn’t look like the hideout of what was once the most feared gang in Gargle City.”

“Trust me,” said Sam. “My sources are the best.” This was true; although it was not widely known, the high school rumor mill of which Sam was a part was one of the most effective intelligence-gathering entities in the city, as long as the person gathering intelligence knew how to pick the facts from the dross of high school hormone-induced drama. The only network more effective was Sill’s legion of informants, most of whom were high school graduates from Sam’s school district.

“Well then,” said Dirt Man, straightening his DirtSuit™. “I guess we should find out what these Black Panthers are made of.”

Sam adjusted his mask, golden lenses glinting. His first action, and he was ready.

Dirt Man opened the door, and they entered the Emporium. The small bells attached to the door’s inside handle tinkled.

The large white man behind the cash register looked up at the noise. He was definitely not Ethel. The tattoo of a panther on his upper arm curled and undulated as he set down the book he had been reading.

“Can I help you?” asked the man.

Sam glanced around the room, and noticed that the only other person who appeared to be there was another tough-looking white man pushing a cart of books down amongst the shelves, re-shelving books. He wasn’t Ethel, either.

“Everyone freeze!” said Dirt Man loudly in a tone completely unsuitable for the quiet ambience of a used book store. “I’m the super hero Dirt Man, and if anyone makes a wrong move I’ll blow you to kingdom come.” The man behind the till’s eyebrows lowered menacingly, and the person shelving books stopped with “Babes of Babylon” partly on the shelf and looked at Dirt Man and Sam with confusion. Dirt Man mentally kicked himself. Here he’d gone and mentally rehearsed his opening words, guaranteed by the Happy Hero(ine)™ Correspondence Course to strike fear into the hearts of any villainous scum within thirty feet, and he’d flubbed it. He knew he shouldn’t have watched a badly scripted action movie before going on the job.

Sam felt like it was about time that he made his own presence felt. “You Black Panthers had better watch out,” he said. “Dirt Man isn’t the only one here who means business. I’m his sidekick, Ecology Youth!”

Suddenly the atmosphere wasn’t anywhere near as threatening as it had been a moment before. “Ecology Youth?” said the man behind the register with incredulity.

“It’s a perfectly respectable name,” said Ecology Youth.

“Well yeah, but…Ecology Youth?” said the man. “Couldn’t you come up with something at least mildly threatening? I thought the dirty guy said he was a super hero. You two are not going to exactly strike fear in your enemies with names like Dirt Man and Ecology Youth.”

“I resent that,” said Dirt Man. “We tried damn hard to come up with that name. You realize that all the cool sounding names have been taken? Earth Boy, Mr. Planet, everything.”

“Hey!” said Ecology Youth. “Ecology Youth is cool!”

“Sure it is,” said the man. “If you’re hanging out with a bunch of nerdy tree-huggers. Wake up and smell reality, kid.”

“Screw talking to them,” said Ecology Youth, glaring at the two Black Panthers. “Let’s just beat hell out of them. Won’t be robbing anyone then.”

“Wait just a minute,” said Dirt Man, eyeing the muscles underlying the panther tattoo. “We won’t get any information if they’re unconscious.”

“You punk,” said the man behind the till. “You couldn’t knock out a gnat.”

“Well,” said Dirt Man uncomfortably. “Let’s not get into that, alright?”

The unfortunate truth was that in actuality Dirt Man could not knock out a gnat. He couldn’t even stun it for the short time necessary to find some Kleenex and end its annoyingly gnatty life once and for all. He wasn’t sure why this was, but while he could whale on flies, smash mosquitoes, and otherwise wreak havoc amongst creepy crawly things of all sorts, he could not harm gnats. When he was in Sunday school his teacher had told them that this merely proved that God existed and had a sense of humor. Dirt Man was rather more inclined to believe that it meant he was, in some dark secret place in his soul, a pacifist.

Dirt Man had heard of logic, but the whole idea seemed a bit suspect to him.

“You must have the brains of a gnat to be insulting Gargle City’s greatest super hero,” said Ecology Youth.

“Would you stop provoking the suspect?” said Dirt Man. “I really would prefer answers to gratuitous violence.”

“I haven’t seen a nice bit of violence in a long time,” said the man by the register, walking around it into the open. “Don’t hold yourselves back on account of me.” The other Black Panther picked up “Thorns of the Rose” (“Another Epic of Passion! by Karen Stadman” proclaimed the cover), and stalked down the aisle, smacking the volume into his palm.

Dirt Man sighed. “Well, if that’s how you want it, then. Let’s at least take this outside so Ethel doesn’t wander in and get hurt.”

The Black Panthers stopped mid-stalk and exchanged glances. “You seriously don’t know?” said the first. “What kind of a super hero are you, if you didn’t even case your target?”

“Eh?” said Dirt Man.

“Ethel doesn’t exist,” said the Panther. “She’s just there so that we can sell stuff. You ever heard of a used bookstore that did well that wasn’t run by an elderly aunt?”

“Come to think, I haven’t,” said Dirt Man. He’d known there was something wrong about walking into a bookstore and being confronted with two bulky gang members instead of a friendly gray-haired book matron, but he’d been concentrating so hard on remembering what he wanted to say that it had failed to really register.

“Who cares,” said Ecology Youth. “These thieves have it coming, and I’d rather get it done with right here and now.”

“Just hold on a minute,” said the Panther, holding up a hand to his friend, who had been hefting “Thorns of the Rose” even more menacingly. “Why do you two keep calling us thieves? As gratifying as it would be to beat you both into a bloody pulp, I’d hate to bring myself back to the law’s attention for a stupid misunderstanding.”

“I’m looking at you,” said Dirt Man, “so you’re already got the eye of the law on you.”

The Panther looked at Dirt Man for a minute, and thanks to years of dealing with megalomaniacal super villains was able to keep a straight face. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said.

“We have it on good authority that the Black Panthers are behind the recent string of robberies in Gargle City,” said Ecology Youth.

“Reliable?” said the Panther. “You idiots. The Black Panthers have been disbanded for years.”

“Then what are you two doing here,” said Dirt Man.

“I run Ethel’s Used Books Emporium and attend community college at night,” said the Panther. Pointing to the man wielding “Thorns of the Rose” he said, “He works for me because he got laid off from his construction job and I tend to give old friends a hand when I can.”

Ecology Youth stared hard at the Panther. “I think he’s serious.” He turned toward Dirt Man, lenses glinting. “Dirt Man, I don’t think the Black Panthers are behind the robberies.”

“What makes you so sure?” said Dirt Man. “They may just be lying to throw us off their trail.”

“If this man is who I think he is, then he would never do that,” said Ecology Youth. “The leader of the Black Panthers was legendary for never hiding any of his activities from anyone, even the cops. I have it on very good authority.”

“That would be me,” said the owner of Ethel’s Used Books Emporium. “And you damned well better believe that I’ve kept myself clean.”

“Well, shoot,” said Ecology Youth. “The Black Panthers were our only lead.”

“I’d like to have a word with whoever gave you that lead,” said the former Panther ominously. “I don’t appreciate people tossing dirt at me.”

“Lucky you didn’t try to fight me, then,” said Dirt Man.

“Shut up,” said the man with “Thorns of the Rose.” He’d been feeling left out of the conversation and wanted to contribute, but thanks to an unfortunate head injury that occurred once while he was shelving Westerns, he wasn’t quite as agile when it came to interjections as he once was. Dirt Man glared at him.

