An Old Flame

"Señor, have you ever met a superhero? One of the Capes?" Julie asked. She was one of his students for Spanish 3 this year. Pepe, addressed by his students as 'Senor', paused. Some of her classmates had been rescued by the "capes"-- masked vigilantes that had popped up to fight for justice while the police fought for their jobs—that past week, and it was on everyone's minds.

The bell rang. Everybody had found a seat but Julie, who was waiting for her answer. Some of the desks were empty; with only 2 years required for graduation credit, having a 3rd year of Spanish wasn't a large priority for a lot of the other kids.

"All right, everybody, listen up. Julia, have a seat. Have I told y'all about the time when I taught in Gale City?" Gale City was over 24 hours away by car, in the Midwest. It was a large city, known for its corruption, and recently, the masked heroes that populated it. Pepe taught closer to the border of Mexico, in a small town in Texas. The class shook their heads, a few calling out, "No!"

"Well, I was a teacher at one of the schools they had up there, Gale High. I was a Spanish teacher, like I am here, but I also tutored some students in an ESL course. One of those kids, Alejandro Iglesias, had been missing for about a week and a half.

"I'd heard all the rumors about how and why he was gone, but I figured he was hiding in an abandoned building, or maybe he'd been kidnapped. Gale City was really bad then, hasn't gotten much better, really, even with all the new heroes. It used to be, there was just the Black Torrent, but now, you've got all sorts of crazy heroes everywhere you look. Who are some you can think of?"

"Tornado Jack and Twister Jill!"

"Noble Coyote!"

"Overcast!"

"Blue Lagooner!"

"Shadow Cat!"

"Awesome Possum!"

"Wait a minute—Awesome Possum's not a superhero."

"All these superheroes," Pepe said, trying to quiet them down, "Todos de las capas tienen algún en común. ¿Que Este?" (All of the capes, they have something in common. What is it?)

"They all started fighting crime recently," Meaghan called out.

"Si. Todos ellos empezaron con este dos a cinco anos pasado." (They've all started within the past 2-5 years).

"Senor, most of the heroes right now are still really new. I don't think they were even around five years ago."

"You're right, Brittany. A lot of the superheroes are really new at helping out, but I think they're starting to make a difference. Okay, back to mi cuenta, my story. So, I said he'd either run away or been kidnapped, right?  So, I went to an abandoned building and started to look around, poke around, which, by the way, is not okay for y'all to be doing, ¿comprenden?" (Understand?)

"Comprendo."(I understand).

"So I'm looking around, and I've been there for a while, when this voice pops up saying, 'Hey, you!'

"I turned around and I saw the Dark Flame standing there, framed by moonlight from the window." Some of the students gasped; she was probably their 'favorite'. "And, oh, man she was…" he paused looking for a word.

"Hot?" Jordan asked. The class laughed.

"Sexy?" Taylor suggested.

"Beautiful, actually, is the word I was thinking of. The thing was though, she was mad. She rested on one hip, the way girls do, with more sass than I've seen in some Puerto Ricans. I told you about those Puerto Ricans I met that one time, right?"

"Right," a couple of students chimed back.

"She had her arms folded, and she was glaring at me." He imitated her pose. "So, I did the only thing I could think of—I pretended not to know English."

The class laughed.

"I said, 'Lo siento, pero hablo español.' And do you know what she said? She replied, 'Sí, pero yo hablo español también. ¿Por qué está aquí?'" (I'm sorry, I speak Spanish. Yes, but I speak Spanish too. Why are you here?)

"Oooh," one of the boys called out. Pepe continued, ignoring him.

"I said, 'Un de mis estudiantes está perdido, y pensé pode lo encantarar aquí.' (One of my students is missing, and I thought he might be here.)

"'¿Por qué aquí?' she asked.  (Why here?)

"'Just a hunch,' I responded, switching to English.

"'A hunch?' I could tell she didn't believe me, but she let it go for the time being. 'So, you're a teacher?'

"'Yes,' I told her, 'Over at Gale High School.'

"'Well, what's his name?' She asked. 'I'll help you look.'

"And so we started to look through the building together. She kept an eye on me, though; because I'm sure she didn't trust me."

"Did you find him?" Sarah called out.