“I guess we’ll just be heading out, then,” said Ecology Youth dejectedly. He’d been hoping for some action, and it looked like this was a complete bust.

“Thanks for visiting,” said the former Panther, turning back toward the cash register. “Please come again.”

“What kind of a gang member are you?” asked Dirt Man with contempt. “This is the most pathetic outfit I’ve ever seen. You used to lead the most feared gang in Gargle City, and now you run a used bookstore posing as a nonexistent woman named Ethel and attending community college? I can’t believe this. It has to be the most pathetic story I’ve ever heard. If you were using this place as some sort of front, that would be one thing, but you really are scared of getting nailed again. You’re the worst coward I’ve met since coming to this town.” Dirt Man was working himself into a fine rage. As a new super hero in town he had been hoping to test his mettle on some truly dastardly villains and all he’d gotten so far was a couple of muggers and the lamest gang members on the face of the planet.

The former leader of the Black Panthers turned back from the register, and his eyes were about as warm as a glacier in winter. “Get out,” he said. “No one calls Edward Houle a coward. I entered Correth’s holding tank with nothing but a plastic knife. I defied the Front Man for three years, and then killed the person who killed him. I faced prison, death, and worse more times than I can count. I took the Black Panthers through Hell and back again, and when three quarters of us were lying in pieces on the Sella warehouse floor I dragged the survivors out through the back alley, not knowing whether or not the Reaper would return. And I own this store, so get out.”

Dirt Man sneered slightly. “So sell your romance novels,” he said, glancing deprecatingly at “Thorns of the Rose.” Turning on his heel, he headed out the door, Ecology Youth close behind. The bells on the door tinkled quietly.

The man with the romance novel watched Dirt Man stalk off down the street with Ecology Youth hurrying along behind, then turned to Houle. “He’s right, you know,” he said. Looking down at “Thorns of the Rose,” he gritted his teeth and tore the book in half. He held up two halves of the book. Houle looked at him sharply. “I’m not good at shelving, but I was good at breaking.”

Houle’s face was stone. “Throw that away,” he said. “And then watch the register. I have some phone calls to make.”

Dirt Man Season 1

1. Episode 1
2. Episode 2
3. Episode 3
4. Episode 4
5. Episode 5
6. Episode 6
7. Episode 7
8. Episode 8
9. Episode 9
10. Episode 10

Fine Dinin’ Restaurant and Lounge, outside the eastside housing district

The waitress slouching behind the cash register at the entrance of the Fine Dinin’ Restaurant and Lounge had looked strangely at Dirt Man as soon as he walked in the door, and as the minutes went by her glances had become more and more suspicious. Dirt Man was just about ready to go loiter nonchalantly outside when the restaurant doors opened and a man with chiseled features and a long tan trench coat walked in. His eyes quickly scanned the restaurant and immediately latched onto Dirt Man.

“I’m Detective Walker,” said the man, approaching Dirt Man. “I presume you are Dirt Man?”

Dirt Man smiled in relief. This detective looked like a man who could afford to foot the bill, so he wouldn’t have to fulfill the waitress’s negative expectations after all.

“Yep, I’m Dirt Man,” he said.

“Let’s get a table and we can talk,” said Walker. He looked to the waitress, who smiled like a piece of lettuce that has been under the cheese sticks for too long. “Is my usual table open?”

The waitress shrugged, and gestured toward the interior of the restaurant. “Seat yourself,” she said. “Someone will be with you in a moment.” Her tone of voice was the same as if she had said, “Life is utterly futile.”

Detective Walker led Dirt Man to a booth in the corner of the restaurant. They sat opposite each other, and Dirt Man pretended to scan the menu while Walker casually scanned the room. Reassured that everything was as it should be, Walker turned his attention to Dirt Man.

“So you’re Gargle City’s new super hero,” said Walker.

Dirt Man nodded, but didn’t take his attention off the menu. Small talk had never been his forte, and according to Lesson 3–Small Talk and Other Foibles–of the Happy Hero(ine) Correspondence Course attempting to appear intelligent through small talk was just not worth it in the long run for the discerning super hero or heroine, and often would give super villains the chance they needed to reach the red button and blow the world to bits. Dirt Man wasn’t entirely clear whether this only applied to situations involving super villains and nasty red buttons, but figured it was good enough advice that it was worth accepting it unconditionally just in case.

Walker waited for more of a response, and then glanced surreptitiously at his watch. As much as he liked Fine Dinin’, Dirt Man wasn’t exactly the best company. In point of fact, he was about as good company as he was clean.

A waitress slouched over. If she wasn’t the same girl who had been planted behind the cash register, she was doing a good imitation. Then again it might have been the Fine Dinin’ uniform (designed by corporate franchise owners to maximize the guest’s dining enjoyment and minimize employee work fulfillment).

“Ready to order?” asked the waitress. Walker ordered a hamburger, hold the onions. Dirt Man ordered the minestrone soup, but mispronounced “minestrone”, so the waitress wrote down clam chowder and wandered back toward the kitchen.

“So,” said Walker. He glanced around the room again. “So you’ve been assigned the robberies.”

Dirt Man grinned. “Yeah, it’s my first assignment. Sounded like the case was a tough one and the Commissioner needed someone special on it.”

Walker was mildly affronted at the implication that he wasn’t special, but was professional enough not to show it. Of course, Dirt Man wouldn’t have noticed anyway, as ensconced as he appeared to be with his napkin.

They sat in silence for a short while. Plates and forks clinked against one another and conversation hummed. Walker looked at Dirt Man. Dirt Man looked at the table top, at the darker area of the rest of the restaurant, and at the wall. The wall didn’t look much of anywhere, covered as it was in old flyers of indiscriminate origin. Walker sighed to himself under his breath. As much as he didn’t like Dirt Man, he wasn’t going to like misdirecting the man. On the other hand, feeding him some misinformation could probably be considered ensuring his safety from himself.

“Here’s what we know about the case,” said Walker. Dirt Man looked up. “Our best lead is a gang that we’ve had trouble with in the past called the Black Panthers. Absolutely no relation to the black nationalist group, just a bunch of punks who missed out on social studies.”

Dirt Man, who had himself missed out on social studies due to a healthy respect for the damage that a history text book could inflict when the neighborhood bully ripped it out of his hands and battered him about the head with it, wondered vaguely what Walker was talking about.

“We had thought that the Panthers were completely defunct,” continued Walker, “but evidence points to the fact that they might in fact be back together. Why they’re committing robbery is beyond us, however. You’ll have to find that out on your own.”

In point of fact, the Black Panthers had been officially disbanded for several years, and the former leader of the gang owned and operated Ethel’s Used Books Emporium in the old downtown area of Gargle City. Fortunately this wasn’t widely known, and Walker doubted that Dirt Man would have the perspicacity to locate the Emporium and get himself into trouble.

“I wish that I could tell you where to find these thugs,” said Walker, avoiding eye contact. “But like I said, they’ve been off the radar for a while. I trust you’ll be able to track them down.”

“This definitely sounds serious,” said Dirt Man. “But my sidekick and I should be able to handle it. Thanks for the info.”

“Mmm,” said Walker, and was spared further uncomfortable comment by the arrival of his hamburger in the hands of their drooping waitress.

Dirt Man looked down at the white mess of potatoes and clams set down in front of him and wondered what on earth the kitchen thought they were doing when they cooked this particular batch of minestrone.

“By the way,” said Walker, fishing a little and not minding at all after the comment about being special, “where is your sidekick? I would have thought he would come with you.”

“No,” said Dirt Man, poking a clam which he hoped wouldn’t poke back. “He’s in school right now.”

“Oh,” said Walker. “I see.”

Surprisingly, the conversation didn’t improve much over the course of the meal.

* * *

A man in a flannel-lined jacket that had seen better days stopped outside of the Comnec building, and turned to face it, ignoring the three men following him. All four looked to have seen better days, and while they would have blended perfectly into the clientele of the taverns of the industrial part of the city, the better-dressed people walking through the business district studiously ignored them and gave them a wide berth.

The frown on the face of the man facing the Comnec building deepened as he stared up at its glass, metal, and stone façade. “My name is Jake Shinterman,” he said quietly to himself, still staring up at the Comnec building, “and I’m taking from you what I want.”

The men behind him shifted their weight, looking up at the building that Shinterman was staring at. Shinterman turned back to them.

“It’s the bastards like the ones in this building who we’re really going to take,” said Shinterman. “We may be small now, but come time we will smash those glass doors and they won’t be able to do a damn thing.”

The other men looked hungrily at the glint of the Comnec building’s wide doors as if they could see a system that had denied them everything shattering into thousands of shards of broken glass.

“We’ve wasted enough time here,” said Shinterman. “We’ve got work tonight. I just wanted you all to see, because I’ve decided. I’m assigning all three of you extra duty.” Shinterman turned back to the Comnec building, reddened eyes narrowing. “We’ve got a big job. Let’s start doing it.”

Dirt Man Season 1

1. Episode 1
2. Episode 2
3. Episode 3
4. Episode 4
5. Episode 5
6. Episode 6
7. Episode 7
8. Episode 8
9. Episode 9
10. Episode 10

The Commissioner’s Office, downtown Gargle City

The Commissioner was feeling mildly sick, and it had nothing to do with what he had eaten for lunch. When he had told Dirt Man that he would give him a commission when Dirt Man got a sidekick, he had meant to say, “When it’s a cold day in Hell.” Now here was Dirt Man, lightly shedding a particularly difficult to clean up pale brown dirt all over the floor, and standing next to him was…well, he couldn’t deny it anymore. The person was undeniably a sidekick. The Commissioner wasn’t sure how anyone, even as young as he obviously was, could be stupid enough to agree to be Dirt Man’s sidekick, but the ugly fact was staring him in the face that he had promised to give Dirt Man some instructions upon producing a sidekick, and there he was.

“…as his super hero name,” said Dirt Man. “I wasn’t so sure it was the best idea, but he said he’d thought about it for a while and it was all that really fit.”

The Commissioner tried to remember what Dirt Man had just finished saying. After a brief effort he gave it up in the theory that nothing Dirt Man said could be all that important.

“How nice,” said the Commissioner faintly.

Sam, standing uncomfortably next to Dirt Man in his newly finished super hero outfit, shifted his weight uncomfortably and wondered if the Commissioner always had that sickly tint of green about his features.

While he stalled for time, the Commissioner examined this new sidekick’s outfit. He had to admit, the kid had a certain fashion sense, albeit one that was rather off-the-wall. He had a bright yellow shirt with a large blue and green globe stitched lovingly on its front. His pants were tight-fitting, and a nondescript blue-gray color. He had a mask on that appeared to be a dark blue headband with golden reflective lenses somehow attached to it, obscuring his eyes and making his gaze almost mildly intimidating. At least it would have been mildly intimidating if he weren’t dancing back and forth in nervous tension.

The Commissioner sighed, and looked down at his desk in despair. It had only been a little over a week since he had sent Dirt Man packing, secure in the knowledge that his story of a sidekick had to have been a lie to make himself look better. And now here they were.

On the Commissioner’s desk lay a newspaper he had been reading during his lunch break. One of the front page items was an article talking about the recent spate of burglaries that had cropped up within the past week in one of the more run-down housing areas near the industrial district. The Commissioner had already assigned the case to one of the police detectives earlier in the week before the story had leaked to the press. But Dirt Man didn’t know that.

The Commissioner looked up and smiled. Dirt Man immediately went on his guard; even without much experience, he knew that the Commissioner smiling at him was probably not a good thing.

“I have an assignment for you,” said the Commissioner mildly. He could already feel the cogs ticking, coming up with a way out of this mess.

Dirt Man looked surprised. He had figured that there would be another hoop to jump through, and here was the Commissioner acting as if he were a real super hero. Which, of course, he was.

“There has been a disturbing number of robberies in the eastside housing area within the past week,” said the Commissioner. “Started shortly after you broke up that mugging, actually. Go find the cause and stop it.” He paused, considering his next decision. “And come back next week. I should have a vehicle for you.”

Dirt Man was speechless. The Commissioner appeared to be trying to be reasonable. It just plain wasn’t to be countenanced. “Well, thanks,” he said, in true super hero fashion. “I’ll get right on that.”

“Yes, you do that,” said the Commissioner. “Now I’ll see you next week. I’m rather busy right now, you know.”

“Sure thing,” said Dirt Man, and he and Sam trooped out of the Commissioner’s office.

The Commissioner waited until he heard Dirt Man exit the building, and then picked up his phone.

“Hello, Detective Walker,” said the Commissioner. “I need you to do me a favor. There’s a new super hero in town named Dirt Man. If you could invite him to dinner and offer him a false lead on the robbery case, I’d really appreciate it. No, he’d just get in your way. Trust me. You’ll see what I mean when you meet him. Oh, and by the way, is Nick still selling that old car of his? Wonderful. Thank you so much.

“And one last thing. I need you to get the identity of a boy working with Dirt Man as his sidekick. I suspect his mother would like to know what her son is up to after school.”

The Commissioner hung up the phone, straightened the papers on his desk, and smiled to himself. He always felt good about life after getting out of a scrape.

* * *

Dirt Man and Sam wandered down the street through downtown Gargle City. “Well, I think that went pretty well,” said Dirt Man.

“Yeah, I suppose,” said Sam. He hadn’t thought that the Commissioner liked either of them very much, and robberies sounded a bit banal. He had been hoping to go up against the Forces of Evil. On the other hand, everyone had to start somewhere.

“It just seems kind of banal,” he said at last, in the hopes that Dirt Man would share some inside information about actually having to deal with a group of evil robber-ninjas.

“Mmm, let’s hope not,” said Dirt Man. “Banal things always freak me out. All the knives and altars and so forth.”

Sam was mildly confused, but decided that Dirt Man must not like small-scale assignments either, and just had an odd way of putting it.

“I was kind of surprised that he didn’t have any issues about your name,” said Dirt Man. “I was under the impression that the Commissioner went in for a little more flare.”

“Nothing wrong about my super hero identity,” said Sam defensively.

“Oh, I know,” said Dirt Man. “It’s just rather unorthodox.”

Dirt Man stopped suddenly and looked sharply at the building they were walking by. He had noticed that just inside the large glass doors was the woman he had rescued from a mugging the previous week. She appeared to be leaving, but then she stopped and turned as if someone had called her name, then slowly went back inside.

Dirt Man looked up. Above the entryway, large block letters spelled out the word “Comnec.” “Hmm,” said Dirt Man thoughtfully. That woman was really a stunner. Somewhere in the back of his mind the phrase “post-distress sex” floated languidly by.

He turned back to Sam. “Let’s head back to Dirt HQ and plan out some strategy.”

“Sure thing,” said Sam. “I have to make it quick, though. I’ve got an essay due the day after tomorrow that I should start tonight.”