"Yes, actually. We were near the top of the building, when we heard some scuffling, which lead us to the room Alejandro was locked in. He was trying to get out, so we got him out of the little closet he'd been stuffed into. We were about to leave, when I saw something behind the Dark Flame.

"She'd been talking to Alejandro, asking how old he was, what his family was like, did he have a place to stay that night where he could be safe, stuff like that, so she wasn't really paying much attention to me until I said,

"'Hey, look out!' She ducked out of the way, just enough, and Alejandro jumped to hide behind me, because that was the guy who'd taken him there, and he was obviously a lot stronger.

"I grabbed the guy's arm, and told Alejandro to get to the door. The Dark Flame had had time to process what was happening and punched him in the face, kneed him in the groin. I let go of him, because she obviously had control of the situation, and went to Alejandro, who'd reached the door, and seemed ready to bolt out. I tried to calm him down while she interrogated him."

"What'd she find out?" Briana asked.

"I'm not saying. That's none of your business. When she was done, I asked her to walk him home with me, telling her, 'I know his mom will feel a lot better if he got home safely.' She rolled her eyes, but said, 'All right.'

"We were talking on the way to his house, and once his very grateful mother had closed the door, I asked the Dark Flame to come to dinner at my house." He thought about how the conversation had gone, and decided to skim over the details.

"I was able to convince her to come, as it was a thank you from me to her, and she said yes, after some prodding. So, after that, we started dating, you guys are old enough, you know how it is. Sometimes, I would even get to work with her at night, and I helped the Black Torrent and Overcast a couple of times, even.

"Then, everything went wrong. A newspaper reporter found out that the Dark Flame was in love—and got a picture of us kissing on the front page."

"Isn't that illegal?" Julie asked.

"Well, it's not illegal for them to print whatever they want, and think the public need to hear. Even with the Superhero Protection Act, they weren't likely to get punished for it. I was too poor then to hire a lawyer to sue them, and the Dark Flame wouldn't, because that would mean getting someone to represent her in court, and it was possible she'd have to reveal her identity, which wasn't an option for her. She did formally complain to the mayor's office, but that was it.

"I just decided to try and ignore it, but the people who knew me could tell who it was in the photo. I was called into the Principal's office within the month, and left that office knowing I would not be rehired at Gale High. I'd actually gotten into a very unprofessional argument with him about it, but that didn't change the facts he'd presented to me: parents had complained, and the board wasn't happy with their teachers receiving that kind of media attention.

"That summer, I left Gale City and the Dark Flame, came here, got married, and now I'm done telling y'all the story."

The class was silent, musing over what they'd heard.

"And now, please open up to pagina cuarenta y dos in your workbook, en su libro de trabaja."



That night, Pepe left his house in a leather jacket, and jeans, with a mask in his pocket. He put it on in the shadows of a deserted alley, and began to wander the streets, thinking.

"Hey," a girl called out behind him. "¿Son El Noble Coyote?" (Are You The Noble Coyote?)

"Sí, señorita…" he turned around, faltering on the last syllables as he recognized who it was. (Yes, Miss.)

"Funny, I'd thought La Noble Coyote was a girl."

"Hello, Fuega." That had been his pet name for her, back in the day. She came up to him, and gave him a hug.

"I'd thought it was you," she whispered. She let him go. "But where were you the other night?"

"I was at home, with the baby. My wife had been cooped up all day, and she wanted to go out instead."

The Dark Flame laughed."You mean, I came all the way out here to help you, and you ditch at the last minute to babysit?"

"Really, that's what happened," he protested. "Do you want to meet my baby, Leticia?"

"This is sounding familiar," she said, still smiling.

"We can catch up, and maybe you could teach my wife something about what it really takes to fight crime."

"Will there be tamales?" She joked. That was what they'd eaten, the night after rescuing Alejandro.

"Not tonight, we were going to get a pizza," he shrugged.

"Don't you need to be patrolling the streets?" She wondered.

"Well, Chupe won't be out tonight. I don't think the neighborhood has to worry." He replied.

"How do you know that?" She asked.

"It's a secret. Come on; let's go before someone decides to shoot us with their Canon."

"What? People do that here?" She asked, alarmed.

"Sorry, I mean the camera. The yearbook kids at my school have that slogan on their shirts."

She laughed, more out of relief than anything. He held out his arm, and when she took it, he escorted her back to his home.