“That’s alright,” said Dirt Man. After not only hearing that he would be getting a vehicle but also seeing the woman who he was quickly coming to decide was the woman of his dreams, he wasn’t going to let piddling little details get him down. “I’m sure we’ll be done in time.”

Just inside the Comnec building, Karen Young turned, her hand reflexively gripping the pepper spray in her purse. She still hadn’t quite gotten over the anxiety of her near mugging, even if she had been able to handle the muggers once they were distracted by that oddly chivalrous bum.

She relaxed. The man who had called after her was merely a business executive in a very styling black suit. To cover her nervous reaction, she pushed an escaped bang behind her ear.

“I’m sorry to stop you,” said the man, “but I just happened to notice you from across the foyer. You wouldn’t be interested in having dinner sometime, would you?”

Karen was slightly taken aback. It wasn’t often that obviously well-to-do business executives just randomly asked her out to dinner. “That sounds great,” she said.

Sill smiled. He noticed many things; he had noticed Ms. Young’s anxious reaction when he called to her, and he had noticed that she worked for him weeks previously. But he had found that women greatly preferred romance to the truth, and there was something much more romantic about a chance meeting in the foyer than being told that you had been chosen to receive attention because the man noticing knew a fair amount about you and liked a challenge.

Karen smiled back. She didn’t really have any idea who this guy was, but he certainly seemed rich, so it would be a nice dinner. Besides, she needed a distraction.

After arranging a date, time, and place and exchanging pleasantries, the two parted ways, and Sill watched Karen walk out the glass doors and away down the street. Then he smoothed down his tie, despite the fact that it needed no attention, and walked back toward the elevators. Lowly secretaries might have license to leave in the late afternoon, but he had some things in the works that would take his personal attention.

The elevator doors closed behind him, and no one in the foyer realized that the man who ultimately controlled their destinies, and the single greatest super-villain in Gargle City since the fall of Loki, had only recently been in their midst.

Dirt Man Season 1

1. Episode 1
2. Episode 2
3. Episode 3
4. Episode 4
5. Episode 5
6. Episode 6
7. Episode 7
8. Episode 8
9. Episode 9
10. Episode 10

The business sector, downtown Gargle City

Dirt Man was ecstatic. At last, after days of mind-numbing despair and futile wandering about Gargle City’s downtown shopping district, the impossible had happened: a sidekick had just randomly found him. Not only that, but the kid appeared to think that Dirt Man was pretty cool. Of course, Dirt Man was pretty certain that this would change after they had spent a little time together, but for the moment he was savoring it.

There was a street musician playing some sort of drum on the corner. Dirt Man gave him a huge smile, and the man immediately looked mildly suspicious and checked his hat to make sure none of his earnings had wandered off.

Sam, who was walking his bike along slightly behind Dirt Man, felt a little forgotten.

Suddenly Dirt Man stopped short, and turned to Sam.

“Hey, sidekick,” he said. “I just realized. Are you the sort who lives two lives, the life of the super hero and then your normal, everyday life? Or are you someone who doesn’t care about a secret identity and all that?”

“Isn’t the whole point of being a super hero that no one knows your true identity?” asked Sam. “I mean, if the enemy knows who you are then they’ll do stuff to your friends and family and stuff to manipulate you.”

Dirt Man thought about this. His family had disowned him years ago, and the concept of friends was one which he thought sounded pretty cool in theory but was probably impossible to put into practice. Besides, the primary reason to become a super hero was to escape the banalities of humdrum life and make an important difference in the world.

Or at least that was what Lesson 1: “So You Want to Kick Some Villainous Butt” of the Happy Hero(ine)™ Correspondence Course had said. To be honest, Dirt Man was a little fuzzy on the exact meaning of the word “banal.” He thought it might have something to do with ritualistic human sacrifice, and he had decided long ago that down that road lay trouble.

“Eh,” said Dirt Man. “I figured that I like the super hero me better than that other me, so I scrapped my real identity as soon as I landed this job.”

“Oh,” said Sam. There really wasn’t much else to say.

“Look,” said Dirt Man. “I need to report in to the Commissioner, let him know that I broke up those muggers, and give him a heads up that I’ve got a sidekick now. You willing to let him know your real identity, or should I wait to introduce you?”

“I better get home,” said Sam. “Mom’ll be worried enough as it is.”

“Alright,” said Dirt Man. “You have a pen?”

Sam handed him one, and Dirt Man wrote down the name of his trailer park. “That’s Dirt HQ. Why don’t we meet Saturday so we can figure out what to call you, get a proper super hero suit together and whatnot.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Sam, and he turned his bike around, hopped on, and rode off down the street.

* * *

The Commissioner was just packing his briefcase when Dirt Man walked through his door. Immediately his day got exponentially worse.

“What are you doing here?” asked the Commissioner, eyeing some of Dirt Man’s newest earthy additions to the DirtSuit™.

“You won’t believe this,” said Dirt Man, smiling smugly, “but I just intervened in a mugging and recruited a sidekick.”

As he had predicted, the Commissioner didn’t believe him. “Right,” he said, and packed a last sheaf of papers carefully into his briefcase. “Well, if you’ll excuse me I’m coming off the clock and would like to get home.”

Dirt Man looked at the Commissioner in annoyance. “No, I’m serious,” he said. He pulled up his sleeve. “Look, I’ve got a large, wrench-shaped bruise to prove it.”

The Commissioner looked down at his closed briefcase and sighed slightly. “Dirt Man,” he said. “I realize that you want to impress me with your exploits. But all bruises aside, I see no sidekick, I see no muggers, I see nothing but you.” The temptation to add “nothing but you standing here wasting my time” was strong, but the Commissioner’s diplomatic senses prevailed.

Dirt Man looked relieved. “Is that all? The muggers are unconscious in an alleyway; I’m sure the police will have picked them up by now. And my sidekick didn’t want to risk letting his real identity leak out.”

“You beat up some muggers and then just left them in an alleyway?” said the Commissioner. “I can’t believe it. If you actually did break up a mugging, why didn’t you take them to the police yourself? Don’t you realize that the odds of them getting randomly picked up are slim to none, particularly when they likely look like they’ve just been the victims of a crime?”

Dirt Man shifted his weight uncomfortably. He hadn’t thought of that.

“Listen to me,” said the Commissioner. “I do not have any missions or information for you. And no, no vehicle!” he continued as Dirt Man opened his mouth, and then shut it with a slightly guilty look on his face. “As far as I’m concerned you can sit in your trailer and wish for an actual, flesh-and-blood sidekick to come your way until your face turns blue. But until you have an actual sidekick or at least some knowledge of how the real world works here in Gargle City, I don’t want to have you darken my door. And I’d prefer if you left law enforcement to the people who are paid to do it. Half-bit heroics aren’t your style.”

The Commissioner sat back contentedly. He’d improvised that last bit, but he figured it was sure to strike a key. All super heroes were unbelievably full of themselves. Thought they individually would rid the world of evil, and all manner of other pure crap.

“Hmm,” said Dirt Man noncommittally. In point of fact, half-bit heroics were his style, according to the Find Your Heroic Style in Ten Minutes or Less quiz from Lesson 7 of the Happy Hero(ine)™ Correspondence Course, but he would rid the world of all evil before he would ever admit that to the Commissioner.

“I guess I’ll just have to prove it to you,” said Dirt Man, and stomped out of the office.

The Commissioner considered Dirt Man’s retreating back, then opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out Chicken Soup for the Bureaucratic Soul. He needed a bit of a pick-me-up; his wife hated it when he came home angry.

* * *

Sam whistled slightly as he sewed. He’d been collecting bits and pieces for a uniform ever since he had seen that special about the Happy Hero(ine)™ Corporation. He knew he didn’t have what it took to be a super hero, but he’d been taking some martial arts classes and he figured he was just about perfect sidekick material.

More importantly, his image at school could use a boost, and a careful slip of the tongue could give him a quick jump up the social standings. Just as soon as he had a few victories under his belt, he’d have to start thinking of the best way to feed some information to the high school rumor mill…

But for now he needed a costume. He held up the shirt he had been working on and smiled broadly. Life was about to get very, very good.

* * *

In one of the many bars dotting the industrial areas of town, a man nursed a beer and his bruises, silently fuming. His extremely large and bushy eyebrows were drawn down so far over his eyes that all the other customers had surreptitiously located themselves at the other end of the bar. One man, however, finally approached him and sat down on a stool nearby.

“Bad day?” he asked, glancing over. The man with the eyebrows grunted. If only that idiot hadn’t distracted him, he wouldn’t have had to be knocked around by the girl. Damn females these days were taking too many self-defense classes. Not that her pepper spray helped the situation any.

He glanced over at the man who had just sat down next to him. Big guy, looked to be working class. Bit of a beaten up jacket, flannel lining typical of loggers and the occasional trucker who came through town. “Whaddaya want?” said the man with the eyebrows.

“Well now,” said the man in the jacket, his moderately bloodshot eyes scanning the room. “I may well have a job opportunity you’d be interested in.”

Dirt Man Season 1

1. Episode 1
2. Episode 2
3. Episode 3
4. Episode 4
5. Episode 5
6. Episode 6
7. Episode 7
8. Episode 8
9. Episode 9
10. Episode 10

Downtown Gargle City, just outside the business district

Dirt Man was wandering randomly around downtown Gargle City, hoping to bump into someone with “sidekick” written all over them. So far it hadn’t panned out, likely because everyone on the street avoided getting within five feet of Dirt Man if they could help it, so there wasn’t much chance for bumping. He wondered idly if he should have taken a shower this morning, and decided as he had shortly after getting out of bed that when a shower nozzle looks as predatory as the one in his trailer, it’s better to give the whole showering thing a pass. Besides, doing so would have washed off some of the nice dirt that he had accumulated over the past few days.

He hadn’t really wanted to resort to random wanderings, but after sitting at home for four days hoping against hope that someone might realize that he was in need of a sidekick and call him, Dirt Man had decided that he might as well do something, even if it was totally futile. Now it was getting to be mid-afternoon, and he still hadn’t found a sidekick. Not that it was much of a surprise.

Glancing at a clock hanging in the window of a nearby bank, Dirt Man decided he should probably start the trek back to the trailer park or he would arrive too late to eat anything. He figured that as long as the food in his trailer provided by the Commissioner lasted, he might as well take advantage of it. He didn’t have any money of his own to buy anything with in any case.

As Dirt Man wound his way out of the main downtown area, he suddenly noticed a small cluster of figures down a dark alley across the street. He perked up. Although he knew that it was theoretically possible that someone was conducting a legitimate meeting halfway down a dark alleyway, it was much more likely some criminal activity going on, which meant he would get his first action. This was where the criminal undercurrent in the city would learn the name Dirt Man, where the seeds of fear and hatred would be sown. Soon the words “Dirt Man” would be cursed by criminals throughout the city.

These grand thoughts going through his mind, Dirt Man headed down to the end of the street, waited for the “walk” signal to flash on, and crossed. He’d been nabbed for jaywalking too many times back in his hometown to fall for such a simple trick again.

When he entered the alley he saw a woman backed up against the wall by two large and obviously criminal men. Dirt Man was ecstatic. Sure, it was just a simple mugging, but he remembered quite clearly what the Happy Hero(ine)™ Correspondence Course had said about damsels in distress:

“Despite being a classic cliché, the damsel in distress is actually a highly dangerous and rare scenario. You must make sure to proceed with extreme caution in any distressed damsel situation, since although the Primary Objective is still defeat of Evil, your secondary objective will be to make sure the damsel makes it through safely. Villains of any kind will be likely to seek the damsel’s death as soon as they realize that they are hopelessly outclassed by you in battle. This is due to a psychological phenomenon stemming from a deep-seated insecurity with women dating back to bad relations with their mothers. As such, if you need to distract villains from their attempts at killing the damsel, ‘Your mother’ jokes are often very effective.

“Although the survival of the damsel is a secondary objective, there is also a very practical reason for even those gritty heroes intent merely on their own benefit to save her: if you play your cards right, post-distress sex is absolutely to die for.

“Heterosexual gritty heroines, on the other hand, will of course have no good reason to ensure the damsel’s safety, and should avoid damsel in distress situations or be ready to face moral dilemmas.”

Dirt Man approached the men from behind, cleared his throat experimentally, and said in his best super hero voice, “Leave that woman alone.” Not exactly the stuff of legends, but being a super hero gives one a certain license.

The two men turned from the woman they were trying to persuade to part with her purse and looked Dirt Man

over.

“Who the hell are you?” said the man on the left. He had huge eyebrows, and shoulders that looked like they belonged on an ox.

“I’m Dirt Man,” said Dirt Man, and attempted to look dashing. He mostly succeeded at looking dirty instead.

“Well,” said the man on the right, whose entire appearance ran a bit towards the ape part of the human evolutionary tree. “Well.”

The man on the left brought his hand around, and showed Dirt Man his knife. It was a very nice knife, and looked like it was probably very good at cutting and stabbing things. “Why don’t you go about your business,” said the mugger. “And we’ll go about ours. Civilized and all

that.”

Dirt Man stood firm. “Let the woman go,” he reiterated.

Dirt Man didn’t see where he got it, but the man on the right suddenly had a rather large wrench in his hand. The man on the left raised one of his gigantic eyebrows. “If that’s how you want it,” he said.

Dirt Man could tell the conversation was going nowhere fast, and he’d run out of things to say in any case, so he decided to just take things to the next level and get it over with.

“Your momma!” said Dirt Man with great vitriol, and jumped for the man on the right.

The man on the left lunged toward Dirt Man with his knife, but missed him. Seeing that his partner had Dirt Man covered, he turned back to the woman.

Dirt Man meanwhile landed a punch on Ape Man’s arm which appeared to faze him about as much as a flea biting a dog; annoying, worth a good scratch, but not that big a deal. The man swung with his wrench, but it missed Dirt Man because he had jumped back out of range. Dirt Man decided to try a kick since his first blow hadn’t appeared to faze his opponent much, but even as he shot his leg out for the man, the wrench came back around and slammed into his arm. Dirt Man was thrown back against the far wall, where he cracked his head on the brick and passed out.

The man with the wrench turned with satisfaction away from Dirt Man back toward the woman, and got a line of pepper spray straight to the face, followed swiftly by a roundhouse blow to the head.

Dirt Man woke up several minutes later with a nasty headache. Pulling himself up to his feet using a dumpster conveniently located next to him, he looked around and noticed both of the muggers lying unconscious on the ground. The woman was nowhere in sight, having apparently gone on her way after dealing with the muggers.

“What a woman,” said Dirt Man admiringly. She must have dealt with the man with the knife while he was distracting the guy with the wrench. Who’d have thought damsels would be so well prepared these days?

A boy on a bicycle skidded to a halt at the entrance of the alley. Dirt Man walked toward him.

Sam couldn’t believe his luck. He usually disliked having to ride his bike to and from school, but here he was, face to face with the man who was obviously Gargle City’s new super hero. And after one of his heroic battles no less.

Dirt Man looked inquiringly at the boy on the bike, who looked back with great adoration in his eyes. It made Dirt Man slightly uncomfortable; it was the first time someone was obviously impressed with him. He was more used to obviously disgusted.

“You wouldn’t happen to be in the market for a sidekick, would you?” said the boy.

Dirt Man Season 1

1. Episode 1
2. Episode 2
3. Episode 3
4. Episode 4
5. Episode 5
6. Episode 6
7. Episode 7
8. Episode 8
9. Episode 9
10. Episode 10

The Comnec Building, downtown Gargle City

His name was Sill, and he was not your ordinary super villain. Any super villain worth his salt was endowed with special powers and a twisted mind, or incredible intelligence and fiendish inventions, or a charismatic personality and hundreds of loyal followers ready to do the dirty work, or at the very least a an unholy pact with the supernatural or extra-terrestrial. Sill had none of these. He did, however, have quite a lot of money and good taste in black suits.

Sill was a businessman who had worked himself up from a lower-middle class position to being one of the richest men in Gargle City. He dabbled in many different industries, and had such a vast network of business relations that no one really knew just what his position was anymore. He dressed immaculately in suit and tie, carried a rather understated briefcase with nothing more dangerous than a small letter opener in it, and was by and large unknown to the general populace.

Sill enjoyed several things. He enjoyed having his power go all but unknown. He enjoyed the material blessings that went along with his position. He enjoyed donating money to support classes in business ethics in local high schools in order to ensure that very few in the younger generation would ever be able to become as successful as he was. But most of all he enjoyed humiliating his enemies so thoroughly that they were not only defeated, but so thoroughly disgraced that they would never find work again.

Sill smiled slightly at one of the memos that had been delivered to his desk. He didn’t know why his network of contacts had not let him know that someone in Gargle City had requested a super hero, but the problem would likely not be too difficult to quash. He wouldn’t have to do much, of course, but the occasional challenge was good for him. It kept him from becoming complacent.

At least one of his contacts had done well, no matter how useless he normally proved. Sill authorized the transfer of funds requested on his memo, and filed it away for his secretary to deal with.

* * *

In one of Gargle City’s suburbs, a young man named Sam slouched in front of his TV.

“Son, the yard needs mowing,” said his father from somewhere in the house in a raised voice. Sam glanced up toward the room’s doorway briefly, then returned his attention to the television.

“Right,” he called back. He wanted to mow the lawn about as much as he wanted to develop an ulcer. Television was inane, but it was better than some things in life, particularly when those things involved the wholesale slaughter of grass using a lawn mower that enjoyed sitting unused in the shed far more than mowing, and showed its dislike of the whole activity by alternating between barely cutting the tips off the grass to chopping it so fine that parts of the lawn became green-fuzzed dirt.

Sam was of the mind that it just wasn’t fair to the grass, not to mention himself. Not that his father cared; his father had a remarkably intolerant attitude towards grass in general, likely because of its passive resistance to being kept at a manageable height. Damn stuff just shrugged you off and kept growing.

The television played a jingle, and a well-dressed young woman appeared, obviously trying to look very professional, and mostly just looking awfully boring. “Tonight on the Gargle News Network,” said the young anchor with something that sounded suspiciously like ambition covered with a thin veneer of spunk, “we bring you live coverage of the latest in a number of mysterious burglaries on Seventh Street, Gargle City gets a new Krazy Krackle’s Fun House, and other up-to-date news flashes.”

Sam wasn’t sure who the person was who wrote the scripts for the Gargle News Network, but whomever they were, they had a very tenuous grasp on the concept of “live news.” Their motto seemed to be “If it’s less than a week old, then it must be live.”

Text and images were flashing in a slick procession of colors and shapes across the screen, showing exactly what was going to be shown later but calling it a sneak preview. A local school wanted to ban several books from its library and people were protesting; a new superhero named Dirt Man was said to be in town; the upcoming governor election races were starting to mutter into gear; buy Coca-Cola…Coke is Real.

Sam sat up from his slouch. Just before that ad, hadn’t they said something about a new superhero? Was it possible that something was finally going to work out?

He glanced at his watch. Likely another thirty minutes before his father got himself on the warpath about the lawn. If he was lucky one of his friends might have heard something, since the high school rumor mill was far superior to the one that the Gargle News Network tapped.

Sam pulled himself out of his chair and headed for the phone.

Behind him the TV continued to spill its mind-numbing corporate fantasies into the living room, but no one was there to hear.

* * *

Dirt Man sat on the side of his rather dingy bed in his new home in the trailer park and focused his eyes as if he were staring out the small window opposite. He wasn’t actually staring out the window because it was so covered in grime that it was impossible to see through (and even if it hadn’t been there wouldn’t have been anything out the window worth looking at), but the idea of staring out a window very much suited Dirt Man’s current mood, so he pretended for all he was worth. Thanks to years of practice, it worked just fine.

He was thinking about a sidekick, and wondering where on earth he could find one. He unfortunately didn’t know anything at all about the lay of the land. He supposed he could wander around downtown again, but he didn’t think that there’d be much chance of just randomly stumbling across a sidekick. That was definitely one of the deficits of the correspondence course he had taken; all of the lessons assumed that the sidekick would just be there in the hour of need, so they didn’t even touch on how to get a sidekick in the first place. Perhaps he could apply for one from the Happy Hero(ine)™ Corporation.

Dirt Man continued to stare at his window. The multifaceted ecosystems that had evolved there over the years stared back.

Dirt Man Season 1

1. Episode 1
2. Episode 2
3. Episode 3
4. Episode 4
5. Episode 5
6. Episode 6
7. Episode 7
8. Episode 8
9. Episode 9
10. Episode 10

A trailer park, outskirts of Gargle City

Dirt Man emerged from his trailer and stared blearily around. He had just woken up and had a feeling that there was something he should be doing, but he couldn’t for the life of him think what it was. He stared happily at the dirt that was piled up around the base of the trailer, broken only intermittently by dying clumps of grass. He had always liked dirt. It just seemed so earthy. When he had decided to become a super hero, “Dirt Man” had seemed like such an appropriate name, one to strike fear in the hearts of his enemies. It was just so symbolic; dirt was everywhere, most things had their foundations on it, and it could easily smother you in things like avalanches.

Of course, most people thought the name originated from the fact that Dirt Man was all but covered in the dirt that he loved so much, but he couldn’t do much about that. He viewed the dirt as more of a job benefit, and if other people thought otherwise, well that was their problem. People also tended to think that he must be some sort of liberally-minded environment-protecting type hero, but he really wasn’t. He liked the environment, and figured it was a pretty good idea to keep it around, but he wasn’t particularly interested in fighting its battles for it.

His gaze fell on a particularly nice clod lying off to one side of the trailer, and the word “commissioner” floated across his mind in a nebulous sort of way. After a few more minutes, it finally connected somewhere, and he sighed and headed in the direction that he thought the city lay in.

Two hours later Dirt Man trudged into a bus stop in one of the residential districts of Gargle City. Sometime during the first forty-five minutes of trudging next to the highway he had realized that he needed a vehicle. Perhaps the Commissioner would be willing to help out with that. He was the city’s super hero now, after all.

“A vehicle.” The Commissioner did not look pleased. In fact, he looked almost as not pleased as Dirt Man himself, who had finally found the office after wandering around downtown Gargle City for fifty minutes, peering up at skyscrapers and glancing in shops to no avail. He was tired, sore, and wondering anew why on earth no one ever came to Gargle City when it was obviously such a large metropolitan area.

“A vehicle,” said the Commissioner again. He looked like he had swallowed a lemon whole and was trying to get it to come back up.

Dirt Man looked at him and glared faintly. The Commissioner gripped his desk tightly.

“I’ll see what I can do,” the Commissioner said.

“Good,” said Dirt Man. “Now what’s going on in this town?”

“Nothing you need to concern yourself about,” said the Commissioner. “The local police force should be able to deal with things just fine for the next month or so until we can…well, just don’t you worry about it.”

“That’s it?!” said Dirt Man. “You force me to walk several miles, pay for a lousy bus, and then search out your office just to tell me that there aren’t any situations that need a super hero to deal with? Why on earth did you fools ask for a super hero if you aren’t willing to use him?”

The Commissioner eyed Dirt Man up and down. “I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “You aren’t exactly what we expected. In fact, you don’t look as if you’ll do that much good.” He pulled out a file from a door in his desk and spread it carefully out on the desktop. “It says here that you have no super powers.”

“Well, that’s true,” said Dirt Man.

“You never actually attended basic training for super hero(ine)s, but took a correspondence course instead.”

“It was a very good correspondence course.”

“When you took the physical exam, you only passed it because you were recovering from tuberculosis at the time and they lowered their standards accordingly.”

“So?”

“You have no prior experience being a super hero, but have been charged with several misdemeanors.”

“Never convicted, though.”

“The only interesting gadget you have is the Clod Flinger 2,000.5.”

“Ah, well, actually…I had to pawn that to get here,” said Dirt Man, shifting in place.

The Commissioner raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have a sidekick, nor any other kind of contacts in the super hero or villain world.”

“Oh, that,” said Dirt Man with relief. “I’m planning to find a sidekick in town. It’s always better to get someone who knows the lay of the land.”

The Commissioner brightened suddenly. Even in Gargle City there couldn’t be anyone stupid enough to join forces with so obviously an incompetent individual. “In that case,” he said, “you may return here for instructions as soon as you have obtained a suitable sidekick to help you. Otherwise you will be of no use at all, particularly since you don’t know Gargle City at all well. Perhaps I will see you again in a few days.”

The Commissioner put away Dirt Man’s file and began to type at his computer. Several minutes passed before he looked up and scowled at Dirt Man, who was still standing in front of the desk.

Dirt Man sighed slightly. He had been slightly nervous that life was about to improve, but this meeting had effectively notified him that the world had not changed in the least, and he was still going to be treated like dirt. It was something of a relief to know that as changeable as the world sometimes seemed, some things were as sure as the sun rising.

“I’ll be back soon, then,” he said somewhat more cheerfully, and left the office.

The Commissioner was not a devout man, but in times of extreme feeling he sometimes offered up a small prayer to the Great Beyond just on the off chance. “Dear Lord, let him be wrong,” he muttered to the ceiling.

* * *

In a bar near the industrial area of town, a rumor was spreading slowly, oozing off the counter and clinging to the coats and throats of the patrons. No one knew who had started it, but it wouldn’t go away.

There’s a new super hero in town.

The rumor was carried to nearby taverns, misting through smoky interiors and filtering into corners. Like the mud from construction sites, it crusted on worker’s boots and flaked off in halls, by billiard tables, and around the bases of bar stools.

Some super hero’s arrived. Gonna clean shit up.

People left the seedier areas of town, and headed home. The rumor rode along, spreading its infectious strains, multiplying and changing with each breath.

Big name in town. Heard he arrived from the East coast after he’d put himself out of work.

Super hero comin’.

Friend told me the super hero’s back.

Super hero. What? A super hero.

A bulky man in a tattered jacket lined with red and white checkered flannel walked away from the bars, hands in pockets and eyes on the dark. He grinned at nothing, and thought about the possibilities that a few hundred extra dollars would offer. He shambled along slowly, and behind him the nightlife in Gargle city went on its own way, rumor percolating through its veins.

Dirt Man Season 1

1. Episode 1
2. Episode 2
3. Episode 3
4. Episode 4
5. Episode 5
6. Episode 6
7. Episode 7
8. Episode 8
9. Episode 9
10. Episode 10

A train station, somewhere on Oregon’s coast

Dirt Man was really excited. He had just received his assignment package, notifying him that he was now a Happy Hero™, and outlining his assignment area. It was somewhere called Gargle City. He wasn’t quite sure where Gargle city was, but he was sure that it was a tough and important assignment that would tax him to the limits, make him lose sleep, and generally show off his basic hero-type coolness and stupendous abs. The latter were compliments of Hairy Bart’s Insta-Abs in Twenty Minutes or Less (just add water), and to be quite honest weren’t all that stupendous. Dirt Man had heard of having an accurate self-image but was having none of it.

In his instructional packet, he was told to go the nearest railroad and ask for a one-way ticket to Gargle City, since there were no airports that would fly there, even when bribed. Since his last vehicle — he refused to call it a car for moral reasons — had been impounded by the local police for disturbing the peace (it had been parked by the curb at the time), he didn’t have any way to reach Gargle City except the train, so he decided that a brisk walk to the local train station was just what he needed.

“Hello,” said the man in the ticket booth of the town railroad. “What is your destination, please…sir.” The man was eyeing Dirt Man’s DirtSuit™ askance and wondering if this scruffy individual had the money to pay for a train ride to the next platform much less to another city.

“Gargle City,” said Dirt Man.

“Gargle?” asked the man in the ticket booth.

“Yeah, like what you do with mouth wash,” said Dirt Man.

“And salt water,” said someone behind him.

“And split pea soup,” said another person.

“Split pea soup?!” The man in the ticket booth was incredulous.

Dirt Man shrugged. He didn’t really know.

“That will be forty cents,” said the man, after consulting his fare sheet, which clearly stated that a trip to Gargle City cost seventy-five dollars.

“Oh, good,” said Dirt Man. “I can afford it.”

The man in the booth sighed with relief under his breath and relaxed somewhat. He thought that his boss might not like the rather extreme price reduction, but he hadn’t been sure if this obvious failure of humanity could pay even that, and he certainly didn’t want him staying around town. Some would have considered that as good as littering.

Fifty minutes later the correct train pulled into the station, and Dirt Man boarded, ready to see new sights, fight some villains, and otherwise have an all-around good time.

The train chugged itself slowly through the countryside, belching out black smoke and apparently trying its hardest to break down without much luck. Every now and again it would pull onto a side rail to let a slick, fast-moving passenger train scream its way by. Dirt Man stared out of the window of the train’s single passenger compartment, positioned politely behind the boxcar carrying a large number of morose cattle, and thought dark thoughts. He was beginning to think that the man in the railroad booth might have stiffed him.

The train ride lasted for a very long time. Each time the train wheezed its way into a town, Dirt Man would eagerly peer out the window, but each time the train only slowed enough to raise his hopes before it plugged on into the countryside, where, after reaching a point sufficiently far from civilization it would often inexplicably stop and sit for long periods of time. Dirt Man finally fell asleep in self-defense.

He was sleeping when the train skirted a large hill, and suddenly took a sharp turn into a range of mountains that jumped out of hiding from behind the hill. He slept through the train’s struggle through the winding mountain path, snored lightly as it crossed a bridge over a giant ravine with a rushing river hurtling itself against the cliff sides hundreds of feet below, and merely turned over when the train rounded a peak and the sky line of Gargle City leapt into view, dark and brooding against the sky.

In fact, he did not wake up until the train had pulled into the station and a man found him and shook him roughly by the shoulder.

“Wha?” said Dirt Man, trying to sit up and regain mental activity at the same time. “There? Who?” He looked somewhat blearily at the man leaning over him. He wasn’t at his best immediately after waking up.

The man who had awoken him straightened up, looked at his somewhat dirty hand, and then bleakly wiped it on his handkerchief before dropping the handkerchief on the floor. “You, I presume,” he said, “are Dirt Man.”

Dirt Man managed to nod. He was beginning to be able to make a little more sense of what was going on. The train must have reached Gargle City. He was finally a super hero!

The man either didn’t notice the elated smile that suddenly spread over Dirt Man’s face, or he was just one of those people who are opposed to happiness on general principle. He frowned slightly. “I am the Commissioner,” said the man. “If you would be so kind as to get up and follow me I will be able to return to my office. I wouldn’t have left it at all of my underlings hadn’t all decided to take the day off simultaneously. Irresponsible, that’s what they are. Are you coming, or would you rather sleep on the street?”

Dirt Man stood up as hastily as he thought he could without falling back over. He’d slept on the street enough times to know that it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. More like a shiver in the park, really.

The Commissioner glared around the compartment, and then motioned curtly for Dirt Man to follow him.

They emerged onto the platform of the train station, and the Commissioner led Dirt Man to a demure gray car in the parking lot. It was the only car in the parking lot.

Dirt Man looked around curiously, but he couldn’t really tell much about his new home city. They were deep in the industrial area, and beyond factories and warehouses there didn’t seem to be much about. He could vaguely see what appeared to be the outline of skyscrapers against the sky, but thought that it might just be his sleepiness making him see things. From the responses that he had gotten about this place, he hardly thought that it would actually be a large city. More likely it was just a town with aspirations.

The Commissioner drove him to a trailer park not far outside the industrial section.

“This will be your temporary residence until we are able to secure better living quarters,” said the Commissioner. “Here is your key.”

Dirt Man looked about himself somewhat incredulously. Sparse, dying grass clung desperately to the base of all of the structures, and several loose pieces of paper and plastic blew about in the breeze. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

He was moving up in the world.

The Commissioner looked at his watch. “Check into the office in a couple of days when you are settled,” he said. “It’s immediately next to the police department in the City. You’ll receive your briefing at that time.”

The Commissioner hurried back to his car, and was gone in a cloud of dust, dead leaves, and various loose pieces of trash. Dirt Man started into his new home.

From the window of a nearby trailer, a reddened eye peered out from behind dirty brown curtains. Dirt Man disappeared from sight, and the curtains were twitched back into place.

Although night didn’t exactly fall, it continued to shuffle into place.

Dirt Man Season 1

1. Episode 1
2. Episode 2
3. Episode 3
4. Episode 4
5. Episode 5
6. Episode 6
7. Episode 7
8. Episode 8
9. Episode 9
10. Episode 10

Happy Hero(ine)s™ Super Secret Headquarters, New York Campus: Deployment Department

In a brightly lit room, painted in subdued blues and reds, several people were sitting around a table, deciding the fate of the year’s third batch of super heroes and heroines.

At the head of the table sat George, thinking happily about his upcoming vacation and staring into space. He’d had quite enough of working for the time being; it wasn’t easy leading the world’s biggest firm for the training, deployment, and management of super heroes and heroines. Sometimes it seemed like he was just slogging through mud, and at the worst times the mud was filled with piranhas. It was after these times that he decided to go on vacation. No one ever bothered to stop him. He didn’t actually do half as much as his council led him to believe, and if he decided he wanted a little time off, then that was just more time that they didn’t have to spend on him.

If George had known this, he would have taken more vacations.

“Well, George,” said a woman near the head of the table, breaking into George’s reverie and recalling him to the onerous job of leading the deployment meeting, “I think this one should go to Seattle.” The woman’s name was Jane, but she insisted that everyone call her Ms. Sativa. Jane just wasn’t particularly impressive.

“Who’s that again?” asked George.

“A woman who calls herself the Wet Blanket. She says that she can detect all criminal activity as long as it’s raining, so I figure that in Seattle she’ll have a bit of job security.”

“What sort of stupid super heroes are we dealing with these days?” asked someone farther down the table. “The ‘Wet Blanket?’ I mean, seriously, where’s the self-respect?”

Ms. Sativa made a note to herself to look into having the man who had spoken transferred to some tedious bureaucratic job. Bureaucracy worked wonders on people who thought of themselves as witty.

George ignored the comment in the hopes that it would go away.

“Does the committee agree that the Wet Blanket will be posted to Seattle?” asked Ms. Sativa.

“Yes,” said the committee. At times like these it was much easier to ignore snide comments and stick to the script.

George watched enviously while his secretary relayed the decision through his Happy Hero(ine) Communicator Wristwatch®. Sometimes it seemed like everyone but him was tricked out with the newest and neatest cool gadgets. On the other hand, he was going on vacation…

“All right now,” said a man who was extremely fat. “Here’s our next application. It’s from someone who calls himself Dirt Man.” As the man spoke all four of his chins wiggled, but no one noticed anymore; the novelty had worn off several hundred meetings ago.

“Well,” said Ms. Sativa. “What does he have to say about himself?”

“He apparently learned how to be a super hero from the Happy Hero(ine)™ Correspondence Course for Busy Bodies, and now he’s looking to get into action,” wiggled the fat man. “He says that his uniqueness stems from the fact that he uses all natural ways of fighting crime, such as his soon-to-be patented Clod Flinger 2000.5 which flings dirt clods. He also swears to protect the innocent, apprehend the guilty, and always recycle plastics with the number two on them.”

“Any super powers?” asked George.

“Nope.”

“Past experience?”

“Not a bit.”

“Cool gadgets?”

“No. Says he doesn’t have the budget.”

“Sidekicks?”

“None listed here.”

“So the guy’s basically a wannabe superhero without even money to back him up,” said Ms. Sativa.

“Summed it up pretty well,” commented the fat man.

“You’ve looked in on him?” said Ms. Sativa. “He sounds a bit too gung-ho about this all natural thing to me. Is he a possible threat?”

“About as threatening as a wart,” said the fat man.

“Couldn’t get any dirt on him, huh?” said the snide person down the table. Ms. Sativa put a little check mark next to her note. Strike two.

“Is there anywhere we can put him?” asked George.

“There’s a low priority place on the list called Gargle City,” said Codename X. Codename X had decided years ago that being known by your actual name was just asking for trouble, and he would have no truck with it. Although everyone who was anyone knew his real name, and knew that he changed it to Codename X, it actually appeared to have worked.

“Gargle?” asked George.

“Yeah, like what you do with mouth wash,” said Codename X.

“And salt water,” said someone down the table.

“And tapioca pudding,” added the snide man.

“Tapioca pudding?” George was incredulous.

Ms. Sativa added another checkmark. If three strikes was good enough for baseball…

“Does the committee agree to send Dirt Man to Gargle City?” asked Ms. Sativa.

“Yes,” said the committee.